AD #3985 - Nissan Calls Off Merger with Honda; Tesla EU Sales Plummet, Mostly Because Of Elon; Watch the Super Bowl, Win A Kia

Speaker 1: This is Outoline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry.

Speaker 2: Things move really fast in this industry.

Speaker 1: Yesterday was all about President Trump backing off threats to slap tariffs on Canada and Mexico. Today, the big news

is that Nissan is backing out of its plans to merge with Honda. It was just a little over a

month ago that Honda and Nissan surprised the industry with plans to join forces, which would have made them the third largest automaker in the world. But neither company seemed

to have its heart in the project, and we thought it looked like the Japanese government was quietly orchestrating the merger behind the scenes. Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe couldn't even

come up with a good reason why the two should merge when asked by reporters. At first, the two automakers

were going to operate independently as part of a holding company, but then Honda decided it wanted to run the show and make Nissan a subsidiary, and that's when Nissan decided to back out of the deal. Honda shares jump more

than eight percent on the news, while Nissans fell nearly five percent. Renault, which owns thirty six percent of Nissan,

saw its stock fall three point four percent. But now

the question is what will happen with Nissan. It's in

a downward spiral and there are hungry investors like fox Con that want to take an ownership position in the company.

One thing's for sure, this story is far from over, and let's stick with Japan for a moment. Where Toyota

posted its latest financial earnings. The company sold almost eight

point three million vehicles over the last three quarters, down three percent. Its revenue hit two hundred and thirty three

billion dollars, up almost five percent. Its operating profit fell

over thirteen percent to twenty four billion, while its net profit rose four percent to twenty six billion dollars.

Speaker 2: But by the time the current quarter.

Speaker 1: Is over, Toyota expects its net profits to fall eleven point three percent for this fiscal year. Toyota also announced

it's going to establish a new EVY assembly and battery plant in Shanghai for Lexus.

Speaker 2: It will feature a new BEV.

Speaker 1: Platform and the plant will be tooled to make one hundred thousand cars a year with one thousand employees in twenty twenty seven.

Speaker 2: We think it's possible that this new.

Speaker 1: Platform and the plant will come out of Toyota's skunkworks project called the BEV Factory. We know that Toyota has

been working on its own version of unboxed assembly, and that would be one way for it to quickly catch up or to even possibly leap frog the best Chinese EV companies. And as long as we're talking about Toyota

and batteries, we need to note that the giant autumaker is ready to start producing batteries outside of Japan for the first time. It's fourteen billion dollar battery factory in

North Carolina start shipping batteries in April for hybrid, plug in hybrid and pure electrics. By twenty thirty, Toyota is

aiming for the plant to produce thirty gigawatt hours of batteries a year. Things seem to be going from bad

to worse for the German auto industry, and moral is really down. Our recent survey asked companies to gauge the

business climate in Germany and it found that sentiment in the auto industry has reached a new low. Companies are

concerned about the industry's ability to compete with strong competitors from China, falling sales in Europe, and Trump's tarff threats on car imports. You know, if you're going to own

a Bentley, you might as well look like you live in the lap of luxury. Bentley is opening its own

luxury residences in Miami and with a starting price of five point eight million bucks. They have some pretty nice amenities.

That includes a private elevator for your car. No need

to park and walk to the elevator, you just ride up with your car. Owners will also have a private

heated swimming pool on each balcony, a beauty salon, and even their furry friends get their own one hundred and fourteen square foot pet spa. But there's room for it

when each unit is twenty thousand square feet and has three floors with views of the beach.

Speaker 3: There's nothing wrong with heavy metal, hy light enough, but with world class composit material Taging Automotive Technologies makes vehicles lighter, safer, and more eco friendly.

Speaker 1: DS Automobiles, which is part of Stalantis, revealed pricing for its all new beev the Number eight, which launches in the second half.

Speaker 2: Of this year.

Speaker 1: The base front wheel drive version with two hundred and thirty horse power and a seventy four kilowat hour battery pack that provides five hundred and fifty kilometers or about three hundred and forty miles of range, starts at just under sixty thousand euro There's also a two hundred and forty five horse power front wheel drive model that can be paired with a ninety seven kilowat hour battery which provides up to seven hundred and fifty kilometers or roughly four hundred and sixty five miles of range, or that pack can be combined with an all wheel drive version

that makes three hundred and fifty horse power.

Speaker 2: The top line trim of the Number.

Speaker 1: Eight starts at just over seventy four thousand, five hundred euros.

DS says the Number eight is the first of its designs to be solely electric, so we will be interested to see if sales and market conditions allow it to stay on that path. And speaking of DS, the automaker

is celebrating the seventieth anniversary of the original DS model in a unique way. It partnered with the French Mint

to create a one off silver ten euro coin that depicts a nineteen fifty five DS nineteen mirrored with a nineteen seventy five DS twenty three. Only five thousand coins

will be made, which cost fifteen euros each, and the coins go on sale today on the French Mint website.

Speaker 2: On top of this, one, DS.

Speaker 1: And the French Mint plan to introduce more special coins throughout the year. At the end of last year, General

Motors pulled the plug on developing robotaxis and folded its autonomous unit Cruise back into its existing engineering operations. And

now it's cutting the crew's workforce in half, or by about one thousand people. It's not just engineers, many high

level executives are headed for the door, including CEO Mark Witten.

GM said it decided to stop funding crews because of increased competition, as well as the cost and time it would take to scale it. Now it will focus on

developing its supercrus hands free driving system.

Speaker 2: GM says it will save.

Speaker 1: Five hundred million dollars this year by absorbing Cruises operate rations, and twice as much in the coming years. Earlier this week,

we reported that, based on early data, Tesla sales in Europe were dropping fast well Today we've got more numbers and the situation maybe even worse than we first suspected.

On Monday, we told you that sales of Tesla's were down sixty three percent in France last month. Well, they

were also down forty four percent in Norway, thirty eight percent in Sweden and forty two percent in the Netherlands.

In the UK, Tesla's sales slipped twelve percent, even though overall BEV sales surged thirty five percent to an all time record. Tesla has slipped to only seventh and EV

sales in the UK, behind companies like Volkswagen, Mercedes, BMW and Pougeot, and it seems like there's a number of factors here. Several polls show that European EV buyers have

had it with elon musk politics. Tesla is also transitioning

to the new model Y and it typically has low inventory in the first quarter when it tries to boost end of year results. Kia is giving way free cars

during the Big Game this Sunday, doing its own version of football squares. If you've never heard of squares, people

pay to have their name put in the square of a large grid with the rows and columns representing the teams.

Before the game, each square is assigned two numbers from zero to nine. Those numbers correspond to the last digit

of a team's score, So if both your numbers match the last digit of the team's point total at the end of the quarter, then you win.

Speaker 2: And since there's four quarters, there's four chances to win.

Speaker 1: But instead of handing out cash, Kia is giving away cars.

It has a special website called Kia squares dot com for people to sign up, which requires your name, email address, and zip code.

Speaker 2: But that brings us to the end of today's show.

Thanks for tuning in.

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AD #3985 - Nissan Calls Off Merger with Honda; Tesla EU Sales Plummet, Mostly Because Of Elon; Watch the Super Bowl, Win A Kia

Tesla Model Y

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