Very nice design.

An interesting note here is that the article mentions the resemblance to the eVX concept from Suzuki, which suggests this is one of the original cars Toyota said they’d be working on all the way back in 2019. At the time they also mentioned they’d be working on the model with Daihatsu, which suggests this could be a global model.

Regardless, even with the buybacks, their share price is still lower than when the strikes began.

This is key — GM would want to do a buyback if they think the stock is undervalued, which if they have a plan to deal with the additional costs, it is.

You’re right, what was I thinking? GM never makes mistakes.

And tellingly, Barra also managed to slip in some praise for the company’s internal combustion engine vehicles, which continue to generate profits for the company at a time when costs are rising across the board. “Our strong ICE business that frankly has gotten stronger, and we still believe there’s growth there,” Barra said.

Sigh. If only GM had actually stuck with the Voltec hybrid powertrain and pushed it forward. 🤦‍♂️

Schaefer’s actually talking about the Volkswagen brand, which is even worse, at around 3% — Audi and Porsche are doing fine, but they’re being dragged down by Volkswagen. A bigger problem for Volkswagen right now is they invested wildly into EVs, and are now having trouble justifying those expenses while their AV and SDV efforts flounder. Not long ago the committed figure was a staggering $193B for all three, which means they have a lot of cars to sell.

That doesn’t say anything about the workers not having jobs.

I’m not entirely clear if Android Automotive actually assumes control of the drivetrain or is effectively just a frontend for whatever firmware Volvo has running on their motor and battery control units

More of the latter. This is the multi-domain part of multi-domain computing: The cars run multiple operating systems simultaneously, and the multiple operating systems talk to each other.

Right now that happens over separate boards and separate chips, but in the future, it’ll all just happen on one physical chip with multiple cores, with all of the different bits and pieces essentially running on their own VMs.

do you think we’ll see the industry end up shifting to an industry wide base OS as a way to pool resources or OEMs seem set on sticking to their in-house software stacks?

I’d say we’re converging on a set of common standards, like everyone seems to just be using Android for IVI, but it doesn’t matter what the base layer is underneath Android — just that it talks with the same APIs.

Guess I should have figured capex would be hard to delineate as being purely BEV or ICE related if nothing else just on the basis of how many components vendors are trying to share across their platforms.

Sure, and don’t forget, there are other non-powertrain developments happening orthogonally. For instance, if Hyundai expands into PBVs (including AVs) and those PBVs are EVs, how do we categorize that spend? Is that EV tooling or something else? It gets confusing quickly.

I was not aware of the 2026 industry estimate, do they have a range of different dates assuming better or worse market conditions and government support levels?

I haven’t really seen any date ranges, but I assume the rolling-profitability break-even point in particular is actually pretty clear for most OEMs. We’re seeing a convergence point of a few key regulatory inflection points and critical technologies at that time:

• Production of LFP packs ramp up in the west at that time. Just off the top of my head, Ford, LG, and Volkswagen all have LFP targeted for 2026.
• We should see dry electrodes become market-ready at that time. Same deal, should happen right around 2026, likely along with the LFP spike. This will bring cell cost down significantly.
• In Europe, Euro 7 kicks in putting significant pressure on OEMs to reduce their fleet emissions. Expect pure-ICEV to basically disappear from Europe entirely by 2025. In the USA, the CARB ACC2 regulations kick in, mandating ZEV minimums for cars sold in most of the coastal states.
• All of this means it’s suddenly worth it for OEMs to dedicate entire lines to BEVs, rather than just portions of lines or platform-flexible lines.
• On top of this, right around 2025 is when we see core compute become a mature, commoditized phenomenon, and when OEMs start having single, integrated software and compute hardware packages. You’ll sometimes hear this referred to as the “software-defined vehicle” paradigm, or “multi-domain compute”.

The end-sum result of all these individual elements coalescing is that most of the major OEMs have their next-gen platforms coming online right around that 2025-2026 timeline. For instance, Hyundai will target their new IMA-based eM and eS platforms for that time period.

So the question for me isn’t whether BEVs become net-profitable in 2026, but rather how net-profitable they become, and then as you suggest, roughly how well OEMs are able to recoup their investments.

Amusingly, if you follow the history, the US was a remarkably strong regulator against ‘natural’ market forces for a very, very long time. The Sherman Antitrust Act in particular has had some of the most impactful results of any such legislation globally for workers and consumers.

It was only after the red scare that everything just… fell apart. Suddenly worker and consumer rights became associated with communism, and communism was bad. It’s been decade after decade of regressive policy after regressive policy since then.

A cheeky headline about two people dying in a tragic car crash is just in such bad taste.

I don’t think you can, at least not in the fashion that you’re hoping for. There are a few reasons for this, but for instance, consider that tooling and engineering efforts towards EVs are synergistic with advances in core compute and line automation. Tooling efforts being rolled out for EVs are rolled back into ICE, and vice versa. There’s no clear hard line between an EV expense and a non-EV expense. Meanwhile, R&D costs are never fully ‘absorbed’ — they just keep pushing forward to new innovations and improvements.

As you suggest, even something like financing terms and changing sales environments can drastically change how quickly these capital expenditures are paid off. If Ford has to drop prices on the Lightning to make it sell, they’re going to take a lot longer to make money.

What we do know is that most OEMs are targeting around 2026 for ‘breakeven’, meaning net and rolling profitability. We also know that not long after that, most OEMs are expecting BEVs to reach cost parity. After that… well, everyone’s pay-down and investment scheme will be different.

What is their plan if various countries including those in the EU (plus some American states) won’t allow ICE in 2035?

Toyota plans to be fully ZEV in 2035 in the EU.

For Lexus, that date is 2030.

My understanding is that all service centers in Sweden are still servicing cars so at the very least a decent % of Tesla employees are not on strike while media makes it seem like most service technicians at Tesla are on strike.

That’s not the same as a union vote. It’s also not particularly surprising that non-union workers would not strike… since they’re not in a union. The whole point of this action is to give those workers collective bargaining leverage — the power to strike, effectively.

I assume Tjenestemænd would be mostly civil servants like police, firefighters, teachers, and the like?

90% of Tesla’s workforce in Sweden voted against the Union

I can’t find anything to support this claim — do you have a reliable reference, by any chance?

That’s not quite what the article you’ve just linked says. What it says is that the judge granted an interim request for the plates to be picked up by Tesla. It’s a ‘win’ in that it allows Tesla to continue their business, but it isn’t (yet) a win of the case itself. The litigation is still pending.

I dont think any other manufacturer is planning their own battery production besides VW

Stellantis, Mercedes: Automotive Cells Company

Toyota: Toyota Batteries North Carolina

Yes but onstar won’t arbitrarily shut you down for driving like a jackass.

Neither will this. It’s an alcohol-impairment feature, as per the article and the direct text of the bill itself (Page 403). It doesn’t have anything to do with driving styles.

I’m feeling just a touch of alarmism here — consider the BYD Han competes in this same segment with similar specs, and sells quite well. Yeah, the ID7 is a bit boring, but a lot of people out there want boring — Volkswagen already sells over 2M units a year in China, they shouldn’t have too much of a problem finding buyers.

The Taycan is fantastic, and I’d argue the 911 looks as good as it ever has.

It’s really just the Panamera which has always been a bit lost.