AD #3971 - Chinese Automakers Want to Buy VW Factories; NADA Promises to Fight Direct Sales; Hindenburg Research Announces It's Disbanding

Speaker 1: This is Autoline Daily. The show's dedicated to enthusiasts of

the global automotive industry. Well automotive startups must be breathing

a sigh of relief. Today, Nate Anderson, who founded Hindenburg Research,

announced he's disbanding the investment firm, which would short a company's stock and then publish damaging reports about its finances.

Hindenburg has had a major impact on the auto industry, especially startups. It took down Lordstown Motors after it revealed

the company misled investors about its demand in production capabilities.

Hindenburg also accused Nicola Motors of misleading investors about the capabilities of its trucks, which led to founder and CEO Trevor Milton going to prison, and earlier this month, the firm accused Carvana of shady accounting. All told, Hindenberg's reports

have led to nearly one hundred individuals being heavily or criminally charged by regulators. The auto industry is facing big

problems in Europe, and European automakers are practically begging the European Union for help. The ACEA, which is the European

automaker's lobbying group, sent a letter to the EU saying it needs new regulations to cut CO two emissions that are driven by the market, not by fines. It wants

a strategy that will create economic growth, not curb it.

It points out that EV sales are not progressing fast enough to meet the current regulations, and it says that paying heavy fines for missing CO two targets will end up reducing the money that gets spent on R and D and other investments. The EU is notoriously bureaucratic and

slow moving, and so we have to wonder if it will move fast enough to save the European auto industry and write on the heels of that letter. Reuter's reports

the Chinese automakers are keenly interested in buying the assembly plants that Volkswagen wants to shut down in Germany. As

we've reported, VW wants to idle several plants, slash production, and reduce its workforce in Germany by thirty five thousand employees by twenty thirty. Even though Chinese automakers could end

up saving a bunch of those jobs, the idea of them taking over VW factories in Germany is highly sensitive.

They want those plants because it would allow Chinese automakers to avoid the tariffs that the EU is slapped on imported Chinese made evs, and China views buying German factories as a long term strategic investment. But Reuter's quotes a

union officialist saying they would only be open to building cars with VW's joint venture partners in China, and that the cars would have to have the VW logo on them.

Scout wants to bypass franchise dealers and sell cars directly to consumers in the US, and so does AFELA, the joint venture between Honda and Sony, but the National Auto Dealers Association says it's going to fight them every step of the way. Remember, each of the fifty US states

has its own franchise laws, and the NADA has said it will challenge SCOUT and APHILA in every state, which means the legal costs and the time it takes to litigate it all could take years. So that makes us

wonder if either SCOUT or a FELA would try and take this all the way to the Supreme Court and get the car dealer franchise laws overturned by claiming it's a restraint of interstate trade. One thing's for sure, We're

going to be talking about this story for some time to come. As we reported earlier this week, Chinese autonomous

vehicle company pony Ai receive permission from the Chinese government to operate platoons of autonomous trees, and now another company just got the green light to do the same. Cargo

Bot got permission to test platoons on certain sections of highways in Beijing. Autonomous platooning is where a lean semi

truck with a driver is followed by other semis without drivers.

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Speaker 1: Land Rover faces even more competition from its Chinese joint venture partner. In November of last year, we reported that

a brand of Cherry is going to start selling SUVs in the UK that are similar to land Rover vehicles but undercut the price by as much as eighteen thousand dollars.

And now another brand of Cherry is going to launch a series of luxury off road SUVs that will first go on sale in China, but they're also being developed for global markets. The brand is called Jatour and it's

already registered trademark for three names, but previously said it has plans to launch eight or nine models. Not only

will these compete with land Rover Cherry's JV partner, but Jeep is a likely target, and so is Tank, which is a brand under great Wall Motors that sells vehicles in China, Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Jatour will

hold a launch event for the new models sometime next week, so we should have more info soon. As we've reported,

Stilantis is struggling and that continued into the fourth quarter of last year. The automaker's global shipments declined nine percent

in the last three months of twenty twenty four to about one point four million vehicles. In fact, shipments were

down in all regions except for South America. In Asia

they were down thirty three percent, in North America they were down twenty eight percent, and in Europe shipments fell by six percent, and Maserati had a particularly bad fourth quarter with shipment slumping fifty five percent to just twenty seven hundred vehicles. But it's a different story for the

Renault group. It sold more than two point two million

vehicles globally last year, including Dashia and Lpine, which is up one point three percent compared to twenty twenty three.

The Renault brand sales were up one point eight percent, Dashia was up two point seven percent, and Lpine increased sales by five point nine percent last year. The Dashia

Sandera was also the best selling vehicle in Europe last year, and it was a good year for EV's two. The

group's electrified sales including hybrids increased four point three percent and now account for thirty five percent of its total sales.

American Honda wrapped up a pretty good year in twenty twenty four. Sales of one point four million vehicles were

up eight point eight percent. Easily outpacing the overall market.

Hybrids did even better, shooting up twenty five percent, and Lance Wolfer, the VP of Sale, says twenty twenty five should be even better. He thinks American Honda sales, which

includes Acura, will go up another five percent to one point five million vehicles, and he's especially excited that Honda will be building its own evs in Ohio by the end of the year. As you know, the Honda Prologue,

which is made by General Motors, outsold all of GM's EV's last year. Wolfer says the number one reason why

customers said they bought the prolog is that they trust the Honda brand. And speaking of Honda, but now it's

global operations, not the US ones. It wants Nissan to

buy out the shares that Renault has in Nissan. It's

all part of the merger that Honda and Nissan are putting together. Bloomberg reports that Renault has a thirty seven

and a half percent ownership in Nissan, which is worth about three point six billion dollars. Honda says it's worried

that Renaul could sell those shares to someone else, and we would add that Honda probably doesn't want Renault or the French government sticking their noses into its business. But

right now, Nissan doesn't have the cash to buy out Renaul, so Honda would probably have to pony up the money or get the Japanese government to arrange some kind of financial deal. There's a worldwide shortage of people that work

on cars, so Nissan is tapping into China's massive population for help. It's signed a memorandum of understanding with a

public vocational school in China that will train students to work on Nissan cars, including ev repair. But this is

not your typical training course. In phase one, students will

study in China for three or four years, learning basic maintenance skills, but they'll also be taking Japanese language courses.

In phase two, they get six months of language training in Japan, followed by three years of technician courses in Japan, and once they complete the program, they'll be offered jobs at Nissan dealerships in Japan. Hey, our robot's really going

to take over factory jobs and then maybe move on to taking over the world. That's what we're going to

be talking about on Autoline after hours later. Today, we've

got edmar Chesy from ABB Robotics, one of the global leaders in industrial robots, coming on the show today. We're

also going to have Lindsay Brooke, longtime automotive journalist, along with us and this is going to be a great discussion that you won't want to miss. So join John

and Gary when the show goes live at three pm Eastern time. That's a wrap for this show. Thanks for

tuning in and I hope to see you later.

Speaker 3: Autoline Daily is brought to you by in Trepid Control Systems over the Air Engineering Boost your game, and by Tajan Automotive Technologies the formula for better mobility. There's nothing

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AD #3971 - Chinese Automakers Want to Buy VW Factories; NADA Promises to Fight Direct Sales; Hindenburg Research Announces It's Disbanding

Honda Prologue

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