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Runtime: 11:42
0:00 Mercedes Workers Reject the UAW
0:57 BYD Workers Strike Over $5,000/Year Pay
1:38 Kuniskis Retires from Dodge
2:38 Tesla EU Sales Are 44% Fleet
3:33 Honda Offers Fuel Cells for Class 8
4:36 Baidu Launches $28,000 EV Robotaxi
5:30 Baidu Considers Using Tesla’s Robotaxi
5:58 Ford & Stellantis Have Worst Supplier Relations
7:01 Cadillac Offering More Customization Options
8:02 Nio Now Offering Autonomous Battery Swaps
8:37 Italy Forces Fiat to Remove Italian Flag on The Topolino
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MERCEDES WORKERS REJECT THE UAW
In a stinging rejection to the UAW, workers at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Alabama resoundingly voted against the union. Over 90% of the workers at the plant voted in the union election, and 56% of them voted to keep the union out. The result was surprising because the UAW claimed it had a supermajority of workers who signed cards calling for an election. UAW president Shawn Fain accused Mercedes of engaging in “egregious illegal behavior” so it may be setting itself up to go after the company in other ways. But now all eyes turn to the Hyundai assembly plant in Alabama and a Toyota engine plant in Missouri where the UAW has organizing drives going.
BYD WORKERS STRIKE OVER $5,000/YEAR PAY
And in other labor news, workers at a BYD plant staged a strike last week over wages, and it gives you an idea of the kind of money a Chinese line worker earns. BYD just implemented a four-shift schedule, with those shifts working eight-hours a day for five days a week. But it also eliminated overtime pay, and workers rely on that time-and-a-half overtime to boost their income. With the overtime, those workers earned $8,300 to $10,700 a year. But without it they only make $5,000 a year, and that’s why they went on strike.
KUNISKIS RETIRES FROM DODGE
There’s an unexpected shakeup in management at Stellantis. Tim Kuniskis, who is the head of the Dodge and Ram brands, is retiring after nearly 32 years with the company. And his roles are being filled by two people. Christine Feuell will take over Ram, in addition to being CEO of the Chrysler brand and Matt McAlear, who led all of Dodge’s sales operations, will become CEO of that brand. The moves take effect on June 1st. Kuniskis doesn’t look like your typical gray-haired retiree and he always seemed really passionate about the cars he sold anytime he was on our shows, like ATW and After Hours. But it wasn’t easy booking him for all those shows because of a busy schedule and Kuniskis has a family. I don’t know what he’ll do, but seems like a decent guy, so just want to wish him the best.
TESLA EU SALES ARE 44% FLEET
Did you realize how heavily Tesla relied on fleet sales in Europe? Reuters reports that 44% of all Tesla’s sold in Europe and the UK go to fleet operators. That includes daily rental companies, but also includes corporate fleets, where company cars are a perk offered to many executives to take advantage of generous tax breaks. But all of Tesla’s price cuts have hurt the residual value of its cars, which in turn has hurt fleet and leasing companies that handle Teslas. So the automaker is offering them unofficial discounts to try and offset the drop in residual values. But the fleet and leasing companies are also complaining about slow service and expensive repairs. And some of them are now looking at getting Chinese EVs instead.
HONDA OFFERS FUEL CELLS FOR CLASS 8
Slowly but surely, hydrogen fuel cells keep making progress. Now Honda is making them for semi-trucks in North America. It’s showcasing a concept truck at this week’s Advanced Clean Transportation Expo in Las Vegas. The Class 8 truck is powered by 3 fuel cell systems that provide an estimated range of 400 miles. The fuel cells were jointly developed with General Motors and they’re being built at a joint venture production plant in Brownstown, Michigan. Honda says the cost of the fuel cell system is two-thirds less than the one used in the 2019 Clarity. It didn’t say when the truck will launch but it’s currently looking for customers.
BAIDU LAUNCHES $28,000 EV ROBOTAXI
There’s a lot of skepticism about autonomous vehicles becoming a reality. But Chinese tech giant Baidu just launched its 6th generation robotaxi. Called the RT6, it’s a Level 4 AV with 5 lidars and 40 sensors. But despite all that tech, the model costs a little over $28,000, which is 50% less than its previous generation robotaxi. The vehicle is built by Jiangling motors and features a 110-kW electric motor from BYD and a swappable LFP battery pack but its size wasn’t disclosed. It has a top speed of 135 km/h or 84 MPH. The RT6 robotaxis will operate in the city of Wuhan and Baidu plans to deploy 1,000 of them by the end of the year.
BAIDU CONSIDERS USING TESLA’S ROBOTAXI
But that’s not the only robotaxi it may have in its fleet. A Baidu executive says it’s considering using Tesla’s robotaxi in China. This wouldn’t be the first time the companies have partnered up. Baidu has been providing Tesla with in-car mapping and navigation tech since 2020. And recently, Tesla expanded that deal to have Baidu provide it with all the mapping data for Full Self Driving in China.
FORD & STELLANTIS HAVE WORST SUPPLIER RELATIONS
Ford and Stellantis have the worst relations with suppliers in the North American market according to the latest supplier survey from Plante Moran. That survey is called the Supplier Working Relationship Survey and it measures how well automakers treat their suppliers and how well they communicate with them. Toyota and Honda dominate the survey with suppliers rating them as the best in the business. General Motors lags behind them but is making progress. Nissan is a ways behind GM but rising strongly, while Ford’s rating is plummeting and Stellantis is rated the worst, though it has improved a bit lately. One reason why suppliers are so down on Ford: many of them invested heavily in its EV programs and with sales well below projections they’re losing money on those programs. Many industry experts believe that automakers with the best supplier relationships tend to perform the best.
CADILLAC OFFERING MORE CUSTOMIZATION OPTIONS
Cadillac was once known as “The Standard of the World,” but on Autoline After Hours a few weeks ago, the Autoextremist, Peter DeLorenzo says the brand no longer knows who or what they are and why. In other words, Cadillac has a marketing problem. But one way it could build itself back up is by going back to old-school coachbuilding, where luxury cars were hand assembled and decked out to their owner’s wishes. Of course, it offers these services for the $300,000 plus Celestiq, but Cadillac also came out with a special edition of the CT5 V Blackwing that gives customers similar a-la-carte customization for paint and materials. A team spends around 200 hours painting, hand-assembling and validating the cars, which adds about $36,000 to the price. But the director of the team would like to grow to do even more.
NIO NOW OFFERING AUTONOMOUS BATTERY SWAPS
Chinese automaker NIO is coming out with, what I think, is the ultimate road-trip technology. Gasgoo reports that it’s launching Power Swap on Pilot. Basically, a vehicle equipped with its latest self-driving tech driving autonomously on the freeway, can now exit the freeway, drive itself to a battery swap station, swap out the battery on its own and then get back on the freeway. NIO says there are 243 swapping stations along highways that are now compatible with the service.
ITALY FORCES FIAT TO REMOVE ITALIAN FLAG ON THE TOPOLINO
Fiat says the Topolino was designed and engineered in Italy. So it put a little sticker of the Italian flag on every one that rolled off the assembly line. The only problem is, that assembly line is in Morocco and Italian authorities say those stickers violate the country’s “Made in Italy” rules. So Fiat no longer puts those stickers on the cars. Here’s something that adds a little wrinkle to the story. The Topolino is actually based on the Citroen Ami, which was designed and engineered in France. And Opel also has a version of the Ami, called the Rocks-e. A month ago Italian authorities forced Alfa Romeo to drop the name of its newest crossover, called the Milano, because it’s made in Poland. Alfa now calls it the Junior. Ah yes, isn’t the auto industry interesting? We’ve got labor strife, management shakeups, suppliers mad at car companies, a global price war…and a major brouhaha over a sticker on a car. One thing about this auto industry: there’s never a dull moment.
But that brings us to the end of today’s show. Thanks for making Autoline a part of your day.
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who retires at 57 years of age. I’m guessing Kuniskis was fired.
Don Sherman – You sound jealous.
I was always told by union members it was better to have a threat of a union than it was to have a union. All the benefits without the union hassles.
Sean I don’t like being critical of your broadcast but you may want to look up the definition of “resoundingly”. Mercedes having a 90% turn out and only voting it down by 6% I wouldn’t consider resounding. Means if 3% flopped the other way it would have tied In a plant with 6000 workers that’s only a little over 150 that made the difference.
Hey all those in favor of buying cheap EVs from China without tariffs. Be prepared to have auto workers make $5000 a year. Thats a level playing field. Sounds like a great plan.
The people (of M.B.) have spoken. Go kick rocks, Fain!!!
Lambo 2015 –
Union ratification failed by 597 votes.
The NLRB’s final tally showed a vote of 2,642 against the union, with 2,045 in favor (56% No to 44% Yea), and roughly 93% of workers eligible to vote cast ballots.
Being a true old school car guy I’ll bet Kuniskis got out while still on top. If the electric Charger flops he can still distance himself and his legacy from the woke electric ‘revolution’.
Good for the BMW workers rejecting the union, they probably saved their jobs.
Funny how these leasing companies site high repair costs for electric vehicles. I thought they were far more cost effective than ICE vehicles, unless these are related to collision repair costs.
Joe G., I was thinking the same thing re. Kuniskis. He will be gone long enough to not be blamed for killing the Dodge brand, if the EV Charger doesn’t work out. He’d have enough money to last several lifetimes.
Joe G — I believe it was the US Mercedes plant that voted down the UAW, but not having the UAW or a union of any kind doesn’t mean this decision saved jobs either! Now, if Mercedes decided to arbitrarily fire someone, or a group of people, even layoff all their employees who are at the top of the pay scale, to hire new employees who would start at the bottom, they could. Or force mandatory over time on one group and not another. Make the second shift work more hours then the first, but pay each group the same amount of money. Make up and change work rules as management sees fit, and penalize employees differently for the same offenses, based on the whim of the person it charge.
I know someone that works within a group of others and the job is at times very, very stressful. There is a lot of pressure to not only process a mountain of work, but it has to be top quality, for errors will not be tolerated! One of the work rules is that the employees can not be given quotas, so instead they are given them mandatory ‘goals’ for the packets and work batches they are given! Even in this (IMHO, Hostile) environment, there are those who excel and are faster and more dependable then others. These employees are rewarded in the best way possible, by being given even more work and responsibility than their coworkers! Their boss has on several occasions said that they ‘just need the work done and it has to be right!’ So, the coworkers who were already not the fastest, only go slower, which has the boss pressuring the quicker workers to go faster. When the faster employees slow down, the boss scolds them about job performance, as well as meeting and keeping up with production.
Sure the people have issues with the UAW, but having a union of some kind to represent labor, may good a long way toward protecting the work force.
Joe G — If I’m not mistaken, a number of OEMs give discounts for repair parts, especially when purchased in bulk. Tesla, as I understand, does not do this and they also have not authorized any third parties to provide genuine replacement parts, which are in many cases cheaper. So this, among other things, is the reason why it is said that it is so expensive to repair Tesla models. For the insurance company has to pay full price on parts and if Tesla doesn’t do the repair work, they may be locked out of Tesla network. While it ‘may’ be less expensive to own an EV, when it comes to repair cost after an accident or when a lease is turned, if there are any repairs that need to be made, it can be expensive.
Yep, definitely Mercedes-Benz, not to be confused with BMW had the union vote.
From what I’ve heard from an owner, Tesla parts are expensive, and take a long time to get. I’d think that should be getting better, at least parts availability, if not price, since sales are down, and they might not need the parts for building new cars.
I suspect residual value of EVs will be unpredictable for some time to come. While I’ve never leased a car, if getting an EV, I might be temped to lease, so I’d have a better idea of what I was getting into.
Chinese wages have risen considerably over the years – that’s why alternate sources like Vietnam have become more attractive. An automotive assembly-line worker can earn $1,200 – $1,600+ a month now, from what I gather. The problem is that China still totally dominates both battery cell production, and its precursors like cathode/anode materials.
The idea that the US could import and pay for millions of cars from China every year without debilitating long-term consequences is curious to say the least. China could absolutely supply 10 million cars per annum, and build the necessary ships too. That would also mean losing all the content: vehicle electronics, software, materials and components…
Payment would be in porc, sweet potatoes, and IOU’s, I presume. Mainly the latter.
CG- I would still consider that a moderate win for Mercedes. Sean didn’t provide the actual numbers but even still at less than 600 votes making the difference that means if half of those 600 switched Naa to yeah only 300 people or about 5%confirmed that vote. If I were in MB management, I would consider that a close call and that a union could take hold easily within a year if raises or working conditions are not able to keep the workers happy. My comment was not in support of the vote one way or the other. Just that the reporting seemed a bit skewed to call the win a resounding win. I would say if the union was denied by 30% of the workforce that might be considered a resounding NO! 5% not so much.
I understand you may need Tesla’s approval for Genuine Tesla replacement parts but I don’t believe you need anything from Tesla to provide aftermarket replacement parts. With them being built in China I’m surprised there isn’t already a decent aftermarket part supply available. One of the reasons the “right to service” laws are so important. No manufacturer should be able to hold their customers hostage requiring them to buy parts and labor from them to keep their car running. Sure, they would like to make EV tech sound like its rocket science and requires a certified Tesla mechanic but the truth is there are at least 4 You tube channels I’ve watched where Tesla powertrain has been moved into classic muscle cars and where an ICE V8 has been stuffed under the hood of a Model S. while still using all the Tesla electronics to maintain self driving and door handles and dash info. So other shops can service these cars and in fact do stuff that was never intended to be done with them. I can see using the manufacturer while under warranty but once that warranty is up all bets are off and I’ll buy, modify and change whatever I want. Or if I cant I’ll not buy your brand.
On my recent road trip, I was reminded about a very cheap to implement safety feature that should be mandatory. Tail lights, and either headlights or parking lights should turn on, any time the wipers are on. I went through a couple very hard rain storms while on the interstate, and it’s hard enough to see cars ahead, even with their lights on, but there are idiots, sometimes going slowly in the left lane, without lights on.
Its mandatory by Canadian standards. But yeah should be in the US too.