There’s scary stuff happening all over the automotive industry this Halloween. Waymo has bewitched Chrysler Pacificas into driving all by themselves… Honda is selling Civic Type R crate engines to anyone who wants to buy them… and Elon Musk is digging gigantic tunnels under the city of Los Angeles! Ooooh, this is a scary Autoline Daily.

Now that we’ve got you into the Halloween spirit, let’s look at the latest automotive news.

SEAT STICKS IT TO CATALONIA
No doubt you’ve heard the news that Catalonia wants to split away from Spain. Now SEAT, the Spanish automaker which is owned by Volkswagen, warns that it will move its headquarters out of Catalonia if the province breaks away. SEAT is one of the largest companies in Spain and is based in Catalonia. That’s a pretty serious threat.

WAYMO SAYS AVS CLOSER THAN YOU THINK
Waymo showed off its proving grounds in California to the media yesterday. Journalists were impressed at how well its autonomous Chrysler Pacifica’s handled situations, like cars cutting it off, distracted pedestrians stepping in front of it, bicyclists riding erratically, and someone backing out of a driveway, not paying attention. Waymo’s CEO told the media that fully autonomous cars are a lot closer than most people think.

WALL STREET SMACKS GM STOCK
Speaking of autonomous cars, General Motors stock moved up 27% over the last three months as the market perceived that GM has a clear path to monetizing mobility services. Well now the market is second guessing itself. GM stock fell nearly 3% yesterday after Goldman Sachs downgraded it, due to concerns that car sales have peaked in the U.S. market.

Still to come on this scary show, Elon Musk is digging gigantic tunnels under LA.

ELON MUSK SHOWS OFF LA TUNNEL
Elon Musk just tweeted a photo of the tunnel he’s boring under LA. It’s currently 500 feet long, but will be 2 miles long in another three to four months. And in a year they want it running parallel to the 405 freeway from LAX airport to the 101 freeway. The idea is to have electric sleds carrying vehicles and people on pods at speeds up to 150 MPH, which can enter or exit the tunnel on the fly.

CHEVY SUPERCHARGES ITS 5.3L V8
Chevy is taking a whole host of vehicles, parts and crate engines to SEMA and its Silverado Performance Concept really caught our eye. While there’s a whole bunch of upgrades, the real gem is the LT4-style supercharger plunked on top of a 5.3L V8, which is a first and adds 100-horsepower. I was at a pre-screening event for Chevy’s SEMA offerings and the folks there made it seem like they were really trying to get a truck like this or at least the engine to market. And if only the engine makes it, I think it would be really cool to see it in a V-series Cadillac.

HONDA JOINS THE CRATE ENGINE CRAZE
In other SEMA engine news, Honda announced it will sell the engine from the new Civic Type R as a crate option. It has a price tag of a little over $6,500.

DODGE HELLCRATE ENGINE
And if you think that’s expensive, Dodge says it will sell you a Hellcat engine with wiring and PCM for $19,530.

Coming up next, Honda didn’t just redesign the Accord, it redesigned the manufacturing process.

ACCORD PIONEERS MANUFACTURING METHODS
Honda completely redesigned the Accord and took the opportunity to introduce manufacturing processes it’s never used before, like using laser brazing instead of spot welds to attach the roof. On last week’s Autoline After Hours, Don Warnock, the Plant Project Leader at Honda’s Marysville plant, talked about the difficulty of the change and its benefits.

(Clip from AAH #397 can only be viewed in the video version of today’s show.)

Of course you can watch that entire show right now on Autoline.tv or become a subscriber to our YouTube channel. And be sure to join us this coming Thursday for another Autoline After Hours.

But that’s it for today, thanks for watching and please beware of ghosts and goblins and other scary creatures running around your neighborhood tonight.