Discussions cover Volkswagen's tense labor negotiations amid declining European car sales, with hybrids gaining popularity. Foxconn's interest in Nissan shares via Renault sparks merger rumors. Autonomous vehicle efforts face setbacks as GM and Too Simple pivot away, while Tesla advances robotaxi plans. Oil giants ExxonMobil and Aramco explore lithium and battery materials, signaling a shift toward EV supply chains. Honda previews new EVs for 2026, Kia launches a small SUV in India, and RAM accelerates EREV production over BEVs. Ford restructures its EV division amid quality challenges. Industry consolidation continues with GenEx acquiring Vox.
Topics:volkswagen labor negotiationseuropean car sales declinefoxconn nissan stakeautonomous vehicle setbackstesla robotaxi plansoil companies ev battery materialshonda ev prototypeskia small suv indiaram erev productionford ev division restructuring
- VW and German Unions Make Progress - EU Car Sales Fall Again - Foxconn Wants Renault's Shares in Nissan - TuSimple Bails on AVs - Tesla Wants Robotaxi in Austin Next Year - Aramco Explores Making EV Batteries - New Honda EV Styling Looks Bold - Kia Gets All-New Small SUV - Gas Use Dropping in China - Ram Pulling EREV Production Ahead of BEV - Ford Shakes Up EV and Vehicle Quality Management - Gentex Expanding Its Automotive Operations
"... RAM says it's pulling production of the EREV RAM charger ahead of the fully electric version due to overwh..."
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Speaker 1: This is Outoline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry. Big Day tomorrow for Volkswagen and
its unions in Germany. That's the deadline the union set
for coming to an agreement with the company to avert strikes.
The two sides have held marathon bargaining sessions all week, and labor representatives say they've made some progress. The company
seems willing to keep all German plans open until twenty thirty, as long as workers give up their bonuses. If the
two sides can't come to an agreement, The unions promised to unleash crippling strikes right after the holidays. Meanwhile, the
European car market continues its downward spiral. The ACEA reports
that new car sales fell two percent in November. Sales
of evs fell nine point four percent in the EU, but thanks to a fifty eight percent in increase and EV sales in the UK, overall EV sales in the greater European market were up by almost one percent. Even So,
Taeskla saw a dramatic drop down almost forty one percent.
Plug in hybrids as well as gasoline and diesel cars also saw big drops in sales, but strong hybrids posted a strong eighteen percent gain, and that seems to be the story all around the world. Hybrids are hot, hot, hot.
The greater European market is on track to sell just under thirteen million vehicles this year, which is a scary low number, and you've got to wonder what kind of impact that might have on VW's labor negotiations. It's sure
looking like fox Con wants to buy a stake in Nissan, but we think executives at the automaker and leaders in Japan don't want a Taiwanese contract manufacturer to have any control over one of the crown jewels of the Japanese auto industry. So that's why somebody started the talks that
Nissan should really merge with Honda. However, fox Kon may
be able to get its stake in Nissan anyway. Reports
are a senior executive is meeting with officials from Renault to talk about buying at least part of Renault shares in Nissan. Renault has a fifteen percent stake in Nissan
that fox Con could potentially go after, and we would point out that another roughly eighteen percent of Nissan shares are tied up in a French trust that's partly controlled by the Renault Group. Another company is throwing in the
towel on developing autonomous vehicles. General Motors recently announced that
it will no longer support it self driving business crews, and now autonomous trucking startup Too Simple says it's pivoting to develop gaming technology and is renaming the company Create Ai.
Too Simple was founded in twenty fifteen and attracted investments from Volkswagen and Vidio and ups, but the company ran into regulatory issues, and earlier this year it delisted from the Nasdaq. The company says it will instead use its
image to video AI technology to create the video game content.
But not everyone is giving up on self driving cars.
Bloomberg reports the teslas and talks with the city of Austin, Texas, to launch its robotaxi fleet as early as next year.
The company has been in talks with Austin since at least May, but it still hasn't decided if the city will be the first in Texas where it launches the service.
Speaker 2: Knowing that a little rain won't slow down your day, That's what really matters. Bridge done to runs of qui
attract tires confident control in wet conditions.
Speaker 1: We were pleasantly surprised when Exon Mobil announced that it's interested in producing lithium for EV batteries. In fact, the
giant oil company started drilling for lithium last year in Arkansas, right where the US Geological Survey found the world's largest known deposit of lithium, and now Saudi a Ramco, the world's largest oil company, says it wants to get in on the lithium game. Two. It's exploring how to extract
lithium from the brine that's left over from drilling for oil, and its goal is to make a million batteries a year.
Saudi Arabia is also exploring how to synthesize nickel and graphite from oil, and as we've said before, it sure is surprising to see big oil all of a sudden get interested in EV batteries. Honda Tea's prototypes of its
newest evs called Zero Series, that will debut at CES next month. These are an evolution of the saloon and
space hub concepts that were revealed that this year's CES.
It looks like the design of the Saloon is staying pretty close to the concept, but Honda has moved on to a more suv like shape for its other model.
That makes sense to us because these evs are meant to be a preview of production models that launch in twenty twenty six, and an suv will have bigger appeal than a van like model like the Space Hub would.
Kia is launching an all new small suv called the Sios that will be sold in India, but we're not sure if it's going to other markets yet. However, it
looks like the CIOs is Kia's version of the Hyundai Inster and Casper, which are also sold in Europe and South Korea. The CIOs launches with a choice of either
a one leader turbo gas engine or a one and a half liter diesel, which can both be paired to a manual or automatic transmission. But Kea has also talked
about launching an EV in India next year, and the Casper is sold as an electric, so we think the Cerros will likely be that model, and we think that large digital display, which features connected services and OTA updates, will help the model attract a younger buyer as well.
New energy vehicles which includes peeves, BEVs, and erevs, now account for half of new passenger car sales in China, so it's no surprise to learn that gasoline use is dropping in the country. Sinopeck, the biggest oil refiner in China,
says that gasoline demand peak last year, that consumption will drop one percent this year and it will fall further in twenty twenty five, and demand for diesel drop five percent this year as well. But while oil consumption for
vehicles is declining, Sinopeck expects demand to continue to rise for plastics and jet fuel. However, extended range electrics or
erevs don't only have growth potential in China. RAM says
it's pulling production of the EREV RAM charger ahead of the fully electric version due to overwhelming consumer interest and slowing industry demand for halftime b EV trucks, So the RAM charger will launch in the first half of next year instead of the fifteen hundred RAV which will now launch in twenty twenty six. We think this is a
smart move because RAM likely opens itself up to a larger part of the market. There's an interesting change at Ford.
Reuter's reports it's gonna roll its EV operations into its mainstream product ops. Jim Bomback, who runs all product development,
will now get EV's added to his portfolio, but advanced EV development will remain in the hands of Doug Field. Bomback,
who was also in charge of Ford's quality efforts, will relinquish that role to a yet to be named executive.
Problems are an ongoing problem at Ford. It has the
highest number of recalls and the highest warrant costs in the industry. Auto supplier GenEx is acquiring automotive and consumer
electronics company Vox. GenEx already owns a thirty two percent
stake in Vox, and now it's paying one hundred and ninety six million dollars to acquire the whole company. The
deal is still subject to approval by Vox shareholders and it could close as soon as the first quarter of twenty twenty five. Genech supplies mirrors for automakers, and it
also makes products for aerospace and medical markets. And be
sure to join us for Auto Line after hours. Later today,
we'll have Gary Shapiro on the show. He runs the
Consumer Technology Association, which runs the CEES show that's coming up in Las Vegas next month. And we're also going
to have two lee from Sino Auto Insights join us.
This will be the last show of the year and we have a lot to get into autonomous cars, plugging cars, the challenge from China, the impact of Trump, the unpredictability of Elon Musk, and a lot more so. If you
want some really good insights into what's going on in the auto industry, we invite you to join us today at three pm Eastern Time. But that's it for this show.
I hope to see you later.
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