AD #2724 – Tesla Unveils Wild Cybertruck, Lexus Shows Off First EV, GM Plans Electric Truck for Fall 2021

This is Autoline Daily reporting on all aspects of the global automotive industry.

TESLA UNVEILS WILD CYBERTRUCK
Tesla unveiled its electric pickup last night, what it calls the Cybertruck, and all we can say is “Wow!” It’s unlike anything we’ve seen in a long time. It’s origami styling of flat surfaces and hard breaks may have more to do with reducing tooling cost, and we’ll have more to say about that in a minute. But first, some specs.

CYBERTRUCK SPECS
There will be three different propulsion offerings. A single motor rear-wheel-drive, a dual motor all-wheel-drive, and a tri-motor all-wheel-drive that we guess will provide torque vectoring at the rear wheels. Elon Musk says the fastest version of the truck, the tri-motor, will accelerate from 0 to 60 miles an hour in a blindingly fast 2.9 seconds. It will deliver 500 miles of driving range, carry 3,500 pounds of payload and tow a 14,000-pound trailer. The other versions have less range and towing and carrying capacity, and are not as quick, but are still impressive nonetheless. You can click on the headline link in today’s transcript to get those details.

CYBERTRUCK MAINTAINS COMMON TESLA INTERIOR
The interior design is similar to other Tesla’s: with flat, minimalist surfaces, and long horizontal lines. A 17-inch screen dominates the dashboard. Thanks to no driveshaft hump in the floor, the layout comfortably provides seating for six people.

CYBERTRUCK BUILT TO PAIR WITH TESLA ATV
The bed offers 100 cubic feet of lockable storage space, and it has a telescoping ramp built into the tailgate that allows you to drive a motorcycle or ATV right up into it. In fact, Tesla also unveiled an electric ATV it calls the CyberQuad. The pickup comes standard with an air suspension that can be lowered to make it easier to load up the bed. Tesla also showed a camping version with a pop-up tent and a stove that swings out from the bed. 

CYBERTRUCK STYLING LIKELY REDUCES TOOLING COSTS
But what really makes this truck stand out is the way it looks. The Class A surfaces are made from cold-rolled stainless steel. And note that they are completely flat. The hood, the roof, the sides, and the tailgate are completely flat. Note that the wheel wells feature straight lines with hard breaks. Even the windshield and side glass is flat. There are no compound curves, no reverse dihedrals, and no rounded surfaces. Besides creating a unique look, we think Tesla is doing this to hold down tooling cost. The exterior panels all look like they could be fabricated, not stamped. And even if they are stamped, they look like they could be done with one set of dies per panel, instead of the four sets of dies it typically takes. That could save tens of millions of dollars in tooling cost, maybe more. And it helps explain why Elon Musk says the base price will be just under $40,000.

Even though we’re very impressed, that styling is a bit wonky and is going to take some getting used to. So what do you think? Is this something that you’d like to see in your driveway?

GM PLANS EV TRUCK FOR FALL 2021
GM thinks it could be a great competitor against Tesla’s new Cybertruck and Ford’s proposed electric F-series. Both Tesla and Ford believe they can finish the race first against each other by getting an EV truck out first, and now GM wants a bid. The automaker is planning to build electric trucks at its Detroit/Hamtramck plant which should hit showrooms in the fall of 2021.

GM & ISUZU INVEST IN DIESEL ENGINE PLANT
After strong demand for more diesel-powered trucks, General Motors and Isuzu are now investing $175 million into a new engine plant in Brookville, Ohio. The 251,000-square-foot facility is set to make engine blocks and heads for the Duramax engine, which powers the 2020 Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra Heavy-Duty pickups. GM plans to have construction finished by the end of next year. 

LEXUS SHOWS OFF FIRST EV
Lexus took the wraps off its first ever all-electric vehicle, the UX 300e, which is based on its UX compact crossover. It features a 54.3 kWh lithium-ion battery, which provides a range of 400 kilometers or just under 250 miles and that’s based on the NEDC test. It goes on sale in China and Europe next year and 2021 in Japan but interestingly, there’s no mention of it coming to North America.

IIHS TO UPDATE SIDE CRASH TEST
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety introduced its side-impact crash test in 2003 and the safety agency says it’s time for an update. It says the current ratings no longer help consumers distinguish between vehicles and there’s no further room for improvement in the test. Expected to launch next year, the updated side-impact test will include a higher impact speed and a heavier, movable barrier which represents a more modern vehicle. The IIHS says the data collected during the current test correlates closely with fatality risk, so the new test will likely use the same dummies and collect similar information as the current one.

ARE LABOR COSTS HURTING DETROIT AUTOMAKERS?
The Detroit automakers have the highest labor costs among automakers in the U.S. And GM’s and Ford’s new contract with the UAW pushed wages up even higher. So is this going to put the Detroit automakers at a competitive disadvantage with foreign carmakers building cars in the U.S.? On Autoline This Week, Kristen Dzickek, a labor expert with the Center for Automotive Research, shared her insight into the issue.

Kristen Dzickek, Center for Automotive Research
“It’s not entirely clear just yet- at General Motors they’re looking to retire, early retire, or incentivize people to leave. 2,000 production workers and 60 skilled trades- that’s a limit. The Ford tentative agreement has unlimited amount of production workers and 200 skilled trades. If they can move those people along and replace them with new hires that come in at the bottom that can help blend hourly labor cost down and their proved vehicle cost is what really matters, not hourly- you buy labor to make a vehicle. They’ve brought those costs down considerably since 2007. If there’s 2-3% raises in the cost per year it’s not going to be that significant. Two things that make up that gap with the international (companies) is there are very hefty profit sharing checks that roll into the hourly wage, so $63 an hour at General Motors, $5.81 is there profit sharing check from last year. So you bring that down and it’s $58, and it’s not so crazy when the internationals are at $50. The internationals are also a blend of different companies that some of them have just started their operations and they may have three, four, five year grow-ins to their top wage, but the plant’s only two years old so nobody’s got five years, they aren’t at the top of their scale either. So the internationals are not going to stand still and there’s some flexibility in these agreements to bring the temps (workers) to permanent status and to blend the average hourly labor cost down.”

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

NACTOY FINALIST VIEWER FEEDBACK
Yesterday we reported the finalists for North American Car, Truck and Utility of the Year awards and asked you to guess who will win each category. While looking through the comments we came across this one from Kit Gerhart, “As far as the trucks, the Gladiator is certainly getting the attention, and it looks kind of cool, but the pricing is crazy. I don’t know if the jury factors that in much, though.” Kit goes on to ask, “John McElroy, are there specific guidelines you are supposed to use, and if so, is ‘value’ one of them?” Well we talked to John and he says there are no specific guidelines for jurors to follow, but value is one of the things he considers. He says he wants to make sure the vehicle is a good value for the segment it fits into. For example, a $60,000 mid-engine sports car could be considered a good thing, while a $60,000 mid-size truck might not be.

Hope that clears up your question Kit. And while we’re talking about the Car, Truck and Utility of the Year finalists, let’s talk about how you all seem very confident in two of the winners. The Chevy Corvette and Jeep Gladiator are the clear favorites in your minds for Car and Truck of the Year. People seemed less interested in Utility of the Year, but those that did vote, voted in favor of the Lincoln Aviator. I’m with you all on the first two, C8 and Gladiator, but I think the Kia Telluride will win Utility. And if you’d like an idea of what the actual jurors think, we’ll have a couple of Autoline This Week’s dedicated to the awards that will go up in early January before the winners are announced.

WHAT CAR IS ELVIS SITTING IN?
Time to go into the way-back-files in your brain again. Autoline viewer Rob wrote to us to say that his wife was going through some old Elvis Presley records and asked him what car was on the cover of “A Date with Elvis” that came out around 1960. Rob notes, Elvis is turned around sitting in the front seat of a convertible car. Rob did try and Google the answer, but it said the car is a 1973 Stutz Blackhawk III, which is clearly not right. We tried to Google it as well. That returned a BMW 507 as the answer. While BMW found Elvis’ exact 507, did a complete restoration and awesome restoration blog, it is also clearly not the car. We eventually did find the car on the cover and the V-shape in the steering wheel was a big factor in helping us find it. But we’d like to give you all a chance to show us your automotive knowledge before we reveal the answer next week. Just leave your guess in the comments.

But that’s it for today’s show. Thanks for watching and have a great weekend.