AD #3812 - GM, Ford Hurt Most by Biden China Tariff; Inside Story: How Musk Fired Supercharger Staff; Chinese OEM Drops Out of China Market

This is Autoline Daily. The show is dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive

industry. The Biden administration made headline news by slapping a one hundred percent tariff

on imported Chinese cars, But as the dust starts to settle on that announcement, it's becoming clear that the companies that will be hurt the most are General Motors and Ford. They import the most Chinese cars into the US. The

Buick Envision is made in China and is the second best selling car in Bwick's lineup. The Lincoln Nautilus is the best selling Lincoln by far, and it

too is made in China. So now the question is will GMN Ford raise

the prices of those models or just eat the tariff. And here's another question

about those tariffs. What happens if Chinese automakers start building cars in Mexico or

Vietnam and start shipping them to the US. Vietnam has a free trade agreement

with the US, so Chinese automakers could easily skirt those tariffs by making cars in Mexico or Vietnam and ship them to the US. Reuters and Bloomberg both

report that US officials are pressuring Mexico not to provide Chinese automakers with any kind of subsidies to build assembly plants there, and they're also looking at ways to block Chinese cars coming in from other countries. And right on q BYD officially

launched its p have pickup truck in Mexico, priced at fifty three thousand, four hundred dollars. Not only does the front end kind of resemble the Ford

F one fifty, it's about one thy five hundred dollars cheaper than a base forward Lightning BYD's plug and pickup called the Shark, comes with dual electric motors coupled to a turbo one point five liter ic engine. Combined, they provide

four hundred and twenty nine horres power. The truck has a five thousand,

five hundred pound towing capacity and can carry a one thousand, eight hundred and forty one pounds payload. BYD says the Shark will compete worldwide against the Ford

Ranger and Toyota Highlucks, and the next place it debuts will be in Australia.

Uh uh did a bunch of car companies just get caught lying? Back?

In twenty fourteen eight automakers signed a voluntary pledge for privacy standards and said they would only provide data to government entities with a warrant or court order.

With cars becoming more connected and collecting more data, privacy is a real concern now. Democratic Senators Ron wide And from Oregon and Ed Markey from Massachusetts are

accusing the eight automakers of misleading customers about giving vehicle location data to police.

They say that Toyota, Nissan, Subaru, Volkswagen, BMW, Mazda, Mercedes, Benz, and Kia told blobmakers that they would provide data to police without a warrant or court order and with just a subpoena. So the senators

are accusing the automakers of being misleading, and they wrote a letter to the Federal Trade Commission encouraging it to investigate the companies. Hey remember those pre COVID

predictions that evs were going to cause a global oil glut by twenty twenty four.

Well it's not happening, at least not yet. Bloomberg reports that global

gasoline demand this summer will be higher than it was in twenty nineteen. Intrepid's

neovipie 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 divined

vehicles. Finally, the Shreveley Equinox EV is on sale now in the US.

The base version starts just under thirty five thousand dollars, not including destination charges. However, the base model is not going to be available until later

this year. The one you can order now starts just over forty three thousand

dollars. You know, when Chevy first introduced the Equinox EV, it promised

a starting price around thirty thousand dollars, but it does qualify for the full seven thousand, five hundred dollars federal tax credit, and that drops the base price to about twenty seven thousand, five hundred dollars. You know, the

Chinese market is becoming so brutally competitive that one car maker is throwing in the towel and is dropping out of the market. But it's a Chinese automaker,

Iways. The company says it will now focus on Europe instead. Iway sells

two models, the U five and U six crossovers, but last year at stopped production because they weren't selling very well. It also ran out a cash

to cover operating and development costs, so Iways is planning to go public in the US via a spack merger with Hudson acquisition to raise money. But the

company's only valued at around four hundred million dollars, which is chump chain in the auto industry. And while Iways will not sell its cars in China,

it's still going to make them there. Hyundai's luxury brand, Genesis, which

is growing strongly in the US, is expanding the number of standalone dealerships it has. The brand recently opened twenty six new dealerships, bringing its total to

thirty five, and by the end of the year, Genesis aims to have more than forty standalone dealerships in the US. Genesis is looking to become more

independent from Hyundai, and the standalone dealers are part of that strategy, and undoubtedly they're going to help boost sales. Wow. There is a fascinating story

in Reuters that provides the inside story of how and why Elon Musk fired everybody involved in the company's supercharger network. It says those operations previously reported to Drew

Baglino, a top Tesla executive who quit unexpectedly in late April. Replacement Rebecca

Tanucci, met with Musk to present her plan to greatly expand the charging network.

When Musk demanded mass layoffs instead, she protested, so Musk fired her and the five hundred employees in that business unit. Now Tesla's Energy team,

which handles solar panels and battery storage, will run the business. In the

meantime, Tesla told vendors to stop breaking ground on any new construction for chargers and to halt buying any new materials, and it asked them to be patient during this period of change. Musk says he's going to invest five hundred million

dollars in his charging operations, but right now the whole thing looks to be a real mess. Wow, what a day. Terrorists, trade war,

surgeon, gasoline demand, weak ev sales, automaker's lying about personal information, and continuing turmoil at Tesla. That's a lot, but it also brings us

to the end of today's report. And by the way, if you haven't

done so already, would you please subscribe to our channel or our daily email blast. Thanks and we'll see you tomorrow. Auto Line Daily is brought to

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AD #3812 - GM, Ford Hurt Most by Biden China Tariff; Inside Story: How Musk Fired Supercharger Staff; Chinese OEM Drops Out of China Market

Lincoln Nautilus

Hyundai Genesis

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