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Runtime: 11:43
0:00 CEO Rawlinson Out at Lucid
1:24 Tesla Stock Trips & Falls
2:21 Stella’s Earnings Plummet
2:58 NHTSA Cuts 4% Of Workforce
3:53 Hyundai Using Private 5G Spectrum in Manufacturing
5:12 Kia Emphasizes Bi-Directional Charging
6:00 GM & Tesla Score Highest Owner Loyalty
6:48 U.S. Mitsubishi Dealers Losing Money, Beg for New Product
8:02 Volvo ES90 Gets 800V, 435 Miles Range
8:58 Toyota Shrinks Board, Appoints an American
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This is Autoline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry.
CEO RAWLINSON OUT AT LUCID
It seems like there’s never a dull moment in the auto industry right now. Lucid Motors dropped something of a bombshell yesterday, announcing that Peter Rawlinson is stepping down as CEO of the company and into an advisory role. Marc Winterhoff, the chief operating officer, was named as interim CEO as the board searches for a new full-time replacement. So it sure sounds like something happened for such a quick departure. And Lucid’s latest financial earnings could have been what triggered it all. Even though sales were up 70%, the company only sold a little over 10,000 cars. Revenue was up 36% but only came to a little over $800 million. The company posted a $3 billion operating loss, about the same as the year before, and a $3 billion net loss, which was actually a bit worse than before. And on top of all that, the stock price has been stuck in a rut for the last year. No doubt that weighed on the board’s decision. Lucid expects to double production this year with the launch of the Gravity SUV and while Rawlinson is a brilliant technologist, it’s pretty clear what kind of CEO the company needs now: somebody who can move the metal.
| LUCID MOTORS 2024 EARNINGS | ||
|---|---|---|
| Sales | 10,241 | +70% |
| Revenue | $807 M | +35.7% |
| Operating Profit | -$3.0 B | — |
| Net Profit | -$3.0 B | -$256 M Worse |
| Source: Lucid | ||
TESLA STOCK TRIPS & FALLS
Things don’t look very rosy at Tesla, either. The stock price is down almost 24% over the last month, and the company’s market cap is now under $1 trillion. Bloomberg reports there are a growing number of anti-Tesla protests and even vandalism at company stores and on private vehicles. And it’s all because of the provocative and political stands of Elon Musk. That’s especially true in Germany, where Musk has been bashing the political leadership of the country. One survey shows that 80% of the German public have an unfavorable view of the Tesla CEO. And last month, Tesla sales in Germany fell 59%. At this point we don’t think this can be explained away by people waiting for the new Model Y, or plant retooling, or lower deliveries early in the quarter. Something seems to have fundamentally shifted, and that something is public opinion.
STELLA’S EARNINGS PLUMMET
Stellantis also posted its 2024 earnings and the numbers are brutal. It sold 5.5 million vehicles, 867,000 fewer than the year before. Revenue came to nearly €157 billion, but that was €32 billion less than before. Its operating income dropped by more than €18 billion to only €3.6 billion. And its net profit fell 70% to €5.5 billion. Stella’s board is searching for a new CEO and promises that this year’s results will be a lot better.
| STELLANTIS 2024 EARNINGS | ||
|---|---|---|
| Sales | 5.5 M | -14% |
| Revenue | €156.8 B | -17% |
| Operating Profit | €3.6 B | -84% |
| Net Profit | €5.5 B | -70% |
| Source: Stellantis | ||
NHTSA CUTS 4% OF WORKFORCE
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced that it has cut 4% of its workforce as part of President Trump’s government layoffs. NHTSA says the agency grew by 30% during the Biden Administration and even after the cuts, there are still more workers than there were four years ago. NHTSA had more than 800 employees before the layoffs. Safety advocates were critical of the cuts but we’d point out that traffic fatalities have increased 20% over the last decade in the U.S., despite NHTSA mandating all kinds of extra safety equipment.
HYUNDAI USING PRIVATE 5G SPECTRUM IN MANUFACTURING
The Hyundai Group, along with Samsung, are improving the communication skills of robots in plants. It was the first Korean company to use what’s called Private 5G in mass production. Private 5G uses a specific frequency band within the 5G spectrum that allows safe wireless communication, which Hyundai leveraged to control a fleet of autonomous mobile robots at one of its plants in South Korea. But a system like this can be complex to design and eat up a lot of power. So, that’s why it’s also developing Reduced Capability or RedCap powered 5G networks that offer simplified device configurations, a more compact infrastructure, and reduced bandwidth usage, which lowers power use and costs. Hyundai is testing a system like this in vehicle inspection equipment, small tools, cameras and tablets. While Private 5G RedCap is faster and more stable than Wi-Fi for wireless communication in plants, the Group patented dual wireless communication as well, which combines both 5G networks and Wi-Fi so there’s virtually no communication-related downtime. It says these solutions will continue to spread to its plants around the world and could also be used by other businesses.
KIA EMPHASIZES BI-DIRECTIONAL CHARGING
Speaking of the Hyundai Group, Kia is launching a couple of smart charging solutions for its EVs in Europe and the U.S. The first is a bidirectional charging function that will allow owners of the Kia EV9 in 7 U.S. states to use their vehicle as an emergency power source during outages or they can charge the vehicle when electricity is cheaper and use it as a home power source when electricity rates are higher. The second solution is a Smart Charging app that will first be offered in the Netherlands and combines data from both the EV and the owner’s energy supplier to make sure the vehicle charges as cheaply as possible. And third, it will start allowing owners to sell electricity from their EV back to the grid later this year in Europe.
GM & TESLA SCORE HIGHEST OWNER LOYALTY
General Motors and Tesla have the most loyal customers in the U.S. once again. S&P Global Mobility revealed its annual Automotive Loyalty Awards and GM was the winner of the “Overall Loyalty to Manufacturer” award while Tesla won the “Overall Loyalty to Make” award. Both companies earned the same awards in 2023. And the Lincoln Corsair won the “Overall Loyalty to Model” award. While brand loyalty is still below pre-pandemic levels, it has increased three years in a row and reached 51.6% in 2024. S&P’s loyalty awards are based on an analysis of 13.1 million new vehicle registrations in the U.S. in 2024.
U.S. MITSUBISHI DEALERS LOSING MONEY, BEG FOR NEW PRODUCT
Mitsubishi dealers in the U.S. are begging the automaker for more product. The company sold just under 110,000 vehicles last year in the U.S. but 40% of that went to fleets. Automotive News reports that dealers only retailed around 66,000 vehicles last year, an average of 17 cars a month per store. Dealers say that figure needs to be at least 30 cars a month. So, several Mitsubishi dealers sent a letter to North America CEO Mark Chaffin asking the automaker for new product. As a result of slow new car sales some dealers say they’ve given up on selling new vehicles and are focusing on used sales instead, while rising prices and an aging lineup is hurting their profitability. Net profit per store averaged $434,000 last year, about half of what it was in 2020. And Mitsubishi currently only sells three models in the U.S., the Eclipse Cross, the Outlander and the Outlander Sport. The automaker ended production of the Mirage last year, its second-best selling model, and dealers are expected to run out of the inventory sometime this summer.
VOLVO ES90 GETS 800V, 435 MILES RANGE
Volvo has been teasing the new all-electric ES90 sedan for about a week now, ahead of its official debut on March 5th. The model is based on the same SPA2 platform as the EX90 SUV, which features a more centralized computing system and software-defined architecture with just a single set of hardware and software modules. To power the vehicle’s AI functions, self-driving features, including all the cameras and sensors, and its battery management system, the ES90 uses two of NVIDIA’s DRIVE Orin computer chip sets. Volvo also revealed that the model will have up to 700 kilometers or about 435 miles of range on the WLTP cycle and thanks to its 800-volt architecture, it can add 300 kilometers or 186 miles of range in 10 minutes when charging at 350 kW.
TOYOTA SHRINKS BOARD, APPOINTS AN AMERICAN
Toyota is shaking up its board to help streamline decision making. It’s currently made up of a board of directors, a supervisory board and an audit board. But Toyota is going to eliminate the audit and supervisory boards, which will be replaced by committees. As a result, the board will shrink from 16 members to 10, with 5 internal and five outside directors. One of the new nominees is Christopher Reynolds, an American who currently serves as executive vice president and chief strategy officer at Toyota North America. If he’s approved by Toyota shareholders, he’ll be just the fourth American to serve on Toyota’s board. He’ll also step down from his role at Toyota North America, making him the second high-profile executive to leave. Last month, chief operating officer Jack Hollis abruptly resigned from the company.
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 agree, it’s all about public opinion in regard to Tesla and Musk. I’m fine with both EV’s and ICE powered vehicles, but I won’t buy a vehicle from a company led by a Nazi saluting leader.
This isn’t scientific but just a gut feeling and observation. I see a correlation between the 20% increase in vehicle deaths and the rise of Trump. His followers want lower government oversight into their lives and this extends to speeding, not wearing their seatbelts and not obeying traffic laws. The NHTSA testing, government mandating and the manufacturers voluntarily offering ADAS is keeping drivers safer. Just like cigarettes having a warning label, it is down to the user to do the right thing.
I tend to agree with the Mitsubishi dealers. They have 3 cars to sell. That is enough models to sustain a Ferrari or Lamborghini, but not a volume seller like what Mitsubishi wants to be.
So when is Mitsu going to have versions of slow-selling Nissans to sell? That seems long overdue.
Today comments are filled with some of the most lamest comments I’ve ever read here. Falling for the nazi salute propaganda of Elon to the correlation of safety and rise of Trump which just happened last month and the study showed it’s been up over the last decade. Maybe due to cell phone distraction. I just have to laugh at the stuff people come up with. Wow.
With a couple of models in development on a new platform, and ramping up production of their second model now, it makes sense to me to focus the full time and engineering talents Mr. Rawlinson possesses in those two areas. The CEO duties can be executed by an experienced professional with business and finance background. He will continue to hold significant sway in the company he founded. Seems like a very good move to me.
It never made sense that Tesla is worth more than all the other car manufacturers combined. Especially when AI is an open technology. I still predict that the costs of autonomy will trend towards that of a consumer commodity once it becomes a thing.
Listened to an interview with Waabi’s Raquel Urtasun recently (someone I try to follow, information is sadly a bit sparse), they have a tool that helps train their model with the kind of edge cases that are very rare in reality. Fascinating schtuff.
Sad news for Rawlinson at Lucid, the engineering is great. But change was needed. Still hoping Ford will pick up the pieces.
Meanwhile, big investments in factories that were meant to sustain EV production are being cancelled in the US. And all-round trumpiffs won’t help. US-made socks and t-shirts will not be a thing outside niches.
I have some Elon jokes. Should I share?
@Lambo: +1
@ Lambo2015. My comment about a Trump/vehicle fatalities correlation was based on the stat of “traffic fatalities have increased 20% over the last decade in the U.S.” which is exactly the same period Trump became politically active. So your twisting it by saying “which just happened last month” does not make it a “lamest comment” but an accurate observation.
Nobody knows the political affiliation of people who are getting killed in motor vehicle accidents. I believe it has more to do with driver distraction, and not just people on their phones. Using screens for simple tasks like changing a radio station, toggling back and forth between nav and radio, or things like that takes your eyes off the road. A safety researcher at UMTRI once told me anything that takes longer than 2 seconds to actuate is driver distraction.
DANPOINTJOHN,
The defund the police movement is responsible. Departments everywhere either saw zero budget increases to keep up with population growth or they saw their budgets decreased. Thus the police departments did not have adequate resources to perform traffic enforcement and the other duties. The lack of enforcement directly correlates to the increase in risky driving behavior and the fatalities are the end result. In the last 4 years though there was an additional factor. Unfettered illegal immigration of millions of people. Suddenly these departments that were operating with fewer resources were tasked with dealing with a sharp increase in non-traffic related incidents brought by the millions of people who nobody knows/vetted. If you are in an area where they still do traffic enforcement, consider yourself lucky because that is hardly the norm anymore.
Just an accurate observation.
Okay Dana maybe if you include since Trump became politically active it can be slightly more correct but that correlation has to be the thinnest most far reaching attempt to blame Trump for something that I’ve seen. It’s certainly a stretch but I think your dislike for the guy is clouding your good judgement. I think an actual study can provide lots of reasons why fatalities may be up but I doubt politics has the slightest reasons at all.
Sean I agree I never felt like Tesla deserved the ratings it got on stock and for whatever reason was always hyped up way more than it deserved. If not for carbon and emission credits I’d say it’s safe to say that Tesla would have failed. No doubt it was all part of their business plan and worked out well. But as I stated yesterday you already know how I feel about the whole emissions credits penalties and being able to buy and sell them. We still drive what we want and just pay more for it. It’s a hidden tax.
Don’t forget the COVID years with ZERO traffic enforcement. The freeways here had no speed limits.
Anything ticking off the German ruling party is a good thing because that bunch of clowns are 100% responsible for the economic and cultural destruction of their country. And they know it too, but are angry when people point out the obviously brain dead decisions that have laid them low. But hey, here’s to hoping they crack on and are eventually reduced to a servant state toiling on Chinese-owned farms and in BYD factories. The people of Greece are probably having a good laugha considering the austerity measures that Germany imposed on them last decade.
I hope this doesn’t sound too severe or that guy who cried like a little girl at the EU podium last week after VP Vance spoke some truth straight to their faces may break down again.
Some good reading
https://open.substack.com/pub/andrewsullivan/p/requiem-for-the-west?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=7wgu6
Your experts keep getting it wrong about tariffs like the tariffs or not. We will see if they were just for negotiations.
No car industry predicts future build production numbers of cars well and your one show after hours that stated they exaggerate production expectations just to get more money is such a terrible long term strategy for the industry. Always doom and gloom for tesla and yet best brand loyalty which seems opposite. Crashes go up because cars are easier and easier to drive recklessly without paying attention so when they do mess up it is catastrophic. Drivers require less and less skill to understand the dynamics when the car that does most of the driving for them. So when they need to intervene, they dont have good car control. Also taking buttons totally away takes the tactile feel that a touch screen on cars does not give you. Keep both.
Congrats on your 4000th AD!
Its a shame that things pertaining to automotive news have to devolve into politics, but everyone has been fairly mature in their discussion so far, and that discussion is relevant since all business is heavily impacted by the rapid changes going on now. I will try to ask my question without getting too opinion heavy.
I hate that EVs have become so political, but I was under the impression that Elon had half the country behind his product, so he joined the “other side” to sell product to the rest of America. Smart business move, but what I don’t understand is why he is so badly alienating his original business base, and I just heard that POTUS has turned off the chargers at government buildings. I am trying my best to see the unbiased empathetic view, and read both sides, but it really does not make sense. His reasons for his choice of alliance don’t matter, but seems like if Musk choses to be the political leader he wants to be, shouldn’t he and his buddy be working publicly on taking the political knife out of the back of the EV industry? I could see them removing the incentives to make it a fair playing field, but sabotaging the industry seems counterintuitive.
Tesla is still the best option for EV because they have proven products with years worth of track record behind them. Look at all the other EV startups that have collapsed into bankruptcy, a couple just this year. OEM EVs are generally too expensive and unproven and suffer horrendous depreciation.
I think the fact that SpaceX has basically supplanted NASA as the United State’s space program and the years of guaranteed funding that brings along with commercial satellite launches – plus Starlink and his other ventures – give him some flexibility and options to bear hostile press.
Tesla has among the most efficient EV powertrains, the worst operator interface, and the best charging network, that they are now sharing with others. The cars’ reliability is so-so. There is now good competition. If I were buying an EV, it would probably be an i4, ioniq 5, or maybe one of the GM ones. It wouldn’t be a Lucid, even if I wanted to spend that much. Too much chance of haiving an orphan.
SpaceX is truly impressive. I hear, and sometimes see a launch about once a week. Most are Starlink. The reliabilty is very good.
Kit, we agree. I would add that if I bought a Hyundai EV or GM or whatever, and I had an issue, I would have zero confidence that the local dealership service department could handle it. But I know the local Tesla service techs – and yes there is one local to me even in this red state – definitely have the skills to fix Ev because it’s all they do. That is a huge factor in deciding which brand to buy.
I know a guy at work who bought a 1st gen Nissan Leaf new and it developed a charging issue. The dealership had his car for 6 months before he got it back. I would hate to be in that position.
There is a Tesla store near me too, in SpaceX land. I suspect GM and Hyundai dealers widely in how good they are with servace of EVs.
A friend’s Rivian with crash damage is taking forever to get fixed.