Happy Tuesday! It’s December 26, 2023, and this is The Morning Shift — your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, all in one place. Here are the important stories you need to know.
1st Gear: 2024 Will Be A Good Year To Buy A Car
The past few years have been rough for would-be car buyers. Supply chain mishaps, scalpers, dealer markups — it’s no wonder the cars on American roads keep getting older. Now, though, analysts are predicting some light at the end of the tunnel. From the Detroit Free Press:
If you’ve been wanting to buy a new car, but couldn’t afford it, then 2024 may finally be your year.
Cox Automotive Chief Economist Jonathan Smoke says 2024 will be the best year for consumers to buy a new car since before the pandemic, as new vehicle supply increases, transaction prices come down, automakers are expected to offer more deals and interest rates should ease.
Happy New Year!
“With supply normalizing and the economy stabilizing to hit a soft landing and not turn into a recession, it leads to an environment that is the most normal we’ve encountered since 2019,” Smoke told the Detroit Free Press recently. “For consumers looking to buy a vehicle, it’s the best year by far since 2019.”
The laws of supply and demand rarely seem to work out in our favor as consumers, but maybe — just this once — we’ll get lucky. Remember when cars used to sell below MSRP? We could have those days back.
2nd Gear: NIO Wants To Come For The EQS
The high-end EV market is an interesting one. It makes sense that automakers keep trying it, since they can charge a premium for new tech to pay off the R&D costs before it trickles down to more pedestrian vehicles, but the actual sales numbers of these top-tier cars leave something to be desired. Profits can be even worse. NIO, though, is trying it anyway. From Bloomberg:
Chinese electric carmaker Nio Inc. unveiled a flagship sedan at its annual customer event Saturday, with the vehicle set to take on Porsche AG’s Panamera series and Mercedes-Benz Group AG’s luxury S range.
The four-seater executive sedan dubbed ET9 is expected to start delivery in the first quarter of 2025, with an estimated starting price at around 800,000 yuan ($112,000). It is more expensive than Tesla Inc.’s Model S, which starts at 698,900 yuan in China.
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The company’s gross margin dropped to as low as 1% in the second quarter before recovering to 8% in the three months through Sept. 30. It’s on track to deliver around 159,000 cars this year — less than two-thirds its original 250,000 goal. Its market value has slumped almost 40% from a recent peak of $27.5 billion in August.
The firm is looking to slash expenses by around 2 billion yuan in 2024. It has also signed deals to partner with local automakers including Chongqing Changan Automobile Co. and Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd. on its capital intensive battery-swapping business, and will move manufacturing fully in-house, which could help shave 10% off production costs.
I can see the thinking over at NIO — profits are down, so why not start building higher-margin cars? It’s a bold move, Cotton, but let’s see how it works out for them. Maybe NIO can pull off what Lucid is struggling to do.
3rd Gear: CES is pulling back on EVs
Last year, CES was huge for electric cars. Every automaker and their grandmother had a booth, all debuting the latest in electrification technology. Cars were going to be the next big thing in consumer tech, with all the subscription services and data sales that come with that. Unfortunately for automakers, it seems consumers are more interested in cars as “a way to get around” than some sort of live-work-transport-entertainment one-stop shop. Automakers, accordingly, are taking a different approach to CES. From Automotive News:
Electric vehicle and charging news made a splash at the 2023 CES tech show. But their presence this year mirrors what’s going on in the automotive market — a growth slowdown.
At the 2024 CES, EV announcements are expected to slow to a trickle.
Last year, Mercedes-Benz announced it would build its own charging network. Volkswagen revealed the electric ID7 sedan and Sony Honda Mobility, a joint venture between the companies, revealed the Afeela EV prototype.
“It was the show for EVs. That doesn’t appear to be it this year,” said Nathan Niese, associate director of electrification at Boston Consulting Group.
This year’s show will feature a new global EV series by Honda, the only automaker that said it will have big electrification news.
Otherwise, Blink Charging plans to exhibit. Additional major charging companies such as EVgo, ChargePoint and Electrify America say they won’t exhibit or break news at the show.
Many of these companies, particularly the EV charging brands, are still working on delivering their original promises. Maybe it’s best to get your core product sorted out before you go making those big One More Thing announcements at trade show keynotes.
4th Gear: The Auto Market Is Getting Bored With Unproven, Incapable AI
AI is the current buzzword in every tech field, where it’s supposed to revolutionize every single career and make workers obsolete. According to Silicon Valley types, you either work on coding AI or you die in the gutter, like a very roundabout Roko’s Basilisk. More established businesses, though, seem to be cooling on the tech. From Automotive News:
The auto industry sees tremendous potential in artificial intelligence, looking for it to play a role in predicting when vehicles might break down, monitoring driver behavior, providing automated driving assistance and improving customer service.
But as the industry prepares for CES in Las Vegas later this month, gone are the lofty commitments and lightning-speed timelines for promising new technologies such as AI.
High interest rates, tighter capital access and a general impatience among investors and customers have changed things. Expectations for automotive AI have come back down to earth.
It’s nice to see another indicator that the AI thing is another fantasy based on free money for Silicon Valley. The underlying technology is just too basic, too unreliable, and too untrustworthy to take seriously.
Reverse: We Could Do It Again
Neutral: When Should The Holiday Decorations Change?
Right now, my apartment is full of string lights, stockings, pine-scented candles, and 3D-printed trees. Should I swap them out now, for champagne bottles and streamers, or do I get a few more days? How does it work in your house, when do you change decorations from one holiday to another?
On The Radio: Max Coveri – “Running In The 90s” (Sytricka Remix)
I need an R32 Skyline so bad. Santa didn’t leave one under the tree this year, but there’s always 2024. This is my Red Ryder carbine action 200-shot range model air rifle.