BY AUTOMOTIVE VENTURES | Nov 24 2025 | VIEW ONLINE

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Automotive

Toyota’s secret to navigating industry upheaval isn’t advanced technology or bold sales forecasts. It’s an old-fashioned commitment to listening to dealers and customer needs. While competitors dove headlong into electric vehicles based on market predictions and policy trends, Toyota Motor Corp. CEO Koji Sato says the world’s largest automaker stayed grounded in real consumer demand through its decentralized regional management structure. The result: record sales and production levels even as rivals such as Honda Motor Co. book massive EV-related losses. Moreover, Toyota’s exports to the U.S. are soaring, thanks to its growing stable of hybrid vehicles. The higher-margin models are a cash cow propping up earnings and sales. | Automotive News ($)

Jim Press outlines the culture that has made Toyota the largest automaker in the world: "When I joined Toyota in 1970, Tatsuro Toyoda, the chief coordinating officer of Toyota Motor Sales, USA, told me: 'We just try to do everything right for customers and dealers, learning from the mistakes of other car companies.' He had a poster in his office that said: 'A scratch on the surface of a car is a scratch on a customer’s heart.' At Toyota, our mission was to contribute to society. Customer, dealer, and employee satisfaction were primary metrics accomplished through long-term planning and patience. Profit was the result of reinvestment. In contrast, American companies focused on achieving the highest return for shareholders. Stock price was a primary metric. Toyota spent its first 25 years in America building the foundation for large-scale growth. We built an organization, processes, parts, service capability, brand, and relationship with the best dealers in the industry. Strong, profitable dealers with large territories avoid intrabrand competition and can best take care of their employees and customers." | Automotive News ($)

Ford is the second automaker whose dealers can sell certified pre-owned vehicles through Amazon Autos. Ford said the program is launching with dealers in Los Angeles, Seattle and Dallas and will expand to other markets in the coming months. Customers will be able to browse, finance, purchase and schedule pickup on the retail giant’s car-shopping marketplace, which launched in 2024 with Hyundai Motor Company vehicles. Amazon expanded the platform to include used vehicles in August. | Automotive News ($)

Lead is an essential element in car batteries. But mining and processing it is expensive. So companies have turned to recycling as a cheaper, seemingly sustainable source of this hazardous metal. As the United States tightened regulations on lead processing to protect Americans over the past three decades, finding domestic lead became a challenge. So the auto industry looked overseas to supplement its supply. In doing so, car and battery manufacturers pushed the health consequences of lead recycling onto countries where enforcement is lax, testing is rare and workers are desperate for jobs. | The New York Times ($)

Between 2010 and 2023, yearly deaths caused by cars and trucks striking pedestrians rose 70%, an examination of federal data and other public records by The Washington Post shows. City by city across the United States, the surge — from 4,302 in 2010 to 7,314 deaths in 2023 — largely occurred on roads with a few things in common. They were concentrated on multilane roads, with the largest clusters of deaths occurring on thoroughfares that cut through economically distressed neighborhoods and had fading commercial strips, according to the Post investigation. Wide roads and fast-moving vehicles — especially when combined with signs of poverty, homelessness, drug and alcohol abuse, and a lack of pedestrian-focused roadway improvements — produced a pattern of death-by-vehicle that is uniquely American, according to the investigation, which draws on crash data, census records and thousands of pages of police reports, as well as interviews with current and former officials, engineering experts and victims’ families. More people in these areas lack cars and are forced to walk, while many of those killed tended to be impaired and were taking risks trying to cross, the review found. The country has become a global outlier, as fatality rates in such incidents have declined almost 30% in other developed countries in the decade ending in 2023. | The Washington Post ($)

Online retail giant Carvana purchased its third new-car dealership in 2025 — this one a Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-Ram store in San Diego. The new acquisition, announced Nov. 19, joins CDJR dealerships in Arizona and Texas. Carvana bought San Diego Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-Ram in Mission Valley, a neighborhood north of downtown, from Sunroad Auto, which owns several dealerships in California and Mexico. | Automotive News ($)

The automotive industry’s decades-long pursuit of globally optimized supply chains has given way to a new priority: regional resilience that can withstand geopolitical disruption. Executives at two of the world’s largest suppliers say that efficiency alone is no longer sufficient in an era of trade tensions and supply chain vulnerabilities. “You may hear terms like ‘China-free,’ but we really focus on resiliency,” said Paul Thomas, president of Bosch in North America, at a Nov. 13 Automotive Press Association event in suburban Detroit. Suppliers such as Bosch and Lear Corporation are under pressure from customers to build supply chains that are less exposed to geopolitics and tensions between the U.S. and China. General Motors, for example, told its suppliers to find alternatives to China for parts and raw materials, setting a 2027 deadline for some parts makers to end their China sourcing ties, Reuters reported Nov. 12, citing sources familiar with the matter. The strategy by GM and other automakers stands in stark contrast to many executives’ former visions of a highly efficient, global supply chain, Lear CEO Ray Scott said. | Automotive News ($)As aging workers retire, too few new workers are replacing them, fueling the labor shortage, says a new report from MEMA Original Equipment Suppliers. An average of 400,000 manufacturing jobs are open across the U.S., according to a report published Nov. 19 by MEMA and Arthur D. Little. Suppliers that produce castings, forgings, glass and other major automotive components won’t onshore their plants if they can’t hire enough skilled workers at competitive wages, Collin Shaw, president of MEMA Original Equipment Suppliers, said. Labor is the top consideration for companies looking to expand, he said. | Automotive News ($)

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EVs

Across Recurrent's community of owners, fewer than 4% have had an EV battery replaced. The company broke the data down further by generation, and the numbers followed a predictable pattern. Older EVs are far more likely to need battery replacements—both because they've been put through the ringer and because they use more rudimentary EV technology that's more prone to age-related issues. EVs sold from 2011-2016, like the original Nissan Leaf, had a replacement rate of 8.5%. That trusty Nissan, for example, didn't have active battery cooling, which accelerated degradation. Plus, automakers and suppliers were still learning advanced pack designs with sophisticated cooling systems. That's why the next era of EVs has performed considerably better. | Inside EVsWhen Will the U.S. Finally Get $15K EVs? Super-cheap EVs exist in other parts of the world, as advances in battery tech and manufacturing are making new cars significantly cheaper. But the U.S. market presents unique challenges for automakers. | WIRED ($)

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China

Michael Dunne from Dunne Insights notes Ford's dramatic loss of volume in China. | Dunne Insights

Tesla is now requiring its suppliers to exclude China-made components in the manufacturing of its cars in the U.S., a fresh example of the fallout from deepening geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and China. Earlier this year, the electric-vehicle maker decided that it would stop using China-based suppliers for Tesla cars that are made in the U.S., according to people familiar with the situation. Tesla and its suppliers have already replaced some China-made components with parts made elsewhere. Tesla is aiming to switch all other components to those made outside of China in the next year or two, some of the people said. | The Wall Street Journal ($)

BYD and other Chinese carmakers are spearheading a mini-renaissance of plug-in hybrids in Europe, opening a new battleground for Western rivals that are campaigning for a longer life for petrol engines. Although environmental groups allege that, with a combustion engine and a large battery, plug-in hybrids are often more polluting than advertised, many see them as a greener interim option for people who are not ready to switch to electric vehicles. For legacy carmakers, it is also a segment of the car sector where they can still leverage their competitive edge in traditional engines against Chinese rivals, which are far ahead in EV capabilities and affordability. However, the European car industry may have already lost the war before it has even begun. While car groups are lobbying hard for Brussels to loosen the region’s 2035 petrol ban to allow PHEVs and other technologies, Chinese brands are already starting to win over consumers with their plug-in vehicles that are cheaper and have longer ranges. | Financial Times ($)

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Autonomy, Robotics & AI

Zoox is starting to open its robotaxis to the public in San Francisco as the Amazon-owned company creeps toward a commercial service and direct competition with Waymo. Zoox robotaxis — custom-built vehicles that lack a steering wheel or pedals — have been rolling around San Francisco streets for nearly a year. But until now, only Zoox employees and their friends and family have been able to hail a ride. This is not a large-scale public launch, nor a commercial one. Instead, the company will invite some of the people who signed up for the waitlist to join its early rider initiative known as Zoox Explorer. Under that program, those select few will get access to the service and, for now, it’s free. Riders will slowly be moved off the waitlist as Zoox adds more robotaxis to its fleet and its service area grows. Zoox said its goal is to remove the waitlist altogether in 2026. The company wouldn’t disclose the number of riders that will be given public access or how many are on the waitlist. Today, it has about 50 robotaxis in Las Vegas and San Francisco. Once given access, riders will be able to use the Zoox app to hail a ride within its service area, which covers the SoMa, Mission, and Design District neighborhoods of San Francisco. | TechCrunch ($)

Tesla received a ride-hailing permit this week from Arizona regulators, opening the door for the automaker to begin operating a robotaxi service in the state. A spokesperson with Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) told TechCrunch the automaker applied for a Transportation Network Company (TNC) permit on November 13. Tesla met the requirements to operate as a TNC and is permitted as of November 17, according to ADOT. The permit is the final regulatory step to launch a robotaxi service in Arizona, a state that has become a hub of autonomous vehicle technology testing and development. Waymo, the Alphabet Inc.-owned self-driving company and the dominant robotaxi provider in the U.S., has operated a service in the Phoenix area since 2018. Today, Waymo robotaxis cover a service area of 315 square miles in the greater Phoenix metro area. Under Arizona state law, companies apply and then follow a self-certification process to test autonomous vehicles with or without a driver. But that doesn’t allow the company to operate a robotaxi service that charges for rides. Any company that wants to operate a ride-hailing service, human or robot driven, must apply for a Transportation Network Company permit. | TechCrunch ($)

A September report by HSBC says the robotaxis are working smoothly in many of the Chinese cities. Cheaper sensors, more processing power and bigger datasets are improving algorithms. This, coupled with continued regulatory support, is helping to build scale. The pace of commercial driverless car development in China is a boost for the country as it battles the US for global supremacy in technologies of the future. But it is also bringing into focus a thorny problem of labour dislocation as human jobs are lost to robots, potentially forever. Both HSBC and Goldman Sachs are forecasting the rapid and irreversible ascent of autonomous vehicles, a scenario that could threaten the jobs of more than 7.5mn drivers working for ride-hailing services — mostly DiDi, China’s version of Uber — as well as millions more driving scooters, vans and trucks as part of the country’s massive ecommerce and logistics sector. | Financial Times ($)Elon Musk, already the world’s richest man, is now on the path to becoming its first trillionaire. Tesla’s shareholders recently approved a massive pay package for the CEO, including some $1 trillion in stock options. But the payout will happen only if certain targets are met—including Musk’s successful deployment of 1 million Optimus robots. Named after a Transformers character, because of course it is, Optimus is a humanoid machine that’s supposed to be able to complete boring and dangerous work in place of humans. The robot was unveiled in 2021, when Tesla held an “AI Day” event detailing its future plans. Musk declared then that Tesla needs to be “much more than an electric-car company,” and to that end, it would combine its advancements in chips, autonomous driving, and batteries into this robot. | The Atlantic ($)

Elon Musk says that in the next 10 to 20 years, work will be optional, likening the decision to have a job to the more laborious upkeep of a vegetable garden. “My prediction is that work will be optional. It’ll be like playing sports or a video game or something like that,” Musk said. “If you want to work, [it’s] the same way you can go to the store and just buy some vegetables, or you can grow vegetables in your backyard. It’s much harder to grow vegetables in your backyard, and some people still do it because they like growing vegetables.” The future of optional work will be the result of millions of robots in the workforce able to usher in a wave of enhanced productivity, according to Musk. In Musk’s automated, job-voluntary future, money won’t be an issue, he said. Musk takes a page from Iain M. Banks’ Culture series of science fiction novels, in which the self-proclaimed socialist author conjures a post-scarcity world filled with superintelligent AI beings and no traditional jobs. “In those books, money doesn’t exist. It’s kind of interesting,” Musk said. “And my guess is, if you go out long enough—assuming there’s a continued improvement in AI and robotics, which seems likely—money will stop being relevant.” | Fortune ($)

Toyota will lengthen the sales cycles of flagship models to an average of nine years from seven, Nikkei has learned, and focus on electrification and maintaining product value via software updates. The move is part of a strategy that emphasises electrification and preserving product value through ongoing software updates. The approach prioritises software-defined vehicles, where new functions and performance improvements are delivered via software rather than by introducing new hardware in a fully remade model. For Toyota, full redesigns used to arrive about every five years; the interval lengthened to about seven years as vehicle performance improved in the 2000s. | Nikkei Asia

Deep in the heart of Silicon Valley, Rivian and Volkswagen Group‘s joint venture is taking a Google-centric approach to an industrywide bottleneck. It is building a software-defined vehicle platform that works on any electric vehicle. The technology allows for customization to reflect the personality of different brands, models and feature sets, Wassym Bensaid, Rivian’s software chief and co-CEO of the RV Tech joint venture, said at the Palo Alto office this month. “It’s the guts of the vehicles which will be simplified, so each brand will continue to have their own differentiation,” he said. “It’s very similar to Google as a company making Android available for the entire industry,” he said, referring to the smartphone software. The California EV startup and the German auto giant plan to roll out models on a platform that can scale from affordable EVs to electric supercars, cutting complexity, cost and development time, the companies said. | Automotive News ($)

Our Automotive Ventures "Car of the Week": a 1981 Lamborghini Countach LP400S. | Bonhams Cars

Have a great week,Steve Greenfield

Steve was over in China this week at the GAC Automotive factory.

📢  Jim Fitzpatrick hosted Steve in the CBT News studio to discuss the outlook for the auto industry for 2026.  | CBT News ($)

📢  Steve was on The Walk Around podcast to discuss the automotive industry.  | The Walk Around Podcast📢  On this week's "Future of Automotive" segment on CBT News, Steve recaps his week over in China visiting automakers, and wonders how the legacy automakers will compete with the Chinese. | CBT News ($)

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