Intel Report: The Weekly Mobility News That Matters

BY AUTOMOTIVE VENTURES | Oct 27 2025 | VIEW ONLINE

What We're Reading:

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Automotive

Ten months after he was ousted, Carlos Tavares, Stellantis NV’s former chief executive officer, says the company faces a potential breakup. Tavares, in a new book, says that the group’s French, Italian and U.S. operations might have to go their separate ways if the maker of Jeep sport utility vehicles and Fiat cars fails to withstand pressures from various stakeholders in its home bases. Within Stellantis, “I am worried that the three-way balance between Italy, France and the US will break,” Tavares said in a book published Thursday in France. The group’s survival as a standalone company will depend on management paying attention to unity “every day” given the risk of being pulled in multiple directions. | Bloomberg ($)

According to reports from Europe, internal reviews suggest the Volkswagen Group could be more than $11 billion short of the free cash flow it needs to continue operating past 2026. If confirmed, the automaker might be forced to take drastic measures to stay afloat. The alarming news that Volkswagen could be eleven billion Euros short of the free cash it needs to keep going as-is was first reported by Germany’s BILD and the Spanish-language magazine, Motorpasión, and paints a sobering picture for one of Europe’s largest and most historic carmakers already struggling under the weight of its massive EV investments, software headaches, global production challenges, dealer lawsuits, and slower-than-expected sales of its most profitable “halo” models. And that’s just the Volkswagen brand — across the hall at the Porsche AG and AUDI AG brands, the VW Group is burning even more cash. The company reported earlier this year that delays in the rollout of new EVs would cost the group as-a-whole an additional $6 billion. | Electrek

More Americans are struggling to make their monthly car-loan payments, a sign that lower-income consumers are under growing financial pressure. The share of subprime auto loans that were 60 days or more past due reached a high of nearly 6.5% in January and has lingered near that level, according to Fitch Ratings. Repossessions have swelled, more drivers are trading in vehicles that are worth less than they owe and lenders such as CarMax and Ally Financial Group have warned investors about auto loan performance. Despite stubborn inflation and punishing tariffs, the U.S. economy on its surface has appeared to hold up relatively well. The stock market continues to climb, company executives for the most part remain upbeat and consumers overall are still spending. But the weakness in the auto market is one of the clearest indications that low- and middle-income families — the economy’s foundation — could be starting to buckle. Because many Americans need their cars to get around, auto loan delinquencies can be a telling gauge of financial hardship. | The New York Times ($)

Car repairs are about to get much more expensive due to tariff-induced auto part price increases. | The Drive

U.S. auto plants are two to four weeks away from “significant impacts” on vehicle production due to the conflict with China over chipmaker Nexperia, according to MEMA. The Vehicle Suppliers Association. A handful of Nexperia's chips can stop production of a full assembly plant, and there are substitutes, but probably not for everybody, said Steve Horaney, a senior vice president at MEMA. The situation is described as an industrywide issue, with companies like Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis working to minimize possible disruptions and develop mitigation measures. | Bloomberg ($)

Many automotive suppliers are losing pricing leverage with customers at a perilous moment as tariff pressures and electric vehicle program delays squeeze profits. Parts makers, particularly smaller ones, often lack the leverage to negotiate price increases with customers as they adapt to shifts in trade policies and automaker product plans, executives and analysts said. That has put some suppliers in a vulnerable financial position, especially those that bet big on electrification profits that have yet to materialize. Some are making parts at a lower clip than they expected to when they entered into a contract with an automaker years ago, while others are unable to make a sufficient return on investment because their prices do not account for higher costs. | Automotive News ($)

Over the next several years, Elon Musk aims to take astronauts to the moon using a 403-foot rocket, launch a fleet of autonomous vehicles that lack a steering wheel or pedals, and turn millions of existing Teslas into self-driving cars overnight. Musk has acknowledged his ambitions require overcoming regulatory hurdles, roadblocks presented by NASA, the U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Aviation Administration, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Throwing caution to the wind, Musk took aim at the man overseeing each one of those agencies in X posts this week — Transportation Secretary and acting NASA administrator Sean P. Duffy — igniting a new public feud with the Trump administration through an official who possesses direct oversight of his business empire. “Having a NASA Administrator who knows literally ZERO about rockets & spacecraft undermines the American space program and endangers our astronauts,” Musk said in an X post on Wednesday. | The Washington Post ($)

Americans lost an average of 63 hours sitting in traffic in 2024 — the highest level ever measured — according to the Texas A&M Transportation Institute’s (TTI’s) latest Urban Mobility Report (UMR). That’s the equivalent of nearly eight full workdays lost to traffic and marks a 16% increase in national congestion costs over the last five years, now totaling $269 billion annually. While the volume of traffic has returned, researchers found travel patterns have shifted. Delays are no longer confined to the traditional weekday rush hours; instead, they’re spreading to midday, midweek and even weekends. | Texas A&M Transportation Institute

Internal combustion engine development is far from stagnant these days, in spite of the advances in electric powertrains in recent decades—and this patent from Porsche concerning a W-style cylinder arrangement engine is yet another symbol of potential progress in the years ahead. The maximum number of cylinders suggested by the text and images is 18. Yes, we’re talking about W-18 with three turbos. | Road & Track

Lamborghini is now offering five years of bumper-to-bumper coverage of their vehicles by default, and up to 10 years via its Selezione program. Oh, and mileage is unlimited. You just know someone is going to buy a Temerario and use it as their daily driver to try to hit 200k miles. | The Drive

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EVs

Toyota’s 1:6:90 manufacturing initiative prioritizes building hybrids to make the most from the finite materials used to make batteries. The 1:6:90 numbers demonstrate that the resources needed to build one EV could be used for 6 plug-in hybrids and 90 mild-hybrid vehicles. Other companies like Scout Motors Inc. have flipped the hybrid formula with its Extended-Range Electric Vehicle (EREV) architecture, an electric powertrain that’s backed up by an internal combustion range extender. | Popular Mechanics

A new axial flux electric motor made by UK-based YASA just set a new unofficial power density record, outperforming the previous record holder–also made by Yasa–by an impressive 40%. The company’s new, fully functional prototype was recently put to the test on a dynamometer, where it hit a staggering peak of 750 kilowatts (1,005 horsepower), all while weighing just 28 pounds (12.7 kilograms). That’s an unprecedented power density of 59 kW/kg. | Inside EVs

A new study from researchers at Lawrence Berkeley Labs and the consulting group The Brattle Group suggests that, counterintuitively, more electricity demand can actually lower prices. Between 2019 and 2024, the researchers calculated, states with spikes in electricity demand saw lower prices overall. Instead, they found that the biggest factors behind rising rates were the cost of poles, wires and other electrical equipment — as well as the cost of safeguarding that infrastructure against future disasters. | The Washington Post ($)

Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory managed to wirelessly charge a Hyundai Kona Electric with 100 kW of power at 96% efficiency. This wireless arrangement added 50% charge in 20 minutes, with a 5-inch clearance between the charging pad and the car. In an earlier test, the team achieved 97% efficiency while pushing 120 kW of power. Others have pulled off even mightier feats. Companies like WAVE and Momentum Dynamics are developing systems with capacities of up to 500 kW for electric trucks and buses. OEMs like Porsche, Toyota, BYD, and Mercedes-Benz are also in the mix. The 2026 Porsche Cayenne EV will be the brand’s first all-electric utilitarian to feature an 11 kW wireless charging system. Astute Analytica claims that Mercedes is testing wireless charging on its experimental vehicle, the ELF. Additionally, Mercedes is also in the works to launch its first bi-directional V2G (vehicle-to-grid) charging service across several European markets in 2026. | AutoBlog

The U.S. risks falling further behind China in the global electric car race after the Trump administration’s championing of the petrol engine led to a steep drop in EV investments, industry executives and experts have warned. Since returning to the White House in January, the US president has scrapped tax incentives for consumers to buy EVs and proposed axing rules on greenhouse gas emissions in a departure from the backing the Biden administration gave the industry. EV-related investments, which span batteries, vehicle assembly and charging equipment, tumbled by almost a third to $8.1bn in the three months to September compared with a year earlier, according to U.S. Clean Investment Monitor, a database created by the Rhodium Group and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Between April and September, about $7bn of planned EV investments were ditched, the data showed. Executives and analysts said the rolling back of support in the U.S. had the potential to define the industry in coming years, strengthening China’s hand in the EV race and sowing doubts in the EU over its ban on sales of internal combustion engines from 2035. | Financial Times ($)

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China

Among Silicon Valley leaders and policy-minded Democrats, there is a fascination with China. It’s a mix of curiosity, anxiety and envy. Long-held assumptions about China are being re-evaluated. Suddenly, Chinese firms once dismissed as copycats are being studied for lessons on efficiency and scale. China’s top-down, state-led system is being reframed not as a political liability but as a model of efficiency and execution. Both narratives — China as cheater and China as colossus — are simplistic reactions to something far more complex. Yet their popularity reveals something deeper about the American psyche as the nation struggles to adjust to a world where it is no longer the uncontested source of technological progress. The new admiration for China highlights both how little Americans understand about the country and how disillusioned many have become with their own. By holding China up as a mirror, America is seeing its own strengths and weaknesses more clearly than it has in decades. | The New York Times ($)

Global automakers are scouring the globe for crucial rare earths ahead of looming Chinese export controls, with executives worried they could lead to parts shortages and plant closures. Rare earth magnets power motors in car parts such as side mirrors, speakers, oil pumps, windshield wipers and fuel leakage and braking sensors. They play an even bigger role in EVs. While a U.S.-China deal diverted a supply threat, stockpiles were depleted by similar restrictions earlier this year, while Beijing has also made it harder to get export licenses. China has since dramatically expanded export curbs, with companies facing global supply shortages. Consultancy AlixPartners estimates China controls up to 70% of global rare-earths mining, 85% of refining capacity and about 90% of rare-earths metal alloy and magnet production. | Reuters ($)

When China tightened restrictions on rare-earth exports this month, stunning the White House, it was the latest reminder of Beijing’s control over an industry vital to the world economy. Its dominance was decades in the making. Since the 1990s, China has used aggressive tactics to build up and maintain its lock over rare-earth minerals, which are essential to making magnets needed for cars, wind turbines, jet fighters and other products. Beijing provided financial support to the country’s leading companies, encouraged them to snap up rare-earth assets abroad, and passed laws preventing foreign companies from buying rare-earth mines in China. It eventually consolidated its domestic industry from hundreds of businesses into a few giant players, giving it further leverage over prices. When the U.S. tried to engineer a revival of its domestic industry a few years ago, China flooded the market with supply, throwing Western producers into a tailspin. As Western rare-earth companies’ valuations collapsed from the low prices caused by soaring Chinese production, they were forced to slow their expansions, and in some cases, sell their mines to Chinese buyers. Beijing’s methodical approach to dominating the industry—it now produces around 90% of global refined supply—reflects China’s ability to use state control over the economy to achieve goals that often elude the U.S., where policymaking is more erratic. | The Wall Street Journal ($)

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Autonomy, Robotics & AI

Global automakers agree that very soon consumers will expect all new cars to function autonomously, requiring little or no attention from the driver. But they are sharply divided about how to get there. Most of today’s autonomous cars rely on meticulously detailed digital maps. But these maps effectively limit where cars can go. The future, many industry people argue, is training vehicles to use artificial intelligence to navigate the roads. But what type of AI and what sensors are most likely to get these vehicles to the promised land—able to go anywhere while the driver and passengers pay no heed? The debate reflects a high-stakes contest underway in both the West and China that could determine which companies survive and which don’t in the industry’s biggest upheaval in decades. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has forecast that fully autonomous electric vehicles and robotaxis will add trillions of dollars to Tesla’s value. | The Information ($)Over the past two decades, no company has done more to shape the American workplace than Amazon. In its ascent to become the nation’s second-largest employer, it has hired hundreds of thousands of warehouse workers, built an army of contract drivers and pioneered using technology to hire, monitor and manage employees. Now, interviews and a cache of internal strategy documents viewed by The New York Times reveal that Amazon executives believe the company is on the cusp of its next big workplace shift: replacing more than half a million jobs with robots. Amazon’s U.S. workforce has more than tripled since 2018 to almost 1.2 million. But Amazon’s automation team expects the company can avoid hiring more than 160,000 people in the United States it would otherwise need by 2027. That would save about 30 cents on each item that Amazon picks, packs and delivers to customers. Executives told Amazon’s board last year that they hoped robotic automation would allow the company to continue to avoid adding to its U.S. workforce in the coming years, even though they expect to sell twice as many products by 2033. That would translate to more than 600,000 people whom Amazon didn’t need to hire. | The New York Times ($)

Amazon is reportedly leaning into automation plans that will enable the company to avoid hiring more than half a million U.S. workers. Citing interviews and internal strategy documents, The New York Times reports that Amazon is hoping its robots can replace more than 600,000 jobs it would otherwise have to hire in the United States by 2033, despite estimating it’ll sell about twice as many products over the period.Documents reportedly show that Amazon’s robotics team is working towards automating 75% of the company’s entire operations, and expects to ditch 160,000 US roles that would otherwise be needed by 2027. This would save about 30 cents on every item that Amazon warehouses and delivers to customers, with automation efforts expected to save the company $12.6 billion from 2025 to 2027. | The Verge

Armies of humanoid robots are poised to march into the world’s factories. But before they’re ready to turn a wrench, they must solve what Elon Musk calls “the hands problem.” Creating the mechanical equivalent of the human hand is a challenge that has been stumping corporate and academic researchers for years. Replacing muscle and skin with motors and sensors is a critical step in making humanoids a versatile source of labor, potentially unlocking a global market that Morgan Stanley estimates could reach $5 trillion by 2050. Musk says that Tesla’s humanoid robot—called Optimus—is good at walking, but making hands that can match a human’s has been a far tougher job. “In order to have a useful generalized robot, you do need this,” he said. “You do need an incredible hand.” | The Wall Street Journal ($)