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Runtime: 11:20
0:00 Honda Slashes Its EV Investment
2:20 CATL Raises Billions in Stock Debut
2:51 GDI Sees More Interest in Silicon Anodes
3:24 Subaru Raising Prices in the U.S.
4:01 Subaru Announces New Head of North America
5:15 GM to Close Durant Guild in China
6:09 Rivian Designs Cost Out of the R2
7:25 All-Solid-State Batteries Find Test Partners
8:25 Volvo’s Massive Batteries for Long-Haul Trucks
9:01 What Are All These Teslas Doing Here?
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HONDA SLASHES ITS EV INVESTMENT
Honda is slashing its investment in pure electric vehicles and will instead put more focus on hybrids. It previously forecast that it would hit 30% EV market share by 2030, but the company blames a slowdown in the expansion of EVs for no longer expecting to hit that goal. In order to reach that 30% EV share, Honda was planning to invest nearly $70 billion through its 2031 fiscal year, but now it’s slashing almost $21 billion from that total. The cuts come in the form of delaying its EV hub in Canada as well as delays in investment for building EVs in other factories and “optimization of [its] lineup.” But one area where it’s not making any cuts is software. Honda is developing its all-new ADAS system that will be able to navigate hands-free on the expressways and surface streets. And it says it will start rolling it out to its lineup in Japan and North America around 2027. As we said, that lineup is going to include a lot more hybrids. By the end of the decade Honda expects to sell roughly 3.6 million vehicles and about 2.2 million of those will be hybrids. The ramp up really comes around 2027 when it introduces its all-new hybrid setup, which kind of acts more like a range extender, so the system operates more often in EV mode. Honda says it will improve fuel economy by over 10%, while costs will be down by more than 30% compared to the current hybrid system. The company is also working on a hybrid system specifically for larger vehicles that are aimed at the North American market and will be out in the later half of the 2020s. Honda sees motorcycles as another growth area as well. Right now about 50 million motorcycles are sold around the world. By 2030 Honda expects that to grow by another 10 million units, so the company is going to improve both its ICE and EV motorcycle lineup with the aim of grabbing even more market share and a better return on sales.
CATL RAISES BILLIONS IN STOCK DEBUT
And while many automakers like Honda are scaling back EV plans, battery companies are raising some serious cash. Last week, battery maker CATL raised $4.6 billion in its Hong Kong trading debut, which is the world’s largest listing this year. Its shares also increased 16% earlier today and because of that success, CATL can exercise an option to increase its fundraising to $5.3 billion.
GDI SEES MORE INTEREST IN SILICON ANODES
And U.S. battery materials startup, GDI, says it raised an additional $11.5 million to scale up production of silicon anodes for EV batteries in the U.S. and Europe. The company has now raised more than $20 million. GDI says its anodes are 30% more energy dense than graphite anodes and can help charge an EV in less than 15 minutes. It expects them to be in battery cells for non-automotive products in the next 24 to 30 months and in electric vehicles by 2030.
SUBARU RAISING PRICES IN THE U.S.
Subaru is raising prices of its vehicles in the U.S. While the automaker said it’s doing so because of “current market conditions” and didn’t cite tariffs, we can only assume those are the market conditions Subaru is talking about. The company will raise prices starting next month anywhere between $750 and $2,055 depending on the model and trim. Subaru relies heavily on imports to the U.S. According to S&P Global Mobility, the automaker imports 45% of the vehicles it sells in the region.
SUBARU ANNOUNCES NEW HEAD OF NORTH AMERICA
And in other Subaru news, the automaker named a new chairman and CEO of its American operations, Yoichi Hori. Hori actually started the new role on April 1 but the company is only making the announcement now. Hori has been with Subaru since 1996 and has held numerous positions in the U.S. and Japan, including product and corporate planning.
GM TO CLOSE DURANT GUILD IN CHINA
We’ve got another automotive casualty of President Trump’s trade war with China. General Motors is going to stop exporting American-made Cadillacs, GMCs and Corvettes to China. The vehicles, like Escalades, Tahoes and Hummers, were being sold through a new sales outlet in China called the Durant Guild, named after Billy Durant, the entrepreneur who started GM. Even though the sales numbers would be rather low, GM saw this as an opportunity to increase the market for its most profitable vehicles. China recently lowered its tariffs on U.S.-made cars from 130% to 10%, but it’s just a temporary reduction, and GM decided there was too much uncertainty to keep the exports going. And yet, GM is going to continue importing Chinese-made Buick Envisions into the U.S.
RIVIAN DESIGNS COST OUT OF R2
Rivian keeps doing impressive work to design cost, complexity and assembly time out of its vehicles. RJ Scaringe, the founder and CEO, posted the latest improvements they made to the wiring harness of the R2, the $45,000 mid-size SUV that’s supposed to launch in the first half of next year. Compared to the wiring harness of the second generation R1, which the company showed off last year, the new harness on the R2 cuts weight by an impressive 20 kilos, or 44 pounds. It gets rid of 2.3 miles of wiring, as well as 60% of wiring connectors. Keep in mind that wiring connectors typically are a high warranty item, so the fewer you use, the better your quality should be. This is all thanks to Rivian’s centralized-zonal compute system, the one that the Volkswagen Group is paying nearly $6 billion to use in its cars. Speaking of the R1S and R1T, it looks like Rivian needs to keep them in production for at least another 6 years to amortize the investment cost. Autoforecast Solutions says the next gen R1s don’t go into production until 2031.
ALL-SOLID-STATE BATTERIES FIND TEST PARTNERS
Not long ago Stellantis made headlines that it was testing solid-state batteries in one of its EVs, but those were semi-solid-state batteries. However, there are a few tests going on with full solid-state batteries, which have better energy density, storage, charging and safety. BMW revealed that it’s testing large-format versions of the cells from a U.S.-based company called Solid Power, which also includes Ford and SK Innovation as investors. The batteries have been integrated into a BMW i7 sedan and it’s the first time the two companies have done any road tests, which they’ll use for data collection. And Chinese automaker Chery was spotted testing a model from one of its brands with an all-solid-state battery, which is expected to return up to 1,500 kilometers or about 930 miles of range on the Chinese test cycle. The model is currently scheduled to hit the market sometime in 2027.
VOLVO HAS MASSIVE BATTERY FOR LONG-HAUL TRUCKS
Speaking of EV batteries, the packs in Volvo’s new long-haul electric truck are massive. It can have up to 8 packs that combine for 780 kWh, which provides up to 600 kilometers or about 370 miles of range. The trucks, which can be ordered in the second half of next year, come standard with megawatt charging capability that allows them to charge from 20-80% in 40 minutes, which also happens to be the same amount of time that truckers in the EU are required to rest between hauls.
WHAT ARE THESE TESLAS DOING HERE?
We want to give a shout out to our viewer Brennan Harvath, who was cruising around the suburbs north of Detroit when he ran across all these Teslas parked door to door in a parking lot of a strip mall. He wanted to know what the heck are all these Teslas doing there, which are not near any Tesla store or distribution center. Well, we have no clue whatsoever. But if any of you have an idea, we’d love to hear from you. By the way, if you know the Detroit area, this parking lot is on the southwest corner of 14 Mile and Orchard Lake road.
But that wraps up today’s report, thanks for watching.
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I hope things go well with the solid state batteries. It would be a game changer for BEVs. Higher range and lower recharge times would be a huge boon to BEVs. The negative right now is cost. They are 8X the cost of tradition BEV batteries which would make them astronomically expensive in a car. Lets hope that this battery supplier has solved the cost side of the equation.
Hi Sean,
any info in your Honda story if any of these 2.2 mill hybrids will be plug-ins? With the slowdown in EV sales, I would think that buyers that were considering EVs would demand at least Plug-ins, if they don’t get the pure EV.
As for those parked Teslas in that mall, why don’t you contact Mall management and ask them if Tesla leased the parking lot to park them there. Reminds me of the Big 3, whenever their inventories were really bloated, one would see thousands of their cars parked near or at Detroit Metro Airport, or other airports in the area.
It’s no surprise that Subaru is raising prices. Forester, their second highest volume model is from Japan, and has very little US content. Even the high volume Outback, assembled in Lafayette, Indiana has 30% Japanese content. The high volume Crosstrek comes from two locations, Indiana and Japan, but I don’t know the model mix. The US built Crosstreks have 35% Japanese content.
https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/2025-04/MY2025-AALA-Alphabetical%204_7_2025.pdf
I don’t know Honda’s plans, but none of their current hybrids, Accord, Civic, and CR-V are plug-ins.
The current Honda hybrids trail their direct competition from Toyota in mpg, and are generally similar in acceleration. If the next Honda hybrids increase mpg by “over 10%” as they say, that should put them about even with Toyota. The Civic hybrid hatch, new for 2025, should be a serious competitor with Prius. It won’t get the mpg of the Prius, but is fairly close, and the Civic has a little more room.
Regulus, Honda didn’t divulge if it has any plans for PHEVS or EREVs, but it wouldn’t surprise us at all if that’s what it’s cooking up.
I wonder if the Teslas stored in the Detroit area were destined for Canada, where sales have decreased about 70% from December. Price increases, end of government incentives, and backlash against Elon, have combined to crater sales in Canada. I’d think if the cars were just normal excess inventory, they would be stored closer to the factories.
I would say the Canada angle is a good bet. Could also be excess inventory being stored for quick deployment to Michigan and Ohio Tesla Sales Centers. The Sales Centers I have seen don’t have an abundance of lot space. Either way, Tesla needs some new sales mojo to avoid inventory buildup like this. Storing cars in little used parking lots invites rodent damage, theft and vandalism. The CyberTrucks are also much more prone to atmospheric damage.
I think Subaru will only be the first of many OEMs to raise prices, despite the harsh criticism from the White House. Trump, being a genius businessman, realizes that if costs escalate dramatically then prices for those products will too. It takes a lot of gall to slap huge tariffs on companies exporting goods to the US and then telling US retailers that they better not raise prices.
I think the tariffs gave GM a graceful way to exit a business in China that wasn’t working, even before the tariffs went into effect. Certainly, if there were strong demand for the expensive Durant Guild models, a 10% tariff would not dramatically affect sales.
Prices will increase, and choice will decrease. Subaru and Toyota will be affected a lot by the tariffs, and Audi even more. All of what Audi and Porsche sell in the US is imported. I’m glad I’m not going to be shopping for cars any time soon.
Might GM keep selling Corvettes in China, but without the Durant Guild network? They have been selling more than 2000 a year in China, not bad for a generally low volume car like that.
I wonder how Honda’s rethinking on EVs will impact the the introduction of their recent sedan and SUV concepts they were gearing up for production? While the sedan had a four dour Lamborghini Countach feel to it, the SUV was not as impressive to my eye. If Honda is rethinking, are they will move back those vehicles introduction, and Acura counter part(s), to the market? What do you think Sean/John?
It was mentioned by a commenter yesterday and I happen to also read in an article on the Motortrend website, that Stellantis/Dodge is not going to do a base Charger R/T EV for the 2026 model year. It’s a shame IMHO, for I was seriously considering the four door R/T as a replacement for my wife’s Renegade. I think the Charger EV as hamstrung by it being a two door EV, for, when you look at coupe sells, as compared to sedan and SUVs, those two four doors leave coupes in the dust by miles! On top of that, how many two doors leave coupes EVs are there? Two that I can call to mind and one another Stellantis vehicle, the The Maserati Grand Coupe (the other is the Lotus flagship whose name escapes me)! It’s just a coupe is so limiting to those with families and the previous gen Charger was a four door and not a two door. If the four had come out first, I wonder if it would have been compared to other sedans and not the Mustangs and Camaros of the pony and muscle car high power coupes are associated with? It would have certainly been seen as a more direct replacement for the out going Charger and not the tale out, wheel spinning, ‘happy hooligan’ Challenger replacement, that, for all intents and purposes, it was never designed to live up to!
Yeah, two door cars, like car height wagons don’t sell, because no one offers them. A 2 door, rwd ICE Charger would appeal to me, but they aren’t going to make them.
Automakers are really lucky they have not followed Kit’s advice. Kit is the patron saint of every damned loser in the auto market, every unpopular (and mostly, with good reason!) Yugo that bombs in sales. Because he is really totally, 100% selfish. He just wants a very specific car, (never mind they sell millions of good approximations under the ‘compact crossover’ phony title, while in essence they are FWD wagons, just to help the poor things get sold. TOday;s compact and midsize crossovers are yesterday’s poorly designed (wide but LOW and very long, an idiotic design for a wagon) wagons. So he wants them to go bankrupt, but he ALSO NEVER BUYS the GD thing he asks for! HE bitches about MANUALS, then he keeps buying brand new Corvettes with the automatic. He has bitched 1,000 times about “no wagons”, while there are PLENTY of them offered, even wagons that they are called wagons, by Merc, BMW, Audi, and esp VOLVO. He has no clue what SUSTAINABLE (aka AT A PROFIT) production is. If the makers followed his selfish advice, they’d be BANKRUPT decades ago, and he would probably be glad for it (as long as he did not lose HIS Job!) His schtick is getting REALLY tiresome, if you have heard it 1,000 times already.
Reg, you seem to have no clue as to what is available in the US market. The only M-B wagon sold in the US is a lifted, plastic clad 4WD E-Class, a very expensive Subaru outback. The only Volvo wagons now sold in the US are V60 and V90 “cross country” with a lift kit and mandatory AWD, in other words, expensive Subaru Outbacks. Dealers don’t even have V90s. You have to order them without seeing one. BMW sells one wagon in the US, the $120K+ M5. Audi sells one wagon, the $126K RS 6 Avant. Anyway, with the exception of a Porsche Cayman, I buy mainstream brands, not “premium” brands.
As far as manuals, yes, I buy them. My Cayman is a manual. I sold the last Corvette a couple years ago.
I would want a wagon but sadly there are just too few of us for that market right now. GM tried with the Buick Tour-X but it did not sell very well. That particular wagon was the right price, AWD, stylish, and was not a lifted plastic clad wagon pretending to be a SUV. It was on my list but by the time I needed to replace my car the Tour-X was already out of production. When my sister was looking for a new car I recommended the Tour-X and her immediate reaction was “ew, I am not buying a wagon”. She ended up buying a Cadillac XT5 SUV. She won’t even dare to look at any other body style of car out there. Funny because her children absolutely hate SUVs. So hopefully the next generation will start to bring us back from the SUV apocalypse.
There just is not an SUV that I think, WOW that is amazing. The last SUV I thought was amazing was the Lamborghini LM002. After that, which ended in 1993, they have all been boring tall boxes on wheels. My sisters XT5 is the pinnacle of a boring tall box and yet she likes it. I don’t get it. I don’t fault OEMs for offering SUVs as they have to offer what sells. I just wish for another day when we see more variety of vehicle body styles and paint choices.
I thought the TourX looked great. I checked it out, but the mediocre mpg, on premium, and the mandatory AWD were turnoffs to me.
I have a boring, but roomy Highlander hybrid to transport my toys. It’s tall body and lifted chassis are of no benefit to me, but the Highlander is as close as you can get to a Camry wagon, though it’s not very close. It gets really good mpg for its size and weight, high 30s in mixed driving and moderate speed highway, and low-mid 30s on the interstate going fairly fast.
From what I can find, XT5 is Cadillac’s second best selling model, after Escalade, at least in 2024. CT5 and Lyric are in the mix for third.
RAV4 will join Camry and Sienna as hybrid only for 2026 model year.
Kit expresses his opinion in a polite manner, as opposed to some that like to blather their opinion by screaming in all CAPS. It’s OK to disagree – Just do it politely.