AD #3833 - Shareholders Approve Musk $56B Pay, He May Not Get It; Fast Chargers Don’t Hurt EV Batteries; 4 Most Expensive Cars To Maintain

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

Once again, Tesla had the best selling car in the world last year.

According to Jado Dynamics, Tesla sold more than one point two million model wise, up sixty four percent. The Toyota Rev four was number two with

just over a million sales, and it was followed by the Honda CRV.

Toyota takes the next three spots with the Corolla, Corolla Cross and Camry.

The Ford F one to fifty ranks number seven was six hundred and twenty three thousand sales. Toyota shows up again with the Hi Lux at number eight.

The Nissan CenTra was next with five hundred and thirty four thousand sales, and Tesla bookends the top ten with the Model three, which sold five hundred and three thousand units. Stillantis held its Investor Day presentation yesterday at the headquarters for

its North American operations in Auburn Hills, MISSIONCHI, and it probably held the meeting there because North America delivers most of the company's profits, but it's also where the company is running into its stiffest headwinds. It has the worst relations

with suppliers in the business. Dealers are complaining that inventory and prices are too

high, sales profits, market share and margins are falling, and a number of senior executives left the company. CEO Carlos Tavares blamed himself, saying it

was his own arrogance that led him to ignore the problems until they started getting out of control. He presented a plan of how he's going to turn that

around, and one thing is crystal clear outsourcing the low cost countries is a key part of that plan. Stillantis has already diverted forty one billion euros of

business to suppliers and countries like Morocco, Turkey, Algeria, South Africa and Egypt, and it plans to move even more business there. Auto Line has

heard that existing suppliers are being told to cut their prices thirty percent or future business will move to low cost countries. Using fast chargers for your electric car

will destroy the battery over time, Right, Well, that was conventional wisdom, but a new study from Recurrence says that's just an urban legend. It

looked at more than thirteen thousand teslas in the US and found that there was no statistically significant difference in range degradation between fast charging more than seventy percent of the time and fast charging less than thirty percent of the time. However,

many drivers don't fast charge frequently. Only three hundred and forty four of the

Teslas that it looked at use fast chargers more than seventy percent of the time.

The Tesla models were from twenty twelve to twenty twenty three, but ninety percent of them were from twenty eighteen and later. Recurrent says baddegradation from frequent

fast charging may still happen when evs get older. Ford is doing a complete

one eighty and will allow any of its dealers to sell evs. In its

previous plan, they had to sign up for a certification program to sell electrics, and it was expensive. Dealers had to invest one point two million dollars

to be part of Ford's top tier, or they could pay up to five hundred thousand dollars to be in a lower tier. Each tier required a certain

number of chargers to be installed at the dealership, and it limited EV inventory for lower tiers. But the new reality is that evs are not selling nearly

as well as expected, and Ford needs a lot more sales volume to make them profitable. Dealers who want to sell evs still need to invest in training

employees and installing level two chargers for both ccs and nax ports, but the cost of entry is now a lot lower. 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 divined vehicles. Taskless shareholders officially

voted in favor of CEO Elon Musk roughly fifty six billion dollar pay package.

The news was revealed at the company's annual meeting, and Must indicated that it was approved by a wide margin, but the CEO and Tesla still have to get the same Delaware judge that originally voided the pay package in January to recognize the new vote as valid, which will require them to prove that Must didn't have any improper influence during the process, and even if it is passed, there's always the possibility of a new lawsuit being filed. But moving on.

Shareholders also approved a proposal to move Tesla's legal home from Delaware to Texas, and it revealed a number of product updates. Tesla will allow a one time

FSD transfer for one more quarter. According to Musk, the option was only

first made available last year, and it has gone away and come back a couple of times, so it's hard to say what will happen. FSD transfers

now over to Optimus, Tesla's humanoid robot. Elon says the company will have

a quote thousand to a couple thousand working in its factories next year, that the robot would be in limited production. It would cost ten thousand dollars to

build, but it would sell them for twenty thousand dollars, and that they would eventually bring in a trillion dollars a profit. In all, the CEO

thinks Tesla could be worth around thirty trillion dollars some day. Its evs will

also play a role in its projected rising market cap. Not only did it

ramp up cyber truck production to thirteen hundred units a week, three new models were teased under sheets in a slideshow to at the annual meeting, but there was no official word on what's coming. In other Tesla news, a Canadian

man pled guilty to stealing trade secrets from the EV maker. The man and

another associate, who is still at large worked for High Bar, a Canadian based company that makes battery assembly lines and was bought by Tesla in twenty nineteen, but the two left High Bar informed, a China based company that sells technology used in evs. At some point they tried selling some of those battery

manufacturing trade secrets to undercover government agents and now face up to ten years in prison. European automakers are seeing their warranty claims going up significantly and it's costing

them billions. Last year alone, seven European automakers spent twenty two point seven

billion euros on warranties, according to the publication Warrant Week. Volkswagen accounted for

almost half of that, paying out ten billion euros to fix customers cars.

Stillantis was next at five billion euros. Mercedes paid out three point three billion,

while BMW spent two point six billion euros. Renault and Volvo paid out

far less than that, but their costs were up significantly. Same goes for

Ferrari. It didn't pay that much, but it's warranty costs went up by

double digits. Now we need to figure out why these costs are going up

so fast, and if you've got any ideas, we'd love to hear them.

While automakers are paying more to fix customers cars, customers also have to pay more to maintain them. The average car costs about nine hundred dollars a

year to maintain over a ten year period. According to Consumer Affairs. That

number includes two oil changes a year, tire rotation, new wipers, cabin and engine filters and inspection, a front end alignment, and new brake pads.

That probably sounds like a lot to you and as a high number, but it's an average for all vehicles, and remember it's over a ten year period, and according to the website go Banking Rates, Porsche tops the list, with customers spending twenty two hundred dollars every year on average over those ten years. Obviously, the cost is less when the car is brand new,

what it goes up significantly as the miles accumulate. BMW's costs an average of

nineteen hundred dollars, land Rovers cost eighteen hundred bucks, and Jaguars there're seventeen hundred, and that's something to keep in mind if you're thinking of buying one of those vehicles. The infighting among the uaw's leadership is heating up. Earlier

this week, the US Justice Department opened an investigation into UAW President Sean Fain, alleging he's obstructing and interfering with an investigation into infighting amongst the top UAW leaders. One of the leaders Faine is quarreling with is Rich Boyer, the

VP of the UAW who represents Stalantis workers, but Faine stripped him from that position because he says Stalantis isn't delivering on the commitments it may in the new union contract, and Faine accuses Boyer of not holding Stialantis accountable and agreeing to quote watered down language to backtrack on what was agreed upon. But Boyer fired

back saying it's quote shameful Fane is accusing him of that, and that he was transparent with the UAW leadership about the negotiations with Stilantis, and he called Fane's decision to remove him from that position quote a direct attack on my character.

Back in April, the Smart brand, which is equally owned by Mercedes and Jili, showed off in all new mid size electric suv called the Smart Number five, but that was an off roady concept with big tires and a light bar on the roof. Now we're getting a look at the more mainstream

version. Thanks to Chinese regulators. Smart is now applying for the number five

sales license in China, which is why we're getting the new picks. But

we also get some fresh details like it will come in both rear and all wheel drive, with power outputs ranging from three hundred and thirty five horse power up to six hundred and thirty eight. In April, it said the Smart

Number five is based on an eight hundred volt architecture and would have a one hundred plus kilowatt hour battery pack that returns a WLTP estimated five hundred and fifty kilometers or three hundred and forty one miles of range. Car News China reports

rear drive versions will have an LFP pack. In all wheel drive versions,

we'll have NMC. We think these are pretty impressive facts, especially for the

Smart brand, so we wouldn't be surprised to see Mercedes and jeli's other brands build similar models off the same platform if they haven't already. 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 weekend, and remember, if you like what we're saying here, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. Auto Line

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AD #3833 - Shareholders Approve Musk $56B Pay, He May Not Get It; Fast Chargers Don’t Hurt EV Batteries; 4 Most Expensive Cars To Maintain

Honda Crv

Toyota Camry

Toyota Corolla Cross

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