U.S. car sales are declining due to Trump-era tariffs, with June sales dropping 2.8% year-over-year and forecasts worsening for the second half of 2024. Elon Musk's announcement of a new political party has unsettled Tesla investors, contributing to a market cap dip despite ongoing challenges in Tesla's sales and deliveries. Meanwhile, Honda delays its fuel cell production plans, Nissan explores EV manufacturing partnerships with Foxconn, and ZF introduces a new transmission for plug-in hybrids and EVs. The episode also highlights current EV incentives and a listener poll showing strong support for maintaining federal EV subsidies.
Topics:us car sales declinetrump tariffs impactelon musk politicstesla sales performanceev incentiveshonda fuel cell delaysnissan foxconn partnershipzf ev transmissionev market trendslistener poll on ev subsidies
- U.S. Car Sales Dropping Due to Trump Tariffs - Musk’s Politics Are Hurting Tesla - Cybertruck Q2 Sales Only 5,000 - Toyota RAV4 #1 In the World - A Golden Moment to Buy an EV - Now, Even Honda Backs Off Fuel Cells - Foxconn Could Build EVs In Nissan Oppama Plant - ZF Develops EV Transmission - Autoline Poll on EV Subsidies
"...s, which includes the Model Sax, cyber truck, and Semi are doing worse. Altogether. They only had about ..."
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Speaker 1: This is out Oflined Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry. Then welcome back. We had
a great midyear break, but we're excited to get back to catching up with all the latest developments in the industry.
New car sales in the US market are definitely signaling tougher times ahead, and it's all about those tariffs, s and p global projects. That June sales were just under
one point three million vehicles. That's down two point eight
percent from a year ago and more than thirteen percent off from the month before the SAR dropped to fifteen point six million units. And remember, at the beginning of
the year, before Trump enacted those terraffs, analysts thought the SAR would be around sixteen point three million this year, So that would be a drop of seven hundred thousand vehicles, and that's just based on sales in June. Automakers are
warning that the second half of the year is going to be worse as they run out of pre tariff inventory and import volume shrinks. Elon Musk says he's going
to start a new political party in the United States called the America Party. We usually try to stay away
from political issues unless they directly affect the auto industry, and this latest move by Musk is definitely going to have an impact on Tesla, and not in a good way.
Investors didn't like the news. The stock was down six
percent in pre market trading, and the company's market cap fell below a trillion dollars, but even so, that's still a sky high market cap. In fact, Tesla is trading
at one hundred and seventy three times its earnings, which is a crazy valuation. But with sales and profits falling,
Musk desperately needs to pull a rabbit out of his hat, and putting all the time and energy it's going to take into starting a new political party means less time devoted into turning Tesla around. The refresh model Y is
helping Tesla clawbacks some sales, but they were still down in the second quarter. The automaker delivered just over three
hundred and eighty four thousand vehicles in Q two, which is up from the roughly three hundred and thirty seven thousand it sold in Q one, but it still represents a thirteen percent drop from Q two of last year. Meanwhile,
Tesla's other vehicles, which includes the Model Sax, cyber truck, and Semi are doing worse. Altogether. They only had about
ten thousand, four hundred deliveries, which was down about twenty percent compared to the first quarter. While the company doesn't
break that out by model, electric estimates, the cyber truck accounts for about half of those sales, or roughly five thousand units, which would put it behind electric trucks from GM and Ford and another Tesla news the Toyota rav Fi dethrone the Model Why as the world's best selling vehicle last year. According to Jato Dynamics, Toyota sold about
one point one eight seven million rav Fours in twenty twenty four, while Tesla sold roughly one point one eight five million Model Whys. That's not much of a difference,
only zero point one six percent, but we think it's another example of why Elon Musk should be putting more time and energy into Tesla. If you're considering buying an EV,
now might be the time to do it. For the
next couple of months. You can benefit from both President
Biden's and President Trump's incentives. Biden's seventy five hundred dollars
credit for buying a new EV ends on September thirtieth, and Trump's new Big Beautiful Bill allows buyers to write off ten thousand dollars on the interest of loans for new vehicles as long as the vehicle is less than fourteen thousand pounds and is assembled in the US. The
write off is retroactive to the beginning of the year and runs through twenty twenty eight. Since a new EV
costs around fifty seven seven hundred dollars on average, that drops it to just over fifty grand. With the EV
tax credit, and with the new tax law, you can save forty eight hundred bucks on a forty five thousand dollars loan over three years, So together that's twelve thou three hundred dollars in savings that are available until the end of September.
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Speaker 1: Honda's efforts to make its own fuel cell module aren't going to plan. While it currently makes fuel cells with
GM in Michigan, Honda announced that its next gen module would be developed independently and made at one of its old powertrain plants in Japan. It aimed to start productions
sometime between the first quarter of twenty twenty seven the quarter of twenty twenty eight and have an annual production capacity of thirty thousand units, but now it says it will reduce its initial production capacity and delay the timing to full production. However, it didn't reveal what it expects
volume to be or a new timeline to hit full production.
Honda also backed out of a government program in Japan that aims to establish clean energy supply chains because it wouldn't have been able to meet the requirements to get the subsidies. Nissan is in deep trouble, and it's talking
to foxcon about making evs at one of its plants in Japan. The nikke A newspaper reports that the deal
could also include a joint venture. Nissan's new CEO ivan Espinosa,
wants to close seven plants globally, and the Opama factory in Japan could be one of them. It's the company's
oldest plant and employs thirty nine hundred workers, so a deal with fox Con would likely see the possible partnership as part of foxcn's goal of becoming a global EV contract manufacturer. It already made a deal and made a
supply Mitsubishi with EV's next year, but those vehicles will be produced in Taiwan. Zaff, a supplier probably best known
for its transmissions, is making what is essentially its first transmission for plug in hybrids and evs. The reduction drive unit,
which uses internal gearing to reduce the speed of the electric motor, will be used by what's said to be a leading Chinese automobile manufacturer in a mid size SUV that's coming out in the second half of this year.
And we've got the latest results of the poll we posted before we went on our midyear break. This was
before Congress officially voted to kill off all incentives for evs.
Before they did that, a number of car dealers, including Carvana and CarMax, told the US Congress they wanted to keep ev incentives in place. So we asked you how
you would like to see Congress vote on this. Over
fifteen hundred people voted, and fifty five percent of you, well over half voted to keep all those incentives in place.
Seven percent said just keep the seventy five hundred dollars sales rebate, seventeen percent said just keep the incentives for manufacturing batteries in the US, and twenty one percent of you said to kill all the incentives. And here's some
of the top comments. User two to two RF one
RJ five V probably captured what most participants were thinking.
They said, quote, all incentives should be kept in place.
If we're gonna do away with them, we must end all fossil fuel subsidies. First, the ev incentives are helping
keep the air we all breathe clean. Cake Battered pointed
out something that definitely worries the car companies. If you
want American automakers to have even the slightest chance of competing with Chinese automakers, you'd be in favor of federal incentives, but Robert A. Young probably captured the feeling of most
people who said the incentives should be dropped completely. Quote,
if you want the vehicle, you should pay for it instead of asking other taxpayers to contribute. Thanks to all
of you for participating in the poll, and it's interesting to see that the Autoline audience, and we know that so many of you work directly in the automotive industry, are in favor of supporting electric vehicles. And a quick
programming note here, we have Sandy Monroe coming on Audoline after hours this Thursday. We're gonna ask him where he
sees the future of evs in the US going, and of course we're gonna have to get his input on the latest developments with Tesla, and that should be a fun show. But that brings us to the end of
today's report, and thanks for your support of Autoline Daily.
Auto Line Daily is brought to you by Intrepid Control Systems over the Air Engineering Boost your Game, and by
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