The episode covers major challenges in the US lithium supply chain amid plummeting EV demand, highlighting Piedmont Lithium's setbacks. It reviews mixed US new car sales data, with some automakers showing strong growth while others lag. Concerns about Germany's automotive industry decline are discussed alongside India's decision to end EV subsidies due to market maturity. The show also addresses slower-than-expected public EV charging speeds, Tesla's plans to launch full self-driving in China and Europe, and Volvo's strategy to unify its EV platforms with advanced tech partnerships. The episode ends with a preview of a debate on what defines a classic car.
Topics:us lithium supply challengesev demand declineus new car sales trendsgerman auto industry concernsindia ev subsidy policypublic ev charging speedstesla full self driving launchvolvo ev platform strategyclassic car debate
- U.S. EV Effort Suffers Setback - U.S. August Sales Up Strongly, Probably - Germany in Industrial Decline? - India Says No EV Incentives Needed - Why Public Chargers Never Hit Peak Output - Tesla to Launch FSD in China, EU - Volvo, Geely Benefit from Shared Platform
"single tech and software base that contains all the modules and functionalities of the vehicle. It will debut in the newest evolution of GLE's ev architecture called SPA three. An all electric version of the S ninety Sedan and an upcoming EX sixty will use this platform. Volvo says it"
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Speaker 1: This is underlying Daily the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry, and we start out today's show with a big setback in the US's effort to become self sufficient in securing lithium. We've been following the crazy
decline of lithium because a big part of it is caused by the drop off in ev demand since lithium is a key ingredient in batteries. Prices are down eighty
three percent in the last year alone, and one company seems to really be struggling with that decline. US based
Piedmont Lithium laid off a third of its workforce earlier this year. Last month, it canceled a planned project in Tennessee,
and now it's pulling an application for a government loan.
The company says it's making the move partly because of high costs associated with the loan process and hopes to refile the application at some point.
Speaker 2: In the future.
Speaker 1: But Piedmont only has one of revenue as a minority investor in a Canadian lithium mine. It's also a shareholder
in a mining project in Ghana, but it was going to use that to supply its Tennessee site, so now it's trying to sell off its share of the lithium.
And the company has plans to build a mine in North Carolina, which it recently said it would expand to include two refineries, But the loan it just pulled out of was supposed to help fund that site, and any expansion there requires a zoning permit, which won't happen until next year at the earliest. The US wants to be
a source for more of the materials needed to make electric cars, but the ev slowdown could put it self sufficiency in jeopardy. How did sales of new cars go
last month in the US market, Well, it's kind of hard to tell right now because so far only six automakers reported their sales, most of the Japanese OEMs plus Yndai, Kia, and Ford. The rest of them only report on a
quarterly basis. Moreover, there were more selling days in August
this year compared to last year, so you should get more sales. But the daily selling rate or DSR can
provide more clarity. It determines how many cars were sold
on each sales day. For example, Toyota reported an overall
sales increase of one point nine percent, but on a daily selling rate basis, its sales were actually down one point eight percent. However, not every automaker breaks out as
sales on a DSR basis, so let's look at the total numbers, which are really good. Ford was up thirteen percent,
the Hyndai group including Kia and Genesis was up twelve point seven percent. Honda including Acura was up an impress
of twenty five percent, while Subaru was up eleven point eight percent, followed by Mazda, which was up a whopping thirty six point seven percent. Overall, this group was up
twelve point six percent, but analysts were actually expecting the total market to be up seven percent, so some automakers like Stilantis and Nissan probably didn't do that well. The
news coming out of Germany this week was not very comforting.
We've been reporting how VW could close a couple of assembly plants in its home market for the first time in its history. Now, the chairman a Daimler Truck says
the company has to adapt to a slowdown in commercial truck sales and in China, customers are losing interest. In Portia,
whose sales are down thirty three percent, there this year.
That's a real danger sign for such an iconic brand.
Put it all together and Bloomberg says that this is a sign of Germany's industrial decline. Let's hope they're wrong,
but one thing's for sure. The German auto industry is
gonna have to take drastic action if it wants to.
Speaker 2: Remain globally competitive.
Speaker 1: While countries like Germany saw EV sales collapse after it ended subsidies for purchasing an EV, India says it no longer needs them. India's federal Road Minister says that falling
battery prices, increased demand and higher inventory of evs makes them more competitive, so they no longer need subsidies. But
incentives have helped the EV market grow. India currently taxes
evs at five percent, while ice powered vehicles have taxes as high as forty eight percent. Last year, electric scooter
and bike sales were up forty percent and electric vehicle sales were up seventy percent in India and that compares to less than ten percent growth for the overall market.
Speaker 3: So when we did our research for the talent that we need for this program, Michigan was really the top of the list. In order to be successful in this space,
we really have to have the right people, the right mindsets, the right environment.
Speaker 1: Public EV chargers in the US don't charge as fast as promised. According to Stable Auto, public chargers that are
rated at speeds of one hundred kilowatts or more are only providing an average of fifty two kilowatts.
Speaker 2: Here's some of the reasons for it.
Speaker 1: Charging networks will throttle chargers when the grid is overworked and to prevent cables from overheating. Many stations also split
power between vehicles, allowing them to install more chargers with the same electricity, but that lowers the charging speed. The
vehicles themselves play a role. Of the fifty five evs
that are now available in the US, half charge above two hundred kilowatts, and only five can charge at three hundred and fifty. Temperature impacts how fast EV's charge is well,
so automakers program the vehicles to charge lower at extreme temperatures, and charging also slows when the battery is almost full to prevent overheating. Here's some good news for Tesla. The
company announced that it plans to launch its full self driving assistance feature in China and Europe in the first quarter of next year, pending approval from regulators. Tesla's shares
were up two and a half percent on the news because if Tesla does get approval for FSD, it's going to see a nice jump in revenue. Valvo has been
dropping a ton of information on the auto industry over the last two days, so let's.
Speaker 2: Dive into it. It's no longer going for an EV
only lineup.
Speaker 1: It expects fifty to sixty percent p HAVE and b EV by twenty twenty five and ninety to one hundred percent by twenty thirty, leaving that last ten percent or so for mild hybrids only if they're needed. It's lowering
its earnings forecast for the next few years as well.
Speaker 2: It hopes to start.
Speaker 1: Making that up in the years after with new products, and it won't be long before the new XC ninety joins its lineup. It gets a light refresh on the
exterior and the interior has a bigger screen that runs off of the same new software found in the EX thirty.
In the EX ninety, the layout of the screen and how it operates is also different, and those features will be offered as an over the year update to owners with vehicles that go as far back as twenty twenty.
Not stopping there, Volvo revealed that all future electric cars will be based on the same core systems. It's a
single tech and software base that contains all the modules and functionalities of the vehicle. It will debut in the
newest evolution of GLE's ev architecture called SPA three. An
all electric version of the S ninety Sedan and an upcoming EX sixty will use this platform. Volvo says it
will be much more capable than the current SPA two, and a lot of that expanded capability comes from a bigger partnership with Nvidia. It announced that those future vehicles
will use its centralized computing system called Drive four that can handle four times the operations as the system that just launched in the EX ninety. What makes an old
car a classic car? What I think is a classic,
you might think is a piece of junk, and what someone thought was a classic decades ago might not interest anyone anymore. Anyway, That's going to be the topic on
Autoline After Hours at three pm Eastern time today, and you can look forward to some good arguments.
Speaker 2: We'll have Gian Cadiz from Haggarty.
Speaker 1: And Derome Levine from Serious XM Radio, joining John and Gary.
So we expect to see a lively chat room when the opinions start flying. But that brings us to the
end of today's show. I'd hope to see you later.
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