Intel Report: The Weekly Mobility News That Matters

BY AUTOMOTIVE VENTURES | Feb 24 2025 | VIEW ONLINE

What We're Reading:

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Automotive

As the U.S. fell in love with the space, comfort, and utility of bigger vehicles, the share of truck SUVs in the market raced up from 24% in 2014 to 45% a decade later, per data from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). That came at the expense of sedans and wagons, which used to dominate the market, but now make up only one-quarter of production. | Sherwood

Elon Musk’s role as President Trump’s cost-cutting czar and his immersion in right-wing politics appear to be diverting his attention from Tesla at a perilous moment for the electric car company. Tesla’s car sales fell 1% last year even as the global market for electric vehicles grew 25%. Mr. Musk has not addressed that underperformance, and he has offered no concrete plan to revive sales. He has also provided no details about a more affordable model Tesla says it will start producing this year. In the past, Mr. Musk spent months or years promoting vehicles before they appeared in showrooms. | The New York Times ($)

By leveraging the rabid fandom of its customers through a business model based on uber-scarcity, Ferrari, the storied Italian company is enjoying a new golden age. Following an almost tenfold increase in the stock since its initial public offering almost a decade ago, Ferrari is now worth $90 billion, making it the most valuable car company in Europe—despite delivering just 13,752 vehicles last year. “We are not—we are not—an automotive company,” said Chief Executive Officer Benedetto Vigna in a recent interview in Maranello, the city in northern Italy where Ferrari is based. “We are a luxury company that is also doing cars.” | The Wall Street Journal ($)

In a time of potential trade war and great regulatory uncertainty, automakers aren’t totally sure what to make. The roadmap beyond 2026 — whether driven by internal combustion, hybrid or electric powertrains — is hazy at best. Automaker sourcing delays and indecision have left suppliers with major questions about their own powertrain strategies and investments. It has also left big holes in their new business backlogs and less opportunity to restore margins that largely have not fully recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic era. | Automotive News ($)BMW UK is adjusting its transition to the agency model for new car sales, opting to “refine the rollout plan” and implement “slight adjustments to the timeline,” as reported by Broker News. This decision comes as the company aims to optimize processes based on insights gained from MINI’s agency model implementation in various European markets. BMW’s move follows MINI’s phased rollout of the agency model in January 2024 across ten European markets, including Germany, France, and Sweden. The UK, MINI’s largest market, alongside Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, and Ireland, is set to transition in March 2025. BMW’s core brand is expected to shift to agency in 2026, starting with Germany. However, some markets, such as the United States and Australia, will retain the traditional dealership model due to structural and regulatory differences. | BMW BlogFifteen mayors from six German states issue an urgent appeal to the European Union, warning that the country’s automotive industry is facing an existential crisis. In a letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, they argue that EU policies are exacerbating the industry’s decline, putting up to 600,000 jobs at risk and threatening the economic stability of key manufacturing regions. The intervention underscores the mounting pressure on Germany’s auto industry, which is struggling with tightening emissions regulations, rising manufacturing costs and a slower than expected transition from internal-combustion-engine to all-electric vehicles. The mayors, who represent cities with deep ties to the sector, contend that unless Brussels rethinks its approach, industrial regions across Germany could suffer lasting economic damage. Their joint proposal, titled “For a Strong Automotive Future,” outlines a seven-point action plan that calls for sweeping regulatory changes. Chief among their demands is the repeal of the EU’s planned 2035 ban on ICE vehicles, which they argue should allow for alternative low-emission technologies such as plug-in hybrid drivetrains. | Wards AutoToyota is unveiling the third generation of its hydrogen fuel cell system, a technology with improved durability and efficiency for a 20% increase in range, as the Japanese carmaker targets expanded deployment to trucks, buses and other heavy-duty applications. | Automotive News ($)Bosch, a global engineering and technology company, has announced a significant strategic realignment that underscores its commitment to hydrogen technology. The company will cease its development of solid-oxide fuel-cell technology, a decision rooted in the slower-than-expected market adoption of these systems. Instead, Bosch will prioritize hydrogen production technologies, particularly proton-exchange membrane (PEM) electrolysis components, which it aims to bring to market this year. This shift reflects Bosch’s broader expectations for hydrogen technology to be a multi-billion euro market by 2030, as well as its vision for hydrogen’s role in driving global decarbonization efforts. | Hydrogen Fuel NewsPresident Donald Trump’s administration says it is revoking federal approval of New York City’s nascent congestion pricing toll model, saying it is an unfair tax on blue-collar Americans entering Manhattan. The U.S. Department of Transportation announced Wednesday that it was rescinding the pilot program it approved less than three months ago under President Joe Biden. The program was pitched as a way to reduce planet-warming emissions from vehicles while also boosting funding for New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority. | The Washington Post ($)Nikola, the electric truck maker that was the center of a federal fraud scandal under CEO Trevor Milton, said it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and would pursue a sale of all or most of its assets. The company had been grappling with rapid cash burn and struggled to raise funds in the past few quarters. The development brings a close to a challenging journey, which included numerous leadership changes, choppy sales and a plummeting share value. | Automotive News ($)

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Electric Vehicles (EVs)

From BloombergNEF at last week'sNATTBatt conference: Legacy automakers have decreased electric vehicle (EV) sales targets.Ten new electric vehicle battery factories are on track to go online this year in the United States.This includes large plants from global battery giants such as Panasonic, Samsung and SK On, and automakers such as Ford, Honda, Hyundai, Stellantis and Toyota. If they all open in 2025, the country’s EV battery manufacturing capacity is poised to grow to 421.5 gigawatt-hours per year, an increase of 90 percent from the end of 2024, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, the United Kingdom-based research firm. But this industry is seeing some storm clouds. The Trump administration is taking steps that would reduce demand for EVs. And two battery startups—KORE Power and Freyr—recently canceled plans for new U.S. factories. | Inside Climate News

The General Services Administration (GSA), which manages buildings owned by the federal government, is planning to shut down all of its electric vehicle chargers nationwide, describing them as “not mission critical.” The agency, which manages contracts for the government’s vehicle fleets, is also looking to offload newly purchased EVs. The GSA currently operates several hundred EV chargers across the country, with approximately 8,000 plugs that are available for government-owned EVs as well as federal employees’ personally owned vehicles. The official guidance instructing federal workers to begin the process of shutting down the chargers will be announced internally next week, according to a source with knowledge of the plans. Some regional offices have been told to start taking their chargers offline, according to an email viewed by The Verge. | The Verge

If you bought an EV with a lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery, you could expect lower car payments, less fire risk and more years of use out of your car — but you wouldn’t be able to go as far on a single charge as you could with the nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) batteries commonly found in American and European electric cars. That trade-off has made LFP batteries the go-to choice for standard-range EVs in China, helping to make electric cars more affordable and limit pollution. Now, American companies are starting to build their own LFP batteries to catch up to their Chinese rivals. But there are plenty of barriers for U.S. companies that want to adopt a technology dominated by Chinese firms. Tariffs and tax credit restrictions have made it too expensive for most American automakers to import LFP batteries from China, and national security concerns have made it hard for American companies to partner with Chinese battery makers to build factories in the United States. | The Washington Post ($)BYD has revealed an updated timeline on the company’s progress on solid-state batteries, now expected to arrive in 2027. The first two years, between 2027 and 2029, will serve as a demonstration phase with limited production. In 2030, BYD expects the new battery tech to be adopted on a large scale and plans to begin mass production around then. In the initial phase, around 2027, BYD will use sulfide-based solid-state batteries that will mainly be used in higher-end vehicles. BYD said sulfide electrolytes can last longer, offer faster charging, and are more stable. | Electrek

🇨🇳 China

China’s electric vehicles are around three to five years ahead in terms of products, technology and the industrial chain, BYD CEO Wang Chuanfu said during an interview with China’s national television broadcaster. China overtook Japan in 2023 as the world’s largest auto exporter, but its electric vehicle exports face tariffs from the U.S. and the European Union, with the EU imposing a 17% tariff on BYD’s EVs. Wang said that protectionism does not work for good products. Consumers’ approval is motivating the EV maker to “overcome various difficulties,” he said. | Automotive News ($)

One look at the vehicles emerging from China’s rapidly evolving auto industry is evidence that past comforting beliefs were not only wrong but dangerously so. China’s automotive industry — which has cost efficiencies and vehicle development speeds that are the envy of the world — now poses an existential threat to less cost-efficient, slower legacy counterparts. The only way some legacy automakers are going to survive is a defense focused on working together, trimming down and shaping up. The blueprint has been collecting dust for a decade: Sergio Marchionne, the late CEO of Fiat Chrysler, in his 2015 treatise “Confessions of a Capital Junkie,” advised automakers on how to spend more efficiently. He counseled cross-company cooperation and standardization — especially on components that most consumers either don’t see or may not care about, where large volumes of shared industrialized parts promise to drive down production costs and improve quality and efficiency. Without consolidation, he said, the industry would continue to burn capital needlessly. Though legacy automakers roundly rejected Marchionne’s vision at the time, the Chinese apparently didn’t. In 1985, they created the China Automotive Technology & Research Center, which does today almost exactly what he counseled a decade ago, helping transform some of China’s automakers into modern-day juggernauts. | Automotive News ($)Ford CEO Jim Farley sees the automaker as in a race against Chinese manufacturers to make affordable, yet profitable, electric vehicles. Farley says that the key to winning is to downsize the vehicles and the price. But Ford's restructuring of its EV investments and strategy has become a repetitive mantra for Farley in recent weeks, as he tells Wall Street analysts the automaker is in good shape to develop a variety of vehicles and propulsion systems to meet customers' range requirements and wallets. Most importantly, Ford is positioned to better compete against the Chinese EV giants, especially BYD, which is known for high-quality, yet affordable, EVs. Those cars are currently barred from the U.S. While Ford deserves credit for tweaking its EV strategy to focus on smaller, more affordable EVs, some industry experts said all of the Detroit automakers should have recognized sooner that developing cheaper battery technology on smaller vehicles was the right way to gain widespread EV adoption in the United States. | Detroit Free PressAutomotive manufacturers in the USA and Europe must drastically rethink their new product development timelines to stay competitive against aggressive Chinese rivals. Chinese car makers benefit from fewer regulations, strong in-house capabilities and government-backed supply chains – advantages that enable them to speed up product design. While leading European and US OEMs like Volkswagen and Renault Group traditionally take 200-216 weeks to develop a new vehicle, Chinese competitors such as NIO operate on much shorter timelines, bringing new designs to market in about 120 weeks – nearly twice as fast. | Automotive Testing Technology International

From BloombergNEF at last week's NATTBatt conference: China dominates the battery value chain.After decades of dominating China’s market for high-performance cars with precision engineering, German automakers are losing out to Chinese rivals that have shifted the definition of a high-end car to one that is electric, smart and affordable. As a result, the German automakers that for decades commanded China’s premium car market are now seeing their sales dwindle. Among the hardest hit has been Porsche AG, which reported last month that its deliveries in China plunged 28% in 2024. Although Porsche’s sales were up in every other region around the world, the decline in China was significant enough to pull down its global deliveries for the year by 3%. | The New York Times ($)

🤖 Autonomy & Robotics

In 2025, there are two main ways you can expect to encounter self-driving technology. One is in your own new, or even relatively new, car: While Tesla has the most comprehensive and widely used driving-assistance features, lots of automakers — Ford, GM, Mercedes-Benz, and BMW to name a few — now offer features that will in some situations drive for you, with supervision and occasional intervention. The other way is in the form of a fully driverless taxi appearing at your door — in other words, in a car you don’t own. After years of testing in a few markets around the country, autonomous vehicles from companies like Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo are going to start showing up in Uber and Lyft.Both of these visions remain broadly plausible, albeit on different unpredictable timelines: autonomous cars as fleet vehicles versus autonomy as a feature in cars that owners mostly keep for themselves. It’s cars as a service versus cars as a strange, new, but semi-familiar, asset class. The two visions aren’t entirely incompatible — Lyft is already talking about building features for users to deploy their own small “fleets” of cars at some point — but with millions of semi-autonomous cars hitting the road, and early generations of fully autonomous vehicles actually driving people around at scale, they’re on course to eventually collide. | New York Magazine

David Risher from Lyft outlines the company's vision for an autonomous future. Over the long term, AVs could reduce the cost per ride by more than 60%. The combination of human drivers and autonomous vehicles unlocks the highest utilization and always available rides. Mass-market Lyft-ready AVs will exponentially grow supply (which is great for riders), while also unlocking new opportunities for earners (which is great for drivers and other individuals). People will have the option to keep driving with Lyft as they do today, or use their cars to earn money while they spend their time in other meaningful ways — meeting up with a friend, catching up on sleep, or starting another entrepreneurial venture. | LyftNorwegian robotics firm 1X unveiled its latest home robot, Neo Gamma, on Friday. The humanoid system will succeed Neo Beta, which debuted in August. Like its predecessors, the Neo Gamma is a prototype designed for testing in the home environment. Images of the robot show it performing a number of household tasks like making coffee, doing the laundry, and vacuuming. 1X says the bipedal robot is set to step outside the lab, with limited in-home testing, though the company is quick to add that the Gamma is a long way from commercial scaling and deployment. Neo Gamma represents a softer side of the humanoid industry — both figuratively and literally. 1X has built the robot to be welcoming, with a friendlier design and a suit made of knitted nylon. The latter is designed to reduce potential injuries that might arise from robot-to-human contact. | TechCrunch ($)General Motors has said its Super Cruise hands-free driver-assist technology offers an opportunity to gauge whether consumers are willing to pay for an ongoing subscription to access vehicle software. About 20% of roughly 18,000 customers with Super Cruise in their vehicles subscribed to keep using it after their three-year trial ended in 2024. GM anticipates doubling that revenue this year when trials end on 33,000 more vehicles. GM is targeting nearly $2 billion in total annual revenue from the system within five years. GM said most revenue from Super Cruise comes from adding the technology as a vehicle option, which generally costs $2,200 to $2,500. After the trial, Super Cruise costs $25 per month or $250 a year. | Automotive News ($)

✈️ Aviation & Space

Airbus is delaying plans to develop a hydrogen-powered commercial aircraft to the middle of next decade, citing slower than expected developments in technology. The delay marks a setback to the European aerospace group's ambitions to pioneer the adoption of hydrogen fuel, as aviation strives to curtail emissions, a goal strongly championed by CEO Guillaume Faury since it was first introduced five years ago. Airbus did not give a new timeline for the project, but the Force Ouvriere union said that staff had been told earlier this week that the technology was running five to 10 years behind the pace needed to support the original 2035 target. | Reuters ($)

🚘 Car of the Week

Our Automotive Ventures "Car of the Week": a 1990 Ferrari F40. | Broad Arrow Auctions

Have a great week,Steve Greenfield

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📺 In The News

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Thanks to AIM Group for the coverage of the Astana Motors / MyVentures investment in Automotive Ventures' latest fund. | AIM Group

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Thanks to Silicon Prairie News for the great writeup of Automotive Ventures portfolio company Upwell. | Silicon Prairie News

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Great to see Privacy4Cars quoted on this Consumer Reports article on "How to Clear Your Personal Data From a Car." | Consumer Reports

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Upwell is hiring an Account Executive. | Upwell

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RockED is looking to hire a Director of Partner Experience. | RockED

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On this week's "Future of Automotive" segment on CBT News, we report that Ferrari is preparing to crack down on “strange” bling requests from super-rich customers. | CBT News ($)

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🌟 Big Atom connects tire manufacturers, wholesalers, garages, collectors, and recyclers to create scalable, sustainable solutions for waste tires. | Big Atom

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