AD #3977 - Nikola Looks for A Savior; BMW’s EVs Destroy Mercedes and Audi; Suddenly, A Flurry of Recalls in China

Speaker 1: This is Autoline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry. Volkswagen and Rivian's joint venture is

attracting interest from other automakers. Rivian's chief software officer, who

is also co CEO of the JV, set it's in talks with other OEMs about supplying them with the software and electrical architecture they develop, but he didn't say what companies they're in talks with. VW and Rivian formed the

joint venture last year to develop an electronic architecture for both companies that will use Rivian software tech. VW invested

five point eight billion dollars into the JV, but with so much interest from other automakers in the tech we wonder if somebody will swoop in to buy Rivian, which currently has a market cap close to thirteen billion dollars.

Several Chinese car companies are fighting back against the EU's tariffs on their cars byd G and SAIC filed complaints with the Court of Justice of the European Union. The

Chinese Chamber of Commerce also filed a complaint, so this effort clearly has the backing of the Chinese national government.

But don't expect this to result in any quick actions.

It will take eighteen months for any of this to be settled, and whatever the results are, there are likely to be appeals. And it's important to note that while

BYD and g L are independent automakers, SAIC is state owned.

Pretty much all the SPAT companies that were all the rage a few years ago have gone out of business or are in deep financial trouble, and now we can add Nicola Motors to that list. The ev and fuel

cell semi truck startup has lost ninety five percent of its value over the last year. In last October, the

company said it only had enough funds to operate through the first quarter of this year. So it's no surprise

to learn that Nikola is exploring a number of possibilities to raise cash, including selling part or all of the company.

It's also considering partnerships with others or raising new funds.

Management has not made a decision yet, but it looks like Nikola could be on its last legs. Kia posted

its highest ever revenue, operating profit and operating profit margin in twenty twenty four, thanks to favorable exchange rates and selling the most vehicles in the history of the company.

It sold a little under three point one million vehicles in twenty twenty four, an increase of zero point one percent.

That helped push its revenue to nearly seventy five billion dollars, which was up seven point seven percent. Operating profit climb

to a eight point eight billion a nine point one percent increase, and its net profit went to six point eight billion dollars, a jump of eleven and a half percent.

Kia is hoping for another good year in twenty twenty five as well. It's aiming to sell three point twenty

two million vehicles, which would be a four point one percent increase over last year, and a good portion of that bump in sales will come from evs. Last year

it sold two hundred and one thousand pure electrics, up over ten percent, and this year it will continue the global rollout of the EV four and EV five. On

top of that, Kia is adding more hybrids to its lineup as well as the Taskman pickup, the PV five PBV and the ers SUV for India. And In other

financial news, Chinese automaker Seic, which has joint ventures with General Motors and Volkswagon, is struggling. Its sales drop twenty

percent last year, and according to preliminary financial results, its net income may have dropped as much as ninety percent.

In twenty twenty four, the automaker says its profit will range between two hundred and seven and two hundred and sixty two million dollars, but analysts we're expecting a net profit of about one point three billion for twenty twenty four.

Even worse for SEIC, it said it would have lost nearly eight hundred and thirty million dollars if it weren't for its selling a fifty one percent stake in MG's India operations, and in December, GM announced it would take charges in asset right downs of more than five billion dollars for investments in the joint venture, which is also contributing to saic's financial woes. SAIC will release its official

twenty twenty four financial results in April.

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Speaker 1: Only bad asses need apply is the headline for a new job listing at Stalantis Dodges looking for new brand ambassadors, or what it's calling bad ascidors to travel to auto shows, vehicle launches, enthusiast events, drag racism more to help promote the brand. These bad ascidors will have their travel expenses

paid for, appear in brand promotions, get free merch, and have access to Dodge vehicles. The program kicked off this

week at the Barrett Jackson Auction and anyone can apply.

Now looks like China is cracking down on vehicle safety.

It's not often you see reports about recalls in the country, but we saw four stories of automakers announcing recalls, which seems somewhat out of the blue, and there could be more.

The biggest involves Tesla, which is recalling more than one point two million vehicles in China for a couple of issues.

One involves problems with real cameras and the other is related to steering. Tesla had similar recalls for both issues

in North America and they'll also be fixed within over the air update. Shaomi will fix nearly thirty one thousand

models with an Ota as well. Some of its su

seven sedans are having problems with their smart parking systems.

Feng Cheng Bao, a brand under byd was also hit with a recall that effects just under eight thousand models that could have loose bolts that could cause a fire, and the final recall we saw was for Baojan's new small SUV called the YEP. A little over eleven hundred

examples need to have the software for the braking system fixed, but it doesn't seem like it can be done with an Ota like some of the others. BMW has a

massive lead selling electric cars compared to Mercedes and Audi.

Last year, BMW sold an impressive three hundred and sixty eight thousand evs globally, up twelve percent from the year before.

Mercedes sold about half of that, one hundred and eighty five thousand, and that was down twenty three percent, while Audi sold one hundred and sixty four thousand, down eight percent.

Not only did BMW sell more than Mercedes and Audi put together, it's about to launch its new class family of evs, which BMW expects to boost its EV sales even more. Analysts say bmw strategy of using vehicle platforms

that can accommodate different powertrains gave customers more choice of what they wanted, so the price gap between a BEV and IC car at BMW is a lot less than it is at Mercedes or Audi. Another reason BMW is

confident that sales will go up is that three year leases on Teslas that were written in twenty twenty two will expire this year, and as thousands of EV owners come back into the market, they're going to find a lot more selection than when Tesla was practically the only game in town. There's an interesting story and Wired about

two hackers who broke into Subaru's Starlink connectivity platform. One

of the hackers had bought a new subru for his mom and said they were able to easily hack into it, controlling some of the car's features like locking and unlocking the doors and honking the horn, so they notified Subru, which quickly patched the area where the hackers broke in.

Hopefully they got some sort of payment or bug bounty for their actions, but the real story is that the hackers also found Subru tracked everywhere the mom drove for an entire year and kept that data on file. Subru

says it needs that data so it can notify first responders to where to find a car in case of an accident, but that doesn't explain why Subru keeps detailed historical travel data for years. We think a logical explanation

is that it sells that data to third parties, and data monetization can be quite lucrative, and our guest is that if Subaru is doing this, so are other car companies.

And as we reported earlier this week, General Motors was banned from selling customer data for the next five years.

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

Thanks for tuning in, and I hope that you have a great weekend.

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AD #3977 - Nikola Looks for A Savior; BMW’s EVs Destroy Mercedes and Audi; Suddenly, A Flurry of Recalls in China

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