AD #3886 - U.S. EV Effort Suffers Setback; All Future Volvo's Based on Same Core; India Says No EV Incentives Needed

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.

Speaker 4: Auto Line Daily is brought to you by Bridgestone Solutions for your journey, Intrepid Control Systems, over the Air, Engineering, Boost Your Game, MEDC where Michigan businesses are powering the future of mobility, and by Tajent Automotive Technologies the formula for better mobility.

Speaker 5: There's nothing wrong with heavy metal, hey right enough, but with world class composite material, Tagent Automotive Technologies makes vehicles lighter, safer, and more eco friendly.

Speaker 6: Developing today's vehicles, issues can happen in an instant. What

good is knowing your problems without the data to solve it.

Meet Wireless Neo VI Cloud, your secure off the shelf solution, empowering real time collaboration for quick resolution. With wireless Neova Cloud,

your team can prevent issues before they can escalate. Driver

communication data and remote diagnostics to analyze and resolve your problems using OTA, allowing your executives to oversight throughout the process.

Wireless NEOVI Cloud your vehicle update solution in production and on the road. Intrepid control systems driven by.

Speaker 3: Your data, keeping your heart racing in and out of the gym.

Speaker 5: That's what really matters. Bridge don't pretend to sport as

tires with a fifty thousand mile limited warranty

AD #3886 - U.S. EV Effort Suffers Setback; All Future Volvo's Based on Same Core; India Says No EV Incentives Needed

Mercedes-Benz GLE

About this episode

Original notes