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Runtime: 10:56
0:00 Honda at War With California Dealers
0:55 Nissan Market Cap Drops Below $9 Billion
1:19 Stellantis Stops L3 Hands-Free Driving Effort
1:57 Leapmotor Boosting Exports
2:37 Another Giant China Ro-Ro Ship
3:01 BYD Skirts EU Tariffs Via Thailand
3:24 BYD Opens Malaysia Plant
3:58 Audi Opens New China Plant as Sales Drop
5:39 U.S. Car Buyers Go For Longer Loans
6:31 Ford Tweaks Maverick Prices
7:24 Corvette Z06 & ZR1 Hit with Recall
8:30 Peugeot Restyles the 308
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HONDA AT WAR WITH CALIFORNIA DEALERS
First it warned Honda with a stern letter. Then it fired a warning shot with a cease and desist injunction. And now the war is on. The California New Car Dealers Association filed a lawsuit against Honda because the automaker wants to sell electric cars under the Afeela brand directly to consumers, not through its franchise dealer network. The dealers got the California legislature to enact a law two years ago that prohibits legacy automakers from creating new car brands that don’t use its existing dealers. And as we keep saying, this is going to turn into a mega legal battle, especially when Volkswagen gets hit with lawsuits by trying to sell Scout trucks and SUVs directly to consumers.
NISSAN MARKET CAP DROPS UNDER $9 BILLION
Yesterday we told you that Nissan’s stock was going to take a dive once Mercedes Benz’s pension fund sold all its stock in the Japanese automaker. Well they did, and then it did. The stock fell more than 6%, dragging Nissan’s market cap to less than $9 billion, which could make it mighty tempting for someone to launch a hostile takeover.
STELLANTIS STOPS HANDS-FREE DRIVING EFFORT
Ford says it’s seeing a dramatic increase in customers using Blue Cruise. It now has over a million trucks and SUVs on the road equipped with the hands-free driving technology. By comparison, GM has over half a million vehicles equipped with Super Cruise, which is double last year’s total. But Stellantis just shut down development of its more advanced Level 3 hands-free tech, blaming high costs and not much customer demand. Stella says it will now rely on suppliers and a tech company it bought called aiMotive which is located in Budapest, Hungary.
LEAPMOTOR BOOSTING EXPORTS
Despite more countries slapping tariffs on Chinese made EVs, Chinese automakers continue to boost exports, which are up 18% this year. And Leapmotor just shipped the first batch of its B10 crossover to Europe. The model goes on sale next month with a starting price just under 30,000 euros or about $35,000. Leapmotor currently sells vehicles in 18 countries, exporting nearly 25,000 vehicles in the first half of the year. And by the end of the year, Leapmotor plans to expand to 20 more markets in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Africa and South America.
ANOTHER GIANT CHINA RO-RO SHIP
In related news, a business controlled by Chinese automaker SAIC, called Anji Logistics, just added another ro-ro, or roll-on roll-off, car hauling ship to its fleet. It can hold 9,500 vehicles and will soon start shipping vehicles to Europe. Anji Logistics operates the largest car carrier fleet in China with 38 ships.
BYD SKIRTS EU TARIFFS VIA THAILAND
To avoid European tariffs, BYD just started shipping EVs from Thailand, not China. The EU slaps BYD’s Chinese made-EVs with 30% tariffs, but the Dolphin EVs made in Thailand only face a 10% tariff. And the first 900 units were shipped to Germany, Belgium and the UK earlier this week.
BYD OPENS MALAYSIA PLANT
Speaking of BYD and overseas plants, the automaker announced it will open a CKD or Completely Knocked Down plant in Malaysia that will start operations next year. Why Malaysia? BYD has been the top selling EV brand in the country for the past three years. It’s not known how many vehicles the Malaysian plant will build. But BYD’s factory in Thailand is also a CKD plant and it has the capacity to produce 150,000 vehicles a year.
AUDI OPENS NEW CHINA PLANT AS SALES DROP
While Chinese brands are opening factories overseas, Audi just opened a new plant in Shanghai that it operates with SAIC. The nearly $500 million plant has the capacity to produce 360,000 vehicles a year. The first model it’s building is the new E5 Sportback that was specifically designed for the Chinese market. Audi’s sales in China have fallen by double digit percentages, and no doubt the plans to build this new assembly plant were finalized before the company saw this drop-off coming.
U.S. CAR BUYERS GO FOR LONGER LOANS
The average new car price in the U.S. now costs close to $50,000. That’s up 28% in the last 5 years. So buyers are turning to longer term loans to get a lower monthly payment. Edmunds says 6-year car loans are now the most common, accounting for about 36% of all loans. 7-year loans account for about 21%. The monthly payment on a $50,000 vehicle is more than $200 cheaper on a 7-year loan compared to a 5-year loan. But that’s more than wiped out over the extra years that you pay for the loan. A buyer with a 7-year loan pays an average of $4,600 more in interest compared to a 5-year loan. But for most customers, it’s all about the cost of the monthly payment.
FORD TWEAKS MAVERICK PRICES
The Ford Maverick is doing well. Sales are up more than 11% this year in the U.S. and now they’re getting exported to South America. So far, tariffs on the Mexican-made pickup haven’t hurt sales. And to keep it that way, Ford is making some changes. The base model is now a front-drive 2-liter turbo, not the hybrid. It’s priced at just over $28,800 including destination, which is $1,000 less than the hybrid. By the way, Ford raised the destination prices by $100. It also made the sliding rear window an option on the Lariat and Tremor models, which cut their price by $350. And we’re probably going to see other automakers make changes like this as they try to juggle the extra costs of tariffs.
CORVETTE Z06 & ZR1 HIT WITH RECALL
Chevy is recalling higher performance versions of the Corvette. It’s possible for spilled gas to pool around the filler cap and the left-side radiator cooling fan on Z06 and ZR1 models can potentially suck up those fumes into a hot engine compartment, creating a fire hazard. As a result it also issued a stop sale on those models while it develops an insert or shield to divert any spilled fuel, which will get installed by the dealer. The recall impacts over 23,500 Z06s and ZR1s between the 2023 and 2026 model years. That’s not a massive number, but the Z06 starts at roughly $110,000, so those performance Corvettes have generated at least about $2.6 billion in revenue. And, obviously, Chevy sells a lot more Corvettes if you consider all versions. However, a total of just under 13,000 were sold in the first half of the year, which represents a drop of nearly 30%.
PEUGEOT RESTYLES THE 308
Peugeot is coming out with a refreshed version of the 308 that features new exterior styling at the front and rear as well as a little extra battery capacity for BEV and PHEV versions. The pack in pure electric versions is a little over 4 kWh bigger, taking range up to 450 kilometers, which is 34 kilometers than before. The PHEV now comes with a roughly 17 kWh battery that provides up to 85 kilometers of EV range, 20 kilometers more than before. All versions of the new 308, including a station wagon, hybrid and diesel model, are made in France and orders open this fall.
JOHN & SEAN GO LIVE FOR AUTOLINE MEMBERS
Before we go we want to alert our Patreon and YouTube members that John and I will be doing another live Q&A today at 2:30 pm eastern time. If you’ve got a question you’d like to ask or a topic you want us to get into, send it in. And if you’re not a member, it’s really easy to sign up and it only costs a few dollars a month. And we truly appreciate all of you who are supporting Autoline.
That’s it for today’s report, thanks for watching and we’ll be back here again tomorrow.
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Ford has pulled a great trick with the Maverick by having price creep from $19,995 base to $28,800 base in just 4 years. I think Ford is trying to figure out where the price will be before the market stops buying Mavericks. Until then, they have to be printing money on every single Maverick sold. At $28,800 the Maverick is getting to the price point where the 1985 Yugo inspired plastic interior is a detriment. For $1K more I would get the Hyundai and its far better interior. Ford better get it while they can though. As soon as Toyota releases the Stout in late 2026; Santa Cruz and Maverick will be a memory.
For now, the Maverick hybrid is the only game in town if you want an efficient pickup. The 2.0t doesn’t get that much better mpg than Ranger et. al. The 2.0t Maverick is probably cheaper to make than the hybrid, so it makes sense to sell the non-hybrid cheaper, now that the hybrid is well established.
What is Nissan’s main problem? I see plenty of new Nissans on the road, mainly Sentras, Altimas, and Rogues, so people are buying their cars.
Nissan would be a good topic of discussion on Autoline After Hours.
I seem to see a lot of Nissans when in Florida, but not many in Indiana. I’m not familiar enough with their generations, though, to know if they if they are almost new or a few years old, as long as they are new enough that the paint isn’t falling off. We won’t be seeing new Altimas or Versas much longer, as both are being discontinued after the 2025 model year.
A lot of the Altmas we see are probably daily rentals. Nissan has a lot of that business.
I see a disproportionate share of Nissan, VW, Jeep, Toyota and Hyundai/Kia vehicles in daily rental fleets. My personal experience with a couple of Toyota rentals (Corolla and RAV4) has been very disappointing (poor HMI, cheap materials, horrendous infotainment). The Hyundai Sonata rental was mostly positive, but noisy.
Those ro ro ships are impressive
I saw a video a while back of a roro ship being loaded and unloaded. That was impressive, how quickly they load and tie down the cars, apparently not damaging very many. It’s a very organized process. Now, if they could quit having those dang fires.
Steve,
In my opinion, Their biggest issue is product related. Their reliance on the Jatco CVT has scared everyone away from that brand as out of warranty repairs are 5-7K when the Jatco fails, and it will fail. Even now that they are transitioning away from the dreaded Jatco CVT, people are scared to give them a second chance. So Nissan relies on the rental fleets to pump up volume. That decision devalues the brand though and owners experience very heavy depreciation leaving them upside down on their loans for a very long time. Savvy buyers know this and demand lower purchase prices to offset the depreciation. Nissan also can’t charge the rental fleets full MSRP so they have less revenue coming in while simultaneously devaluing the brand.
So, Nissan doubles down and decides that they will sell to subprime buyers to boost volume. That decision however means that you have a lot of subprime defaults. Nissan repo cars flood the used market with questionable maintenance and even more failures due to lack of maintenance making entirely new generation of people scared of Nissan. Those subprime defaults also hit the resale value even harder. So they find themselves in a downward spiral with product nobody believes in anymore.
GM was faced with a product crisis that was very similar to what Nissan has today. Nissan needs to take a page out of GMs playbook and release a ton of new product with better performing engines/transmissions, higher quality interiors, and sharper exterior designs. That and time will bring them out of the ditch just as it did for GM. Nissan took a step in the right direction with the release of their new Rogue with a stepped transmission instead of the CVT….Finally. To win people back, they can’t be “just as good as” the competition though. They have to be consistently better than the competition for at least 10 years to make people believe in them again.
I had an Altima rental about a year ago, and the loud noise with the turn signals was very annoying. Also, the CVT had fake shifts, compromising acceleration and mpg. Yeah, some people like fake shifts with CVTs.
It shook from an out of balance wheel, but I can blame Enterprise for that.
Careful Sean, Stellantis might not like you calling them Stella, remember what happened with CATL?
Don’t rib eye steaks come from CATL?
Only one with no clue about the sizes of oceangoing ships today (and in the last 50 years or more) would call this RoRo ship ‘giant’. There is no ship in the entire RoRo World Fleet that would merit this adjective. Not if you compare them to today’s containerships, who carry 25,000 TEUS or more, and have 100,000+ HP gigantic Diesels. And those C-ships are much smaller than the largest cargo ships ever built, the 4 million barrel oil tankers of the 70s. Even a popular 2 million barrel tanker (a popular size the last 50 years) is much larger than the C-ship, and that much larger than the tiny Ro-Ro which can carry less than 10k cars.