Electrification means switching from using gas or diesel to using electricity for power. In cars, this usually means making electric vehicles that run on batteries instead of fuel.
The S-Class is a high-end car from Mercedes-Benz that offers a lot of luxury and technology. The new version has many updates that make it even better.
Volvo is a car company from Sweden that is known for making safe and reliable cars, including SUVs and sedans.
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Speaker 1: This is Outoline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry. Well, here's a historic inflection point
for the automotive industry. The Hyundai Group now has a
higher market cap than General Motors. Hondai's share prices exploded
after it showed off its latest humanoid robots at CS two weeks ago. Get this, Hondai stock is up almost
eighty four percent since January first. It now has a
market capitalization of seventy six billion dollars compared to seventy two billion for General Motors. We think the shows the
hunger there is to invest in humanoid robots. Four years ago,
Hundai paid about eight hundred and eighty million bucks to buy Boston Dynamics, which is one of the leading robotics companies in the world. And that eight hundred and eighty
million dollars has now added forty five billion dollars in market value to Hyundai. And yet GM is no slouch either.
It's stock was up sixty one percent last year and its market cap is up fifty three percent over the last six months. So for Hunds to surpass that in
just the last three weeks shows the market mania there is to invest in humanoids. And here's another inflection point.
The Volkswagen brand on its own overtook Tesla last year at the top BV maker in Europe. According to Data Force,
VW sold more than two hundred and seventy four thousand fully electric vehicles in twenty twenty five, a gain of fifty six percent. Meanwhile, Tesla sales were down twenty seven
percent to just under two hundred and thirty nine thousand units, and that's a pretty big reversal. In twenty twenty four,
Tesla sold more than three hundred and twenty six thousand evs in Europe, compared to one hundred and seventy five thousand for VW. The Volkswagen group also did well in
BEV sales, with Scota and Audi coming in at number four and five overall last year, while BMW was Overall.
Automakers sold nearly two point six million b evs in Europe last year, up thirty percent from twenty twenty four.
Sales of Chinese evs and plug ins are really taking off in Mexico. In twenty twenty one, fewer than five
hundred were imported into the country, but last year that searched to nearly one hundred thousand, and the overwhelming majority of those imports eighty four percent are from BYD. To
help protect its auto industry, the Mexican government imposed terrafs as high as fifty percent on Chinese auto imports, which went into effect at the beginning of this year, But the terrafs aren't expected to have much impact because the Chinese brands are expected to absorb some of the increases. Also,
most legacy brands don't compete in the affordable EV segment in Mexico, which pretty much leaves it to the Chinese, and Chinese evs are expected to benefit from Mexico's TV policies and subsidies. But it's not just electrified vehicles. Chinese
automakers are also doing well selling gas powered vehicles in Mexico, and Chinese brands now account for twenty percent of the overall new car market in Mexico. You know all those
data centers that are getting built all over the place.
They've got people worried about all the electricity and water they're using. Well, they're also using so many memory chips,
the same ones used by automakers and suppliers that prices are up one hundred percent and it's leading to a shortage.
Analysts warned that OEM's better lock up supplies right now.
They named Vistian and Ammoviio as two suppliers most at risk, while Tesla and Rivian face higher risk than GM or Ford.
Speaker 2: The automotive and industrial sectors are undergoing historic transformation, electrificationation, supply chain reinvention, regulatory shifts. The pace is accelerating and
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Speaker 1: The new S class debuts at the end of this month, which Mercedes calls the biggest refresh in the history of the luxury sedan. It has over twenty seven hundred changed
or refined parts, representing more than fifty percent of the vehicle. Importantly,
it's the first S class to feature mercedes new operating system, which means it can support the company's newest tech. CEO
Ola Colonius even claims the luxury Sedana is ready for Level four driving, which requires no human intervention within its operating zone, and says it's running the first pilots on streets right now, so it sounds like L four could be offered as an Ota update in the future. And
speaking of Level four, Volkswagen was supposed to get there with its Project Trinity, the company's own efforts at developing a software to find vehicle architecture. The first models to
come from that were supposed to start production at VW Zwickau plant in Germany this year, but due to the struggles of the company's carread unit, that won't happen. Zwickau
currently produces evs for the group, but it sounds like there's some extra space because VW is investing ninety million euros over the next two years to turn the site into its main recycling hub. Workers will dismantle cars for
valuable raw materials, as well as for parts that can be refurbished or were sold as used. VW will use
five five hundred vehicles for testing this year, but the plant will be able to tear apart fifteen thousand vehicles a year by twenty thirty. VW says this opens up
additional market and revenue potential, and this will become a template for other sites within the Volkswagen production network. In
late twenty twenty three, Renault spun off its EV operations under a new company called Ampeer. This was still back
during the EV investment craze, and Renault expected ampeer to quickly hit a ten billion euro market cap, but when EV sales in Europe came in far lower than expected, the company never got listed, and so this morning Renaul announced its bringing ampeer back in house, where it will serve as an engineering center for evs and software. Like
most automakers, Mazda is rolling back its EV plans and will focus more on hybrids. The automaker is delaying the
launch of its first dedicated EV by at least two years to twenty twenty none n. The model was supposed
to debut next year and be built in Japan, but it's being delayed because of changing incentive policies in the US and Europe, as well as the new US tariffs.
Volvo is also pivoting to more hybrids. The automaker plan
to transition to an EVY only lineup, but drop those plans because of weaker than expected ev sales in the US.
The company's sales fell three percent last year, and while dealers expect twenty twenty six to be rough two mainly due to an aging lineup, new models are expected to start rolling in by the end of the year, so they're optimistic things will really start to turn around next year.
Nissan's US dealers are in deep trouble. Automotive News reports
that last year, the average Nissan store made less than eighty five hundred dollars in net profits. In a desperate
bid to gain market share and trigger factory subsidies, dealers offered deep discounts on cars that hurt their profits. Mike Rezi,
the chairman of Nissan's National Dealer Advisory Board, says each dealer needs to sell about seventy cars a month to make a decent profit, but they're only selling forty a month.
Nissan is changing how it provides incentives to dealers and is rushing to put a number of hybrids into their showrooms, but those hybrids are still about a year away, and that brings us to the end of today's show. Thanks
for tuning in.
Speaker 3: Auto Line Daily is brought to you by Alex partners when it really matters. CSP the Composites Solution partner Intrepid
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About this episode
Hyundai has surpassed General Motors in market capitalization, driven by a surge in stock prices following the unveiling of its humanoid robots. Meanwhile, Volkswagen has dethroned Tesla as the top electric vehicle maker in Europe, with significant sales growth. The episode also discusses the impact of a new chip shortage on automakers, the shift in strategies by companies like Renault and Mazda towards hybrids, and the challenges faced by Nissan dealers in the U.S. market.
- Hyundai Surpasses GM Market Cap - VW Overtakes Tesla in Europe - Chinese EVs Surging in Mexico - Data Center Chip Shortages Affecting OEMs - New Mercedes S-Class and Level 4 Tech - VW Project Trinity and Recycling Hub - Renault Bringing Ampere In-House - Mazda and Volvo Hybrid Pivot on EVs - Nissan Dealer Profit Crisis
