AD #3767 – Italy In Talks with China’s Chery Auto; Auto Execs Say SDVs Still a Ways Off; GM Loses Two Top Executives

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

ITALY IN TALKS WITH CHERY TO BUILD VEHICLES IN THE COUNTRY
Italy is not shy about wanting to expand vehicle production in the country. Fiat is the only major automotive producer in Italy, building about 750,000 vehicles last year. But country officials want to boost that output to 1.3 million a year. So, Italy pushed Fiat to significantly increase production, even toying with the idea of taking a stake in parent company Stellantis to get what it wanted. Stellantis eventually agreed to raise production by an additional 250,000 units to roughly 1 million vehicles a year. That means Italy would like to find someone to make 300,000 more vehicles a year in the country and it has a 6-billion-euro war chest for supporting local auto manufacturing as a way of luring in another automaker. And according to a report in Reuters, Chinese automaker Chery is the one Italy is “betting on most.” While we’ve seen opposition to Chinese automakers in Europe, it mostly seems to be related to cheaper EV imports. There’s less pushback on domestic production and Italy wants all the jobs it will create. 

AUTO EXECS SAY SDVs STILL A WAYS OFF
Software Defined Vehicle or SDV is a pretty buzzy word you’re likely to hear even if you only pay attention to the auto industry a little bit. These are vehicles where pretty much every function is controlled by software and can be updated. Every automaker is working on them, with some changing entire development philosophies, now designing a car from the inside out, around the software. But SDVs might not be as close to market-ready as you might think. Chip maker NXP Semiconductor and Wards Intelligence surveyed automotive executives from around the globe and say a majority of them don’t think at least 50% of new vehicles will be Software Defined before 2030. The biggest hurdles seem to be building a team that can develop a competent system and having to deal with legacy electronic architectures. But most automakers have already started laying the groundwork for full Software Defined Vehicles and some are clearly ahead of others.

TESLA RESTARTS BERLIN PRODUCTION
Tesla’s plant in Berlin is up and running again after an arson attack at a nearby power station last week shut it down. Germany’s Handlesblatt newspaper reports that Tesla was unable to build about 8,000 vehicles during the stoppage and will cost the company 400 million euros. Elon Musk also visited the plant today for the restart of production.

GM LOSES TWO TOP EXECUTIVES
General Motors is losing a couple of its top executives. The company announced that Gerald Johnson, the global head of manufacturing is retiring after 44 years with GM but he’ll remain at the company through the end of the year to help with the transition. Replacing Johnson is JP Clausen, who GM says has “vast expertise in global manufacturing, product engineering and scaling operations.” Clausen spearheaded the scaling up of EV propulsion systems at Tesla’s Gigafactory 1 and he’s also worked at Google, LEGO and biomanufacturing company Zymergen. GM also announced that its head of software, Mike Abbott, is leaving the company due to health reasons. GM poached Abbott last year from Apple and CEO Mary Barra has credited him with helping to turnaround its software development. GM’s VP of software, Baris Cetinok, will run the division on an interim basis.

NISSAN COULD BUILD FISKER’S ALASKA TRUCK IN MISSISSIPPI
We’ve got some great production updates from Autoforecast Solutions. It says Cadillac is working on an all-electric sedan that would like an EV version of the CT4 or CT5. So, a lot cheaper than the Celestiq. It’s said to be built on a version of the Ultium platform for more premium light duty cars and crossovers, called BEV Prime and would go into production at GM’s Lansing Grand River plant in August of 2028. There’s also an update on Lucid’s plans to build vehicles in Saudi Arabia. If you didn’t know, Lucid is majority owned by the Saudi Public Investment Fund and in 2022 announced plans to start production of a local plant later that year. At first it plans to make about 5,000 cars a year from pre-assembled kits that are put together at its plant in Arizona. But it will eventually become a full domestic manufacturer, which will likely happen when it launches the Gravity SUV and a smaller CUV. That CUV is said to start production in Saudi Arabia in June of 2026, followed by the U.S. in August. Lastly, you may have seen rumors that Nissan is in talks with Fisker, some reports specifically saying it’s interested in the Alaska pickup truck. I personally would be surprised if it happened, but Autoforecast says if it does, the electric pickup would be made at one of Nissan’s U.S. plants in Mississippi. 

BYD HAS AMBITIOUS GROWTH PLANS IN EUROPE
BYD’s sales in Europe are still relatively low but it plans to aggressively grow them over the next few years. The automaker, which launched in the EU in 2021, sold less than 16,000 vehicles last year, all of which were pure electrics. That accounted for 1.1% of the European EV market. But BYD’s head of Europe tells Automotive News that it wants to boost that to 5% or about 70,000 EVs, before it starts production at a new plant in Hungary around 2026. That plant will have an initial capacity of 150,000 vehicles, which could be doubled to 300,000 units and BYD believes the European plant will help it gain more customer acceptance in the market.

TOYOTA & NISSAN BOOST WAGES IN JAPAN
Major automakers in Japan like Toyota and Nissan are fully agreeing to union demands for pay raises that are the largest in 25 years. Toyota workers will get nearly $200 more a month and it will also give out record bonus payments. Last year those bonuses were said to be equal to more than 6 months of pay, but that’s likely going up to over 7.5 months. This should allow the Bank of Japan to end negative interest rates, which kept the yen weak, but also turbocharged the earnings of most Japanese companies. Now it looks like workers will get a piece of that pie.

VW TO LAUNCH L4 SEMI-TRUCKS IN U.S. & EU
Volkswagen’s commercial truck subsidiary, the Traton Group, which includes Navistar, Scania and MAN, is partnering up with autonomous driving software developer, Plus, to launch Level 4 autonomy. The companies are already testing self-driving trucks on public roads in the U.S. and Europe with a safety driver on board. This year, they plan to pilot commercial operations with fleets. Then they will start series production and global deployment at scale.

But that brings us to the end of today’s show. Thanks for making Autoline a part of your day.