AD #4068 - Americans Losing Interest in EVs; Has China Price War Gone Too Far?; 20,000 VW Workers Accept Buyout

Speaker 1: This is out Aligned Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry. Electric vehicles are less popular

with US car buyers. According to a new survey from

Triple A, sixteen percent of respondents said they are likely or very likely to buy an EV as their next vehicle, but that's the lowest level since twenty nineteen. Meanwhile, the

number of those surveyed who said they're unlikely or very unlikely to buy an EV increased to sixty three percent from fifty one percent. The number one reason buyers said

they're not interested in an EV is the high replacement cost for batteries. People also cited the high price of EV's,

lack of charging stations, and range anxiety as reasons they're not interested in an EV. Despite the rip roaring success

of electric cars in China, only a couple of Chinese EV makers are profitable, but another may be about to join the list. Shao Me CEO predicts the company's EV

business will turn profitable in the second half of this year.

In the first quarter, shao Me lost less than seventy million dollars, which is equivalent to a rounding error in automotive terms. One reason why Shaomi may turn a profit

soon is that the CEO says it's not going to engage in the price war which is killing the profitability of automakers and their dealers. If he can hold to that,

it will be a remarkable achievement, and maybe he can.

The company can't keep up with demand for its TEU seven sedan and its U seven suv, which is targeted directly at testless model why is about to hit the market.

And speaking of that price war, there's growing concern in China that it's gone too far. Last week, BYD fired

off another round of price cuts, this time averaging seventy five hundred dollars, and the reaction was immediate. The China

Association of Automobileobile Manufacturers and the Ministry of Industry and Information came out with public warnings against big price cuts.

The People's Daily, which is the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, warned that the price work could cripple the auto industry, just like it damaged the Chinese motorcycle industry. Great Wall Motors and

Cherry attack BYD's latest price cuts and BYD's stock price took a pounding, but don't expect BYD to back off anytime soon. So far this year, its sales are running

about a million units behind its goal of selling five and a half million cars, and car dealers in China are upset with automakers dumping too much inventory on them, which is hurting their profitability even more. Earlier today, the

China Auto Dealer's Chamber of Commerce issued a statement urging automakers to stop forcing dealers to stockpile cops. They want

automakers to set reasonable production and sales targets and to stop offloading inventory on them. Some dealers have had to

close their stores because they struggle to make a profit, and car dealers are warning more will close if automakers don't change.

Speaker 2: There's nothing wrong with heavy metal, hiy light enough, but with world class composit material taging automotive technologies makes vehicles lighter, safer, and more eco friendly.

Speaker 1: Hey, if you'd like to feel more a part of the autoln family, then become a member by clicking the join button on the Autoling network YouTube homepage or sign up on the Autolin Patreon account. Imagine yourself as part

of the crew with behind the scenes action and get to know us better with Live Q and A's plus much more so, become a member now and help us build our own little automotive community. In late April, we

ran a story about how an investment group that included personal financing from Akyo Toyota, offered to buy out Toyota Industries, one of the suppliers to Toyota, But it turns out that was only part of the story. The Toyota Group

announced that IT Investors and Akyo Toyota are proposing to take Toyota Industries private by buying out its shares for just under thirty three billion dollars. In order to do that,

they would create a new holding company that Toyota and its real estate company would invest just over six point one billion dollars into if approved, The bid would be finalized around the end of the year, and they say it allows Toyota Industries to focus on long term growth and investment. But this would also be a bit of

a landmark deal because it starts to walk back Japan's Chyretzu system, which is a set of companies with inner life businesses and shareholdings. While this once allied those companies together,

some say the Chirotzu system introduces conflicts of interest, locks up capital and can ignore minority investors. So as part

of the move to take Toyota Industries private, Toyota Motor, Asen Denso and Toyota Soushow will all sell their shares in Toyota Industries in order to dissolve any crossholdings between the companies, and after that only Toyota Motor will continue to invest in Toyota Industries. Volkswagen is on track with

its restructuring plans. The automaker says that twenty thousand workers

have agreed to buyouts to leave the company by the end of the decade. Last year, VW reached a deal

with labor unions to cut thirty five thousand jobs and slash production by seven hundred thousand units in Germany by the end of the decade. The company needs to cut

costs because of weaker demand in Europe and tough competition in China. Sales of the air are probably not where

Lucid wants them to be because it's offering some pretty significant discounts on the electric Sedan. Electric reports that people

who lease the car can get up to thirty one thousand, five hundred dollars off Grand touring models. That does require

nearly seven thousand dollars down at signing, but it's about half that for Pure and Touring models, which have discounts of twenty one thousand, five hundred dollars and twenty six thousand, five hundred dollars respectively. You need to be able to

take delivery of the vehicle before the end of June to get those discounts, but there will still probably be good deals on the air. Even after that. Last month,

Lucid was offering anywhere from fifteen thousand, five hundred dollars to twenty thousand, five hundred dollars off the model. You know,

it's always interesting to see the non automotive products that car companies get involved with, and here's yet another. Toyota

partnered with Finnish sauna and spa company Harvea to create what they claim is the world's first hydrogen powered sauna.

The prototype features Toyota's hydrogen technology, which means it doesn't emit any CO two emissions during use. The two companies

will showcase the concept at two events in Finland this summer, but no word if they're going to sell them to customers.

Yet this may seem like a strange collaboration for Toyota, but the automaker says the project aligns with its effort to promote hydrogen use across different industries. And you may

also remember a story from February where Toyota is sending out mobile miss Saunas as a way to help assist Japan's aging population. That's a wrap for this show. Thanks

for making autoline a part of your day.

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