AD #2656 – Official C8 Corvette Pricing, Feds Nail More UAW Officials, Tesla Hits Quality Problems in Europe

This is Autoline Daily reporting on the global automotive industry.

TESLA HITS QUALITY PROBLEMS IN EUROPE
Tesla is still running into problems with the quality and servicing of its cars. A car rental startup in Germany, called NextMove, wanted to rent only Teslas. It ordered 100 Model 3’s, but cancelled the order after the first 15 cars it received had problems like scratched bumpers and moisture trapped in the headlamps and Tesla was not able to promptly service them. Bloomberg reports that Tesla believes the order cancellation is actually related to an unrelated previous problem it had with Nextmove. But Tesla is also running into quality problems in Norway, which has the highest per-capita EV adoption rate in the world. It has the highest consumer complaints of all car companies there. European customers seem to love their Teslas, but don’t like the service the company provides. Elon Musk has admitted the lack of service centers is hurting Tesla’s growth in Germany, and will double the number to 17 locations. Yet, even with these problems, Tesla is the fastest growing brand in Germany.

RICH NORWEGIANS BUYING EVS
Speaking of Norway, nearly half the cars sold there are now electrics, largely thanks to incentives and subsidies that are worth about 20,000 euros. But it’s mostly the richest people in the country who are buying them. Statistics Norway says that rich people are twice as likely to buy an EV despite the generous subsidies.

EV BATTERY SWAPPING IN INDIA
Remember the company called Better Place? Its business model was to quickly swap batteries in electric cars instead of just charging up the battery in an EV. It went out of business largely because all automakers would have had to settle on a common design for battery packs with common connectors, and automakers had no interest in Better Place dictating how to design their EVs. Well now Bloomberg reports that the Hindustan Petroleum Corporation, an oil refining company in India, wants to revive the idea. It will provide battery swaps for electric motorcycles, scooters and 3-wheelers, which account for 80% of the vehicles on India’s roads. The swap takes a minute or two. Hindustan Petroleum says the fast adoption of electric 2-wheeler and 3-wheeler vehicles poses a risk to its gasoline business.

FEDS NAIL MORE UAW OFFICIALS
This UAW bribery scandal is starting to spread. First is was FCA and now General Motors is caught up in it. Federal investigators unsealed documents that accuse Michael Grimes, a former UAW administrative assistant who retired last year, of accepting nearly $2 million in kickbacks from union vendors. He’s being charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering. The documents say Grimes at times worked closely with the UAW Vice President and director of the GM Department, and that would seem to firmly implicate Cindy Estrada, who was the head of the UAW’s GM department, until last year when she took over the same position at FCA. Joe Ashton, a former UAW vice president who was on the board of directors at General Motors, resigned from that position shortly after the federal investigation became public. But if it turns out Estrada was involved in this conspiracy, all hell will break loose at the union. And the timing of the latest revelations couldn’t be worse for the union, which is now deep in bargaining sessions with GM, Ford and FCA over a new labor contract.

OFFICIAL C8 CORVETTE PRICING
Well we all knew the new C8 Corvette was going to be priced under 60 grand. And it is, by five dollars. Chevrolet officially announced it will start at $59,995. The next step up is the 2LT trim package which starts just over $67,000 and the 3LT package is just under $72,000. All of those prices include destination charges, and we applaud GM for doing that. Other automakers publish prices that do not include destination charges, even though you cannot buy any vehicle without those charges, which in our opinion ought to be illegal. By the way, Chevrolet dealers are now officially taking orders for the C8.

FLYING CARS FOR YOU AND ME
Flying cars used to be a fantasy. Not anymore. Now automakers and suppliers are getting involved in passenger drones or what are formally called vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, or VTOLs for short. So why the heck is the auto industry interested in flying vehicles? Jon Rimanelli, the Founder and CEO of a startup called ASX, says the auto industry has exactly the kind of technology needed for VTOLs, and he is one of our guests on Autoline This Week.

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

You can watch that entire show right now on our website, Autoline.tv, or just look for it on our YouTube channel.

But that brings us to the end of today’s show, thanks for watching and have a great weekend.