AD #3953 – Tesla Cybertruck Heading to China?; GM Pulls the Plug on Cruise; Kuniskis Ready To “Get Back in The Fight”

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

TESLA CYBERTRUCK HEADING TO CHINA?
Tesla wants to sell the Cybertruck in China. Car News China reports that the truck just got an official energy consumption label from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. That’s one of the first steps in getting it homologated so it can go on sale there. But Tesla is also working on modifications to meet Chinese regulations, especially for pedestrian protection. Pickups in China are not considered passenger vehicles, they’re classified as commercial vehicles, which has limited their appeal. But the Cybertruck could change that, at least amongst wealthy buyers who want a vehicle that really stands out. And that could be a windfall for Tesla. Its stock was up nearly 3% in early morning trading. Now, none of this means the Cybertruck will actually go on sale there. But Tesla wouldn’t go through all these legal hoops unless it was serious about selling them in China.

GM PULLS THE PLUG ON CRUISE
In a blow to the autonomous vehicle sector, General Motors pulled the plug on Cruise yesterday. It will no longer fund the AV startup, and will fold the company into its existing engineering operations to concentrate on its hands-free SuperCruise technology. GM had poured $9 billion into Cruise and predicted that it would generate $50 billion a year in revenue by the end of the decade. But as it faced having to invest billions more before Cruise turned a profit, GM pulled the plug. Automakers and suppliers are being extremely cautious with capital spending right now, as the industry is in the midst of a historic disruption in technology, trade, sales and pricing. Honda, which was an investor and was going to launch robotaxi service in Japan using Cruise Origin vehicles, is selling its piece of the company back to GM. This is a dramatic turning point in AV development. The car companies have lost and the tech companies have won. VW and Ford threw in the towel on AVs about three years ago. And the biggest survivors in this space are Waymo and Zoox, which are part of Alphabet and Amazon, respectively.

NISSAN SHAKES UP MANAGEMENT
Wow, yesterday was something of a game of musical chairs as four automakers announced major management changes. Nissan, which is watching its sales, revenue and profits plummet, moved its CFO, Stephen Ma, over to its China operations, and promoted the head of its North American operations, Jeremie Papin, into the CFO position. And Christian Meunier, who previously ran Infiniti, was promoted to take Papin’s place. And those are just the first steps. Nissan promises to announce more management changes in April.

MERCEDES APPOINTS SUPPLIER EXEC TO BOARD
Mercedes-Benz also shuffled its board of management. Three board members are leaving as their terms end, and four new people will be added. That includes the CFO of Continental, Olaf Schick, who will join next October. That’s a highly unusual move for a car company to put a supplier exec on its board. But Schick worked for Mercedes earlier in his career and presumably, he’ll step down from Conti before returning to Mercedes.

BMW CFO TO BECOME CHAIRMAN OF SUPERVISORY BOARD
BMW announced its CFO, Nicolas Peter, will become the chairman of the supervisory board next year.

HYUNDAI NAMES RANDY PARKER NEW NORTH AMERICAN CEO
And Hyundai named Randy Parker as the CEO of its North American operations. He’ll be in charge of everything for Hyundai and Genesis in the US, Canada and Mexico, including sales, marketing and manufacturing. Up to now Jose Munoz was in charge of all that, but he was just promoted to CEO of the global Hyundai Motor Group, so Parker was promoted to run North America.

KUNISKIS READY TO “GET BACK IN THE FIGHT”
Yesterday we reported that Tim Kuniskis would return to Stellantis, but guess what? He was already there by the time the news broke. At a media event for the new Ram Heavy Duty trucks, Kuniskis made an unannounced appearance and declared he was ready to “get back in the fight.” Those are his words. He said the first two weeks after he abruptly left the company in May were great, but then he quickly got bored. He said some people told him to get a hobby, but he really wanted to get back into the industry. And he kept in touch with people at the company to keep track of what was going on. And he told the small media gathering he came back because “We’re getting our ass kicked.” He didn’t say anything about Carlos Tavares, and the Stella comms people made sure he was not available for questions, but it’s pretty clear that with Tavares gone, Kuniskis was ready to return.

JAPAN AUTO UNIONS SEEK HIGHER WAGES
Japanese auto unions want raises for their members and they have set specific targets for what they want. They especially want to boost wages for workers at smaller companies like suppliers. The Confederation of Japan Automobile Workers’, which has 12 unions in its group and 784,000 workers in total, wants pay raises of about $80 a month or more during contract negotiations with automakers next spring. That’s about a 5% increase in base pay for companies with less than 300 employees. Japanese lawmakers are on board with this because those wage increases, especially at the smaller companies, would help boost the economy.

CHINESE OEMs WANT TO EXTEND CASH-FOR-CLUNKERS PROGRAM
One reason why car sales set a record in China last month is that the government has a cash-for-clunkers program. China is giving out as much as $2,700 in subsidies for car buyers trading in an old-vehicle but that program ends at the end of the month. The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers is begging the government to keep it going. Thanks in part to the subsidy, China sold a record 3.3 million vehicles in November, a nearly 12% increase and new energy vehicles accounted for 47% or 1.5 million of those sales. A key reason why automakers want the subsidy extended is the precipitous drop in EV exports, which fell 29% last month, mostly because of Europe’s new tariffs on Chinese-made EVs. Other countries, like Brazil and Mexico, are also going to raise tariffs on Chinese cars, and that could be a real problem for Chinese automakers. The export market is something of a safety valve that’s absorbing some of the excess manufacturing capacity in the country. And as exports fall, they need to sell more cars in China, because if they can’t do that, it’s going to financially cripple the weak ones for once and for all.

LAMBORGHINI PARTNERS TO CREATE A SNOWBOARD
Sometimes, automakers like to try and extend the appeal of their brand by getting into areas that have nothing to do with cars. And now Lamborghini is playing that game. It partnered with snowboard maker CAPiTA Snowboards and the Union Binding Company, which makes bindings for snowboards, to create a snowboard and bindings. The lightweight board features design lines inspired by Lamborghini’s vehicles and it will be produced with 100% clean energy at CAPiTA’s factory in Austria. And of course, with the Lambo name and logo on it, it has to have a Lamborghini price. The board costs $1,500 while the bindings cost an extra $500 and only 200 will be made so you better get in line right now.

And that brings us to the end of today’s report. Thanks for watching Autoline Daily.