AD #3792 - Tesla Market Cap Drops Below $500 Billion; GM Launches PHEVs In China; Boston Dynamics Unveils New Humanoid Robot

This is Outline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry.

As you may know, the UAW vote to organize Volkswagen's plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, kicks off today, but state governors across the South have joined together to speak out against the union. The governors from Tennessee, Alabama,

Georgia, Mississippi, Texas, and South Carolina issued a statement saying that voting for a union will put jobs at risk. They say they want to continue

growing car manufacturing in their states, but voting for the union will quote stop this growth in its tracks. We'll soon find out if VW workers agree,

because the vote ends on Friday and the totals will be tabulated that night.

Should Elon musk earn a fifty nine billion dollar pay package. That's how much

money he was supposed to get in twenty eighteen, as long as he could get Tesla's market cap above six hundred and fifty billion dollars. Tesla did hit

that mark, but a shareholder sued the company over the pay package, and a Delaware judge ruled that paying must that much money was unfair to shareholders and blocked him from getting it. So now Tesla is asking shareholders, instead of

going through the Board of directors, to vote on whether mush should get that pay package, and it's also asking shareholders to approve moving Tesla's in corporation from Delaware to Texas, where presumably judges won't interfere with corporate pay packages. It's

kind of hard to believe, but when the board of directors awarded must that pay package in twenty eighteen, Tesla's stock was trading at only twenty two dollars a share and its market cap was just under sixty billion dollars. But then

the stock price went on a tear and the company's market cap peaked at one trillion dollars in October twenty twenty one. But that was then. This year's

been hard on Tesla. Its market cap is now four hundred and ninety two

billion dollars, and if things keep going like this, it's in danger of falling below Toyota's market cap, which stands at three hundred and ninety two billion dollars and is growing. If Tesla does drop below Toyota in value, it

will make headlines around the world and there may be a lot of controversy about ceo pay, but apparently not at Stalantis. Seventy percent of shareholders just voted

in favor of giving Carlos Tavares a thirty six and a half million euro pay package that's thirty nine million bucks and is up about sixty percent from twenty twenty two. It also makes him the highest paid CEO in the industry after Elon

Musk. The pay package includes a ten million euro award if Stalantis hits electrification

and software goals. Shareholders voted overwhelmingly for Tavares's compensation, even though there was

an effort by several advisory firms to vote against it. Tavares defended his pay

package by saying that ninety percent of his salary is tied to the company's performance.

Stillantis's share price increased sixty four percent last year and is up another thirteen percent so far this year, so investors are quite pleased with his leadership.

When the elements are working against you, being confident in your grip on the road is what really matters. Breach through in the lens of tires, improved

acceleration in wet conditions. Chinese car exports continue to grow at an impressive rate.

According to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, five hundred and two thousand vehicles were exported out of China in March, which is a third twenty eight percent increase compared to a year ago. That includes both passenger and commercial vehicles.

Light vehicle exports total four hundred and twenty four thousand vehicles, while seventy eight thousand commercial vehicles were shipped. And if China maintains that rate, it's

on pace to ship six million vehicles a year. And to put that into

perspective, Germany produced four point one million vehicles last year, which means China is exporting two million more vehicles than Germany can even manufacture. If GM needs

more hybrids and pheabs in the US, it can just tap into its Chinese sources. Buick is coming out with an updated version of a luxury van it

sells in the country called the GL eight that will now have both setups, and we figure if they're good enough for a Buick luxury van in China, which is about the same size of a US minivan, they would be good enough for global markets. The p have version of the new GL eight,

which is also getting a s dialing update to bring it in line with Buick's other models. Will feature a one and a half liter engine and an electric

motor that combined for two hundred and ninety two kilowatts or three hundred and ninety one horsepower. No official word on when it will launch, but it will

debut at next week's Beijing Auto Show. In speaking of new reveals that will

be at the Beijing Auto Show, feng cheng Bao, which is part of BYD, is going to have three new models on display, a couple of rugged SUVs, but also this sleek speedster called the Super nine. Unlike its

current model, which is a plug in, the Super nine is expected to be fully electric, and Car News China says there will be a production version called the Bow nine. BMW is easily beating all the legacy luxury brands when

it comes to electric vehicles. It handily out sells Mercedes, Audi, Cadillac,

and anyone else you want to throw on the list. Bloomberg reports that

one reason it's doing so well is that it learned hard lessons from doing the I three Electric, which was a sales flop. Now, instead of building

evs in a dedicated assembly plant, it has evs that are built on the same platform as it's IC cars, and they go down the same assembly lines, one right after another. That allows BMW to flex production to meet demand.

And it didn't go out and build its own battery plants. Instead,

it buys them from battery makers like COTL, which saves it billions of euros and capital expenditures. And it's only going to get better. In the second

half of next year, BMW will start building its next generation of evs, what it calls the New Class, and if they sell well, those cars will be solidly profitable. And we've got a quick update on when the Chevrolet

Bolt will go back into production and where. Auto Forecast Solutions reports that the

Bolt EUV will zoom production in November twenty twenty five at GM's assembly plant in Fairfax, Kansas. That plant currently makes the Chevrolet Malibu in Cadillac XT four.

The Bolt is being redesigned right now to be powered by GM's Ultium battery pack. It might be nice to retire at eleven years old, but Boston

Dynamics humanoid robot called Atlas has lived a pretty hard life since it was launched in twenty thirteen, and so the Robotics company, which is now owned by Hyundai, is ending development of the current Atlas robot. We've seen it shake

its groove, thing, throw heavy objects, parkore, and much more.

But the sendoff video for Atlas also shows that it's gone through all kinds of bumps and bruises as the development team learned how to make a robot that could pull off everything that Atlas is capable of. And as a side note,

the video is actually funny. It had me physically laughing out loud and as

amazing as everything that Atlas can do is, I was also surprised to see how similar Atlast looks to a human messing up and falling down. And so

why is Boston Dynamics going to retire at List when it seems like everyone else is racing to put out a humanoid robot. Well, it's coming out with

an all new version that looks like it's called the Double A one and instead of using hydraulics, it's fully electric. But I just wish they had programmed

a less creepy way for it to stand up. SDV is one of the

hottest buzzwords in the auto industry. Software to find vehicles are all the rage

and automakers are racing them bring them to market. But do you really know

what sdvs are or would you like to learn more about them than be sure to tune into Auto Line after hours tomorrow when we'll have Scott Tobin from a company called en Vorso that provides organizational design for software development, amongst other things.

But that brings us to the end of today's show. Thanks for tuning

in. Auto Line Daily is brought to you by Bridgetone Solutions for Your Journey,

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AD #3792 - Tesla Market Cap Drops Below $500 Billion; GM Launches PHEVs In China; Boston Dynamics Unveils New Humanoid Robot

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