AFSVision

  Early adopters found #electricvehicles to be attractive alternatives to their ICE-powered prestige models, however the new-ness of buying an EV is wearing off. With that comes the need to compete for buyers. Despite #elonmusk 's belief that the only limit to Tesla sales growth was pricing, there aren't 20 million buyers just waiting for an affordable #tesla Improving production methods and lowering prices has become the latest step in the EV transition. Unanticipated snags at #generalmotors are slowing the roll-out of #cadillac , #hummer , and #BrightDrop EVs. Slow production means the EVs aren't backed up at GM dealers, however #ford #mustangmache output grew to 13,000 per month without the expected rise in sales. This huge disconnect pushed July inventory in the U.S. to about 100-days supply in a market that targets half that number. The domestics aren't alone in these growing pains. Startup #fisker outsourced production of its first model. In its second quarter report, "1,022 of the class-leading #fiskerocean SUVs were produced in Austria for customers." The factory shipped just 110 SUVs in the first six months of this year, leaving a huge number unaccounted for. Fisker points to shipping issues for the difference and requiring a quick solution for the company to reach its previously stated goal of producing 6,000 units in the third quarter. Pricing and production issues become increasingly important. If suppliers and shippers can keep up the production, the bottleneck will be finding enough buyers to absorb all of these new electric vehicles. Supply and demand will balance as they EVs become mainstream products competing directly with traditional models, which will sort out the winners and losers. For the YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk3n2Y64eRs Find out how AFS can work for you: www.autoforecastsolutions.com Joe McCabe: [email protected] Sam Fiorani: [email protected]

Few brands will hit their pure electric targets as they need to convert hundreds of thousands of buyers to the idea that an EV perfectly replaces their current model. Rolls-Royce, however only needs to find a few thousand buyers, and the appeal of an all-electric Rolls-Royce is obvious. Claimed on their website, this is "the beginning of an era that will see the entire model portfolio electrified by 2030" and that the new Spectre is "setting a clear path toward the marque's first all-electric decade." Henry Royce and Charles Rolls set a goal to build the "best car in the world." Famed automotive writer Ken Purdy wrote that "the Rolls is not only the best car the world has ever seen, it is very probably the best piston-engine car the world will ever see." Blending a modern electric drivetrain with the elegance of a Rolls-Royce seems to create the car that Sir Royce would envision today, if he were still alive. There's a limit to how smooth and powerful a piston engine can be. A modern BEV has advantages over the V12 engine with its inherent smoothness and its quiet delivery of all that power. Up from the 563hp from the twin-turbocharged engine, the Spectre produces 430kW of electric power, or about 577hp. As emissions tighten around Rolls-Royce's big cars, BEVs will be necessary. The 5,400-lb Wraith coupe consumes a gallon of gas for every 12 miles of city driving while polluting 624 g of CO2 every mile and needs to be refueled every 263 miles. Based on the WLTP test cycle, the 6,600-lb Spectre, with its 0 g/mi of CO2 tailpipe emissions, can travel up to 323 miles on a single charge. Two motors, one on each axle, allow the permanent all-wheel drive system to move more than three tons of car from zero to 100 km/h in 4.4 seconds. With a base price somewhere north of US$400,000, the Spectre is just the start of the next era for Rolls-Royce. For the YouTube video:  Find out how AFS can work for you: www.autoforecastsolutions.com Joe McCabe: [email protected] Sam Fiorani: [email protected]

Internet rumors are a terrible source of information on the automotive industry. Here are a few that you need to avoid. The Ford Taurus - Clean Tech Yes, there is a new Ford Taurus coming and no it's not coming to North America. With the dramatic decline in the sales of sedans in the United States, there aren't many American automotive enthusiasts chomping at the bit to get their hands on a new Taurus. Sales of the last generation Taurus peaked just under 80,000 units in the U.S. in 2013, the only year it outsold the Mustang. Ford has focused on trucks because the market has clearly turned away from traditional passenger cars. The only market for models like the Taurus is in rental fleets and police package vehicles, neither of which makes as much money as selling SUVs and pickups, which is why Ford now focuses on those markets and makes just one passenger car in North America. A Market Crash is Coming - Epic Economist, Velocity, Everyman Driver Prices of new vehicles have dramatically jumped over the last few years, pricing many people out of the new vehicle market. This was caused by supply chain issues and a focus on higher-priced, and therefore higher-profit, models. A concentration on higher-priced models has skewed the average transaction price of new vehicles upwards. With better supplies of parts, additional production is planned for lower priced cars and trucks and this should lower the average transaction prices over time. Also, production growth around the world will fill the pipeline and increase dealer inventory to competitive levels. This is by no means a sign of a market apocalypse, but just natural market competition. Do not expect a Great Recession-like crash in the near term. For the YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-2LEz7AGOY Find out how AFS can work for you: www.autoforecastsolutions.com Joe McCabe: [email protected] Sam Fiorani: [email protected]  

Obituaries for the internal combustion engine are premature. Tighter emissions regulations have increased the demand for electric vehicles and better emissions controls make new gas engines amazingly clean. Despite that, the 1.5 billion vehicles on the road around the world still generate 12% of all greenhouse gases. Today's EVs are practical for most everyday drivers leading governments to propose ICE bans. Laws limiting the use of ICE vehicles are on the rise. EV sales are growing year over year and will continue to do so, but maintaining this growth rate will be increasingly difficult. Combustion engines will power everyday vehicles beyond 2050. The most important reason will be in the hands of engineers. Engineers always step up to tackle hurdles. Since 1970, the light vehicle emissions have fallen roughly 99% while modern cars are more powerful and more reliable. Engineers will find answers to keep the ICE vehicles competitive for years to come. Only focusing on tailpipe emissions avoids larger pollution questions. Discussions continues about just how clean vehicles are, from the cradle to the grave, including acquiring the fuel, mining for components, and disposing of the vehicle at the end of its life. Globally by 2030, EVs will make up just 1/3 of total light vehicle production. New low emission fuels could help prolong the life of the ICE and hybridization continues to lower emissions. EVs will make up 50% of global production around 2040, meaning half of all vehicles in 17 years will still feature an internal combustion engine. For the YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCWa6bWPWQ4 Find out how AFS can work for you: www.autoforecastsolutions.com Joe McCabe: [email protected] Sam Fiorani: [email protected]      

May ended with strong light vehicle sales in the U.S. approximately 3.5% better than expected. Improving on last May by 22.7%, the market was propelled by huge gains from Mazda and Honda with Subaru also beating the market average. All reporting brands, except for Lincoln, showed year-over-year gains with only Toyota not improving by double-digits. While the month performed very well, the sales forecast for 2023 remains unchanged as the growing anxiety over interest rates and the rising potential of labor strikes in the fall are tempering additional enthusiasm. Retail buyers are ceding more of the market to fleets, which are still working to replace their aging vehicles. Incentives for retail buyers are growing in an attempt to offset the rising loan rates. The target for 2023 sits at 14.77 million units in the U.S. Like in the U.S., sales in Canada were about 3% above expectations. Trucks continue to experience share growth and the market is not far from where fewer than one out of ten light vehicles sold in the country will be traditional passenger cars. Few brands report detailed sales numbers, however Honda, Kia, Hyundai, and Lexus showed improved deliveries in May. Light vehicle sales of 1.64 million units remains the expectation for 2023. Mexico continues to show strength, with April and May besting numbers reported in 2019. Continued strong numbers have pushed the AFS forecast up to 1.27 million for 2023. Imports from China are definitely making a splash in Mexico with May marking the third straight month with sales of over 20,000 units shipped from the growing automotive powerhouse and reaching 18.5% market share. Vehicles from China made up just 5.4% of the market two years ago. For the YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60YhOWDrZPA Find out how AFS can work for you: www.autoforecastsolutions.com Joe McCabe: [email protected] Sam Fiorani: [email protected]  

Originally known as Atieva, Lucid Motors was founded in 2007 in California. In 2021, Atieva merged with the SPAC Churchill, changing its name to Lucid, and raising US$4.4 billion. Lucid is headed by Peter Rawlinson who came from Tesla. Alongside the CEO is an executive team with years of automotive experience; a rare quality in the world of EV startups. Rather than finding an existing manufacturing space, Lucid constructed a new plant in Arizona, thousands of miles from the center of the U.S. automotive supply chain. Lucid opened their plant in 2020 and began production and deliveries in the fourth quarter of 2021. Currently, Lucid only has one model, the Lucid Air, which has received largely positive reviews. Unfortunately for Lucid, the positive reviews haven't translated into the level of demand they were expecting. They delivered 125 vehicles in 2021 and reported a net loss of US$700 million. In 2022, Lucid delivered a little over 4,300 vehicles and posted a net loss of US$2.6 billion for the year. Deliveries in the first quarter of 2023 actually declined from the prior quarter to only 1,406 vehicles. For the full year, Lucid is expecting to build just over 10,000 vehicles. There's no doubt that Lucid has a demand problem and it's not likely to improve materially over the next twelve months. The price of the Air sedan limits its own potential. A more mainstream model, the Gravity mid-sized crossover, is expected to start production in second quarter of 2024. Lucid's biggest shareholder, the Public Investment Fund of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, holds over 60% of the outstanding shares. Plans for another US$3 billion stock offering, largely funded by the PIF, will be a necessary move to keep the venture afloat. For the YouTube video:  Find out how AFS can work for you: www.autoforecastsolutions.com Joe McCabe: [email protected] Sam Fiorani: [email protected]

On May 25, twenty-seven Senators addressed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency about the current push for tighter emissions. The letter to Administrator Regan asked for the EPA to "withdraw two recent proposals to regulate tailpipe greenhouse gas emissions" because "these proposals effectively mandate a costly transition to electric cars and trucks." Using the Biden Administration and EPA's exaggerated numbers, the letter claimed "the proposal will require approximately 67 percent of new vehicles sold in model year 2032 to be BEVs." While pointing to possible legal concerns of these proposals "forcing a transition to battery electric vehicles through regulations", the letter also discussed the electrical grid, infrastructure, and consumers. EV market share will be substantially less than 67% with advances in cleaner ICEs and increased hybridization. That point aside, the senators are overlooking the benefits of these proposals. Today, EVs cost more than gas-powered vehicles, but as EV volumes rise, prices will fall. While the electrical grid is not robust enough to handle a dramatic increase in EVs, the power industry will grow to support the gradual rise in demand. The same with the charging infrastructure as businesses and entrepreneurs see the profits in adding more receptacles. Another overlooked benefit of this drive toward electrification is competition. Pushing the industry toward cleaner vehicles will help the North American industry keep pace with the global competition. As other markets legislate tighter emissions controls and restrict the ICE usage, global automakers and suppliers are increasing their knowledge base and technical savvy. North American players will fail to remain globally relevant if not pushed into these underdeveloped technologies. For the YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtdMR2HPDpI Find out how AFS can work for you: www.autoforecastsolutions.com Joe McCabe: [email protected] Sam Fiorani: [email protected]

  Rising public support for unions and the current level of inflation will be in favor of the UAW and Unifor as negotiations begin in September. Profit at the automakers is always a balancing act between keeping stockholders happy and not making too much money where the workers believe they're losing out. Unfortunately for those automakers, profits have been especially good in recent years, adding another support for raises to union members. For the YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mdWKL8JQD4 Find out how AFS can work for you: www.autoforecastsolutions.com Joe McCabe: [email protected] Sam Fiorani: [email protected]

Light vehicle sales in the U.S. have been just as expected this year and continues the pace toward a year-end target of 14.77 million cars and light trucks. The estimated 2.7% growth in the Canadian market in April is on-par with the trend toward a 1.64-million-unit year. The continued recovery of the Mexican market rolled through April with nine straight months of double-digit growth pushing the AFS forecast up 1.19 million units this year. For the YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgrtVFuRm6g&t=1s Find out how AFS can work for you: www.autoforecastsolutions.com Joe McCabe: [email protected] Sam Fiorani: [email protected]  

As the automotive industry in China began to blossom about two decades ago, domestic manufacturers looking to export needed marketable names. The quickest way to do this was to acquire an established brand and polish it for new life. Brands like Geely's Volvo have worked while names like Borgward have languished. And then there was the state-owned SAIC, which is playing the long game. When BMW decided to sell the former Rover Group, local investors were there to keep the British automaker going. As long as the company remained in local hands, the new company was allowed to use the Rover name, which BMW controlled. In order to protect themselves from any future issues, the new company warmed up another marque that they owned free and clear: MG. The new enterprise was renamed the MG Rover Group. Underfunded, the MG Rover Group went into receivership in 2005 and the company was acquired by the Nanjing Automobile Group. Shortly after the purchase, state-owned SAIC merged with Nanjing, giving SAIC control of the former MG Rover Group and its properties, among them the MG brand.   For the YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNb34JZhiM8&t=27s Find out how AFS can work for you: www.autoforecastsolutions.com Joe McCabe: [email protected] Sam Fiorani: [email protected]