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Runtime: 9:38
0:00 Hyundai Workers Strike in South Korea
0:43 Vegas Approves Thousands of New Robotaxis
1:23 Tesla Integrates ByteDance AI in China
1:54 Tesla Targets 2027 Optimus 3 Sales
2:26 Chery’s AiMOGA Targets 10,000 Humanoid Robots
3:07 Porsche Audio Uses Gallium Nitride Tech
3:55 Audi Brings Microplastic Filters to F1
4:30 Nissan Plans New Body-On-Frame Family
5:28 Body-On-Frames VS. Uni-Body Frames
6:34 U.S. Tool and Die Industry Declining
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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.
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Wow, 3:10pm EDT and no posted comments. Hangovers from last weekends Dream Cruise or early weekend escapes before Back To School. Or just needing someone to get the ball rolling? Perhaps the following will spark so comments…
I wouldn’t blame body-on-frame (BOF) construction for the slow move from yearly design changes. The reality was that most of the design change in the 50s and 60s was on a 2-3 year cadence, with non-structural cosmetic changes in between. Such cosmetic changes cost the same to engineer/tool for both BOF and unibody vehicles.
I submit, the degree of in-cycle change was reduced as OEMs expanded into more segments (more mouths to feed)… compacts, mid-size, sports specialties. Then the significant escalation of new regulatory mandates in the 70s (Clean Air Act, safety, 5 MPH bumpers) placed significant demands of engineering and capital resources. The only way to contain all that work was to lengthen the product change cadence and reduce the in-cycle minor change efforts.
With so many different nameplates in the market, not many (if any) people notice in-cycle minor changes. I’ll submit, there are also more than a few major change launches that go un-noticed.
Another factor to the reduced importance of yearly design changes is leasing. If the customer is out of the market for 3-5 years and returning back to the same showroom, but much matters since the last lease was signed.
There are other reasons, but I’ve gone on too long already.
You guys have been talking about robotaxis, and recently mentioned the Tesla Cybercab possibly being rolled out in Austin in the next couple of months.
Back in June, my youngest daughter shot a video of a Cybercab parked at her apartment complex in The Colony, Texas. How it got there is anybody’s guess.
I figure the reason Nissan is doing the body-on-frame is that it’s cheap to do. Also, with the great American truck fetish, maybe a trucky SUV has a special appeal to a lot of people.
Speaking of body-on-frame, in about 2004-2005, I bought a 2000 Mercury Grand Marquis to see what I was missing. It turned out, not much. The car was equipped about exactly as I’d order one, and I got it at a very good price. I expected it to be very quiet, and ride well, given the crudeness of the suspension. It was not particularly quiet, nor did it ride that well. Also, it got mediocre gas mileage, considering its 0-60 time was about like many of today’s “mainstream” four cylinder cars. So much for any advantage of body-on-frame for normal transportation.
It’s impressive how many “nameplates” there are in the U.S. market, but so little choice. There are about 100 different compact and mid-size CUVs, but zero car-height wagons, zero mainstream convertibles, zero mainstream two door cars, unless I’m missing some low volume item. OK, Mustang is marginally mainstream, but really, it’s a specialty car. Then for the pickup fans, there are zero regular cab mid-size pickups. So many offerings, but so little choice in the U.S. market.
Kit, my Grand Marquis experience was quite different. I inherited my uncle’s 1995 at about 180,000 miles. Your 2004-2005 was sadly the recipient of a decade of mis-management (cost cutting). The 1995 was very quiet and comfortable in the old school cushy manner. The Panther platform had a reputation as sloppy handlers, but I found the cornering to be surprisingly flat. The cornering feel was masked by high profile tires (15s) that gave a delayed response to steering inputs as the sidewall flexed. I’m betting lower profile 17s would have better steering responses without much sacrifice in the cushy ride. Acceleration was tolerable and fuel economy was not bad (18 around town; 28 on long trips). Passenger and trunk space were huge… so huge that I suspect Jimmy Hoffa’s last ride was in the trunk of a Panther.
I handed over the Grand Marquis to a cousin at almost 240,000 miles.
I still don’t get why we need Tesla to build humanoid robots and the need to build so many?! Nor do I understand why Chery’s AiMOGA Humanoid Robots have a female looking face and from the drawing (sketch’s?) on the board behind the speaker in the report, it also seems they may also have a female’s silhouette, too?! It just seems that the humanoid robots are being built without a current, established use case clearly identify. They ‘could’ be used in assembly and manufacturing, but how do we know that the ones soon to be built will be able to be used in that in that way and in that environment?! Where are we seeing those units being used now? None of the robots currently used in manufacturing, were built by the thousands first and then potential customers told to see if that could use them in their facilities?!
Drew, interesting about your Grand Marquis. Mine was not terribly noisy, but it wasn’t impressively quiet. It had the handling package, probably the same as the police cars, but had the same size tires as standard Grand Marquis and Crown Vic, 225/60R16. The handling package would have made the ride less cushy, but shouldn’t have increased noise level. The highway gas mileage, going ~80 most of the time, was 22-23, but was compromised by the shorter gearing that went with the handling package.
The trunk was huge, but the rear leg room was less than you’d expect for a car that big. They probably traded rear seat room for trunk space, for taxi users with lots of luggage. Speaking of taxis, many, or most of the NYC Crown Vic yellow cabs were stretched, with the extra room going to the back seat. I suspect they were the wheelbase of Lincoln Town Car.
Kit, I believe the rear suspension was changed in either 1998 or the very early 2000s so the live axle was less prone to lateral bouncing over road imperfections during a turn.
The rear leg room looks small, but measured comfortably due to the supportive rear seat cushion length (better thigh support for long trip comfort).
The Panther could have benefited from a longer wheelbase (ala Town Car and late generation taxis), but the trunk/fuel tank configuration would not allow a shortening of the rear overhang (overall length sensitivity for garage space and car hauler load efficiency). Having the fuel tank above the rear axle permitted the deep well trunk and was a safer location than the GM RWD B-body location (trunk floor between the rear bumper and rear axle). Highway patrol practice to leave the rear of the patrol car out in a traffic lane (when ticketing a motorist) is another discussion.
“Re-shore and rebuild the U.S. tool and die industry”
Right on!
Rewatching Friday’s report regarding Nissan’s future body-on-frame vehicles, it suggests that it will only apply to midsize to full size SUVs and their midsize pickup. This seems to imply that their sub compact, compact and midsize FWD/AWD, or anything front wheel drive based, may continue with business as usual. So, the Kicks, Sentra, Rouge, etc., appears to be exempt from this directive at the moment. As Sean said, such a move should save a lot of money for them in investment and bring in a lot more, since these will no doubt be some of their biggest money makers, too. This will allow them to bring back the Xterra, since its success will not be determined by the success of a platform that’s designed just for a single vehicle. So, with the most expensive parts of the architecture shared with vehicles that usually sell well for Nissan, the economies of scale benefits them even if some vehicles sell slower then more popular ones! I believe this is the case with the Tundra at Toyota. With it being married under the skin to the Sequoia and its Lexus SUV twin, they don’t have to chase after the sells of other full-size pickups. They can just stay competitive and continue to offer a landing space for those Toyota buyers, who outgrow their Tacomas and need a bigger, full-size pickups!
Speaking of pickups, the other day, I was in a parking lot of a major grocery store and happen to see two of the latest Honda Ridgelines, not far away from a Ford F-150 and a Chevy Colorado and, man, was I surprised by what I saw! While the Ridgeline may compete in the midsize market, the size it holds over the vehicles in that class in its current iteration (let alone compact pickups), at a quick glance, one might think it were a full size pickup! I wonder how close the current Ridgeline’s size compares to that of full size pickup of the mid to late ‘90 and early to mid ‘00? If Honda were to make the next Ridgeline a couple inches wider and its’s bed a few inches longer, I wonder if it could make a case and go after those full size pickup buyers who are looking at entry-level vehicle?! While I know pickup buyers are a faithful bunch, but those their prices has gotten price high. If a potential buyer could get a nicely equipped Ridgeline, that is just a smidge smaller (but has the in floor bed trunk, rides more comfortable and is easier to maneuver, etc.), for the price of an entry-level V6, full size pickup, might they be interested?
From CR’s “compare side by side” tool, Ridgeline is essentially the same size as Colorado and Ranger. The Honda is a little wider, but shorter and lower. Interestingly, Tacoma is the big entry in the “midsize” pickup market, more than a foot longer than any of the others.