Follow us on social media:
Runtime: 10:00
0:00 Ford Says It Has “Reached Our Limit” In UAW Offer
1:52 Tesla Offers Pay Boost to German Workers
2:40 Ford Increases Wages for Battery Plant Workers
4:06 Kia EV9 Has EPA Estimated 304 Miles of Range
4:48 U.S. On Track to Sell 1 Million EVs This Year
6:04 VW Group Global BEV Sales Up 45%
6:57 GM Making Progress on Software Defined Vehicles
7:35 BMW Signs Big Battery Deal with Great Wall Motor
Visit our sponsors to thank them for their support of Autoline Daily: Bridgestone, Intrepid Control Systems and Schaeffler.
This is Autoline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry.
FORD SAYS IT HAS “REACHED OUR LIMIT” IN UAW OFFER
After a surprise strike at its largest and most profitable truck plant in Kentucky, Ford held a special meeting yesterday where a top official said of its latest UAW contract offer, “We have reached our limit.” Its offer includes a 23% wage increase, a 3-year progression to top pay, instead of 8 and cost-of-living adjustments or COLA. The Ford exec said the company could move money around in its offer, but in terms of the total cost to Ford, it’s at its limit. If we’re to take Ford at its word, then I’ve got to imagine that GM and Stellantis are approaching their top offers. By the time you’re watching this show UAW president Shawn Fain will already have done his livestream about the progress of negotiations. No doubt it was an impassioned speech and I also think it’s a safe bet that he said they’re still not there with a deal yet. In the last round, GM and Stellantis were behind Ford in their offers, so it may seem that they are making more progress this time around. But if they’re also reaching their limits, then the UAW won’t wait long to hit their biggest and most profitable plants. One thing is for sure, over the next few weeks we should truly know how big some of the sticking points are to the union, like representation at JV battery plants that aren’t built yet, pensions and post-retirement healthcare. If they’re not budging, like we said before, at some point the automakers won’t just sit around and could start to try and inflict their own pain on the union.
TESLA OFFERS PAY BOOST TO GERMAN WORKERS
And while there’s been a lot of attention on the UAW’s fight for better wages in the U.S., Tesla is facing its own union battle in Germany. The EV maker’s plant in the country is not unionized but earlier this week, German union IG Metall claimed that 1,000 workers at the plant have joined its effort to collectively bargain for better wages and working conditions. The plant employs about 11,000 people. IG Metall claims that Tesla’s wages are 20% less than factory workers at the other German car brands. So in response, Tesla said it will give workers at its Berlin a pay raise this year and will inform them in November how much it is. Last year, they got a 6% bump in pay.
FORD INCREASES WAGES FOR BATTERY PLANT WORKERS
And Ford is taking a similar approach with its EV battery plants in the U.S. The automaker and its JV partner, SK On, announced they’re boosting wages at their planned EV battery plants in Kentucky and Tennessee. Workers will now be able to earn up to $37.50 an hour, up from a previous range of $21 to $29 per hour. The UAW wants to bring workers at joint-venture battery plants into the master contract agreement so they get full wages like the workers at assembly plants. Ford seems to be resisting this a little but it said it has been bargaining in good faith with the UAW this week on joint venture battery plants. And with GM caving on the issue, both it and Stellantis will probably have to follow.
KIA EV9 HAS EPA ESTIMATED 304 MILES OF RANGE
Kia revealed the EPA estimated ranges for EV9 electric SUV. The rear-wheel-drive model with the optional 99.8-kWh battery pack is rated at 304 miles. And the all-wheel-drive version with the same pack is rated at 280 miles. The rear-drive model with the standard 76.1-kWh battery is rated at 230 miles of range. The EV9 will start arriving at dealer showrooms sometime this quarter and Kia will start taking reservations next week. The EV9 starts at about $56,400 including destination charges.
U.S. ON TRACK TO SELL 1 MILLION EVs THIS YEAR
The U.S. is on track to sell 1 million pure electric vehicles for the first time ever this year. According to Cox Automotive and Kelley Blue Book, automakers set a record selling more than 313,000 EVs in the third quarter, an increase of nearly 50%. That puts the total at 873,000 so far this year and Cox expects the U.S. to pass 1 million EV sales in November. EVs accounted for 7.9% of the total market in the third quarter, which is an all-time high. And with more EV models coming, it’s not surprising that Tesla’s EV market share continues to tumble. It was at 62% in the first quarter but fell to 50% in Q3. However, its sales are still up 26% so far this year and Cox says its share could go back up with deliveries of the Cybertruck expected to start sometime this quarter. Of the legacy brands, BMW is doing the best with EVs accounting for 15.6% of its total sales, ahead of Audi, Volvo, Volkswagen and Mercedes, which are all in the 12% range.
VW GROUP GLOBAL BEV SALES UP 45%
And speaking of EV sales, the Volkswagen Group says its global electric car sales are up 45% so far this year. The automaker has sold 531,500 EVs through the first nine months of the year, accounting for about 8% of its total sales. That includes the VW brand, Audi, SEAT, Cupra, Porsche, Skoda plus its commercial and truck brands. The VW Group’s EV sales were fueled by big gains in Europe and the U.S., up 61% and 74% respectively. But its electric sales in China are only up 4% so far this year. While these are good numbers overall, VW says its EV sales are below its targets because demand is weaker than it expected.
GM MAKING PROGRESS ON SOFTWARE DEFINED VEHICLES
GM is making a little more progress toward Software Defined Vehicles. It’s launching a program called uServices to the Connected Vehicle Systems Alliance, a global software developer community. GM will leverage this large group of developers to set software standards for interfacing with the various systems in a vehicle. This will speed up the time it takes to develop and put new software into vehicles. GM hopes to eventually create an entire ecosystem that can use third-party software, like from these developer communities, as a way to reduce its engineering costs.
BMW SIGNS BIG BATTERY DEAL WITH GREAT WALL MOTOR
BMW’s BEV sales in the third quarter were nearly 80% higher compared to last year. And it’s securing a massive battery order, so it can keep up with its electric transition. Reports out of China say BMW will get batteries for its EVs in Europe from SVOLT, a subsidiary of Chinese automaker Great Wall Motor. But it’s the terms of the deal that are most shocking. BMW is said to be paying SVOLT roughly $13 billion for nearly 90-GWh of batteries. Even if every single one of those battery packs was 100 kWh, which is on the big side, that would be enough to power 900,000 EVs. BMW also has battery deals with CATL and EVE Energy. And so far this year, it’s sold a little more than 217,000 BEVs around the world. And that kind of makes me wonder, how a company like BMW sells so many more electrics than giants like Ford and GM?
But that brings us to the end of today’s show. Thanks for tuning in and I hope you have a great weekend.
Thanks to our partner for embedding Autoline Daily on its website: WardsAuto.com
VW could probably sell more EVs, if they’d improve their infotainment and other electronic stuff. I haven’t experienced the vehicles, but CR and C & D, publications with different focus, agree that the recent VWs are bad in that regard.
I have driven the ID4 and the infotainment system is overly complicated and difficult to use. VW won’t lose, and just may gain many customers if they go back to volume and channel knobs and abandon haptic and touch controls.
Kit
I agree. I have actually driven a few of the ID vehicles from VW. They are extremely basic and the electronics give you the feel of an Archaic system. Beyond the infotainment though, the rest of the vehicle is forgettable. Comfort wasn’t that great and styling is as good as their seat comfort. Ride and handling was neither good nor bad. About as middle of the road as it gets. I also didn’t think they were that efficient. They are OK with ergonomics though. Way better than Tesla of course but most every other OEM is better than Tesla with ergonomics.
It will be interesting to see if Tesla’s coming closer to union pay will keep the unions out in Germany, as it has with the transplants in the American south.
Merkur, your experience confirms what I’ve read. The ID.4 is on the lower end in EV efficiency. I think these are the least expensive versions of the cars.
https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=46032&id=46616&id=46985&id=46206
Surprising deal by BMW. This also means they’re paying $144/kWh, I thought this number at such big procurement volumes would be $80, thinking this is not pack cost.
Sean, are we expecting EV sales to reach 10% share next year? Amazingly at this stage with 1 million sales this year, total EVs on US roads should be 1.2% of total fleet (fleet estimated at 284 million vehicles at the moment), and once EV sales reach 50% market share, it will be approx 10 to 15% of total US fleet, depending on growth rate. We’ll still have gas stations for a really long time.
23% raise is 5.75% each year. Is COLA on top of that cause this year it’s like 3.1% which would put them at 8.85% and if Biden gets re-elected, they can probably count on achieving their 40% increase at the end of this 4-year contract.
I did watch Fain’s podcast and no more strikes today but in summary (paraphrasing) he just stated that the automakers weren’t negotiating with any serious offers until Fridays to avoid any more strikes. So, in an effort to speed things up and going forward he will not hesitate to add more plants to the strike at any time like yesterday’s Ford Kentucky Truck plant. They can no longer treat it like wait until Friday deadline to make the real offer. The rest of his speech was pretty much union rah rah! Oh, and that he is heading to Mack Trucks tomorrow.
For the EV market to be 7.9% and break 1 million means the market has dropped to 12.6 million. One of these number don’t make sense. last year’s total sales in the US were just over 15 million. I believe sales are up this year but still 1 million is only 6.66% of 15 million. I guess that’s projected sales or wishful thinking.
35 years at union job, retired 2008. Worked out pretty good for me.
IMHO, automakers need to be careful about statements that they have ‘reached their limit’, when decision makers and leaders of the company are making big returns financially! I’m not saying that they do not deserve all that they are compensated for. Yet, to imply that, for the good and survival of the company, they can’t pay the workers more, while they enjoy much, much more financially returns form the company, might not ‘seem’ to ring true. It may cause some to think that, ‘if you can’t pay the workers more, for the good of the company, why is it okay for you to happily take so much?’ Again, I’m not saying that they don’t deserve what they are receiving, just that if they can’t pay the union workers more, because those funds are need to support the company, maybe they shouldn’t so happily take some much off the top?!
So, “U.S. On Track to Sell 1 Million EVs This Year”; with a SAR of 15 million, what have you got, less than 7%. Significant yes, but some perspective too; projected numbers will be slower than most advocates have professed.
ZR1 at the Nürburgring video, Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAKhIIz9mxQ
…don’t get me wrong, I’m not say leadership goes not deserve their compensation and that between Ford and GM, they have lightened their white collar work force by almost 12 thousand employees between the two companies. It’s also understood that some of the big dollars that top executives and leaders of the companies take home are pay outs from stock in the company that has paid out well, due to the performance of the company! That being said, they’ve done so well because of the hard work of those who work the ‘front office’ AND that of those who work in the trenches on the assembly lines. Yet, to make use the reasoning and make the argument that ‘for the good of the company’ and that the bargain team representing the company has “reach our limit”, while they take home soooo much more, especially after the UAW gave up so much to support the company, consent sound sincere to many.
Chuck, thanks for posting the video link.
@CEO pay. It is a matter of supply and demand. I suggest that anyone who believes that CEO pay should be $1 million instead of $20 million/yr contacts the Board of Directors and offers her/his services at that price level. The same holds true for the other level 1 and 2 positions. The cost savings would be substantial.
Let’s see whether the applicants meet the caliber of the incumbents in terms of academic background, appr. 30 years of successful hard work including all the sacrifices on the personal side.