AD #4323 - Porsche Plans Massive Job Cuts; Rising Tech Costs Signal New Chip Shortage; New Ford Electric Pickup Design Details

AD #4323 - Porsche Plans Massive Job Cuts; Rising Tech Costs Signal New Chip Shortage; New Ford Electric Pickup Design Details Autoline Daily · Jun 22, 2026

Annotations will appear as you listen

0:00

9:43

Term

chip shortage

A chip shortage is when car factories can’t get enough computer chips. Since cars need chips for lots of systems, it can delay production and make cars more expensive.

Term

semiconductor fabrication

Semiconductor fabrication is how computer chips are made. If the inputs needed for that process can’t get through, chip supply can get delayed.

Place

straits of Hormuz

The Strait of Hormuz is a major shipping route in the Middle East. If traffic there gets disrupted, supplies needed for manufacturing can be delayed.

Term

advanced driver assistance system

An advanced driver assistance system is the tech that helps you drive, like keeping in the lane or managing speed. It depends on electronics, so shortages can change what cars cost or when they arrive.

Company

BYD

BYD is an EV company mentioned in the context of reorganizing how it engineers and manages different car brands. The goal is to respond to slowing sales and improve focus.

Term

R and D operations

R and D operations are the company’s research and development work—basically, where new technology and products get created. Here it’s about how BYD is organizing its EV engineering teams.

Term

evy platforms

An EV platform is the basic “car design foundation” used to build electric vehicles. If a company reuses the same foundation across models, it can build cars faster and more efficiently.

Term

battery chemistry

Battery chemistry is what the battery is made of inside. Different battery types can charge differently and last longer or shorter, and they can also change the car’s cost.

Term

electronic architectures

Electronic architecture is how all the car’s electronics are set up and connected. It affects how easily the company can add features and build many different models on similar systems.

Company

Porsche

Porsche is talking about cutting jobs and reducing costs because it expects to sell fewer cars than it planned for. The idea is to match production to demand so they don’t have to discount as much.

Term

capacity

In manufacturing, capacity is how many vehicles a factory (or company) can produce over a given time period. If capacity is set too high relative to demand, it can lead to excess inventory and pressure to discount.

Term

vehicle inventory

Vehicle inventory is the number of unsold cars available. If there are fewer unsold cars, dealerships often don’t have to discount as aggressively.

Car

Ferrari Luce

The Ferrari Luce is a Ferrari electric car. The podcast is talking about how the way owners feel about the car—especially things like day-to-day use—can affect how much it’s worth later when people try to sell it. If owners have problems or complaints, future buyers may be less willing to pay as much.

Term

allocation

An allocation system is when a carmaker limits how many cars each dealer or customer can get. If demand is high, you may need to be in the right “queue” to buy certain versions.

Car

Toyota RAV four

The Toyota RAV4 is a popular SUV. This segment is about how factory changes can slow deliveries, so dealers may have customers waiting for months.

Term

model changeovers

Model changeovers are when a factory switches to building a new version of a car. That switch can temporarily slow production, so dealers get fewer cars for a while.

Term

day's supply

“Days’ supply” is a way to estimate how many days of cars are sitting in inventory. If the company changes how it measures that, it can change how shortage problems look on paper.

Term

open source collaboration

This is when multiple companies work together using shared software building blocks. The idea is to avoid each company reinventing everything, which can lower costs and speed up new car development.

Term

time to market

Time to market just means how long it takes to get a new product ready to sell. Shorter time to market usually means the company can launch updates or new models sooner.

Term

solid state battery

A solid state battery is a newer type of battery that uses a solid material instead of a liquid inside. It’s being tested because it could store more energy and be safer than today’s batteries.

Company

Stilantis

This is referring to Stellantis, a big car company. They invested in a battery startup and are helping test new battery tech in real vehicles.

Car

Dodge charger Daytona

The Dodge Charger Daytona is an electric version of the Charger. They’re using it to test new battery technology before it’s ready for production.

Car

Ford electric pickup truck

They’re previewing a new Ford electric pickup. The design details they point out are meant to reduce drag and help the truck use a smaller (and cheaper) battery.

Car

Ford Maverick

The Ford Maverick is a small pickup truck with four doors, meant for everyday driving. It’s discussed because it’s easier to park and drive than bigger trucks, while still having a truck bed. The podcast also mentions its front design, which can affect how smoothly air moves around the vehicle.

LIVE

Speaker 1: This is Outoline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry. We've been warning for months that

we're on the verge of another chip shortage, and now we're starting to see the impact because of the war and Iran helium wasn't getting through the straits of Hormuz and it's needed for semiconductor fabrication. And now comes word

out of China that Huawei is raising the price of its eight AS tack by four hundred and forty bucks because of a chip shortage. That advanced driver assistance system

now costs about fifty one hundred bucks, but with automaker subsidies, the retail price is about twenty two hundred dollars. And

if eight ass prices are going up in China, we expect to see the same happen everywhere else. BYD's chairman

Wang chiang Fu brags that his company will be the biggest in the world in five years, but sales are sinking and the stock price is plummeting. So he's reed

structuring is R and D operations into five different brand units and giving each brand its own responsibility for profit and losses. There will be one core R and D

Group that will handle things like evy platforms, battery chemistry, and electronic architectures. Then the major brands Dynasty, Ocean, Denza,

Fengcheng Bao and yang Wang will now be responsible for engineering everything else. However, the luxury brand yang Wang is

exempt from having to generate short term profits byd has one hundred and twenty thousand engineers and technicians, which we think is a staggering number, but breaking them down into decentralized operations should sharpen their focus on their brands and make things easier to manage. With sales falling, Porsche wants

to speed up its efforts to reduce costs. It previously

announced it would cut about two thousand to four thousand jobs by the end of the decade, and then slashed another five hundred positions in May, But now it's drafting a second cost cutting program with its Works COUNSIL that it hopes to have finished before July. New CEO Michael

Lyter says, quote, we are planning for lower capacities in the future. Porsche has to make money even with fewer cars.

Whatever moves it makes is expected to cut another two to four thousand jobs, Porsche's sales shot up eleven percent in twenty twenty one, then they grew at about three percent for the next two years, peaking at just over three hundred and twenty thousand units in twenty twenty three.

But it looks to us like the brand put too much faith in that continued growth and built capacity for as much as four hundred thousand vehicles. However, last year,

Porsche sold less than two hundred and eighty thousand units, a ten percent drop, and in the first quarter of this year sales fell another fifteen percent. By reducing its

capacity and in return lowering its overall vas vehicle inventory, Portia may not need to resort to discounting its models.

Speaking of performance luxury brands, Ferrari is denying rumors that customers have to buy the new all electric Luche in order to get access to future special edition models. The

company CMO says doing such a thing could create owners that speak poorly of the Luce and that could hurt the EV's resale value. However, Ferrari does operate an allocation

system for its most popular models and favors owners that have multiple cars, so we suspect someone would be more likely to get on that special edition list if they bought the Luce. Toyota is struggling to keep up with

US demand for the Rev four. Changeovers for the new

model at its plants in Japan and Canada have slowed down shipments to dealers. While that's led to a forty

percent drop in sales through May, Automotive News reports that Toyota is now counting inventory in ours supply rather than day's supply. One dealership in California alone has eight hundred

customers waiting around for a RAV four. So now Toyota

is adding the model to its Kentucky plant, which is expected to add another forty thousand units of capacity this year.

And we think the automaker could boost RAV four production in the US even more since the models that come from both Japan and Canada are currently hit with additional tariffs.

Speaker 2: Performance that shines even in the rain, that's what really matters.

Rich don't pretends to tires improved grip in wet conditions.

Speaker 1: Developing software to find vehicles isn't easy and it isn't cheap either, So European automakers and suppliers started an initiative last year to pull their re resources through an open source collaboration. It originally launched with eleven members including BMW,

Mercedes in Volkswagen, and now there are thirty one automotive companies part of the group, including Stillantis. They're aiming to

have a production vehicle using the shared open platform by twenty thirty, and they say the project will help cut development costs by up to forty percent and speed up time to market by thirty percent. However, some analysts are

skeptical that the partnership can actually address the speed in software gaps compared to Chinese automakers because there's too many companies involved, which will slow down decision making. We knew

that Stilantis was an investor in solid state battery startup Factorial, but we didn't know how much. Well now we do.

According to a recent SEC filing, it has a nine and a half percent stake in Factorial, which is currently valued at one hundred and twenty six million dollars. Stilanti

is initially invested eighty six million dollars in twenty twenty one, and it might buy more shares in the future. The

CEO of Stalantis's financial services is also now a member of Factorial's board. Earlier this month, the two companies started

testing solid state batteries in the US, integrating them into a Dodge charger Daytona. Can you name the largest dealer

groups headquartered in the US, You might be surprised that, according to Automotive News's latest rankings, it's Lithia Motors, which is based in Oregon and sold nearly eight hundred and eighteen thousand new and used vehicles last year. AutoNation, based

in Florida, sold nearly five hundred and twenty nine thousand, The Penske Automotive Group, which is based in Michigan, sold almost four hundred and eighty six thousand. Group One, based

in Texas, sold four hundred and fifty nine thousand, and the Hendrick Group, which is based in North Carolina, sold nearly two hundred and fourteen thousand new and used cars last year. We're learning more about Ford's upcoming electric pickup

truck that could be called the Ranchero. The company is

releasing videos, and while it's heavily camouflaged, here's some design details that we can pick out. The four door truck

looks to be close in size to the Maverick it has a very flat front end with a fast windshield, and the sides of the bed and tailgate are quite high for better aerodynamics. Note that the rear view mirrors

are mounted on the doors, not the a pillars. Designers

believe that gives a vehicle a more premium look and it's definitely more expensive to do. Also note that the

backlight or the rear window is recessed thanks to a cow like extension to the cabin. And note how the

rear of the truck is slightly scalloped and with very sharp separation points. Again, that's all for aerodynamics, with the

goal of being able to use a smaller battery pack to keep the cost down. That brings us to the

end of today's show. Thanks for tuning in.

Speaker 3: Auto Line Daily is brought to you by Bridgetone Solutions for your Journey CSP the composites solution partner Intrepid Control Systems over the Air Engineering boost your game and thanks to the following YouTube and Patreon members.

Speaker 4: Ad Intrepid we produce network hardware and software solutions enabling vehicle manufacturers to innovate and design the next generation of modern mobility, delivering scalable, next generation solutions requires thorough testing and validation of vehicle platforms. Intrepid's Neovi cloud platform helps

manufacturers quickly identify diagnostic trouble codes and defects by pinpointing which vehicles have specific software versions. This allows them to

isolate non compliant vehicles in real time using analytics, part numbers, DTCs, and organized secure cloud based data. All of these steps

ensure vehicles are cleared for production and ready for the road.

Taking your fleet testing into the future of mobility in trapid control systems driven by your data. 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.

0:00

9:43

chip shortage

semiconductor fabrication

straits of Hormuz

advanced driver assistance system

BYD

R and D operations

evy platforms

battery chemistry

electronic architectures

Porsche

capacity

vehicle inventory

Ferrari Luce

allocation

Toyota RAV four

model changeovers

day's supply

open source collaboration

time to market

solid state battery

Stilantis

Dodge charger Daytona

Ford electric pickup truck

Ford Maverick

About this episode

Original notes