AD #3981 - Tesla's Profits Tumble, But Stock Up; Renault Debuts Shocking Concept; Waymo Expanding to Snow Belt, Tokyo

Speaker 1: This is online daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry. Tesla reported its year end earnings yesterday,

and its.

Speaker 2: Fourth quarter was pretty rough.

Speaker 1: Profits plummeted seventy one percent, its operating margin fell to only six point two percent, which is below General motors six point eight percent margin. And yet investors shrugged off

the news and bid the stock up four percent and after hours trading.

Speaker 2: Why.

Speaker 1: One reason is that they loved hearing Elon must heel analysts that Tesla will start testing unsupervised full self driving as a paid service in Austin in June, and will start mass production of its Optimist robots this year, and investors expect that to eventually generate massive profits. Even so,

Elon must be glad that the company put twenty twenty four behind it.

Speaker 2: For the full year, testless sales fell.

Speaker 1: One percent to one point seven eight million vehicles. Its

revenue also fell one percent to ninety seven point seven billion dollars, but a couple of positive developments elsewhere in the company covered up deeper problems with Tesla's automotive operations.

For example, revenue of energy storage systems shot up sixty seven percent to more than ten billion dollars. Revenue from services,

which includes insurance, financing and vehicle repairs, was up a strong twenty seven percent to ten and a half billion dollars.

Speaker 2: Also, Taskless sold.

Speaker 1: Two point seven billion dollars of ZEB credits to other automakers last year, up fifty four percent. But even with

all that, Tesla's operating profit dropped twenty one percent for the year and its net profit plummeted by fifty three percent to seven billion dollars. And with a net profit

margin of only seven point three percent, Tesla is starting to look like a traditional lautomaker, and despite Tesla's plans to start testing unsupervised FSD in Austin in a matter of.

Speaker 2: Months, it's still way behind Weimo.

Speaker 1: Yesterday, Weimo announced it's expanding into ten more regions in the US, including Michigan's Upper Peninsula and upstate New York, and it's also going to Tokyo. At first, it will

use human drivers to physically drive the vehicles, then it will use safety drivers on board to monitor the cars, and if all that works well, the cars will drive autonomously with no.

Speaker 2: Driver at all.

Speaker 1: Toyota reported its sales for twenty twenty four, and when you include Lexus, Daihatsu, and Hino, it remained the biggest automaker.

Speaker 2: In the world.

Speaker 1: It sold a little over ten point eight million vehicles last year, which was down three point seven percent, But if you exclude Daihatsu and Hino, which dealt with emission cheating scandals that eventually led to stop sales, Toyota and Lexus's sales were down one point four percent to ten point one six million vehicles. Lexus only makes up the

small portion of that total. It sold eight hundred and

fifty one thousand vehicles in twenty twenty four, up three point three percent, while BEVs are an even smaller portion.

Toyota sold just under one hundred and forty thousand purely electric vehicles last year, which was up thirty four and a half percent, but it's still significantly less than most major automakers. But Toyota wasn't the only Japanese automaker that

saw its global sales go down last year. Honda sales

were down four point six percent to three point eight million vehicles, while Nissan sales hit three point three million in twenty twenty four, down zero point eight percent, and with sales falling, the case for a Honda Nissan merger only gets stronger. Volkswagen created an uproar in Germany when

it announced it wants to shut at least three assembly plants and lay off thirty five thousand employees to save fifteen billion euros a year by the end of the decade.

And yet VW's board members don't think those cuts go far enough. Germany's Hondelsblot newspaper reports that VW board members

believe more cuts are needed to hit the cost cutting target.

The report also says that VW is pushing back its profitability target for a six and a half percent margin for.

Speaker 2: Three or four years instead of the end of next year.

Speaker 1: And we wouldn't be surprised if things actually get worse than what's being reported now.

Speaker 2: Those terriffs the EU slapped.

Speaker 1: On Chinese evs seem to be having their desire to in fact, well sort of. According to Automotive Researcher data,

Force registrations of EV's from Chinese brands fell three and a half percent last year in Europe, which is the first annual drop since they entered the market. Chinese EV

brands accounted for eight and a half percent of the EV market in twenty twenty four.

Speaker 2: Last year, the EU slapped.

Speaker 1: Tariffs of up to thirty five percent on Chinese ev imports because it's said they have an unfair advantage because they benefit from state subsidies. And while the tariffs have

slowed sales, brands like byd in Japunk have seen sales increases.

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Speaker 1: Renault is using its newest concept called the Filante Record twenty twenty five to showcase possible future technologies while also displaying its design capabilitiespired by record breaking speed cars. Of

the nineteen thirties and nineteen fifties. It's a single seater

with a long, thin fuselage and wheels and tires that are attached with small suspension arms like an F one car.

The proportions sound rather impressive too. It's over five meters

or about sixteen point eight feet long, just over one point one meter or three point nine feet tall, and one point seven to one meters or five point six feet wide, so it's long, narrow and short, and even though it's electric, it's very light, just one thousand kilograms or twenty two hundred pounds. Sixty percent of that weight

is the battery, but we're no kept weight down by using cell to pack technology, which eliminates modules from the inside of a pack, as well as using a lot of carbon fiber. Some of the future tech that one

day might make it into production cars includes steer and break by wire systems, and in the Fulante Record twenty twenty five concept, Reneul envisions controlling acceleration and braking through steering wheel controls. That's a quick little overview of the

new concept. But we wonder who you think did the

better futuristic car. Renault with the Filante or Jaguar with

its Type zero zero concepts. The refresh BMWIX is offering

some pretty significant upgrades. First, it adds about thirty one

miles of range, now covering up to three hundred and forty miles on a single charge. It was able to

do that thanks to a new inverter that gets Silicon Carby chips which are more powerful and efficient, the newest E drive system, and new battery cell technology which increases overall capacity. The IX is also the first production vehicle

to feel eat your BMW's curve display and latest operating system, which includes an AI assistant and enables things like InCAR streaming and gaming. All versions now come standard with all

wheel drive, including a new M seventy model which has six hundred and fifty horse power and does zero to sixty in three point six seconds. It starts at one

hundred and eleven thousand, five hundred dollars including destination charges.

But for those that don't want all that power, a new X drive forty five model is now available with four hundred and two horse power and a starting price of just over seventy five thousand dollars, which is twelve grand cheaper than the previous entry level trim. And speaking

of BMW, it's coming out with a station wagon version of the M THREECS for the first time ever. Like

the sedan, it's available with a turbocharged three liter inline six cylinder engine that's paired with an eight speed automatic to send power to all four wheels. But unfortunately for

those of us in North America, we won't be able to tap into its five hundred and fifty horse power and do zero to sixty two miles an hour in three point two seconds. Deliveries in Europe, Australia, Japan, and

South Korea start this March. This is something we think

is pretty significant. Bridgestone, which is one of our sponsors,

is going to start recycling use tires, and we mean it will recycle them back down to their original ingredients.

It will use a process called pyrolysis, which involves heating the tires in an oxygen free environment to extract the original materials. Bridgestone will collect oil and carbon black to

use as raw materials to make new tires. The company

will start construction of the pilot plant in November and Japan operations kickoff in twenty two, twenty seven, and it will have the capacity to process seventy five hundred tons of tires a year. Two days from now, President Trump

is promising to slap twenty five percent import tariffs on cars and parts that come from Canada and Mexico. The

auto industry is deeply worried about what could happen. Some

suppliers are telling automakers there's no way they're going to eat that cost, and.

Speaker 2: They'll raise prices immediately.

Speaker 1: A few suppliers are predicting that car production in North America will grind to a halt in about a week as well. And that's what we'll be talking about on

Auto Line after hours later Today.

Speaker 2: We've got the.

Speaker 1: Supplier expert Paul Eichenberg coming on the show, as well as Perry Stern from Cars.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: So if you want to get a better idea of what could happen to the auto industry, join John and Gary when the show goes live at three pm Eastern Time today.

Speaker 2: But that's a wrap for this show. I hope to

see you later.

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

wrong with heavy metal hey light enough, but with world class composite material Tajent Automotive Technologies makes vehicles lighter, safer, and more eco friendly.

AD #3981 - Tesla's Profits Tumble, But Stock Up; Renault Debuts Shocking Concept; Waymo Expanding to Snow Belt, Tokyo

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