AD #3910 - Honda Shares Next-Gen EV Details; GM to Slash EV Costs By $6,000; Tesla to Build “Baby” Model Y in Germany

Speaker 1: This is underlined daily the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry. GM says it's gonna slash up

to six thousand dollars off its evs and that the next gen Chevy Bolt will be a money maker. Those

are just a few of the highlights to come from the automaker's investor day yesterday. One of the big contributors

to the price reduction will be lithium iron phosphate or LFP batteries. It will still use the more popular NMC

sells for evs that need more performance, while the LFP packs will go into more affordable models. We could see

those batteries in the new version of the Bolt, which GM says will go on sale late next year with a starting price only slightly above the old Bolt EUV, which had a price tag around twenty nine grand. The

company also added there will eventually be a family of Bolts that includes an even cheaper version. Another part of

the cost cutting puzzle is getting rid of its modular battery approach, right sizing packs for vehicles instead and moving from pouch to prismatic cells. GM says in some cases

it will be able to slash the number of modules in a battery pack by seventy five percent. The company

plans to start making its own batteries in twenty twenty seven as well. It's spending one hundred and forty five

million bucks to build a plant just outside of Detroit.

It will be small, making less than four thousand prototype cells a year, but it will use the facility to speed up battery development, solve possible manufacturing issues, and to cut costs. However, it's going to take time for these

moves to have an effect. GM expects its EV operating

losses to be around four billion dollars next year and for its AV business crews to lose no more than two billion dollars in twenty twenty five. But it's going

to be able to offset some of that because it says that profit margins on ices haven't peaked yet and that will start introducing plug and hybrids in twenty twenty seven.

The Staalantis legal team must be Tieyard because the heavyweight bout between it and the UAW just keeps escalating. Last week,

a local chapter representing workers at a part center in Denver held a strike authorization vote, which Stillantis claims was illegal there's a three step process that's required to hold such a vote, and Stillantas says the union members didn't complete the third step before voting, So now it's filing even more lawsuits against the UAW and its various local chapters that not only includes this part center in Denver, but apparently two additional lawsuits it hasn't detailed yet, and

in its latest press release, Stillantis says that it now quote fully intends to seek monetary damages that could amount to a lot of money if it strikes successful passes.

Last year, UAW strikes during contract negotiations costs a Lantis more than three billion dollars. Honda shared more details about

the new family of evs that it's planning to start launching in twenty twenty six, called Honda Zero Series. The

models are based on a new software defined vehicle architecture.

The structure of these evs is designed to handle an accident even without the battery pack installed. Combining this with

megacastings for the battery case, Honda says it was able to make a thinner, lighter pack. It also slashed the

size of the e axles, which with the thinner battery allows for a lower floor so drivers and passengers will sit down lower in these evs. While Honda probably could

have made a more rigid vehicle by making the battery pack part of the structure, it says it will use the natural flex of the body to control the load on each tire while cornering. The vehicles will also feature

a Honda developed operating and infotainment system OTA updates and lid our based eight ASS Tech with up to Level three capability. Honda will show off a production version of

the saloon concept at CS in January and plans to introduce seven Honda Zero series models around the world by the end of the decade.

Speaker 2: Hi, I'm Don Hatfield from Intrepting Control Systems and I'm presenting the wireless BMS solution from intrepend Control Systems. Come

and see us in this demo at Booth twelve oh one at the Battery Show, and also analog devices will be there as well and be happy to talk to you and help you with your solution.

Speaker 1: Volkswagen revealed its new Tehran suv. It originally debuted in

twenty eighteen for the Chinese market. The new version is

now a global model that will also be sold in the US using the Tigwan name, but for now VW is just sharing details about the European version. It's available

with five or seven seats and comes with a range of powertrains, including mild hybrids, two plug in hybrids, and two turbocharged gasoline and diesel engines. The pe Habs are

equipped with a nineteen point seven kilowat hour battery pack and have an all electric range of one hundred kilometers or sixty two miles. Total range comes to eight hundred

and fifty kilometers or five hundred and twenty eight miles.

Pre Orders for the new Tehran open tomorrow with a starting price of about forty five thousand, five hundred euros or just under fifty grand. Tesla had a strong month

in China. According to the China Passenger Car Association, sales

rose nineteen percent in September compared to a year ago, and they were up two percent from August. Tesla's strength

in China helped it boost quarterly sales for the first time this year. The company delivered just under four hundred

and sixty three thousand evs and Q three, up six percent from a year ago. One criticism of Tesla is

the lack of models in its lineup, but the automaker is planning to expand by offering variants of its existing models.

Last month, Reuters reported that Tesla plans to start producing a six seat version of the Model Y in China next year. We also had reports from Auto four Cast

Solutions that Tesla is going to start building a model it refers to as the Baby Why at its gigafactory in Austin, Texas in June of next year, but that won't be the Baby Why's only location now. Auto Forecast

says Tesla will start production of the model at its factory in Germany in August to twenty twenty five. There's

no details about the model, but newer vehicles will really help Tesla. Meanwhile, Tesla's main rival, Byd is continuing its

rapid growth. The Chinese automaker topped four hundred thousand sales

for the first time last month. It sold more than

four hundred and seventeen thousand passenger vehicles in September, up forty five percent from a year ago. Beev's accounted for

about one hundred and sixty five thousand of its sales, a nine percent gain, and while those are impressive numbers.

BYD's sales outside of China are still relatively small. It

sold thirty three thousand passenger vehicles overseas last month, up about eighteen percent from last year, but BYD says it's poised for big growth in Mexico. The head of the

automaker in the country says it will sell fifty thousand vehicles this year and one hundred thousand next year. BYD

is also going to announce where it will open its first plant in Mexico by the US end of the year.

It will have an initial capacity of one hundred and fifty thousand vehicles and will later add another one hundred and fifty thousand units, but no time frame was given on when we'll see vehicles start rolling down the line.

While the pace has slowed, sales of evs continue to grow in the US, but that growth could be impacted by a slow rollout of public EV chargers. According to

the Alternative Fuels Data Center, EV registrations have soared one hundred and forty percent since twenty twenty three. Three and

a half million evs were registered in the US as of last month, up from one point four million and twenty twenty three, but over the same period, installations of public EV chargers grew only twenty two percent to more than one hundred and seventy six thousand. But of those

one hundred and seventy six thousand chargers, one hundred and twenty two thousand of them are located in just ten states, and not surprisingly, seven of those states are also in the top ten for EED registrations. Hey, if you hadn't

already noticed, we started posting some of our interviews from the Battery Show, you might be interested to see how borg Warner is teaming up with BYD on LFP battery packs, or how for via Hella is cutting weight from its battery management system. But there's even more coming, including some

news about lithium software batteries that we think could be super important. And with that we wrap up today's show.

Thanks for making autoline a part of your day.

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AD #3910 - Honda Shares Next-Gen EV Details; GM to Slash EV Costs By $6,000; Tesla to Build “Baby” Model Y in Germany

Chevrolet Bolt EUV

Tesla Model Y

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