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Runtime: 9:20
0:00 GM & Stellantis Boost UAW Contract Offer
2:37 Hyundai Partners with Saudi Fund to Build ICEs & EVs
3:54 Toyota Unveils More Concepts
5:15 Tesla Exceeds Spending Target
6:02 Mercedes EVs Piling Up on Dealer Lots in U.S.
7:00 Study Claims New Vehicles Pollute More Than Old Ones
7:32 Jaguar Land Rover Open EBay Stores for Old Parts
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GM & STELLANTIS BOOST UAW CONTRACT OFFER
It’s day 39 of the UAW strike and we’re seeing the automakers offering even more in their contracts. Just a few days after GM’s head of manufacturing, Gerald Johnson, laid out how much some members could earn and wondered why they were on strike, GM along with Stellantis brought their offers more in line with Ford, which includes a 23% pay bump from all three. Even so, it was still not enough to end the strike. UAW president Shawn Fain said this was a sign that the Detroit automakers have more room to move on their offers. He also said the biggest moves come right before a tentative deal is reached and questioned how GM workers at Arlington and Flint Truck, Stellantis workers at Sterling Heights and Kokomo, Indiana and Ford workers at the Rouge plant feel about the current offers. If you didn’t know, those are some of their biggest and most profitable facilities. But even without those plants on strike, it’s still costing the automakers millions every day and Stellantis announced it’s backing out of even more auto shows, after already canceling its CES plans. It says due to ongoing costs of the strike it won’t go to SEMA or the LA auto show. Stellantis had already started to tease vehicles it was going to have at SEMA, so it was putting resources and efforts into those shows. But I think Shawn Fain tipped his hand in his latest livestream as to why he’s pushing so hard for record contracts. He officially said the UAW is going after non-union plants. He said those are our future union family and that thousands of non-union workers are reaching out wanting to join their movements. Stating very sternly, “we’re going to organize non-union auto workers everywhere.” Fain will clearly use these record contracts to go after non-union workers and says it will use the Stand Up strike to take on corporate greed. But we wonder why Shawn Fain and the other UAW officers aren’t working for $500 a week like its members on strike? Fain specifically gave thanks to its members that have been on strike since the beginning, but John posted a video on Friday wondering, why he doesn’t share the pain? We’ll provide a link to that if you’d like to see it.
HYUNDAI PARTNERS WITH SAUDI FUND TO BUILD ICEs & EVs
Hyundai is forming a joint venture with the Saudi Public Investment Fund. They’re going to build a new plant that aims to build up to 50,000 ICE and electric vehicles a year. Hyundai says it will invest more than $500 million in the project, but the Saudi Investment Fund will hold a 70% stake in the JV, while Hyundai gets the remaining 30%. Construction is scheduled to start next year while cars aren’t expected to start rolling down the line until 2026. But that wasn’t Hyundai’s only investment into Saudi Arabia. It’s teaming up to build a hydrogen ecosystem. As part of the deal, Hyundai will provide fuel cell commercial vehicles, mainly buses, to the Saudi Public Transport Company, while another company, called APQ will secure the hydrogen in the area. The buses they develop will be specifically suited for high-temperature climates.
TOYOTA UNVEILS MORE CONCEPTS
Toyota continues to show even more concepts for the Japan Mobility Show. I don’t know how many this is now, but it seems like every day there’s another one and today we have several. First is the Land Cruiser Se. Toyota imagines how a vehicle like this could broaden the Land Cruiser brand’s appeal with an all-electric three-row SUV with “highly responsive handling.” It also showed an all-electric mid-size pickup truck concept, called the EPU. I always find trucks with no cut line between the cabin and body to look a bit interesting and I also kind of like how the floating display screens on the dash overlap one another. The Land Hopper is, well I’m not really sure what to call it, scooter, moped, bike? But whatever you want to call it, it’s a foldable 3-wheeled electric thing that can be ridden short distances. And the last thing we’re going to highlight is a new steering wheel concept, called Neo Steer. Like a motorcycle, it moves throttle and brake controls to right by where the hands grip and takes advantage of a more rectangular shape to improve forward vision. This would also allow someone with disabilities to drive without any modification to the car. I’d love to try it out.
TESLA EXCEEDS SPENDING TARGET
Tesla announced that it will exceed its $7 to $9 billion spending target this year. The EV maker is burning through more cash than expected due to plant upgrades and new model introductions. It had to retool factories to make the updated version of the Model 3 and it’s ramping up to build the Cybertruck. Tesla says it will be a couple of years before it returns to the $7 to $9 billion spending range. Another reason it’s spending more is because it’s advertising in an effort to boost sales, which is something it avoided in the past. Elon Musk posted on X earlier today that it’s advertising on a “small scale and will do so at a large scale as we figure what works best.”
MERCEDES EVs PILING UP ON DEALER LOTS IN U.S.
Mercedes is starting to have a hard time selling EVs in the U.S. While its EV sales have increased more than fourfold so far this year and now account for 14% of its total sales, Edmunds reports that EVs are starting to pile up on dealer lots. It says that in September the average number of days it takes to sell an EV jumped to 82 days, compared to 38 days for BMW. Automotive News spoke to Mercedes dealers who say the company is unwilling to offer sales programs for EVs and one dealer says the automaker is sending EVs to them whether they asked for them or not. Mercedes says it does plan on slowing production of its higher priced EVs and will ship more lower priced EVs to dealers, as well as more plug-in hybrid and ICE models. But it will take until mid-next year before dealers see a difference in inventory.
STUDY CLAIMS NEW VEHICLES POLLUTE MORE THAN OLD ONES
Here’s a bit of a shocker, a new study from a UK based climate action group called Possible, claims that new ICE vehicles emit more pollution than a vehicle from a decade ago. That’s because consumers are buying more SUVs than cars and those vehicles are heavier and get worse fuel economy and as a result they emit more CO2. The researchers say that the least polluting car you can buy in the UK, on average, is a seven-year old vehicle.
JAGUAR LAND ROVER OPEN EBAY STORES FOR OLD PARTS
Jaguar Land Rover is making it easier for owners of classic models to get parts for their vehicles. Each brand just launched new official stores on eBay that sell authentic OEM parts for models that have been out of production for at least 10 years. Currently, the online shops have more than 5,000 items available and that will increase in the future. JLR says the parts are recreations of original items, using original drawings, materials and tooling, and most of them are produced by the original supplier.
But that brings us to the end of today’s show. Thanks for making Autoline a part of your day.
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I wonder how the UAW workers who are on the picket lines feel about getting $500 a week, while others in the union are still working and getting full pay? of course they probably aren’t getting any overtime right now, seems like only the ones on the picket lines are hurting.
I highly recommend John’s diatribe on Sean Fain and why he’s not sharing the ‘pain’; great incite as usual (for John).
And looking at Toyota’s line of EV’s shown, it shows that they haven’t been lagging, just not announcing what they have had up their sleeve; never count out Toyota.
As a union member of different unions I’ve heard that argument many times before, that union staff should maybe also be paid strike pay but I don’t agree. It’s two different jobs and during a strike they are still getting paid because they are still working.
Sean’s salary – So he’s drawing on two salaries???? and what does that have to do with the strike? Nothing actually other than to create controversy.
John’s diatribe about Sean Fain was great, and he had an even better one on AAH last week. He described the “lines of demarcation” for UAW skilled trades, where a trades person is required to do a job that the average 7 year old could easily do. I experienced that as a salary technician and engineer at Delco Electronics, when it would sometimes take hours to get a job done, that should take a few minutes. In some cases, you’d need three trades people do a relatively simple job.
Mercedes is having the same problem that the big three are having with her pick up trucks. They made far too many at the top of the range in search of fat profits, and are not making what people want to buy.
I just took an 1100 mile trip from central Indiana to east-central Florida. I saw very few EVs, most of them when going through urban areas, where they likely were being used “locally.” I saw one EV, though, that would have been on a road trip, or belonging to someone who recently moved. It was a Model S with Texas tags in the Atlanta area.
It’s no surprise that European cars are emitting more greenhouse gas than a few years ago. The CUV craze was starting the last time I was in Europe, in 2012, with what seemed like a lot of Hyundais. Now, the European companies are all making them. Along with the tall, draggy vehicles replacing cars, is the disappearance of diesel cars, which are much more efficient than non-hybrid gas cars.
I’m not surprised the the Mercedes EVs are not selling. The EQE base price is $22.9K higher than a base BMW i4. Is there that much difference? If anything, the BMW is better, because it’s a hatchback rather than a sedan. Of course, the BMW has that ugly nose. What Mercedes needs to sell in the US is an RWD E-Class wagon. The only way they sell the wagon in the US is a Subaru Outback version with a lift kit, stupid body cladding, and 4WD.
Kit, to you and John’s point about a trades person being required to simply tasks, which may take them hours to get around to do, where the average person, how needs the work done, could do in only a few minutes. This is not only the case at automakers, but it’s in other industries too! I work for a municipality and something as simple as moving a desk from one location to another, mounting a picture or clock, if not done by Building Services, will have ‘grievances’ filed to HR! Let’s not make the UAW out as the bad guy, for making the company stick to the contract that was agree upon by both sides. Do I want to have to wait hours or a few days to have my desk moved, or a clock hung up? No! Yet, the contract says I have to wait on Building Services. This is something that could be negotiated out of the contract too, by the way.
Yet, I know that it stands to reason that such a thing as waiting for a trades person to do a job, might seem ridiculous to some, but we have to remember the reason for this: liability! Understand that these rules were put in place, because someone in charge directed someone without the skill set, to do a job they were not qualified to perform! It wasn’t the first they did it, for it no doubt worked out fine then, but sometime during subsequent attempts, it went waaay bad and the company was held responsible for the failure!
While someone’s child might be able to change a light bulb, do you want him or her doing so, on a high ladder at an assembly plant, office building or the ambassador bridge? It’s not just that the child is needlessly put in harms way, but what if, like in this lighting scenario, there is an electrical short, as to the actual reason to the light being out? Wouldn’t the company and the employees want a trained professional addressing the matter and not just someone who can attempt to fix what ‘appears’ to be the problem? What if the issues is not just the surface problem that can be seen, but another, more detailed issues behind the seemingly simply ‘fix’? Would you want to work on or around something that your co-worker Jerry-rigged to get it to work, so that everyone can get back to work as soon as possible?!
Think about it, is it fair to you as an employee to not have an expert address an issue, simply because there appears to be an quick and easy fix? Which is more important? Saving the company time and a few dollars or your safety at work? Don’t get me wrong, I know, like in every work place in history and around the world, there have been those who milk the system and take advantage of the situation. Yet, I would like to think that most don’t and while it may be a big inconvenience, most are better off for it!
A friend I had, who pasted recently, was always good for saying that, when it came to where ever and whom ever you work for, that ‘everyone has the Right, to leave your place of work, the same way you came in: up right, walking and breathing!’ Having just anyone fix what some believe is a simply problem, may not make doing so a reality. Should that happen, how many times have companies been willing to make big pay outs, but NEVER admit responsibility for what happened? Better safe the sorry!
wmb, John’s point, with his comparison with Honda, and what I saw over my career is that many hours of production can be lost because of “work rules.” Maintence people with proper training can do all of what electricians, pipefitters, millwrights, and machine repairmen do in most UAW plants.
Very, very good looking concept, save for that blank space where the grill would go on an ICE vehicle. IMHO, it needs some type of ‘jewelry’ to wake up that space, like a grill. I know many say EV shouldn’t have the because there is no engine behind them, all ICE passenger vehicles today with grills don’t use them either! For, like EVs, today vehicles are bottom breathers and take in air from their lower front skirt, below the front bumper! So, the front grill on todays vehicles are used as a styling exercise for brands they represent, so why can’t EVs do the same? Folks fear and complain that, with BEVs being so sensitive to the air flowing around them, that they are/will become a sea of sameness in look, feel and design, so having something that provides some separation from one vehicle to the next, like a decorative grill, could contribute to that!
…the Toyota Land Cruiser concept, that is.
Price and range (as with most EVs) would be key for the Toyota compact EPU concept, especially since there is none in this space, they could set the market! The Santa Cruz starts and tops out at a higher price point then the Maverick. Even if Toyota priced the EPU at about $40K, with a range of anywhere from 250 to 275 miles on a full charge, IMHO.
Kit I do understand the point that you and John were making and it’s a valid one, but “work rules” is a negotiated item too. I had a family that the company to serve as a de facto boiler operator. He was given training to do enough of the job as the assembly plant needed to suit their purposes, but not so much to be able to get the actual trade license and/or certification(s). I other words, he was paid the same as all the other assembly workers, but had most of the responsibilities as the trade works he was working next to! While that benefits the company greatly, how is that fair to the employee? Don’t get me r=wrong, I get that the employee has an opportunity to improve their skill set and therefore their value with the company. Yet, until that happens, this person had to work next to individuals the company was WILLING to pay more and do the same job, but saw to it that he trained to do a lot of the same, be the first ones the Forman’s called, to save the company money! Isn’t the two tier system one of the main things the UAW is fighting for now? If the “work rule” of waiting on the trades person is an issue, shouldn’t the company work to negotiate that out, if that is a point of contention and lost revenue for the company? That being said, shouldn’t the safety of the employee come first? I go back to the issue of waiting of Building Services to do needle work at my work place. An office employee, not wanting to wait for Building Services, decided to move a desk quickly and not inform the BS. Talking a custodian into helping them, they misjudged the weight of the desk, ending up dropping the desk the custodian’s foot, damaging it, all because the office workers back gave out during the attempt. Because the desk was damage, BS still found out about it, they filed grievance, the custodial worker was written up and the office worker was off for several weeks. In the end the BS workers still got 4 hours of overtime to do a half hour of work, but the down time from the office work, the write up and pain and suffering of the custodian, make have cost the municipality more then just working within the “work rules” as frustrating as they might be!
wmb, I suspect the companies would like to negotiate a system more like at Honda and other transplants, but Sean Fain and his predecessors would never have agreed to it.
Kit, We do have a lot of Teslas and their chargers around the Atlanta area. Did it have TX dealer plates or just regular TX plates?
I’m sure you took I-24 south from Nashville to Chattanooga and I-75 south through Atlanta. I’m just off I-75 about 20 miles north of Atlanta; you should have stopped to say hi. We could have had a cup of joe at the Marietta Square. I travel that stretch once or twice a year to visit family back in Missouri. Usually we go up through Illinois, but a few times we went through Indiana on the way home.
wmb, I’m so glad to be a sole proprietor with zero need to wait for anyone (union or not) to move my desk from one side of my room to the other.
Ukendoit, I took I-75 all the way from Cincinnati. I think the Model S I saw had a regular Texas plate, but not sure. You are very close to where I stopped for the night, Hampton Inn Marietta/Atlanta.