AD #4107 - Gasoline Use Declining; Tesla Brand Loyalty Below Ford and Chevy; Foxconn Sells Lordstown Plant
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Speaker 1: This is underlying daily the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive INDUS stream OTAs or over the year updates are supposed to fix things right, while Volvo discovered that an OTA that it issued in April to fix backup camera failures in four hundred thousand vehicles caused a breake defect in eleven five hundred of its evs and pheaves.
It happens when drivers are using regenerative braking, and it can cause the car to lose its brakes. Volvo immediately
stopped installing the update once it discovered the problem and has fixed most of the affected models, but safety advocates say there needs to be more government standards for software updates to ensure that the fixes are validated. According to Nitze,
nearly seven million recalled vehicles in the US were fixed with OTAs last year, up from just under three million and twenty twenty three. But those software updates can also
cause all the issues. Looks like Tesla is getting off
to a bad week at the same time that Elon Musk just got a twenty seven billion dollar windfall. First
the bad news, Tesla's sales in China dropped more than eight percent. Last month, it sold less than sixty eight
thousand cars, including exports. In fact, sales have fallen for
nine of the past ten months in China. Last year,
the Model Why was the best selling car in China, But even with the refreshed version of the Y called Juniper, sales are down more than seventeen percent this year. Based
on the first half of the year, we calculate that sales of the Y in China will be down twenty eight percent for the full year unless Tesla figures out how to get things turned around, and that's going to be hard to do. Maybe not so much in China,
but certainly in the US and Europe. SNP Global Mobility
says it has never seen brand loyalty collapse as fast as it has at Tesla. As recently as June of
last year, Tesla's brand loyalty was the best in the business.
Seventy three percent of Tesla buyers said they would buy another Tesla, far above any other car brand. But after
Elon Musk endorsed Donald Trump for president and launched the Department of Government Efficiency to government spending, Tesla's brand loyalty dropped fast, Though it has recovered a bit since Trump and Musk had their famous breakup, Tesla's brand loyalty is still lower than Ford's or Chevrolets at a little over fifty seven percent. To make sure that Elon Musk sticks
around to get Tesla turned around, the eviemaker's board just awarded him stock options that could be worth twenty seven billion dollars. Musk is going to get ninety seven million
restricted shares in Tesla that he can buy for twenty three dollars and thirty four cents while the stock is currently trading at over three hundred dollars a share. This
is separate from a previous PayPal package dating back to twenty eighteen that was blocked because of a shareholder lawsuit that's still tied up in court. Tesla's board was worried
that Musk might leave the company, so it created this new package to keep them around. Musk would have to
stay with Tesla for at least the next two years to become fully vested with the new package.
Speaker 2: At CSP, we work with OEM engineers across the country on their journeys to lighter, safer, and more eco friendly vehicles.
Learn more at VCSP dot com.
Speaker 1: The specs for BMW's on new generation of evs will rank them right near the top of the best performing electric vehicles. The first of those models will be the
IX three, which launches early next year. It will be
capable of charging it up to four hundred kilowatts, which gives it the ability to add about two hundred and twenty five mile or three hundred and sixty kilometers of range in ten minutes. Overall range is estimated at eight
hundred kilometers or roughly five hundred miles on the WLTP test cycle. However, that will likely be closer to four
hundred miles when tested by the EPA. To achieve those
range figures, BMW seems to have focused a lot on efficiency and says that it reduced energy consumption by twenty percent compared to its previous model. Sustainability will also play
a role in its new EV architecture, called New Class.
Recycled materials are used in the fabrics, wheels, suspension components, and even in the batteries. BMW claims that when the
IX three is charged in Europe that its CO two footprint will break even with a comparable gas powered car.
After twenty one thousand five hundred kilometers or just over thirteen thousand miles of driving, and that it will happen about twenty percent quicker than that if the car is charged with renewable electricity like solar. Taiwanese contract manufacturer fox
Con announced that it sold its assembly plant in Ohio for eighty eight million dollars. Fox Con bought that former
General Motors plant from Lordstown Motors in twenty twenty two for two hundred and thirty million. Fox Con says it
will reinvest the proceeds from the sale into expanding its business in the US. It sold the plant to Crescent Dunes,
which fox Cohn describes as a quote existing business partner.
Even though fox Con sold the plant, it says it will continue building products at the factory, where it currently produces an electric tractor for Monarch Tractor. We think this
is a smart application for battery swapping. CTL, which partnered
with Neo earlier this year to build the world's biggest battery swapping network, is bringing the technology to the rental car market. It signed an agreement with the company called
Car to install swapping stations at some of its two thousand rental locations and parking lots, while car will eventually operate a fleet of one hundred thousand vehicles that feature Caatl's Choco Swap batteries, so rather than having to wait around for an evy to charge, customers can have a fresh battery in about five minutes. It sure looks like
US car shoppers are rushing out to buy vehicles before the full effects of the teriffs kick in, and that could be reflected in the sales figures for July. Of
the six automakers that still report on a monthly basis, Ford, Honda, Hondai, Kia, Mazda, Subaru, and Toyota, the rest report quarterly sales were up eleven percent to roughly seven hundred and eighty thousand units. That
pushed the SAR, or seasonally adjusted annual rate up by over a million vehicles. It went from fifteen point seven
million in June, which is about in line with last year, to sixteen point nine million in July. That means if
US sales continued at that same July pace, nearly seventeen million new vehicles would reach customer hands by the end of the year. However, if people are rushing out to
buy a new car now, then sales will likely slow down in the second half of the year. We love
it when autoline viewers provide suggestions for US. Bruce Palmer
wrote in to suggest that we look into gasoline usage in the United States over the last decade. So we did,
and the numbers are fascinating. Gasoline usage peaked in twenty eighteen,
when the country went through nine point three million barrels of gasoline a day, then it started dropping off. Last
year it was eight point nine million barrels a day, and so far this year it's eight point seven. Obviously,
electric cars had an impact, so have hybrids and peehebs, and even icy vehicles are more efficient. And this is
going to have a lasting effect on how the federal and state governments maintained their roads because almost all that money comes from taxes on the sale of gasoline, and with gasoline use going down, so will that tax money. Okay,
it's time to go over the results of our latest poll that was opened to our YouTube in Patreon members.
We asked if you agreed with the IIHS calling on the US to adopt similar road safety policies to Canada, like stronger seat belt and distracted driving laws and using more speed cameras because traffic fatalities are soaring in the US while they're going down in Canada. And a majority
of you fifty four percent agreed that the US should have similar enforcement to Canada. Thirty five percent disagreed and
wanted to see more data, and eleven percent of you said you have a different idea, and we got some great feedback. Alex Barnett wants to see stricter laws in
the US. He says, quote, I am Canadian and notice
when driving in the USA that speed limits are much higher on freeways in inner city roads, and US drivers routinely run red lights, often at high speed. USA roads
just seem more dangerous than European or Canadian roads, and the stats prove that. But Keith Mensing disagreed and said,
we don't need Big Brother catching speeders and folks running red lights. We have police that do traffic detail, write tickets,
make the punishment an actual deterrent, arrest, and prosecute car thieves that cause accidents. Automated systems have their own issues
and abuses, and Irvin Wright had this to say, I agree with stronger enforcement of the law where people are on their cell phone or not wearing their seatbelt. Speed cameras, however,
are a different matter. Speed limits are supposed to be
based on the average speeds drivers are actually doing and normal day to day driving. Where I live, virtually everyone
drives above the speed limit, and in my experience, the CHP stops only those who are driving dangerously. Cameras won't
discriminate and slower drivers will cause frustration and wasted time.
Thanks for all of your feedback. You really have some
great insights and it's interesting to see all the different views of the people that follow this program. That's a
wrap for today. Thanks for tuning in.
Speaker 3: Auto Line Daily is brought to you by Bridgestone Solutions for your Journey CSP, the Composites Solution partner Intrepid Control Systems over the year engineering boost your game and thanks to the following YouTube and Patreon members.
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