The gloves are freakin’ off this week as we’ve got analysts telling automakers to watch the southern border or else, fancy car auctions brawling, and now the BYD Americas CEO going on the record with a pretty tame take that sounds menacing coming from the biggest maker of EVs in the world. It’s exciting times to be writing about cars, my friends.
It looks like Mercedes could be the first foreign plan to fall to the UAW in its battle to unionize every carmaker in the United States as it hits an important milestone. Will there be a fiercer battle in F1 this year? It looks like it, but slightly fewer people seem interested in Netflix’s “Drive to Survive.”
In the good news department, we’ve got more confirmation that the next Chevy Bolt is going to be an LFP variant of the Ultium platform.
BYD’s Stella Li: ‘You Are Out, You Will Die, You Have No Future’
Channeling some real Heidi Klum in her Project Runway era-energy, we’ve got this excellent quote from BYD Americas CEO Stelli Li to Yahoo! Finance to kick off the morning:
Li cited the recent pause in EV investment as evidence of a slowdown in U.S. consumer adoption and compared that with China, where if a company does not invest in EVs “you are out, you will die, you have no future.”
That’s fun, but let’s keep it in context. Li was asked about this week’s freakout over the growing presence of Chinese automakers in Mexico/Brazil and basically said she didn’t see it happening anytime soon:
She added the Chinese company had little interest in targeting U.S. consumers as the upcoming factory would first and foremost serve Mexican customers looking to purchase an EV or plug-in hybrid.
“We’re not planning to come to the U.S.,” she told Yahoo Finance. When pressed why, she explained: “It’s an interesting market, but it’s very complicated if you’re talking about EVs.”
I think the phrase “upcoming factory” here is important. With everyone paying attention to Mexico all of a sudden and at least one senator proposing what is basically a 125% tariff on Chinese EVs, it’s probably smart to pretend like you’re not interested even if, long term, BYD probably does want to sell in United States.
Unfortunately, non-Chiense automakers can’t really enforce a “Monroe Doctrine” for Central and South America, markets that have a lot of consumers looking for exactly the kind of cheap cars that China is great at producing.
While I also believe that Li’s comments about investing in EVs or dying are true for American automakers, she’s clearly talking about the extremely competitive Chinese market, where subsidies encouraged roughly a trillion companies to start building cars. Now those subsidies have largely gone away and the purchase of EVs and PHEVs are beginning to drop, so it’s getting a little Lord of the Flies there, with both BYD and its closest rival Tesla trying to squeeze out everyone else.
According to Reuters, there’s a big new price drop in China for two of BYD’s most popular vehicles:
The newly launched Han sedans, available as plug-in hybrids and pure EVs, and the Tang hybrid SUV, will have a starting price that is 10.35% to 14.3% lower than previous versions, Reuters calculations showed.
The products came on the heels of BYD’s introduction of a new version of its Dolphin hatchback and newer plug-in hybrid sedan Qin Plus DM-i last week, both also at lower starting prices.
The pricing indicates that BYD is giving bigger discounts on most of these models than last year. The automaker lowered the starting price for the Qin Plus EV and hybrid by 15% and 20%, respectively, versus price cuts of 8% and 11% respectively for the two models in 2023, Reuters calculations showed.
Yikes! What we’re hearing from BYD is that car companies need to invest in EVs or die, but if they’re not fast enough they’re going to have to compete with a BYD that has a huge scale advantage.
UAW Meets 50% Target In Alabama
The United Auto Workers union has made it clear that the contracts with the Detroit Three were just a start, and that the organization wants to unionize all of the automakers with plants in the United States.
There have been attempts to unionize foreign plants for years, but they haven’t been particularly successful. With the momentum building, the UAW has a specific formula for how it’s going to approach unionizing these plants: If 30% of workers sign a union authorization card then the UAW goes public with that data, if 50% sign then the UAW holds a rally, if 60% sign they get a pizza party, and if 70% sign up then the UAW goes to the company to demand recognition or forces an election.
I might have made up the bit about the pizza party.
Earlier this year the Mercedes-Benz plant in Tuscaloosa, Alabama hit the 30% milestone. Now the plant is at 50% and so a rally is coming. That’s a big deal in the deepest of the deep south.
How did Mercedes respond? From The Detroit News:
“Central to our success is our positive team culture that includes an open-door policy,” according to the statement sent by spokesperson Andrea Berg. “MBUSI has a proven record of competitively compensating Team Members and providing many additional benefits. We believe open and direct communication with our Team Members is the best path forward to ensure continued success.”
Tuscaloosa joins the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee in reaching 50%. The Hyundai plant in Montgomery, Alabama is also at the 30% threshold.
Drive To Survive Season 6 Numbers Are Down
As I experienced at the McLaren party earlier this year, it’s clear that the Netflix show Drive to Survive has been a huge boon for Formula 1, especially in the United States. But what of the extremely popular show?
It’s still extremely popular, but according to Netflix, it’s not as popular as it once was. Specifically, the new season is out and it’s had about 2,900,000 views in its first three days, which is down as Dave Nelson pointed out:
.@Netflix has released audience figures for the first three days of #DriveToSurvive season 6 and they're…. not great.
An average audience of just 2.9 million viewers have watched across its first 3 days, a sharp year-on-year drop of 30% on last year's equivalent figure.
— Dave Nelson (@f1broadcasting) February 28, 2024
Being a Top 10 show on Netflix is still a big deal, but a 30% drop isn’t great. What’s going on here?
I think it’s a few things:
- Timing: The F1 season hasn’t started yet, there will probably be more interest after this weekend.
- Fatigue: As with most popular things, there’s a moment where what goes up must come down and some normalization in attention is probably inevitable.
- A Victim Of Their Own Success: Part of why DTS worked was that you didn’t need to watch the races as the episodes were their own little replays. Now that people are watching the races and following F1 podcasts and F1 Twitter, et cetera, there’s less to learn.
Or, maybe, this season is just bad. I haven’t watched it yet.
More Details On The Next Chevy Bolt
GM smartly reversed course on its bafflingly shortsighted plan to completely kill the Chevy Bolt, but there’s a bit of a coda wherein we do not have one while we all wait for the future Ultium-based model.
It’s been pretty well known that the next Bolt was going to use an LFP battery cathode chemistry, versus the NCM batteries currently being used. Still, in an interview in Automotive News with GM CFO Paul Jacobson we get a little more color on those decisions and an admission that the country needs affordable EVs:
That’s why GM decided to bring back the Chevrolet Bolt EV rather than follow an earlier plan to develop a separate lower-cost EV platform. Reviving the Bolt nameplate in 2025, after discontinuing the first generation last year, will save billions of dollars, Jacobson said.
The next Bolt will use purchased lithium iron phosphate battery cells, a first for Ultium EVs in North America.
“We’ve got an established brand,” Jacobson said. “We’ve got a really good product that customers love. We can realize some of the efficiencies of the Ultium platform using LFP chemistry and technology and make it more profitable for us and significantly improve the business case for it.”
Yes, all true, and wouldn’t it be great if you were still building Bolts?
What I’m Listening To While I Write TMD
I love “American Water” so much. I miss David Berman so much. The Malkmus-on-Berman “Blue Arrangements” is kind of perfect.
I love your amethyst eyes and your protestant thighsyou’re a shimmering socialite jewel.
This definitely connected to the lower middle-class kid in me trying to chat up the Junior League girls.
The Big Question
Did you watch Drive To Survive this season? Have you ever watched it? Are you watching F1 this weekend?
You missed a reason for DtS losing viewers – maybe some are pissed off that F1 doesn’t seem to actually want potentially-competitive Americans (Andretti), just nice, slow, cheap-ass ones (Haas) that don’t really have any Americans on the team.
I may not understand she is telling foreign auto makers they must invest in EVs in the China market? Isn’t this the same market that once was open, then required a merger with a China manufacturer and sharing all data and then started squeezing them out of the market? What am I missing? A once strong Venezuela oil market ran out foreign companies and now is in dissaray because they didn’t reinvest in maintaining the equipment now is up the proverbial crap creek?
Afaict she’s saying if you’re a chinese car manufacturer in china and you don’t invest heavily in EV, you’re dead, I.e. presumably the government makes your life difficult.
Regarding BYD… let’s not overlook the fact that a large percentage of the vehicles BYD sold last year were still ICE vehicles. When you look at BEV-only models, Tesla still outsells them. BYD only outsells Tesla when you include their ICE and Hybrid vehicles.
“Did you watch Drive To Survive this season?”
No.
“Have you ever watched it?”
No.
“Are you watching F1 this weekend?”
No.
EXACTLY. BYD chooses very specific figures to look at regarding sales… you just can’t trust them.
I thought BYD’s BEV-only sales already exceeded Tesla.
https://cleantechnica.com/2024/01/02/byd-shoots-past-tesla-in-bev-sales-new-1-charts/
Oh… that’s a new development… I missed that. Thanks!
No worries. “Blink and you’ll miss” is not a cliche in the EV landscape!
Here is something else you don’t see much reported. BYD sales outside China for EV’s was less than 200,000 last year. Less than 20,000 in Europe.
I’ve had the “pleasure” of interacting with Stella…
She’s not wrong about her statement on EVs and automakers needing to invest in them. Side benefit, EV programs can yield good benefits for HEVs and PHEVs too (common DC-DCs, cell suppliers, BTMS components, etc..)
However, BYD has been the biggest offender of being somewhat full of shit compared specifically with their Chinese peers (CATL, Geely, etc..)
I’ve heard Stella say (in person) directly to the CEOs of the two largest bus OEMs in North America, and to other truck OEMs that BYD will be the biggest bus and truck supplier in the U.S. in just a few years…
…that was in ~2013/2014. Since then, BYD U.S. has built the shittiest buses and trucks ever made. One bus cracked in half during testing, another partially cracked in half. All of their driving range figures from the old ass e6 car to their buses and trucks have been VERY full of shit as well. BYD has since been pretty much laughed out of the NA Bus & Truck market… regardless of the incredible PR they always like to put out.
What BYD does have in their favor is a very good LFP cell design, I really can’t fault them on their LFP cell tech. But, CATL is better, and a bigger company, and they are more honest… which is why U.S. Truck, Bus, and Automakers prefer working with CATL vs. BYD.
+1
And it should be noted that the Toronto Transit Commission has a test fleet of 60 electric buses… some from BYD, some from New Flyer and some from Proterra.
The BYD buses have the highest amount of downtime, Proterra went bankrupt and the New Flyer buses are holding up the best.
For future electric bus orders, the TTC announced they are ordering buses from New Flyer as well as Nova Bus.
Good points, although I don’t think NOVA is long for this world. They are exiting the U.S. market, which is a shame (very durable product), and I’m not sure their is enough volume in Canada alone for them to survive under Volvo’s ownership.
However, the Quebec government might step in to help NOVA in some way, again…
New Flyer makes a great bus, some teething issues on their EVs too, but that’s across the board.
There was a funny problem that happened with the BYD buses that they first brought over the North America. They had some software/controls issues with the regen braking that, no joke, would have the buses go slowly in reverse in certain situations (flat ground) when the brake pedal was applied.
If I were to build the ideal EV transit bus it would be a New Flyer equipped with Proterra batteries.
The bus manufacturing landscape in Canada is basically two players… New Flyer and Nova Bus/Volvo buses. There used to be a third one called Ontario Bus Industries… which became Orion Bus… which was owned by Daimler-Benz until they shut down the Canadian operation and pulled out of Canada.
The Nova Bus operation in Canada is essentially the old “GM Canada Diesel Division” and it’s currently owned by Volvo Buses and has always been sustained by Canadian orders… just like the US arm of Nova had to be sustained by local US orders because the public transit agencies buying buses are either ‘encouraged’ or required to ‘buy local’.
And the Quebec government absolutely will protect Nova bus in more ways than one… probably with the help of the federal government if needed since Canada is down to only two ‘domestic’ players in the transit bus space.
Agreed. It’s also funny when newcomers arrive on the scene (cough ARRIVAL cough) and think… “it’s just a bus? How hard can it be?”
VERY HARD……on so many levels….
> However, the Quebec government might step in to help NOVA in some way, again
Only on condition that it rename itself VAPAS
Can I ask whatever was the strategy on the e6? It had U.S. EPA certifications for about a decade yet I never saw anything formally announced as to their public availability. Circa 2012 I met a small EV dealer in Chicago that had one, and told me he was going to be selling them, they were coming to market soon. I’ve seen at least two spotted on private plates in the Chicago area over the years, and supposedly they had some sort of deal to sell to Uber drivers at one time?
The BYD e6 is an enigma I’ve been unable to solve for a long time.
There were a few sold (or leased?), and BYD kept claiming a range of something like 250 miles. EPA tests showed 127 miles. And I doubt the rest of the car was up to snuff quality, safety, etc.. wise compared to a Leaf. I’m sure BYDs cars are better quality now, and they do look much better.
The e6 was the car that Tesla was worried about for like, two seconds, and Elon laughed at publicly on CNBC or one of those other networks during an interview.
It just seems weird to have gone through all the trouble of EPA compliance (it’s an EV of course, but there’s still a lot of hoops to jump through) and then just done nothing other than sell a few to, I assume, some Chinese nationals?
The one I saw wasn’t the worst looking thing in the world, it’s sort of a pseudo-minivan crossover thing, and this was well in advance of any EV crossovers on the market. Had they committed to it, they might have carved out some market share. I wonder if it was just too expensive?
Well having basically zero dealer/support network, or Corporate owned showrooms (like Tesla) wasn’t helping…
Maybe running an EV company is associated with borderline personality disorder and grandiose claims of superiority and ovee optimistic predictions.
Silver Jews and Purple Mountains are amazing. So sad David Berman is no longer with us. “Margaritas at the Mall” is one of my favorite songs – pretty much sums everything up.
How’s Mexico’s charging infrastructure? I have never heard anything about it (not that I’ve looked).
As far as the bolt goes, please don’t fuck it up GM. I drive a truck, but have been looking for a fun little car that kills it in gas milage for town trips and groceries etc… This is the prefect car for it, basically a go kart. I will be ready to get one in the next year or so and am excited it’s coming back.
So keep it cheap, and as simple as an EV can get Mara!
After driving Teslas, those were my expectations of the Bolt as well, but then I test-drove one and boy is it slow.. As in slower than my diesel Golf and about on par with a Prius.
Very far from ‘go-kart’.
The Han? Seriously?
There’s two versions, so Hans.
And then there is the single passenger version… the Han Solo…
https://youtu.be/BDJKNPHRlr4?feature=shared