AD #3948 - GM Ready to Close Plants in China; U.S. November Sales Look Good, Maybe; Honda Launches Police Motorcycles in U.S.

Speaker 1: This is Autoline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry. General Motors is facing up to

the reality that it will never again get back to the sales position it once had in China, so it's taking a five billion dollar charge to restructure its Chinese operations.

A decade ago, GM sold more cars and made more profits in China than it did in the United States, but since then, sales have plummeted and it's losing money.

GM said it will write down the value of its joint venture with SEIC and Wuling by up to two point nine billion dollars and will book a two point seven billion dollar charge for plant closures and what it calls portfolio optimization. Those plant closings will send shockwaves through

the Chinese auto industry and could be the beginning of the big shakeout we've been expecting in China. But that

portfolio optimization phrase is intriguing. Could GM do something extreme

like drop the Chevrolet and Baujan brands or maybe merge them together. Last year, Chinese consumers bought one hundred and

sixty nine thousand Chevrolets and only one hundred and six thousand Boo jans. That's not enough to keep a dealer

network healthy, and the only.

Speaker 2: Solution maybe big changes.

Speaker 1: Meanwhile, car sales in China look like they're really starting to pick up steam. Based on early data from the

China Passenger Car Association, sales of light vehicles hit two point four million units in November, up a whopping eighteen percent, and any vs did even better. Sales of evs and

p have shot up fifty two percent, hitting one point three million units. One reason any vs were up so

strong is that a government rebate of two thousand, seven hundred and fifty bucks at.

Speaker 2: The end of the year.

Speaker 1: And it's hard to tell how new car sales did in the US in November.

Speaker 2: Because the only ones who report.

Speaker 1: On a monthly basis anymore are Toyota, Honda, Mazda, Subaru, and the Hyundai Group.

Speaker 2: Collectively.

Speaker 1: They reported that sales were up nearly six percent, but will have to wait until early January when everyone reports their fourth quarter sales to get the full picture of what's really going on. But one bright spot in the

US has been Mazda. Automotive News reports that the automaker

delivered over three hundred and fifty thousand vehicles in the US through October, which is an increase of nineteen percent, and the company's CEO thinks that sales will continue to increase next year as well. Part of that success is

because Mazda hasn't made a big push into evs yet, sales of electrics aren't growing as fast as they once were, which could be further impacted if the Trump administration gets rid of the EV tax credit. The CEO sees this

as a benefit, making it easier for the company to adapt and giving it more time to develop technology. But

Mazda's also in the unique position that eighty eight percent of its vehicles are imported.

Speaker 2: To the US.

Speaker 1: Some come from Japan, but the Mazda three and CX thirty two of its best sellers come from Mexico, so any increase on import tariffs could really impact the company.

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Speaker 1: In one last bit of US sales news, the Honda Prologue is selling pretty well. Last month, Honda sold over

six eight hundred examples, and for the year, more than twenty five one hundred have been sold. The model really

started to take off after it cut the starting price by ninety five hundred dollars while also slashing monthly leases.

And in other Honda news, it's going to help bust criminals and may it's going to start offering motorcycles to police departments in the US. The two cylinder bikes are

based off a European model called the NT eleven hundred, which it claims will have unmatched maneuverability and will cost roughly fourteen five hundred bucks. As more and more evs

hit the road, there's less public charging spots to go around, so station operators are starting to do something about it.

Chinese automaker Liato says it's going to try an idle fee throughout its charging network after getting complaints about vehicles staying plugged in for well after they're fully charged. The

company will first send out four alerts, one shortly before the battery is full, another after charging is finished, another ten minutes later, and finally fifteen minutes later. After that,

the customer, and it doesn't matter what brand a vehicle they have, is charged about twenty eight cents every minute they stay plugged in. But there's a cap at roughly

twenty seven bucks, and that's actually better.

Speaker 2: Than others that charge an idle fee.

Speaker 1: Electrify America gives you ten minutes before it starts charging forty cents a minute, and Tesla charges fifty cents a minute for partially empty stations and a dollar a minute for full ones. And we wouldn't be surprised to see

the practice spread across the entire industry. Former General Motors

executive Dan Ammen was just promoted to president of Exon Mobiles oil and gas business. After leaving GM two years ago,

Aman joined Exon to run its clean energy business called Low Carbon Solutions. Ammen became president of GM in twenty fourteen,

and in twenty eighteen, he was appointed CEO of the automaker's autonomous unit, Cruise, but he left the company after gmco oh Mary Barr rejected his plan to take Cruz public.

Axon also named former GM North America president Barry Engel to take over Amman's position as president of Low Carbon Solutions, and speaking of management changes, the supplier for Via announced that its hired former ZF executive Martin Fisher.

Speaker 2: As its new CEO.

Speaker 1: Fisher, who will formally take over the top spot in March, is replacing Patrick Koehler, who's been CEO since twenty sixteen.

Fisher has extensive experience working with automotive suppliers. Between twenty

nineteen and twenty twenty four, he was a member of zetaf's board of management, and prior to that, he worked at suppliers Borg Warner, Hella and Siemens. Despite getting slapped

with an additional seventeen percent tariff by the European Union recently BYD isn't slowing its expansion into the region. The

Chinese automaker announced that its second cargo ship just went into operation and it's currently heading to Europe with five thousand vehicles on board and it has the capacity for seven thousand. As we reported earlier in the week, BYD

is growing at an eye popping rate, and it's on track to become the fourth largest automaker in the world by the end of next year.

Speaker 2: That brings us to the end of today's show.

Speaker 1: Thanks for making autoline a part of your day.

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AD #3948 - GM Ready to Close Plants in China; U.S. November Sales Look Good, Maybe; Honda Launches Police Motorcycles in U.S.

Honda Prologue

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