AD #3897 - VW Could Cut 30,000 Jobs in Germany; Silverado and Tundra Beating Up F-150 and Ram; Lucid Turns to Detroit For Help

Speaker 1: This is Autoline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry. As you probably know, things are

not going well at Volkswagen. But just to give you

an idea of how dire the situation is, the company is considering getting rid of thirty thousand employees in Germany.

That's according to Manager Magazine, a German trade publication. Those

layoffs would equate to ten percent of VW's employees in Germany and would include four to six thousand R and D jobs. VW also plans to slash its capital expenditures

by billions of euros over the next five years, but VW's works council scast that number of layoffs, saying they have no basis in reality and so buckle up for what could be a major battle between VW and labor.

Germany's economic minister says the government wants to help VW avoid closing plants in Germany, but yon suggesting some incentives for evs, he admits there isn't a whole lot that the government can do, saying it's up to Volkswagen to structure the company to be competitive. As we reported a

couple of weeks ago, Audi is looking at closing an assembly plant in Belgium, and now media reports are servicing that Chinese automaker Neo could be interested in buying it.

That would help Neo avoid EU import tariffs on Chinese evs.

But we think if Neo decides it needs a plant in Europe, it will probably look to low cost Eastern European countries instead of high cost Belgium. The longer the

year goes on, the worst things are looking for Mercedes Benz.

For the second time in two months, it just lowered its profit outlook for the year. It's also going to

cut its capital expenditures as it expects its free cash flow to plummet. Mercedes is taking a beating in China,

where it not only lags behind with electric cars, but now face this is a backlash against any kind of high end purchases that is affecting all luxury brands and not just cars. But put it all together, and the

stock prices of European automakers are at near record lows.

As a group, European auto stocks are now trading sixty percent below the overall stock six hundred index, and some analysts believe those stock prices could drop another ten to twenty percent. Maybe that's why despite the low prices, value

investors are sitting on the sidelines waiting for them to drop further.

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Speaker 1: Ford and GM have opened R and D offices in California to help develop ev but now a Silicon Valley based EVY startup is turning to Detroit to help develop its vehicles. Yesterday, Lucid Motors officially opened its first offices

in the Detroit area. It says it wants to tap

into the local talent and suppliers, as well as have access to the universities in the area. Lucid currently has

seventy employees at its Detroit offices, and it plans to boost that to two hundred and fifty in the next three years. If you had to put the top three

full size half ton pickup trucks in order of sales in the second quarter of this year in the US, I bet you'd probably say the Ford F one fifty first, then the Chevy Silverado, and third the Ram fifteen hundred, But that's wrong. The Toyota Tandra has been chomping away

at sales of the RAM fifteen hundred all year, and in the second quarter it rose to fifteen point two percent share of the full size half ton pickup truck market in the US versus ten point one one percent for the fifteen hundred. The Tundra is up from eleven

point six percent share in the fourth quarter of last year, while the RAM is down from seventeen point four percent, which is a big jump for both in a relatively short amount of time. There's likely a number of reasons

for the rise of Tundra, but what do you think is the biggest factor? Also, if you thought the F

one fifty was in first place, you'd be wrong there too.

The Silverado had nearly twenty nine percent of the full size half ton pickup truck market in the second quarter in the US, two points ahead of the F one fifty.

Fording Kia are taking a different path to combat their sales slides in China compared to other foreign automakers. Both

have lost hundreds of thousands of sales over a roughly eight year period. So, like many Chinese automakers, Fording Kia

are turning to exports. Kia's exports were up one hundred

and twenty five percent last year and they're up sixty five percent so far this year. Last year, Ford set

a record for the number of exports from its Chinese factories, and they're up forty five percent this year, including the Mondeo Equator and Lincoln Nautilus. Ford also started building the

Bronco and Ranger in China as it phased out low cost models. The US is way behind China and developing

a battery infrastructure, but it is making progress. The Department

of Energy is awarding three billion dollars to twenty five projects across fourteen states to upgrade, expand, and build new facilities for processing minerals, battery components, battery manufacturing, and recycling.

The projects will cover traditional and next gen lithium ion chemistries, as well as non lithium ion technologies. The Energy Department

says its investment will generate sixteen billion dollars in total investment for the projects and create twelve thousand construction and production jobs. GM's autonomous its Unit Cruise is headed back

to the area of its most famous accident, where one of its vehicles dragged a person that was hit by another vehicle. The way that incident was handled and the

subsequent investigation into the company resulted in a complete shakeup of Cruise, including the departure of the CEO and co founder.

But now it's headed back to the Bay Area of California with a small number of vehicles for testing. Five

autonomous Chevy Bolts should be running around Sunny Vale and Mountain View by the fall. The company also launched test

vehicles with backup drivers in Arizona in April. Now its

plan is to restart fully autonomous test rides by the end of the year and then start charging customers early next year. But the shakeup at Cruise is also having

an impact on GM's partnership with Honda. They plan to

test the Origin shuttle this year in Japan and then launch a service in twenty twenty six, but GM has stopped production of the Origin and will focus on evs developed off the ship Heavy Bolt instead. That means Honda

isn't testing any Origins in Japan right now, and says it's quote currently examining the impact of the project. It

wouldn't say if there's any changes to the plans, but did add that it wants to start a robotaxi service in Japan as soon as possible. Via X technology, which

allows cars to talk to each other and the infrastructure like traffic lights, could be the biggest breakthrough in automotive safety ever, so last month, the US Transportation Department proposed to equip three quarters of the intersections in the country with va X tech in about twelve years. The technology

allows vehicles to wirelessly communicate with other vehicles on the road or with the road infrastructure to transmit speed, location, road conditions, and other info. It can almost make it

impossible for cars with vita X to crash into each other, and it allows cities to manage traffic flow more efficiently.

While the technology is ready to go, it hasn't been deployed on a widespread basis in cities, so automakers haven't had much incentive to equip vehicles with the technology. An

analyst at ABI Research estimates that seventy percent of vehicles need to be equipped with v to X to have a fifty percent chance of effectively communicating with other cars and the infrastructure, and that's why the Transportation Department is pushing to make it more widespread, and that brings us to the end of today's show. Thanks for making Audoline

a part of your day and I hope that you have a great weekend.

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Speaker 4: Electric vehicle comedy.

Speaker 6: Forget the political noise. Evs mean good American jobs. Tens

of thousands of manufacturing jobs right here right now in Michigan and more on the way with billions in new investments.

Want those jobs in China instead? We don't. We're the

American EV Jobs Alliance. We say electric vehicles are a

big part of the future, and we want those jobs in America. So remember when politicians bash EV, America loses

paid for by the American EV Jobs Alliance.

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Toyota Tundra

Lincoln Nautilus

Ford Ranger

Ford Bronco

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