AD #3940 - VW Union Offers $1.6 Billion In Cuts; Exxon and LG Sign U.S. Lithium Deal; Stellantis Shows Off New Platform

Speaker 1: This is Underline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry. If big oil gets interested in

the ev market, it could be a game changer. Well.

Exxon Mobile and LGKEM signed a deal for Exxon to supply LG with one hundred thousand metric tons of lithium carbonate from its giant lithium mine in Arkansas. LG will

use that lithium for its cathode plant in Tennessee that's currently under construction, which will have an annual capacity of sixty thousand metric tons. However, the lithium deal is a

non binding agreement, and Reuter's reports that it's contingent on Arkansas setting lithium royalty rates similar to royalties for oil.

Exon's lithium site in Arkansas is part of the Smackover Formation, which is reported to have enough lithium to meet nine times the projected world demand for EVY batteries in twenty thirty.

Mexico has zero terraces on Chinese cars, and Chinese cars are flooding the market This year, Over five hundred thousand Chinese made cars will be sold in Mexico Next year, it could hit six hundred and twenty five thousand, which would account for about forty five percent of all sales.

So US and Canadian leaders are starting to complain that Mexico may not be a reliable trade partner. Some are

even talking about dropping Mexico from the USMCA Free Trade Agreement.

Michael Dunn, an automotive expert on China, points out that Mexico exports over two million cars a year to the US and that's why Done predicts that Mexico will soon hit Chinese cars with big tariffs because Mexico cannot afford to lose access to the US and Canadian markets. There's

a lot of Volkswagen in the news today, as you know.

The company warned its workers that it wants to close three plants in Germany. The union ig Mattal wants nothing

to do with plant closings and is countering with a proposal to cut costs by one point six billion dollars, largely by giving up future raises and bonuses. But that

does nothing to address VW's current costs or its excess manufacturing capacity. German labor costs an average of sixty six

dollars an hour compared to about forty four dollars in the US, and VW has the highest proportion of labor costs as a percentage of sales of any company in the world, even higher than BMW or Mercedes Benz so Ig Mattal's offer to give up future raises and bonuses won't fix VW's current labor cost problems, but the union promises to go on a war path if the company

closed any plants in Germany. Over in the US, Pablo DC,

the CEO of Volkswagen of America, asked to step down immediately.

He'll be replaced by Cal Grunner, who'll move over from Rivian, where he was the chief commercial officer. Grunner has a

rich automotive background. He started his career with the Boston

Consulting Group, then moved to Porsia, then Todimler Chrysler, then back to Porscha when he became CEO of Porsia North America.

Then he went over to Rivian. VW is having a

decent year in the US market. Through the third quarter,

its sales were up six percent, even though the whole market was up less than one percent. And here's one

last interesting Volkswagen Tidbit. It just started making electric farm

tractors in Rwanda for the African market. It has a

twenty kilowat motor or about twenty seven horse power, and a thirty five kilowatt hour swappable battery pack which is recharged with solar panels.

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Speaker 1: Stilantis is showing off what its Stella frame platform looks like, which is one of four new architectures that will underpin the vast majority of vehicles it offers around the world.

They'll initially come as either an extended range electric or a pure BEEV, but the platform can also support IC, hybrid and hydrogen based power trains. Extended range electrics or erevs,

feature a three point six liter V six engine under the hood, which spins a one hundred and thirty kilowat generator that can either send electricity to the battery or directly to the front rear drive modules. Those modules combined

for over six hundred and sixty horse power, and when you throw in the ninety two kilowad hour battery pack.

The setup is capable of six hundred and ninety miles or eleven hundred kilometers of range, hauling a payload of twenty seven hundred pounds and towing up to fourteen thousand pounds.

Beevs have just a little less power in either a one hundred and sixty eight or a two hundred and twenty nine kilowad hour battery pack that provides up to five hundred miles or eight hundred kilometers of range. The

Stellar frame platform offers both four hundred and eight hundred volt EVY architectures that allows for fast charging up to three hundred and fifty kilowatts, which can add one hundred miles of range in ten minutes. The All Electric RAM

r EV and the EREV RAM charger will be the first to use it. They were supposed to launch late

this year but Stillantas CEO Carlos Tavares says they're being delayed until the first half of next year so it can validate the trucks properly. After the RAM trucks, Jeep

will be the next to use Stella frame, which is a little bit interesting because the other evs it's talked about the Wagon ear S and the Recon both reportedly use the Stella Large platform, so either there's been a change or something new is coming. No word on what

brand will follow after Jeep, but the platform can support trucks, SUVs, and light commercial vehicles. Just yesterday we were reporting that

Chinese automakers other than byd and Li Auto look like they're on the road towards turning a profit. But today

Neo reported that its revenue fell and it lost seven hundred and nine million dollars, which was seventy million bucks worse than a year ago. Neo's sales dropped in October,

even though the overall Chinese car market shot up, and that price war also forced the company to cut prices.

The fact that other automakers are doing so much better suggests that Neo has other problems that are holding it back.

Magnus says it got an order from a leading Chinese OEM for its eight hundred volt dedicated hybrid drive unit, which is meant for four wheel drive passenger cars in SUVs, it bolts up to an IC engine like a normal transmission, but inside are two electric motors. One is a traction

motor that generates up to one hundred and twenty kilowatts or one hundred and sixty horse power, and it can drive the wheels on its own in low demand situations.

Once the battery is depleted enough, the system turns the engine on to drive the other motor generator inside the drive unit, which provides electricity to the battery, or if more power is needed, the engine and traction motor can work together. Magnus says it can reduce fuel consumption by

up to thirty three percent on the WLTC cycle. It

also used a platform approach with a scalable number of gears so the drive unit can be used in a wide range of vehicle segments. Production kicks off in the

third quarter of next year. Electron, a company that makes

EV charging components, is ramping up production of NACS to CCS adapters and says it's now producing twelve thousand a week.

That's more than Tesla, which is producing eight thousand a week.

The adapters give non Tesla owners access to the supercharger network, but Tesla has been slow to roll out its own adapters, and Ford told owners to stop using them because they had issues with slow charging speeds and said they could damage the charging port, so Ford turned Electron to supply it with the NAX adapters and with all major automakers making deals to gain access to Tesla's supercharger network, Electron says demand for adapters continues to rise. To show off

its hands free driving technology and how widely available it is, General Motors set what it calls is the largest hands free caravan in history. The automaker drove all twenty of

its models available with supercrews across the Bay Bridge in California, which connects San Francisco and Oakland. GM has the most

models available with hands free driving, and it will continue to expand it in the upcoming Cadillac Vistic. The escalatic

that brings us to the end of today's show. Thanks

for tuning in.

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AD #3940 - VW Union Offers $1.6 Billion In Cuts; Exxon and LG Sign U.S. Lithium Deal; Stellantis Shows Off New Platform

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