Intel Report: The Weekly Mobility News That Matters

BY AUTOMOTIVE VENTURES | APR 22 2024 | VIEW ONLINE

WarrCloud's Jim Roche was on the Car Dealership Guy show this week. | Car Dealership Guy

What We're Reading

Automotive

Ferrari produced just 13,663 vehicles last year, limiting its production to maintain scarcity. The luxury Italian carmaker is worth more than Ford and GM, which sold 4.4 million and 6.2 million cars last year, respectively. | The Wall Street Journal ($)

Bloated electric vehicle inventory is pushing automakers and dealers to slash prices, with many discounts reaching far into double-digit percentages. EVs are sitting on dealership lots for an average of 119 days - a lot higher than the 73-day supply average of gasoline-powered vehicles. | Automotive News ($)

Why is the U.S. transition from internal combustion engines (ICE) to electric vehicles (EVs) stalling? Drivers in the US are accustomed to much cheaper gasoline than Europeans. They’ve learned to like big vehicles and expect to be able to drive them great distances. The conspicuously slow rollout of charging stations has added to the “range anxiety” that preoccupies many potential buyers. Complaints that EVs are less reliable than promised and more expensive to repair and insure have also made them a hard sell. | Bloomberg ($)

As sales of Teslas drop and demand for electric vehicles cools — even as more models enter the market — an increasing number of automakers are competing for a slice of a shrinking pie. | The New York Times ($)

BloombergNEF estimates that Tesla's EV charging business could generate $7.4 billion in revenue and around $740 million in profit by 2030. | Bloomberg ($)

Tesla will ask shareholders to approve the same 2018 compensation package for CEO Elon Musk (valued at a maximum of $55.8 billion) that was recently rejected by Delaware Courts. Musk may be willing to hold a gun to shareholders' heads: “If the 2018 CEO performance award is not ratified, then Tesla may need to negotiate a replacement compensation plan with Mr. Musk,” Tesla's filing said. | Bloomberg ($)

For years, the biggest cohort of Tesla buyers, politically speaking, has been Democrats. But when Elon Musk took a hard turn last fall, they didn’t follow him. The proportion of Democrats buying Tesla vehicles fell by more than 60%. | The Wall Street Journal ($)

Bill Ford said politics are complicating the automaker’s juggle of electric, internal combustion and hybrid vehicles, especially in an election year. The two likely contenders for the White House — Joe Biden and Donald Trump — have taken drastically different views on EVs, casting uncertainty on the business climate come January. | Automotive News ($)

The 2023 National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) Data Book is out, which is always a must-read. The "SEO Website Optimization" segment seems way too high to me. This would imply that the average dealership spends $8,595 per month on SEO? | NADA

GM and Ford face a challenge in common: Explaining to investors where profit growth will come from in the months ahead as EV growth slows. Both companies are increasing focus on their core gasoline-powered vehicles, from which they derive most of their profit. | Reuters ($)

Passenger-car sales in Europe fell 2.8% in March as automakers including Volkswagen and Stellantis faced weaker demand, particularly for electric vehicles. | Bloomberg ($)

Electric Vehicles (EVs)

Tesla's new registrations fell 25% in February compared with the year-earlier month, dragging the broader battery-electric segment into the red. The EV data doesn't include used vehicles or hybrids. The last time Tesla's U.S. vehicle registrations suffered a monthly decline was in August 2020 with a 2% drop. That was also the last time new EV registrations as a whole fell in the U.S., with a 6% decline. | Automotive News ($)

Demand from fleet-based vehicle operators is a lone bright spot for the EV industry as global sales sputter. While retail buyers balk at high sticker prices and worry about where they will charge up on a road trip, business owners say EVs are ideal for routine, relatively short-distance routes. The trend is especially pronounced at Ford, which sells more work trucks and vans in the US than any other carmaker. Ford Pro, the company’s commercial division, has become its biggest and most profitable growth engine. | Bloomberg ($)

There are now almost 8,200 quick-turn EV stations across the U.S., or one for every 15 gas stations. Tesla is responsible for slightly more than one-quarter of them. | Bloomberg ($)

Tesla is pushing forward with a plan to build an electric big rig charging corridor stretching from Texas to California, despite being snubbed by a lucrative federal funding program that’s part of President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. | Tech Crunch

China

Thousands of imported vehicles are currently stockpiled in several European seaports, many of them from China. Several automakers have leased large areas in the ports for vehicle imports that so far have no customers for the cars. Logistics companies are also renting additional parking spaces outside the ports. | Automotive News ($)

Mexico's federal government, under pressure from the U.S., is keeping Chinese automakers at arm's length by refusing to offer such incentives as low-cost public land or tax cuts for investment in EV production. | Reuters ($)

Climate

Republican attorneys general from 25 states sued the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to block rules intended to reduce planet-warming emissions from cars and light trucks and encourage electric vehicle manufacturing, arguing the agency exceeded its legal authority. | Reuters ($)

Micromobility

Researchers from Switzerland found that over half of e-bike owners use their cars less after getting an e-bike, and almost a fifth get rid of their car completely. | GCN

Autonomy

Two California agencies that regulate robotaxis said they haven’t heard from Tesla about its plans for the cars, even though Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced last week that he’ll reveal a new robotaxi product in August. The lack of permits — or any attempt to acquire them — raises questions about how quickly Tesla would be able to get a robotaxi service up and running. | NBC News

More than half of all industrial robot installations in the world took place in China in 2022, according to figures from the International Federation of Robotics . | Financial Times ($)

Aviation

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport has once again been named the busiest airport worldwide, seeing approximately 104.7 million passengers come through its terminals in 2023. That’s an 11% increase from the previous year. Dubai International Airport and Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) ranked second and third behind Atlanta. | WABE

Car of the Week

We have a new "Car of the Week": a 1988 Porsche 959 Komfort. | Broad Arrow Auctions

Have a great week,

Steve Greenfield

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Notable & New

Want to hear more about Automotive Ventures portfolio company Axion Ray? Hear it directly from Founder Daniel First. | Founders You Should Know

Automotive Ventures portfolio company BusRight is hiring a head of sales. | BusRight

Automotive Ventures portfolio company Privacy4Cars announced the U.S. Patent Office approved three new patents. | Privacy4Cars

On this week's Future of Automotive segment on CBT News, we explore the five key factors driving the sharp increase in auto insurance costs. | CBT News ($)