AD #3941 – Ford Making Big Cuts in Europe; EV Sales Could Drop 27% Without Credits; VW Strike Looks More Likely

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

EV SALES COULD DROP 27% WITHOUT CREDITS
Sales of electric cars could drop dramatically if Trump gets rid of consumer subsidies to buy them. Bloomberg cites scholars at the University of California, Berkeley and Duke University, who say sales could drop by 27%, or 317,000 units per year. If that happened it would severely damage automakers’ push into EVs because with the exception of Tesla, they’re all currently losing money. But others say that EV demand will continue to grow over time as automakers figure out how to bring costs down. So, what do you think?

GERMAN STRIKE LOOKS LIKELY AT VW
The European auto industry is going through a rough time and it sure looks like Volkswagen’s union in Germany is getting ready to make moves next month that would essentially shut the company down. VW wants pay cuts and plant closings, the union wants to forgo future raises with no pay cuts or plant closings, but both sides are so far apart that a strike looks more likely.

FORD MAKING BIG CUTS IN EUROPE
And it’s not just VW that has problems in Europe. Ford is going to cut 4,000 workers there, mostly in Germany and England. That’s about 14% of its employees in Europe. The layoffs will stretch out over a two year period, suggesting that a chunk of them can be handled through normal attrition and retirements. Even so, it comes on top of the 3,800 layoffs the company announced last year. Ford is also going to throttle back production of its electric vehicles, the Capri and Explorer because of weak demand. And unless sales of those EVs pick up quickly, it sounds crazy to say, we’ve got to wonder if Ford will just drop out of the European market. We don’t think it would with commercial vehicles, because it does well with them. But before the pandemic, Ford sold almost a million vehicles a year in Europe. Now it’s selling half as many.

EU SALES HELD UP BY ELECTRIFIED VEHICLES
The new car market in Europe is stuck in a rut. The ACEA, which is the automotive manufacturers association in Europe, reports that sales were up only one tenth of one percent in October with automakers selling just over one million vehicles. One bright spot was with hybrids, which were up nearly 19%, and the big beneficiary there was Toyota, whose sales were up 17%. EVs had a good month, too, with sales just under 170,000 units, up nearly 7%. But almost all of the increase came from the UK, where BEV sales were up 14%. Even so, Tesla had a terrible month in Europe, with registrations down 21%. We’re guessing that Chinese electrics had something to do with that, but the ACEA does not publish their numbers.

  

HONDA STARTS SOLID-STATE BATTERY PRODUCTION TESTS
Solid-state batteries for EVs continue to make progress. Earlier this week, we reported that Chinese automaker Chery said it is the first automaker to build a production line for fully solid-state batteries at the gigawatt hour level. And now Honda has revealed a demonstration production line for all-solid-state batteries at the company’s R&D center in Japan. The pilot project kicks off in January and replicates the processes required for mass production, which it’s doing to determine the basic specifications for the battery cells. Honda plans to introduce EVs with all-solid-state batteries in the second half of the decade, including motorcycles and aircraft.

FORD PULLS OUT OF CANADIAN BATTERY MATERIALS PLANT
And in other battery news, Ford is backing away from a $860 million battery materials plant in Quebec. In August of last year, the automaker formed a joint venture with SK On and EcoPro BM, to build the cathode active materials plant but Ford is dropping out of the JV because it is scaling back on its EV plans. But despite that, construction of the plant will not be halted. It has a planned capacity of 45,000 metric tons of cathode material per year for NMC batteries which is enough for 225,000 EVs.

HYUNDAI REVEALS ALL-ELECTRIC IONIQ 9 SUV
There’s been a number of new production vehicles, concepts and teasers revealed since yesterday’s show and I think a good place to start is with Hyundai. It revealed the all-new IONIQ 9, its first all-electric 3-row SUV, which will go on sale in South Korea and the U.S. in the first half of next year. This is like Hyundai’s version of the Kia EV9 and while I think the exterior design is pretty different, the interiors look pretty similar. They both feature a simple layered dash, a thin display, controls that hang from the bottom of the dash and even the open section between the dash and center console and the 2nd row swivel seats. The IONIQ 9 is available in rear- or two all-wheel drive versions that produce roughly 215, 310 and 430 horsepower, respectively. All feature a 110 kWh battery pack that is expected to reach a WLTP range of 385 miles or 620 kilometers and a standard NACS charging port.

GENESIS REFRESHES GV70
Sticking with the Hyundai Group, Genesis refreshed the GV70, which comes with slightly revised front-end styling. The big change is to the screen on the interior. Before the instrument cluster was under its own hood on the dash, separate from the infotainment screen which was mounted up high. But now those screens have been combined into one display and it doesn’t sit quite as high on the dash. There’s a few other tech and material upgrades and like the IONIQ 9, the all-electric version, called the Electrified GV70, comes exclusively with a NACS charging port and launches in the first half of next year.

JAGUAR TEASES ‘BOLD’ NEW CONCEPT
Now let’s go over to Jaguar. I saw a number of you wondering in the comments why we didn’t go over the complete remake of the brand in yesterday’s show. In all honesty, there were just other things we wanted to cover. However, we can’t ignore it any longer with the teaser that it just showed. Jag says this is an image of its dramatic new creative philosophy that will inspire future vehicles. We’ll leave it to you to let us know what you think, but I think one of the descriptor words it used for the concept is quite appropriate, and that’s “bold.”

DS KEEPS NEW CONCEPT NAME A SECRET
Also on the concept side, DS Automobiles, which is part of Stellantis, revealed an all-new BEV. I’d tell you its name, but I can’t. The brand is having a little fun and put out a press release that looks more like a redacted government file. It does say it will have up to 750 kilometers or about 465 miles of range on the WLTP cycle and uses some fancy ways to describe the way it looks, but it’s basically a high-riding sedan. DS says it will release more details before the end of the year.

VW TIGUAN GETS MAJOR UPDATE
Volkswagen’s best-selling model in the U.S. is getting a major update. The all-new Tiguan has been shifted to the newest version of VW’s ICE platform, called MQB evo, which also underpins the new Passast. The exterior styling has been pulled ahead to blend in with the rest of the new lineup and the interior looks like a big upgrade with modern styling and digital display screens. Level 2 driver assistance is also standard and the new Tiguan will launch with a turbocharged 2.0L 4-cylinder engine that makes 201 horsepower. While Tiguan sales are up 15% in the U.S. to nearly 64,000 units through the third quarter, like Nissan, VW’s sales have been held back by a lack of hybrids, so a single powertrain option is a little surprising. However, the MQB evo platform can support gas, diesel, mild-hybrid and plug-in hybrid setups. There’s no ways it’s bringing a diesel back to the U.S., but we think the mild- and plug-in hybrid will follow at some point.

TESLA ROBOT TOY SELLS OUT FAST
Tesla has introduced a number of non-automotive accessories over the years and the latest is a toy version of its Optimus robot. It’s 1:10 scale and features more than 40 parts, a mini CyberHammer, which is inspired by the Cybertruck and its own charging base. But like all that other stuff, the toy robot sold out quickly. They retailed for $40 and were completely gone in less than 24 hours. And like a lot of other things, greedy people are selling them on ebay for $300-$500.

But that brings us to the end of today’s show. Don’t forget to tune into Autoline After Hours at 3PM EST today. We’ve got someone from Plus coming on to talk about autonomy and we’ll get into this week’s top stories. I hope to see you there.