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Runtime: 10:22
0:00 GM Undecided on Hybrids
1:38 Ford’s EVs Post Strong Sales Gains
2:40 German Car Sales Down, Chinese Imports Too
3:15 Nordic Unions Target Tesla
4:27 1st Fiat 500e Priced at $34K in the U.S.
5:27 Jeep Drops Renegade from U.S. & Canada
6:03 Stellantis Cranks Up Fuel Cell Production
6:51 BMW Builds Fleet of Fuel Cell X5s
7:37 Ford & Xcel to Install 30,000 EV Chargers
8:18 GM & Partners to Open More Public EV Chargers
8:50 Daimler to Use EV Logistics Trucks Globally
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This is Autoline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry.
GM UNDECIDED ON HYBRIDS
Mary Barra gave a debrief to reporters at an Automotive Press Association meeting last night in Detroit. Here are some of the highlights.
– The Chevrolet Bolt EV will be back in production in 2025 using an Ultium battery pack.
– She said GM has not decided to bring back hybrids to the U.S. market. They’re still studying it. She pointed out that GM offers hybrids in China, and Autoline already reported that GM is developing hybrids for the South American market, so it would be easy for GM to put them back in its U.S. lineup.
– But Barra is clearly focused on EVs and pointed out the industry is still in the early phase of electrification. She said, “We’re in the first turn of the first lap, maybe the second turn. EVs are the end game and you want to get there as fast as possible.”
– Barra wouldn’t say anything about Cruise, except to point out that GM has two assessments of the business going on and they won’t announce anything until those assessments are done. But Barra admitted GM needs to be more transparent with regulators and needs to build a better relationship with first responders and the communities where AVs get deployed. Even so, she said AVs are safer than human drivers, and we expect GM to expand the number of cities where Cruise operates once those assessments are over.
FORD EVs POST STRONG SALES GAINS
At the same time that Barra seems to be unsure whether they should bring back hybrids, Ford reported that its hybrid sales shot up 75% in the U.S. market in November. It sold over 12,000 hybrids for the month. And it posted some good numbers with its EVs, too. Sales of the F-150 Lightning shot up 113% with nearly 4,400 units delivered to customers. So far this year, Lightning sales are up nearly 54%. Mustang Mach-E sales were up more than 21% in November, with nearly 4,300 of them going to customers in the U.S. Globally, Ford is on track to sell over 100,000 Mach-Es this year, which would be twice as much as the ICE Mustang. As for electric vans, sales of the e-Transit fell 58% last month to only 271 units, but are up 6.5% for the year.
GERMAN CAR SALES DOWN, CHINESE IMPORTS TOO
Car sales in Germany fell nearly 6% last month. Sales of BEVs were down 22%, while PHEVs were down nearly 60% compared to a year ago, so they lost market share. Automakers sold almost 45,000 BEVs, and 9% of them were Chinese imports. But almost all the Chinese saw their sales drop, so while there’s a lot of consternation in Europe over Chinese BEVs flooding the market, so far it hasn’t happened, at least not in Germany.
NORDIC UNIONS TARGET TESLA
Unions in the Nordic countries are showing solidarity. The strike against Tesla in Sweden is spreading to Denmark. Reuters reports that Danish dockworkers will stop offloading Swedish-bound Tesla’s in harbors to support labor groups in Sweden. The unions are trying to force Tesla to sign collective bargaining agreements with mechanics. And the blockade could spread further, transport unions in Finland and Norway are also discussing joining the effort. And that would mean Tesla would have to import vehicles by truck from Germany.
FIAT 500e PRICED AT $34,000 IN U.S.
The Fiat 500e will make its North American debut in a few months or less and the company is sharing details about the first version that will launch, called the (500e)RED. For those of you familiar with the European version some of this will sound kind of similar. But it features a 42 kWh battery pack and an 87 kW or 118 horsepower electric motor that drives the front wheels. With a curb weight of roughly 3,000 pounds that setup provides up to 149 miles or 240 kilometers of range and 0-60 MPH in 8.5 seconds. The new 500e is built in Italy and will be shipped to North America. While there will be additional versions available, the (500e)RED has a starting price of just over $34,000, including destination charges but not any EV incentives.
JEEP DROPS RENEGADE FROM U.S. & CANADA
Jeep is dropping the Renegade from its lineup in the U.S. and Canada. It’s giving the model the ax because it wants to focus “its resources on SUV segments in North America that continue to grow.” Sales of the Renegade are down 35% through the first nine months of the year. The Compass is now the new entry level model for the brand and its sales are up 7% so far this year. The Renegade will continue to be built in Italy and Brazil and be sold in Mexico, Europe, South America and the Asia Pacific region.
STELLANTIS CRANKS UP FUEL CELL PRODUCTION
Stellantis seems to believe strongly in fuel cells. Symbio, which is a joint venture between Stellantis, Forvia and Michelin, opened its first gigafactory in France to build fuel cell systems. And the units made at the plant will go all over the world. Not only will they power mid- and large-sized vans in Europe but also Ram pickups and heavy-duty trucks in North America. The site can currently make about 16,000 fuel cells a year but it wants to increase that to 50,000 by 2026. Stellantis also has plans to build a second gigafactory with support from the European Union and French government that would double its fuel cell production capacity to 100,000 units a year by 2028.
BMW BUILDS FLEET OF FUEL CELL X5s
And along the same lines, BMW is testing a fleet of hydrogen-powered X5s. You may have seen these models on this channel before, but the luxury brand is operating a fleet of 100 of these models that it will use as a testbed for future models. BMW said it followed a similar path before coming out with its first electric vehicle. But unlike Stellantis, BMW’s plans aren’t as near-term. It hopes to be selling hydrogen-powered vehicles, which will be built on the same platforms as its BEVs, by the end of the decade. For that to happen it says it needs to improve things like cost and power density and that a better infrastructure needs to be built out.
FORD & XCEL TO INSTALL 30,000 EV CHARGERS
There’s a lot of complaints that there’s not enough EV chargers, that’s why automakers are helping more to grow the network. Ford’s commercial division, Ford Pro is partnering with energy company Xcel Energy to install 30,000 EV charging ports by 2030, which would be used for business fleets in Xcel’s service territories across the U.S. Most of the upfront costs for the charging equipment and installation will be offset by Xcel, while Ford Pro will offer charging products to Xcel’s business customers. They also use telematics data to promote charging during off-peak times.
GM & PARTNERS OPEN MORE PUBLIC EV CHARGERS
And speaking of EV chargers, General Motors, EVgo and Pilot Travel Centers opened the first 17 locations of their EV charging network at existing Pilot and Flying J locations in 13 states. By the end of the year, they plan to have 25 locations with 100 fast charging stalls and that will grow to 200 by the end of 2024. Each site will have multiple stalls with up to 350-kW chargers. The centers feature 24/7 amenities and onsite staff monitoring.
DAIMLER TO USE EV LOGISTIC TRUCKS GLOBALLY
At the end of last week Daimler Trucks North America announced it was going to start integrating electric semis into its own logistics operations. But it’s not just doing it in North America. This is its plan for most of the world. A Mercedes-Benz Truck plant in Germany wants to electrify 100% of its delivery fleet, so somewhat uniquely, it’s just going to give electric Mercedes trucks to the companies that supply to the plant. This was made possible by a fund from the country’s Federal Minister for Digital and Transport. Initially it’s giving away 12 eActros trucks, which will make about 50 deliveries a day. But that will increase to 20 trucks. Daimler is also installing 30 charging stations around the plant, including in a parking lot just outside its gates.
But that brings us to the end of today’s show. Thanks for making Autoline a part of your day.
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Toyota sold 2.6 million hybrids last year and has wait lists. Ford sold 12,000 last month. And GM can’t decide if they want to bring back hybrids? Wow, now that is sad. Hybrids are the perfect transition vehicle to full electrics.
Not surprised Jeep is dropping the Renegade. A very small SUV only offered with a 1.4 Turbo offer with Manual Transmission only or 2.4 NA engines with 9 speed auto. Neither of which provided much get-up-and-go. Limited leg room and storage space. The compass is a much better looking and overall vehicle for not much more.
$34k for a 500e? I can remember when I was shopping for a used car for my middle daughter back in 2019 and seeing lots of Fiat 500e lease returns on the market for $5,000 each (or less).
BHEV’s seem to be a great solution to this transition problem. Instead of trying to force a technology that isn’t quite ready for prime time (BEV), utilize the batteries for the short-range drives. Stop trying to reach a 400 mile range. If I had a home charger a Hybrid would work great for me with only 100 miles of range on battery and provide me a vehicle that I can commute to work everyday on battery yet travel long distances if I need to without having range anxiety or going out of my way to recharge. I can then choose to use electric or gas for the purpose I’m using it for and not have to buy two vehicles.
Having two decent powertrains is expensive but maybe the smaller battery would help offset that.
GM doesn’t make small cars for sale in N.A. on a large scale where hybrids would be beneficial. Hybrids don’t work as well in +6,000 lbs vehilces.
Ford is dropping the only hybrid that I would have ever considered, the Escape. The Maverick hybrid is a good value, and gets excellent mpg for a pickup truck, but the only other Ford hybrids are huge trucks.
I would hope that they would sell the Bronco Sport as a hybrid to replace the Escape, and without BS’s current mandatory 4WD, but I haven’t heard that will happen.
Chevy sold a Malibu hybrid for a while, which was decent. It didn’t get the mpg of the Camry or Accord hybrids, but it wasn’t bad. A disadvantage compared to the Camry, though, was that only about half of the back seat folded down for cargo, while the battery took up truck space on one side.
https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=40842&id=40943&id=40720
Perhaps part of the reason for GM’s hesitation is that they never developed a hybrid system that successfully delivered significant mileage gains, other than the Volt. Their mild hybrids delivered very little gain in mileage, typically 1-3 mpg only. The hybrid they jointly developed with BMW and DaimlerChrysler for their full size trucks and SUVs was loaded with bugs and customers hated them, especially since they were the most expensive trim level in those trucks. BMW decided against using it and Chrysler produced only a handful of vehicles that used it.
On the other hand, I have often wondered why GM would not want to put the Volt technology into the Tahoe/Suburban. I think buyers would line up to buy full size SUVs that could get 30 plus mpg. And pay top dollar for them.
Kit, GM also installed that mild hybrid system in one or two Buick models with similar disappointing results. The salespeople had a hard time explaining the benefit of buying one when it had such a small increase in mileage. Especially since Toyota hybrid models got a much bigger % increase in mileage vs the same non-hybrid model. And, the price premium was not much more than GM was charging. Its no mystery why dealers did not want to order these hybrids for their inventory.
In defense of the Renegade, the two that I test drove a while back were great little cars, lots of low-end torque from the little turbo engine, way easier to get into and out of compared to the Compass, especially for tall people like myself, and the seating position and seats were just about perfect for my 6′ 2″ frame, and that goes for the back seat as well. I test drove a mid range trim that rode well and was very quiet and handled very good, overall was a very nice car. I also test drove the Trailhawk version and didn’t like the way the all-terrain tires made the ride and handling feel. The reason I passed on buying the Renegade was that both versions that I test drove had problems with the digital dash cutting out while I was driving them, and these were brand new cars. I guess Tony didn’t get around to totally fixing them before they were shipped.
GM Veteran said: “Perhaps part of the reason for GM’s hesitation is that they never developed a hybrid system that successfully delivered significant mileage gains, other than the Volt.”
To me, 44% better overall mileage and 69% better city mileage is quite significant. CR found similar differences between the hybrid and non-hybrid Malibu in their tests.
https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=40842&id=40776
@Labo Very good idea. Similar to what a high level Toyota Engineerign and Development executive said last year at a conference: better use of the limited raw materials, reducing more CO2 emissions because a 40-50 mile range does the job for many drivers. That way you get a much faster adoption of electrified vehicles (as opposed to fully electric vehicles) and make the switch to BEVs once the next gen batteries or the one after that are ready.
I meant “Lambo”
GM Vet,
Yep, the GM mild hybrids were underwhelming, with little gain in mpg.
From what I’d read, the last Malibu Hybrid used some Volt parts, including the power splitter and clutch to mechanically connect the engine to the wheels at higher speed, but with a smaller battery and motor than the Volt.
I don’t see why you couldn’t just scale up a Toyota “hybrid synergy drive” system to what it would take for a big vehicle, and get similar percentage improvement in mpg to the smaller ones. When the Prius powertrain was scaled up for the Camry hybrid, and later the Highlander, if anything, it was more efficient than the Prius version. A Camry LE hybrid gets very close to gen 3 and 4 Prius mpg, while being bigger and faster.
My wife loves her Renegade, with it being not too big or small for her needs. We have yet to have any electrical gremlins bare their heads. The only draw back is that she feels that it’s not quick enough, it being the automatic. While the Compass looks better then it’s previous iteration, she doesn’t like it’s current styling either. I would be surprised that the Compass make get a Grand Cherokee make over, and wonder if another reason the Renegade is a goner, may be to the up coming Recon EV? While it may turn out to be much bigger then the Renegade, the production ready concept seemed to ape the Renegade’s vibe, so I wonder if it would be an indirect replace for it?
Jeep should bring back the Cherokee
Other than being slow, and thirsty for its size, the Renegade always seemed like a decent city car. I always thought it looked pretty good, but I suppose too “cute” for some tastes. Still, when you can get a roomier, faster, more efficient CR-V for not a lot more money, the Renegade could be a hard sell to most people, but the small footprint of the Renegade can be a good thing in some locations.
According to J.D. Power, the average monthly payment on a new-vehicle finance contact should total $727 in November 2023, up $11 year over year.
Unquote, Source https://www.nada.org/nada/market-beat
So up 1.5% YOY. Also, US sales of EVs (sans hybrids) have now passed 1 million this year.
About Cybertruck sales projections.
CA has a little over 1/3rd of all US EV sales, and full-size truck sales have been just about 100K in Q1-Q3 (source cncda.org), so say 130K for the full year. One can argue about the target market, but this is by far the most important segment.
Tesla’s overall market share is 13.5% Q1-Q3, but that’s mainly by dint of owning the top spot in passenger cars and light trucks. 2024 will be about ramping production, but the top spot in full-size pickups would mean selling more than ~40K.
Question: does anyone know the ASP of Ford F-150s? Ideally in CA.
Sean- One would think Texas has the most trucks in the US myself included but after some digging Californians actually have about 500,000 more trucks on the road than Texans. Mainly because there are about 40 million Californians opposed to Texas which has about 29 Million people. But there are more trucks per person in Texas. I struggled to find how many are sold in Texas or Cali each year sounds like around that 130K . Either way that’s probably good for the Cybertruck as California is in Tesla’s wheelhouse and they buy the most EVs.
It will be interesting to see how the demographics play out. Because most EV buyers so far have been the upper-middle class that are environmentalist and or early adopters. They have bought EV’s because they can afford to and feel they are doing their part to curb emissions and or oil dependency. Or they are the type of person that just likes to be the first on the block to own the next new thing. The Cybertruck will appeal to that later group just wanting to be the first to own a Cybertruck, but after that group is satisfied what happens? Either way those folks are a limited group.
As those buyers get satisfied, we start to require the average joe to move EV’s and with the price still significantly above the price of an ICE it will be interesting to see if they move metal without getting much closer in price if not lower. Texas is a huge market for trucks but I’m not sure many ranchers will be interested in an EV truck. As I said it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Lambo,
Texas is a big market for trucks. Due to its size though, the people there drive very long distances at interstate speeds that in some places is a posted 85MPH. That does not favor EVs of any kind, but particularly very heavy EV trucks just on speed alone. Then you factor in trailers and weather conditions and it is very hot there so A/C running full blast….None of that favors electric trucks at all. Cali on the other hand buys a lot of trucks as well. However, in the south it is a lot of contractors running around the cities servicing the population for plumbing, A/C construction, etc… In the north you have the farmers who will be less likely to buy an EV truck due to the same reasons that Texans are less likely to buy EV trucks.
Southern california with its dense population centers though do buy a lot of trucks for contract work and an EV truck may be OK for that use. Not the goofy Cybertruck with its unusable bed configuration, particularly the angled sides and lack of bed stake pockets which means you cannot have the truck boxes and the add on equipment necessary for contract work. So even though southern california is favorable for electric trucks due to the high population of contractors, the bed shape of the cybertruck precludes contractors from buying them as the shape is unusable. So the market in southern california for the cyber truck will be middle aged suburban dads with too much money trying to look cool going to the office. That will be the same market in all areas for the Cybertruck because of the unusable bed configuration. I am not sure how big that market is though.
Cybertruck is more a “lifestyle” vehicle than a truck. Those few dozen, or maybe few hundred ranchers in Texas probably won’t want them.
I’ll be surprised if it sells particularly well in CA. The current Tesla models that sell well there are cars, and car-like CUVs. I’d think Model Y and Cybertruck would appeal to much different people. Yep, it will be interesting to see where they sell, after production ramps up and the initial “first on the block” group with a spare $80K is satisfied.
My thoughts on this are based on the fact that most trucks bought in the US are used for commuting, going to Walmart, taking kids to soccer practice, etc., not for actual truck use. As MERKUR points out, those who use trucks as trucks won’t want Cybertruck.
Thanks for the comments, Lambo, MERKUR, and Kit!