AD #4009 - Nissan Promotes Product Guy to CEO; XPeng Investing Billions Into Humanoid Robots; McLaren Merger Expected Soon

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

Speaker 2: Nissan has a new CEO.

Speaker 1: The company announced that its current Chief Planning officer, forty six year old Ivan Espinosa, will take over from Akoto Uchetah on April first. Ucheedah will remain on the board

at least until the company shareholder meeting in June. According

to reports, only internal candidates were seriously considered for the CEO position, and Espinosa has been with Nissan since two thousand and three, the same year Yuchetah joined the company.

Espinosa is also a Mexican national who's spent time in that market, as well as Southeast Asia. In twenty ten,

he moved into Global Product planning and then started leading that entire division last year. But he's taking over as

CEO at a time when the company is losing money, sales are falling, its stock prices down, and it recently broke off merger talk with Honda. Apparently, the board was

split on whether to let Espinoza take over right away or keep.

Speaker 2: U Cheetah on until things smoothed over.

Speaker 1: Even Nissan's chairperson said it will quote be a very challenging start for Ivan. But this wasn't the only executive

shakeup at Nissan. It's also getting new heads of its

technology and manufacturing divisions, as well as customer experience. Chinese

automaker Jipung could invest a boatload of money into humanoid robots.

The company CEO said it could shell out another thirteen point eight billion dollars into the tech. Japong has been

working on robots for the last five years, and in November unveiled its first humanoid called Iron you know, like Iron Man. Most major automakers are involved in some sort

of project with humanoid robots, and Elon must thinks they'll be the reason Tesla's were twenty five trillion dollars soda.

But Tesla's stock continued its slide yesterday, seeing its biggest drop in four years. It fell fifteen percent after UBS

Group cut the company's sales forecast for the first quarter and the full year. UBS expects Tesla to sell three

hundred and sixty seven thousand vehicles in the first quarter, sixteen percent below its original estimate. UBS also no longer

expects Teslass sales to increase for the full year and is forecasting a five percent drop. Tesla's market cap peaked

at one point five trillion dollars in December, but it is sense declined by seven hundred billion dollars. In an

effort to turn around McLaren, Abu Dhabi's CYVN Holdings, which took control of the automaker in December, is planning to merge McLaren with its UK based EV startup for.

Speaker 2: To seven Holdings.

Speaker 1: Bloomberg reports that an official announcement is expected in the coming weeks.

Speaker 2: Former Jaguar land Rover executive.

Speaker 1: Nick Collins is expected to lead the group, while current McLaren CEO Michael Laters will remain head of the car company.

Part of the turnaround plan includes adding SUVs to its lineup, which McLaren has resisted for years, but little is known about the company it's merging with. Four to seven hasn't

revealed any plans for models or when it will start selling them, but last year it signed a technology deal with Chinese automaker Neo, and CYVN is also an investor in Neo.

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Speaker 1: As we reported yesterday, Ford is pouring four point five eight billion dollars into its German operations to help turn it around, but union leaders are still concerned Ford's European operations could go bankrupt. The funding agreement replaces a policy

that had been in place since two thousand and six, which said Ford would cover any losses at its German subsidiary.

But by doing this, Ford's European operations no longer have in solvency protection, which the union says puts it at higher risk for bankruptcy. Ford's European business is estimated to

have nine billion euros in debt, and if it can't boost sales, that's likely to increase. Ford's market share in

Europe was three point three percent last year, down from four percent in twenty twenty three. To help cut costs,

Ford eliminated four thousand jobs last year, in addition to three thousand, eight hundred cuts in twenty twenty three. A

study from Yale University found that on a global basis, ar shed six million pounds of rubber every year. So Bridgestone,

a sponsor of Audo Line, developed a new process to study the environmental impact of its tires. It calls the

rubber particles that get worn off of tires when they're driven on the road tire and roadwear particles, or TRWP.

To find out how they're created, Bridgestone covered the wheelwlls of what looks like a Nissan leaf to prevent the particles from scattering everywhere, and then collected them with a suction hose.

Speaker 2: By using an.

Speaker 1: Electric vehicle with autonomous driving and regenerative braking, Bridgestone says it can collect the TRWP without the influence of exhaust emissions or brake dust. It can then study the physical

and chemical characteristics of the particles to learn about their environmental impact. BMW claims it's the first automaker to launch

a new zonal architecture for any type of vehicle or any type of powertrain. A few weeks ago, we reported

on a new control unit the automaker developed to manage the high voltage battery system on its all new EVS that start launching later this year. It calls the unit

Energy Master, but it's not just for EVS, and it's actually one of four new computers, or what BMW calls superbrains which have more than twenty times the computing power compared to its current system. As we said, it's using

a setup called a zonal architecture, which divides the wiring into different zones, in this case a front, middle, roof, and rear zone. These superbrains are centrally located and control

all the main functions of the vehicle, including infotainment, automated driving, driving dynamics, and HVAC controls by managing smaller control units in each zone. And here's the big advantage. BMW says

it took out six hundred meters or nearly two thousand feet of wiring from its system, which cut the weight of its harness by thirty percent. Last week, Volkswagen revealed

the ID everyone concept, a low cost electric car. Report

said the production version might be built in Germany, but the head of the VW brand, Thomas Schaefer, says it will make the ID one in Portugal, where it currently builds the t Rock crossover VW Pick Portugal because it has low labor and energy costs. VW also said that

it's considering using Chinese suppliers to help lower costs as well.

Production of the ID one starts in twenty twenty seven and the model will have a starting price around twenty thousand Euro. That brings us to the end of today's show.

Speaker 2: Thanks for tuning in.

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AD #4009 - Nissan Promotes Product Guy to CEO; XPeng Investing Billions Into Humanoid Robots; McLaren Merger Expected Soon

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