AD #2525 – Ford Reveals New Super Duty, Car Brands That Are on Life Support, Trump Could Go After GM Tonight

This is Autoline Daily, reporting on the global automotive industry.

TRUMP COULD GO AFTER GM TONIGHT
Hi, I’m John McElroy, it’s February 5th of 2019 and now to the news. President Trump will be giving his State of the Union address tonight and General Motors is probably going to be in his crosshairs. Two UAW leaders from two different plants that GM is closing were invited to be there tonight by Democrats. But it wouldn’t surprise us if Trump calls on them to stand and be recognized. The UAW and the Canadian union Unifor have put out videos criticizing GM for closing plants in the US and Canada, but expanding production in Mexico. Unifor is even calling for a boycott of GM products made in Mexico. Yesterday, GM also began laying off 4,000 white collar employees and Trump could attack that as well.

Here’s our Autoline Insight. While it’s true that GM expanded production in Mexico, it’s only gone up by 160,000 vehicles since 2013. That’s about half of one assembly plant of production. So even if that Mexican expansion was cancelled GM would still have to close plants. Here’s the issue. GM has 18 assembly plants in North America, but it only needs 14 plants to make all the cars and trucks it can sell in North America. So it’s damned if it does and damned if it doesn’t. We also think GM got caught out by the government shutdown which postponed the state of the union address. No doubt GM originally planned to announce thousands of white-collar layoffs a week after POTUS made the SOTU. But with the shutdown, GM ended up making its announcement the day before.

GEELY STEALS JAGUAR DESIGNER
Geely just pulled off a major coup. It stole Jaguar’s Chief Designer, Wayne Burgess, who will become the Head of Design and Vice President of the automaker’s newly established UK design center. Geely Design UK will expand to around 100 designers and staff within the next five years and will create vehicles for several brands in the group, including Geely, LYNK & CO, Proton, Lotus and the London Electric Vehicle Company. Burgess will report to Peter Horbury, the Executive VP of design at Geely, and it wouldn’t surprise us if Mr. Burgess is being groomed to replace Mr. Horbury.

HONDA GOES FOR THE GOLD
Honda’s Australian subsidiary had a little fun celebrating 50th birthday by wrapping some of its products in gold. You likely see the color red when thinking of a Honda lawn mower or generator, but even Honda admits, “everyone who’s seen it wants one.”

There are three or four car brands that probably won’t survive and we’ll tell you who they are coming up next.

ELECTRIFY AMERICA TURNS TO TESLA
Electrify America will install Tesla Powerpack battery storage systems at more than 100 of its charging stations throughout the US in 2019. Each site gets a 210-kW battery system with roughly 350 kWh of capacity. The Powerpacks can be used during times of peak demand to reduce stress on the grid.

TESLA BUYS BATTERY TECH COMPANY
And speaking of Tesla, it just bought a company called Maxwell Technologies which has expertise in supercapacitors, which are good at charging and discharging large amounts of electricity very quickly. Tesla hopes to use that technology to greatly speed up charging times. It’s amazing to us how charging times are becoming the new metric for EV performance. Even Porsche is bragging more about how fast it’s charging stations are, than bragging about how fast its EVs are.

CAR BRANDS THAT ARE ON LIFE SUPPORT
Scion was the last brand to get killed off in the American market, but we think there are three or four other brands that probably won’t survive. First on the list is the smart brand. We wonder why Mercedes-Benz keeps the smart brand on life-support. Last month smart only sold 83 cars, so what’s the point? Next on the endangered species list is Fiat, which only sold 751 cars. We wonder how the dealers can possibly keep their doors open. In fact, Alfa Romeo doesn’t look very healthy either. It only sold 1,150 vehicles, down 30% compared to a year ago. Mini is another brand that’s going wobbly. It sold 2,457 cars last month. That works out to 19 cars per dealer on average, which means it’s got to be a money loser. There’s one other brand that is struggling and that’s Genesis. It only sold 1,224 cars last month, down 24% compared to a year ago. But 2018 was a disaster for Genesis and it’s starting to get its act together. If you compare sales to December, they’re up 107%, and if Genesis keeps that up all year it is the one brand on this list that has a shot at surviving.

Coming up next, Ford expects to make massive profits on a new line of trucks and we’ll show you those trucks after this.

KEI CAR SALES JUMP IN JAPAN
As the saying goes “bigger is better” but not when it comes to the Japanese car market. Sales of mini-cars or Kei cars, were up over 4% last year in the country, totaling 1.9 million units. Sales of larger vehicles hit 3.3 million units, a drop of 1.3%. Seven of the top 10 selling models in 2018 were Kei cars, including the top four. Toyota was the top automaker in Japan last year, followed by Honda, Suzuki, Daihatsu and Nissan.

FORD REVEALS NEW SUPER DUTY
GM and Ram recently showed off their new heavy-duty trucks, so naturally it’s Ford’s turn. The 2020 F-Series Super Duty debuted today with updated styling and a number of new features. A Ford designed and built 7.3L V8 gas engine has been added to the lineup, while the 6.7L Power Stroke diesel is upgraded with more power and torque. Both engines will be mated to a 10-speed automatic. All trucks receive new front-end designs that allow for better cooling and lighting performance. And for the first time dual-rear-wheel trucks are fitted with a unique high-airflow grille. In addition to new and enhanced trailering technologies, 4G connectivity is standard as is driver assist features, like automatic emergency braking, on XLT trims and above. The new Super Duty will start shipping to dealers this fall.

We’ll also be headed out to Flint, Michigan today where the all-new Silverado HD is built to learn about that truck, so expect to see more heavy-duty new tomorrow.

But that wraps up today’s report, thanks for watching and please join us again tomorrow.