Intel Report: The Weekly Mobility News That Matters

BY AUTOMOTIVE VENTURES | DEC 8 2025 | VIEW ONLINE

Steve's latest book, “The Future of Mobility,” translated into Russian.

What We're Reading:

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Automotive

The auto industry is undergoing change the likes of which it hasn’t seen since the early 1900s, when Henry Ford’s Model T and moving assembly line transformed the economy and how people got around. The ubiquitous horse-drawn buggy was consigned to museums, while countless other businesses became obsolete. Ford and other established carmakers are now staring down that kind of obsolescence, particularly as Chinese companies like BYD and GEELY race forward, producing 60 percent of all electric vehicles worldwide. The best hope is to leapfrog the Chinese by producing better batteries, more efficient electric motors and other breakthroughs and then doing it again and again. And the best hope for making those things happen are people like Doug Field, who are trying to teach Detroit to be as innovative as Silicon Valley. | The New York Times ($)

Ford CEO Jim Farley writes an OpEd piece for The Financial Times: "European policymakers say they want a sustainable auto industry. But setting unrealistic regulations only to adjust them at the end of each year when consumers do not show up is a recipe for turmoil. This approach disrupts a complex cycle of product design, engineering and supply chains that require long lead times and billions in investment. We urgently need a regulatory framework for Europe that provides a realistic and reliable 10-year planning horizon. On one side, we face the world’s most aggressive carbon mandates, regulations that demand a pace of electrification that is decoupled from the reality of consumer demand. On the other, we face a flood of state-subsidised EV imports from China, structurally designed to undercut European labour and manufacturing." | Financial Times ($)

The car industry is undergoing its fastest transformation since the invention of the petrol car. Policy has been struggling to keep pace around the world. Now U.S. President Trump is adding a new twist by loosening U.S. fuel economy rules as a way to reduce the upfront cost of new cars, reversing a key policy of Joe Biden. But the global effects of that decision run deeper than they appear. They will be felt far more sharply in Europe than in the US. Trump has said the rollback could save buyers about $1,000 on the price of a car. Supporters argue it will make cars more affordable. But the real point is that it protects the profitability of petrol trucks and sport utility vehicles while weakening one of the few regulatory pressures that was compelling U.S. carmakers to expand electric vehicle production. Trucks and SUVs make up 80 percent of new vehicle sales in the US. With these looser rules, U.S. carmakers gain political cover to delay capital-intensive EV development, slowing the country’s push towards electrification. If the U.S. builds fewer EVs, it learns less, costs fall more slowly and domestic scale never fully materializes. Scale is the decisive variable, which is why this moment matters so much. EVs and batteries operate under the same industrial logic as chipmaking, where scale determines long-term competitiveness. Asia was not historically dominant in chipmaking. The U.S. once led, but when investment slowed, Asian foundries expanded, costs fell and supply chains consolidated around the largest makers. | Financial Times ($)

Car buyers worldwide are returning to combustion engines as a result of policy reversals, trade wars and growing skepticism about EV infrastructure and costs, a report by professional services group EY showed. In a push to ease sales of gasoline-powered cars, U.S. President Donald Trump last week proposed slashing fuel economy standards finalised by his predecessor, while the European Union might soon unveil a watered-down version of its 2035 combustion engine phase-out. Half of global car buyers plan to buy a new or second-hand combustion engine car in the next 24 months, up 13 percentage points from 2024, according to the EY report. Preference for battery-electric and hybrid cars has dropped by 10 and 5 percentage points to 14% and 16%, respectively. Among prospective EV buyers, 36% are reconsidering or delaying purchases due to geopolitical developments, EY said. | Reuters ($)

New Stellantis CEO Antonio Filosa is prioritizing vehicle sales growth over profits, including resorting to lower-margin fleet sales and investing in affordable models to recapture market share in North America and Europe and get the world's No. 4 automaker back on track, four sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. Filosa, who took over in June, has launched what one source described as an "emergency room" operation to fix the mess left by his predecessor Carlos Tavares - who sought high margins through a combination of cost-cutting and price hikes that sparked a customer exodus. | Reuters ($)

Auto dealerships improved their finance and insurance performance during the third quarter, adding an average $1,933 in back-end gross profit to every deal, according to StoneEagle. The strong F&I results — up 8.2% from a year earlier and 0.5% from the second quarter of 2025 — gave dealerships room to make deals more affordable even as they shed gross profit on the vehicle sale itself, StoneEagle CEO Cindy Allen told a webinar Nov. 19. Dealerships averaged $560 in front-end gross profit during the third quarter, down 26% from a year earlier and 33% from the second quarter, according to StoneEagle, an F&I menu and analytics provider. Allen said the weakening in front-end gross this year at first glance seemed unhealthy. September’s front-end gross of $526 was down 46% from January and 82% from the record $2,926 profit in December 2021, during the inventory shortage, according to StoneEagle. | Automotive News ($)

From 2015 to 2024, about 12 million vehicles were recalled for safety defects that could result in air bags not deploying. These recalls—37 in total—included models made by Toyota, GM and Ford as well as luxury brands such as Mercedes-Benz and AUDI. About 2.6 million, or around 22%, of affected vehicles remain unfixed, according to an analysis of the latest National Highway Traffic Safety Administration NHTSA data by The Wall Street Journal. The NHTSA data reveal a broader problem: Roughly one in three cars recalled for all reasons goes unfixed. The rate is roughly the same even for serious flaws such as failing brakes, engine fires or the air bag defects reviewed by the Journal. | The Wall Street Journal ($)

VINFAST’s retail network has shrunk to fewer than two dozen stores, reversing its U.S. expansion, with a Holman dealer in North Carolina the latest to exit the brand. The store closures come amid sinking U.S. sales for the Vietnamese EV maker, which has fallen behind on plans to import less expensive models as its focus shifts to Asian markets. Two years ago, VinFast envisioned hundreds of dealers selling a full EV lineup, including a pickup. It now offers just two models in the U.S.: the VF 8 crossover, starting at $41,100, and the three-row VF 9, starting at $64,100, both including shipping. "VinFast just didn’t find a good enough connection with consumers to get them interested,” said Stephanie Brinley, an analyst at S&P Global Mobility. VinFast also is facing higher import tariffs this year and the loss of the $7,500 EV tax credit that helped subsidize its lease deals. | Automotive News ($)

A growing number of cities are using traffic lights to change driver behavior and make streets safer by slowing down speeders and making pedestrians more visible. Techniques such as "green waves", "rest in red", and leading pedestrian intervals can reduce collisions and are relatively low-cost, with some interventions costing as little as $10,000 per intersection. Cities can adjust traffic signal timing to prioritize safety over maximizing vehicle throughput, and some city officials say that many signalization adjustments can be made without drivers even noticing the change. | Bloomberg ($)Now that this year's SEMA Show debut of the Vermont SportsCar-built 1978 Subaru BRAT known as the Brataroo 9500 Turbo is well in the rearview, the crew at [HOONIGAN] are finally ready to show off the catruck’s capabilities with the latest film in the Gymkhana series. Titled ‘Aussie Shred’, this 11-minute video brings all sorts of Australian Easter eggs and insane stunts together for Travis Pastrana’s final entry in the series. Thanks to the team at VSC, this build features a 2.0-liter turbocharged boxer-four that produces 670 hp and 680 lb-ft. | Road & Track

🇨🇳

China

Only a year after the EU imposed punitive tariffs on Chinese electric cars that were meant to protect the market share of European brands, Chinese automakers have increased their overall sales in Europe by 93%. The tariffs — as much as 35%, on top of an existing 10% EU import levy — were put in place provisionally in July 2024 and came into effect formally last November. In part due to uncertainty about the tariffs, sales of Chinese cars grew by just 13% in 2024, but automakers including BYD and MG quickly shifted to selling plug-in hybrids and ICE cars, and overall market share in October doubled over the previous year to about 7%. The tariffs may have actually incentivized Chinese automakers to continue building in China, rather than setting up factories in Europe. Despite promises from BYD and CHERY, among others, to set up production in Europe, fewer than 20,000 Chinese cars are expected to be assembled in Europe this year, according to suppliers and industry sources. Chinese brands can easily shoulder the 10% standard duty on gasoline, mild hybrid, full-hybrid and plug-in hybrid cars because production costs in China are 20% to 30% below that in Europe. | Automotive News ($)

Major automakers urged Washington to prevent Chinese government-backed automakers and battery manufacturers from opening U.S. manufacturing plants, warning the industry’s future is at stake. The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents GM, Ford, Toyota, Volkswagen, Hyundai, Stellantis and other major automakers, sounded the alarm Dec. 11 and said Congress and the Trump administration needed to act. “China poses a clear and present threat to the auto industry in the U.S.,” the group wrote in a statement for a U.S. House hearing on Chinese vehicles. The group also said lawmakers should maintain the U.S. Department of Commerce’s prohibition on importing information and communications technology and services from China that effectively bars the import of vehicles from Chinese manufacturers. “No amount of investment by automakers and battery manufacturers operating inside the U.S. can counter a China that is enabled by subsidies to chronically oversupply around the world. This is a recipe for dumping that Congress and the Trump Administration must prevent from happening inside the U.S.,” the auto industry group said. | Automotive News ($)

Ford is turning to French peer Renault to help reboot its European business, in a fresh sign of the upheaval being caused by Chinese automakers outside the U.S. “We know we’re in a fight for our lives in our industry, and no better example than here in Europe,” Ford Chief Executive Officer Jim Farley told journalists in Paris. Carmakers are increasingly turning to partnerships to save money as different regions embrace different technologies at different speeds. The competition is especially fierce in Europe, where Chinese makers, led by SAIC Motor and BYD, have burst onto the scene with low-cost technology. The market share of Chinese producers jumped collectively to around 6.7% of the European market in the third quarter, according to Schmidt Automotive Research. | The Wall Street Journal ($)

China’s auto sales fell for a second straight month in November, as demand continued to weaken. Retail sales of passenger cars fell 8.1% last month from a year earlier to 2.23 million units, data from the China Passenger Car Association showed Monday. Retail sales of passenger cars fell 1.1% from a month earlier. Production, exports and wholesales of passenger cars in China all hit fresh highs in November compared with the same month in prior years. Also, the country’s car exports for the month was a record, the CPCA said. Exports of passenger cars jumped 52% from a year earlier to 601,000 units, with shipments of electric vehicles and hybrid cars more-than tripling from a year earlier to 284,000 units, CPCA data showed. | The Wall Street Journal ($)

China’s auto production and sales topped 31 million vehicles in the first eleven months of the year, rising more than 10% from a year earlier, data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers showed. November output exceeded 3.5 million units for the first time, marking a record monthly high. | TechNode

Once, European automakers relied primarily on R&D centers in their domestic markets for their top technology developments. In addition, it was common for that home-grown expertise to be shared around the world. That is changing. Several automakers are dramatically strengthening their R&D footprints outside of their home bases, with a huge emphasis on China. For example, over the past three years, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen have invested heavily in R&D in China. The moves come as European automakers pour billions of euros into developing their “in China for China” strategy in a bid to win back market share from domestic competitors. European automakers are keen to catch up in the fast-moving new-energy vehicle (battery-electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids) and software-defined vehicle sectors by leveraging China’s rapid innovation cycles, Juergen Reers, global automotive and mobility lead at Accenture, said in an email reply to questions. Chinese competitors launch refreshed models in half the time it takes most of their Western rivals. Differing consumer preferences also encourage automakers to develop “in China for China,” Warburg Research analyst Fabio Hölscher said in an email reply to questions. Many Chinese drivers use their car as an extended living room, preferring a comfortable car interior, complete with infotainment and autonomous driving and are not typically as interested in a car’s drivability as Europeans. | Automotive News ($)

China’s annual trade surplus topped $1 trillion for the first time, a sign that President Donald Trump’s high tariffs have done little to stop Chinese factories from flooding global markets with cars, electronics, machinery and other manufactured goods. The unbalanced global economy that the president set out to change earlier this year remains deeply distorted. China has responded to the highest U.S. tariffs since the 1930s by redirecting its factory output from American ports to Europe and Southeast Asia. While trade tensions between Washington and Beijing have eased in recent months, a backlash against Chinese-manufactured goods is brewing in Europe. Seven years after Trump began imposing tariffs on Chinese goods during his first term to force an overhaul of China’s economic model, the government in Beijing continues to subsidize manufacturing at the expense of Chinese consumers. The result is a structural tilt toward higher Chinese exports and comparatively anemic imports that is raising the chances of a confrontation between China and a growing number of its trading partners. | The Washington Post ($)

Mexican lawmakers gave final approval for new tariffs on Asian imports, broadly aligning with U.S. efforts to tighten trade barriers against China, as President Claudia Sheinbaum seeks to protect local industry. Senators voted Dec. 10 in favor of the bill that imposes tariffs of between 5% and 50% on more than 1,400 products from Asian nations that don’t have a trade deal with Mexico. The bill passed with 76 votes in favor, five against and 35 abstentions. The new levies will take effect starting next year, affecting products from clothing to metals and auto parts, with Chinese goods the most affected. According to the tariff legislation, Chinese cars will face among the steepest tariffs, at 50%. Mexican officials and local auto associations backed the import levies in a bid to protect national vehicle production. | Automotive News ($)

China conducted the maiden flight of the "Jiutian", considered the world’s largest drone mothership, in the northwestern province of Shaanxi. The "Jiutian" can carry up to six tons and has eight hardpoints for guided bombs, air-to-air and anti-ship missiles, and kamikaze drones, as well as more than 100 small drones designed to launch in swarms. The aircraft will need to undergo a series of operational tests before it joins the rest of the UAV fleet fielded by the People’s Liberation Army. | Bloomberg ($)China is leading research in nearly 90% of the crucial technologies that “significantly enhance, or pose risks to, a country’s national interests”, according to a technology tracker run by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) — an independent think-tank. The ASPI’s Critical Technology Tracker evaluated research on 74 current and emerging technologies this year, up from the 64 technologies it analyzed last year. China is ranked number one for research on 66 of the technologies, including nuclear energy, synthetic biology, small satellites, while the United States topped the remaining 8, including quantum computing and geoengineering. The results reflect a drastic reversal. At the beginning of this century, the United States led more than 90% of the assessed technologies, whereas China led less than 5% of them, according to the 2024 edition of the tracker. | Nature ($)

🤖

Autonomy, Robotics & AI

Driverless robotaxis are no longer a science project. Waymo, for one, operates and is expanding in Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin and Atlanta. Yet public debate often remains mired in fear. A single high‑profile incident can prompt calls to regulate the vehicles county by county. We treat every robotaxi error as a verdict on the entire technology, while the daily carnage of human driving fades into the background. That is backwards. We are grading machines against perfection and grading ourselves on a curve. | The Washington Post ($)

Replacing human drivers with computer systems comes with additional energy costs. Autonomous vehicles have been called “data centers on wheels” because they require so much computing power. The authors of a 2023 study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that the power required to run one billion driverless vehicles driving for one hour per day could consume as much energy as all existing data centers in the world. (Data center construction has expanded since the study was published.) Another big unknown is how autonomous vehicles could change the way people travel. We don’t know, for example, whether self-driving vehicles will drive more efficiently than humans, or whether people will use them to commute longer distances. This means the overall emissions outlook is uncertain, said Soumya Sudhakar, a Ph.D. candidate who led the study. When researchers at North Carolina State University modeled the effects of autonomous vehicles on traffic congestion, they found that driverless cars programmed to drive cautiously tended to increase congestion when they made up a substantial proportion of cars on the road. The finding has implications for air quality: If a handful of slow-moving robot taxis cause a traffic jam with a hundred idling gas-powered cars, any pollution benefits from the E.V.s could be outweighed by the honking gas-powered cars behind them. It doesn’t have to be this way, said Ali Hajbabaie, a professor at North Carolina State who worked on the study. The modeling found that effects could be reversed if driverless cars were programmed to drive more aggressively, or if they could communicate with one another and local traffic systems. | The New York Times ($)

Nissan is making its boldest move yet to challenge Tesla in autonomous driving. The Japanese automaker is developing a hands-off, eyes-on system modeled after Tesla’s supervised Full Self-Driving, with no geographic restrictions. Nissan expects the first vehicles with its artificial intelligence-powered, next-generation ProPilot system to initially arrive in Japan and North America. Like the Tesla system, Nissan intends to use a camera-based approach that saves the cost of using lidar. Nissan has partnered with British autonomous driving software developer Wayve to supercharge its ProPilot system. | Automotive News ($)

You can learn a surprising amount by kicking things. It’s an epistemological method you often see deployed by small children, who target furniture, pets, and their peers in the hope of answering important questions about the world. Questions like “How solid is this thing?” and “Can I knock it over?” and “If I kick it, will it kick me back?” Kicking robots is something of a pastime among roboticists. Although the activity generates anxiety for lay observers prone to worrying about the prospect of future retribution, it also happens to be an efficient method of testing a machine’s balance. In recent years, as robots have become increasingly sophisticated, their makers have gone from kicking them to shoving them, tripping them, and even hitting them with folding chairs. It may seem gratuitous, but as with Dr. Johnson’s infamous response to Bishop Berkeley’s doctrine of immaterialism, there’s something grounding about applying the boot. It helps separate what’s real from what’s not. | Harper's ($)

In 1999, a decade after inventing the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, a British computer scientist, imagined an intelligent version of his creation. In that vision, much of daily life—finding information, making plans, handling mundane tasks—would be done not by people, but by “intelligent agents”: machines able to read, interpret and act. The web has evolved dramatically since its invention but the experience has remained manual—users still type, click and browse before they buy, read or watch. Artificial intelligence (AI) may now bring Sir Tim’s dream within reach. Today’s large language models (LLMs) can summarise documents, answer questions and reason. What they cannot do for the moment is act. That, however, is changing with “agents”: software that gives LLMs tools which let them perform tasks, not just generate text. | The Economist ($)

For a decade, supply chain leaders have raced to automate processes by deploying robots, building digital twins, and designing optimized data-driven, inventory-management policies. This wave of automation has enabled faster operations, reduced errors, and led to supply chains that operate according to carefully designed sets of rules. Yet automation has a ceiling. Humans still write the rules, coordinate across functions, and make management decisions. Automated supply chains adapt by applying the given rules but cannot learn, reason, or manage the fundamental tradeoffs that define supply chain operations. In contrast, supply-chain-management systems powered by generative AI could have the capability to operate autonomously. | Harvard Business Review

🛴 Micromobility

Rad Power Bikes is on the verge of becoming the biggest casualty yet in the nation’s struggling electric bicycle sector, which saw its pandemic-era growth spurt blunted by tariffs, overproduction and slowing demand. The Seattle-based company recently notified Washington state officials that, barring a rescue deal, it could cease operations as soon as January. Like other domestic e-bike brands, Rad manufactures its products in Asia, with a network of U.S. shops responsible for a small amount of final assembly. But import duties under both the Biden and Trump administrations sent manufacturing expenses spiraling, the company has said, forcing it to absorb some costs and pass along others to consumers. Now, a spate of battery fires may serve up the final blow for Rad: Last month, federal safety regulators issued an advisory affecting nine e-bike models because their lithium-ion batteries could unexpectedly ignite and explode. The company insists its products are safe. Now Rad, which has long billed itself as the biggest e-bike brand in North America, is pushing up against the same market forces that helped push such rivals as Electric Bike into bankruptcy and Juiced Bikes out of business. Tariffs are “stressing U.S.-based companies, in some cases past the breaking point, while not seeming to have much effect on foreign marketplace sellers who are doing business as usual,” said Matt Moore, policy and general counsel of the trade group PeopleForBikes. | The Washington Post ($)

✈️ Aviation & Space

The Trump administration is seeking to boost U.S. companies as they compete for dominance in the burgeoning air-taxi sector, with an eye toward showcasing the technology at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. Through executive orders — as well as a new effort to gather data that could help fast-track adoption of these aircraft — the administration has embraced the technology as part of its transportation agenda. In September, Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy announced a pilot program aimed at exploring ways to integrate such technologies — including air taxis, formally known as electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, as well as hybrid-electric and battery-powered planes — into the nation’s aviation system. | The Washington Post ($)

Outgunned, outmanned and outspent, Ukrainian troops have kept up the fight against invading Russian forces for more than three years. They might easily have been routed were it not for Kyiv’s mass deployment of drones. Tens of thousands of the relatively cheap and expendable machines are now buzzing back and forth over the front lines, pinpointing Russian positions, gathering intelligence to anticipate impending assaults, colliding with enemy targets or dropping bombs on them. By early 2025, drones were accounting for 60% to 70% of the damage and destruction caused to Russian equipment in the war, according to UK-based think tank the Royal United Services Institute. Russia’s military has developed a rival drone force and drawn upon a traditional strength in electronic warfare to upgrade its anti-drone technology. Yet Ukraine’s highly adaptable drones continue to expose gaps and vulnerabilities in Russian defenses. In early June, drones launched from trucks hit airfields as far from the front as Siberia, damaging part of Russia’s nuclear-capable long-range bomber fleet, according to Ukrainian officials. Military commanders around the world are taking note. Taiwan is investing in mass-produced drones in anticipation of a possible conflict with China. Israel has recalibrated the Iron Dome air defense system in the war in Gaza to account for maneuverable drones — one of its biggest blind spots. European governments embarking on their largest rearmament since the Cold War have identified drones and counter-drone systems as an investment priority. The U.S. Pentagon, which pioneered sophisticated and expensive drones sourced from big arms contractors, is looking to buy cheaper ones designed by startups and deployed en masse. | Bloomberg ($)

SpaceX is moving ahead with plans for an initial public offering that would seek to raise significantly more than $30 billion. The company is targeting a valuation of about $1.5 trillion for the entire company, and is pursuing a listing as soon as mid-to-late 2026. SpaceX expects to use some of the funds raised in an IPO to develop space-based data centers, including purchasing the chips required to run them. | Bloomberg ($)

Elon Musk's stake in SpaceX could be worth more than $625 billion if the company goes public at a valuation of $1.5 trillion. Musk's total fortune would be $952 billion, up about $491 billion from its current level, according to calculations by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. An initial public offering of SpaceX could be a path for Musk to become the world's first trillionaire, in addition to his pay package at Tesla. | Bloomberg ($)

🚘 Car of the Week

Our Automotive Ventures "Car of the Week": a 1977 Ferrari 512 BB. | DriverSource

Have a great week,Steve Greenfield

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👀 In the News

📢 More than a decade ago, some of the world’s biggest and most respected consulting firms told us that by now, every new car sold in America would be fully autonomous. In hindsight, most predictions were wildly optimistic. Fast forward to today, and it distinctly feels like something is shifting: we seem to be approaching a genuine tipping point for autonomous vehicles. | CBT News

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