Good morning! It’s Wednesday, October 30, 2024, and this is The Morning Shift, your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, in one place. Here are the important stories you need to know.
1st Gear: Trump Is The Biggest Threat To Detroit’s Electric Revolution
Did you know there’s an election coming up? Yeah, America will go to the polls next week to decide who gets the keys to the White House. The choice is between current Vice President Kamala Harris, and convicted felon Donald Trump, with the choice shaping America over the next four years. Among the sectors set to be hit most by the outcome of the vote is the auto industry, with a new report warning that the massive investments made in electric vehicles could be go to waste should Trump win on Tuesday.
Millions of dollars have been plowed into future-proofing the American auto industry in recent years. General Motors has refreshed its factories, Hyundai has promised new battery plants and startups like Lucid have brought innovation into the space. Presidential hopeful Trump isn’t too pleased with these moves, though, and a return to the White House for the “Home Alone 2” actor could spell the end of America’s investment in electric vehicles, warns Fast Company.
Trump has made no secret of his dislike for EVs, repeatedly calling for an end to an EV mandate that doesn’t exist and jumping at every opportunity to slam the tech… right up until the moment he was endorsed by Tesla boss Elon Musk. Despite now being in the pocket of Musk, Trump has remained reluctant to stick with the current administration’s focus on cleaning up American autos, as Fast Company explains:
The Trump campaign has capitalized on the low enthusiasm. It has barraged TV broadcasts in Rust Belt states with millions of dollars of ads claiming that Kamala Harris wants “to end all gas-powered cars” and eliminate jobs. Harris did propose phasing out gas cars as a presidential candidate in 2019, but the White House’s current targets don’t amount to an “EV mandate,” the notion that EVs will be compulsory at the expense of ICE cars. “[Trump’s] campaign manager is Elon Musk,” Duggan adds, “so I don’t know if he could stay with the anti-electric vehicle platform!”
If Trump is reelected, he could handily shatter Biden’s progress; a Bloomberg report found it would be relatively easy for Trump to repeal the tailpipe emissions standards and undermine the EV tax credits. He has also signaled an inclination to kill a $500 million Biden grant to repurpose a GM plant for EVs in Lansing, which was expected to save 650 jobs.
The warnings around a Trump presidency have been echoed by the United Auto Workers union, which has already endorsed the Harris campaign. Union boss Shawn Fain has also had some choice words for Trump, including calling him “a scab” who “doesn’t know shit about the auto industry.”
Thankfully, Fast Company reports that the industry may have evolved too far for Trump to undo all its progress should he win reelection. Instead, the site argues that the EV transition is “inevitable,” adding that the “movement has started” and could soon take hold.
2nd Gear: GM’s EV Sales Are Soaring
As if to prove that very point, General Motors is finally sharing some good news about its pivot to electric vehicles, with sales of the automaker’s electric models “soaring,” reports the New York Times.
While GM was almost a pioneer in the EV space with its Bolt EV, the company was slow to go all-in on battery power. This left companies like Ford able to overtake the company in EV sales thanks to the rollout of popular models like the Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning. Now, the tides are turning in GM’s favor as its new EVs begin shifting in significant numbers, leading the automaker to go so far as to say that its electric cars will be profitable by the end of the year, as the Times reports:
Like Ford, G.M. is losing money on battery-powered models, but it does not provide a specific figure. It has said, however, that it expects those models to start to generating “variable profits” by the end of the year. That means each electric car or truck it sells will make money as long as fixed costs like the money spent on factories, machinery and development are not factored in.
“We’re making substantial progress on our E.V. journey toward profitability,” G.M.’s chief financial officer, Paul Jacobson, said in a conference call last week.
The gains made by GM in recent months reportedly lead back to its battery tech. The company was slow launching its own electric models while it developed modular cells that could be used in a range of EVs and now the Ultium platform is proving its worth with growing sales of cars like the Cadillac Lyriq helping the automaker see EV sales rise by as much as 60 percent in the third quarter of 2024.
In contrast, Ford hasn’t fared so well this year, with the Blue Oval being forced to slow production of its F-150 Lightning EV and even push pack the launch of some battery-powered models.
3rd Gear: VW’s Profits Are Plummeting
With warnings of factory closures, strikes and struggling sales plaguing German automaker Volkswagen, now may not be a great time to reveal that the company’s profits are falling. Falling bad.
The ID Buzz maker has reportedly seen its profits fall compared with the same period last year, reports Automotive News. On top of that, the company’s profit margins are also down, and currently sit at the lowest value the company has seen since the Covid-19 pandemic, as the site explains:
The automaker earned an operating profit of €2.86 billion ($3.1 billion) on €78.5 billion of revenue in the third quarter, with both figures declining from a year ago. Its operating margin dwindled to just 3.6 percent, the lowest in over four years.
The results buttress VW management’s case for drastic measures in Germany, where labor leaders are resisting the closure of at least three factories and the elimination of thousands of jobs.
The company is also looking to reduce wages for around 140,000 workers by 10 percent, all of which would add to the woes of Europe’s largest economy.
The core VW brand — where much of those cuts would fall — earned just a 2 percent operating margin in the first nine months of the year, VW Chief Financial Officer Arno Antlitz said in the statement on Oct. 30.
The company’s finance officer added that the decline is a wake up call for bosses, proving that “significant cost reductions and efficiency gains” are required if the company hopes to survive. As part of those measures, the company revealed that factory closures in Germany and layoffs across its supply chain are on the cards.
4th Gear: Stellantis recalls 30,000 Ram Trucks
We’ve made it to Wednesday’s Morning Shift roundup without mentioning a recall this week, that might be a new record. Anyway, this week’s recall is at Stellantis, which has uncovered an issue that’s impacting more than 30,000 Ram trucks, reports Reuters.
Stellantis will reportedly recall 33,777 Ram 1500 pickup trucks that have been sold across the U.S., reports Reuters. The recall relates to an issue with the trucks’ electronic stability control system, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in a release:
The front wheel hub encoder rings may be damaged, which can disable the electronic stability control system, the NHTSA said.
Dealers will inspect and replace the front wheel bearing hub assembly, as necessary, free of charge, the auto safety regulator said.
The recall impacts brand new, 2025 model year Ram 1500 trucks, according to the NHTSA. Stellantis aims to notify dealers of the issue before the end of this month and owners will be notified “on or about” December 19.
If you are worried that your car might be affected by a recall, there are a few easy ways to check if it’s the case. First up, the NHTSA has a super handy app that you can use to see if your vehicle is impacted by a recall, or you can head to the regulator’s website and plug your VIN into its recall search tool.