AD #2593 – 2020 Toyota Supra Details, BAIC Wants to Buy Stake in Daimler, Dealer Inventory Expensive

This is Autoline Daily reporting on the global automotive industry.

BAIC WANTS TO BUY STAKE IN DAIMLER
Another Chinese car company wants to buy part of Daimler. Last year, Geely bought nearly 10% of the German automaker, and Reuters reports that BAIC wants 5% as a way to secure its investment in Beijing Benz Automotive, the joint venture between the two companies. That will cost around 3 billion euros. Both companies declined to comment on the report. When Geely announced it acquired 10% of Daimler, it sent a shockwave through the German auto industry.

WHAT’S IN A NAME?
It sure is hard to keep track of who owns who in the auto industry these days. FCA recently sold its in-house supplier company Magneti Marelli of Italy, to Calsonic Kansei of Japan for $6.5 billion. But Calsonic Kansei is actually owned by the U.S. investment firm KKR. And even though Calsonic Kansei bought Magneti Marelli, the new company is named Marelli. Got all that? After a lot of study, they decided the Marelli name was better known than Calsonic.

DEALER INVENTORY EXPENSIVE
Car dealerships in the U.S. have parking lots jam packed with new cars and trucks. Dealers love having a lot of inventory so they can sell customers the vehicle they want. But all that inventory is expensive. Car dealers have to finance and buy and insure those vehicles. That costs about $37 a day. Insurance alone runs $150-300 a month. Dealers have to sell those cars within 60 days if they want to make a profit. And in a time of shrinking margins dealers need to focus on turning their inventory over more than they ever have before.

WEEKEND RACE RESULTS
There’s been 5 Formula One races this year, and Mercedes took first and second place in every one of them. Over the weekend, Lewis Hamilton ran away from the field in his Mercedes at the Spanish Grand Prix, leading every lap, and beating his teammate Valtteri Bottas to the checkered flag.

Meanwhile, the IndyCar race on the road course at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was a nail biter from the start to the very end. Simon Pagenaud clawed his way through the field in his Penske-Chevrolet, and snatched the lead away from Scott Dixon in his Ganassi-Honda with only one lap left to go. As a light rain started to fall towards the end of the race, Pagenaud showed how he could out brake everyone and made up what seemed like an impossible gap to win the race.

In NASCAR Brad Keselowski came out of nowhere to power his Penske Ford Mustang ahead of the field and win the race at the Kansas speedway. It’s his third win of the season. Pretty good weekend for Team Penske, winning both in IndyCar and NASCAR.

DRIVE TO SURVIVE
Speaking of racing, if you caught Netflix’s 10-part series on last year’s Formula One season, called ‘Drive to Survive,’ you noticed there were two big teams missing: Ferrari and Mercedes. Well, that could change. Ferrari team boss Mattia Binotto says it’s an interesting program and the team is considering joining the series. The team originally skipped out saying it needed to focus on the title battle, but the show may be too popular for that argument now.

2020 TOYOTA SUPRA DETAILS
if you think the new Toyota Supra is just a BMW Z4, Toyota begs to differ. While the Supra shares a platform with the Z4, Toyota says it identified nine areas of the rear structure that needed to be reinforced to increase rigidity and it changed the front and rear suspension tuning. The Supra will be offered in two different grades: 3.0 and 3.0 Premium. Power comes from a 3.0L turbo in-line 6 that develops 335-horsepower and 365 lb-ft of torque and is mated to an 8-speed automatic. Toyota estimates 0-60 MPH in 4.1 seconds, which makes it the fastest Toyota ever made. What really sets the two trim levels apart from each other is the interior. The base comes with a 6.5-inch display screen, Bluetooth and Alcantara seats. The Premium features an 8.8-inch display, navigation, upgraded audio system, wireless phone charging and Head-Up Display. The 2020 Supra will have a starting price of just under $51,000, including destination charges.

LIDAR OR MACHINE VISION?
And speaking of Toyota, on last week’s Autoline after Hours, we were joined by Ryan Eustice, the VP of Automated Driving at the Toyota Research Institute. He was asked if he thinks LIDAR will win out in the long term or if it will be replaced by machine vision. Here’s what he had to say.

(The AAH preview is only available in the video version of today’s show.)

You can watch that entire discussion right now on our website, Autoline.tv or you can find it on our YouTube channel.

But that’s it for today, thanks for watching and please join us again tomorrow.