Automakers are giving cheaper batteries with shorter ranges a try in their efforts to build electric cars consumers will buy. The Wall Street Journal's Mike Colias reports: In the race to build a more affordable electric car, auto makers are turning to a lower-cost battery type that could lead to less-expensive options, but deliver less driving range. Several major car companies plan to deploy lithium-iron-phosphate batteries, known as LFP, a type commonly used in China, the world’s largest market for electric cars. Those iron-based battery cells cost less than the nickel-and-cobalt … [Read more...]
Toyota Suffers Chips Shortages, COVID Lockdowns, and Rising Rates
Toyota is fighting headwinds in its efforts as it is faced with rising interest rates in the United States, COVID lockdowns in China, and chip shortages at its factories. Eri Sugiura reports for the Financial Times: Toyota’s quarterly operating profit fell 25 per cent from a year earlier as the world’s largest carmaker warned that it was struggling to cope with yen volatility, interest rate rises in the US and production disruption caused by China’s coronavirus lockdowns. Following record profits last fiscal year through March, Toyota’s fortunes have reversed as persistent chip shortages … [Read more...]
Considering a Tesla? Read this before you Blow $15,000 on Full Self Driving
Are you ready to hop in a self-driving car? In Bloomberg, Max Chafkin explains why you may want to hold off. He writes: Six years after companies started offering rides in what they’ve called autonomous cars and almost 20 years after the first self-driving demos, there are vanishingly few such vehicles on the road. And they tend to be confined to a handful of places in the Sun Belt, because they still can’t handle weather patterns trickier than Partly Cloudy. State-of-the-art robot cars also struggle with construction, animals, traffic cones, crossing guards, and what the industry calls … [Read more...]
Are Luxury Cars Really a Safe Haven?
Are luxury cars recession-proof? Stephen Wilmot examines luxury vehicle makers and their resilience in The Wall Street Journal, writing: Luxury car brands should be better long-term investments than mass-market ones. That doesn’t mean they are recession-proof. Less than two weeks after its initial public offering, Porsche POAHY -4.42%▼ has already overtaken its majority shareholder Volkswagen VOW -3.29%▼ in terms of market value. The comparison is simplistic, given differences in capital structure, but it does underline, among other things, investors’ preference for expensive vehicles over … [Read more...]
CASH FOR CARS: Flush Americans Are Spending their Money on Luxury Cars
In the very strange post-lockdown economy, some Americans are flush with cash, and they're using that cash to splurge on luxury cars. Teslas, Bentleys, Lambos, and other high-end cars are being snapped up by buyers. Ryan Felton reports in The Wall Street Journal: More Americans are opting to buy luxury vehicles than ever before, a shift fueled by cash-rich buyers who were able to bank savings during the pandemic and growing wealth among shoppers in the upper-income brackets. The share of new vehicles sold by luxury brands, … [Read more...]
Prices for Electric Vehicles Going UP
Back in June, Tesla announced it was raising its prices. Select Model 3, S, Y, and X vehicles were affected by the bump. The recent price increase followed another major round of increases in March and was blamed on inflation and transportation costs. Now, Ford has announced an increase in prices for its new F-150 Lightning truck. The Lightning is Ford's electric truck and its base model will have a new starting price of $46,974, around $7,000 higher than before the announcement. Nora Eckert reports for The Wall Street Journal: The Dearborn, Mich., auto maker said Tuesday that it plans to … [Read more...]
Could Car Dealers Get Flooded with Cars Mid-Recession?
The automotive industry has been suffering a catastrophic scarcity of vehicles since the beginning of COVID-19, as the global shortage of computer chips took hold and slowed auto production. Now, as the economy appears to tip into recession, automakers may have a new problem, all the inventory they've been waiting for may arrive just at the wrong time. Stephen Wilmot reports in The Wall Street Journal: Don’t worry too much about a recession hitting Detroit. The real concern should be normalizing supply. The U.S. new-car market is stuck in a low but lucrative gear as manufacturers struggle … [Read more...]
COMMODITY CRUNCH: Will Tesla Buy a Cobalt Mine?
The world's cobalt supplies are stretched thin as demand from electric vehicle automakers has surpassed that of smartphone producers for the first time. When asked about the crunch in cobalt supply, Elon Musk responded that Tesla may have to purchase a cobalt mine to secure its own supplies. The Financial Times' Neil Hume reports: Electric vehicles overtook smartphones and personal computers for the first time last year as the main source of demand for cobalt, a rare metal used in lithium-ion batteries. The automotive industry consumed 59,000 tonnes of cobalt in 2021, or 34 per cent of … [Read more...]
EV Stocks Have More to Lose than Most
It's expensive to launch a new car company, and with rates rising, it's getting even costlier. Stephen Wilmot writes at The Wall Street Journal: While the rising cost of capital is hitting speculative stocks in other sectors too, EV startups have more to lose than most. Launching a new car maker is extraordinarily expensive, and the costs come years before the profits. Bridging this gap is much easier if money is essentially free, as was the case with the influx of cash from special-purpose acquisition companies last year. Those days are fading fast. Companies filled up on cheap capital … [Read more...]
VW Stalls in Attempt to Catch Up to Tesla in EV Sales
Shortages of critical parts has slowed down the rollout of new electric vehicles by Volkswagen, which sold all of its inventory into high demand. The Financial Times' Joe Miller and Alexander Vladkov report: Volkswagen, the world’s second-largest electric vehicle manufacturer by volume, has “sold out” of battery-powered models in the US and Europe for this year as persistent supply chain bottlenecks hit global production. The Wolfsburg-based group, which includes brands such as Porsche, Audi and Škoda, sold more than 99,000 electric models worldwide in the first three months of 2022 as it … [Read more...]
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