AD #4342 - Why Penske Automotive Wants to Go Private; VW Engineers Made Killing on Insider Trading; Waymo To Uber: Get Lost

AD #4342 - Why Penske Automotive Wants to Go Private; VW Engineers Made Killing on Insider Trading; Waymo To Uber: Get Lost Autoline Daily · Jul 27, 2026

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Company

Penske Automotive Group

Penske Automotive is a company that sells cars through dealerships. They’re talking about taking the company private, which changes how it’s run and how it reports financial results.

Concept

going private

Going private means the company’s shares are no longer traded on the stock market. The owners can make decisions with less pressure from public investors.

Person

Roger Penske

Roger Penske is the main person behind Penske Automotive. The segment says he already owns most of the company’s shares, which is why taking it private is feasible.

Company

Mitsui Bank

Mitsui Bank is mentioned as an investor that already owns part of Penske Automotive. They’re part of the group supporting the plan to buy out the rest of the shares.

Term

delisted

Delisted means the company’s stock stops being traded on the stock exchange. After that, you can’t buy it like a normal public stock.

Term

SEC regulations

The SEC is the U.S. agency that sets rules for public companies. If a company goes private, it usually has fewer public reporting obligations.

Term

tariffs

Tariffs are extra taxes on imported products. In this case, they’re being discussed as a way to make Chinese cars cost more in Europe.

Company

Volkswagen Group

The Volkswagen Group is a major car company in Europe. The segment says it’s under pressure from cheaper Chinese cars and is changing its approach to tariffs.

Person

Oliver Blooma

Oliver Blooma is described as the Volkswagen Group CEO. In this segment, he’s arguing for higher taxes on certain Chinese cars entering Europe.

Term

plug-in hybrid

Plug-in hybrids are cars that use both gas and electricity. You can charge them from a plug, like an EV.

Term

battery electrics

Battery electrics are fully electric cars that run only on electricity from a battery. The segment says tariffs already target these vehicles.

Company

Audi

Audi is a car brand owned by the Volkswagen Group. The segment says Audi’s recent numbers are getting worse—sales and profits are down.

Term

operating profit margin

Operating profit margin tells you how much money a company keeps as profit from its main business compared to what it earns. A lower margin means less profit per dollar of sales.

Company

Visteon

Visteon is a company that makes parts for other automakers. The hosts are using it to show that even if a supplier gets hit hard, it can later become smaller but still make money.

Company

Ford Motor Company

Ford Motor Company is a major carmaker. Here, it’s mentioned because it created Visteon by spinning it off into its own company.

Term

Insider trading means trading stocks using important information that isn’t public yet. The allegation here is that engineers knew about a deal before everyone else did, then traded based on that knowledge.

Company

Rivian

Rivian is an electric-vehicle company. The episode is describing how its stock moved after a deal was announced, and how some people allegedly traded before the news came out.

Term

joint venture

A joint venture is when two companies team up to run something together. The hosts are saying one partnership is not actually a joint venture, even though it sounds similar.

Company

Uber

Uber is a ride-hailing app. The segment says Waymo has been offering rides through Uber, but Waymo plans to run its own service in some cities instead.

Company

Waymo

Waymo is a company that builds self-driving technology. The hosts say Waymo has been using Uber to provide rides, but it wants to switch to its own app and service in some cities.

Term

autonomous technology

Autonomous technology is the hardware and software that lets a car drive itself. Here it’s talking about Waymo’s self-driving system working with Uber’s ride app.

Place

Austin

Austin is a city in the U.S. where Uber currently offers Waymo self-driving rides, and where Waymo plans to run its own service later.

Place

Atlanta

Atlanta is a city in the U.S. where you can currently get Waymo self-driving rides via Uber, according to the segment.

Term

fuel cells

Fuel cells are a way to make electricity using hydrogen. They turn hydrogen into power for the car, and the main “waste” is water.

Term

medium and heavy duty trucks

Medium and heavy duty trucks are the big commercial trucks that haul goods for work. They often drive the same routes, so it’s easier to build fueling support for them.

Term

hydrogen fueling

Hydrogen fueling is how you refuel a hydrogen-powered vehicle. The easier it is to find hydrogen along your usual route, the more practical the vehicle becomes.

Term

hydrogen stations

Hydrogen stations are places where you can refuel hydrogen. The podcast is saying you’d need far more of them for passenger cars than for trucks that follow set routes.

Company

Toyota

Toyota is a large car company. Here, they’re partnering with other firms to work on fuel-cell systems for heavy trucks.

Company

Daimler Truck

Daimler Truck is a company that makes commercial trucks. In this segment, it’s teaming up with others to develop fuel cells for big trucks.

Company

Volvo Trucks

Volvo Truck makes heavy trucks for commercial use. Here, it’s partnering to develop fuel-cell technology for those trucks.

Company

cell Centric

“cell Centric” is a joint project between several truck and automaker companies. They’re working together to build and sell fuel-cell systems for heavy trucks.

Company

Intrepid

Intrepid is a company that makes technology used by car makers. In this ad, they’re described as helping with vehicle testing and diagnostics using software.

Term

diagnostic trouble codes

Diagnostic trouble codes are like a car’s error messages. When something goes wrong, the car stores a code that helps technicians figure out what system needs attention.

Term

Neovi cloud platform

NEOVI is a cloud software platform for vehicle testing. It helps automakers track software versions and find which cars have certain problems.

Term

DTCs

DTCs are short for diagnostic trouble codes—error codes the car logs when it detects a problem.

LIVE

Speaker 1: This is Outoline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts the global automotive industry. Shawn's out on vacation for most of

this week, so I'm filling in. And you know, here's

an interesting development in the world of automotive retail. Penske Automotive,

which is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange, is going to go private. Seventy two percent of the

company stock is already owned by Roger Penske himself, his company, Penske Corporation, and the Mitsui Bank. They're proposing to buy

up the other twenty eight percent of shares and have the company delisted. You know, there's a lot of advantages

to going private. You don't have to deal with SEC regulations,

which means you save a lot on legal and accounting fees.

You can focus on long term projects without worrying about how that might affect next quarter's earnings. Management has the

freedom to pursue what it wants without a bunch of second guessing from pesky analysts or shareholders. And you can

hide financial data in business strategies from your competition. The

only downside is that it cuts off your access to raising capital through selling your shares in the market. But

it seems to me that Roger Penske and the Mitsui Bank are not worried about getting access to capital. German

auto executives know their domestic industry faces an existential threat from Chinese competitors, and they know they're running out of time to do anything about it. Oliver Blooma, the CEO

of the Volkswagen Group, is demanding that the EU immediately put higher tariffs on imported Chinese plugin hybrids. So far,

those tariffs only apply to battery electrics, but Chinese automakers have captured over twenty eight percent of phalse sales in Europe this year, and the top three selling pheavs were all Chinese and they're only just getting started. But here's

the problem that Blooma faces. He needs at least ten

other EU members to approve the tariffs, and countries that don't have any car factories are more interested in getting access to cheap Chinese cars than they are in trying to help out Volkswagen or other European automakers. And here's

the biggest irony of all. Volkswagen strongly opposed any tariffs

on Chinese evs when that vote came up in twenty twenty four and Germany voted against them. But now that

VW is facing up to the fact that it's got to close four assembly plants in Germany and get rid of one hundred thousand German workers, it suddenly sees the wisdom in applying tariffs to Chinese cars. Audi released at

second quarter numbers today, and the numbers are all going in the wrong direction. Sales fell more than eight percent

over the last three months, revenue dropped more than twelve percent, its operating profit fell three percent, and its operating profit margin is now barely over three percent. Remember only four

years ago, Audi's profit margin was over sixteen percent and the company was minting money. And this is a good

example of how quickly your fortunes can turn in the automotive industry. One day you're sitting on top of the world,

and the next day you're searching for loose change under the couch cushions. The future looks grim for the VW Group,

but that doesn't mean it's going to go out of business.

It's actually kind of hard to kill any kind of car company. A good example is the supplier Visteon. When

it was spun off from Ford Motor Company. In the

year two thousand, it had seventy thousand employees, but then the wheels came off the cart. It lost business left, right,

and backward. Today it's a much smaller company, with a

much smaller line of products and far fewer plyingants. Instead

of seventy thousand employees, it now has ten five hundred, and yet its revenue today is a billion dollars more a year than it was back then. Its operating profit

is six times higher, and its profit margin is over thirteen percent. Investors like what they see. Vistyan stock is

almost up seven percent this year.

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: Okay, back to Volkswagen for a minute. Two Volkswagen engineers

were arrested for insider trading with Rivian stock. The two

of them knew that Volkswagen was about to sign a massive deal with Rivian back in twenty twenty four, so they went out and Rivian stock before the deal was announced.

One of the engineers made two hundred and fifty thousand dollars after Rivian stock jumped twenty three percent after the joint venture was announced. The other guy made fifty thousand dollars,

and one of them also gave the info to a family member who made twelve thousand dollars. The engineers were

charged with conspiracy and securities fraud, and they face up to twenty five years in prison if they're convicted on most of the serious counts. Both of them work at

VW's and Rivian's software and engineering joint venture called our VTech that's based in Palo Alto. You know, at first

this looked like a marriage made in heaven. Weaimo's autonomous

technology combined with Uber's app and network for ride sharing.

It was not a joint venture, only a commercial agreement.

But now Weimo has decided he really doesn't need Uber anymore.

Uber currently offers in waymo vehicles through its platform in two cities, Atlanta and Austin, but Bloomberg reports Weimo told Uberg it's going to launch its own service in those cities with its own app starting in twenty twenty eight.

Weaimo's vehicles will remain in the Uber fleet throughout at least May of twenty twenty eight, which is when the duration of their contract expires. But this is a big

blow to Uber's robotaxi efforts. While its foreign partnerships with

other autonomous companies, their services are much smaller than Weymo's and Wall Street was also skeptical about Uber's future because its stock is down twenty percent so far this year. Hey,

are fuel cells ever going to catch on? Well? Maybe

in medium and heavy duty trucks they will. That's because

most trucks run a specific route every day, so it's a lot easier to provide hydrogen fueling exactly where it's needed.

For example, California says it would need thousands of hydrogen stations to satisfy the needs of passenger cars with fuel cells, but it would only need a couple of hundred of them to handle all the medium and heavy duty commercial trucks.

And that's why we see companies in the commercial truck business continuing to develop fuel cells. The latest is Toyota,

Daimler Truck, and Volvo Truck. They're forming a joint venture

called cell Centric. The three companies will jointly develop, produce,

and commercialize fuel cell systems for big trucks and other heavy duty applications. You know, Europe, China, Japan, and South

Korea continue to heavily subsidize the development of fuel cells, while the US has a lot of research going on.

The first commercial truck applications of trucks with fuel cells will undoubtedly go where the money is. Anyway, that wraps

up today's report. Thank you for watching Line Daily.

Speaker 3: Auto Line Daily is brought to you by alex Partners When It Really Matters 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: We help businesses respond decisively to their most critical challenges, from urgent performance improvement to enterprise wide transformation. We work

across the full value chain, in automotive and in industrials, helping clients navigate disruption, drive innovation, and unlock sustainable growth.

ALEX Partners When It Really Matters.

Speaker 2: AD Intrepid we produce network hardware and software solutions enabling vehicle manufacturers to innovate and design the next generation of modern mobility.

Speaker 3: 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.

Speaker 2: This allows them to isolate non compliant vehicles in real time using analytics, part numbers, DTCs, and organized secure cloud based data.

Speaker 1: All of these steps ensure vehicles are cleared for production and ready for the road, taking your fleet testing into the future of mobility.

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0:00

9:56

Penske Automotive Group

going private

Roger Penske

Mitsui Bank

delisted

SEC regulations

tariffs

Volkswagen Group

Oliver Blooma

plug-in hybrid

battery electrics

Audi

operating profit margin

Visteon

Ford Motor Company

insider trading

Rivian

joint venture

Uber

Waymo

autonomous technology

Austin

Atlanta

fuel cells

medium and heavy duty trucks

hydrogen fueling

hydrogen stations

Toyota

Daimler Truck

Volvo Trucks

cell Centric

Intrepid

diagnostic trouble codes

Neovi cloud platform

DTCs

About this episode

Original notes