Ford delays key electric vehicle launches and slows production at its Blue Oval City plant, shifting focus to hybrids. Tesla cuts prices sharply to clear excess inventory, while expanding production of right-hand drive cars in Germany for the growing Indian EV market. Chinese EV owners face high insurance costs, impacting demand. Stellantis partners with Chinese Leap Motor to produce affordable EVs in Europe and Malaysia. US Q1 vehicle sales rose 5.1%, led by GM and Toyota. Disneyland’s Autopia ride transitions from gas to electric cars. A report reveals 57 fossil fuel companies produce 80% of global CO2 emissions. BMW announces the M5 Touring with a hybrid powertrain, and Nikola reports stronger-than-expected hydrogen truck sales.
Topics:ford ev delaystesla price cutsindia ev marketchina ev insurancestellantis leap motor partnershipus vehicle sales q1disneyland autopia electrificationcarbon emissions reportbmw m5 touringnikola hydrogen trucks
- Ford Delays Key EV Launches - Tesla Slashes Prices to Unload Inventory - Tesla Targets Indian Market - India EV Sales, Small but Surging - Insurance Is Pricey for EVs In China - Stella To Build Chinese EVs For Malaysia - U.S. Q1 Sales Up 5.1% - Disneyland Autopia Dumps IC Engines - 57 Global Sites Produce 80% of GHG Emissions - BMW Brings M5 Wagon to U.S. - Nikola Beats Sales Estimates
"...Nicola sold more versions of its hydrogen powered semi truck than analysts thought it would in the first..."
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This is aut Aligned Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry. Ford is facing up to the fact that it overinvested in evy capacity,
so it's going to delay two significant launches by at least a year.
It's slow in construction of its giant new assembly complex in Tennessee called Blue Oval City. That plant will build next generation full size electric pickup trucks, but
the launch will be delayed by a year and the ramp up to line speed will be deliberately slow. It's also delaying the launch of its three row electric
SUVs in Oakville, Canada by two years. Ford says that will give the
market for these vehicles time to develop. In the meantime, it's making a
big pivot to hybrids. Ford says it will offer hybrid power trains across its
entire lineup by the end of the decade. Well, here's a headline we
thought we'd never see. Tesla is offering big ascounts to try and sell off
access inventory. As we reported on Wednesday, Tesla ended last quarter with more
than forty six thousand unsold cars, and so it's slashing prices to move the metal. It's cutting the price of model wise anywhere from forty six hundred to
five thousand dollars. Tesla blamed it slow down in sales on model changeovers and
an arson attack on its plant in Berlin, but Bloomberg reports that some Wall Street analysts aren't buying it. They say that excess inventory is a problem of
building too many cars and not getting enough customers, and is not related to any production problems. One way to boost sales is to get into new markets,
and Reuter's reports that Tesla will start making cars in Germany with right hand steering that will be exported to India. Automakers can import up to eight thousand
cars a year in India with a fifteen percent tariff applied to them, as long as the company will invest at least five hundred million dollars in an assembly plant to start making cars there. Otherwise, the tariffs on most imported cars
are one hundred percent. Interestingly, up till now, Tesla has been exporting
right hand steer cars from its plant in China, but India was probably not interested in importing Chinese made Teslas, so they're coming from Germany instead. One
source tells Reuters that Tesla is already sourcing parts made in India and wants to reduce parts coming from China, and no wonder Tesla's turning to India. Sales
of evs there shot up sixty six percent in the first quarter. Last year,
sales of four wheel evs hit seventy five thousand units. That is a
modest number, but it's growing fast and India is going crazy over electric vehicles.
When you include three wheeled vehicles and rickshaws, total sales last year hit one and a half million units, so that's getting people used to the idea of plugging in. Sales of evs are slow in China, and here's something
that could hurt demand even more. Bloomberg reports that many EV owners in the
country are taking to social media to complain about high insurance costs. One owner
says that their renewal premium increased even though they were never in an accident, and others say they've been rejected by insurance companies because long daily commutes are seen as a high risk factor. Premiums are higher for evs because they cost more
to repair, because the parts are more expensive and there are fewer qualified technicians to repair them. According to S and P global ratings. EV premiums are
anywhere from twenty percent higher to double insurance costs for ice vehicles in China.
Keeping your heart racing in and out of the gym, that's what really matters.
Bridge don't pretend to sport as tires with a fifty thousand mile limited warranty.
At first, China needed help from Western automakers to learn how to make good cars, but now it's the other way around. Stalantis owns fifty one
percent of a new joint venture partnership it formed with Chinese automaker Leap Motor called leep Motor International. This will eventually land it shared EV platforms that produce vehicles
with Stalanta's brand logos in their grills, but the plan for now is to make Leap Motor EV's in a converted Stalantis plant in Poland that will be sold in Europe in other parts of the world. Those other parts also include Malaysia.
Stalantis revealed its plans for the country, which will see it introduce satro and as a mass market brand. Pugeot will fill the upper mainstream segment,
and Jeep will be marketed as a recreational and lifestyle vehicle. But it showed
it will also bring Leap Motor as an affordable EV which would likely be the to three, a small A class car with a start price in Europe around twenty thousand euros. Stalantis CEO Carlos Tavares has said tariffs won't save Western automakers
from the Chinese rivals, so they need to learn how to compete, and one way he plans on doing that is by making cars with Chinese tech.
All automakers have reported their sales for the first quarter in the US and here are the final numbers. According to Global Data, three point seventy five million
vehicles were sold in Q one, a gain of five point one percent compared to a year ago. General Motors was the top seller with just over five
hundred and ninety thousand vehicles sold. Toyota was second at five hundred and sixty
five thousand units, which was an impressive twenty percent. Gain Ford was next
with five hundred and four thousand sales, but then there's a drop off to the Hyundai group at three hundred and seventy nine thousand sales, and Stalantis barely eked out Honda with three hundred and thirty four thousand sales. Which was just
a thousand more than Honda. Disneyland's Autopia is an amusement park ride designed to
let little kids drive a car. It's been around since nineteen fifty five,
when the park first opened, and Honda has sponsored the ride since twenty sixteen.
The cars use an eight and a half horsepower version of Honda's IGX engines and have a maximum speed of six and a half miles an hour. Well
that was then. Now Autopia announced it's ditching the gasoline engines for going electric.
Disneyland didn't say when it will make the switch and didn't confirm it the cars will be fully electric or hybrids, but it's the perfect application to go fully electric. The cars are always stopping and going and will bunch up as
families wait to get on, which can get kind of stinky as you're standing there, so it's a great move. The auto industry is heavily scrutinized over
CO two emissions and bears most to the brunt and government regulations, but a new report shows its other industries that produce the vast majority of CO two emissions.
The Carbon Majors report from the think tank Influence Map says a group of fifty seven fossil fuel and cement makers produced eighty percent of the world's CO two emissions between twenty sixteen and twenty twenty two. The top three were Saudi Aramco,
Russia's Gazprom Oil Company, and Coal India, and the report says most companies have increased fossil fuel production since twenty fifteen, even though governments and companies have set tougher emission targets and increased use of renewable energy. If you live
in the US and are a fan of performance station wagons, today is a good day for you. For the first time ever, the M five touring
will be sold in the country. For now, we have a few cameo
pictures to go on, and we can tell you what will feature a hybrid powertrain that's closely related to the one found in its VAGTP race car. BMW
says production starts in the fourth quarter of this year. While the numbers are
still small. Nicola sold more versions of its hydrogen powered semi truck than analysts
thought it would in the first quarter. For Cast had it making thirty trucks,
but Nicholas said it built forty three at its plant in Arizona. And
sold forty of them, and it says the remaining three have already been allocated and will be delivered this month plus. As it continues to build out hydrogen
refueling stations, it expects sales to grow even more throughout the year. As
for its battery electric trucks, which had to be recalled last year due to a fire risk with the battery, Nicholas says it starting the return process back to customers. But that brings us to the end of today's show and this
week. Thanks for tuning in, and I hope that you have a great
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