AD #4361 – Hyundai Workers Strike in South Korea; Nissan Plans New Body-On-Frame Family; U.S. Tool and Die Industry Declining

This is Autoline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry.

HYUNDAI WORKERS STRIKE IN SOUTH KOREA
South Korea has a history of labor issues in the auto industry and now Hyundai workers in the country are staging their first full-strike in a decade. About 40,000 union members are expected to participate in the one-day walkout. The union is seeking bigger bonuses, job protections from AI and automation and to raise the mandatory retirement age. The union had led a series of partial strikes since July, which disrupted production of more than 55,000 vehicles worth about $1.7 billion.

VEGAS APPROVES THOUSANDS OF NEW ROBOTAXIS
We could soon see thousands of robotaxis in Las Vegas. Clark County, which is home to the city, just approved commercial permits for Tesla, Waymo and Uber to operate paid robotaxi services. The permit allows Tesla to deploy up to 5,000 robotaxis, while Waymo and Uber can each deploy up to 1,000 vehicles over the next 12 months. However, it’s unlikely that the companies will be able to launch that many robotaxis over that period. Even still, the approval is getting pushback from taxi operators, limo drivers and other chauffeured services, who say it moves too far, too fast.

TESLA INTEGRATES BYTEDANCE AI IN CHINA
And circling back to Tesla, it wants to be the biggest AI company in the world, but it’s integrating a third-party large language model into its vehicles for the first time. The AI voice assistant is available in China and is made by ByteDance. It’s already started going into newer vehicles and older models can get it through an OTA update. In the U.S. and Europe, Tesla uses Elon Musk’s Grok AI assistant but it likely wouldn’t be approved by the Chinese government.

    

TESLA TARGETS 2027 OPTIMUS 3 SALES
And in one last bit of Tesla news, it told JPMorgan that it plans to start commercial sales of its Optimus 3 humanoid robot in the second half of next year. Tesla says the design is finalized and that the supply chain is “essentially locked in.” Over the long term, Tesla plans to produce 1 million humanoids at its Fremont plant in California and 10 million in Texas. However, Tesla still hasn’t revealed the Optimus 3 robot and has pushed back its debut several times.

CHERY’S AIMOGA TARGETS 10,000 HUMANOID ROBOTS
Speaking of humanoids, Chinese automaker Chery is aiming to deliver 10,000 robots globally next year through its AiMOGA Robotics subsidiary. The company has already delivered 3,000 robots and operates in more than 60 countries and regions. AiMOGA is also in talks for an IPO to help fund its future growth.

PORSCHE AUDIO USES GALLIUM NITRIDE TECH
Porsche says it will come out with the first production-ready automotive audio system to feature gallium nitride technology. Gallium nitride is a semiconductor material that offers much better efficiency and power density than traditional silicon and is used in everything from USB chargers to satellites in space. Porsche co-developed a gallium nitride chip that handles the voltage required to power the amplifier for the subwoofer. It allows the audio system to pack more punch from a smaller package. For example, the heat sinks are 20% lighter, which also cuts the amount of aluminum it uses. Porsche didn’t say what model will feature the new audio system, but did say it will be out sometime next year.  

AUDI BRINGS MICROPLASTIC FILTERS TO F1
Audi is bringing technology to the track that was originally developed to remove harmful waste from regular streets and roads. For the first-time Formula 1 will use the URBANFILTER, a device designed to go into street drains and do a better job of catching garbage, like plastics. But it’s been slightly modified for the Dutch Grand Prix, which is this weekend, to capture things like tire particles, brake dust and microplastics from rainwater runoff. A recent test at the track showed the URBANFILTER was able to trap 99% of those pollutants. 

 

NISSAN PLANS NEW BODY-ON-FRAME FAMILY
Could we see an industry pivot back to body-on-frame vehicles? Nissan certainly likes the idea. The company revealed during the announcement for its new long-term vision that it’s going to launch 5 new Nissan and Infiniti vehicles in the U.S. market, including 2 and 3-row SUVs and a pickup truck. And they’re all going to be body-on-frame. Even more impressive, Automotive News reports it plans to develop them in 30 months versus the 50 months it takes today. Mechanically, each vehicle will be the same from the B-pillar forward, but will get different top hats. 70% of all the mechanical components, electronics and software will be shared, which will save a ton of time and money. The first one will be the new XTerra in 2028, followed by the new Frontier, then two other Nissan SUVs and one for Infiniti. All 5 of them will hit the market within a 2-year span. 

BODY-ON-FRAMES VS. UNI-BODY FRAMES
Here’s our Autoline Insight. Body-on-frame vehicles provide a lot more design flexibility, since most of the structure is carried by the frame. It allows designers to change exterior body panels without affecting the overall structure of the car. This is why Detroit was able to do all those styling changes year after year through the 1950s and ‘60s. When the industry transitioned to uni-body designs, especially with front-wheel-drive cars, that was the end of the annual styling change. Uni-bodies are lighter than body-on-frame vehicles, but because they’re so much more expensive to tool up, their life-cycles have to be longer to pay off. A typical life-cycle for a uni-body car today is 8 years, because you need a lot more scale to pay for uni-body vehicles. So will the industry start pivoting more to body-on-frame vehicles? In a sense, that’s already happening with EV skateboards. Because “skateboard” is really just a fancy new name for body-on-frame.

U.S. TOOL AND DIE INDUSTRY DECLINING
You keep hearing all this talk about reviving manufacturing in America. But you know what you never hear anybody talk about? Rebuilding the tool & die industry. It’s a shadow of its former self. Here’s a stat that will wake you up. In the year 2000, there were almost 144,000 tool and die makers in the U.S. Today, there are only 58,150 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a 60% drop. And it continues to drop. However, you can’t make anything at scale without tools, dies, molds, fixtures and jigs. 3D printing is great, but not when you want to bang out components by the millions. So, we’re going to use the Autoline platform to start a call to action to re-shore and rebuild the U.S. tool & die industry and we encourage all of you to start talking up the issue. We need to turn this into a national campaign.

And with that we wrap up this week’s reports. A special thanks to all our YouTube and Patreon members for your support. And we’ll see you back here again on Monday.