Tesla faces declining sales in China despite the new Model Y, while Elon Musk publicly criticizes former President Trump's budget plan, possibly to distance Tesla from political backlash. US car sales show mixed results with some brands up and others down, and a sharp slowdown is expected due to inventory depletion. China’s rare earth export restrictions are disrupting European auto production, highlighting global supply vulnerabilities. Nissan teases its third-gen Leaf with improved aerodynamics, and ZF unveils a compact, efficient EV powertrain unit. Safety ratings critique Tesla and Volvo’s driver assistance systems, sparking debate on autonomous tech capabilities.
Topics:tesla sales declineelon musk political stanceus car sales trendschina rare earth export baneuropean auto production impactnissan third generation leafzf ev powertrain innovationdriver assistance system safetyev cargo ship fire incidentsglobal automotive market growth
- Tesla Sales Down in China, Again - Marketing Strategy? Musk Disses Trump’s Budget - U.S. Car Sales Up in May - Another Ship with EVs Catches Fire - Euro NCAP Critiques Tesla, Volvo - China Rare Earth Ban Shuts EU Factories - VW Sniffs Out Growth in Africa - Nissan Talks 3rd-Gen Leaf - ZF EV Unit: Smaller, Lighter, Stronger, Cheaper
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Speaker 1: This is Outline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry. I'm filling in for Sean today,
who's at a media event for Chrysler. Well, look at
this more bad news for Tesla. Sales in China fell
again in May, and they fallen every month this year.
Even though ev sales overall are roaring ahead in China, it looks like the new model Why, which has been on sale there since February, is not turning things around.
Last month, Tesla ship sixty one thousand, six hundred and sixty two Model threes and Whys from its plant in Shanghai, and that's down fifteen percent from last year. Meanwhile, Elon
Musk is back in the news for trashing President Trump's One Big, Beautiful budget proposal. Musk called it a disgusting
abomination that will add trillions to the national debt. There's
all kinds of speculation about why Musk is turning on to President. Some say it's because Trump eliminated EVI subsidies.
Others say it's because the administration ignored Musk's suggestion for the new head of NASA. But I'll make this point.
Musk drove tens of thousands of customers away from buying Tesla's because of his close association with Trump and his politics.
Musk must know that the faster and further he distances himself from Trump, the sooner he might get some of those people to start shopping for Tesla's. Sales of new
cars in the US last month were up almost seven percent, or at least they were for the autum makers who still report monthly sales. Ford was up more than sixteen percent,
Toyota was up almost eleven percent, Hyundai, Kiya, and Honda were up more than six percent, but Subaru was down more than ten percent, and Mazda fell more than eighteen percent.
The Words Auto reports that the TSAR, or the seasonally adjusted annual rate, came in at only fifteen point six million vehicles. That's down sharply from the seventeen million plus
that sales hit in March. In April, and that suggests
that autumakers and dealers are starting to run out of their pre tariff inventory. We think bill have exhausted that
inventory by the end of this month, and that July sales are going to show a sharp slowdown. Oh here's
what could be another black eye for eves, a Chinese cargo ship carrying cars had to be abandoned in the middle of the Pacific Ocean after it caught fire. The ship,
which was traveling from China to Mexico, had three thousand cars on board, eight hundred of which were eves. The
US Coast Guard, operating out of Alaska had to evacuate all twenty two crew members when they could not put the fire out. Thankfully, no injuries were reported and we
don't know if the evs were the cause of the fire, but it seems to be a problem with ships carrying evs on board. There are at least four instances of
ships carrying evs that caught fire. Euro Endcap, which rates
the safety of vehicles in Europe, just tested the aid ass or assisted driving systems in several models and it says Tesla and Volvo need to do better. The Kiya
EV three, porsiam A con Renou five and Toyota BZ four X all earned very good ratings for providing and I quote here exceptional balance between driver engagement and safety backup, but the Tesla Model SS and Volvo Ex thirty received moderate ratings, while Tesla's Autopilot scored very highly in engaging to avoid a collision. Euro Endcap downgraded it because it
says calling it autopilot misleads consumers about its capabilities. Euro
Endcap was also critical of Autopilot's steering input, which it says is resistant to a driver trying to override it, and when the driver does, it automatically disengages, limiting its usefulness.
Euro Endcap also downgraded Volvo's Pilot Assist because, like Tesla, it uses a center mounted touchscreen which forces the driver to take their eyes off the road to view any alerts, and it wasn't satisfied with Volvo because it doesn't shut off the system after repeated alerts for the driver to re engage.
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Speaker 1: In late April, China started restricting exports of rare earth magnets and other critical materials in retaliation to President Trump's tariffs, and now we're starting to see the impact. Last week,
auto groups in the US and India issued warnings that assembly lines could come to a screeching halt. Now Europe
is sounding the alarm. Kleppat, the group that represents suppliers
in Europe says several companies already had to stop production, and it warned that more will soon do the same thing.
Germany's auto lobbying group, the VDA, says the shortage will soon disrupt or halt production in the country. Rare earths
are used in a number of automotive components, and China controls ninety percent of global production of the minerals. Even
though the restrictions were in reaction to Trump's tariffs, China's cutting almost everyone off, reminding them once again of how dependent they are on the People's Republic. And if you'd
like more insight into what the US is doing to mine and process rare earths. Check out the video we
recently posted titled ramping up rare earth mining in the USA.
You know, you're probably never going to hear any senior automotive executive talk about this, but all the mature markets in the world have hit peak auto North America, South America, Europe, Japan, South Korea, and yeah, even China have seen their car markets stop growing. More cars were sold in those markets
a decade ago than are sold today, and there are only two regions left in the world that might be able to offer strong growth, India and Africa. And that's
why Volkswagen is targeting Africa. It's currently scouting locations for
an assembly complex in Egypt to export vehicles across the continent.
Volkswagen is considering using existing factories to build the vehicles, or maybe go with a greenfield site. VW currently has
a full manufacturing complex in South Africa, and it assembles vehicles in Kenya, Rwanda and Ghana, but it wants to operate at least five new assembly plants in Africa over the next ten to fifteen years. Nissan is launching the
third generation of the Leaf to try and recapture the advantage it had when the car came out in twenty ten.
A key goal of the program is to provide a truly credible alternative to combustion cars. Along with all new styling,
the car is credited with a coefficient a drag of only zero point two six though European versions get up point two five CD rating, presumably thanks to narrower tires and smaller mirrors. Other arrow details include flush door handles,
active grill shutters and flush wheel covers, and electrochromic glass roof also contributed to the aerodynamics with a flushed mounting, and it helped preserve headroom by eliminating the need for a retractable sunshade. Unfortunately, that's all the info that Nissan
has released so far. It's putting out a three part
video series to build interest in the car, or we're going to have to wait until those videos hit to get more info. Yesterday, zf unveiled an intriguing new powertrain
unit for evs that it's developing. They call it Select,
and it combines the emotor, the inverter, gear, reducer and differential into one package. Or automakers can select which part
of it they want to use and integrate their own components.
ZF says the complete unit using all of its components is only eighty nine kilograms that's one hundred and ninety six pounds. It displaces a total volume of only sixty
six leaders, can accommodate outputs up to three hundred kilowatts or four hundred and two horse power, and it costs fifteen percent less to manufacture. Thanks to using AI to
identify hotspots in the drive train, efficiency increased six percent and with the addition of a heat pump, ZETF claims a thirty percent better driving range even at minus twenty five degrees centigrade, which is thirteen below fahrenheit. It also
cleverly uses microprocessors for dual use. For example, when the
onboard charger is not being used, the chips in the charger do other work. But ZETF is still working to
combine the inverter onboard charger ACDC converter into one unit, including a boost charger that will take a four hundred volt system to eight hundred volts, and it wants to add more aggressive regen braking, which will bring the car to a complete stop without using the brakes as long as the driver is not breaking hard. Zetev says it
could put the entire unit into production within two years, though parts of it are already available for automakers to buy.
And that brings us to the end of today report.
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