AD #3844 - Legacy Suppliers Key to Tesla 48v System; Renault Pioneers Pouch-To-Pack Tech; EVs and Hybrids Up Strong in U.S.

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

It's good to be back after a little time off, so let's get right into the news and Wow. The fighting over Elon Musk's massive pay package

is really turning into a soap opera. A group of shareholders led by a

guy named Richard Tornetta, sued Tesla to block the pay package from going through.

Tornetta, who only owns nine shares of Tesla, won that fight, and now he wants the company to reimburse his lawyers to the tune of seven billion dollars in legal fees. That would be an all time record for legal

fees in US courtrooms. So another group of shareholders is asking a judge to

cut those outlandish fees to a fraction of that. Tornetta's lawyers argue they deserve

the seven billion dollar payout because when they lock must from getting the fifty six billion dollars in stock, there were two hundred and sixty six million Testla shares that were reserved for stock options, and sense those shares, which are worth sixty seven billion dollars today, were essentially returned to the company. It was

a great benefit to Tesla, and so they deserved that record payout, but Tesla argues they should only get thirteen point seven million dollars and now we'll have to see how the judge rules on this. Meanwhile, Tesla shareholders have shrugged

off the legal issues. Its stock is up thirty eight percent over the last

eight weeks and it's trading at around two hundred and forty eight dollars a share, which is where it started the year at before taking a long downward slide that bottomed out in late April. The EU's new tariffs on evs made in

China are already crimping Chinese exports, according to the China Passenger Car Association, Prior to the EU's investigation into Chinese made ev several months ago, China's EV export growth was at least thirty to forty percent for the year, But after the EU threatened tariffs, EV export growth dropped to ten percent. Even so,

China's overall car exports were up twenty eight percent in June. Speaking of

those tariffs, BMW wants the EU to lower them on electric minis made in China. They're currently being hit with the highest thirty seven point six percent tariff,

but BMW wants that dropped to twenty point eight percent. Production of the

electric minis only started a few months ago, and the models weren't included in the EU's investigation into Chinese made vehicles, so they were automatically slapped with the highest tariff. The EU is allowing automakers to petition for lower tears for new

evs, but a decision won't be made until the fall. Looks like that

cyber attack on CDK, the company that handles most dealer management systems in the US, really hurt new vehicle sales in the region. Last month, car

dealers had a hard time processing purchases and as a result, sales fell four percent to one point three million units. Worse, the SAR, or seasonally

adjusted annual rate, came in at only fifteen point two million vehicles, down from the fifteen point eight million that analysts expected, and that was down from the sixteen point one million SAR that they were forecasting at the beginning of the year. General Motors saw its sales increase only point six percent in the second

quarter. Ford was only up point eight percent, and Stallantis had a disastrous

quarter with sales plunging twenty one percent, led by big drops at Ram and Jeep, which are the company's strongest brands. However, Toyota bucked the trend,

posting a strong nine percent growth in sales. Interestingly, the strongest segments

in the market right now are EV's and hybrids. GM's ev sales shot up

forty percent compared to the second quarter of last year, with the Cadillac Lyric and Chevrolet Blazer EV's posting good sales. Ford's EV's were up more than sixty

one percent, and hybrids were up fifty five percent. Toyota's electrified vehicles,

which are mostly hybrids, were up sixty three percent. And speaking of troubles

at Stalantis, it just lost another top executive. Mamatha Charmathi, who was

the head of software, is the fifth senior executive to leave the company this year. Christiani Compost was hired to replace Carmathy. On her LinkedIn page,

Campost is listed as the chief financial officer at Mobile Drive in Siliconado in the Netherlands. She previously worked at Stalantis in Brazil in business development. There's nothing

wrong with heavy metal hy light enough, but with world class composit material taging, automotive Technologies makes vehicles lighter, safer, and more eco friendly. While

Tesla is the first automaker to take the plunge into a mostly forty eight volt electronic architecture, engineers have wanted to make the switch from twelve volts for decades.

The reason for not doing it was always said to be cost, the cost to convert all the motors, switches, actuators, and everything else in a car to forty eight volts. But even some of the traditional suppliers in

this industry were willing to take the plunge with Tesla. Not long ago,

we were back at vehicle benchmarking specialist Caresoft to follow a lot along with its tear down of the cybertruck, this time diving into its forty eight volt system, and we saw several suppliers with forty eight volt parts, including Brosa who makes the window motor, Bosh makes the blower motor, and Valeo makes the wiper motor. Elon Musk says Tesla will give the blueprint for its forty eight

volt system to any automaker that wants to use it, so more are likely to follow, and it looks like these suppliers are going after common parts that a lot of automakers would want to convert to forty eight volts. Caresoft estimates

that Tesla was able to reduce the size of its wires in the forty eight volt system by about fifty percent on average, and that it cut an additional mile of wiring by going to a zonal electronic architecture. And here's another reason

automakers might want to go to forty eight volt. And EV requires three to

five times more copper than ICEE vehicles, and the grid also needs a lot of copper, and a new study says the current supply of copper just isn't enough to meet future demand. The study was conducted by professors from the University

of Michigan and Cornell sponsored by the International Energy Forum, and they say as many as six new copper minds need to open every year over the next several decades, and that forty percent of production from new minds would be needed for EV related upgrades to the electric grid, mainly for developing nations. The researchers

suggest it might be more feasible to focus on hybrids instead. Ampere, which

is the EV division of Renault, says it will be the first to premiere Sell the Pack technology that uses pouch battery cells. Battery cells are typically arranged

in a module and then multiple modules are combined together inside the pack, but sell the Pack eliminates the modules, which clears up space to put more cells in the pack. Most automakers use cylindrical or prismatic batteries in their cell the

packs because the cells can also provide some structure to the pack, but Renault doesn't say exactly what allowed it to use pouch cells. Along with an effort

to incorporate LFP batteries from LG and CATL, Renaul says it will reduce the cost of the batteries in its vehicles around twenty percent by the start of twenty twenty six. And speaking of Renault, but this time switching over to the

ic East side of the business, Oil giant a Ramco is buying a ten percent stake and horse the powertrain JV between Renaul and gly. Part of the

agreement also includes a collaboration with a Ramco and Valveline on technologies, fuels and lubricants that will help lower engine emissions. Self driving startup way Moo just hit

a milestone and has opened up its service to everyone in San Francisco. It

operates twenty four to seven in all weather conditions, and now anyone can use it by just downloading an app. Previously, the Robotaxi service was only available

to a select number of users who signed up to join Weimo's waitlist. Weimo

also operates an autonomous service that's open to anyone in the Metro Phoenix area.

NASCAR hopes to have zero carbon footprint by twenty thirty five, and to help promote those efforts, it revealed in all electric all wheel drive prototype race car with over thirteen hundred horse power. The car was developed with ABB Group,

who's also a major sponsor of Formula E. It's based on a modified chassis

of the next gen car that came out in twenty twenty two and still uses the steering suspension breaks in wheels from the current Cup Series car. However,

I think we're a long way off from way watch an all electric NASCAR race that brings us to the end of today's show. Thanks for making autoline a

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AD #3844 - Legacy Suppliers Key to Tesla 48v System; Renault Pioneers Pouch-To-Pack Tech; EVs and Hybrids Up Strong in U.S.

Cadillac Lyric

Chevrolet Blazer Evs

Tesla Cybertruck

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