Good morning! It’s Tuesday, February 13, 2024, and this is The Morning Shift, your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, in one place. Here are the important stories you need to know.
1st Gear: Stellantis Adding Tesla Charger In 2026, Now Everyone Has Them
Stellantis is adopting Tesla’s electric vehicle charging plug for its upcoming EVs, becoming the last major automaker to do so. Now, all Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge and Ram EVs will come with Tesla’s NACS charging port. From The Verge:
Stellantis said its first EVs to feature the SAE J3400 plug, also known as Tesla’s North American Charging Standard, will be out in 2025. During the transition period, the company said it will provide adapters to customers who own EVs with Combined Charging Standard, or CCS, plugs.
The company sells a range of plug-in hybrid vehicles, as well as battery-electric models, most of which are available in Europe. A slate of upcoming EVs, including fully electric Jeep, Ram, and Chrysler models, are planned for the next several years.
The decision is expected to give Stellantis’ EV customers access to Tesla’s superior charging network, as well as provide some peace of mind about the future of EV charging in North America and beyond. Interestingly enough, Stellantis’ press release on the announcement makes zero mention of “Tesla,” instead referring to the company’s charging plug under its official standard name, SAE J3400.
This movement started in November 2022, when Tesla announced it was renaming its charging tech to the North American Charging Standard (NACS) and would be opening it up to other automakers.
Ford came first, then GM, and then, well, everyone else. Most recently, Volkswagen Group — one of the world’s largest automakers, with brands like Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Porsche, and Lamborghini under its umbrella — announced it would be adopting NACS, leaving Stellantis as the last remaining holdout.
Until just a few years ago, Tesla Superchargers were exclusive to Tesla owners. In fact, it was one of Tesla’s main selling points: consistent, exclusive, and abundant EV charging. But that began to change when the company started offering access to non-Tesla EVs — first in Europe and then in the US after the Biden administration said it would be a prerequisite to tap into some of the $7.5 billion for EV charging in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
Tesla’s Supercharger network is widely recognized as superior to many of the third-party EV charging stations, most of which feature CCS plugs and the less utilized CHAdeMO charging standard. The company says it has 45,000 Superchargers worldwide, 12,000 of which are located in the US.
Stellantis, along with BMW, GM, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, and Mercedes-Benz, is involved in a joint venture to install fast-charging EV stations along major highways and in cities in the US. Today, the company said those future charging stalls would also feature Tesla’s charging plus alongside CCS outlets.
Imagine if Tesla could build vehicles as good as its chargers? It’d really be on to something at that point.
2nd Gear: Uber, Lyft, Doordash Drivers Going On Strike
Thousands of Uber, Lyft and DoorDash drivers are expected to go on strike on February 14 for fair pay, so good luck getting a ride or food on Valentine’s Day. The demonstrations are taking place just about a week after Lyft said it would guarantee weekly earnings for drivers. It’s a first for the U.S. ride-hail industry. However, it’s clearly not enough. From Reuters:
The drivers, considered independent contractors, have accused the platforms of taking disproportionately high amounts as commissions.
“This is the biggest strike I’ve ever seen, thousands and thousands of drivers … it’s going to be nationwide,” Jonathan Cruz, a driver in Miami and part of the Justice For App Workers coalition, which represents more than 100,000 drivers.
Uber said only a minority of its drivers participate in such strikes, which rarely have an impact on business.
[…]
While many drivers sign up with these firms to supplement their income from other jobs, some drive full time for the platforms.
“A year into algorithmic pricing, drivers have seen incredible decrease of our pay… whatever calculations and algorithms they’re using, it’s absolutely useless,” Nicole Moore, president of the California-based Rideshare Drivers United union, told Reuters on Sunday.
[…]
“By not paying drivers a livable wage, drivers are barely able to afford the bare necessities,” said Shantwan Humphrey, a driver in Dallas, Texas.
In 2023, Uber drivers’ monthly average gross earnings fell 17.1 percent. according to Reuters. At the same time, Lyft drivers claim a 2.5 percent increase. No matter how you slide it, these folks aren’t getting paid nearly enough for the services they provide. Good luck, brothers and sisters.
3rd Gear: It’s Hard To Value Used EV Batteries
Much like the price of used electric vehicles, no one seems to know how much their batteries should cost either. Depending on the pack, size and manufacturer, battery replacements can range anywhere from $5,000 to $20,000. Those costs can scare off buyers, too.
Valuing an EV’s battery is apparently not as simple as figuring out “how much” juice it has left. We’ve got to think in terms of the difference between a battery’s health and its life. Who knew? From Automotive News:
It’s an important distinction to think about, [Scott Case, Recurrent CEO], said. A used EV battery’s state of health is a measure of the ability of the many lithium ion cells within to store energy compared with those in a new battery. When a battery is new, its capacity to store energy is higher. Depending on factors such as age, temperature and charging habits, those cells can degrade.Case said California and the European Union have made pushes to disclose EV battery states of health, which would include testing batteries in used EVs to estimate:
Capacity during charging
Capacity during discharging (i.e. driving)
Resistance, or how hard it is for electrons to move in and out of each battery cell, which can affect vehicle performance.
Battery life is a whole different story.
Battery life, on the other hand, can be thought of as how long a battery may be used in a vehicle for transportation purposes. Generally, the oldest EV batteries date back to 2010, Case said.
Though some individual EV batteries from that early era have certainly failed, the industry has not yet seen the end of life of older-generation batteries, Case said.
Here are some more questions that go into the valuation of an EV’s battery
Can the mile range of a used EV battery be determined?
It is possible to examine an individual used EV and come up with a tight mileage range for it, Case said. Estimating an exact range is not feasible, he said, because how far an EV can go on a single charge varies wildly according to exterior temperatures, how the heating and cooling system is being used, how fast it’s being driven and other factors.
What about predicting how long a used EV battery will last?
How long an EV battery will last can be projected based on how it’s aged so far, Case said. However, he’s not aware of anyone who is able to do that with precision; there are too many variables that go into it and the future can’t be known, he said.
Have EV batteries evolved?
Technology used for EV battery chemistry has progressed since 2010, Case said. It shouldn’t be assumed the battery cells of an EV such as the 2024 Ford Mustang Mach-E will perform similarly over time to battery cells of a 2012 Nissan Leaf, he said.
Within reason, today’s EV batteries are going to last at least as long as ones from the early days of EVs, if not longer, Case said.
It just goes to show that nobody really knows much of anything these days.
4th Gear: Toyota Cleans House At Daihatsu
Toyota said both the president and chairman of Daihatsu Motor will be stepping down almost a year after the automaker said it had rigged crash safety tests, something you shouldn’t do if you’re a car company. From Reuters:
The departures are among the most drastic changes Daihatsu has made so far, as Toyota seeks to return the brand to its roots as one of Japan’s most iconic compact car makers.
Toyota faces a potential hit to its reputation from the safety certification lapses at Daihatsu, as well as separate governance issues at truck maker Hino Motors and affiliate Toyota Industries.
The scandals at the three companies triggered a rare apology of Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda last month.
In a statement, the world’s top-selling automaker said its chief executive officer for the Latin America and Caribbean region, Masahiro Inoue, will replace Soichiro Okudaira as Daihatsu’s president effective March 1.
Daihatsu’s chairman, Sunao Matsubayashi, will also step down and will not be replaced, Toyota added.
The outgoing Okudaira had worked at Toyota for nearly four decades before becoming president of Daihatsu in 2017, a year after it became a wholly owned Toyota subsidiary.
Toyota Chief Executive Koji Sato told reporters, however, that the organisational change at Daihatsu was not carried out as a punishment for the outgoing executives.
In terms of volume, Daihatsu accounted for only a small-ish piece of Toyota’s pie: just 7 percent of the automaker’s 11.2 million vehicle sales in 2023.
Because of the scandal, Daihatsu is being removed from a commercial vehicle partnership known as the Commercial Japan Partnership Technologies.