AD #2563 – Lamborghini Sets Sales Record, Chevy Bolt Sales Could Crater, Can You Identify This Car?

This is Autoline Daily reporting on the global automotive industry.

FCA LAYS OFF 1,500 WORKERS IN CANADA
As we reported earlier this week Wards is forecasting that sales in the US will drop in March as inventory goes up. That means automakers will have to start offering more discounts or they’re going to have to reduce production. Now FCA will lay off 1,500 workers at its Windsor, Ontario plant that builds the Chrysler Pacifica and Dodge Grand Caravan. Sales are down 24% and 27%, respectively. The company is eliminating the third shift, but it won’t go into effect until the end of September. FCA will offer early retirement packages to eligible employees and will try to place laid-off workers into other full-time positions.

LAMBORGHINI SETS SALES RECORD
Meanwhile Lamborghini is having the time of its life. It’s setting all-time sales and earnings records. Last year Lambo sold 5,750 cars, up a whopping 51% and for the first time in its history it sold more than 5,000 vehicles. Revenues shot up 40% to 1.4 billion euros. And almost all of the credit goes to decision to make an SUV. The Lamborghini Urus is driving all that growth.

GORY DETAILS OF RENAULT-NISSAN SPAT
If you want to get all the gory details of how the Renault-Nissan alliance became a cauldron of stress and intimidation, check out the Wall Street Journal and New York Times today. They both have stories that take a deep dive into how Nissan executives revolted against their former CEO Carlos Ghosn. The stories don’t necessarily break new ground, but they sure have a detailed chronology of how it all went wrong.

CAN YOU IDENTIFY THIS CAR?
OK all you hard core gearheads, we’re going to tax your automotive knowledge. Here’s a Barn Find we found, and we challenge you to figure out what it is. I was on vacation in Uruguay earlier this week, a country where you can find all kinds of old cars tucked away in the countryside. I came across this car parked out on the street in a small town. Do you think you know what it is? Leave your guesstimates in the comments section and we’ll reveal the answer next week.

And we’ll be back with more right after this.

LYFT VALUED AT $24 BILLION IN IPO
Looks like the ride hailing industry is turning into an investment bonanza. Lyft, the ride-hailing company, was just valued at more than $24 billion in its first initial public offering, which was more than investors anticipated. Now analysts are turning their attention to Uber, which is expected launch its IPO next month. The company has been told by its investment bankers that it could be worth as much as $120 billion. That means Uber is considered to be more valuable than GM, Ford and Fiat-Chrysler put together.

ZF ACQUIRES WABCO FOR $7 BILLION
ZF is making a push to become one of largest auto suppliers in the world. Back in 2015, it acquired TRW for nearly $13 billion and now it’s paying $7 billion for Wabco, a company that makes braking systems and safety and connectivity technology for commercial vehicles. This puts ZF on an equal footing as its German rivals Bosch and Continental. If you’d like to learn more about how ZF is transitioning from making traditional car parts to new technologies, check out our Autoline This Week from earlier this year which dives into the topic.

BOLT SALES COULD CRATER
Sales of the Chevy Bolt could be poised to drop off a cliff. GM has sold over 200,000 EVs and plug-in, so the $7,500 tax credits it gets from Uncle Sam are about to drop in half. And then in 6 months, it’ll go away all together. Even so, GM has no plans to lower the price of the Bolt. For buyers, that means the price will effectively go up by $3,750. Sales of the Bolt are down 25% over the last three months and now they’ll drop off even more.

PROTECTING VEHICLES FROM HACKERS
All truck companies must use a standardized communication protocol for their commercial vehicles but automakers use proprietary communication networks. And that’s important for cyber security purposes. On Autoline This Week, we’re joined by Matthew Carpenter from GRIMM Cyber Research and he explained the difference between protecting passenger and commercial vehicles from hackers.

(The ATW preview is only available in the video version of today’s show.)

You can watch that entire discussion right now on our website, Autoline.tv or you can find it on our YouTube channel.

But that’s it for today, thanks for watching and have a great weekend.