AD #3935 - VW Boosts Rivian Investment By $800 Million; UAW Scales Back Organizing Efforts; Hertz Accelerates EV Selloff

Speaker 1: This is Ontoline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry. Rivian just landed another eight hundred

million bucks from Volkswagen. VW had already committed five billion

dollars to Rivian to get its software to find vehicle technology, but now it's investing a total of five point eight billion.

The two automakers are forming a joint venture called Rivian and VW Group Technology LLC that will be headed up by Rivian's chief software engineer and VW's chief technology officer.

It will employ about one thousand engineers who will work in Palo Alto and at several other locations. VW decided

to go with Rivian after the startup converted an Audi to run on its compute stack in less than twelve weeks, something that VWS spent years and billions of euros trying to do on its own. Even so, VW's first co

with Rivian's technology will not hit showrooms until twenty twenty seven.

Doge is the trading symbol for doge coin, a cryptocurrency that competes with Bitcoin and something that Elon Musk has tweeted about often. In fact, he was even sued over

allegations of manipulating the price, a lawsuit that a judge later dismissed well. DOGE is also the name of a

new semi official government department that will be run by Elon Musk an entrepreneur vivik Ramaswami, but in this case DOGE stands for Department of Government Efficiency. President elect Trump

says the two entrepreneurs will quote dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies. DOGE

will partner with the White House's Office of Management and Budget, and the aim is to conclude their work on July fourth of twenty twenty six, which is also the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the nation. The ACEA, or

the Association of European Automakers, warns that the EV market in Europe is going from bad to worse and that the industry needs immediate regulatory relief. Using data from S

and P Global, it forecasts that EV market share will only reach twenty one percent by the end of next year, down from the twenty seven percent that was originally expected.

Automakers in the EU phase billions of euros and fines for missing harder co two REGs that kick in next year.

The ACEA says that to reach those targets, European automakers may have to pool their emissions with Chinese and American EV companies, meaning the European auto industry would be paying money to foreign automakers who compete against them. So it's

asking for urgent relief from the fines and a quick review of the regulations. And as if to put an

exclamation point on that, Ford announced its cutting production of EV's in Europe because of significantly lower demand than it expected.

Ford invested two billion dollars to make the Explorer and the Capri evs at its plant in Cologne, Germany. Those

two evs are built on Volkswagen's MED platform. Hurts is

increasing the number of evs that it wants to sell from its fleet because it's losing too much money on them.

If you didn't know, rental car companies don't make most of their money from renting cars. That money helps offset

the depreciation before the vehicles are sold after a few years of service, which is where the real money comes from.

But when Tesla, Hurts, its largest EV provider, and other EV makers started cutting prices in twenty twenty two, two and twenty twenty three, it wiped out massive amounts of value from Hertz's EV fleet. In the third quarter of

this year, the rental car company reported that its vehicle depreciation was up by eighty nine percent. So instead of

getting rid of twenty thousand evs this year, it wants to dump thirty thousand and will continue to sell more through the end of next year as well. Some of

those vehicles are already being sold at a discount, which will likely hurt the used value of those vehicles even more.

And here's an interesting little tidbit to this whole story.

It was former Ford CEO Mark Fields, who was interim CEO of Hurts at the time, that made that original announcement to buy one hundred thousand Teslas. It's not clear

if that many ever entered the fleet. And then following

CEO Stephen Scher made deals with Pollstar and GM and he eventually resigned over this whole EV fiasco.

Speaker 2: Knowing that a little rain won't slow down your day, That's what really matters. Reach doone toronts of quiattract tires

confident control in wet conditions.

Speaker 1: Chinese automaker Jaipung has people waiting in line for its land aircraft Carrier. This is its large, six wheeled vehicle

that can launch what is basically a small human size drone out of the back. It just demonstrated how the

aircraft is removed from the vehicle, and then it performed its first public test for the world to see. It's

quite the dance to get the personal vitail out of the carrier, using its air suspension system and automatic landing gear to slowly slide it out. The arms holding the

propellers can then be opened up and it looks like it's pretty much ready to fly after that test. Versions

of the all electric craft currently have a flight time of about thirty five minutes it's and a top speed of roughly eighty miles an hour or one hundred and thirty kilometers an hour. The carrier is also capable of

charging the VTAL from thirty to eighty percent in eighteen minutes, so owners could juice up and fly more. But once

they're done, the vehicle can automatically scoop the aircraft back up similar to how it slid out, just in reverse and in case you're wondering. We saw a report that

says it takes about five minutes to complete. Chapung says

it just got over two thousand orders for the land aircraft carrier after its latest demonstration, and while that's not a big number, with a starting price of two hundred and eighty grand, it would represent well over half a billion dollars in sales. And speaking of mobility, Waimo is

opening up its service to everyone in La It's already given out more than one hundred thousand paid rides to people in the city, but that was slowly rolled out to customer who signed up to be on a waiting list.

They gave an average rating of four point seven out of five stars, which is what helped give Weimo the confidence to open the service twenty four to seven and to anyone that downloads and uses the app. It also

currently offers paid autonomous rides in San Francisco and Phoenix, Arizona.

The UAW is scaling back efforts to organize other plants in the US after the union secured historic deals with gm Ford and Stilantis last year, President Sean Fain ratcheted up efforts to unionize the transplants and evy startups, and while the union did succeed in organizing Volkswagen's plant in Tennessee, its efforts to unionize more plants slowed after Mercedes workers in Alabama rejected the UAW back in May. Since that vote,

the union hasn't sought recognition from a new automaker. Part

of the recent interest in joining the UAW is slow is non union automakers have raised wages and increased bonuses for workers in response to the uaw's wins last year, and with most non union plants located in the South, where unions aren't as favorable, it's making it more difficult for the UAW to gain support. Chinese battery maker Coatl

says it's open to building a new factory in the US if President elect Trump allows it. The company's CEO

says the US government has denied allowing it to invest in the US, and the Bided administration has also prevented Chinese battery companies from receiving EV subsidies, as well as raising terraffs on Chinese evs to one hundred percent. But

during the campaign, Trump said he's open to allowing Chinese companies in the US as long as they build plants in the country, and CTL says it will consider doing so if it's allowed. While CTL doesn't opt rate its

own plant in the US, it does have licensing deals with Ford and Tesla, providing them with its technology to make batteries, but it will not own the plants where they're produced. Sales of the Ford Ranger in the US

are recovering from last falls crippling UAW strike that shut down the plant for forty one days. They're up a

healthy twelve percent so far this year, and sales could get a healthy boost from the new two point seven leter Eco Boost V six, which is also used in F series pickups as well as the Bronco. In the Ranger,

the engine generates three hundred and fifteen horse power and four hundred pound feet of torque. That's up from the

two hundred and seventy horse power and three hundred and ten pound feet of torque that the base two point three liter turbo four makes, and the new engine is madeed to a ten speed automatic transmission compared to the six speed that comes with the turbo four. The EPA

rates the two two point seven liter at twenty miles to the gallon compared to twenty two MPGs for the two point three leaders. That's a wrap for this show.

Speaker 3: Thanks for tuning in.

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