Intel Report: The Weekly Mobility News That Matters

BY AUTOMOTIVE VENTURES | May 26 2025 | VIEW ONLINE

What We're Reading:

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Automotive

The Senate on Thursday blocked California’s landmark plan to phase out the sale of new gasoline-powered vehicles, setting up a legal battle that could shape the electric car market in the United States. The 51-44 vote was a victory for the oil and gas industry and for Republicans who muscled through the vote by deploying an unusual legislative tactic that Democrats denounced as a “nuclear” option that would affect the way the Senate operates way beyond climate policy. The only Democrat to vote to block the California policy was Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, whose state is the center of the U.S. auto industry. Michigan’s other Democratic senator, Gary Peters, voted with his party. He is not seeking re-election. Five other senators — three Republicans and two Democrats — did not vote. The repeal deals a blow to California’s ambition of accelerating the transition to electric vehicles. But the consequences will ripple across the country. That’s because 11 other states intended to follow California’s plan and stop selling new gas-powered cars by 2035. Together, they account for about 40% of the U.S. auto market. | The New York Times ($)

Nissan is on the brink of collapsing. After the Honda deal fell through, it looks like another Japanese automaker is tossing it a lifeline. As Nissan struggles to stay afloat, Toyota is emerging as a potential “backer” in a new tie-up. “If we don’t take action now, the situation will only get worse,” Nissan’s President, Ivan Espinosa, said during a press conference on May 13. Facing falling sales, ballooning debt, and slumping profits, Nissan introduced a new recovery plan last week, “Re:Nissan.” The struggling automaker aims to cut costs by 250 billion yen to return to profitability by FY 2026. As part of its efforts to turn the business around, Nissan will cut 20,000 jobs by FY2027. It’s also abandoning plans to build a new EV battery facility in Japan. Seven other plants will be closed, including one in Thailand and two in Japan. According to a new report from Japan’s The Mainichi Newspapers, a Toyota executive recently reached out to Nissan about a potential partnership. The tie-up could involve Toyota acting as Nissan’s “backer” to support it while it restructures. | Electrek

S&P Global Mobility reports there are on average 20,000 parts in a vehicle when it’s torn down to its nuts and bolts. Parts may originate in anywhere from 50 to 120 countries. For example, the Ford F-150, which shares a platform and some parts with the Expedition, is exclusively assembled in the U.S. but has roughly 2,700 main billable parts, which exclude many small pieces, according to Caresoft Global, an engineering benchmarking and consulting firm. The costs of a 100% American-made vehicle are far greater and more complex than they might seem at first blush. It’s even hard to track what comes from the U.S., as automakers are required to report a combined percentage of Canadian and U.S. content in a vehicle, not just U.S. content. The material costs alone, excluding manufacturing investments, would add thousands of dollars to a vehicle’s price point, which would wipe out profits for automakers and force price increases for consumers, several automotive analysts and executives told CNBC. The people, who were given anonymity so they could speak freely, estimated it would add thousands of dollars with each step you took to get closer to 100% U.S. and Canadian parts. | CNBC

Automakers received clarity about how they can blunt at least some of the burden of U.S. tariffs on car and part imports. The U.S. Department of Commerce released long-awaited guidance on calculating non-U.S. content of vehicles, per a Federal Register notice, a critical measure for qualifying for reduced duty rates. Grasping the process is key for automakers to understand whether they can offset some of President Donald Trump’s 25% tariff on cars and auto part imports — later clarified to be only applicable to the non-U.S. content of vehicles compliant under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. The industry impact of the new guidelines could be substantial, as tariff-related costs could spike by nearly $108 billion in 2025, according to the Center for Automotive Research. | Automotive Dive

Toyota North America's chief operating officer, Mark Templin, says President Trump’s tariffs on foreign-made automobiles are “not sustainable longer term without significant price increases, and the industry already has an affordability problem.” Toyota produces slightly less than half the vehicles it sells in the U.S. outside its borders, including Mexico, Canada and Japan, the company says. Templin, speaking to media gathered here to hear about Toyota’s future product plans and test-drive vehicles, notes that the average transaction price of a new vehicle, according to Cox Automotive Inc., is nearly $50,000. “Adding a 25% tariff on all imported vehicles would put a new car out of reach for a lot of Americans.” Toyota has not yet significantly increased retail prices on its foreign-made models such as Toyota Tacoma, RAV4, Corolla and 4Runner since the tariffs were put in place. | Wards Auto

The auto industry slowdown continues. Honda on Tuesday scaled back its electric vehicle targets, citing diminishing U.S. demand. The Japanese automaker had initially planned to invest $69 billion in an electrification strategy by the end of 2031 but has reduced the figure to $48 billion. Although Honda remains committed to its long-term electrification, the roadmap faces delays. General Motors on Monday halted exports of Chevrolet Tahoe sport utility vehicles to China, and announced it will forgo plans to export other high-end models there. GM began shipping the America-made Tahoes to China last year, a spokesman said, under a scheme called the Durant Guild, named after G.M founder, Billy Durant. “Due to significant changes to economic conditions, we have decided to restructure the Durant Guild and correspondingly optimize G.M. China’s operations,” the automaker said in a statement. Yet, it’s worth noting, Durant exports account for less than 0.1 percent of the 443,000 vehicles that G.M. manufactures and sells in China. | Quartz ($)

When selling high-end cars, companies have tended to specialize in either luxury collectibles or high-volume SUVs. Porsche’s attempt to do both risks an unsolvable contradiction. Shares in the German automaker, battered in April, have been among the big winners from the recent tariff de-escalation, and are now trading at a valuation similar to where they were after the company’s 2023 initial public offering. But the company has driven itself into an uncomfortable strategic place and might struggle to get out of it. Porsche is one of the most iconic car brands in the world. The Porsche 911, launched in 1964 and legendary for its sloping roofline and pronounced rear haunches, commands a status similar to the Ferrari F40 or the Lamborghini Miura. Why then is Porsche’s stock down 21% so far this year, while Ferrari’s is up 8%? | The Wall Street Journal ($)

Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe notes that the Rivian R2’s body harness has been significantly reduced in size, weight, and connections to enable lower assembly costs and an overall more environmentally friendly build. | Electrek

Toyota, Honda and General Motors all raised their scores while Nissan, Ford and Stellantis again declined in Plante Moran’s 25th annual North American Automotive OEM-Supplier Working Relations Index (WRI) Study that evaluates relations between the Detroit Three automakers and their three leading Japanese counterparts. | PR Newswire

Equipping vehicles with driver-assist technology has an unintended consequence — an increase in the cost of insurance and auto repairs. “It’s almost becoming too expensive to fix the car,” said Hami Ebrahimi, chief commercial officer at Caliber Collision. Insurance and repair industry experts are urging automakers to consider how the complexity of driver-assist systems has impacted the cost of ownership for motorists at a time when affordability is a widespread concern. The total cost to own and operate a new vehicle is $12,297 per year, according to a September study done by motoring organization AAA, an increase of $115 from the previous year. Rising insurance rates are one factor. The average cost of auto insurance is expected to increase for the seventh consecutive year in the U.S. and reach a record high of $2,101, according to LendingTree subsidiary ValuePenguin. Features like automatic emergency braking have helped reduce claims frequency by 25% over the past five years, but a 60% increase in claims costs has offset any financial savings in that period, according to Thatcham Research, a U.K. nonprofit that conducts automotive risk assessments. | Automotive News ($)

Nikola Motors’s hydrogen trucks are officially up for auction, one of the company’s last big steps in unloading all of its assets after filing for bankruptcy in February. Auction house Gordon Brothers reached an agreement with Nikola in Delaware bankruptcy court to purchase the hydrogen trucking assets late last week. Over the weekend, Gordon Brothers published the listing and a brochure detailing everything for sale. The auction house says it has around $114 million worth of hydrogen trucks, raw material, and sub-assemblies. That includes 103 finished hydrogen fuel cell-powered trucks, along with spare batteries, tires, and other components. Gordon Brothers is also auctioning off Nikola’s hydrogen storage, refueling, and testing equipment, some of which is still brand new. | TechCrunch ($)

Elon Musk has confirmed he will remain Tesla’s Chief Executive for at least the next five years, stating his commitment during a video appearance at the Qatar Economic Forum on May 20. | Automotive World

Elon Musk is interviewed by Mishal Husain at Bloomberg. While the entire interview is worth reading, at the end he's asked if 2025 will be pivotal year in his life. His response: "Well, every year has been somewhat pivotal, and this one’s no different. So I mean, in terms of interesting things that probably are accomplished this year: getting Starship to be fully reusable so that we catch both the booster and the ship, which would be the first fully reusable orbital rocket ever in history, which would be a profound breakthrough, the essential breakthrough necessary to make life multiplanetary — and ultimately it’ll become a space-faring civilization. We’ve got Neuralink, which has now helped five patients restore capability using the telepathy implant, where they’re able to control a computer simply by thinking. We’ll be doing our first patient to restore sight with a Blindsight implant, which is the end of this year, early next. In fact, that first patient might be in the UAE since we have a relationship with the UAE and the Cleveland Clinic there. I think what’s running on the AI front, we are close to what you might call AGI, or digital superintelligence. I think we are seeing an explosion in digital superintelligence here. And then we’ve got Tesla. We’ll be launching unsupervised autonomy, basically self-driving cars with no one in them, in Austin next month." | Bloomberg ($)

⚡️ EVs

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has published their "Global EV Outlook 2025". | iea

Ford is pulling back more on its electric vehicle ambitions, letting rival Nissan Motor Corporation use part of its flagship U.S. battery plant, according to people familiar with the plan. Ford made a big bet on electric vehicles in 2021, announcing two new battery plants in Kentucky as part of a bigger $7 billion investment. The plants are a joint venture with Korean battery maker SK On. Today, one of the Kentucky factories is sitting unused, and only part of the other factory is producing batteries for Ford. The active plant will now also make Nissan batteries, according to the people. The plan marks the latest retrenchment by the U.S. auto giant, which bet aggressively on EV demand that hasn’t materialized. The dual pressures of weak EV demand and higher costs are forcing hard choices from carmakers, who warn they face multibillion-dollar profit hits from tariff-related expenses.Earlier this month, Ford suspended its financial guidance for the year, citing tariff uncertainty. The automaker lost $5 billion on its EV business in 2024 and had projected in February another $5 billion loss this year. | The Wall Street Journal ($)

The world’s largest battery maker, China's Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited (CATL), powers a third of the world’s electric vehicles (EVs), and a similar share of energy-storage systems for grids. The meteoric rise of the company, founded in 2011, has lifted the economic output of Ningde, the hometown of its boss, Robin Zeng, above that of Estonia or Uganda. On May 20th CATL raised almost $5bn in a secondary listing in Hong Kong, making it the largest share offering so far this year. Investors raced to get their hands on the stock, sending its price up by 16%. The sum is a small fraction of the $160bn market capitalization of the firm, which first listed its shares in Shenzhen in 2018. But the Hong Kong offering is a clear statement of intent: not satisfied with dominance at home, China’s battery behemoth plans to spread across the globe. CATL is already by far the largest firm in its industry. Its production volume is more than double that of BYD, its closest competitor, which has the advantage of being the world’s biggest maker of EVs. CATL’s 11 manufacturing sites across China cover nearly 20m square metres between them. The company, which employs over 100,000 people, also owns lithium mines and an offshore wind farm. | The Economist ($)

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China

Legacy automakers aren't debating whether or not Chinese EVs will make it to U.S. soil. Despite the attempts to implement protectionist measures (like tariffs) to keep China's biggest automakers at bay, the vast majority have just accepted Chinese cars as an inevitable competitor on their home turf. The notion comes straight from Kerrigan Advisors' 2025 OEM Survey, a study that polls some of the top talent in automotive executive leadership on industry trends. According to respondents, 76% of automakers believe that Chinese carmakers will eventually begin selling vehicles in America. And perhaps equally as concerning, at least for legacy automakers, is that 70% say they're concerned about the financial implications it will bring. | Inside EVs

China already leads global production in multiple industries — steel, aluminum, shipbuilding, batteries, solar power, electric vehicles, wind turbines, drones, 5G equipment, consumer electronics, active pharmaceutical ingredients and bullet trains. It is projected to account for 45% — nearly half — of global manufacturing by 2030. Beijing is also laser-focused on winning the future: In March it announced a $138 billion national venture capital fund that will make long-term investments in cutting-edge technologies such as quantum computing and robotics, and increased its budget for public research and development. | The New York Times ($)

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Autonomy & Robotics

The Brookings Institution reports on how autonomous vehicles (AVs) could change cities: As autonomous vehicles get introduced to more cities across the country, urban planners have the opportunity to make safer, faster, and cleaner communities. Research shows that autonomous vehicles are safer than human drivers, yet most Americans don’t want to use the technology and worry about its security. Integrating autonomous vehicles can create better spaces for pedestrians, make longer commutes more accessible, and accelerate the decline in car ownership. | Brookings

Waymo has reached 10 million trips, doubling in the past five months. The 10 million figure includes rides in Austin, Los Angeles, San Francisco and the Phoenix area. Waymo is delivering more than 250,000 paid robotaxi rides a week. On Monday, Waymo said it had won approval to expand its autonomous ride-hailing service to more parts of the San Francisco Bay Area, including San Jose. | CNBC

Tesla will launch its long-promised robotaxi service in Austin next month because it has to. The countdown began just over a year ago when news broke that the company had abandoned its cheap electric vehicle project and Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk responded by announcing a robotaxi unveiling, scheduled for August. Delayed to October, that event was a flop, with the vehicles confined to a studio lot and guests heckling Musk on when the real robotaxis would appear. With Tesla’s core EV business having slumped since then, it is Musk’s repeated promises of a June rollout that have pushed the stock back up to a ridiculously high multiple and trillion-dollar valuation. Missing another deadline is not an option. But far from Musk’s grand vision of self-driving Teslas running around everywhere, what we will likely get in Austin is a minimum viable robotaxi. For Tesla diehards, it will nonetheless be enough to bolster their faith — even as it reveals the risks to their favorite company’s entire autonomy project. | Bloomberg ($)

The first test of Tesla’s long-promised robotaxi service in Austin, Texas next month will initially be limited to specific areas the company deems “the safest,” CEO Elon Musk told CNBC in an interview Tuesday. Tesla’s cars are “not going to take intersections unless we are highly confident [they’re] going to do well with that intersection, or it’ll just take a route around that intersection,” Musk said. “We’re going to be extremely paranoid about the deployment, as we should be. It would be foolish not to be.” Using a geofence represents a major strategy shift for Musk, who spent years claiming his company would be able to create a general-purpose self-driving solution that could be dropped in to any location and work without human supervision. (Geofence is a jargon term used in the autonomous vehicle industry that means a vehicle is restricted to a certain area.) Musk has claimed Tesla will attempt to launch similar trials for its robotaxi service in California and possibly other states later this year. As part of Tesla’s “paranoid” approach, Musk said Tuesday the company will have employees remotely monitor the initial fleet of around 10 Model Y SUVs equipped with the “unsupervised” version of its Full Self-Driving software. Musk also claimed those vehicles will be driving without any safety operator inside. | TechCrunch ($)

Tesla’s head of AI and self-driving, Ashok Elluswamy, admitted that the automaker’s autonomous program is lagging “a couple years” behind Waymo, but he believes the cost advantage will enable it to scale faster. When asked about the difference between Tesla and Waymo on self-driving, Elluswamy says that Tesla’s approach is much cheaper. The host of the interview asked if he means it is less expensive but “equal quality” and the Tesla VP answers: "Equal quality. Technically, Waymo is already performing. We are maybe lagging by a couple years." This should be obvious to anyone following closely since Tesla has yet to be able to do what Waymo has been doing for years: provide customers with level 4 autonomous driving rides. Tesla has been limited to a level 2 advanced driver assist system (ADAS), which requires constant supervision from the driver. Nonetheless, it is a rare admission from Tesla as its CEO, Elon Musk, has been minimizing Waymo’s achievements for years and claimed that he doesn’t see anyone close to Tesla on autonomy. | Electrek

Amazon’s autonomous vehicle unit Zoox is about to start testing its self-driving vehicles in Atlanta, Georgia, a precursor to eventually offering public rides in the city. Zoox has completed the “initial mapping phase” in Atlanta and will begin autonomous driving later this summer. Atlanta is the seventh city in the U.S. where Zoox is testing its vehicles. The company announced its testing plans just one day after Waymo — along with partner Uber — said it would start offering rides in its own robotaxis to early access users in Atlanta ahead of a larger public launch this summer. Zoox is taking a methodical approach to the rollout of its promised robotaxi service. In Atlanta, as in other cities, the company used modified Toyota Highlanders to record things like the geometry of each road and the location of traffic lights. It’s only after those steps that Zoox can start testing its autonomous vehicle technology in an area. | TechCrunch ($)

Automakers and other manufacturers have spent decades infusing automation into their factories and attempting to minimize their reliance on human workers. Now, a new generation of robots has grown in sophistication. They’re helping manufacturers inch closer to the elusive goal of running “dark factories,” facilities that require few or no humans in the production process. Far from the fenced-off, fixed-location robots of the past, new breeds of autonomous mobile robots, or AMRs, are now roaming factory floors. They’re joined by collaborative robots, or cobots, designed to share space and work alongside humans. | Automotive News ($)

Tesla plans to first employ the Optimus, its new humanoid robot, in its factories, expanding to outside companies as early as next year. CEO Elon Musk said Tesla could make 50,000 Optimus robots in 2026, scaling to 1 million per year by the end of the decade. “Ultimately, I think we’ll be making tens of millions of robots per year,” Musk said. “It’s like serious volume. Maybe 100 million robots a year.” He said Tesla employees would get first access to the bots for home use. Some Wall Street analysts forecast that humanoid robot production will eventually overtake the legacy auto industry. “Over the long term, we project that the market for humanoid robots to be materially larger than the global auto industry,” Morgan Stanley said in an April research note. The investment firm is bullish on Tesla stock. “Our estimate for $4.7 trillion in global humanoid sales by 2050 is nearly double the aggregate revenues of the 20 largest global auto OEMs in 2024, a figure that could very well shrink,” the bank said. | Automotive News ($)

Employers spent an average of $45.29 per hour on total compensation for workers in the manufacturing sector in 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. At scale, the projected labor cost for humanoids is roughly $1.29 per hour, according to venture capital firm UP.Partners. | Automotive News ($)

✈️ Aviation & Space

The jostling is taking place in low Earth orbit (LEO), one of the most contested regions of space, located up to 2,000km above the Earth. Ten years ago, this was the preserve of Earth observation, science and military satellites, and satellite phone providers, with around 1,300 active spacecraft in orbit. Today, thanks to SpaceX’s reusable Falcon rockets, there are more than 11,000 active satellites, supporting everything from weather tracking to broadband. Experts forecast that the number of satellites in LEO will balloon to as many as 100,000 over the next decade as companies, governments and militaries rush to exploit the potential of the new space frontier. But it is the world’s voracious appetite for connectivity that is driving the boom in the LEO market. Being nearer to Earth, LEO systems offer lower latency — the time it takes for a signal to travel from Earth to satellite and back again — than geostationary satellites, traditionally used for broadcasting, which orbit much higher at altitudes of about 36,000km. | Financial Times ($)

🚘 Car of the Week

Our Automotive Ventures "Car of the Week": a 1964 Ferrari 250 GT Berlinetta Lusso. | Broad Arrow

Have a great week,Steve Greenfield

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Steve caught up with Dan Carrigan to discuss automotive industry trends, tariffs, and technologies on VADA Live.

Last stop before flying back home from Bologna: the Ducati factory and museum!

📺 In The News

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Automotive Ventures portfolio company SparkCharge raised a $15.5 million in a Series A-1 round. Alongside the equity round, SparkCharge also secured a $15 million venture loan. | TechCrunch

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Thanks to Paul Hughes from Autobody News for the great article on Automotive Ventures portfolio company Kinetic. | Autobody News

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We're very excited to welcome Dr. Amit Monga as the new President of Automotive Ventures portfolio company EECOMOBILITY. | GlobeNewswire

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AIM Group summarizes Steve's presentation at AutosBuzz in Berlin. | AIM Group

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Steve was the keynote speaker at the autopromotec Conference in Bologna. | autopromotec

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On this week's "Future of Automotive" segment on CBT News, we discuss the probability of Chinese automakers entering the U.S. market. | CBT News ($)

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