Stellantis has halted its hydrogen fuel cell vehicle development, citing economic and infrastructure challenges, while Honda scales back its fuel cell plans. Ford plans to revitalize its European passenger car lineup amid declining sales. Volvo and Nissan are shifting SUV production to the U.S. to avoid tariffs and boost factory utilization. Mercedes unveiled its first all-electric wagon, expanding its electric vehicle offerings. Renault appointed an interim CEO after a leadership shakeup and lowered financial targets. Additionally, Honda supports U.S. Olympic bobsled teams with aerodynamic testing, and Chinese automakers face profitability challenges amid intense price competition.
Topics:hydrogen fuel cellsford european marketvolvo us productionmercedes electric wagonrenault leadershipchinese automaker profitsautomotive tariffsrobotaxishonda olympic partnership
- Stellantis Ends Fuel Cell Development - Ford Plans More Passenger Cars for Europe - Volvo To Shift SUV Production to U.S. - Uber and Baidu Form Robotaxi Partnership - Renault Names CFO Interim CEO - Renault Lowers 2025 Financial Guidance - Mercedes Reveals 1st All-Electric Wagon - Honda Helps U.S. Bobsled Team Improve Aerodynamics - Only 8 Chinese Automakers Post Q1 Net Profit - 10% Of Sprinter’s Converted into Campers
"...e reported that Nissan is looking into moving the Armada and Infinity QX eighty from Japan to its plant in..."
Select text to request an explanation
Speaker 1: This is Autoligne Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry. Stillantis is giving up on hydrogen
fuel cell technology. It announced that it's discontinued the development
of the program because it says there's quote no prospects of mid term economic sustainability. The company blames the lack
of a refueling network, high investment costs, and the need for purchase incentives as the reasons why it doesn't think fuel cell commercial vehicles will be bought in the kinds of volume needed to sustain the business. Stillantis's commercial division,
called Stilantis pro One, had planned to launch a new range of hydrogen powered vans this year, but it will now focus on hybrid and electric vehicles instead. Those vehicles
were also part of a hydrogen joint venture called Symbio, which was formed between for Via Michelin and Stilantis and has ties to the supplier Scheffler, but Stillanti's plans to be gone from that partnership by next year as well.
It says it's in discussions with shareholders to evaluate the consequences of it leaving and to preserve the best interests of Symbio. But the future of the joint venture is
unclear without Stilantis on board. Honda also recently announced that
it would be delaying and scaling back its next gen fuel cell program. However, as of right now, it's still
moving forward with its production plans. Ten years ago, Ford
sold one point three million passenger cars in Europe, but last year it sold under four hundred and thirty thousand.
Speaker 2: That's a huge drop caused by.
Speaker 1: Chopping models from its passenger car lineup to focus on like commercial vehicles because they were seen as more profitable.
But it's extremely difficult for an automaker as big as Ford to maintain a business with that kind of volume without making any changes. As crazy as it sounds, we
wondered if Ford might drop out of the European passenger car market altogether, but help is on the way. Automotive
News reports that dealers in Europe were told that CEO Jim Farley is planning to develop a new lineup of models.
Speaker 2: For the region, and they won't just be evs.
Speaker 1: I'm sure dealers wish that they already had these cars on their lots, but no word on when we'll see them.
Yet More automakers are shifting production to the US to avoid tariffs. Yesterday we reported that Nissan is looking into
moving the Armada and Infinity QX eighty from Japan to its plant in Canton, Mississippi, and now Automotive News reports that Volvo is planning to build the XC sixty and XC ninety at its plant in South Carolina. The two
crossovers are currently imported from Sweden, and they accounted for nearly half of all those sales in the US in the first half of the year. In addition to avoiding tariffs,
shifting production to the US will also help improve volumes at the South Carolina plant, which is severely underutilized. Last year,
the factory only produced twenty thousand vehicles, just thirteen percent of its capacity. Last week, we made a chart with
the top twenty two car companies in the world based on market cap, and it seems like investors really like the potential of robotaxis, with Uber only ranking behind Tesla and Toyota, and China's Bydu surging past Delantis and nine other automakers, and now those two giants are teaming up.
By the end of this year, users will be able to order a by due Robotaxi from Uber's app in cities across Asia in the Middle East. The service will
then expand to other international markets to help give Uber and by Do a more global presence. In the US,
Uber also has Robotaxi deals with Weimo and Volkswagen.
Speaker 3: Developing today's vehicles, issues can happen in an instant. When's
the best time to solve a problem the minute you know you have one. Meet Wireless neofi Cloud. You're secure
off the shelf solution, empowering real time collaboration for quick resolution.
With Wireless neov Cloud, your team can prevent issues before they can escalate. Driver communication, data and remote diagnostics to
analyze and resolve your problems using OTA, allowing your executives oversight throughout the process. Wireless neov Cloud your vehicle update
solution in production and on the road, intrepid control systems driven by your data.
Speaker 1: Renault has a new CEO, well for now. The automaker
announced that it appointed Chief financial Officer Duncan Minto as interim CEO. He'll run the day to day operations along
with Renault's chairman until a new CEO is hired. Renault
is looking for a new leader after former CEO Luca DeMeo unexpectedly resigned last month to run the luxury group Caring.
Renault also shared its first half financial guidance for the year, which disappointed investors. The company said June sales were weaker
than expected, and it also lowered the targets for its operating profit margin and free cash flow for the year.
Speaker 2: As a result, Renault shares.
Speaker 1: Tumbled as much as eighteen percent and are on track for its worst day since March of twenty twenty. Earlier
this year, Mercedes revealed the new all electric CLA Sedan, and now it's showing off the station wagon version, the first electric wagon in Mercedes lineup. Like the CLA Sedan,
the wagon, or the Shooting Brake, features a two hundred kilowat or nearly two hundred and seventy horse power electric motor for the rear drive model, while all wheel drive versions come with two hundred and sixty kilowatts or four hundred and fifty horse power. The wagon also features an
eighty five kilowatt hour battery pack like the Sedan, but it gets less range because of the extra weight. Rear
drive wagon models have seven hundred and sixty one kilometers or four hundred and seventy two miles of range, while all wheel drive versions are at seven hundred and thirty kilometers or four hundred and fifty three miles based on the WLTP test cycle. The electric CLA wagon goes on
sale next year in Europe, which will be.
Speaker 2: Followed by a hybrid version as well.
Speaker 1: Honda is pitching in to help the US Olympic bobsled and skeleton teams. It's letting them use its wind tunnel
in Ohio to help improve aero dynamics. Bob sleds are
capable of hitting speeds of ninety miles an hour and on skeletons, how athletes position themselves, including where they place their head, hands, arms, and legs, can have a significant impact on arrow Honda's wind tunnel has a moving ground plane that simulates the ground rushing underneath the sleds, which gives them more accurate measurements. Honda has a five year
commitment to the program and will use the Accurate brand as the sponsor. We'll see the results of this effort
at next year's Winter Olympics in Torono, Italy, as well as through multiple seasons of the World Cup and World championship competitions all the way to the Winter Olympics in France.
Speaker 2: In twenty thirty.
Speaker 1: We found an interesting comparison that Car News China did looking at the profitability of Chinese automakers in the first quarter.
There are at least eight automakers who are profitable, though in most cases their bottom lines are mighty slim.
Speaker 2: Byd leads the list.
Speaker 1: With a healthy one point two billion dollars in net profit, and Jeli came in second place with seven hundred and ninety million.
Speaker 2: But then it really starts to drop off.
Speaker 1: Seic made four hundred and twenty one million dollars, great Wall made two hundred and forty four million, Changan made one hundred and eighty eight million dollars, Baic made one hundred and twenty nine million, Series came in at one hundred and four million dollars, and Liatto made ninety million bucks.
Except for BYD's profit, none of these other companies are making much money, and that means the rest are all losing money. I think there's two things to read into this.
The price war in China is really taking a toll on the bottom line, and this also shows why Chinese automakers are exporting so heavily because they can get higher prices overseas. And here's a real quick stat that I
found interesting, so I thought you might too. Mercedes claims
that worldwide last year, one in every ten sprinter vans sold was converted into a motor home or camper. That
seemed like an awful lot at first, but the sprinter is an awfully popular platform for conversions, So now that's what I'm going to be looking for every time I see a sprinter Van on the road. That's a wrap
for today's show. Thanks for making autoline a part.
Speaker 2: Of your day.
Speaker 1: Autoline Daily is brought to you by intrepid control systems over the air engineering boost your game, and by
Request an explanation for:
1 cars
1 cars featured
Request an Explanation
Heard something you'd like explained? We'll add it to this episode.
Sign in to request explanations for terms you heard.
Want to learn more?
Browse our glossary for plain-English explanations of automotive terms, jargon, and concepts.
See something that's not quite right? Our annotations are AI-generated and can sometimes miss the mark.
Click the flag icon on any annotation to suggest a correction.
