This is Autoline Daily reporting on the global automotive industry.
Hi I’m Sean McElroy. It’s February 7th, 2019. And now the news.
Are we about to see the end of the ICE Age? That’s going to be the topic on Autoline After Hours this afternoon. We’ll be talking about the internal combustion engine and whether or not battery costs are really coming down to the point where EVs will cost the same as piston engine cars. Is that really happening, or is it just a bunch of hype? Our guest for the show is Brett Smith, a powertrain expert from the Center for Automotive Research. So, if you want to get in on the action, send your questions to viewermail@autoline,tv or hit us up on social media. It all kicks off at 3PM eastern time on our website, Autoline.tv
GM DANGLES $25 MILLION CARROT FOR AMMANN
Dan Ammann, the former president of General Motors, who was assigned to run GM Cruise, could get a Silicon Valley payout bonanza if and when he takes the company public. He got $25 million worth of stock, but it only pays out if Cruise does an IPO within 10 years. He also got over 100,000 in options to buy the stock after it goes public, but they only pay out if he raises the value of Cruise which is currently valued at $14.6 billion. And that’s how they do it in the Valley. You take a start-up public and they hand you a big bag of money.
FCA WORKERS GET $6,000 IN PROFIT SHARING
Speaking of payouts, Fiat-Chrysler’s UAW workers will get profit sharing checks of $6,000. That compares to the $7,600 UAW workers got from Ford, and the $10,750 that GM paid out. The difference is due to different profit levels at each company and slightly different formulas that each contract has. These profit sharing checks are like getting a $2 an hour raise at FCA, a $3.70 raise at Ford and a $5.30 raise at GM.
TESLA CUTS MODEL 3 PRICE
Tesla just chopped the price of its Models 3 yet again. As you know, Tesla is running out of its federal tax credits. It was at $7,500 but has now dropped to $3,750 and that will be gone by the end of the year. So the base price of the Model 3 is now down to $42,900, not including any tax credits. Elon Musk says the company is “doing everything we can” to bring the price of the Model 3 down to $35,000.
E-scooters are a cheap, easy way to get around but they’re cracking open a lot of skulls. More on that, right after this.
RAM 1500 MULTIFUNCTION TAILGATE
We’ve seen multi-function tailgates from GM and Honda and now Ram is adding the feature to the 2019 1500. Unlike its competitors, the Ram tailgate features a 60:40 split to swing open. And it doesn’t require the trailer and hitch to be removed before opening it. The doors open 88 degrees and in total it has four configurations, open flat, open left door, open right door and open both. The multifunction tailgate will be available on all 1500 models in the second quarter of the year.
DAIMLER REPORTS MIXED EARNINGS
Daimler reported its earnings and the results are mixed. The company sold 3.4 million vehicles in 2018, up 2%. Revenue hit 167 billion euros, up 2%. But its EBIT profit plunged 22% and its net profit fell by nearly 30%. The company blames the drop on the new WLTP test procedure in Europe, trade disputes and the move away from diesels.
| DAIMLER 2018 EARNINGS |
| Sales |
3.35 M |
+2% |
| Revenue |
€167.4 B |
+2% |
| EBIT |
€11.1 B |
-22% |
| Net Profit |
€7.6 B |
-29% |
| Source: Daimler |
FCA UP IN 2018 BUT LOWERS GUIDANCE FOR 2019
FCA also reported its 2018 earnings. It sold 4.8 million vehicles worldwide, up 2%. It raked in over 115 billion euros in revenue, up 4%. It posted an EBIT profit of 7.3 billion euros up 3%. And its net profit of 5 billion euros was up 34%. But the company lowered its earning guidance for 2019 and the market did not like hearing that, and its stock dropped 10% on the news.
| FCA 2018 EARNINGS |
| Sales |
4.8 M |
+2% |
| Revenue |
€115.4 B |
+4% |
| EBIT |
€7.3 B |
+3% |
| Net Profit |
€5.0 B |
+34% |
| Source: FCA |
E-SCOOTER INJURIES ON THE RISE
Over the last year and a half, the popularity of shared e-scooters has exploded in the U.S. But they’re leading to a growing number of injuries. According to Consumer Reports, since late 2017, an estimated 1,500 people have been injured riding the scooters. Some are minor, like scrapes and bruises, but some riders have suffered broken bones and head injuries. Consumer Reports contacted hospitals and public agencies for the study but most don’t specifically track e-scooter injuries so the number could be higher.
Coming up next, Mercedes is trying to protect its Formula One team from cyber-attacks.
MERCEDES PROTECTS F1 TEAM FROM CYBER ATTACKS
Formula One is a highly competitive sport where teams treat their know-how like it’s a matter of national security. But with people and facilities spread all over the world, keeping their Intellectual Property safe can be very difficult, especially in the age of hackers. So Mercedes-AMG Petronas teamed up with CrowdStrike, a leader in cyber security, to protect the team from cyber-attacks over the next several seasons. I could try and sound smart and try to explain exactly how the system works. However, I don’t know what any of it means. But it does appear to be secure.
RAM REVEALS CHASSIS CAB HD TRUCKS
The heavy duty pickup war is red hot. And it’s no wonder when some estimate that the operating profit on each large truck is at least $12,000. Now Ram has unveiled the chassis cab version of its big trucks at the Chicago Auto Show. It claims best-in-class towing of 35,220 pounds, which just ekes out the Silverado HD shown on Tuesday and you can still get the well-appointed interior with the giant center screen. The chassis cab trucks go on sale in the second quarter.
NEW TACOMA LOOKS LIKE OLD ONE
Speaking of Chicago, Toyota had a couple of reveals. Here’s the new Tacoma, or at least we think it is. Somebody tell us what’s new because it looks way too frickin’ close to what they already have in the showrooms. Toyota says it updated the multimedia system and now offers an optional larger display screen.
SEQUOIA ADDED TO TRD PRO LINEUP
Toyota also added the Sequoia to its TRD Pro lineup for the first time. The 7-passenger SUV gets Fox shocks, front skid plate, an available cat-back exhaust and a number of TRD touches inside and out.
But that’s it for today, thanks for watching and please join us again tomorrow.
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Comments (17)
February 7th, 2019 at 12:27 pm
While the RAM tailgate looks like it has some nice features I would probably pass, I would be hesitant to trust loading my motorcycle on it and or having the rear tire sit on the tailgate on longer trips. If there was problem due to either operator error or part failure the results could be very expensive.
February 7th, 2019 at 12:34 pm
A ton of interesting stuff on the show today. The AAH should also be very interesting to see.
GM Cruise. Was valued at $14.6 bill by whom? The beancounters who bankrupt GM? I’d offer $100 for the whole thing, and when it goes broke I will be out $100 too… What a joke. Their main contribution so far has been to buy half the meager number of Bolts sold every month for their fleet.
FCA is doing great, and the fact that, despite excellent earnings, the stock dropped a whopping 10% just because the co was honest to warn them abt 2019, looks like a gross overreaction to me, caused not by some panicky billionaires but more likely the result of MINDLESS computer trading.
E-scooters would be cheap, as you claim, if they were indeed scooters. In my mind, a scooter is a Vespa Piaggio or the like. These little contraptions you show may be popular, but have nothing in common with a PROPER E-scooter. The ones I saw in CHina in 2006 cost $500 and could carry a driver and a passenger and looked like a 7/8ths Vespa in size.
Not only does the new Tacoma look like the old one, the new Silverado looks like the Silverados in the 90s, which looked fine then, but will not cut it now. No wonder the Ram has clobbered it.
February 7th, 2019 at 12:43 pm
Sean, I feel that electrics have many practical uses but for people who regularly driver a few hundred miles a day they may never be practical. Even Tesla’s 300 mile quoted range probably isn’t and when it is cold it drops (if my Toyota Prius Prime is any barometer) almost 1/3 in range. I believe that the most practical propulsion for longer distance drivers is a plug in that has a range of say 50 miles. I am not sure if one exists yet, but that combination might alleviate almost everyone’s range anxiety.
February 7th, 2019 at 12:54 pm
So is Tesla just moving the goalpost? What happened to the original Model 3 at $35k that was going to cost $27.5k after the fed rebate? Now the goal is to some day, somehow get to $35k which is still $7500 more than promised and hyped.
February 7th, 2019 at 12:56 pm
California Motorized Scooter Laws
In California, a motorized scooter, also referred to as an electric scooter, is defined as having:
Two wheels
Handlebars
A floorboard that can be stood on while riding the scooter
A motor that powers the vehicle
While a motorized scooter can have a driver’s seat, this isn’t a defining feature of a scooter under California law.
You can operate a scooter with any class of driver’s license in California; you don’t need a license specific to scooters, but you still do need to have a driver’s license. And while motorized scooters are street-legal vehicles, they do not need to be registered with the DMV or carry license plates.
While on the road, motorized scooter riders need to obey the same traffic and safety laws as any other vehicle. However, there are also some scooter-specific restrictions in California:
The driver needs to wear a U.S. Department of Transportation-compliant helmet at all times.
Scooters can’t be ridden on roads with a speed limit greater than 25 miles per hour, unless there is a bike lane, in which case the scooter can only be ridden within it.
As with other vehicles, motorized scooters should not be operated on sidewalks.
There cannot be a passenger on scooters, just the driver.
Motorized scooters shouldn’t be driven faster than 15 miles per hour on the road.
These regulations apply to standard motorized scooters. Mobility scooters, on the other hand, can be driven at up to 30 miles per hour on the road. However, this law only applies to mobility scooters operated by seniors or those with a physical disability.
February 7th, 2019 at 12:56 pm
3 do you have any clue how many of the 250,000,000 drivers (out of the 350,000,000 americans), as you say, “driver (sic) a few hundred (Sic) miles a day”? A PITTANCE. I know, because I have seen the statistics. They may well be less than 1% of the commuters, but in any case much less than 5%. The average commute is 20 minutes, much less than 20 miles.
But EVEN if you have to drive a couple hundred miles a day, in MANY cases of households who own a single family home with a two car garage, they can easily charge their EVs overnight, and usually also for FREE at work, and EASILY do all their commuting without buying ONE DROP of gas, and at one fifth of the cost.
But disregard the above. Most EV buyers could not care less about the cost of fuel. Comparing pure EVS with ICE cars totally misses the point.
Pure EVs do NOT ‘have to’ be price competitive with Dirty cars.
This is NOT just my opinion, it is proven by the FACTS. many pure EV buyers owned a car worth less than half of what they pay for the EV. Because the two are NOT COMPARABLE. As horses and buggies, who I am sure were very affordable, would not compare with the first Autos, whose owners could not care less about their cost, they bought them because they WANTED TO, and could care less if a horse and buggy is half or even one tenth of the price of the auto.
February 7th, 2019 at 1:17 pm
4 the model 3 was NEVER claimed to cost $27.5k after the fed rebate, FIRST because there was never a Fed ‘rebate’ but a tax CREDIT (totally different), and SECOND because the law said CLEARLY that after 200,000 units were sold, the tax credit would be cut in half and later totally ELIMINATED, and THIRD, there were 500,000 reservations already for the Model 3 so it was 100% Guaranteed that sooner or later the Fed Tax Credit would be ELIMINATED.
As for paying $27.5 for an EV, you may have better luck buying an ugly Leaf or an obese Hatch mini-minivan Bolt, but even the Bolt will LOSE or already HAS LOST its $7,500 due to the ton of VOLTS sold over a decade or so. The Model 3 is a FAR SUPERIOR vehicle than any of these two, and far larger too, and above all far better PERFORMING.
February 7th, 2019 at 1:55 pm
#2. Larry, that valuation for GM Cruise is based on the amount of money that Softbank and Honda paid into Cruise and the number of shares they received in return.
February 7th, 2019 at 2:00 pm
I think it was Lime that offered scooters in my neck of the woods (Charleston, SC), and it wasn’t too long (less than a week in which they were declared illegal); bet you never thought government could work that fast. Anyway, Lime picked up their scooters, headed over the river to Mt. Pleasant, SC. and deployed them here; again, legislated out of the city pronto. And I think that was a very good move on their (government’s) part.
February 7th, 2019 at 2:01 pm
8 Thanks John, I appreciate the info.
February 7th, 2019 at 4:09 pm
I think that the Union negotiations that included wages with incentive bonus is the way to go; as profits go, so goes employees compensation. I think that this is the most fair way to engage the workers with management.
February 7th, 2019 at 4:33 pm
Someone’s cap key is stuck again.
As most leases are written for 10-15,000 miles per year, we can easily estimate the average daily drive distance is 30-40 miles. Yet somehow, our HEV grocery getter has averaged much more than that. Add in a few weekend trips to visit friends/family and the annual miles climbs to 16,000.
The point about range anxiety is not about the daily grocery getting, but about the weekend trips. At least, it’s that way for us and it’s why we picked a hybrid over a BEV.
February 8th, 2019 at 7:46 am
3, 12 Plug-in hybrids could be the best of both worlds for many people, using plug-in power for most commutes, but having the “do everything” capability of running on gas. Somehow, though, they haven’t sold well, and the very good Chevy Volt is being dropped.
Toyota has done their part to reduce sales of Prius Prime. Until recently, they sold them only a few places. I would probably have one, even though I don’t currently wouldn’t have a place to charge it at home, but they didn’t sell them in my area two years ago.
February 8th, 2019 at 7:59 am
These stand up scooters would seem extremely dangerous for use on public streets, though the CA rules would help somewhat, allowing them only on low speed limit streets. I’ve never ridden one, but I suspect I would have a hard time going in a straight line and making accurate turns with one, even though I’ve ridden other two wheeled vehicles many tens of thousands of miles.
The scooter I have, a Honda SilverWing, will go 100 mph (I’ve never had it over about 80) and weighs about 500 pounds.
February 8th, 2019 at 9:49 am
I didn’t see anything in the Tacoma press release to suggest the 2020 version was anything more than the 2019 version with a few minor tweaks, just like most other carry-over models do every year. So it is not surprising one could not tell the difference between the 2019 and 2020 models and I’m not sure why this was even worthy of mentioning on the show.
February 8th, 2019 at 11:03 am
15 The Tacoma continues to be the best selling “mid-size” pickup, in spite of its being very rough around the edges compared to the Colorado, and I’m sure, the Ranger. In CR’s surveys, the Taco isn’t even too reliable, out of character for a Toyota. Still, it has the reputation, and continues to sell. They may not have a big incentive to completely redo it.
February 8th, 2019 at 11:51 am
#16 It will be interesting to see how each mid-size fairs with the introduction of the Jeep Gladiator. Interest seems to be high so who will lose those sales will probably be a little from all the others. Maybe even some of the wrangler sales.