Intel Report | July 1 | The Weekly Automotive & Mobility News That Matters

BY AUTOMOTIVE VENTURES | July 1 2024 | VIEW ONLINE ➡️

What We're Reading 

🚗  Automotive

The ongoing dealership management system outages following cyberattacks on CDK Global could cost retailers nearly $1 billion if it lasts until the July 4 holiday weekend, according to estimates from the Michigan-based Anderson Economic Group, LLC . The firm said the incident could cost affected dealers roughly $600 million if it stretched till June 29. If systems don't come back online until after June 30 as CDK has indicated and the crisis lasted till July 6, those losses could reach $944 million. | Automotive News ($)

Volvo Cars had an ambitious target: to complete half of its global vehicle transactions online by 2025. This year Volvo gave up on that goal. When asked how many customers complete their entire car deal online, Björn Annwall , Volvo's deputy CEO and chief commercial officer, said it was “zero percent.” | Automotive News ($)

Rivian will get a much-needed cash infusion through a new partnership with Volkswagen as automakers large and small rethink their strategies in a slowing electric-vehicle market. The companies announced plans for a joint venture supported by an initial $1 billion investment from VW in Rivian and up to $4 billion more over time. In exchange, VW will get access to the startup’s technology for use in its own EVs and a partner to develop “next-generation” battery-powered vehicles and software. Rivian’s shares soared more than 50% in extended trading after Tuesday’s announcement, recapturing about half of the stock’s year-to-date losses. | Bloomberg ($)

A few months ago, Austria started to enforce an eye-catching tactic to curb reckless driving: Those who exceed the speed limit by 60 kilometers per hour (37 miles per hour) or more could see their vehicle confiscated and sold by the government. Officials said they drew inspiration from neighboring Switzerland, which has been confiscating cars owned by extreme speeders for more than a decade. Other European countries have also taken steps to keep lead-footed drivers in check: Finland, for instance, issues speeding tickets that scale with income. (In 2002 a Harley-Davidson-riding Nokia executive made news when he was hit with a €116,000 ticket, or $125,000 at current exchange rates, for going 25 kph over the limit.) | Bloomberg ($)

Daniel Pink makes an argument for why we should ban left turns on busy streets. | The Washington Post ($)

Deadly counterfeit airbags are making their way into vehicles. Federal regulators are accelerating arrests and car companies are warning dealers to be more vigilant as knockoffs are being installed into vehicles during postcrash repairs. | The Wall Street Journal ($)

The number of U.S. pedestrians killed in motor-vehicle crashes last year was notably higher than prepandemic levels. An estimated 7,318 pedestrians were killed in crashes in 2023, 14% more than the 6,412 killed in 2019, the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) said. Fatalities dropped more than 5% between 2022 and 2023, however, giving the group hope that a problem that has vexed local and federal officials for decades is improving. | The Wall Street Journal ($)

Matt Stoller provides some of the fascinating backstory behind the Authenticom / CDK Global / The Reynolds and Reynolds Company lawsuit. | Matt Stoller

Solera, LLC. , which provides business software used by auto insurers, dealerships, and fleet operators, filed on Friday with the SEC for an initial public offering. The company filed with a placeholder deal size; estimates of the IPO could raise up to $1.5 billion. The company had previously traded on the NYSE until 2016, when Vista Equity Partners took the company private in a $6.5 billion buyout. Solera booked $2.4 billion in revenue during the 12 months ended 3/31/2024. | Renaissance Capital  

⚡️ Electric Vehicles (EVs)

Broken and malfunctioning EV chargers, erratic charging pricing and drivers of regular cars who park in spots reserved for electric vehicles are a significant obstacle to increasing EV sales, a study led by a Harvard Business School fellow has found. Based on a decade of data obtained from EV drivers’ reviews of charging stations, the research found that charging stations in the US have an average reliability score of just 78%, meaning about one in five don’t work. That’s less reliable, on average, than regular gas stations. | Bloomberg ($)

Mercedes-Benz AG is the latest automaker to backtrack on their ambitious plans to go 100% electric. The German automaker is no longer planning to be an all-EV brand by 2030, and is now pumping billions into further development of internal combustion engines. The changes come as Mercedes reportedly admits that it was overly ambitious with its electrification goals. | The Drive

Wireless charging of electric vehicles — literally parking a vehicle over a concrete-embedded charging plate and magnetically connecting to a vehicle — is a niche mostly restricted to transit buses and yard tractors that pull containers around a distribution yard. But as the rollout of plug-in charging is slowed by infrastructure buildout and lack of timely energizing, the underground solution also known as inductive charging could expand to other uses. | Freightwaves

Rivian's market value of $14.4 billion equates to about three times the revenue analysts expect for this year, which is less than half Tesla ’s multiple of 6.4 times. Chinese EV stocks are much cheaper at around one times revenue, reflecting intense competition in a market where the technology has already gone mainstream. | The Wall Street Journal ($)

Sightline Climate (CTVC) tracks the EV-related companies that went public via SPAC. | CTVC  

🇨🇳  China

Chinese automotive brands are expected to achieve 33% market share across the globe by 2030 according to a report by the consulting firm AlixPartners . Even as the U.S. enacts trade policies to protect the domestic market, Chinese automakers continue their steady march to global dominance on the strength of their electric vehicle product offerings. What AlixPartners described as an "overtime culture" in China enables companies to release new vehicles and product updates faster than their overseas rivals. | Automotive News ($)

The first China shock that devastated manufacturing in the U.S. in the early 2000s bypassed large parts of Europe. A second shock now underway looks much more threatening. But rather than simply erect ever higher barriers to the flood of Chinese imports, as the U.S. has done, European leaders are seeking an alternative: rolling out a welcome mat. | The Wall Street Journal ($)  

 📲 Ridesharing

Uber is launching a "One Less Car" trial: a 5-week challenge where up to 175 selected participants across the U.S. and Canada will give up their personal car and get $1,000 from Uber to use for alternate forms of transportation, like walking, public transit, cycling, and rideshare. Car owners in the following cities are eligible: Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington D.C., Miami, San Francisco, Toronto, and Vancouver. | Uber  

🤖 Autonomy & Robotics

A new paper published in Nature Magazine analyzed over 37,000 accidents involving autonomous and human-driven vehicles to gauge risk across several accident scenarios. The paper reports AVs were generally less prone to accidents than those driven by humans, but significantly underperformed humans in some situations. Level 4 self-driving vehicles (those capable of full self-driving without a human at the wheel) were roughly 36% less likely to be involved in moderate injury accidents and 90% less likely to be involved in a fatal accident. Compared to human-driven vehicles, the risk of rear-end collision was roughly halved, and the risk of a broadside collision was roughly one-fifth. | IEEE Spectrum  

🌡️ Climate

New York City is the world’s most-congested urban area for the second year in a row, costing the city an estimated $9.1 billion in lost time, a new report shows. A typical motorist driving through the most populated city in the US lost 101 hours last year because of traffic during peak commuting times, the most among nearly 1,000 cities across the globe, according to the 2023 Global Traffic Scorecard from INRIX - a traffic-data analysis firm. Mexico City ranked second on the list, followed by London, Paris and Chicago. Other US cities in the global top 10 include Los Angeles and Boston, according to the report. Rankings are determined by the influence of congestion relative to population. | Bloomberg ($)  

🚂 Rail

The U.S. has no federal limit on freight train length. But, can a train be too long? A new study published in Risk Analysis shows that the odds of a train jumping the tracks increases as the vehicle gets longer. Replacing two 50-car trains with one 100-car train raises the aggregate odds of derailment by 11%, the study concluded—even accounting for an overall decrease in the number of trains running. A 200-car train would have a 24% increase compared with four 50-car trains, according to the study team’s calculations. | Scientific American  

✈️ Aviation

Lufthansa has become the first airline group to pass the cost of Europe’s new emissions rules on to passengers, announcing a surcharge of between €1 and €72 per ticket from next year.  The Frankfurt-based group said it was imposing the fee on departures from European countries to cover the “steadily rising additional costs” of new environmental fuel requirements. | Financial Times ($)

Ben James provides The Big Guide to Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF). | Ben James    

🚘  Car of the Week

We have a new "Car of the Week": a 1995 Porsche 911 Type 993 GT2 Coupé. | Bonhams Cars

Have a great week,

Steve Greenfield