AD #3924 - Ford Q3 Earnings Disappointing; Xiaomi Sets Nurburgring Track Record; Kia Reveals New Tasman Pickup

Speaker 1: The Zadolgne Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry. Well, let's get the bad news out

of the way. First, Ford reported its third quarter earnings,

and the numbers are pretty disappointing. Sales barely budged at

just over a million vehicles. Revenue inched up two point

four percent to about forty six billion dollars, but pre tax profits dropped thirty seven percent to only eight hundred and sixty nine million dollars, largely because of higher materials costs, warranties, and one point two billion dollars in losses on electric vehicles.

Its net profits also fell twenty five percent to only eight hundred and ninety two million. Wall Street didn't like

what it saw, and Ford stock dropped six percent in pre market trading. But it wasn't all bad news at Ford.

Here are some of the highlights from the analyst call last night. It's California skunk work team has developed an

electric mid sized pickup for It is confident it will match the cost of any Chinese pickup made in Mexico because sixty percent of the bill of materials on that truck has already been quoted. Paid subscription revenues by customers

mostly in Ford Pro grew thirty percent in the quarter and had fifty percent gross margins. Also, the cost of

manufacturing Mustang mach Ease was cut by five thousand dollars over the last twenty four months. Now over to India,

which has really caught the attention of automakers because with a population that's now bigger than China's, they expected to turn into a massive sales opportunity, but it turns out that the growth in India really varies by segment. Maruti Suzuki,

which is the biggest automaker in India, just reported its third quarter sales and earnings and its sales fell two percent and revenue fell seventeen percent. That's because Maruti mainly

makes small, entry level cars and that's not what customers in India want right now, which is why the company is launching a mid size suv. Next up China where

Jomi just set the track Riker that the nurburg Ring for a four door electric sedan. Now it wasn't a

production car, It was a prototype of the Joemy SU seven Ultra, but that model will go into production soon with a price tag of one hundred and twelve thousand dollars.

With one thousand, five hundred and twenty six horse power on tap from three electric motors, the SU seven Ultra lap the Nurberg Ring in only six minutes and forty six point eight seconds. That compares to seven minutes and

seven point five seconds for Porscha's Tikon and seven minutes and twenty five point two seconds for Tesla's Model Esque plaid, so Jomi got a big improvement. We think one reason

this prototype can lap the track so fast is that it has massive seventeen inch carbon ceramic brake rotors, which the company's CEO claims are the biggest of any sports car.

They're half the weight of cast iron rotors and can withstand temperatures up to thirteen hundred degrees centigrade or two thousand, three hundred and seventy two degrees fahrenheit. But they're also

part of the reason the car costs one hundred and twelve thousand bucks.

Speaker 2: There's nothing wrong with heavy metal hy light enough, but with world class composite material taging automotive technologies makes vehicles lighter, safer, and more eco friendly.

Speaker 1: Kia fully revealed its first ever pickup truck, the Taskman.

It will be offered as a single duel and chassis cab along with four bed configurations. The truck will first

launch in Korea, Australia, the Middle East and Africa, and depending on the market, it will come with either a two point two liter diesel or a two and a half liter gas engine, which can be paired to an eight speed automatic or a six speed manual. All wheel

drive is available as well, and some variants also feature a rear electronic locking differential. The interior is similar to

what you might find in any modern Keia vehicle, including the displays combined into one big unit, but you can see designers also try to add in some rugged elements as well. The Taskman will start launching in the first

half of next year. RAM is coming out with a

new sport truck to replace the t Rex, called the Raho.

It's still an extremely capable truck, but instead of a Hellcat under the hood, it gets the high output version of Stalantis's twin turbo straight six Hurricane engine, which produces five hundred and forty horse power and five hundred and twenty one pound feet of torque. The Raho will do

zer zero to sixty and four point six seconds, but I found during a local drive that you really need to keep the RPMs up on this engine, otherwise the truck is not as responsive as you'd like it to be when you dip into the throttle. However, when that

engine is singing, you can really rip. The highlight of

the rho's unique long travel suspension system is a set of single piece aluminum bill Steen adaptive shocks that feature nitrogen charged remote reservoirs. The setup allows you to carry

some decent speed over pretty rough terrain, and I was surprised that Ram let us jump the truck as well.

We were going anywhere between thirty five and fifty miles an hour, and the landings were pretty smooth. You probably

wouldn't want to do it all the time for the longevity of the truck, but it was still cool. Now,

I'll toss it over to an interview I did with Brand Combs, the director of Sales Operations, to finish up with pricing, packaging and access three details.

Speaker 3: Hey, everyone, excited to talk to you a little bit about the RAM fifteen hundred Raho. Starting at sixty nine

five it's incredible value for the best off road performance truck in the market, and if you want to option that up to the best luxury off road performance truck in the market. We have a Level one group. It's

nine and ninety five dollars, but it gets you lots of awesome content, including our fourteen and a half inch center stack radio, Harmon Carton nineteen speaker audio system, as well as a couple of awesome features that direct competitor doesn't have, like hands free Level two autonomy, passenger screen, dual wireless chargers, incredible interier in that Level one two with leather sport bolstered seats with heat cool massage. It's

a really awesome comfortable truck. Also going to offer a

couple of really cool individual options for people who'd like to tow.

We have a tow Tech package, a towing group. We're

going to help you trailer reversu assist, and our trailer assist packages will also have some great mopar accessories. The

RHO customer is really interested in customizing his own truck.

We have an awesome off road running board, an awesome mopar rock rail. We've got our spare tire mount in

the back for easy access to that full sized spare and a lot of other really cool options.

Speaker 1: And here's what that truck would pretty much look like.

This is the moparized version of the RHO that it's taking to this year's SEMA show, although it does take things a step further with a unique black and blue contrasting theme both inside and out. Ram will also have

a power Wagging concept version of the twenty five hundred heavy duty truck. There's a lot of unique and custom

accessories on this truck as well, but the thing I think you'll be most interested in is the new front lighting and facia, which I would be shocked if it didn't spread to production HD models as well. However, Stillantis's

big news for SEMA is the nineteen sixty seven Plymouth GTX electromod concept. It tested the waters for an off

road evy kit with the Jeep Cjsurge concept. Now it's

looking at a more sporty application for classic cars. Under

the hood is a three hundred and thirty five horse power drive module inverter and one of the battery pack modules.

The remaining three battery modules are mounted in the trunk and combined for seventy three kiloot hours. It also says

the four hundred volt system will produce three hundred and ten pound feet of torque in about two hundred and fifty miles of range. As I said, Stillantis is still

just testing the waters for offering a system like this, So let us know what you think in the comments.

And one last note before we move on. These were

the vehicles that it was supposed to show off last year, but Stillantis pulled out of several auto shows, including Chicago, LA and SEMA, which it claimed it needed to do because of the financial pressure it was put under by UAW strikes that occurred during last year's contract negotiations. Tesla

already got the auto industry to adopt its next charger, and now it's about to set another standard for the auto industry. The evmaker put out a blog post urging

the industry to adopt its low Voltage Connector Standard or LVCS, that it developed for the forty eight volt architecture used in the cyber truck. Tesla says it reduces the number

of connector types to just six, and they meet the power and signal requirements for over ninety percent of typical electrical device applications. Tesla is hoping to cut costs by

getting the industry to adopt its connector, and we're willing to bet that everybody will jump on board. It looks

like Italy might be giving up on trying to get Stilantis to boost production in the country. The Italian government

demanded that the automaker increased production in Italy to a million vehicles a year, but stillants will likely struggle to build half a million this year and has said it will need government support to increase production there. But Prime

Minister Georgia Maloney wants to cut aid for the auto industry by four point six billion euros or five billion bucks and move that money over to Italy's defense industry.

The plan also cuts incentives for purchasing an EV. The

budget proposal still needs to be approved by both houses of Parliament by the end of December, so some changes could still be made. Earlier this year, we reported about

gly developing a new p have set up that has a one and a half liter engine with forty six percent thermodynamic efficiency, a world record for IC engines, and now the company is getting set to launch the first vehicle with that engine next week. The Galaxy Starship seven SUV.

In addition to the one hundred and ten horse power or e eighty two kilowatt engine, the plug in hybrid setup also features two electric motors and two battery options nineteen or twenty nine kilowatt hours. Its fuel economy is two

point sixty two liters per one hundred kilometers or eighty nine miles to the Galen, and it has a total range of Are you ready for this two thousand, three hundred and ninety kilometers or fourteen hundred and eighty five miles.

That brings us to the end of today's show.

Speaker 3: Thanks for tuning in.

Speaker 2: Auto Line Daily is brought to you by Bridgestone Solutions for your journey, Intrepid Control Systems, over the Air Engineering, boost your game, tajin Automotive Technologies, the Formula for Better Mobility, and by z F.

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AD #3924 - Ford Q3 Earnings Disappointing; Xiaomi Sets Nurburgring Track Record; Kia Reveals New Tasman Pickup

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