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Runtime: 11:07
0:00 Tesla’s Growth Slowed in 2023
1:43 Should Polestar Go Private Again?
2:39 Mazda Restarts Rotary R&D Group
3:48 Porsche Reveals All-Electric Macan
5:06 Stellantis Buys AI Tech to Develop Smart Cockpits
5:55 2-Door Wrangler Gets Factory 35s
6:25 Battery Plants Need 90% Yield to Make Profit
7:39 New Way to Make Batteries Safer
8:32 Wild Canoo EV to Deliver Mail
8:59 GM Makes Big Investment in Brazil
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This is Autoline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry.
TESLA’S 2023 GROWTH SLOWED SUBSTANTIALLY
Tesla reported its financial numbers for last year and on the surface the numbers look really good. It delivered 1.8 million cars to customers, up 38%. Total revenues came to $96.7 billion, up 19%. And its net profit came up three dollars shy of $15 billion, which is up 19%. But there’s an asterisk that goes with that profit number. The company was able to book a massive one-time tax benefit called a ‘release of valuation allowance’ that put over $5.7 billion on the bottom line for the fourth quarter. So, take out that one-time tax benefit, and profits were actually down 26%. And things really slowed down in the fourth quarter for Tesla. Deliveries were up 20%, but automotive revenue was only up 1% and operating income plummeted 47% compared to a year earlier. Elon Musk told analysts that Tesla’s growth would slow even more this year, and investors were clearly spooked by the news. Tesla shares fell 8.6% in after hours trading. Here’s our Autoline Insight. Tesla is still growing and solidly profitable. But it’s not growing anywhere near its previous rates. So it needs a new strategy to get back to the growth that supports its massive stock market valuation. One thing’s clear. Cost cutting is not going to do it, because you can’t cost-cut your way to prosperity.
BERNSTEIN: POLESTAR SHOULD GO PRIVATE
Polestar, Geely and Volvo’s premium EV brand, is feeling the effects of the slowdown in EV demand. It’s not hitting its sales targets and its stock is slumping. That’s why Bernstein says Polestar should be rolled back into the Group and made private because it’s “on a road to nowhere.” Polestar, which listed in 2022, has seen its stock fall 82% in the last year. It closed at $2.10 a share yesterday on the Nasdaq. The company delivered 54,600 vehicles last year, which was actually up 6% but it was below its target of selling 60,000-70,000 vehicles. And that was a downgrade from an original target of 80,000 deliveries in 2023. The fourth quarter of last year was especially bad with deliveries dropping nearly 40%.
MAZDA RE-STARTS ROTARY R&D GROUP
If the rotary engine goes away, it won’t be for lack of trying on Mazda’s part. The automaker teased with talk of a new rotary for years and finally it started selling a rotary range extender in the electric MX-30 in Japan and Europe last year and sold 2,700 in a little over a month. But even though it has this current model on sale, Mazda doesn’t have a stand-alone team working on rotary engines, which was disbanded in 2018. However, that’s about to change. It created a new R&D team of about 30 people that start on February 1st working to develop rotaries that support its electrification efforts. It sounds like the main effort is to clean up the carbon emissions of the engine, which could also include rotaries that run on hydrogen.
PORSCHE LAUNCHES ITS 2ND EV
Porsche revealed the all-new, all-electric Macan. It will initially be offered in two versions; the Macan 4 and the Macan Turbo. Both are AWD and offer a battery pack with 95 kWh of usable space that provides up to 613 kilometers or about 380 miles of range on the WLTP test cycle. The Macan 4 generates up to 300 kW or 402 horsepower and will do 0-100 km/h in 5.2 seconds. The Macan Turbo has up to 470 kW or 630 horsepower and will do 0-100 in 3.3 seconds. Porsche says it can tow up to 2,000 kilograms or just over 4,400 pounds and will also offer rear wheel steering for the first time. Thanks to its new 800-volt electronic architecture, the Macan can charge at up to 270 kW, which will take the battery from 10-80% in as little as 21 minutes. Those are the main highlights, but we’ll provide a link if you’d like to dig into more of the details. Customers can expect deliveries to start in the second half of this year.
STELLANTIS BUYS AI TECH TO DEVELOP SMART COCKPITS
Stellantis just made a purchase that will help it accelerate its in-vehicle software development. It bought the technology and IP of AI company CloudMade and 44 engineers and software developers will also be joining the company from CloudMade. Its technology collects and analyzes data to provide personalized and predictive features to customers. But don’t just think of junk you don’t want. It will enable a Stellantis-specific personal assistant that can also provide maintenance and diagnostic info, adapt to individual seat and temperature settings, offer more advanced navigation as well as pre-trip planning and even more. Stellantis will use the technology to develop its SmartCockpit for future vehicles.
2-DOOR WRANGLERS GET FACTORY 35s
And sticking with Stellantis for just a quick second, for the first time ever Jeep customers will be able to buy a 2-door Wrangler with 35s from the factory. It was first offered on the 4-door in 2021. The tire package includes 17-inch beadlock wheels wrapped in B.F. Goodrich all-terrain tires, a 4.56:1 axle ratio and a 1 and a half inch suspension lift. Price comes in just under $4,500.
BATTERY PLANTS NEED 90% YIELD TO BE PROFITABLE
Just about every single battery maker launching a new battery plant goes through production hell. Tal Sholklapper, the CEO of Voltaiq, a company that does battery diagnosis, says getting battery production to scale is as difficult as getting there with microprocessors. In fact, he says battery makers should study how microprocessor manufacturers went through production hell 30 years ago and learn how they solved it. He says a big problem is that most companies don’t budget enough money to get through the production hell, even though they all go through it. Battery plants only get a 10% yield at launch, but need a 90% yield to be profitable. And it typically takes 4 years and billions of dollars to get there. But after that, even a few percentage points of improvement yields hundreds of millions more in profits. Sholklapper also predicts that lithium-ion will be the dominant EV chemistry for a long time. It’s hit a scale that will not be topped for years to come, and li-on batteries just keep improving.
EV BATTERIES ARE ABOUT TO GET SAFER
One example of how they keep getting better is an announcement from Incheon National University in South Korea that improves the safety of separators in a battery. The separators keep the cathode and anode from touching so they don’t short out. But they can melt at high temperatures, so researchers figured out a way to coat the separators with silicon dioxide to prevent that from happening. Before this development, researchers were working on ways to cover the separators with a ceramic coating, but that made the separator thicker and reduced the battery’s performance. So, they developed a way to graft a uniform layer of silicon dioxide and other unnamed “functional molecules” onto a film of polypropylene. And it’s improvements like these that are going to make EVs better all the time.
WILD CANOO EV TO DELIVER MAIL
Earlier this week, the U.S. Postal Service kicked off its EV transition by opening its first charging station at a Sorting and Delivery Center in Georgia and it revealed new Ford e-Transit delivery vehicles. Now, it’s adding more EVs to its fleet and announced it will purchase 6 delivery vehicles from EV startup Canoo. The fully-electric models will be handed over to the Post Office in the first quarter of this year.
GM MAKES BIG INVESTMENT IN BRAZIL
General Motors is bolstering its operations in Brazil and is investing $1.4 billion to upgrade its plants to build a new generation of ICE vehicles. GM also plans to import other models, including EVs, from North America to Brazil. The automaker says Brazil is a critical market and sees great opportunities in the future for not only its vehicles but other businesses like OnStar. Next year, GM will celebrate 100 years of operating in Brazil.
Last week Honda announced its going to start building fuel cell versions of the CRV. And those fuel cells will be manufactured by General Motors. So are fuel cells really going to catch on, or will they always be “just around the corner?” We’ve got Charlie Freese, the head of all fuel cell development at General Motors coming on Autoline After Hours this afternoon, and we’ll get to the bottom of whether or not the auto industry is going to play a significant role in a hydrogen future. So join John and Gary and their colleague Lindsay Brooke when the action gets going at 3 pm eastern time.
But that brings us to the end of this show. Thanks for tuning in.
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Maybe Polestar should just be shut down. The Polestar 2 got a horrible review from CR, and set a new record for poor reliability in their survey. Maybe future models will do better.
Mazda seems to be wasting a lot of money messing with Wankel engines. They are inefficient and dirty, and that is probably not likely to change.
Kit, the allure of the rotary engine is its compact size. As more space is dedicated to batteries and electric drive motors, a compact “generator” for PHEVs is intriguing… assuming it can clear its emission hurdle.
Tesla sales are slowing when it should be ramping up. Polestar struggling, Ford Lightning cut production in half and GM pushed back the EV Silverado by a year. Yet we are supposed to be only EV sales by 2035. The 2025 models come out this July so we are 10.5 years away from the supposed end to ICE. Current Ev sales in the US is at 8% which means sales need to grow by 8.7% each year. Anyone else see it doubling the current sales next year? and continue that 8-9% increase for the next 10 years. I don’t. Maybe the Chinese will flood our ports with cheap EVs that somehow accomplish that increase, I hope not. But I find it pretty doubtful we will be able to ban ICE by 2035.
Lambo, Tesla sales aren’t slowing. They delivered 1.8 million cars to customers in 2023, up 38%. The rate of growth is slowing, though. It’s looking like pickup truckers aren’t very interested in EVs, given what’s happening with Lightning sales/production. It remains to be seen how Cybertruck does.
I certainly agree that ICE vehicles will still be sold 10 years from now. I would hope that they’d get more efficient, and that companies other than Toyota would take hybrids seriously. I’d also hope that fewer people would buy huge vehicles they have no need for, but that is probably too much to expect.
Lambo , I sure don’t seeing EV sales growing that much. Especially with a report that AAA had 8300+ calls for dead EVs in the midwest during the latest cold snap. Ch. argers went down and cars couldn’t charge at all or were taking forever
Even if EV sales grew 25% over the previous year (each year) it would take 12 years to achieve full EV adoption. We are looking at a 28 to 30% EV adoption by 2035 in the US. The only way we will get there is a much more aggressive ban on ICE’s, super high gas prices and or a much better charging network and batteries.
Kit- Yes I didnt mean to say Tesla sales were slowing the rate of growth is slowing right while it should be ramping up. Remember we are just at the beginning of this EV transition with only 8% of sales. They should be seeing nice increases every year. Maybe its just a blip but I doubt it.
@Lambo: I don’t understand how any government official could come up with the idea that a new technology like electric propulsion could be the solution for all use cases.
the bloom is off of the EV rose
A Ford dealer here is asking over $60K for a $38K sticker hybrid Maverick. That stuff has to change as well..
Al, it looks like Ford is artificially limiting production of hybrid Mavericks. A friend got one for MSRP, but with a 15 month wait. If you want one now, you pay thousands over MSRP.
The Macan EV looks great, but is it just me, or does the new Macan have a somewhat Nio SUV look to it around the front and rear?
I don’t know about the looks of the Macan EV, but I’ll be seeing them at local Porsche club “cars and coffee” cruise ins. Quite a few members have lots of spare money, and buy whatever new Porsche comes along. To me, it was kind of a splurge to buy a base Cayman.
Wim- I have to believe the politicians never really expected to achieve 100% EV adoption by 2035. Some are pretty out of touch so maybe, but I would guess they threw out an aggressive goal to support this global warming agenda and pander to those voters that truly believe that’s our biggest issue. They figured the ICE bans would get pushed back but it would take 10 years, and the age of most politicians they probably figured that’s a problem for the next guy/gal. They can look like they tried to do the right thing and someone else will take the heat for postponing it. Typical politics.
I’m just curious how they will deal with ICE sales. Will they just postpone the ban 10 more years? Will they set saturation targets? Fine the automakers for not being able to sell products people wont buy? How they deal with this in the future could get very complicated, one thing I guarantee will happen. It will cost the consumer more money.
Kit- I dont think its just the hybrid Maverick. A friend of mine works for Ford and bought one new using his employee discount. Drove it for 2 years and 24K miles and had a dealership offer him 6K over what he paid.
$60K for a maverick? Only an absolute fool would spend that on any version of the maverick. If anyone buys that car, they will be a repo statistic in a year or two. The dealership near me has 3 Hybrid mavericks in stock at MSRP or you can get a Ford Employee discount if you qualify. They also have hundreds of F150s that they can’t get rid of and they are putting $10K worth of incentives on those.
I guess wherever this dealer is with a $60K maverick has not received the memo that the pandemic is over. Probably best that everyone avoids that dealer forever if that is their business practice.
The Ford dealer near me has one Maverick hybrid “in transit,” and none in stock. It is Lariat trim, $41,470 MSRP. A base Maverick, at MSRP, is a good value. It’s the only game in town, if you want a pickup truck that gets decent gas mileage. It’s too bad they don’t make a regular cab version. That would be great for “handy men” to carry light stuff in.
On a side note, people who have actually working Lyriqs are very happy, with some saying they wouldn’t want to be driving anything else remotely in that price bracket. It’s a shame rollout has been FUBAR. At least Cadillac is going global with it.
The ’25 CTS-V and Blackwing are really well done. No more uber-busy front fascia, and the interior looks classy, while tastefully incorporating a large screen (essential for the Chinese market).
A $25K Tesla will face competition from BYD et aliter. Will it retain the expensive computing hardware of all its siblings?
I’d be surprised if they put the hardware for “full self driving” in the cheaper Tesla. Not many people would want to buy a $12K option for that car.
I hope Cadillac keeps the CT5 around for a while. I wish they had a better “standard” powertrain, and better yet, a high mpg hybrid system, but the car looks good, and the V and Blackwing have seriously good performance.
A standard 2l (turbo) four is really not something I picture in a Cadillac of that size, no matter the output. Detuning the 3l V6, with just one lower-pressure, responsive turbocharger, would make for a more enticing car.