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Runtime: 10:57
0:00 EU to Ease CO2 Regs For Automakers
0:49 Tomorrow Is D-Day for Trump’s Tariffs
1:43 Honda Moving Civic Hybrid to U.S.
2:11 Stellantis Adding Americans To Board
3:14 Tesla FSD Only “OK” Say Chinese Testers
4:39 Autonomous Maserati Hits 197.7 MPH
5:14 Will Polestar Pull Out of China?
5:53 Hyundai Group Sets U.S. Feb Sales Record
6:21 Kia Wants Smaller, Cheaper EV
6:49 No Solid-State Batteries Until 2030
7:37 Autoline Poll on Paddle Shifters
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This is Autoline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry.
EU TO EASE CO2 REGS FOR AUTOMAKERS
Automakers in Europe could be getting their wish. The EU announced it’s proposing to ease CO2 emission regulations for automakers. The targets will remain the same but companies would have a three-year window to hit them, meaning they could miss targets this year as long as they outperform them in the next two years. The EU is also planning on boosting support for battery makers and recommending that member countries revise tax incentives so that companies choose EVs for their company cars instead of ICEs. And that could have a big impact since corporate fleets account for two-thirds of Europe’s car market.
TOMORROW IS D-DAY FOR TRUMP’S TARIFFS
Tomorrow is D-Day for President Trump’s 25% tariffs on cars imported from Canada and Mexico. Everyone in the industry is anxiously waiting to hear if he’ll really go through with it, and if he’ll stick to the 25% rate. If Trump phases the tariffs in over time, that will make it a little less painful. But if they hit all at once, automakers and suppliers predict it will be a disaster. Our contacts in the industry believe that what the President really wants to do is re-negotiate the USMCA free trade deal early, and on terms that are even more favorable to the U.S. There’s a review of the treaty scheduled for July 1, 2026. But the thinking is that Trump doesn’t want to wait that long, and that the tariffs are a way to bring Canada and Mexico to the bargaining table sooner than that.
HONDA MOVING CIVIC HYBRID TO U.S.
But Honda isn’t waiting to see what will happen. Reuters reports it will move production of the Civic hybrid out of Mexico and to its assembly plant in the U.S. in Greensburg, Indiana. Production is scheduled to start in May of 2028 and capacity is set for 210,000 cars a year. Today, the Civic hybrid’s price starts around $29,000, but that is likely going to go up once they’re made in the U.S.
STELLANTIS ADDING AMERICANS TO BOARD
Stellantis used to make 60% of its profits in North America. But in the second half of last year, it lost $1.8 billion in the region. So, Chairman John Elkann decided that Stellantis needed more Americans on its board of directors. He nominated Daniel Ramot and Alice Schroeder as new board members. Ramot is the co-founder and CEO of Via, a global transportation technology company and Schroeder is a former managing director at Morgan Stanley. The company also proposed the re-election of five board members, so more changes are on the way. Stellantis has 11 members on its board, including one open seat for the new CEO it’s searching for.
TESLA FSD ONLY “OK” SAY CHINESE TESTERS
According to testers who have now had the chance to compare the new version of FSD that Tesla launched in China to other Chinese systems, Tesla does ok. In all tests, FSD, or what’s called FSD Intelligent Assisted Driving Software in China, required driver intervention, but so did some of the Chinese vehicles. However, it seemed like FSD had a harder time deciding what lane the vehicle should be in. But that’s not too surprising because Tesla still has restrictions on FSD training in China because authorities are worried about any sensitive data that might be transferred back to the U.S. The automaker expects to have that resolved soon, so in order to launch the version of FSD that it just did, Elon Musk says Tesla “just used publicly available video on the Internet of roads and signs in China and used that to train” the system. When the company gets approval to train FSD in China, no doubt it will get better at operating on the roads, but Tesla also needs to expand the tech’s availability. Right now only Chinese customers who paid for FSD, which now costs about $8,800, can get it. Those customers do go back as far as 2022, but the update currently only works on vehicles with HW4, which started launching last year.
AUTONOMOUS MASERATI HITS 197.7 MPH
Speaking of hands-free driving, Maserati set a new speed record for an autonomous car. Running on AI software developed by Italy’s largest scientific and technological university, an MC20 Coupe hit nearly 200 MPH or about 320 km/h at the Kennedy Space Center in the U.S. They chose the spot because it has one of the longest runways in the world at nearly 3 miles or roughly 4.5 kilometers, which was originally built for NASA space shuttle landings.
WILL POLESTAR PULL OUT OF CHINA?
Rumors circulating in the Chinese auto industry say that Polestar will pull out of the Chinese market. The rumors were getting enough traction that Polestar had to come out publicly and deny them. Even so, high level executives and staff are reportedly clearing out of the company’s technical headquarters in Nanjing. It’s also moving production of the Polestar 4 to South Korea, the Polestar 7 to Europe and the Polestar 3 to the U.S. to avoid tariffs on Chinese made cars. And we think that management of the company will now be concentrated almost entirely in Sweden.
HYUNDAI GROUP SETS U.S. FEB SALES RECORD
The Hyundai Group is on a roll in the U.S. The Hyundai brand’s sales were up nearly 3% in February to more than 62,000 vehicles. Kia’s sales were up over 7% to 63,000 vehicles. And Genesis sold 5,500 vehicles last month, which was up 20% compared to a year ago. It was the fifth straight month of record sales for Hyundai and Kia. And Genesis also set a sales record in February.
KIA WANTS SMALLER, CHEAPER EV
And speaking of Kia, the automaker’s CEO says the brand needs an affordable EV in its lineup below the EV2 concept it revealed last week. Kia’s CEO says it may release a teaser of the vehicle next year, which could be called the EV1. The EV2 is expected to start around €30,000 but Kia says it needs a more affordable model in order to reach its goal of selling 1.6 million EVs annually by 2030.
NO SOLID-STATE BATTERIES UNTIL 2030
And the EVs Kia will be releasing from now until the end of the decade will feature existing battery types. The Hyundai Group’s head of global product planning says it will focus on improving LFP and NMC batteries in the near-term because he doesn’t believe the company can commercialize solid-state batteries before 2030 due to the complexity of the technology. Solid-state batteries have safety, cost, weight and performance advantages compared to lithium batteries, however producing them in volume is very difficult. We just had Bob Lee, the head of LG Energy Solution in North America on Autoline After Hours, and he said he didn’t see any major automaker using solid state batteries in mass production until the early 2030s.
AUTOLINE POLL ON PADDLE SHIFTERS
We’ve got the results from our poll that we posted last Friday. We wanted your advice to the car companies about whether they should keep paddle shifters. 11% of you said you love them and told the automakers to keep them. 18% said you don’t use them that much, but like having them when you want them. That means a total of 29% are in favor of keeping paddle shifters. But a clear majority, 55%, advised the automakers to just get rid of them. And 16% of you said, who cares, because you drive a manual transmission. And we sure got a lot of comments. Chimrichalds1422 kind of captured what a lot of you said. “Paddle shifts are like a padded dash. You touch them on the first road test and never again.” But on the Autoline website, Kit Gerhart said he used them on his C6 and C7 Corvettes. “I’d like to use quite a bit of throttle, but downshift only one or two gears, not four or five gears like it would do if you floor it at 50-55 mph.” And Patrick brought up a great point. “Maybe add a line for EV regen paddles? he said. “I use them everyday in my 2019 Hyundai Ioniq EV to adjust the regen. They work great. Wish my Teslas had them.” Over 1,500 of you voted in the poll, and for all you product planners in the industry who watch this show, there’s some really good feedback for you to take a look at.
But that’s a wrap for today. Thanks for tuning in.
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Solid State batteries will arrive for cars when the rotary engine returns…
My Honda Accord Hybrid has small paddles for regen settings, but I don’t actually see the point. I mostly drive in town, so turn full regen on as soon as I get in the car. On the highway, cruise control automatically turned regen settings off. It’s unclear why I would ever want partial regen. Anyone know?
kevin a, isn’t the paddle controlled regen just the amount of simulated engine braking you get with your foot off of the right pedal, with all of what you feel being regen?
Kevin, its my understanding, at least on the few vehicles I’ve driven with full regen braking, that full regen gives the vehicle “one pedal driving” like a golf cart. Just using the accelerator to speed up, then letting off to stop seemed great and very natural to me. I think the only reason to have partial regen is that it freaks out the old folks that can’t adapt to only one pedal driving. That’s pretty much what the Lucid rep said when I drove one of theirs.
I test drove a Tesla Model 3 a few years ago, with one pedal driving turned on. I’m old, but got used to it ok, but I’m not sure I’d want to use it all the time if my car had it. I don’t remember how hard it would brake, if you lift the right pedal completely. I suspect you’d still need to use the brake pedal to avoid rear ending someone if the driver in front of you braked hard, and you were following closely. Does anyone here know?
when regen is on full in my Honda, you can almost drive with one pedal because the regenerator slows the car fairly rapidly. At very low speeds the regen stops working so you need to use the brake just before you stop. However, even at full regen setting, the actual regen you get varies by how much your foot is on the gas pedal. If you lift off entirely, you get a lot, if you keep pressing the pedal a little you get less and so on. Basically, with regen set on high, you can vary its effect with the gas pedal. So my question remains, why would I choose anything but full regen. Note: I do buy the argument that some people would like partial regen because it is less intrusive while you are driving, but if you want the best mileage, I assume you have to use full regen. The best mileage I have ever achieved on a trip of any length was 5.0 l/100km which is slightly better than Honda’s estimate. The best mileage always seems to come in town at lower speeds in light traffic.
Kevin, it sounds like your full regen would be good if you like “almost” one pedal driving. If you have the regen set lower, you would get regen according to how much you push the brake pedal, which would be the same as using the gas pedal to adjust the deceleration with full regen set. Either way, the friction brakes would be used to come to a complete stop, or when braking hard in an emergency. I would expect your fuel economy to be the same regardless of regen setting, if you drive the same speed, and accelerate and decelerate the same, but with using the brake pedal, mostly lightly, rather than adjusting speed only with the right pedal.
On the Bolt, it’s truly 1 pedal driving on ‘L’. Right to a stop. And you don’t need to hold the brake when stopped (unless you don’t want to be rear-ended by the next driver).
The paddle adds to the one pedal regen, stopping you even faster. All this regen recharges the battery so that’s good. I hate it because it makes the drive very choppy. My wife loves it and has the technique down pat for a smooth drive.
Variable regen with paddles is nice for slowing down on a long downhill and helping recharge the battery without using brakes. We’ve seen nearly 50 kW regen going down a hill, much better than the 7 kW we charge at home.
Studies tell us that for maximum efficiency, coasting to slow down is more efficient than regen because regen is not 100% efficient. Works easier where we live with very little traffic.
I love the regen paddles for EVs. I think GM may have pioneered that on the Bolt. In fact, I practically drive an EV with the paddles if it has them. I only like regen for stop and go driving, and for braking. I don’t like it on all the time, because I like to carry my speed through corners when lifting. Being able to click through 3 different regen settings quickly with the paddles, including turning it off is the best.
People need to understand, Trump has made the US is an entirely untrustworthy partner. In business, and in security. So, congratulations, I guess.
Seriously folks, Nobody wants to work with the US anymore. This because any agreement that is arrived at, will get thrown out on a whim, just so Trump can tell another lie, and appeal to his wilfully ignorant base. And good luck on exporting anything to Canada.
Though it wasn’t brought up here, I’ve even seem some comments saying that they believe that the reason that cars are expensive now, is because OEM’s get parts from Canada and the Mexico. That is beyond preposterous. The only reason they aren’t more expensive, is BECAUSE they get some of their parts cheaper, in Canada and the Mexico. It takes a special kind of stupid to believe that the opposite is true.
The countdown of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, what was habitually called the USA’s extravagant privilege because of the outsize financial benefits that flow from it, has likely begun. You can’t go full crazy, while sucking up to a middleweight dictatorship at the end of the world, without consequences.
@Miradart by “unreliable” what you really mean is the US is done letting any other nation, like Canada, enjoy massive trade imbalances with us while also getting free defense under our nuclear umbrella. Trump is putting an end to that and Canada, the EU and Mexico are all big mad and pouty about it. Because socialism doesn’t work when you have to pay your own way.
@sean Wagner So what currency would replace the dollar? The peso? The Euro? Get real. The United States economy drives this planet so the dollar will always be the standard. Without the US dollar and banking systems the world economy crashes into anarchy. Even now while the EU boasts about this big peace plan it all hinges on US funding and military backing because as I said before, socialist EU has no money and no army. But hey, you can dream, I guess.
Daily, the US “drove” the world economy, when the US government could be trusted to honor agreements made with trading partners, and when it was “leader of the free world,” rather than sucking up to despots like Putin and Orban. When the fool-in-chief wants only chaos, that is likely to change. The Euro would be most likely to replace the dollar as the “reserve” currency, especially if the UK would rejoin the EU, and adopt the Euro. Yeah, that’s not likely to happen. Maybe the Yuan will replace the dollar. China is projected to overtake the GDP of the US in 10 years or so. That could happen sooner, with the trade war with Canada and Mexico the FIC promises, which could quickly trash all three economies of North America.
@Kit Gerhart 100%, 100 times over.
@Daily Driver. Good luck with all of it, when no one trusts you with anything.
Though Trump has done one thing REALLY well. He has popped the bubble on the fallacy that “Businessmen” should really be the guys to run the country. He’s 4X bankrupt loser, and couldn’t even keep a casino open! All he knows is money and leverage, though he can’t make money without extortion.
Nobody likes him. Check his former cabinet members. Almost without exception, they HAATE him. Nobody works for him because they believe in what he says. They work for him because they see either no other solution (Epstein documents still not released… funny that…..) Or, they’re playing along to prop up their own interests. None of his cabinet give one crap about the job. They only care about themselves, and see Trump as their means to an end. In other words, a sucker. A sucker that only needs to hear praise (the fragile little baby)
The bottom line is, “Captain Bone-spurs” has zero concept of how to “Build A Society”. He really is not a big thinker.
If our politicians only care about money, and praise for being deceptive, and lying, we get what we have. An oligarch class with Billionaires, telling Thousand-airs, that it’s the Hundred-airs are the problem. And sadly, many folks like you fell for it. Golf clap. I’m sad for you.
@DailyDriver Those are questions sensible people regularly ask. And the shift away from the USD is tectonic, but something that big usually happens over the course of many years, mostly noticed in hindsight.
There’s an implied supposition that for the world’s reserve currency to fade away, there must be an equal or better replacement. Not so. It must merely be perceived as riskier or more intrusive than alternatives.
As for trade and anarchy, China is now the world’s number one counterparty even of many South American countries. There’s a rubber-band effect in play here. And anarchy… shredding the prudent institutional frameworks at home, and vital alliances abroad that had cemented American leadership in the world (actually at a small price and outsize benefit) – that’s something the present disadministration is clearly bent upon. SADists.
Meanwhile, noone even talks about sensible and prudent inducements that would help nudge American corporate governance towards longer-term growth patterns. More stock-buybacks just feed the bonfire.
@MERKUR Driver
You might have missed that the Swiss Re study compares miles driven in modern cars with WAYMO’s fully autonomous taxis.