Weekly Intel Report: Mobility News

BY AUTOMOTIVE VENTURES | OCT 23 2023 | VIEW ONLINE ➡️

Justin from Automotive Ventures on why we made the investment in Treehouse. (Link)

What We're Reading:

If you're an F1 fan, The Washington Post does an outstanding job of dissecting the 2-second pitstop. (💲Link)

Anti-“woke” backlash and high-profile politics are increasingly making the suggestion of owning an EV a political cudgel. Or, as Ford CEO Jim Farley recently lamented: “They have become a political football.” (💲Link)

Bill Ford: “Blue states say EVs are great and we need to adopt them as soon as possible for climate reasons. Some of the red states say this is just like the vaccine, and it’s being shoved down our throat by the government, and we don’t want it. I never thought I would see the day when our products were so heavily politicized, but they are.” (💲Link)

GM is delaying the opening of a large electric pickup truck factory in Michigan, the latest sign that the auto industry’s enthusiasm around EVs is starting to wane as sales growth for these models slows. Ford said it was temporarily cutting one shift at its plant that builds the F-150 Lightning EV. (💲Link)GM and Ford have laid out ambitious plans to spend billions developing new electric vehicles while returning capital to investors, all funded by robust profits from combustion trucks and SUVs. The mounting costs of the United Auto Workers strikes, and the eventual rich contract settlements, are putting those plans at risk. (💲Link)Nearly half of households with non-Tesla EVs made an ICE vehicle their next auto purchase, according to S&P Global Mobility. It doesn’t necessarily mean they sold their EV, as it could also indicate they purchased an additional family vehicle that is gasoline-powered. (Link)BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce EVs will adopt the Tesla North American Charging Standard (NACS) for its Battery Electric Vehicles in the U.S. and Canada, Starting in 2025. The new agreement comes in addition to BMW’s commitment to develop a new charging network in North America with six OEM partners. (Link)Toyota just announced that it, too, is adopting the North American Charging Standard. With the remaining holdouts (Volkswagen and Stellantis) publicly signaling an impending switch, it looks like America has chosen its standard, and Tesla has won. (💲Link)Courtesy of Alexa St. John at Insider, here's a list of every automaker that has jumped aboard the Tesla North American Charging Standard (NACS) charging standard. (Link)EV incentives hit 9.8% of their average transaction price (ATP), or $4,991 off the price of the car, in September, according to Kelley Blue Book. It's the first time EVs have been this highly discounted in four to five years. (Link)A short history of Tesla as told by the folks over at Chartr. (Link)After years of growing at breakneck speed, Tesla seems to be slowing down. Elon Musk made no reference on Wednesday to old ambitions such as selling 20 million vehicles a year. Meanwhile, Musk is hitting the accelerator on artificial intelligence. In a flash of his old optimism, Musk said in his prepared remarks that driverless cars and humanoid robots could make Tesla “the most valuable company in the world by far.” (💲Link)

Tesla's margins are likely to drop in the third quarter and take a bigger hit in the last three months of 2023, leaving investors fretting about more price cuts needed to boost demand. (💲Link)"We would characterize last night's conference call as a mini disaster," said Daniel Ives, a senior analyst at Wedbush Securities and a Tesla bull. Investors, he said, "wanted to get their arms around the falling margins and constant price cuts seen globally, but instead we heard from a much more cautious Musk focused on higher interest rates." (💲Link)Elon Musk acknowledged Tesla will lose money on each Cybertruck it builds over the next year and a half. (Link)Michael Dunne on how BYD has grown to a position of EV dominance so quickly. (Link)

Chinese electric vehicle maker NIO is considering building a dealer network in Europe to speed up sales growth, even as China's EVs face potential tariffs in the region. (💲Link)

EVs Are on a Lithium Roller Coaster: Prices of the key battery metal have fallen by roughly 70% this year, easing battery-cost worries but casting doubt on longer-term supply. (💲Link)China will require export permits for certain graphite products to protect national security, its latest move to curb shipments of minerals that are critical to the energy transition. Graphite, a soft form of carbon, is a key component of batteries for electric vehicles and China is the world's top producer, accounting for two-thirds of global supply. (💲Link)Collision repair costs for Tesla models remain significantly higher than for combustion vehicles, but electric vehicles without the Tesla logo are near parity with gasoline cars. (💲Link)Tesla has officially released its API documentation to support third-party apps – after years of operating in a gray zone with an unofficial API. For now, it is geared toward fleet management, but developers are hoping it is a first step toward creating a healthy app ecosystem. (Link)

Visual Capitalist showcases the cost of EV battery cells from popular electric vehicles. (Link)Across Europe, popular discontent with efforts to curb cars in cities has brought cycling into the culture wars, with politicians seizing on the issue to proclaim themselves on the side of working-class drivers. As COVID has faded as a major concern, so too has enthusiasm for the temporary cycling infrastructure and traffic blocks put in place by cities to improve people's quality of life during lockdowns, as well as curb air pollution and bring down emissions. (Link)

For years, e-bikes languished in the U.S. even as they exploded in popularity in Asia and Europe. Then the pandemic hit. E-bike sales in the United States surged 269% between 2019 and 2022, approaching $1 billion, even as overall bike sales declined. In the U.S., e-bikes now outsell electric cars and trucks. (💲Link)As downtowns struggle, businesses learn to love bike lanes. From Manhattan to San Francisco, the need to rethink the urban core is encouraging business improvement districts to change their tune on prioritizing cars. (💲Link)More ships are running on wind power, as the global industry tries to fight climate change. (💲Link)United Airlines plans to speed up its boarding process by having passengers in economy class who have purchased window seats get on the plane before people in the middle and aisle seats. The change could cut up to two minutes from boarding time on each flight. (💲Link)

Wealthy travelers who tried charter flights during the pandemic have upgraded to be able to book a flight in as little as four hours. And business travelers increasingly want anonymous flights to avoid revealing potential deals to sleuths who track corporate jet movements. (💲Link)For the first time, an autonomous drone has outperformed human champions in first-person view drone racing. (Link)11 photos of Amazon’s new Prime Air drone that can fly in light rain and deliver packages up to 5 pounds in under an hour. (Link)EHang just received approval for fully autonomous flights of its electric air taxi in China. (Link)easyJet is the world’s first airline to sign a contract with Airbus for its carbon-removal initiative, which uses Direct Air Carbon Capture and Storage (DACCS) to offer airlines worldwide carbon removal credits to advance their decarbonization goals. Although CO2 emissions released into the atmosphere during aircraft operations cannot be directly eliminated at source, DACCS can extract an equivalent amount from the air using high-powered extraction fans. This CO2 is then stored safely and permanently in underground reservoirs. (Link)Lufthansa's TNMT has been tracking startup investments by airlines since 2017. See their latest update on the most active airline investors (based on the size of their startup portfolio) and where the leading startup-oriented airlines have been placing their innovation bets. (Link)Beijing is striving to get a jump on the burgeoning industry of deep-sea mining. China already holds five of the 30 exploration licenses that the International Seabed Authority (ISA) has granted to date — the most of any country — in preparation for the start of deep-sea mining as soon as 2025. When that happens, China will have exclusive rights to excavate 92,000 square miles of international seabed — about the size of the United Kingdom — or 17 percent of the total area currently licensed by the ISA. (💲Link)See the SOMATIC cleaning robot in action. (Link)(MIT) researchers have used a form of generative AI, called a diffusion model, to train robots to pack objects into a tight space. (💲Link)A live 3D map of the Tokyo rail system. Mini Tokyo 3D pairs real-time data from the city's trains with various live-feed cameras. Fascinating data visualization. (Link)

Keep an eye on this one (crossing the block at RM Sotheby's on November 13th). Will this achieve the highest price ever for a collectible vehicle? (Link)

Have a great week,Steve Greenfield

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Notable & New

📢 I was excited to be the MC for the Mobility track at Dubai's GITEX GLOBAL conference last week. GITEX is the largest tech & startup show in the world: 170k attendees, 6k vendors across 40 different exhibit halls. (Link)

📢 Thanks to Cliff Banks at The Banks Report for covering Automotive Ventures' investment in Kinetic. We're really excited about this investment coming out of our DealerFund. (Link)

📢 What does Automotive Ventures look for in a startup? What's our investment process? What makes an entrepreneur successful? (Link)📢 Automotive Ventures portfolio company Go Eve has secured a U.S. patent for its ground-breaking ‘DockChain’ technology. This development marks a significant milestone as the company prepares to make its strategic entry into the US market in early 2024. (Link)🎥 On this week's Future of Automotive segment on CBT News Steve showcases his experience in Dubai at GITEX GLOBAL, the largest tech & startup show in the world. (💲Link)

📢 Thanks to Alysha Webb from Auto Remarketing for the coverage of NAVIcon. (Link)🗞️ Don't miss FM Capital's Chase Fraser moderating the Startup panel at NAVIcon on November 9th in Scottdale, AZ. (Link)

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Companies to Watch

🌟 Bonsai Robotics provides vision-based automation solutions to combat farmers’ biggest challenge: the labor crisis. Bonsai provides an auto-steer retrofit kit for OEMs. It really is amazing to watch the videos on their website. (Link)

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