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Runtime: 9:12
0:00 Danger Sign: U.S. HD Truck Sales Plunge
0:45 Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Sells Its BYD Stock
1:27 BYD Yangwang U9 Xtreme Goes 308 MPH
2:11 Aptiv to Sell EDS Unit
3:43 Nissan Developing FSD-Like System w/ Wayve
4:43 Tesla Gets Robotaxi Approval in Arizona
5:14 California Can’t Afford $7,500 EV Rebate
5:52 Hackers Target Stellantis
6:29 Cadillac Optiq RWD is $52,395
7:16 Porsche Pivots Away from EV Strategy
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DANGER SIGN: U.S. HD TRUCK SALES PLUNGE
There’s a lot of uncertainty about the future of the U.S. economy because of tariffs, and here’s a danger sign. Heavy truck sales started dropping in May, a month after President Trump announced the tariffs. Last month, Class 4 through 7 retail trucks fell more than 28%. Industry experts say that’s because there’s been a drop in freight shipments and they blame the tariffs for that. And for the full year, sales are down about 7-8%. These truck sales can be considered a leading indicator of what lies ahead for the economy, and this doesn’t look good.
BUFFET DIVESTS 100% BYD STOCK
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett was considered something of a savant to have his company Berkshire Hathaway invest very early in BYD, well before it emerged as China’s largest automaker. But Buffett has been selling off shares for some time and now we’ve learned that Berkshire Hathaway completely sold them all by Q1 of this year. BYD has been running into some problems lately. It lowered its sales target by nearly a million vehicles, and its profits dropped almost 30% in the last quarter. The stock price is down about 20% since its peak in May, though it’s still up for the year. But it sure looks like Buffett got his company out at the right time.
BYD YANWANG U9 GOES 308 MPH
Maybe to take away some of the sting from the Buffet news, BYD announced that the Extreme version of its Yangwang U9 electric hypercar posted the highest speed ever for a production car. It went a tad over 496 kilometers per hour, or just over 308 miles an hour, beating out the Bugatti Chiron by about 6 kilometers an hour. The U9’s speed was verified at the ATP test facility in Papenburg, Germany. BYD says it will build only 30 U9 Xtreme’s and will sell them for about $233,000, which is $3.6 million cheaper than the fastest Bugatti Chiron.
APTIV TO SELL EDS UNIT
Auto supplier Aptiv is planning on selling its electrical distribution unit instead of spinning it off. The company announced plans to spin off the unit earlier this year but now Aptiv is reaching out to potential buyers for the unit which could be valued at $5 billion. Aptiv’s stock is up 35% this year and it now has a market value of $18.5 billion.
NISSAN DEVELOPS FSD-LIKE SYSTEM WITH WAYVE
In a report last week that chip maker NVIDIA is considering investing half a billion dollars into UK AV startup Wayve, we mentioned that Nissan partnered with Wayve for its next-gen ProPilot system. Well, now Nissan is sharing a few more details about that effort. It says it developed a fleet of prototype Ariya EVs with 11 cameras, 5 radar and 1 lidar to demonstrate how the system would perform in downtown Tokyo. Instead of reacting to a single object, Wayve claims that its tech has the ability to grasp its surroundings, anticipate what will happen next and how its own actions will affect the environment, so that it drives more like a human. Nissan will first launch its next-gen ProPilot system in Japan, it will go on select higher production vehicles and will come out within its 2027 fiscal year. But just remember that fiscal year runs from the end of March in 2027 until the end of March in 2028.
TESLA GETS ROBOTAXI APPROVAL IN ARIZONA
Speaking of autonomous vehicles, Tesla won approval to start testing its Robotaxis in Arizona. This is similar to the services that it offers in Texas and Nevada, where a safety monitor rides in the front of the car. That monitor sits in the passenger seat for rides on surface streets, but is in the driver’s seat if the car goes on the highway. While Tesla opened the Robotaxi app to the public at the beginning of the month, Bloomberg reports it has not gotten the proper license for that yet in Arizona.
CALIFORNIA CAN’T AFFORD $7,500 EV REBATE
California won’t be replacing the $7,500 federal EV tax credit that is set to expire at the end of this month. Last year, Governor Gavin Newsom pledged to restart the state’s EV subsidies if the Trump Administration followed through on its campaign promise to remove the EV tax credit. But now the Governor says the state won’t provide direct subsidies because California doesn’t have the budget to support them. California ended its EV tax credit program in 2023 but it could still be revived next year when the state will allocate millions of dollars from a carbon sharing program.
HACKERS TARGET STELLANTIS
It looks like hackers are targeting the auto industry. Jaguar Land Rover still hasn’t restarted its operations since it was hit with a cyber-attack several weeks ago. And now Stellantis says a third-party service provider’s platform that supports its North American customer service operations was hacked. Stellantis says the hackers were only able to access contact information and not any financial or personal data. Stellantis is asking customers to avoid clicking any suspicious links or sharing personal information from unexpected emails, texts or calls.
CADILLAC OPTIQ RWD IS $52,395
Cadillac is coming out with a rear drive version of the Optiq for the 2026 model year, and it’s about $2,000 cheaper than the all wheel drive version. The base price for an Optiq is now $52,395 including destination charges which we think is a great price for a luxury electric CUV with an estimated driving range of 317 miles. A Mercedes EQB is about the same price, but has a 251 mile range. An Audi Q4 e-Tron sells for just under $52,000 with a 288 mile range. BMW’s iX3 will likely be more competitive, but it’s not out yet. And so we expect the Optiq to keep selling well.
PORSCHE PIVOTS AWAY FROM EV STRATEGY
Like all other automakers, Porsche is pivoting away from its EV strategy in the face of sales being much lower than expected. Its next generation platforms will accommodate IC engines and PHEV powertrains instead of being all electric. Its future EV platforms will be developed with the Volkswagen Group to hold down costs. And it will keep combustion powered cars longer. But by tearing up its previous product plan to have 80% of its lineup go full electric by 2030, Porsche says it will take a €6 billion hit.
And that wraps up today’s show, thanks for making Autoline Daily a part of your day.
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It’s not too late for Porsche to reverse their decision to drop Cayman and Boxter.
The mention of EDS reminds me of Roger Smith and H. Ross Perot. I’d lost track of who owned EDS, with all of the spin offs, name changes, bankruptcies, etc.
Checking wikipedia, I find that it’s a different EDS. HP bought the Perot EDS in 2008, and Aptiv, part of former Delphi and/or GM has something called Electrical Distribution Systems.
Truck sales plunge could also be attributed to high interest rates and businesses and private owner operators waiting to see if rates drop. With the recent cut guess we wait and see if sales pick up in the last quarter.
I would welcome them keeping the Cayman/Boxster alive and well. They are pretty popular vehicles at race tracks by me. A real shame that they canceled production.
While truck sales may have indicated the health of the economy in past decades, latest predictions just haven’t lived up to that bell weather. I remain open to the effect of tariffs, with a wait and see attitude. I want to see fairness in trade, and other countries have had tariffs long before we added these latest ones. Instead of adding tariffs, I would have liked other country’s tariffs lowered or removed (but that wasn’t, isn’t going to happen without alternate pressure from our side.
Tariffs are, basically, a sales tax that disproportionately hurts lower income people who spend all, or nearly all of their income. Some of the current tariffs are intended to bring manufacturing to the US, even trade balance, and other things most economists say won’t happen, or don’t matter. Then, there are the purely political tariffs, like on Brazil, because their former leader actually faced consequences for trying to overturn an election, and DJT doesn’t like that. The Brazil tariff is already causing large increases in coffee prices.
As far as truck sales, yeah, it’s wait and see. I suspect it’s partly because of the uncertainty in what happens next, whether recession, fewer trucks in service because of fewer imports, and other things. As far as interest rates, are most medium and heavy trucks bought with borrowed money? I would have thought that, say, Walmart, with probably the largest truck fleet around, would buy them outright. Also, I’ve read that Amazon is buying more semi tractors, and outsourcing less of their medium distance hauling, and I wouldn’t think they’d borrow money to buy them.
@chuckgrenchi on tariffs. I suggest you look at the actual facts and figures of the tariffs.
One major example. The TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) developed into the CPTPP (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership). During TPP the import tariffs were either zero or low single digit percentages. Under CPTPP the import tariffs will all but a few exceptions be 0%. Canada will soon have 99% of their exports to the other 11 CPTPP countries at 0%.
We on the other hand have left TPP on January 23, 2017. We have been negotiating since January 21 this year with CPTPP countries to get our initial singlehandedly imposed 50-70% tariffs down to 15-30%. We have achieved few, if any, of those 15-30% agreements while we have a myriad of high tariffs and suspended tariffs in place. It is currently hard to keep track of it.
Even if we in the end get our “trade deals” we have to face reality that the partners we dropped have zero tariffs among themselves. The January 23, 2017 decision was a big mistake and we have doubled down since January 21, 2025. We have negotiated against ourselves and only those who do not examine the actual figures believe we are scoring wins. In reality, we have failed miserably.
Its easy to see why BYD is experiencing profitability challenges when you look at their pricing on that supercar. Why would a company develop the fastest car on the planet and then sell it for less than a tenth of its nearest competitor’s price? With a plan to build only 30 cars, I can’t see any way that this product program can turn a profit. They could have priced them at $500k and perhaps covered their R&D costs, while still selling out the whole production run. Competitors at this performance level are few. No reason to announce fire sale prices. This is a head shaker and investors should be asking some serious questions about a management team that approved this pricing model. It doesn’t bode well for the company’s future and Buffett was smart to get out while he could.
Would love to understand the rationale of Arizona’s rules for which seat the safety driver needs to sit in. What is a safety driver going to accomplish from the passenger seat? And, putting the safety driver in the driver seat (see, it’s right there in the name!), leaves the passenger seat available for another passenger. Once again, it seems that Tesla is more than happy to test and refine their technology at the public’s peril. Good luck Arizona!
While not in today’s report, last week it was reported that Fain was starting his threatening a number of things at the next union talks with the Big Three. While I’m of the view that unions can be good for employees and companies alike, some of what Fain was talking was just either short sighted and self destructive, it is being done at a time when the automotive industry is already under a lot of stress and now would be a time to work with OEMs then fighting most of them (i say most because the VW plant still doesn’thave a contract)!
Some had mentioned that what Fain is doing, i only give more incentive for OEMs to have robots like Tesla’s Prime or other machinery replace employees. While that may be true and machines may arguably be more reliable, they do break do and need repair and have defects. Add to all of that, we see how JLR is suffering as a result of the hack they are dealing with, and getting ready of the human element only makes that more even less attractive.
It would be interesting to see the BYD fast EV next to the Bugatti. While they are not comparable in price, neither are they comparable otherwise. The BYD is a, probably, short range EV which will briefly go very fast. The Bugatti has a 16 cylinder engine, and I suspect it much more “special” in other ways. Sean and John, have you seen these cars?
As long as the Great American Truck Fetish continues, the “big three” can probably submit to Fain, up to a point, but if the companies have to actually compete with Toyota, Honda, and Hyundai/KIA in markets other than big pickups and SUVs, they will be in trouble, if they bow to Fain again. Stellantis North America is in especially bad shape, with sales of Ram pickups and most Jeeps way down from from a few years ago. Maybe Ram sales will pick up, with the return of the “hemi,” but 2024 sales were down from earlier years, even though they still had the V8. I’m not sure why that it, as Ram 1500 is probably the best of the big pickups for the usual use they see, but market success sometimes doesn’t work by what is “best” in objective terms.
https://www.goodcarbadcar.net/ram-us-sales-figures/