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Runtime: 10:42
0:00 China Approves FSD Testing for Tesla
0:46 +1 Million EV Overcapacity in N. America
1:40 Mini Hit with EU’s Highest China Tariff
2:23 China NEV Exports to Mexico Up 443% By Value
3:39 Fiat Panda Offers Hybrid & BEV Choices
5:06 Stellantis Says ‘Back to Work!’
5:36 Tony Roma To Head Corvette Program
6:31 917 Dragon Armor Edition Is Wild Chinese SUV
7:19 Lucid Air Now Gets 5 Miles/kWh
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CHINA APPROVES FSD TESTING FOR TESLA
The good news keeps rolling in for Elon Musk. Last week, shareholders overwhelmingly approved his $56 billion pay package. And now Tesla has been given the green light to start testing Full Self Driving on some public roads in Shanghai. And the city of Hangzhou may also give approval too. The OK to test FSD is the first step towards offering the system to owners in China. Tesla currently charges $8,800 for FSD in China, compared to $8,000 in the U.S. But very few owners in China have purchased it since it’s not available.
+1 MILLION EV OVERCAPACITY IN N. AMERICA
Unless your name is Tesla, it looks like none of the automakers in North America are going to make a profit on EVs this year or next. Automakers in the U.S., Canada and Mexico have the manufacturing capacity to make 2.6 million electric vehicles a year. The only problem is, this year they will only sell 1.47 million of them according to Warren Browne Consulting, which is going to leave them with 1.1 million units of overcapacity. And that is going to make it very difficult to turn a profit on those cars. It estimates that next year BEV manufacturing capacity will grow to 3.3 million units, but the average plant utilization rate will only be 56%, meaning there will be 1.8 million units of overcapacity and that almost guarantees those plants will not be profitable.
MINI HIT WITH EU’S HIGHEST CHINA TARIFF
Mini’s electric vehicles built in China are going to be hit with the highest EV tariff from the EU. Reuters reports that the automaker didn’t provide investigators with enough info to be classified as a company cooperating in the EU’s probe into unfair subsidies for EVs built in China. That means the electric version of the Mini Cooper and Aceman will get slapped with a 38.1% import tariff. Companies that did cooperate were given lower tariffs between 17 and 21%. But Mini will only have to deal with the tariff for a couple of years because it plans to build those models at its plant in England starting in 2026.
CHINA NEV EXPORTS TO MEXICO UP 443% BY VALUE
More and more Chinese vehicles are being imported into Mexico. According to S&P Global Market Intelligence, EV and PHEV imports increased 443.9%, by value, in the first quarter compared to last year. Seven new brands entered the market in the last year and 1 in 10 cars sold in Mexico are now from a Chinese automaker. The growing presence of Chinese companies in the country has U.S. lawmakers concerned that they’ll open plants there to build vehicles as a backdoor way to enter the American market and avoid tariffs. Chinese automakers are also expanding into Latin America as a whole and they now control 86% of the EV market in the region. And in Brazil, Chinese EV sales are up 91% and BYD, Chery and Great Wall are now three of the top five brands in the country.
FIAT PANDA OFFERS HYBRID & BEV CHOICES
It’s not as efficient to make vehicle platforms that can accommodate a mix of powertrains, compared to a dedicated platform. But some of those inefficiencies can be made up for with scale. That seems to be the strategy Stellantis is taking and a good thing for it is that it has so many brands. Fiat just introduced the Grande Panda, a new small B-segment SUV that will be available as both a pure electric and hybrid in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. It’s based on the same platform as the Citroen C3 and Opel and Vauxhall Frontera, so it should be a pretty affordable model. The hybrid C3 starts at about 15,000 euro and the BEV Frontera starts under 30,000 euro. The platform utilizes a 1.2L turbocharged 3-cylinder engine mated to a 48-volt motor and DCT for the hybrid setup and the base version of the BEV comes with a 44 kWh LFP battery pack and an 83 kW or 113 horsepower electric motor. That setup provides around 300 kilometers or 186 miles of range, but there will also be a longer-range version that gets about 400 kilometers or 248 miles of range. Fiat says it’s going to introduce a new vehicle every year until 2027 and the Grande Panda was the first of those.
STELLANTIS SAYS ‘BACK TO WORK!’
Two years ago, Stellantis said it would allow most employees to work from home permanently. But now it’s changed its mind. Employees have to be at work three to five days a week. And during a new car launch, they may be required to be there 6 days. At first, remote work was seen as a way to cut costs because the company would not need as much office space. But now it recognizes that it needs designers and engineers to be physically together to get work done faster.
TONY ROMA TO HEAD CORVETTE PROGRAM
Since it debuted in 1953, Corvette has only had 5 chief engineers. Well, better make that 6. Tony Roma was named as the 6th executive chief engineer of the Corvette program. Most recently, Roma, who is 53 years old, was running the Cadillac Celestiq program, the $350,000+ hand-built ultra-luxury sedan. But he also has worked on the Cadillac V-Series and Blackwings earlier in his career, and even Corvette powertrains. In addition to Corvette, Roma will also head up GM’s luxury and performance teams. We find it interesting that GM would name someone working on an EV platform to head up Corvette. And maybe that’s further confirmation that an all electric ‘Vette is somewhere out there in the not too distant future.
917 DRAGON ARMOR EDITION IS WILD CHINESE SUV
The same Chinese luxury off-road brand that brought us the M-HUNTER back in April has partnered up with an action movie to launch a much more extreme version of its 917 SUV called Dragon Armor Edition. The body work is even more embellished, it gets big off-road wheels and tires, a stronger front bumper and grille guard are fitted to the front and there’s extra tie-down points and storage as well. It’s available with a quad motor setup that produces over 1,000 horsepower or as a more than 800 horsepower EREV. Pre-orders are open now and starting prices range from about $106,000 to $120,000.
LUCID AIR NOW GETS 5 MILES/KWH
When it comes to EV efficiency, Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson says that “no one else is even close.” The EV startup announced that a version of its Air sedan recently hit 5 miles per kWh, while Rawlinson says “some of the competition is under 3” miles per kWh. That is true, but others like Hyundai and Tesla have cracked 4 miles per kWh. However, Rawlinson points out its better efficiency will have another advantage. “That means that we can make a car with a significantly smaller battery pack with competitive range and that gives us a unique and profound commercial advantage as a company.” No word if that philosophy will be applied to the Air, the upcoming Gravity SUV, which is scheduled to start production later this year or a mid-size vehicle that’s supposed to come in 2026. But Lucid isn’t stopping at 5 miles per kWh. Rawlinson says “I think six miles per kilowatt-hour is the holy grail. That’s what we need to save the planet.”
And that’s a wrap for today’s show. Thanks for making Autoline a part of your day.
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… so if Magna-Steyr assembled Mini EVs from Chinese kits, would they be tariff free?
… if Lucid is so advanced (and has even better tech in the future) then why don’t they work with Ford to produce a version of the current Air model for Lincoln, so Lincoln can at least pretend to be competitive with Cadillac? It might not hurt for Lucid to use their full production capacity as well.
I thought it impossible for an auto maker to make a more ridiculously ugly grille than BMW but Dragon wins.
Sean- How much infrastructure is being installed in Mexico when it comes to a charging network? With this huge influx of Chinese EVs and PHEVs has the number of public charging stations kept up? Not sure if there is even a number of charging stations per EVs and how that compares to other countries, but it would be interesting to know.
Speaking of grilles, why does the Dragon (an EV) need a grille? I don’t find it as off-putting as some of those BMW gaping holes and it does give it an aggressive look. Just not sure why its included.
I think the majority of Chinese imports into Mexico and other Latin American countries are ICE. I think they are not into EVs that much.
Lambo, most of us charge from home today. Even if out shop or dining where it is free or low cost to charge, spending a night at a hotel will fill up most EV’s. I’m not sure how Mexico’s electrical infrastructure is today but there are 120v outlets just about everywhere here where you can almost gain 100 miles overnight. Not need to long distance, high speed charging that js costly compared to gasoline.
The Chevy Bolt is 5 miles per kw.
Albemarle — Your right about the grills! I thought the grills on the iX and that other big BMW SUV was “interesting” (for lack of a better expression), but the one on the Dragon has got that one beat!
Kevin A — I think Lucid is open to licensing there batteries and EV motors to other OEMs. I remember reading (or was an AD report?) that Lucid is currently in talks to do that very thing with Hyundai, for their Genesis brand. I believe the difference with this and deal Ford had with Rivian, was that Ford was to use their R1S platform, but Lucid/Hyundai deal will only be the motors, batteries/battery chemistry. I can’t remember if that also included the software to manage all the tech, though it would make sense too.
Kevin A. Rather than build millions of EVs under the Lucid brand, Rawlinson wants to license Lucid’s technology to other automakers, and have them build millions of Lucid-powered EVs. “Just like you’ve got Intel inside a laptop, you can have Lucid inside powering another brand’s vehicles,” Rawlinson says.
The $450 million deal signed last year with Aston Martin to build battery modules and drive units complete with motors, inverters, and transmissions in Arizona, for shipment in the U.K. and installation in the storied British automaker’s forthcoming lineup of EVs, could be the first of many. “If you look at the tech we have in our current range of cars, it suits a high-performance luxury car. But the tech that we’re developing now for our mid-sized platform would really suit an affordable family car.”
What I think is really encouraging about the EV efficiency that Lucid says it’s getting with its motors, as well as its projecting for its future models, is that this is with current tech! Not with solid state batteries or farther lite weighting of the vehicle that it’s producing, but with today’s technologies. No know the mind set is ‘I’ll believe when I see it’, which is true, for all intents and purposes, like Fisker, Lucid may not be here tomorrow. Yet, that doesn’t mean that the tech will disappear and if this motor efficiency CAN be added to what Toyota, Nissan and tier one supplies are saying about more energy dense, yet lighter and less expensive solid state batteries, range anxiety may finally -it to rest, with EVs from legacy OEMs at a price point the average buyer could/would be willing to invest in. Then, even with the potential of less expensive vehicles coming from China, I’m willing to guess that most individuals would stick with the automakers that they trust, for a few dollars more! That’s not to say that, given time in the market, as confidence grows and the questions of quality are answered, that the general public might be will to give these off shores products a chance, but it would up to the automakers on both sides to keep their product competitive and compelling to the potential buyers! There was a time that no one wanted ANYTHING to do with a Hyundai or Kia, but today they offer as desirable a product as anyone else in the industry! Good styling, an affordable price and a reasonable range and I don’t see any automaker can’t defend that product anywhere in the world, especially in their home market! I think history has shown that people are willing to pay a modest premium for those things the want and love. If the market says $25K, for example, but you’ll give it to me all covered in goodness, just the way I like it, I’ll bite!
Lucid should become a supplier of motor/gearbox/controller systems, if they can make them at competitive costs. They’d need to scale them down in power and cost, though, for more “mainstream” EVs. Isn’t their current single motor RWD car 400-some hp?
Lucid certainly has some excellent engineering. Their future may lie as a supplier to industry. Perhaps a large Tier 1 will pick them up for the technology.
A lot of what’s wrong with some EVs, like Mach-E, is poor efficiency compared to some others. Maybe Ford should buy powertrain parts from Lucid.
@LUCID: I test drove a LUCID Air twice two months ago and have become very impressed. Flawless ride and handling and a very luxurious interior. The vehicle size is a little larger than a Mercedes E Class but the interior space is like a LWB S Class. Great vehicle.
@Kit: you are right about the Mach-e. As much as we like it, we drive it at 2.5-3 miles per kWh.
I’d like to test drive a Lucid Air, but the closest place is almost 3 hours away, in Chicago or Louisville. Their lack of “studios” could partly explain their lack of sales.
Wim & Kit, Lucid did a tour of the SW with about 6 or 8 vehicles of various trim levels. I think they were going from Louisville to Chicago via as many markets as they could hit on that tour. I test drove two of them just north of Atlanta. I was impressed with everything but the price. The luxurious interiors, the drive, fit & finish, and looks were all on par with the best. I enjoyed the one pedal driving and the acceleration, and 95% of my driving is local, under 15 miles/day, so an electric would cover that nicely. I have 220v already run to the garage, but I can’t see paying that much for a new vehicle, so I’ll probably wait for the technology to improve, prices to come down, and get some used EV for my around town driving. My truck will easily last another 10 years or so, but I’ll probably go electric for the next vehicle.
I need to find out if they will be making a stop on the way from Louisville to Chicago.
I took a look at the Lucid Motor/inverter. The motor spins a little faster than ones from other OEMs and that is where the efficiency is coming from. Currently Tesla matches the speed of Lucid so Tesla will not be a buyer of Lucid Technology. The other OEMs could be a buyer, but I am confident that they are already working on higher speed motors to keep up with Tesla, not lucid.
The Inverter from Lucid is nothing that special. Better integrated to the motor/gearbox and can likely be kept cooler than others, but the overall inverter itself is nothing special. The integration level can be done by anyone. I am certain OEMs are all working on better inverter technology than Lucid.
The gearbox is really not that special either being a concentric drive gearbox. Concentric drive is great for packaging, but terrible for things like bearings. Long term reliability will likely be a problem for the Lucid gearbox.
All that to say, if I was an OEM I am likely worried about certain aspects of the current set-up from Lucid and likely already working on better tech than what Lucid has to offer today. If I was an OEM and looking for high tech, I would be seeking out Koenigsegg and their Quark radial flux motor and pairing that to updated inverter technology.
https://www.koenigsegg.com/quark-emotor