Intel Report: The Weekly Mobility News That Matters

BY AUTOMOTIVE VENTURES | Oct 20 2025 | VIEW ONLINE

What We're Reading:

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Automotive

Early morning ballet at the Waymo depot. | TikTok

The auto industry is digesting a new and potentially damaging supply-chain disruption from an unlikely source: a small Dutch semiconductor manufacturer with an outsize influence on how cars and trucks are made. Nexperia notified customers last week that it was stopping shipments of parts, people familiar with the matter say. The company’s chips are used in everything from lights to electronics. The move came after the Dutch government wrested control of the company from its Chinese owner. Nexperia declared the continuing situation a “force majeure” event, the people say, citing a provision that generally can excuse companies from contractual obligations when facing an extraordinary situation. While Nexperia is a small player in the automotive-chip market overall, it is the market leader for a basic category of chips mainly consisting of transistors and diodes, said Ian Riches, a vice president at TechInsights, a chip data and intelligence provider. In that category, Nexperia has about a 40% market share, he added. Nexperia, whose parts end up in cars from BMW, Toyota and Mercedes-Benz, produces high volumes of semiconductors and basic transistors that are used in vehicle systems, including electronic control units. Car companies and parts makers are now racing to understand their exposure and find alternative sources of chips, saying that if Nexperia can’t ship then vehicle production could be affected in the next few weeks. | The Wall Street Journal ($)

The automotive supply chain—a sprawling web of companies across the world—is in focus in a way it hasn’t been since the early 2020s, when a severe shortfall of semiconductor chips hobbled the industry. Auto executives routinely tout a lesson from that moment: Don’t rely too heavily on any one supplier. Now, supplies of multiple items are gummed up at the same time. All this is rattling an industry that has already been hampered by billions of dollars in tariff payments and a costly pivot away from electric vehicles. U.S. car sales are on pace this year to end slightly above the 15.9 million sold in 2024, according to S&P Global Mobility. Next year doesn’t look promising, however: Total production and sales are expected to dip, with tariffs weighing more on automakers and the average price of a vehicle remaining elevated, now around $50,000. | The Wall Street Journal ($)

The White House is poised to ease tariffs on the U.S. auto industry, a move that would deliver a major win for carmakers that have aggressively lobbied to stem the fallout from record-level import duties. The U.S. Departmen

t of Commerce is slated to announce a five-year extension for an arrangement that allows automakers to reduce what they pay in tariffs on imported car parts, according to people familiar with the matter. Previously, that provision was scheduled to sunset after two years. The announcement could come as soon as Friday, the people said, noting that similar tariff announcements have slipped. The policy is expected to be detailed in government documents that also formally implement tariffs on imported trucks. The concession follows months of lobbying by carmakers, including Ford Motor Company and General Motors, to secure relief from President Donald Trump’s tariffs. U.S. automakers face higher costs from the levies he has imposed on imported vehicles, parts and materials, such as steel and aluminum. | Bloomberg ($)

Automakers will pay $10.6 billion in tariffs on vehicles and parts imported to the U.S. from Canada and Mexico through the first 10 months of the year, according to an Oct. 16 analysis by Anderson Economic Group. The analysis, which includes U.S. Census Bureau data through July and an estimate of tariff costs from August through October, illustrates the expense of auto tariffs are for the industry. So far, companies have largely elected to absorb the cost instead of passing them to new-vehicle buyers, though analysts expect vehicle prices to rise as tariff costs pile up and profits erode. Automakers’ tariff bills are likely higher than the group’s estimate. The figure includes only vehicles and parts imported from Canada and Mexico and does not include products shipped from other nations. It also does not include 50 percent tariffs on steel, aluminum and a list of derivative products made up of those metals, including some auto parts and manufacturing equipment. | Automotive News ($)

The average price of a new car in America topped $50,000 for the first time last month, driven by a surge in sales of expensive electric vehicles and luxury models. US car buyers paid an average of $50,080 for a new car in September, up 3.6% from a year ago, according to research released Monday by the Kelley Blue Book car buying guide. Record EV sales, driven by the expiration of a $7,500 federal tax credit, propelled prices into uncharted territory, further exacerbating an automotive affordability crisis. “The $20,000-vehicle is now mostly extinct, and many price-conscious buyers are sidelined or cruising in the used-vehicle market,” Erin Keating, executive analyst with KBB-parent Cox Automotive Inc., said in a statement. “Today’s auto market is being driven by wealthier households.” | Bloomberg ($)

The cost of buying a car is crushing Americans. Not only are higher prices making new-car ownership an out-of-reach luxury for many, but buyers are increasingly rolling old auto debt into their new financing, leaving them upside down before they even leave the dealer’s lot. In September, the average price of a new car reached a high of $50,080, according to a report by Kelley Blue Book. Then there is the increasing number of consumers who are “upside down” on their cars and burdened with negative equity, meaning they owe more on their vehicle than it’s worth — a lot more. In the third quarter, 28.1% of trade-ins applied toward a new-vehicle purchase had negative equity. The average amount owed on “upside-down loans” was $6,905 in the third quarter of the year, according to Edmunds — up from $6,458 in the same quarter a year ago. Even more alarming is that 24.7% of these drivers owed more than $10,000, and 8.3% more than $15,000. | The Washington Post ($)

Automotive insurance rates have surged 4.7% for U.S. drivers in the last year and 50% over the past five, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But increases can play out very differently from one state to the next. The financial website MoneyGeek, which analyzed hundreds of policies, says the average driver will pay $902 a year for full coverage in Vermont but $2,912 for a comparable policy in Florida. “That is the exact same person,” said Mark Fitzpatrick, an insurance analyst for the site. Insurers consider many factors when setting prices, including population density (more people means more crashes); weather (hurricanes and hail are costly); local medical and car repair rates; and location, down to the Zip code. Even a state’s propensity for “garage fraud” — people who pretend their vehicle is located in a lower-cost state — drives up premiums for car owners who register in the high-cost states. | The Washington Post ($)

Based on group free cash flow, each Aston Martin sold wholesale since 2014 has cost the company more than £45,000 on average. Assuming 62,000 Aston Martins delivered between 2014 and the end of the current year, that adds up to a £2.8bn customer subsidy. The subsidy’s been funded by new equity (nearly £2bn raised since IPO) and debt (more than £400mn of net issuance, meaning year-end net debt will be £1.3bn or nearly eight times Ebitda). It’s been a very expensive vanity project for Lawrence Stroll, whose consortium rescued Aston Martin from probable bankruptcy in 2020. | Financial Times ($)

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EVs

Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) pump out nearly five times more planet-heating pollution than official figures show, a report has found. The cars, which can run on electric batteries as well as combustion engines, have been promoted by European carmakers as a way to cover long distances in a single drive – unlike fully electric cars – while still reducing emissions. Data shows PHEVs emit just 19% less CO2 than petrol and diesel cars, an analysis by the non-profit advocacy group Transport and Environment found on Thursday. Under laboratory tests, they were assumed to be 75% less polluting. The researchers analysed data from the onboard fuel consumption meters of 800,000 cars registered in Europe between 2021 and 2023. They found real-world carbon dioxide emissions from PHEVs in 2023 were 4.9 times greater than those from standardised laboratory tests, having risen from being 3.5 times greater in 2021. | The Guardian

The U.S. retreat from its electric-vehicle ambitions is spreading around the globe. Incentive programs have ended or have been pared back across Europe and in the U.S. and Canada. Carmakers argue the EV business model is a money-losing proposition given still-high battery costs, spotty car-charging networks and dwindling government subsidies. Consumers aren’t adopting EVs as quickly as expected, they say, and government efforts to proliferate the technology are hammering their bottom lines. For example, General Motors on Tuesday said it would take a $1.6 billion charge due to sinking EV sales. It is reassessing EV capacity and warned that more losses are possible. In the U.S., consulting firm AlixPartners now predicts EVs will make up 18% of new vehicle sales by 2030, half of what it expected two years ago. | The Wall Street Journal ($)

Men are twice as likely as women to own an EV, according to U.S. vehicle registration data gathered by the market research firm S&P Global Mobility. Men outnumber women slightly among car owners overall, but the gender gap is more than twice as wide for EVs as it is for gas-powered vehicles and hybrids. | The Washington Post ($)

Enabled by state policies, California’s battery storage capacity has more than tripled to 13GW of power, with plans to add another 8.6GW by 2027. Now, as cheap, plentiful solar power floods the grid in the middle of the day, hundreds of battery installations bank the energy and discharge it in the evening when people return home from work and demand — as well as prices — spike. This has shored up the grid, extended the state’s use of renewable energy, and reduced its reliance on fossil fuels. California has become ground zero for the battery storage revolution, but the example is being followed all over the world. Global capacity is expected to rise by 67 per cent to 617GWh this year and to grow tenfold by 2035, according to energy research firm BNEF. The U.S. and China dominate the market, accounting for about 70% of projects by power capacity. Batteries are also playing a growing role in Australia and the UK, and countries from Chile to Saudi Arabia are announcing plans to ramp up deployment. | Financial Times ($)

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China

China’s playbook is clear, and it’s working: Scale up. Flood in. Starve out. What’s less clear is how the rest of the world will respond. The auto industry, long built on global supply chains, now finds itself at the mercy of a single nation’s industrial policy. This is no longer just an automaker’s problem. It is a question of economic security, industrial survival, and strategic independence. The real test now is whether companies and governments can work together to build new and reliable supply chains and secure access to the materials that power the modern world. If the world does not act collectively, it could soon wake up to find the entire mobility industry — and the technologies that flow from it — running on China’s terms. | Dunne Insights

China is gripped by an insidious problem that is eroding its economy: It is trapped in a cycle of competition so fierce that it is destroying profits, driving a brutal rat race among workers and fueling a deflationary spiral. This is “involution,” a once esoteric term that has come to define life for many in China and capture the biggest problems in the world’s second-largest economy. Involution, simply stated, means that, even as China pursues global dominance in industries of the future—artificial intelligence, renewables, robotics—much of its economy is in a race to the bottom that threatens to devolve into widespread stagnation. Price wars and excess supply are also increasingly a geopolitical liability. China is now entering its fourth year of falling factory-gate prices, and consumer prices have barely budged, a sign of inadequate demand. Squeezed at home, Chinese manufacturers are exporting more and more, while governments around the world are complaining about an influx of cheap Chinese goods hurting local industries. As U.S.-China trade tensions have reignited, the Trump administration is betting that these vulnerabilities in China’s economy give Beijing the weaker hand in negotiations—and that the U.S. can inflict more pain on China by targeting its exports with additional tariffs. | The Wall Street Journal ($)

Americans are becoming more aware of and open to Chinese car brands. A recent study published by the market analysis firm AutoPacific shows that the perception of Chinese cars and brands only continues to improve, despite tariff woes and geopolitical tensions putting the U.S.-China relationship on shaky ground. According to the study, people are becoming more familiar with Chinese brands. Compared to last year, 65% of participants are familiar with some Chinese brands. This is up from 52% last year. On top of that, the portion of buyers willing to consider a Chinese brand is up a fair amount too, from 41% in 2024 to 52% in 2025. | Inside EVs

"It's the most humbling thing I've ever seen," said Ford Motor Company's chief executive about his recent trip to China. After visiting a string of factories, Jim Farley was left astonished by the technical innovations being packed into Chinese cars - from self-driving software to facial recognition. "Their cost and the quality of their vehicles is far superior to what I see in the West," Farley warned in July. "We are in a global competition with China, and it's not just EVs. And if we lose this, we do not have a future at Ford." | The Telegraph ($)

BYD is now the world’s largest and fastest-growing producer of EVs. Along with factories in Brazil, Hungary, Indonesia, Thailand, Turkey and Uzbekistan, it is constructing a fleet of eight purpose-built vessels to ship its cars. Stella Li, BYD’s executive vice-president, has been charged with an ambitious long-term annual sales target of 10mn cars, with half coming from outside China, up from a forecast of 4.6mn this year. Her overseas push has taken on greater importance in recent months. BYD’s domestic outlook has darkened amid intensifying competition and Beijing’s “anti-involution” campaign to rein in cut-throat pricing and ruthless industry practices. Sales in China fell in September for the first time in 19 months, though the carmaker’s EVs still maintain nearly 30% market share. At the same time, BYD must grapple with the risks of rising Western protectionism and a wave of Chinese rivals exporting the country’s price wars. Foreign governments have moved to limit shipments, with the US in effect banning imports and the EU raising tariffs. | Financial Times ($)

Michael Dunne from Dunne Insights: If China’s goal is total domination of the global auto industry, the master plan might look something like this: Scale Up: Build enough capacity to supply more than half of the world’s annual demand for vehicles. Flood In: Launch a frenzied push of exports into markets worldwide and, with aggressive pricing, take large chunks of market share. Starve Out: Restrict competitors' access to key material and manufacturing inputs, thereby limiting their ability to build competitive products. | Dunne Insights

From cars and computer chips to tanks and fighter jets, China’s new export restrictions represent a sweeping effort to control global commerce and have set off a renewed trade fight that pits Beijing against not only the United States but also Europe. The new regulations, which take effect in stages on Nov. 8 and Dec. 1, apply to the entire world, sharply escalating China’s sway over critical manufacturing at a time of increased international fractures over trade. The restrictions led President Trump on Friday to threaten to impose new 100 percent tariffs on Chinese imports starting Nov. 1. The rules go far beyond China’s limits since April on the export of rare earth metals, which are mined and processed mainly in China, as well as magnets made from those metals. In a series of announcements on Thursday, China extended its restrictions to worldwide shipments of electric motors, computer chips and other devices that have become central to modern life and are now manufactured mainly in China. The regulations prohibit exports from China to any country of materials or components for use in military equipment. Among the items banned are the small yet powerful electric motors in missiles and fighter jets and the materials for crucial range finders in tanks and artillery that are used to zero in on distant targets. These rules have drawn particular concern in the West because of their potential to debilitate Europe’s efforts to supply arms to Ukraine and to rebuild Europe’s own militaries to counter Russian aggression. | The New York Times ($)

China is responsible for 70% of the world’s mined rare earths and more than 90% of permanent magnets made with the minerals. While companies in the EU and U.S. have previously reported supply shortages and production halts during earlier Chinese restrictions, building replacement capacity takes years. | Bloomberg ($)

In 2021, General Motors made the bold bet of investing in rare-earth magnet production in the U.S., as part of a broader effort to cut its reliance on China for parts, components and materials. As a result, in the coming months, GM is now set to be the only U.S. automaker with a large direct supply of American-made rare-earth magnets from multiple factories. It has been a risky bet. GM had to commit to long-term purchase agreements with new suppliers, in some cases relatively unproven ones, whose magnets are more expensive than the Chinese ones. In a car industry that squeezes out every extra cost, paying higher prices can be a big disadvantage—particularly if the U.S. and China end up reaching a trade agreement that results in a freer flow of Chinese rare earths. But right now that possibility appears distant. On Thursday, China introduced even stricter regulations on the export of rare-earth magnets, requiring even companies that make magnets abroad using Chinese rare-earth materials to seek permission from Beijing before exporting. | The Wall Street Journal ($)

China’s Victory Day parade in September showed off a new, uncrewed submarine the size of a semi-truck — meant to keep tabs on U.S. vessels and seafloor cables — and shined a spotlight on Beijing’s investment in the undersea domain. The U.S. submarine industry, by contrast, is struggling to get out of drydock after years of delays, rising costs and a weakened industrial base. With multiple boats approaching the end of their service lives and competitors like China rapidly building up their fleet, there are worries that the U.S. won’t be able to quickly put enough new submarines in the water to preserve its long-standing undersea advantage. | Bloomberg ($)

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Autonomy, Robotics & AI

There’s something fundamentally American about the freedom to get in your car and drive. Driving is self-determination. The liberty to set your own course. The power to move under your own willpower, whether for duty or sheer pleasure. Despite some decline among Gen Zers, plenty of teens still eagerly anticipate getting their driver’s license. In many American towns, where public transportation and walkability are scarce, driving is what empowers you to explore. Some motoring enthusiasts worry self-driving vehicles threaten that ideal. These robot autos, run by Google and China and Elon Musk, use AI and radars to navigate without human input; they could replace our car-centric culture with faceless communal bots controlled by opaque entities. Even worse, self-driving vehicles present safety concerns and other vulnerabilities, such as being hacked or spoofed by malicious agents at home or abroad. | Bloomberg ($)

Phil Koopman argues that robotaxis are only at the end of the beginning; scaling is yet another 99% of the effort. But the industry won't get there if they don't change their approach to building trust. | Phil Koopman

China is building a decisive global lead in getting cars with autonomous features on the road. Motoring nerds divide cars into six categories. A vehicle at level zero has no automation; those at level five do everything by themselves. In the consumer market, much of the attention at present is on tech that matches level two or level three. An L2 car can steer, accelerate and brake by itself, but requires a human driver’s sustained attention. A driver in an L3 car can check e-mails and watch TV, so long as he or she is ready to take over swiftly in an emergency. These days more than half of new cars sold in China are classed as L2. Morgan Stanley estimates that by 2030 China alone will account for half of the world’s L2+ cars, an especially clever subset. But China also looks ahead of other countries in its roll-out of “robotaxis”: driverless cars classed at L4 that are permitted to ferry around passengers, albeit within limited areas. Goldman Sachs expects China will have 5,000 of these on the road by the end of this year and 632,000 by 2030 (see chart)—far outpacing America’s 1,800 and 35,000, respectively. How has China moved so fast? In autonomous driving, as in so many spheres of technology, hyper-competition and strong supply chains enable the “China speed” foreign firms covet. China’s self-driving dreams have also been brought closer through strong government backing, censorship of news related to accidents and a population optimistic about technology. But there is another factor which, though crucial, tends to get less attention: differing approaches to regulation. In China, myriad low-risk local pilot schemes have helped engineers and policymakers gain experience. Regulators watch carefully to see where the technology is going before they cement national rules. | The Economist ($)

Air Street Capital has published its "State of AI Report": a 313-page presentation that examines six key dimensions of the AI ecosystem:Research: Technological breakthroughs and their capabilities.Industry: Areas of commercial application for AI and their business impact.Politics: Regulation, economic implications, and the evolving geopolitics of AI.Safety: Efforts to identify and mitigate catastrophic risks that highly capable future AI systems could pose.Survey: Findings from the largest open-access survey of 1,200 AI practitioners and their AI usage patterns.Predictions: Our outlook for the next 12 months, alongside a review of our 2024 forecasts to keep us accountable. | Air Street Capital

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Micromobility

Montreal’s bike boom is just one example of how a new disruptive transport technology is rapidly changing cities across the rich world. It is highly energy-efficient, costs almost nothing, reduces congestion and pollution, and obviates the need for huge car parks. Yet it is not the self-driving electric car, as tech moguls and car industry executives imagined. Rather, it is the humble bicycle. And as with any disruptive technology, as the use of bicycles rises, and cities do more to make riding them pleasant, bikes are polarizing people and setting off culture wars. Though robotaxis have notched up impressive growth, they look ploddingly pedestrian compared with far zippier pedal-powered rivals. Waymo, Alphabet Inc.’s self-driving taxi firm, proudly proclaims that its cars do around 250,000 trips a week. Yet in New York alone that number of trips is made every three days using the city’s bike-share scheme. In London cyclists now outnumber cars in the City, the financial district, by two to one. Paris, where they now outnumber motorists across the whole city, is catching up with Europe’s traditional bike capitals, Amsterdam and Copenhagen, though cycling is still growing in those cities, too. In Copenhagen, the Danish capital, bikes account for almost half of commuter journeys to work and school. | The Economist ($)

📚 Investing

Bessemer's "B2B founder’s guide to generating demand from scratch" - a must-read for B2B startups. | Bessemer Venture Partners

Peter Walker from Carta outlines how much equity Pre-Seed startups should be granting to Advisors. | Carta

🚘 Car of the Week

Our Automotive Ventures "Car of the Week": a 1989 Porsche 911 DLS by Singer. | Bring A Trailer

Have a great week,Steve Greenfield

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📺 In The News

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Steve caught up with Kyle Mountsier on ASOTU. | ASOTU

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Mark Hollmer at Automotive News caught up with Phil Battista and Steve Greenfield to discuss the state of dealership-facing AI

. | Automotive News ($)

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CNBC interviewed Steve to discuss EV demand, and what sales are likely to look like over the next quarter | CNBC

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On this week's "Future of Automotive" segment on CBT News, we consider what Electric Vehicle sales might look like over the next quarter. | CBT News ($)

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