AD #3973 - BYD Sitting on A Mountain of Hidden Debt; Canoo Files for Bankruptcy; Ram Axes Long-Range Electric Truck

Speaker 1: This is Utoline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry. As we reported earlier this month,

there's a legal battle brewing between car dealers and Scout Motors over the automaker's plan to sell directly to consumers in the US. Car dealers say the brand must sell

vehicles through Volkswagen dealerships since Scout is part of the VW Group, and US franchise laws say that if a car company has used franchise dealers in the past, it can't drop them to sell direct However, Scout says it's independent from VW, which is what it says allows it to sell directly to consumers, and now car dealers in California are threatening to take legal action against Scout and says the brand sales plan violates state law. In response,

Scout sent a letter to California's New Car Dealer Association reiterated that it's independent from the VW Group and that VW dealers don't have the right to sell Scout vehicles.

Automakers are challenging a requirement for advanced automatic emergency braking systems.

Last April, KNITSA finalized a rule that mandates that all new cars and trucks must have the technology by twenty twenty nine. The tech is meant to stop or mitigate

a vehicle from hitting a vehicle in front of them at speeds up to sixty two miles an hour. NITSA

says the mandate will save three hundred and sixty lives and prevent twenty four thousand injuries a year. But the

Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a group that represents most major automakers in the US, says the requirement is quote practically impossible with available technology, so it filed a lawsuit last Friday asking an appeals court to overturn the rule. By

is an amazing story. It's now the biggest auto maker

in China. It built a fleet of the biggest car

hauling ships for export, like the Sea Lion seven electric suv that it just launched in Mexico last week. It

sells more evs in Japan than Toyota does. It's building

assembly plants all over the world and says it will complete a billion dollar facility in Indonesia by the end of the year. One of its sedans, the forty one

thousand dollars han El gets two charging outlets. Yes, you

can plug in two chargers at the same time, and it only takes ten minutes to charge from sixteen to eighty percent at minus thirty degrees celsius, which is negative twenty two fahrenheit. And yet GMT Research, which is based

in Hong Kong, says that BYD is sitting on a mountain of hidden debt. In fact, it says BYD is

addicted to debt. While BYD annual report says it has

three point seven billion dollars a debt, GMT says the real number is more like forty four billion, and it says BYD is using financial slight of hand to hide that debt. GMT says the ballooning debt comes from BYD

providing financing for its supply chain, but the terms of that financing can be harsh. BYD took an average of

two hundred and seventy three days to pay its suppliers in twenty twenty three. While suppliers can borrow money from

other sources by using their money BYD owes them as collateral, it still drives up the cost of doing business. BYD

will probably continue its success story, But if what GMT reports is true. Shareholders should be aware that the risk

of their investment is a lot higher than they realized.

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Speaker 1: The five point eight billion dollar partnership between VW and Rivian goes deeper than we realized, and it could get even bigger. According to German publication Spiegel, both companies are

working to build an electronic architecture that's based around the one Rivian currently uses in the new R one T and R one S. It will control everything from infotainment

to driver assistance, and one big benefit is it's expected to have around seven control units compared to the roughly one hundred that VW typically uses. A Luxury seven C

SUV from Portie, an all electric successor to the VW Golf, and the pickup in SUV from Scout are said to be the first models that will use the new architecture.

But Spiegel also spoke to VW CEO Oliver Bluma, who said that the two companies could expand their partnership even further.

He said, quote, for example, we are thinking about sharing modules and bundling purchasing volumes. Bluma believes the size of

the VW group offers great opportunities for a smaller brand like Rivian. EV's startup Canoe is no more. The company

announced it filed for Chapter seven bankruptcy and will immediately cease operations. Cane had partnerships with NASA, the Defense Department,

the Postal Service, and Walmart to supply them with its cargo vehicles. Canue started producing the vehicles in Oklahoma at

the end of twenty twenty three, but the company was never able to turn a profit, and as a result, it's ceasing its operations. Speaking of EV's getting the Acts,

though RAM has canceled plans for the long range version of its all electric pickup truck, which is called the riv mopar. Insiders confirmed with Stilantis the decision was made

when RAM made the move to first come out with the range extended version of its truck called the RAM Charger before the RV. The RAM Charger now launches sometime

this year, and then the RV follows in twenty twenty six, but instead of being available with a larger two hundred and twenty nine kilowad hour battery pack that was supposed to return around five hundred miles of range, it will now come with a standard range pack that's one hundred and sixty eight kilowat hours and provides around three hundred and fifty miles of range no doubt. The move also

frees up battery cells to go into other evs and cuts down on RAMS build costs as well. And remember,

with Chrysler putting its next gen EV development on hold, I think we could be seeing Stalantis rethink its EV strategy for North America in real time as it transitions away from former CEO Carlos Tavares. Chevy is offering new

finance deals on the equinox in Blazer evs. According to

Cars Direct. They're now available with zero percent APR financing

for sixty months, zero point nine percent APR for seventy two months, and two point nine percent for eighty four months.

If you apply that to a seven year loan for about the starting price of the electric SUVs, you'd save roughly five thousand dollars compared to the previous financing rates.

On top of that, Chevy is also giving up to one thousand dollars off for trade ins, so altogether it's a pretty significant discount that brings us to the end of today's show. Thanks for tuning in.

Speaker 4: Auto Line Daily is brought to you by Intrepid Control Systems, over the Air Engineering Boost Your Game, and by Tajent Automotive Technologies the formula for better Mobility. There's nothing wrong

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AD #3973 - BYD Sitting on A Mountain of Hidden Debt; Canoo Files for Bankruptcy; Ram Axes Long-Range Electric Truck

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