Intel Report: The Weekly Mobility News That Matters

BY AUTOMOTIVE VENTURES | June 23 2025 | VIEW ONLINE

What We're Reading:

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Automotive

Car buyers will bear the brunt of the $30 billion cost of President Donald Trump’s tariffs, driving up already high U.S. auto prices by almost $2,000 per vehicle, according to consultant AlixPartners. The firm expects auto companies to pass along 80% of the cost of Trump’s tariffs — which it calculates as $1,760 more per car. AlixPartners, as part of its annual global automotive outlook, also cautioned that the administration’s anti-electric vehicle policies risk relegating American automakers to bit players in the global EV market. “These tariffs bring a big wall of cost,” Mark Wakefield, global auto market lead for AlixPartners, told reporters in an online briefing. We see “consumers taking the majority of the hit.” | Automotive News ($)

Automakers were mis-sold the direct-sales ‘agency’ model by consultant firms which oversimplified the challenges, the head of dealer consultant ICDP Steve Young said. Stellantis, Mercedes-Benz AG, BMW’s MINI brand and Volvo Cars were among companies that planned to use the agency model in European markets where automakers take direct control of sales transactions and prices, while dealers focus on deliveries and servicing. Automakers are canceling or reviewing their plans because of obstacles such as dealer opposition and IT glitches. The agency sales model was pitched as an alternative to the wholesale method of selling cars to independent distributors. The benefits of selling direct to customers include establishing a closer connection to customers and a tighter control of pricing but the system failed to take into account the realities of selling cars, Young said. | Automotive News ($)

Have high costs ended America's love affair with the car? Light-vehicle sales have fallen by about 1.7 million a year since 2016, reflecting the number of younger consumers declining the pleasures of ownership. The average age of passenger cars on the road is currently 14.5 years, according to S&P Global’s data. According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the total cost to own and operate an automobile averaged $12,296 in 2024, roughly 30% higher than a decade ago. Driving the numbers are new-vehicle prices, now averaging $48,883, according to Cox Automotive Inc.’s latest data. With middle-income buyers priced out of new cars, demand for used cars has strengthened, now averaging around $25,500. Lexis Nexis Risk Solutions’ annual report found average insurance costs rose 10% in 2024, after soaring 15% in 2023. Full-coverage policies now average $2,680 annually, up 12% from June 2024, says Bankrate. In 2024, the AAA calculated the average new vehicle loses $4,680 in value every year, over the first five years. Edmunds reported that in the last quarter 2024, one in four consumers were underwater on a car loan—meaning that they owed more than the vehicle’s market value. | The Wall Street Journal ($)

Elon Musk’s pivot to robots isn’t just shifting Tesla’s business model. It is changing its DNA. The electric car maker was founded almost 22 years ago on a simple, if not radical, idea: Electric vehicles were possible not with some sort of breakthrough in batteries but rather through integrating proven technologies in a new way. Today, Tesla is taking an alternate route. It is betting a still-nascent artificial intelligence technology can remake the company, enabling, perhaps, one million driverless cars by the end of next year. Musk’s gamble that Tesla can be a robot company rather than one dependent on cars driven by people has helped keep the company’s market value at a level befitting a tech titan rather than an automaker. | The Wall Street Journal ($)

The Economist partnered with CultureX to measure corporate culture across 900 firms in 19 industries by compiling anonymous reviews submitted by employees to Glassdoor, a workplace-review website. | The Economist ($)

Polls show more New Yorkers now support congestion pricing than oppose it. A few months ago, it saw staunch opposition. Congestion pricing came into effect in Manhattan on January 5th, just two weeks before Donald Trump became president. So far it has been almost miraculous in its effects. Traffic is down by about 10%, leading to substantially faster journeys, especially at the pinch-points of bridges and tunnels. Car-noise complaints are down by 70%. Buses are travelling so much faster that their drivers are having to stop and wait to keep to their schedules. The congestion charge is raising around $50m each month to update the subway and other public-transport systems, and ridership is up sharply. Broadway attendance is rising, not falling, as some feared. New Yorkers may be surprised by how well it is all working. They shouldn’t be. London’s congestion charge, introduced over 20 years ago, had similar effects there. What they should be astonished by is the fact that it took almost half a century to be implemented. The principle of congestion pricing was first outlined by an economist at New York’s Columbia University, William Vickrey, in the 1960s. A version, reintroducing bridge tolls, almost went into effect in the 1970s before Congress killed it. | The Economist ($)

⚡️ EVs

BloombergNEF's 2025 Electric Vehicle Outlook is BNEF’s annual flagship report looking at how electrification and other changes will impact road transport in the years ahead. | BNEF

President Donald Trump’s efforts to unravel policies supporting electric vehicles threatens to turn the U.S. into a laggard for years to come, according to a new report. BloombergNEF reduced both its near- and long-term EV outlook for the first time, cutting 14 million battery-powered cars from its sales projections through 2030 due to the US rollback. The researcher now sees the country trailing not only China and Europe, but also the global average adoption rate until 2040. | Bloomberg ($)

Not so long ago, it seemed that the heyday of hybrids had come and gone. As Tesla and the potential of electric vehicles grabbed the imaginations of drivers and automakers, hybrids appeared destined to be remembered as an interim step on the way toward a fully electric, emissions-free future. Just four years ago, for example, General Motors set a goal of ending production of all internal combustion models by 2035, and all but eliminated hybrids from its future product plans. Other manufacturers also bet heavily on electric vehicles and scaled their hybrid plans. But then a funny thing happened. Car shoppers balked at the high prices of fully electric models and the challenges of charging them. In the last few years, sales of electric vehicles have grown at a much slower rate than automakers once expected. And hybrids have stepped in to fill the gap, accounting for a large and growing share of new car sales. In the first three months of this year, hybrids — including cars that can and cannot be plugged in — made up about 14 percent of all light vehicles sold in the United States, according to the Department of Energy. That was around twice the market share of fully electric vehicles in that period. Republican legislation working its way through Congress could further lift sales of hybrids. | The New York Times ($)

Nearly 60% of U.S. consumers who purchased a new electric vehicle in the first quarter leased it, up significantly from 36% from a year ago, according to Experian. For comparison, only 25% of all new-car buyers leased their vehicle in the same time period. About 31% of new-EV buyers financed their purchase and just over 10% paid cash. The high EV leasing rate indicates a trend building since the tax credits came into effect in the U.S. and made monthly EV lease payments attractive to many consumers. | Automotive News ($)

According to Geotab, a United Kingdom company providing vehicle telematics, most EV batteries can last 20 years with minimal annual degradation. That’s six years more than the average car age in the United States. Over this timespan, EV batteries suffer from about 1.8% degradation per year. This means that you’ll lose 1.8% of the original range every year. After 20 years, if nothing goes catastrophically wrong, you can still enjoy 64% of an EV’s original range. The data comes from analyzing over 10,000 EVs. | Inside EVs

Over the past three years, companies have invested tens of billions of dollars toward making electric vehicles in the United States, buoyed by tax incentives aimed at helping American businesses compete with China. Now, those companies are facing a strange problem: too much manufacturing capacity, not enough demand. As sales of electric vehicles slow and congressional Republicans take aim at EV tax credits and incentives, the United States is slated to have more battery and EV manufacturing than it needs, according to a report released Wednesday by the Rhodium Group, a research firm. That could leave factories — many of which are already operating or under construction — stranded if car sales continue to slump. | The Washington Post ($)

There is early evidence that efforts to improve electric vehicle charging are paying off. In recent years, J.D. Power surveys showed that about 20% of attempts to charge electric vehicles at all public stations ended in failure because of faulty chargers, long lines or payment glitches. But in the first three months of 2025, overall failure rates fell to 16%, the biggest improvement since the surveys began in 2021. | The New York Times ($)To avoid collisions, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) says an EV should be audible from 16 feet away or more, depending on its speed. Before regulators required electric and hybrid cars to play warning noises, studies in the United States and Britain found EVs and hybrids were more likely than gas-powered cars to hit cyclists and pedestrians. Today, all new EVs and hybrids sold in the U.S. must play a sound at slow speeds. (Above about 20 mph, wind resistance and tire friction do the job of making them as noisy as gas-powered cars.) Regulators require EV sounds to rise in pitch as the car speeds up and fall as the car slows down — like a gas-powered engine. The sounds also have to use a mix of frequencies that are spread out on the spectrum, to ensure they can be heard amid a variety of possible street noises. | The Washington Post ($)

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China

Brazil has emerged as a flashpoint in the China auto industry's torrid global expansion. A growing surplus of new cars being pumped out of Chinese factories has led to an export boom over the past five years, helping China pass Japan in 2023 to become the world’s top vehicle exporter. Much of this excess is being shipped overseas, to markets like Europe, Southeast Asia and Latin America. Brazil offers an enticing destination due to its large market - it is the sixth-largest car market by volume - where established players including Volkswagen, General Motors and Stellantis have been building cars domestically for decades. The Brazilian government has set policies aimed at growing sales of electric and plug-in hybrid cars, BYD’s specialty. Meanwhile, BYD’s path for growth elsewhere has narrowed, both domestically and overseas. At home, the company is mired in a bruising price war that has seen it slash the price of its entry-level Seagull to below $10,000, squeezing profit margins. Abroad, governments have erected stiff trade barriers for Chinese cars, including a 45.3% duty in Europe and a tariff of more than 100% in the United States, along with a ban on Chinese software in cars. For years, Brazilian officials have taken steps to protect the market from unfettered access by Chinese car companies. But it has been slower to react and less aggressive than other nations. | Reuters ($)

China’s long-running auto price war is overshadowing a deeper problem for the nation’s car industry: persistent overcapacity. Despite a slight uptick in recent years, more than half of production capacity lay idle in 2024. In an industry capable of making 55.5 million vehicles annually, overall capacity utilization last year was just 49.5%, data compiled by Shanghai-based Gasgoo Automotive Research Institute show. The low capacity utilization suggests that the price war is set to intensify, pressuring profit margins as manufacturers compete for a slice of the hyper-competitve market. It could also hasten industry consolidation, as smaller, weaker companies go out of business or are swallowed by larger competitors. Government officials are trying to minimize the fallout, earlier this month chiding automakers for “rat race competition” and summoning heads of major auto brands to Beijing. | Automotive News ($)

The picture for foreign automakers in China doesn’t get any rosier with new research from consultant AlixPartners showing local brands’ dominance will climb to as high as 76% by 2030 as the market share of Japanese, European and U.S. companies dwindles. And despite persistent competitive pressures, the nation’s aggressive car price war is expected to evolve, rather than abate. | Automotive News ($)

Ford is struggling with supplies of rare earth magnets, the automaker's CEO Jim Farley told Bloomberg. China, which controls more than 90% of global rare earth processing capacity, imposed new export licensing rules in April, tightening supply to Western manufacturers of everything from cars and fighter jets to household appliances. Automakers, especially those focused on EVs, are among the largest industrial consumers of rare earth materials. "It's day to day," Farley said. "We have had to shut down factories. It's hand-to-mouth right now." The company had previously shut down production of its Explorer SUV at its Chicago plant for a week in May because of a rare-earth shortage. | Detroit Free Press

When the European Union last year imposed steep tariffs on electric cars made in China, it looked like a serious setback for BYD and other Chinese automakers. But the Chinese companies were not so easily discouraged. They pivoted to hybrids or gasoline-powered cars that were exempt from tariffs. They began importing less-expensive models. And they concentrated on countries like Italy and Spain, where German and French carmakers are less entrenched than in Northern Europe. Despite the tariffs, which are as high as 35% for certain companies, Chinese brands doubled their share of the European car market in April from a year earlier, according to registration data compiled by JATO Dynamics, a research firm. It was a potent demonstration of the flexibility and manufacturing prowess of BYD, GEELY, CHERY, SAIC and other Chinese manufacturers. | The New York Times ($)Even as the current U.S. administration doubles down on coal, most wealthy countries are curbing their consumption of it — in fact U.S. coal consumption has dropped significantly over the past decade. Several, including the UK, Austria and Portugal, have quit coal entirely. But these reductions are more than offset by the surge in coal use among the world’s largest consumers, China and India. | Financial Times ($)

Flying cars are only just beginning to take off, but drone deliveries are already flying high in parts of China. Most of the office workers filing out of skyscrapers in Shenzhen on a recent spring day to queue at a kiosk run by Meituan, a food-delivery app, looked blasé. Only one, Huang Jieling, appeared surprised to discover that her lunch would be delivered by a drone. Meals are dispensed through the front of the kiosk, after customers identify themselves by entering the last four digits of their mobile phone number, even as a steady stream of drones drops off bubble tea, noodle soup and chicken rice through a hatch in the kiosk’s roof. “I didn’t think takeout, which is very cheap, would be delivered by drones,” Ms Huang, a 24-year-old e-commerce worker, admitted. Delivery drones and flying cars are mainly science fiction in the rest of the world, although in some places they have advanced to the realm of prototypes and trials. Walmart, a pioneer, has made 150,000 deliveries by drone in America since 2021. In China, however, these technologies are becoming an everyday reality. The government is vigorously promoting them as part of its ambition to develop a “low-altitude economy”. By that it means a proliferation of airborne devices whizzing around at less than 1,000 meters (far lower than ordinary commercial planes), offering a dizzying array of services. The intention is to foster a futuristic industry for China to dominate by refining the approach that has already turned the country into an electric vehicle (EV) juggernaut. | The Economist ($)

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Autonomy, Robotics & AI

Tesla has started giving rides in driverless Model Y SUVs in Austin, a decade after CEO Elon Musk began making — and breaking — myriad promises about his company’s ability to launch such a service. The rollout will become the first big test of Musk’s belief that it’s possible to safely deploy fully autonomous vehicles using just cameras and end-to-end AI – an approach that differs from other players in the space like Waymo. On Sunday, numerous videos shared on social media as well as sources in the city, confirmed what Musk has been teasing for months: that the rides are finally happening, at a surely coincidental flat fee of $4.20 per ride. | TechCrunch ($)

Waymo is pushing to deploy driverless vehicles in prized but challenging New York City. The white, camera-laden cars will return to the city next month for the first time since 2021, when Waymo conducted preliminary mapping in part of Manhattan, to do more mapping as well as testing, the company said Wednesday. But humans, not robots, will drive the cars. New York state law doesn’t allow for vehicles to operate without a person at the wheel. Waymo said it is pushing for changes to the law. Meanwhile, the company has applied for a New York City permit that would allow its vehicles to drive autonomously in Manhattan with specialists in the driver’s seats. If Waymo’s efforts succeed, its driverless technology would be the first to navigate New York City’s sometimes-labyrinthine streets. | The Wall Street Journal ($)

Waymo has updated their "Safety Impact" report, which shows how many fewer crashes Waymo had (regardless of who was at fault) compared to human drivers with the average benchmark crash rate if they were to drive the same distance in the areas they operate. | Waymo

Volkswagen Group’s mobility company, MOIA, unveiled the ID Buzz AD self-driving electric minivan, touting it as the world’s first Level 4 vehicle that is ready for series production. The ID Buzz AD was adapted from the ID Buzz that is on sale for use by ride-hailing companies. The self-driving shuttle is a “turnkey solution for fully autonomous mobility services,” Moia said in a statement June 17. The ID Buzz AD enables mobility providers to integrate autonomous on-demand services into their offerings. The production model will begin rolling off assembly lines at the automaker’s factory in Hanover, Germany, in 2026. | Automotive News ($)

ARK Investment Management believes that Tesla's robotaxi platform will mark a fundamental shift in the company's business model, from one-time hardware sales to recurring revenue with software-like margins. Ark's research suggests that Tesla’s robotaxi platform could account for ~90% of its enterprise value in 2029. Its vertically integrated manufacturing and vision-only approach to autonomy could result in a major cost advantage relative to competitors, allowing Tesla to scale more quickly and efficiently. Their research suggests that, at scale, without depending on other automakers, LiDAR, and other unnecessary hardware, Tesla’s cost per mile could be ~30–40% lower than Waymo’s, as shown below. | ARK Investment Management

The world is on fire, and that’s giving some of the richest men the audacity of hope. Hope that their billions, brains and brashness can usher in a new world filled with robot cars, killer drones and solar power. In other words: hard tech. These sci-fi dreams—made popular by Elon Musk—have been building for some time. But they have become harder to ignore in the past month, with gambits from the likes of Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, Palmer Luckey and Daniel Ek. They’re all pouring money into efforts that a few years ago would have seemed like the stuff of science fiction but are now becoming very real. Their collective interest is giving hard tech a moment, not unlike the rush of investment and entrepreneurs to software with the debut of the iPhone and the rise of mobile computing. The enthusiasm for hard tech is fueled, in large part, by breakthroughs in artificial intelligence. It holds the eventual promise of greater autonomy for physical machines and new advances in science. Today’s hard-tech moment, which is intertwined with the AI boom, presents the opportunity to change entrenched industries: defense, transportation, energy production and more. And with that, possibly create new winners. | The Wall Street Journal ($)

⚓️ Marine

The Trump administration is tacking on new, costly fees to special, foreign-made ships that transport cars in and out of American ports. Hundreds of thousands of vehicles a year are imported and exported on ships that resemble floating parking garages. These carriers, known as roll-on, roll-off vessels, or ro-ros, are primarily manufactured in China, Japan and South Korea. Some can hold up to 9,000 vehicles. The administration wants to revive shipbuilding in the United States and dent China’s position as the world’s dominant shipbuilder. To do that, it introduced rules this year that require Chinese-built and Chinese-owned ships to pay high fees when they visit U.S. ports. However, the rules go much further with ro-ros, forcing all foreign-built vehicle carriers to pay the fees, not just those built in China, regardless of whether they’re bringing vehicles into the country or shipping them out. The companies that operate and use the carriers say the rules will burden them with new costs and add as much as $300 to the price of a car. They also say they are confused by the stricter approach for such an essential part of the supply chain. | The New York Times ($)

✈️ Aviation & Space

ARK Investment Management's SpaceX model yields an expected enterprise value in 2030 of ~$2.5 trillion. | ARK Investment Management

🌡️ Climate

The Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA), the western world’s energy forecasting authority, declared in 2020 that global “coal demand peaked in 2013”. China, which consumes about half the world’s coal, “is no longer a major source of demand growth”, the IEA stated, noting that global climate policies have contributed to coal’s “loss of momentum”. Unfortunately for the plan to fend off climate change, those statements could not have been more wrong. Ten years after the signing of the Paris accord, demand for coal is still growing — and shows no signs of peaking. | Financial Times ($)

🚘 Car of the Week

Our Automotive Ventures "Car of the Week": the new Chevrolet Corvette ZR1X. Decades from now, I believe we will look back at this era as the zenith of the automobile. We may be reaching "Peak Car." | The Drive

Have a great week,Steve Greenfield

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📺 In The News

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Steve caught up with Mary Corey at Automotive News to discuss whether Waymo, Uber, Lyft or Tesla are best positioned to win the Robotaxi Wars. | Automotive News ($)

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Aaron Bestick from Kinetic discusses empowering the industry to approach ADAS repairs with confidence and clarity. Repair shops that invest in identification systems, training, and OEM‑approved calibration protocols elevate safety and become more competitive. Insurers that embrace data‑driven workflows build confidence and reduce costs. Together, they reinforce trust, reduce liability, and unlock new revenue opportunities. | Fender Bender

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The Virginia Automobile Dealers Association (VADA) provides a great recap of Steve's keynote presentation earlier this month. | VADA

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On this week's "Future of Automotive" segment on CBT News, we’re taking a look at a promise that once captivated Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and the American public: fully autonomous vehicles. | CBT News ($)

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