Tesla aims to boost revenue by launching Full Self-Driving (FSD) in China, navigating regulatory hurdles with local partnerships. Meanwhile, GM struggles in China, unveiling new Buick and Chevy models tailored to local tastes to regain market share. BYD shows strong profit growth despite a price war, and Europe faces a massive challenge to expand public EV charging infrastructure eightfold by 2030. Henrik Fisker is selling his mansion to save his struggling car company. The episode also highlights advances in automotive tech, including Intrepid's Raspberry Pi platform for vehicle data and Hyundai's AI collaboration with BYD.
Topics:tesla fsd in chinagm china market strategybyd financial performanceeurope ev charging infrastructurehenrik fisker financial movesautomotive technologyautonomous vehicleshyundai byd partnershipev market trendsbattery industry challenges
- Tesla Sees FSD Gold in China - Toyota To Launch Robotaxi In China - BYD Revenue Weak, Profits Strong - Europe Needs 8X Public EV Chargers - Buick Unveils Wildcat-Inspired Concepts - Chevy Equinox PHEV Debuts in China - SK On Sees EV Recovery in U.S. Coming - Hyundai and Baidu Join Forces - Fisker Sells Mansion to Save Company
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This is Outderlying Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry.
Tesla isn't exactly struggling right now, but the days of fifty percent revenue growth seemed so long ago. One thing that could turn that around is if
Tesla could start selling FSD or full self driving in China. So Elon Musk
made a surprise visit to China to meet with the premiere of the Chinese Communist Party. China is worried about how Tesla collects data from its cars, and
they were even banned from military sites in the country, so Tesla extended its deal with by Dew, which is kind of like the Google of China, to provide all the mapping data for FSD. That plus the meeting with the
premiere might be enough to allow Tesla to start selling FSD in China, and that could provide a big jump in revenue for the company. And Tesla isn't
the only foreign automaker that sees huge revenue opportunities in China with autonomous technology.
Last year, Toyota and its Chinese joint venture partner GAC teamed up with the avy start up Ponyai to develop level four robotaxis and now they're sharing more details about the joint venture. They planned to launch a fleet of Toyota BZ four
x's in China equipped with pony Ai self driving technology, which they unveiled at the Beijing Auto Show. The joint venture will also do all the maintenance,
cleaning, and charging to make sure that everything runs smoothly. BYD, the
biggest car company in China, set its first quarter revenue was only up four percent, even though its car sales were up fourteen percent. It sold six
hundred and twenty thousand vehicles, including almost ninety eight thousand exports that week.
Revenue growth is a direct result of the price war in China. Even so,
BYD's net profit was up eleven percent to six hundred and thirty one million dollars, and that shows just how cost efficient the company is. Profits rose
nearly three times more than revenue. We posted a video with Terry Wachowski from
Caresoft explaining the incredibly cost efficient design of the bydcgull and if you'd like to learn what they've done, we've got a link to that video in the transcript and description box. Everyone knows that we need more public charging stations before evs
catch on in the mass market and in Europe, the ACEEA knows exactly how many more. The European Automobile Manufacturers Association says that eight point eight million public
chargers will be needed by twenty thirty, which means the annual installation rate will need to jump to one point two million, or eight times the current rate.
It says that EV sales growth grew three times faster than the installation of public chargers between twenty six seventeen and twenty twenty three. Last year, one
hundred and fifty thousand public chargers were installed in Europe, bringing the total to six hundred and thirty thousand, but the ACA says Europe won't meet its CO two reduction targets on less public chargers become more widespread. Intrepid's NEOVIPI allowing automotive
engineers to interface, capture, and monitor vehicle data using Raspberry Pie. As
a matter of fact, it's the automotive industry's first robust platform for Raspberry Pie, featuring Intrepid canefting technology and Raspberry Pie compute module. The NEOVIPI is designed
for automotive environments, allowing use with relative power ranges and applications. In addition,
the neovipi enables you to use the Raspberry Pie for compute while avoiding additional development to adapt to network environments. That makes the neovipi powerful enough to solve
your vehicle network problems, yet small enough to fit in your backpack. One
of many intrepid tools used for developing zonal architecture and software divine vehicles. General
Motors desperately needs to do something new and different in China. A decade ago,
it was a powerhouse in the Chinese market and one of the largest automakers there. In the pre COVID era, it was selling four million vehicles and
earning four billion dollars a year in profits. Today it's about half the size,
selling nearly two point one million vehicles in China last year, and the traditional GM brands Buick, Chevy and Cadillac made up less than half of those sales. Worse still, in the first quarter of this year it lost one
hundred million dollars. So clearly GM needs to take a bold initiative if it
wants to turn things around. So it unveiled two new Buick concepts at the
Beijing Auto show that look a lot like the Wildcat concept that debuted in twenty twenty two, which featured a whole new form language much more in tune with Chinese tastes. The cars were designed at GM's joint design studio with SEIC in
China, and they sit on the Altium platform. The Elektra L is a
fastback sedan, while the Electra LT is a shooting brake, which is becoming a popular body style in China. Both models are rear drive based and should
also offer all wheel drive. GM hasn't revealed battery sizes, but as targeting
a range of four hundred and thirty five miles or seven hundred kilometers on the Chinese test cycle. The interior still very much looks like a concept with futuristic
individual seating for each passenger, and it has things like a display screen that flips out of the glovebox. But it also has elements that are reminiscent of
other new buicks that are launching on the market floating center, display and instrument cluster, and Car News China reports that a production version of the L could be unveiled at next year's Shanghai show. Chevy is also showing off a new
model in China that should be more in tune with not only Chinese tastes, but we could see it being offered in North America as well. It's a
plug in hybrid version of the Equinox called the Equinox Plus. It features either
a sixteen and a half or twenty four point four kilowat hour battery. The
smaller pack provides one hundred and two kilometers or sixty three miles of range, while the larger pack offers up to one hundred and fifty five kilometers or ninety six miles of range. Under the hood is a one and a half liter
three cylinder engine paired with a one hundred and forty kilowat electric motor that combined for two hundred and seventy two kilowatts or about three hundred and sixty five horse power, and propelled the Equinox Plus from zero to one hundred kilometers an hour and just under seven seconds. The EV war is raging in China, so
having sleek new models that appeal to Chinese taste will help GM, as we'll having models that compete outside of the b EV segment. Plus. GM pulled
back on its EV expansion in North America and said it wants to introduce were hybrids and plug ins, and the Equinox Plus sounds like the perfect package.
But this slowdown in EV demand could be short lived. Battery maker Skon is
currently showing the effects of the slowdown. In the first quarter, its battery
shipments were down, its revenue slip, and it's burning through more cash.
Yet despite that, Skon said it's on target to break even for the year because it expects the market to improve throughout the rest of the year and it will be especially fueled by new EV launches in North America. We'll have to
see if this is true for other companies or if this is a product of the fact that SK's partners, including Ford, Hondai and Volkswagon are the ones that are coming out with a majority of those new evs later this year.
Tesla is not the only foreign automaker expanding partnerships with baydu so is Hyundai.
The two companies signed a deal to collaborate on artificial intelligence, connectivity, autonomous driving, smart transportation systems, and cloud computing. They say they're aiming to
provide consumers with connected vehicle services by dew and Hyundai have worked together since twenty fourteen, developing navigation systems, voice recognition, and other connected services. Henrik
Fisker is in a desperate fight to save his car company. It's teetering on
the brink of bankruptcy, and so he's even selling his mansion in Los Angeles to raise money. Automotive News reports that the eleven thousand, eight hundred square
foot home is listed for thirty five million dollars. Not only is that thirteen
point two million more than he paid for the house, it's worth more than the entire market cap of his car company, Fisker Motors. Or if you
don't want to buy it, you could rent it for one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars a month. It has a pool, six bedrooms, eight
bathrooms, and every luxurious amenity that you can think of. It's easy to
sneer at Fisker as everything on winds around him, but if he truly is trying to raise money to save the company, we give him props for doing everything that he can, and that brings us to the end of today's report.
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