AD #3464 – Honda EV Van Only $7,300; Tesla to Shorten Shifts in China; GM President Says ICE Age Not Over

This is Autoline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry.

TESLA TO SHORTEN SHIFTS IN CHINA
We’re getting more conflicting reports about what’s happening with Tesla in China. A couple of days ago Bloomberg reported that Tesla would cut Model Y production at its assembly plant in Shanghai by 20%. Then Tesla said that report was untrue. But today, Bloomberg reports that Tesla will cut 2 hours from both the shifts at the plant. As we went to press Tesla had not yet issued any comment. Those shifts were running for 11 and a half hours a day, but now they’ll reportedly run at 9 and a half. Bloomberg also says that Tesla is telling new hires that their start date will be pushed back to next year, so they don’t need to report for work right now. Tesla wholesaled a record 100,000 Model 3s and Ys last month in China, but there are reports that inventory is starting to pile up and the company has cut prices by several thousand dollars. It just offered another $860 discount to Chinese customers who take delivery this month.

IIHS CALLS FOR LOWER SPEED LIMITS
This is crazy. The more safety equipment that goes onto cars, the more people are getting killed in traffic accidents. About 43,000 people were killed in the U.S. last year. So the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, or IIHS, is proposing that states take action. It wants them to lower speed limits. It wants better police enforcement of those limits including more cameras to catch speeders. It wants speed limiters on passenger vehicles like some commercial vehicle fleets have. And then it wants narrower lanes and more speed bumps. What do you think? Are these the kind of measures that will lead to fewer traffic accidents?

CADILLAC CELESTIQ
We know some things about the Cadillac Celestiq. We know it will cost over $300,000. We know that it will be hand built. And we know it’s going to pioneer new manufacturing techniques. But we want to know a lot more. And we’re going to get that chance this afternoon when Tony Roma, the chief engineer on the Celestiq, will join us for Autoline After Hours when we go live at 3 pm eastern time. Frank Markus from Motor Trend and Richard Truett from Automotive News will also be on the show. If you’ve got questions you’d like us to ask Tony Roma, leave them in the comments section or send an email to viewermail@autoline.tv

HONDA TURNS TO CATL FOR EV BATTRIES
Honda is getting a boat-load of batteries from CATL. Most of the new battery plants being announced are able to produce somewhere around 30-40 GWh a year. Honda’s new deal with CATL is for 123 GWh of batteries. That’s for a 7 year period from 2024 until 2030 and will likely be enough to power millions of EVs. The batteries will be made in China, so they’ll also likely be used for the EVs that Honda offers in China. It plans to offer 10 EVs in its e:N series of vehicles by 2027 and already has a couple on sale, like the e:NS1 and e:NP1, which feature a roughly 70 kWh battery pack, and the recently announced e:N2 sedan.

HONDA EV VAN ONLY $7,300
Speaking of Honda and EVs, it’s launching an electric version of its N-VAN in Japan. The current version of the van, which is offered as both a passenger and commercial model, went on sale in 2018 and is highlighted by a large side opening thanks to no B-pillar. Honda’s not releasing a whole lot of details, but says it’s aiming for 200 kilometers or 124 miles of range. And to make it more attractive to customers it’s charging the same price as the gasoline model, a million yen or roughly $7,300. Japanese automakers have got to be worried about Chinese brands, like BYD, entering their home market with EVs, since they don’t have many to offer. But maybe this is a way for them to compete quickly by electrifying their kei car fleets and selling them at an affordable price?

CAMARO & ESCALADE TO BECOME STAND-ALONE BRANDS
Corvette is not the only subbrand that GM is going to spin off, according to Car and Driver. Sighting a source from inside GM, it says that Escalade and Camaro are also being considered for their own brands due to their success as individual products. As you would expect, there’s talk of crossovers and SUVs, but there’s rumors of a Cadillac minivan for China as well. Buick makes a super luxurious van, called the GL8, in China, so it is something that their customers are interested in.

GM PRESIDENT SAYS ICE AGE NOT OVER
And if it does happen, some of these vehicles still might feature an internal combustion engine. GM President, Mark Reuss says “the ICE age is not over” and that it will not leave segments where ICEs still dominate. Reuss mainly focused on trucks, but large crossovers and SUVs certainly fall in that category as well. And we hear that GM will even offer PHEVs in certain markets like South America.

EV TRUCKS HIT TIPPING POINT
Battery electric medium-duty trucks are cheaper to operate compared to diesels. But it depends on the application. That’s one of the things we learned at the SAE’s North American International Propulsion Conference last month. Battery powered medium-duty trucks that have a 200 to 300 mile range and recharge with electricity that costs 12 cents per kilowatt hour will have a lower total cost of ownership after 2 to 3 years of operation. Fleet operators have a laser focus on TCO or total cost of ownership, so this should boost sales of electric trucks. The SAE’s NAIPC follows Chatham House rules. That means we can report what we heard at the conference, but we cannot say who said it or what company they work for. But we can tell you that this report comes from one of the biggest truck manufacturers in the world.

BMW EXPANDS EV LINEUP IN CHINA
Chinese EV startups are growing fast, including in the luxury segment. And that’s hurt foreign automakers, especially the German premium brands. BMW has been lagging with EVs in China but that will change next year. It’s going to have 11 BEVs, up from the five today. This includes its iX1 model, which will be the brand’s third China-made model, as well as the Rolls Royce Spectre and the BMW Motorrad CE04 electric scooter. When those models hit the market, BMW claims it will have the most complete electric lineup amongst all the luxury brands in China.

HYUNDAI BUILDING BATTERY PLANT IN U.S.
While European automakers are complaining about their EVs not qualifying for subsidies from the Inflation Reduction Act, the Koreans are not sitting on their hands. The Hyundai Group is building manufacturing plants in the U.S. so it can qualify for EV tax credits. It officially announced it will build an EV battery factory in Georgia in partnership with SK On. That plant will open in 2025, just one year after the IRA starts handing out subsidies for EVs assembled in North America with batteries made in the USA.

And that’s a wrap for today. Thanks for making Autoline a part of your day.