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AD #3809 - China Car Exports Surge to New Record; U.S. To Impose Tariffs on Chinese EVs; Honda To Make More Parts In-House

AD #3809 - China Car Exports Surge to New Record; U.S. To Impose Tariffs on Chinese EVs; Honda To Make More Parts In-House

Autoline Daily May 10, 2024 9 min
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About this episode

The episode covers Tesla's recent layoffs and the ripple effects on the EV charging industry, with companies like GM, BP, and startups vying to hire displaced Tesla employees and take over abandoned supercharger sites. Honda's strong financial results and strategy to increase in-house parts production and hybrid sales are highlighted. The discussion also touches on automakers scaling back EV ambitions in favor of hybrids, declining used car prices in the US, and the Biden administration's planned tariffs on Chinese EVs amid record Chinese car exports. Ford's CFO transition and Cadillac Racing's new documentary are also featured.

Topics: tesla layoffs ev charging networks honda financial results hybrid vehicle strategy ev market trends used car prices us tariffs on chinese evs china car exports ford management changes cadillac racing documentary
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This is outlined daily the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry.
A bunch of other companies are trying to benefit from all the layoffs at Tesla.
On top of a ten percent reduction worldwide, Tesla cut most of its team working on superchargers, which seems to have triggered a few other people to quit, and now it has essentially removed all real job postings from its website in North America. But there's plenty of other companies ready to swoop in.
A GM rep posted on LinkedIn that it's looking to hire any Tesla software interns that were let go during the recent cutbacks. BP says if there's any real
estate partners that have been left stranded by Tesla's decision not to open as many new locations, that they should call it. BP also laid off ten percent
of its employees working on its global EV charging network BP Pulse, but it says it's going to concentrate on the US, China, the UK, and Germany, so that explains why it wants those abandoned supercharger locations. Plus,
BP Pulse signed one hundred million dollar deal with Tesla late last year to get Tesla built charging units that are branded with BP Pulse. Revel, a ride
hailing and evy charging startup, said it also is considering abandoned supercharger sites, and another charging startup called and viro Spark is looking to hire as many people from the supercharger team as it possibly can. The Atlanta based company just got
a fifty million dollar investment and hopes to grow its network across North America, which currently sits at a little over eight thousand charging plugs. Like Toyota,
Honda had great results in its latest fiscal year. It sold a little more
than four point one million vehicles around the world, up eleven percent from the year before. That pushed revenue to just over one hundred and thirty one billion
dollars, which is an increase of about twenty one percent. Honda's operating profit
came to roughly eight point nine billion dollars, a seventy seven percent surge, and its net profit shot up seventy percent to seven point two billion dollars.
But remember that Honda did benefit from a weaker yen, and it says its future earnings will be impacted by an increase in spending. The company believes in
order to compete in today's market, that it needs to make more parts and components in house, which will allow it to move quicker and eventually cut more cost down the road. But vertical integration requires more upfront capital, and Honda
expects its R and D spending to increase twenty three percent in the upcoming year.
To help offset some of that additional spending, it plans to boost sales of hybrids, which typically have a higher price tag, and Honda says it's now earning as much profit as a gas only model for every hybrid that it sells. Last year, it's sold about eight hundred thousand hybrids worldwide, but
it wants to boost that by another four hundred thousand units this upcoming year.
And speaking of hybrids, it's painfully obvious that most automakers were too ambitious with their EV plans. A number of OEMs have pulled back on going all electric,
which naturally means more hybrids, and now we're seeing even more of that.
Mercedes CEO says its transformation to zero emissions will take longer than expected, and that it will continue to offer hybrids well into the twenty thirties as long as there's Demand Forum. VW CEO calls plug in hybrids a bridge technology to
pure electric, but with demand for evs quote unquote plateauing. He says that
VW still needs this transitional technology and the slowdown in EVS is not just impacting mainzte stream brands remx as hypercar buyers don't really want all electric anymore, so we'll probably see a return of more piston powered supercars with high reving engines, and good news for car buyers. Use vehicle prices in the US are on
the decline. According to the auction firm Mannheim, used vehicle wholesale prices where
eighteen thousand, one hundred and fifty dollars in April compared to twenty one thousand, one hundred and ten dollars in April of last year, or in other words, a fourteen percent drop. Analysts say that more availability and better deals
on new vehicles is putting a dent in demand for used ones. When the
piece and quiet of your morning commute is as comforting as your morning machiato, that's what really matters. Bridge downe Tronzo, Evy tires less noise for more
quiet comfort. The Biden administration is planning to impose tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles,
and an announcement could happen as soon as next week. In addition to
eve's, Chinese made batteries and solar cells would also face new tariffs. The
administration says it's standing up to China's quote unfair economic practices in industrial overcapacity, and it wants to avoid a wave of cheap Chinese evs entering the market like what's happened in Europe. However, the teriffs will have little impact in the
short term since there are relatively few Chinese made evs exported to the US.
That's because they're already hit with a twenty seven and a half percent import tariff.
But there's no doubt that China is shipping its excess production overseas. According
to the China Passenger Car Association, China's car exports hit a record high in April, with automaker shipping four one hundred and seventeen thousand vehicles out of the country, which is a thirty eight percent increase compared to a year ago.
Companies are mainly exporting vehicles to South America, Australia and other Asian countries.
The record high exports come at the same time, sales in China are down.
Automakers sold one and a half million vehicles last month, which is down nearly six percent from a year ago. So to deal with the drop in
China, companies are sending those vehicles overseas. Ford announced a senior management change.
Chief Financial Officer John Lawler is being promoted to vice chair early next year.
He's been Ford CFO since October twenty twenty. Lawler is being replaced by
Sherry House, who is most recently the CFO at Lucid Motors. She's also
held positions at Wymow and General Motors. House will join the company in June
and will oversee financial planning and analysis and till she takes over as CFO next year. Cadillac Racing fans can get a behind the scenes look at its return
to LAMA. Last year. The company partnered with Samsung TV Plus to create
the No Perfect Formula documentary. It follows the Cadillac Racing team's effort to design,
develop, engineer, test, and race it's V Series R race car at last year's LAMA. The ninety minute documentary first airs on Friday, May
thirty, first at seven pm. Eastern Time on the Haggarty channel on the
Samsung TV Plus app, and it will be rebroadcast several times in the lead up to this year's Lama Race, which starts on June fifteenth. That's a
wrap for today's show. Thanks for watching and have a great weekend. Autoline
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