AD #3314 – GM Ties Executive Pay to EVs; Truck Drivers Mad At Speed Limiters; Russian Gas Threatens German Autos
April 29th, 2022 at 11:52am
Listen to “AD #3314 – GM Ties Executive Pay to EVs; Truck Drivers Mad At Speed Limiters; Russian Gas Threatens German Autos” on Spreaker.
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Runtime: 10:43
0:08 Russian Gas Threatens German Autos
1:14 U.S. Post Office Sued Over New Truck
1:46 GM Ties Executive Pay to EVs
3:02 Mercedes Unleashes 10 EVs
4:10 Tata’s Stunning AVINYA Concept
5:09 Truck Drivers Mad at Speed Limiters
6:46 Viewers Weigh in On Mach-E Experience
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RUSSIAN GAS THREATENS GERMAN AUTOS
Germany is under pressure to cut off imports of natural gas and oil from Russia, but it’s reluctant to do so. And the German auto industry is a key reason why. Reuters reports that the German auto industry accounts for about 30% of all energy consumption in Germany, and it mostly uses oil and gas. While German automakers do have wind generators and solar panels at almost all of their manufacturing facilities, that’s not enough. The bake ovens in the paint shops and all the electric robots in the body shops consume vast amounts of energy. About 80% of all the energy that Volkswagen uses comes from oil, gas and coal. At BMW it’s over 60%, with Mercedes right behind. And most of that oil and gas comes from Russia.
So the German auto industry is scrambling to find other energy sources. Russia already cut off supplies to Poland and Bulgaria, and Germany worries that it could get cut off too.
U.S. POST OFFICE SUED OVER NEW TRUCK
The US Post Office is running into multiple lawsuits over those new delivery trucks it wants to buy. Several states, environmental and labor groups and the UAW filed lawsuits against the Postal Service alleging that it failed to do the required environmental assessments it needed before deciding to spend billions on its Next Generation Delivery Vehicles. Over 80% of those trucks will be powered by gasoline engines, which get about 8.5 miles to the gallon.
GM TIES EXECUTIVE PAY TO EVs
There’s an old saying that goes, “Show me you how you’re going to compensate me, and I’ll show you how I’m going to perform.” And that’s what General Motors is doing when it comes to EVs. General Motors is tying executive compensation to meeting specific targets for electric vehicles. CEO Mary Barra said, starting this year, long-term executive compensation will be tied to reaching specific EV goals, including things like sales and production volumes, vehicle launch timing and vehicle quality. In other words, GM execs better deliver or they’re going to miss out on getting big bonuses.
MERCEDES UNLEASHES 10 EVs
Mercedes already revealed the EQE sedan and EQS SUV, and by the end of the year it will present more than 10 fully electric vehicles. So what’s up next? Well, an SUV version of the EQE is coming. That will be followed by the EQT and eCitan, both small vans, but the EQT is more of a premium passenger model, while the eCitan is more utilitarian with the option for panel sides. Mercedes’ VP of electric drive development also told Motor1 that the next-gen A- and B-Class will go electric. But they will still have ICEs as well. However, most vehicles that share both powertrain types, the ICE part got first consideration. That won’t be the case with these models. The platform will be EV-first. So, rather than compromises being made to adapt to EV, the compromises will come on the ICE side. It’s interesting to see the switch being made.
TATA’S STUNNING AVINYA CONCEPT
Indian automaker Tata Motors, which owns JLR, showed off its vision for future electric and connected mobility. It’s called the AVINYA Concept and has a very unique shape, which is said to combine the essence of a premium hatch to the luxuries and versatility of an SUV and the roominess and functionality of an MPV. Lighting also plays a key role with a distinct look that’s picked up on both the front and the rear. Built on Tata’s Gen 3 architecture, it features the latest connected technology, artificial intelligence and driver assistance systems. The only spec it really gives for any of the EV system is that it wants to have fast charging that allows for 500 kilometers of range in under 30 minutes. Tata says its new generation of EVs will be first be introduced to the market by 2025.
TRUCK DRIVERS MAD AT SPEED LIMITERS
Truck drivers are mad at the federal government. Nothing new there. But this time they’re mad about a rule to mandate speed limiters on semi-trucks. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is crafting the regulation right now. It will probably set speed limits of 60, 65 or 68 miles an hour. The American Trucking Association is in favor of the rule, but independent owner-operators, that is, small trucking firms or drivers who own their own rigs, are dead set against it. They say speed limiters will create unsafe speed differential between trucks and the traffic around them. They also say limiting speeds will create more traffic congestion. The feds say that speeding trucks are a major cause of accidents. But the independent truckers say most accidents happen on roads with speed limits below 55 miles an hour, where the speed limiters will do no good.
VIEWERS WEIGH IN ON MACH-E EXPERIENCE
Yesterday we reported on how Autoline viewer Brad Mike ran into problems with his Mustang Mach-E because his local dealer in Tennessee didn’t have any EV techs to work on it. So we asked any Mach E owners in the audience to share their experience with the car and their dealers. And we got a good response.
Don Sherman says, “We purchased a Mach E from an out of state dealer last year. Thus far, everything about it, especially driving past gas pumps, has been super sweet. The local Ford dealer serviced this vehicle without issue.”
Gary Rittenbach says he bought a Mach E GT online and even though Ford increased the MSRP by $2,000 after he ordered it, his dealer, Corwin Ford in the state of Washington, did NOT apply the increase. He says “The sales people at Corwin Ford Pasco were the best also. I would rate them as a 12 on a 1-10 scale! I am very happy with my Mach E GT.”
Khari Manzini says “I have a 2021 Ford Mustang Mach E Select with Technology Package. My experience has been wonderful except the dealership experience. It’s business as usual–navigating ADM and techs not knowing a thing about EVs. Even though the vehicle is popular, the dealers don’t seem to have much experience with them. I think the Ford split of Model E and Ford Blue is desperately needed or they will lose customers on post consumer support ALONE!”
Kelly Spongberg says “We purchased a Mach E GT Performance Edition about a month ago from Rainbow Ford in Rocky Mountain House, Alberta, Canada. Paid MSRP, even though it was the only Mach E they were allocated for 2022. No problems, and the techs (and salespeople) are all taking the EV training as it becomes available.”
Fully Electric says he’s owned a mach E for over a year with zero issues, and that his experience with his dealer has been A-OK, and he’s got some advice for Brad Mike. “As for that guy going back to the same Ford dealer is crazy .. in my area we have over 6 Ford dealers within 15 miles .. if you have issues with one just go to another.”
And finally, GM Veteran, who does not own a Mach E, made a really good point. “There has been a technician shortage for many years now. Fully trained EV techs are probably a fairly rare commodity. Most Ford dealers would only pay to train one or two because of the low demand for repairs due to low sales volumes so far. If a tech goes to work at another dealer, that dealer now needs to find or train a replacement. It’s entirely possible that the dealership he went to did not have an EV tech on staff at that time.”
But that’s it for today, thanks for watching and have a great weekend.
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Comments (27)
April 29th, 2022 at 12:19 pm
It appears that there are a lot of Mach-E drivers here, considering the small sales figures, so far.
Speaking of which, Sean or John, do you know why the production volume of only 2-3K a month is so low? Are there major parts shortages, or is the factory only capable of that low volume, at least so far? There is a lot of demand for the vehicle.
April 29th, 2022 at 12:34 pm
Ontario mandated the speed limiters for trucks years ago. I haven’t heard if it’s made any difference in safety. In Europe vehicles pulling trailers have lower speed limits in many countries but distance travelled is also a lot shorter.
April 29th, 2022 at 1:12 pm
#1. Kit, You’re only looking at US sales of the Mach E. Last year Ford sold about 64,000 Mach E’s globally, mostly in the US and EU. That’s about 5,300 a month. Ford plans to ramp up production this year to 100,000, including the ones it makes in China. And it plans to take that to 200,000 in 2023.
April 29th, 2022 at 2:23 pm
3 Thanks for info. Yeah, I should have known a lot of Mach-Es are sold in the EU. It sounds like they plan to ramp up production a lot.
April 29th, 2022 at 2:24 pm
I wonder if there are stats available on the number of big truck accidents that are caused by car/crossover/pickup/SUV drivers? I know truck drivers have complained for many years about being cut off by auto drivers as a major cause of accidents and near-misses. Bigger variation in the speeds between the trucks and other vehicles may increase the chances of this happening.
Better driver training and testing would also help. Most drivers have no idea of the capabilities of big trucks or the physics at play.
April 29th, 2022 at 3:00 pm
5 Yeah, I’d think a bigger speed differential of traffic could cause more crashes.
Also, if trucks had speed limiters, I’d think there would be more cases of very annoying “turtle races” where a truck takes about 3 miles to overtake another truck going 1/4 mph slower.
April 29th, 2022 at 3:05 pm
5 There was a pickup truck/tank truck crash near here a few years ago that killed two people, and destroyed a bridge, shutting down the westbound lanes of a major road for a month. Apparently the 19 year old driver of the pickup drifted into the big truck, causing it to go out of control and overturn, resulting in a huge fire. Texting while driving, perhaps?
April 29th, 2022 at 3:07 pm
The Germans need to stop taking Russian oil. The rest of us NATO members are not keen on paying to protect, and then protecting, the Germans from the very source that is providing their oil.
April 29th, 2022 at 3:42 pm
8 There should be alternatives for oil, but the natural gas might be tough. The US produces a lot, but liquifying it and transporting by ship is not nearly as straightforward as getting it from Russia by pipeline.
April 29th, 2022 at 3:48 pm
9 I disagree
April 29th, 2022 at 3:54 pm
10 What do you disagree about? Are you saying that liquifying and transporting huge amounts of LNG is simple, or that there are no alternative sources of oil?
April 29th, 2022 at 3:58 pm
@10: you disagree. Based on what?
The reality: the landed cost in Western Europe of U.S. compressed natural gas is three times higher than the landed cost of natural gas supplied by pipeline from Russia. Western Europe cannot simply change over.
April 29th, 2022 at 4:02 pm
@11: apart from a 3X cost LNG from the U.S. also comes with an enormous safety risk: LNG ships are potential targets for terrorist attacks with huge explosions. Russia has a vested interest in making LNG supply inviable, so may incentivize terrorist attacks. The safety aspect adds to the Western European dilemma.
April 29th, 2022 at 4:07 pm
12,13 Thanks for the details. Yes, there are no easy solutions.
April 29th, 2022 at 4:29 pm
@14 I fully agree with you. Germany has believed Russia when it assured it would be a reliable gas supplier during good and bad times. It has also decided to shut down its nuclear power plants.
I believe Russia will continue to supply, because it needs the income and cannot pipe it somewhere else until new eastbound pipelines are built. They may threaten shutting down Western Europe, they may do it for a few days or weeks, but they need Western Europe as much as Western Europe needs them. Western Europe may threaten to not buy from Russia and they may do it for a few days or weeks, but will have to resume.
April 29th, 2022 at 4:55 pm
Unfortunately, Western Europe needs the gas from Russia, even as Russia commits what are probably the worst atrocities since Nazi Germany.
April 29th, 2022 at 6:43 pm
16 you stated it succinctly yourself as to why it is no longer tenable for Germany to continue purchasing LNG from Russia, no matter the excuse. Furthermore, I do not accept unsubstantiated assertions on here as to LNG cost or availability. Feel free to link-away as I am sure you furiously will. But, in the end, they are just excuses.
April 29th, 2022 at 9:03 pm
17 Huh? Germany gets pipeline gas, not LNG from Russia, which is why it is far cheaper. Anyway, Wim explained the dilemma Europe is in, and I’m not going to link anything.
April 30th, 2022 at 8:51 am
I think we see why JLR is no longer interested in using a supplier platform for their BEV Jaguar vehicles! It would make no since to buy it from someone else, if their parent company was building their own, as the Tata concept demonstrates. Looking at the concept, it seems that the could build sedans, wagons, crossovers and CUV/SUVs from that platform from a particular size with ease. The question becomes, how will they separate the platform, between the Tata brands that use it? Tata main/home brand is for the entry level developing market and Jaguar is looking to move farther upmarket from their current position! How will they justify asking customers spending more money on a Jaguar then they they are accustomed to paying, on an architecture that they are selling those in the developing market for much, much less?! Don’t get me wrong, EV will be/can be expensive no matter what part of the auto market you swim in, but there is a reason that VW group is not asking Bentley money for a rebadged/restyled ID3!
April 30th, 2022 at 9:27 am
I was shocked when the USPO announced it’s new trucks were going to be ICE powered. In my opinion, I think EV’s would be much better
a vehicle for that job.
April 30th, 2022 at 10:03 am
18, yes Huh.
I revert back to your original statement in 16. You may continue now with your rationalizations.
April 30th, 2022 at 3:16 pm
20 Hybrids would be great too, for the way the trucks are used with frequent stops. They’d double the mpg of a regular powertrain in typical mail truck use, and the brakes would last much longer.
April 30th, 2022 at 5:59 pm
I just read online in the news that Germany has said “Nein” to paying for natural gas in Rubles, so I would say that Russia is highly likely to simply shut off gas to Germany post haste. I wonder if the highly profitable Audi, Mercedes and BMW cars built in China can be sold elsewhere…. nah, probably not, they probably don’t meet the required standards. I’m glad I don’t own stock in VW Group, Daimler Benz or BMW….
May 1st, 2022 at 6:40 am
MERC – Smart design priorities, Mercedes. There will almost always be room for an engine out front, while a skateboard battery pack requires a dedicated platform. When real hybrids become more prevalent, the ICE will be a “simple” add-on.
And I still wish the new Hummer had been engineered that way.
GERMANY – From (recent) memory, oil is Russia’s biggest hard currency earner, and Germany has been improvising furiously (just don’t call it that) behind the scenes, with the result that they now back an EU-wide ban on Russian oil and have vastly diminished their offtake. And rightly so.
NatGas is different, but they want to get there by 2024. Not easy, and they’re scouring the globe for regasification equipment & adapting laws to speed up their construction.
It’s interesting that the Soviet Union was punctilious in fulfilling its contractual obligations ever since the ’70s.
I raised the question during a visit to a local (Swiss) pharmaceutical plant years ago, and it clearly was taken as a complete non-issue not on anyone’s radar.
Once more, a reminder Germany’s electricity generation half came from renewables these past two years.
I wish the US made it easier for families to take in their Ukrainian kin. Canada has no upper limit and provides healthcare (the biggest bureaucratic obstacle in America), like European countries.
May 2nd, 2022 at 8:26 am
Oh someone that got a huge kickback on that Postal vehicle is going to be mad. Because there isn’t any other excuse for selecting that vehicle unless someone got paid for that horrible decision. Let the lawsuits proceed.
GM tying executive pay to EV performance can be good and bad. Sadly the sales is something that they may not have much control over. Hopefully its a percentage of market share and not just some overzealous pie in the sky sales number that someone thinks they should sell. Not only that but when compensation is tied to launching on time. Things can get released with known quality issues just so they can hit a target and plans to fix after the fact. Not good for GM in the long run when people already say never buy a first year car because of those previous practices.
Whenever money is tied to performance people find a way to cheat the system. I remember when Ford offered a % of the money saving ideas to promote all employees to submit cost cutting ideas. All it did, was let some designers and engineers release designs they knew were inferior so they could come back with a design improvement that saved hundreds of thousands of dollars so they could share in that savings. Some received checks in the 6 digit range. So be careful GM with performance based salary.
May 2nd, 2022 at 8:35 am
I had my CDL and drove trucks for a few years while attending college. Speed limiters (at least at that time) were mechanical and so although a truck may be limited to 65 that meant on an uphill grade you may only be able to achieve 58. Which is why you’ll be on the Highway see one truck start to pass another get into a slight grade increase and they end up riding side by side for a mile. They both have the pedal to the floor and until they get back to a downgrade or level the pass cannot be completed. So I’m not a real big fan of regulators and would much rather see more restrictions of trucks to the right lane(s).
Part of that also needs to be paying drivers by the hour or the delivery and not by the mile. Paying by the mile is an incentive to speed because their distance per day is money.
May 2nd, 2022 at 11:19 am
Just saw the Lyriq warranty; pretty typical: bumper to bumper, 4yrs/50k miles; battery, 8yrs/100k miles and rust through 6yrs/unlimited mileage.