AD #2311 – Lamborghini Hits Major Milestone, China Corners Battery Materials Market, Lowe’s Drops NASCAR Sponsorship

On today’s show… Lamborghini passes a major financial milestone… China is locking up the market for the materials needed to make electric cars… and Nissan may be signaling who could replace Carlos Ghosn. All that and more coming right up on Autoline Daily.

This is Autoline Daily the show for enthusiasts of the automotive industry.

LAMBORGHINI PASSES MAJOR MILESTONE
Lamborghini just passed a major milestone. It booked a billion euros in revenue for the first time ever on sales of only 3,815 cars. Sales have tripled since 2010 and have a lot more room to grow. Lambo sells more cars in the US, Japan, UK and Germany than it does in China, and now it really has its sights set on China. Stefano Domenicali, Lamborghini’s CEO, says the company is outperforming its financial objectives. You may remember his name. Domenicali spent most of his career at Ferrari and ran its Formula One team. He has the potential to turn Lamborghini into Ferrari’s greatest nemesis.

MAGNA & LYFT JOIN FORCES
We’re seeing a lot of activity with mobility services. Earlier in the week, Bloomberg reported that GM will test an Airbnb-like service through its Maven car sharing division. And now Magna and Lyft are partnering up to develop and test autonomous technology. Magna is investing $200 million in Lyft. The system is expected to be market ready in a couple of years and it will be available to the entire auto industry.

NISSAN PROMOTES HEAD OF NORTH AMERICA
Nissan is promoting its Chief Performance Officer, Jose Munoz, to head of its operations in China. He had been running Nissan North America. The move sure suggests that Munoz could succeed Carlos Ghosn as the head of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance.

What do you do after you’ve spent a fortune tooling up an expensive car that isn’t selling? You figure out new ways to sell it. That’s coming up next.

CHINA CORNERS BATTERY MATERIALS MARKET
Bloomberg reports that China is locking up global supplies of the materials needed to make batteries for electric cars. Chinese companies already dominate the supply chain for lithium and cobalt, which will give China a competitive advantage over everyone else. By the way, the prices for those raw materials are soaring even though BEVs are still made in very low production The price of cobalt quadrupled in just the last two years. And that means the cost of making batteries may not come down as fast as some have predicted.

MERCEDES REVEALS NEW MAYBACH LIMO
Mercedes revived the Maybach brand in 1997 but sales never went anywhere. So it killed off the brand in 2013. But the automaker spent a fortune tooling up the car, so it relaunched again, this time as a sub-brand of Mercedes. Today we’re getting a look at what some might call the new limo version of the Mercedes-Maybach or the Pullman. The name comes from a type of luxurious railroad car with sleeping quarters. This is the longest vehicle in the S-Class family at 6.5-meters or over 21-feet long. There’s 4 seats in the rear, but it’s likely that anyone that owns this car will fold up the two backing the front seats for even more legroom. There’s also a couple of new color combinations for the interior and a new grille design that was inspired by a pinstripe suit. Power comes from a hulking 620-horsepower twin-turbo V12 engine. You should run down to your local Mercedes dealer right now. They start taking orders today.

ALL-NEW KIA K900 INTERIOR
We’ve got a pretty good idea what the exterior of the new Kia K900 will look like and now it’s the interior’s turn. Take notice of the new steering wheel design and a large 12.3-inch display screen mounted high on the dash, above the HVAC controls. Kia says there’s even 64 ambient lighting colors in seven different themes to choose from. Overall it kind of reminds us of a BMW interior, but less busy. The new K900 starts going on sale in the second quarter of this year.

Coming up next, NASCAR loses yet another major sponsor.

Don’t forget to join us later this afternoon for Autoline After Hours. We’ll be announcing who won the contest to have Katzkin give them a free customized leather interior for their car. And we’ll be talking about what’s going on behind the scenes in the auto industry, like what Ford’s future product lineup is going to look like. Later today Ford will be announcing what models it’s going to get rid of and we think that could include the Fiesta, Focus, C-Max, Taurus and Flex. So join john and crew for some of the best insights into what’s going on in all things automotive.

LOWE’S TAKES BUZZ SAW TO NASCAR SPONSORSHIP
Uh-oh, here’s another danger signal for NASCAR. Lowe’s announced it will no longer be a sponsor in the racing series. The hardware store has sponsored 7-time champion Jimmy Johnson for his entire career. But NASCAR is losing attendance and TV ratings, and corporate America is increasingly spending its advertising budget on digital outlets. The series has lost a number of major sponsors in the last few years. Sponsorship in motor racing has always ebbed and flowed, but NASCAR is facing a tougher time than any other series.

And that wraps up today’s report, thanks for watching.