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Runtime: 9:05
0:00 Europe EV Sales Up 28%, Tesla Down 28%
1:34 BYD Cutting Production in China
2:19 Ferrari Goes Sailing
4:13 Stellantis Experiments with Battery Swapping
4:52 QuantumScape Says Solid-State Batteries Are One Step Closer
5:19 Nissan Sprinkles NISMO Bits All Over Armada/Patrol
6:29 Ford Gives Explorer the Tremor Treatment
7:19 Jeep Cherokee Bares It All
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EUROPE EV SALES UP 28%, TESLA DOWN 28%
We’ve got the latest sales results for Europe and there is a historic shift taking place in the market. Also, it was a terrible month for Tesla and we’ll have more on that in a minute. First, let’s look at the big numbers. The overall market grew nearly 2% with sales topping 1.1 million vehicles. The VW Group posted solid gains, as did Renault, BMW, Mercedes and Ford. Stellantis saw its sales fall more than 3%, with big drops from Fiat and Jeep. Toyota and the Hyundai Group also saw sales drop. And now we get to the historic shift. Hybrids outsold gas cars in Europe. That wasn’t true a year ago. And the same goes for battery electric cars, which easily outsold diesels, with sales up nearly 28%. PHEVs also outsold diesels. But even with EV sales surging, it was a weak month for Tesla. Sales fell 28% to fewer than 14,000 cars, even with full availability of the new Model 3 and Y. Tesla usually comes on strong in the last month of a quarter, but it would have to more than double sales in June just to catch up to the level it was at last year. And that seems like an awfully tall order.
| EUROPEAN SALES, MAY 2025 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Total | 1,113,194 | +1.9% |
| VW Group | 309,930 | +3.4% |
| Stellantis | 168,839 | -3.0% |
| Renault Group | 111,395 | +4.6% |
| Hyundai Group | 88,491 | -4.0% |
| Toyota Group | 79,578 | -1.7% |
| BMW | 78,862 | +5.6% |
| Mercedes-Benz | 56,796 | +1.9% |
| Ford | 35,803 | +1.7% |
| Hybrids | 379,150 | +14.2% |
| Petrol | 310,018 | -19.5% |
| BEV | 193,493 | +27.2% |
| PHEV | 108,147 | +46.1% |
| Diesel | 91,129 | -27.6% |
| Source: ACEA | ||
BYD CUTTING PRODUCTION IN CHINA
Now, over to China, where we’re starting to see more cracks in its auto industry. Reuters reports that BYD is cutting production at four of its assembly plants and stopped plans to add more production lines. Though BYD is on a tear and surged past Honda and Nissan in global sales last year, its growth rate has slowed significantly in the last two months. In May, sales were only up 0.2%, and it now has nearly 100 days of inventory. Cutting back on production could help ease pressure from the price war that’s going on in China. But it’s also going to hurt capacity utilization, which is key to profitability.
FERRARI GOES SAILING
Ferrari is expanding into…sailing? It sounds strange but it’s true. It’s developing a racing yacht and showed off a prototype it says is the world’s first 100-foot monohull with a hydrofoil mounted on the keel. Ferrari says it’s currently building the yacht in Italy and is aiming to test it next year. The boat will run on renewable sources including solar, wind and kinetic energy. Ferrari claims it will be the world’s largest yacht to be entirely energy self-sufficient. We think that this move is really about Ferrari expanding its luxury brand reach beyond cars. This is the kind of boat that is going to appeal to very wealthy customers.
STELLANTIS EXPERIMENTS WITH BATTERY SWAPPING
Stellantis is getting into the battery swapping business. It partnered with Ample to operate a fleet of Fiat 500 EVs in Madrid through its Free2Move mobility service. There are currently 40 Fiat 500 EVs with battery swapping capability in the fleet, which will soon expand to 100. Ample has now built five swapping stations for the fleet in Madrid, which can change out the batteries in just under five minutes. Stellantis says it’s using this initial rollout to collect data and insights into exploring large-scale deployment of Ample’s battery swap technology.
QUANTUMSCAPE SAYS SOLID-STATE BATTERIES ARE ONE STEP CLOSER
Solid-state batteries keep making progress. QuantumScape says it achieved a milestone that gets it closer to commercializing its tech. The company integrated a new ceramic separator process in its cell production, which it says is faster, more energy-efficient and shrinks the footprint needed for equipment. QuantumScape says this new process lays the groundwork for it to bring its batteries to market at gigawatt scale.
NISSAN SPRINKLES NISMO BITS ALL OVER ARMADA/PATROL
Nissan is coming out with a NISMO version of its biggest SUV. The Armada and Patrol NISMO feature a similar 3.5L twin-turbo V6 to the more standard versions, but gets retuned engine programming, valve clearances and exhaust system. When running on premium fuel, the Armada NISMO can produce up to 460 horsepower, 35 horsepower more than the base engine. While the Patrol NISMO has been designed exclusively for the Middle East and gets its own region-specific engine tuning, which takes output to 495 horsepower. Both versions also have a reworked air suspension system, but the one in the Patrol NISMO will go a full 1.3 inches lower than the Armada NISMO. Minimum ground clearance is 7.6 vs 8.9 inches. Other highlights include a unique ground effects package, 22 inch wheels and red accents both inside and out. Sales should kick off this fall.
FORD GIVES EXPLORER THE TREMOR TREATMENT
Ford’s more off-road focused Tremor nameplate is expanding even more throughout its lineup and is now available on the Explorer SUV for the first time. Customers will have two engine options; either a 2.3L EcoBoost 4-cylinder or a 3.0L EcoBoost V6. Other than massaging front seats, a better audio system and BlueCruise, the engine is about the only other choice they’ll have to make. Most of the other upgrades seem standard, like 18-inch wheels, all-terrain tires, tow hooks, 4-wheel drive, limited-slip diff, underbody protection, specially tuned springs, a new sway bar setup and unique suspension that increases ride height by an inch as well as improving approach and departure angles.
JEEP CHEROKEE BARES IT ALL
Jeep is once again teasing the all-new Cherokee, which is coming out later this year. There really isn’t any new information, other than this new picture that shows the rear end for the first time. However, there is one line in the press release that talks about Jeep being a brand that offers a diverse lineup of vehicles powered by internal combustion engines, hybrids and all-electric drivetrains. And we think it’s a real possibility the new Cherokee features all three.
But that brings us to the end of today’s show. Thanks for making Autoline a part of your day.
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May Musk take his Teslas to Mars never to be heard from again.
Fiat, A battery swap of 5 min is still about twice as long as it would take to fill it with gas. Get a few NASCAR guys to help ya figure it out. They can get a full tank and 4 tires in 11 sec. Doesn’t seem like the car was designed with quick change in mind. They’re just doing it with the design they were given. Fail!
Lamborghini made a power boat which generated a lot of interest. Sailing seems more up Ferrari’s persona. However the power boat has that Lamborghini engine sound. Not sure what Ferrari gonna bring to sailing to tie it together. Luxury interior I guess.
Ford finds success with tremor then why not go across the board and offer a high end off-road version of everything? Maybe because it ends up diluting the exclusiveness of having a tremor. Ford would offer a tremor version Mustang if they thought they could get a few more thousand out of a Mustang. Add tow hooks big wheels and they just might make it. LOL.
I hope the Tremor treatment isn’t too expensive. I have yet to see a Ford Explorer on any Michigan two-tracks, logging roads or rough gravel roads. This package makes sense on an F-150. I don’t see Jeep or Land Rover buyers migrating to an Explorer for its offroad capabilities.
Five minutes seems very palatable for a battery swap. A full tank of gas at my local gas stations takes at least that long. Self-serve gas pumps do not dispense gas at the rate that full serve pumps used to. I worked at one of those stations. It’s a very noticeable difference. I’m sure it’s because most consumers don’t pay enough attention when pumping and it results in less mess on the concrete.
The new Jeep Cherokee looks okay in the front. The back is very bland. Reminds me of the poor quality second generation Jeep Liberty / Dodge Nitro. Boxy and unremarkable.
GM Veteran,
A friend of mine has a Tremor package Ford Maverick. He has taken it on 2 tracks in northern Michigan many times (He has family up there that likes to hunt). He states that the Maverick Tremor does rather well on the 2 tracks. I would guess an Explorer with the tremor treatment would be even better suited for those northern Michigan 2 tracks than the Maverick (although the maverick size is a benefit).
I don’t care how nice or sporty, sleek or whatever people call the design. I don’t want recalls every few months.
If it’s not reliable and going to last past the warranty period I wouldn’t consider buying it, and that stops me from ever buying another Jeep or GM product.
Danny,
Interesting that you did not include the #1 recalled manufacturer for the past few years, FORD, in your list of manufacturers to avoid. If any company meets your stated criteria for OEMs to avoid, it is FORD.
Merkur: You are confusing recalls with repairs and especially the cost of repairs. And he was not supposed to be comprehensive, he just talked about what he had firsthand experience with, ie, Jeep and GM products.
Kate MCLeod: Not sure why you are so disgruntled with Tesla and Musk, did you ever own a Tesla? You sound more like you have a political axe to grind. I got bad news for you, the millions of Teslas on the road are NOT Musk’s to take and ship to Mars or wherever. THey belong to the millions who bought them, and even when they hate Musk’s guts as you seem to do, they LOVE their Teslas.
Mercur driver, you are right I gave up on Fords in about 1982 . I really hate to be so critical of manufacturers but there’s no reason they can’t build a vehicle that’s safe, reliable and can go at least 200,000 miles without major problems
While I never usually drive a vehicle more than about 100,000 to 120,000 miles in 10 to 12 years of ownership it’s all the things that go wrong in that time/mileage. They just want them to get past warranty after that your on your own. I bought a Toyota for the first time in my life, and I feel like it’s the best vehicle I’ve owned but it’s only 11 months old and only has about 6,500 miles on it. Still getting broke in.
Regulus, a lot of people have “political axes to grind” since Musk took on the job of helping to destroy the US government. His political involvement has hurt Tesla both in the US and Europe. I wouldn’t have bought a Tesla, even without Elon’s antics, because I despise the “touch screen for everything” with Models 3 and Y, though I mostly liked the way the 3 that I test drove performed. I like the Model S, but it costs more than I’d want to spend.
I don’t know about Jeeps, but people I know with another Chrysler/Stellantis product, minivans, have had generally good luck with them. A friend has almost 250K miles on one with no transmission problems, and the only engine problem being rocker arm rollers at over 200K miles. That is a case of a cheap part being kind of a pain to replace, but my friend did it himself. It has the Pentastar 3.6 with the rockers being a known problem at high mileage.
Kit,
I find Tesla vehicles to be bland. Especially the interiors which are about as vanilla as it comes. So I am not a buyer of any Tesla vehicles no matter what their CEO does or does not do. Of course I never liked their design language even when the first Model S was introduced as it was vanilla to me then. The model S has not gotten better with age. None of the tesla vehicles have to me. Even the model Y refresh just looks like more of the same thing rather than a new fresh design. Tesla to me needs to overhaul the entirety of their design language and start anew. They also need to stop being childish with their designs like they were with the Cybertruck. Time to mature and act like the 22 year old company that they are.
Tesla are going the VW route of the ’40s to mid-late ’70s, and early 2000s in Maexico.. Unlike the Bug, though, there is nothing “cute” or distinctive about the Tesla designs.