AD #3995 - Nikola Files for Chapter 11; Rivian To Post Gross Profit; Volkswagen EV Sales Tank in China

Speaker 1: This is out Aligned Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry. Last week we told you

that Nicola was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, and yesterday it filed for Chapter eleven to raise money to pay off its debts. Nicola is going to try and

sell off all of its assets, but it's probably going to come up short. The company has less than a

billion dollars in assets, but has liabilities between one and ten billion dollars. Many companies use Chapter eleven to reorganize

operations and restructure their debt, but if Nikola is going to sell off all of its assets, it sounds like this is the end of the road for the truck maker.

A couple of weeks ago, we reported that the next generation Ford F one fifty wasn't going to come out until twenty twenty eight, and now the automaker is telling its suppliers that the program has officially been delayed to at least the middle of that year. Ford's financial earnings

have been pretty mediocre lately, and pushing back a big program like that will save the company money in the short term, but it's also a risk. Last year the

Toyota RAV four outsold the F one fifty in the US market, the first time in forty seven years that the F one fifty wasn't number one. Meanwhile, Rivian, a

company that Ford had invested in at one point, says it will report a gross profit for the fourth quarter of last year, and that's despite a part shortage that crippled its production in the quarter. The turnaround is thanks

to selling EVY credits, getting lower prices for components and materials, and getting higher prices for its vehicles. No doubt that

Volkswagen money is helping too. Wall Street has been waiting

for Rivian to post a gross profit and it could be a key turning point for the company. When GM

backed out of that battery plant that LG Energy Solution is building in Lansing, Michigan, everyone wanted what would happen to the plant. Well, Toyota just rode into the rescue.

It has agreed to shift a one point five billion dollar order from another LG plant in Michigan to the Lansing factory. LG is expected to fully acquire the plant

this spring and production will start soon afterwards. Volkswagens ev

sales have absolutely tanked in China. According to Carnews China,

it's sold just over forty five hundred electric vehicles in the country last month, which is down seventy one percent from a year ago, and if you look at individual models, it can get even worse. VW only sold nine eighty sevens,

which is down ninety nine point six percent. But to

only sell nine models in an entire month after selling over twenty two hundred the same month the previous year, we think there has to be something else going on other than Chinese consumers turning away from VW's EV's entirely.

It could be clear tearing out inventory as it gets ready to introduce its next generation of electric vehicles that were developed in China for China.

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Speaker 1: Looks like HANDA and GM are going their separate ways with fuel cells, and Honda just revealed specs for its first independently developed fuel cell module. It produces nearly double

the peak output of the jointly developed module seventy seven kilowatts versus one hundred and fifty kilowats for the new unit, and while peak voltage and weight only see slight improvements, Honda says it's smaller, so volumemetric efficiency is up, it costs half as much to produce, and it has twice the durability. Mass production is scheduled to start sometime in

twenty twenty seven, so to cover that gap between now and twenty twenty seven, Honda is going to introduce stationary power generators that use the jointly developed fuel cell. Those

fuel cells will be combined into units that put out two hundred and fifty kilowats, and up to four of those units can be connected for a maximum output of a thousand kilowats. Honda expects these to be used by

factories and office buildings, and production starts next year. Speaking

of fuel cells, while hydrogen powered vehicles can refuel in about the same amount of time as a gas powered vehicle, I've heard those times can vary widely between stations. That's

why this caught our eye. Toyota is testing fuel cell

heavy duty trucks with two filling nozzles. It wants to

see if it can double the fueling speed to help reduce downtime, but like the super duper fast EVY chargers in China, Toyota says there's only a few stations in Japan that currently own of twin hydrogen fueling nozzles. We're

getting more details about why talks over a Honda Nissan merger ended earlier this month. As we've reported, the main

reason is because Nissan rejected Honda's demand that it become a subsidiary of Honda, but now a new report from Japan says it also had to do with Honda demanding that Nissan ditch its ePower hybrid technology and adopt its system instead. Nissan rejected that too, mainly because it's invested

two billion dollars to develop its ePower tech. But as

we reported yesterday, the merger between the two automakers isn't completely dead, with Honda saying it would be open to reviving talks if Nissan gets rid of its CEO, Makoto Yuchetah.

China is tightening its grip on its rare earth mineral industry.

The country is proposing new regulations that include quotas for mining, smelting, and separating, as well as monitoring and enforcement of rare earths.

China already dominates in rare earth production, and the new rules are an effort to tighten its control of the global market. Rare earth materials are essential to make magnets

for electric motors that are used in evs. We've been

following what's going on at GAMMIC, which is the Global Automotive and Mobility Innovation Challenge. It's like that Shark Tank

TV program, but GAMMIC is where automotive startups pitch their products to judges who have extensive experience in the auto industry. Yesterday,

GAMMIC announced the semi finalists, who come from Spain, Israel, Canada, the UK, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and five from the United States. Their inventions include everything from EV charging

to robotics, to manufacturing more efficient engine combustion, and a whole lot more. If you'd like to take a peek

at what these companies have come up with, we have a Lincoln Today's description box and transcript. The Lincoln Co

nine hundred SUV will be the very first vehicle to feature in Nvidia's new centralized computer called drive Thour. It's

capable of a thousand tops or trillion operations per second, where in other words, it's four times faster than its current system. Drive Thor is meant to control aid ass

and hands free driving features, as well as all the infotainment and displays. Linking Co is part of the Jly

Group and other group brands including Volvo, will also get drive Thor in the future. But that brings us to

the end of today's show. Thanks for making autoline a

part of your day.

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AD #3995 - Nikola Files for Chapter 11; Rivian To Post Gross Profit; Volkswagen EV Sales Tank in China

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