Automotive Ventures Weekly Intel Report | Jan 2 2024
Intel Report: Mobility News
BY AUTOMOTIVE VENTURES | JAN 2 2024 | VIEW ONLINE
What better way to ring in the new year than to present our predictions for 2024? Click the image for more details.
What We're Reading:
Full-year 2023 U.S. new vehicle auto sales are forecast to finish near 15.5 million units, an increase of 11.6% from 13.9 million in 2022. | Cox Automotive
2023 was a highly profitable year for the auto industry. Production recovered following the microchip-related supply constraints of 2021 and 2022. Having previously been starved of inventory, consumers and fleet owners bought new vehicles despite higher interest rates. However, GM, Ford, Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz all bet heavily on EVs and took a strategic hit in 2023 after Tesla, the technology’s pioneer, started a global price war. The economics of EV investments, not great to begin with, got worse. The net result: While automakers’ balance sheets are bursting with cash after three record-breaking years, the outlook is so unpromising that investors largely want nothing to do with them. | The Wall Street Journal ($)
Electric vehicles (EVs) are piling up on dealer lots, causing auto companies to reassess their investment plans. It takes a dealership around three weeks longer to sell an EV than a gasoline vehicle, according to data from car shopping website Edmunds. A year ago, battery-powered models were selling faster than their gasoline counterparts. | The Wall Street Journal ($)
U.S. sales of fully electric cars are still growing at a fast clip — they are up by more than 50 percent this year over 2022 — but automakers say growth has slowed in recent months, prompting them to trim their production plans and pause some investments. | The Washington Post ($)
Volkswagen set out on an expensive quest to dominate the new world of software-defined cars and build the electric “people’s car.” The German automaker invested billions of euros, retooled entire plants and created new software and battery companies to assist in making the transition. But the company recently launched a plan to slash 10 billion euros in costs, equivalent to around $11 billion, halt plans to build a new ultramodern EV factory in Wolfsburg and postpone plans for further battery plants in Europe. | The Wall Street Journal ($)
Studies have consistently found people are driving their EVs less than their gas cars. In a recent study of 12.5 million used cars and 11.4 million used SUVs, EVs averaged just 7,165 annual miles driven, compared to 11,642 for gas vehicles. | Scientific American
SIXT is phasing out Tesla EVs from its fleet after the manufacturer’s heavy price cuts hurt residual values at Europe’s biggest car-rental company. Higher repair costs for electric cars compared to combustion vehicles are compounding the issues with lower resale values. | Bloomberg ($)
Tesla’s Autopilot blew through stop signs when journalist Geoffrey Fowler tested the recall. | The Washington Post ($)
Tesla has confirmed it is working on a wireless inductive home charger for its electric cars after teasing it earlier this year. | Electrek
Vietnamese electric vehicle (EV) maker VINFAST has launched its first partnership with a U.S.-based dealer, North Carolina-based Leith Automotive Group. | Reuters ($)
Electric Vehicles (EVs) are beginning to transform not just the automotive industry, but also the very meaning of a car itself. The million-plus new EVs on the road are ushering in a fundamental, maybe existential, change in how to even think about cars—no longer as machines, but as gadgets that plug in and charge like all the others in our life. But if EVs are having an “iPhone moment,” we are still in the days when a few early adopters had the clunky, OG version. | The Atlantic
Glenn Mercer outlines how dramatically wrong some consulting firms were about how disruptive mobility would be to passenger vehicle sales. | Glenn Mercer
Parking spots for commercial trucks are hard to come by. As a result, truckers often take refuge in store parking lots, along the shoulder of highways and on ramps, though the legality of doing so varies by location. The shortage of parking is both inconvenient and financially costly for truck drivers, and it can lead to dangerous situations when truckers are forced to improvise. | The New York Times ($)
Unlike some of their American counterparts that are buoyed by moneyed patrons, namely, Alphabet’s Waymo and GM’ Cruise, China’s robotaxi upstarts find themselves eagerly seeking alternative revenue streams. As the need to survive eclipses their once-vaunted dream of removing the human driver, China’s robotaxi companies shift to less advanced but more commercially viable smart-driving solutions. | TechCrunch
Lufthansa's TNMT ranks all major urban transport modes based on their carbon-emission output. | TNMT
John Deere found itself on the receiving end of an antitrust lawsuit for its efforts to monopolize tractor repair. The lawsuits noted that the company consistently purchased competing repair centers to consolidate the sector and force customers into using the company’s repair facilities, driving up costs and logistical hurdles dramatically for farmers. The lawsuits also noted how the company routinely makes repair difficult and costly through the act of software locks, Digital Rights Management (DRM), and “parts pairing” — which involves only allowing the installation of company-certified replacement parts — or mandatory collections of company-endorsed components. | TechDirt
Watch a LaFerrari reach a speed of 372 KPH (231 MPH) on the Autobahn. | Road & Track
Have a great week,
Steve Greenfield
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Notable & New
On Steve's year-end "Future of Automotive" segment on CBT News, he makes nine predictions for 2024. | CBT News ($)
Steve will be your MC at the new Auto Tech Investments conference at NADA this year: Friday, Dec 2nd. | ATI
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2023 Predictions Score Card
At the end of each year, it’s healthy to take a few moments to reflect on your accomplishments. And to do so with a healthy dose of humility as you score how well you performed on your 2023 predictions…
