AD #3767 - Italy In Talks with China's Chery Auto; Auto Execs Say SDVs Still a Ways Off; GM Loses Two Top Executives

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Italy is not shy about wanting to expand vehicle production in the country.

Fiat is the only major automotive producer in Italy, building about seven hundred and fifty thousand vehicles last year, but country officials want to boost that output to one point three million a year. So Italy pushed Fiat to significantly increase production,

even toying with the idea of taking a steak and parent company Stilantis, just to get what it wanted. Stalantis eventually agreed to raise production by an

additional two hundred and fifty thousand units to roughly a million vehicles a year.

That means Italy would like to find someone to make three hundred thousand more vehicles a year in the country, and it has a six billion year a war chest for supporting local auto manufacturing as a way of luring in another automaker, and according to a report in Reuter's, Chinese automaker Cherry is the one Italy is quote betting on most. While we've seen opposition to Chinese automakers in Europe,

it mostly seems to be related to cheaper ev imports, there's less pushback on domestic production, and Italy wants all the jobs it'll create. Software defined

vehicle or SDV, is a pretty buzzy word you're likely to hear, even if you only pay attention to the auto industry a little bit. These are

vehicles where pretty much every function is controlled by software and can be updated.

Every automaker is working on them, with some changing entire development philosophies now designing a car from the inside out around the software. But sdvs might not be

as close to market ready as you might think. Chip maker NXP Semiconductor and

Wards Intelligence surveyed automotive executives from around the globe and say a majority of them don't think that at least fifty percent of new vehicles will be software defined before twenty thirty. The biggest hurdles seem to be building up a team that can

develop a competent system and having to deal with legacy electronic architectures. But most

automakers have already started laying the groundwork for full software defined vehicles, and some are clearly ahead of others. Tesla's plant in Berlin is up and running again

after an arson attack at a nearby power station last week shut it down.

Germany's Hondelsplot newspaper reports that Tesla was unable to build about eight thousand vehicles during the stoppage that will cost the company four hundred million euros. Elon Musk also

visited the plant today for the restarted production. General Motors is losing a couple

of its top executives. The company announced that Gerald Johnson, the global head

of manufacturing, is retiring after forty four years with GM, but he will remain at the company through the end of the year to help with the transition.

Replacing Johnson is JP Clawson, who GM says has quote vast expertise in global manufacturing, product engineering and scaling operations. Claws and spearheaded the scaling up

of EV propulsion systems at Tesla's Gigafactory one, and he's also worked at Google, Lego and biomanufacturing company Zeimergen. GM also announced that it's head of software,

Mike Abbott, is leaving the company due to health reasons. GM poached

Abbot last year from Apple, and CEO Mary Barra has credited him with helping to turn around at software development. GM's VP of Software Barissetinak, Sorry if

I grossly mispronounced that is going to run the division on an interim basis.

We want to know what drives your testing. OTA Connected Car Diagnostics, remote

Testing. Intrepid Control Systems is here to help you work from anywhere. Intrepid

Control Systems driven by your data. We've got some great production updates from Auto

Fourcast Solutions. It says Cadillac is working on an all electric sedan that would

be like an EV version of the CT four CT five, so a lot cheaper than the Celestic. It's said to be built on a version of the

Altium platform for more premium light duty cars and crossovers called b EV Prime, and would go into production at GM's Lansing Grand River plant in August to twenty twenty eight. There's also an update on Lucid's plans to build vehicles in Saudi

Arabia. If you didn't know, Lucid is majority owned by the Saudi Public

Investment Fund and in twenty twenty two announce plans to start construc production of a local plant later that year. At first, it plans to make about five

thousand cars a year from pre assembled kits that are put together at its plant in the US in Arizona, but it will eventually become a full domestic manufacturer, which will likely happen when it launches the Gravity SUV and a smaller CUV.

That CUV is said to start production in Saudi Arabia in June of twenty twenty six, followed by the US in August of that year. Lastly,

you may have seen rumors that Nissan is in talks with Fisker, some reports specifically saying it's interested in the Alaska pickup truck. I personally would be surprised

if it happened, but Auto Forecast says if it does, the electric pickup would be made at one of Nissan's US plants in Mississippi. Byd sales in

Europe are still relatively low, but it plans to aggressively grow them over the next few years. The automaker, which launched in the EU in twenty twenty

one, sold less than sixteen thousand vehicles last year, all of which were pure electric, that accounted for one point one percent of the European EV market.

But BYD's head of Europe tell's Automotive News that it wants to boost that to five percent, or about seventy thousand evs before it starts production at a new plant in Hungary around twenty twenty six. That plant will have an initial

capacity of one hundred and fifty thousand vehicles, which could be doubled to three hundred thousand units byd believes the European plant will help it gain more customer acceptance in the European market. Major auto makers in Japan like Toyota and Nissan,

are fully agreeing to union demands for pay raises that are the largest in twenty five years. Toyota workers will get nearly two hundred dollars more a month,

and it will also give out record bonus payments. Last year, those bonuses

were said to be equal to more than six months of pay, but that's likely going up to over seven and a half months. This should allow the

Bank of Japan to end negative interest rates, which kept the yen week but also turbo charged the earnings of most Japanese companies. Now it looks like workers

are going to get a piece of that pie. Volkswagen's commercial truck subsidiary,

the Tratton Group, which includes Navistar, Skanya and man is partnering up with autonomous driving software developer Plus to launch Level four autonomy. The companies are already

testing self driving trucks on public roads in the US and Europe with a safety driver on board. This year they plan to pilot commercial operations with fleets.

Then they will start series production and global deployment at scale. But that brings

us to the end of today's show. Thanks for making autoline a part of

your day. Auto Line Daily is brought to you by Bridgestone Solutions for your

journey and by Intrepid Control Systems over the air engineering boost your game.

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