AD #4071 - Trump v. Musk: Tesla Stock’s Biggest 1-Day Loss; Toyota’s Newest EV Chock Full of BYD Tech; China Ship Fire Started on EV Deck

Speaker 1: This is Outderline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry and Woe Doggie. The fight between

President Trump and Elon Musk got out of control yesterday.

Trump threatened to cut all government contracts with Musk companies, including SpaceX, Musk called for Trump to be impeached and more.

Tesla shareholders didn't like any of this and ran for the exits, causing the biggest one day loss the stock has ever seen, wiping out one hundred and fifty billion dollars of market cap. Meanwhile, Tesla shorts pocketed four billion

dollars in profits as of this morning. It looks like

others in the administration are trying to get Trump and Musk to make up, but it's hard to see how those two get along again with some of the things that have been said, and Tesla has other problems on its hands too. It's cyber truck has turned out to

be a sales dud. Electric reports that Tesla is now

offering zero percent financing until the end of the month, which it estimates as costing the company ten thousand dollars per truck. Somewhat related to that, Ford sent out a

notice to the media, pointing out that the F one to fifty Lightning is out selling the cyber truck and every other electric pickup. For that matter, Ford is even

out selling all the GM trucks combined. However, at the

rate that electric pickups are selling right now, none of these trucks will top thirty thousand units this year. New

car prices are rising in response to Trump's terrace, but instead of increasing the MSRP, automakers are finding other ways to jack up prices. They've resorted to reducing incentives and rebates,

as well as increasing delivery charges, which are up anywhere between forty to four hundred dollars according to Edmunds, and zero percent financing deals in April fell to their lowest level since twenty nineteen, according to Cox Automotive. As a result,

new car prices increased two and a half percent in April to an average of forty eight seven hundred dollars, which is almost a record. One of the reasons automakers

are finding other ways to increase prices is to avoid backlash from President Trump, who recently attacked Walmart after it said it would have to raise prices because of the tariffs and while automakers are avoiding blaming terraffs for the hikes, analysts say they'll have to increase MSRPs once they run out of pre tariff inventory, which will likely start to happen at the end of this month.

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

Speaker 1: BYD's recent price cuts helped it increase its May sales by over fifteen percent to about three hundred and eighty two thousand vehicles, the most units it's sold in a single month so far this year. But those cuts have

triggered concerns of an intensifying price war and criticism from competitors as well as government officials in industry advocates, and it's also led to investors that are worried about BYD's ability to hit its sales targets and to turn a decent profit on those vehicles. Bloomberg reports that in the

last two weeks alone, its stock has lost more than twenty billion dollars in market value. However, as we pointed out,

BYD may not want to ease off on its price cuts because it's currently running about a million units behind its goal of selling five and a half million vehicles this year, Toyota is expanding its evy partnership with BYD in China to launch a new model called the BZ five that's based on its own ETNNGA platform, but it uses powertrain and battery tech from BYD. There's two range

options of five hundred and fifty kilometers or about three hundred and forty miles and six hundred and thirty kilometers or roughly three hundred and ninety miles, but those are based on the easier Chinese test cycle. Power comes from

a single two hundred kilowatt or nearly two hundred and seventy horse power electric motor that drives the front wheels.

Toyota took the same motor and battery approach with its BZ three EV that it launched in China a few years ago, and it also uses BYD plug and hybrid tech in China, The Japanese automaker is starting to turn to Chinese companies for its autonomous driving tech in the country too. It partnered with Momenta for the BZ five's

driver assistance system, which consists of thirty three sensors that support up to level two capabilities, and it looks like the strategy might be starting to pay off. Toyota and

Lexus sold nearly one hundred and forty three thousand vehicles in China in April, an increase of twenty one percent compared to last year. It was also the third month

in a row that its sales increased in China, bringing its total for the first four months of the year to just over five hundred and thirty thousand units. Toyota

said it benefited from vehicle scrappage programs and trade in subsidies, but it's the only major Japanese auto maker that has posted an increase in China this year. Nissan was down

eleven percent in April, while Honda fell forty one percent.

China's auto industry, especially BYD, has seen an export boom.

But who's buying all those cars? Gascou put together BYD's

top ten export markets, and most people might be surprised to see that Mexico tops the list. It's followed closely

by Belgium, with Zil trailing a bit behind. Turkey, Thailand

and the UK are kind of clumped together, and the same goes for Indonesia, Spain, and Australia. The Philippines rounds

out the top ten. These numbers include beevs, PHS and

e revs for the first quarter of the year, and since BYD is the biggest car company in China, it's probably a good indication of where most of the Chinese exports are ending up. And while the UK is in

the middle of the pack for BYD's exports, it's making significant progress in the country. According to the Society of

Motor Manufacturers and Traders, BYD's sales skyrocketed four hundred and nine percent last month, and Chinese brands overall had a great month, with their market share hitting nine point four percent, up from seven point seven percent in April. But not

all Chinese brands fared well. MG, which is owned by

Seic and the largest Chinese brand with four point four percent market share, saw its sales dip eight point three percent.

The UK is an attractive market for Chinese automakers because it hasn't imposed terrace on Chinese made evs like the European Union has. Also, there aren't any local mass market

EV makers in the UK that the Chinese brands have to compete with, which has aided their growth even more.

In late April, we told you about a story of how Mercedes Benz Trucks wanted to set a Guinness World Record for driving a semi tractor and trailer in reverse. Well,

it officially achieved that goal, driving its newest all electric truck backwards for almost one hundred and twenty five kilometers or roughly seventy seven miles. That passed its initial goal

of one hundred kilometers and easily soared past the previous record, which was eighty nine kilometers or fifty five miles, set by a duck in the US in twenty twenty. The

new record was set on a racetrack, so it wasn't all straight line driving. And just a quick follow up

on that cargo ship catching fire earlier this week and having to be abandoned in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Some of you took issue with us, speculating that the evs on board were likely the cause of the fire.

While we still don't have a definitive answer, CARNWS China reports that crew members witness smoke coming from the deck storing those evs of the more than three thousand vehicles on board, around eight hundred were electrics. But that brings

us to the end of today's show. Thanks for making

autoline a part of your day and I hope that you have a great weekend.

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AD #4071 - Trump v. Musk: Tesla Stock’s Biggest 1-Day Loss; Toyota’s Newest EV Chock Full of BYD Tech; China Ship Fire Started on EV Deck

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