Intel Report: Mobility News

BY AUTOMOTIVE VENTURES | JAN 15 2024 | VIEW ONLINE

WarrCloud has partnered with NFL MVP and NADA speaker Kurt Warner. Visit the WarrCloud booth at NADA to meet with Kurt!

What We're Reading:

A lot of great information in the Cox Automotive end-of-year report:

New vehicle inventory levels up 51% vs. the prior year.
EV new vehicle inventory levels are much higher than ICE vehicles.
EV sales are tracking just over 8% of new vehicle sales.
EV market share is concentrated on the east and west coasts.

| Cox Automotive

Electric vehicle (EV) sales in the US grew by just 1.3% in the final months of 2023, the latest sign that many American drivers remain cautious about making the leap to battery-powered cars. | Bloomberg ($)

EV inventories ended the year at 113 days' supply while combustion-powered vehicle inventories stood at 69 days' supply. | Automotive News ($)

BloombergNEF expects global passenger EV sales (battery-electrics and plug-in hybrids) to increase 21% in 2024 to 16.7 million, with 70% of those being fully electric. EV sales in China should come in just under 10 million, representing almost six of every ten EVs sold globally. Still, the growth rate in China is slowing due to market saturation in the wealthier regions and tougher economic conditions overall. EV sales in the US should be just under 1.9 million, accounting for 13% of new-car purchases, but there could be some surprises to the downside as the political polarization ramps up this year. The EV share of global vehicle sales should come in around 20% (pure-electric: 14%), up from about 17% in 2023. In China, BloombergNEF expects the EV share to reach 38% of sales. | Bloomberg ($)

Hertz plans to sell a third of its U.S. electric vehicle fleet and reinvest in gas-powered cars due to weak demand for the battery-powered options. Hertz expects to record a non-cash charge in its fourth-quarter results of $245 million related to incremental net depreciation expense. Hertz said EVs come with higher repair costs compared to the rest of its cars, which has hurt its bottom line. | Automotive News ($)

After Hertz started buying EVs, it directed most of them to Uber drivers. While maintenance costs may have been lower, repairing damage from collisions ended up being higher than expected. High damage repair costs were compounded by the fact that many of the ride-share drivers Hertz rented to were either inexperienced or bad drivers or both. | TechCrunch

Hertz is starting to sell some of its Tesla Model 3s and they are going for pretty cheap – as low as $14,000 with the used EV tax credit. | Electrek

Consumer Reports found that owners of EVs from the past three model years reported 79% more problems compared with internal-combustion-engine cars. Among the troubles reported were problems with charging, batteries and electric motors on models from several major brands. Tesla owners reported fewer of those problems relative to competitors, but the EV-sales leader drew owner complaints for issues with paint, trim and climate controls, the magazine said. | The Wall Street Journal ($)

Electric vehicles aren't holding their value like other cars. A recent study of 5-year depreciation rates by iSeeCars found that the small group of EVs that have been on the market for at least five years have the worst depreciation across all major vehicle types. On average, electric cars have a five-year depreciation rate of 49.1%, the study found. That's compared to an overall industry average of a 38.8% five-year depreciation rate. | Business Insider

Deloitte's 2024 Global Automotive Consumer study finds that 66% of U.S. respondents ranked lower fuel costs as their top reason for switching to an EV, compared with 53% who noted environmental concerns. | Automotive News ($)

With the exception of China, confidence in the automotive industry’s transition to battery-electric vehicles is dropping among industry executives, a survey by KPMG finds. Around the world, auto executives are less confident that the industry will achieve more profitable growth over the next five years as concern over costs and access to critical materials intensify while the demand for EVs softens amid intense competition, KPMG finds. | Wards Auto

Google announced a new feature for EV drivers that will track and display real-time battery information in Google Maps. Once an EV driver plugs in a destination into Google Maps, the feature will give estimated battery level upon arrival, suggest charging stops along the way and share how long charging will take based on the vehicle. | TechCrunch

BMW is investing 650 million euros ($711 million) to convert its main plant in Munich to exclusively produce EVs from the end of 2027, a major stepping stone in the transition to the electric age. | Reuters ($)

US electric vehicle charging installations fell significantly last year as companies grappled with financial challenges, according to a BloombergNEF report. US public charging installations were 76% below BNEF’s forecast in 2023 and they are expected to lag behind China and Europe this year, the report said. | Bloomberg ($)

Goodyear is developing a product for EVs that will help ease something that has hampered their competitiveness against gas-powered vehicles: tire duration. EVs weigh more than their internal combustion counterparts owing to their heavy battery packs, and have more power, putting more wear and tear on tires. Goodyear seeks to extend EVs’ tire mileage with its new ElectricDrive 2 product revealed at CES in Las Vegas. The first iteration of the tire comes with a 60,000-mile warranty (versus the average EV tire, which typically needs to be replaced after 30,000 to 40,000 miles). | Transport Topics

Will 2024 (finally) be the year of the autonomous vehicle? | TechCrunch

Waymo is about to start testing its driverless passenger vehicles on the highway later this month, a critical milestone for the company that, if successful, will unlock expanded commercial operations. | TechCrunch

Ten of TuSimple’s autonomous big rigs are set to be auctioned off later this month, just a few weeks after the self-driving trucking startup that went public in 2021 announced it was exiting the U.S. market. | TechCrunch

Why Are American Drivers So Deadly? After decades of declining fatality rates, dangerous driving has surged again. | The New York Times ($)

Motor vehicle insurance premiums skyrocketed by 20.3% in December from a year earlier, the largest increase since the mid-1970s. Several factors are adding to the rising premiums, such as increasing costs for the labor and parts to repair damaged vehicles, and the overall rise in vehicle prices over the last several years, which lifts the underlying collateral being insured. Declining demand from reinsurers is also a factor, and "natural disaster risk is probably contributing on the margin." | Reuters ($)

LexisNexis Risk Solutions found that new vehicle buyers in 2023 stayed loyal to the new car brands they own at a rate of 51.3% (Tesla led in brand loyalty with a rate of 60.7%). For used vehicles, drivers tended not to repurchase the same brand again: with their brand loyalty rate at 21.1%. | LexisNexis

A Salesforce survey of over 2,000 car owners and lessors in the United States found that while drivers are generally willing to trade personal data for connected car benefits — like advanced personalization and cheaper insurance — few drivers actually understand what a ‘connected car’ is and what data is actually being collected. | Salesforce

Seventy-one percent of drivers said they would consider buying an older car or one with less technology, in order to protect their privacy and security. | Security

Everyone who buys smart devices can learn from VanMoof’s collapse. The Dutch e-bike maker declared bankruptcy last July, causing concern among customers who feared losing access to their connected devices. The company’s new owners say they're working to keep customers riding. But the bankruptcy also underscores the fact that internet-connected products with proprietary parts—iPhones, Peloton machines, Sonos speakers—are only as healthy as their makers. The Wall Street Journal ($)

Walmart announced the largest drone delivery plans of any American retailer. The expanded service covers 75% of the Dallas-Fort Worth region, serving approximately 1.8 million households. Working with Wing and Zipline, Walmart has already completed 20k deliveries over the past two years. The service promises goods at your door (or lawn) in 10 to 30 minutes. | Walmart

Drones are transforming warfare. Over the past decade, uncrewed aerial vehicles—and recently naval vessels—have put increasingly lethal and effective military equipment in the hands of insurgent groups. The question for the U.S. and its allies now is how to defend against cheap drones without using expensive missiles. Here’s a look at some of the ways drones are reshaping warfare. | The Wall Street Journal ($)

Satellites could eventually total one million, requiring an ever greater number of space launches that could yield escalating levels of emissions. Scientists worry that more launches will scatter more pollutants in pristine layers of Earth’s atmosphere. The stratosphere is home to the ozone layer, which shields us from the sun’s harmful radiation. But it is extremely sensitive: Even the smallest of changes can have enormous effects on it — and the world below. | The New York Times ($)

We have a new "Car of the Week": a 1980 BMW M1. | Bring A Trailer

Have a great week,

Steve Greenfield

Forwarded this email and not yet a subscriber?

Subscribe Now

Notable & New

📢 On this week's "Future of Automotive" segment on CBT News, Steve reviews the top automotive innovations at last week's CES show in Las Vegas. | CBT News ($)

🎤 Thanks to the folks at Auto Remarketing for their coverage of Automotive Ventures portfolio company Recurrent and their recent $16m Series A fundraise. | Auto Remarketing

📢 Great article from Fast Company showcasing portfolio company BusRight. | Fast Company

📢 Great to see Jim Roche and the WarrCloud team featured on the cover of the latest Fixed Ops Magazine! | Fixed Ops Magazine

📢 Automotive Ventures portfolio company WarrCloud has partnered with the American International Automobile Dealers Association (AIADA). | WarrCloud

📢 In the latest AssetWorks Fleet and Enterprise Asset Management Magazine issue, Automotive Ventures portfolio company Pitstop discusses how creative strategies such as predictive analytics may be the key to ensuring optimal asset health and driving significant cost savings. | AssetWorks

📢 The inspirational backstory of Meter Feeder's co-founder and CEO, Jim Gibbs. Automotive Ventures is proud to be an investor! | Next Pittsburgh

📢 Steve will be your MC at the new Auto Tech Investments conference at NADA this year: Friday, Dec 2nd. | Auto Tech Investments

Enjoying this newsletter? Please share with others!

Share (in) Share (f) Tweet Forward

Companies to Watch

🌟 EyeGauge helps to digitize processes aboard ships, allowing operators to collect, share, and act on data. | EyeGauge

Upcoming Industry Events

Disruptive Forces: EV Event

Jan 17 | Virtual

Panelist

(Link)

American Financial Services Association (AFSA)