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Runtime: 12:37
0:00 Tesla’s Profits Tumble, Stock Up on the News
2:08 Waymo Expanding to Snow Belt, Tokyo
2:46 Toyota Still #1
3:43 Honda & Nissan Lose Sales
4:07 VW Board Wants Deeper Cuts
4:53 EU Tariffs Slow Chinese EVs
6:46 Renault’s Shocking Filante Concept
8:29 BMW iX Gets Significant Upgrades
9:46 BMW’s 1st M3 CS Station Wagon
10:23 Bridgestone Recycles Used Tires
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This is Autoline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry.
TESLA’S PROFITS TUMBLE, STOCK UP ON THE NEWS
Tesla reported its year-end earnings yesterday and its 4th quarter was rough. Profits plummeted 71%. Its operating margin fell to only 6.2%, which is below General Motors’ 6.8% margin. And yet, investors shrugged off the bad news and bid the stock up 4% in after-hours trading. Why? One reason is that they loved hearing Elon Musk tell analysts that Tesla will start testing Unsupervised Full Self Driving as a paid service in Austin in June, and start mass production of its Optimus robots this year. And investors expect that to eventually generate massive profits. Even so, Elon must be glad that the company put 2024 behind it. For the full year, Tesla’s sales fell 1% to 1.78 million vehicles. Its revenue also fell 1% to $97.7 billion. But a couple of positive developments elsewhere in the company covered up deeper problems with Tesla’s automotive operations. For example, revenue of energy storage systems shot up 67% to more than $10 billion. Revenue from services, which includes insurance, financing and vehicle repairs was up a strong 27% to $10.5 billion. Also, Tesla sold $2.7 billion of ZEV credits to other automakers last year, up 54%. But even with all that Tesla’s operating profit dropped 21% for the year, and its net profit plummeted by 53% to $7 billion. And with a net profit margin of only 7.3%, Tesla is starting to look like a traditional automaker.
WAYMO EXPANDING TO SNOW BELT, TOKYO
Despite Tesla’s plans to start testing Unsupervised FSD in Austin in a matter of months, it’s still way behind Waymo. Yesterday, Waymo announced it’s expanding into 10 more regions in the U.S. including Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and upstate New York as well as Tokyo. At first it will use human drivers to physically drive the vehicles. Then it will use safety drivers on board to monitor the cars. And if all that works well, the cars will drive autonomously with no driver at all.
TOYOTA STILL #1
Toyota reported its sales for 2024 and when you include Lexus, Daihatsu and Hino, it remained the biggest automaker in the world. It sold a little over 10.8 million vehicles last year, which was down 3.7%. But if you exclude Daihatsu and Hino, which dealt with emission cheating scandals that eventually led to stop-sales, Toyota and Lexus’ sales were down 1.4% to 10.16 million vehicles. Lexus only makes up a small portion of that total. It sold 851,000 vehicles in 2024, up 3.3%. While BEVs are an even smaller portion. It sold just under 140,000 purely electric vehicles last year, which was up 34.5%, but still significantly less than most major automakers.
HONDA & NISSAN LOSE SALES
But Toyota wasn’t the only Japanese automaker that saw its global sales go down last year. Honda’s sales were down 4.6% to 3.8 million vehicles, while Nissan’s sales hit 3.3 million in 2024, down 0.8%. With sales falling, the case for a Honda, Nissan merger only gets stronger.
VW BOARD WANTS DEEPER CUTS
Volkswagen created an uproar in Germany when it announced it wants to shut at least 3 assembly plants and lay off 35,000 employees to save €15 billion a year by the end of the decade. And yet, VW’s board members don’t think those cuts go far enough. Germany’s Handelsblatt newspaper reports that VW board members believe more cuts are needed to hit the cost cutting target. The report also says that VW is pushing back its profitability target for a 6.5% margin for three or four years, instead of the end of next year. And we wouldn’t be surprised if things actually get worse than what’s being reported now.
EU TARIFFS SLOW CHINESE EVs
Those tariffs the EU slapped on Chinese EVs seem to be having their desired effect…sort of. According to automotive researcher Dataforce, registrations of EVs from Chinese brands fell 3.5% last year, which is the first annual drop since they entered the market. Chinese EV brands accounted for 8.5% of the EV market in 2024. Last year, the EU slapped tariffs up to 35% on Chinese EV imports because it said they have an unfair advantage because they benefit from state subsidies. And while the tariffs have slowed sales, brands like BYD and Xpeng have still seen sales increases.
RENAULT’S SHOCKING FILANTE CONCEPT
Renault is using its newest concept, called the Filante Record 2025, to showcase possible future technologies, while also displaying its design capabilities. Inspired by record-breaking speed cars of the 1930’s and 1950’s, it’s a single seater with a long thin fuselage and wheels and tires that are attached with small suspension arms, like an F-1 car. The proportions sound rather impressive too. It’s over 5 meters or about 16.8 feet long, just over 1.1 meter or 3.9 feet tall and 1.71 meters or 5.6 feet wide. So, it’s long, narrow and short. And even though it’s electric, it’s very light. Just 1,000 kilograms or 2,200 pounds. 60% of that weight is the battery, but Renault kept weight down by using Cell-to-Pack technology, which eliminates modules from inside a pack, as well as using a lot of carbon fiber. Some of the future tech that one day might make it into production cars, includes steer- and brake-by-wire systems. And in the Filante Record 2025 concept, Renault envisions controlling acceleration and braking through steering wheel controls. That’s a quick little overview of the new concept, but we wonder who you think did the better futuristic car? Renault with the Filante or Jaguar with its Type 00 concepts?
BMW iX GETS SIGNIFICANT UPGRADES
The refreshed BMW iX is offering some pretty significant upgrades. First, it adds about 31 miles of range, now covering up to 340 miles on a single charge. It was able to do that thanks to a new inverter that gets silicon carbide chips, which are more powerful and efficient, the newest eDrive system and new battery cell technology, which increases overall capacity. The iX is also the first production vehicle to feature BMW’s curved display and latest operating system, which includes an AI assistant and enables things like in-car streaming and gaming. All versions now come standard with all-wheel drive, including a new M70 model, which has 650 horsepower and does 0-60 MPH in 3.6 seconds. It starts at $111,500, including destination charges, but for those that don’t want all that power, a new xDrive45 model is available with 402 horsepower and a starting price of just over $75,000, which is $12-grand cheaper than the previous entry-level trim.
OH BOY, A STATION WAGON FROM BMW
Speaking of BMW, it’s coming out with a station wagon version of the M3 CS for the first time ever. Like the sedan, it’s available with a turbocharged 3.0L in-line 6-cylinder engine that’s paired with an 8-speed automatic to send power to all 4 wheels. But unfortunately for those of us in North America we won’t be able to tap into its 550 horsepower and do 0-62 MPH in 3.2 seconds. Deliveries in Europe, Australia, Japan and South Korea start this March.
BRIGESTONE RECYCLES USED TIRES
This is something we think is pretty significant. Bridgestone, which is one of our sponsors, is going to start recycling used tires. And we mean it will recycle them back down to their original ingredients. It will use a process called pyrolysis, which involves heating the tires in an oxygen-free environment to extract the original materials. Bridgestone will collect oil and carbon black to use as raw materials to make new tires. The company will start construction of the pilot plant in November in Japan, operations kick-off in 2027 and it will have the capacity to process 7,500 tons of tires a year.
WILL TRUMP TARIFFS CRIPPLE PRODUCTION?
Two days from now President Trump is promising to slap 25% import tariffs on cars and parts coming from Canada and Mexico. The auto industry is deeply worried about what could happen. Some suppliers are telling automakers there’s no way they’re going to eat that cost and they’ll raise prices immediately. A few suppliers are predicting that car production in North America will grind to a halt in about a week. And that’s what we’ll be talking about on Autoline After Hours later today. We’ve got the supplier expert Paul Eichenberg coming on the show, as well as Perry Stern from Cars Yeah. So if you want to get a better idea of what could happen to the auto industry join John and Gary when the show goes live at 3 pm eastern time.
But that’s a wrap for this show. I hope to see you later.
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A shame that the M3 Wagon won’t come to the USA. I would 100% buy that. Sadly I am in the minority as the broad NA market shuns wagons. Hopefully one day that will change.
Sean, I understood that Toyota had controlling interests of around 30% in Subaru, Mazda. Isuzu and perhaps a smaller amount in Suzuki. Can you tell us how much they would have to own before they can count that production as their own. Also, what would the total Toyota production be if they did. Also, Pyrolysis as a process has been around for years. The refinery I used to work at looked into using it as a way of recovering hydrocarbons from garbage, but gave up due to the variability of the materials found in the garbage. Using only tires would be a huge improvement, although steel belted times would have to be processed separately since metals can screw up the process.
The M wagon is really cool, but I probably wouldn’t buy one, because of the likely price. What I might buy, if available in the US, would be a garden variety, RWD 3 series wagon, like is sold in the rest of the world. The 2.0 turbo engine would be fine.
Kevin, great question. Toyota owns 4.5% of Suzuki, 5.1% of Mazda and 20% of Subaru. It owns 100% of Daihatsu and just over 50% of Hino. It only counts sales of Daihatsu and Hino in its total numbers. There doesn’t seem to be a specific ownership level for an automaker to include a subsidiaries sales as part of its own.
My understanding is that the 25% tariff is punishment for insufficient border security and not yet related to the auto industry. That comes later.
Filante Record 2025: Beautiful but fancifully unpractical.
Jaguar Type 00: Looks more feasible for production, but it will probably end the brand. These are brutally plain.
Both appear to be simply computer renderings, so hopefully any actual production vehicles will appeal to actual buyers.
Waymo: love the list of “cities” that includes the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and upstate New York. These are both huge geographic areas that each contain numerous cities, towns, villages and townships. I guess Waymo decided to leave it more vague because even they don’t know for sure yet where they should send them. I checked the News Updates on the Waymo website to see if there was any more specifics. This press release has not been uploaded yet.
The US seems to have lax border security too, if the issue is letting stuff leave your country through your border. A big stash of cocaine was recently seized in Toronto, which had entered through Canada’s southern border.
An interesting product related to the Toyota/Mazda connection, is the CX-50 hybrid which uses the powertrain from the RAV4 hybrid. I would expect the Mazda to perform almost as well as the RAV in mpg and acceleration. I say almost, because from what I’ve read, the Mazda will bastardize the Toyota powertrain with fake shifts.
Forbes has an interesting article on gm’s EV push:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2025/01/27/gm-topped-tesla-ev-growth/
I remember reading about Kurt Kelty back in his Tesla days. He made the Panasonic deal for batteries happen, and has amassed enormous experience in the field. Poaching him was a very smart move.