Good morning! Today is Friday, May 26, 2023, and this is Morning shift, your daily compilation of the top automotive headlines from around the world, in one place. Here are the important stories you need to know.
Gear 1: Today at Dieselgate
Although the federal government has long since replaced Volkswagen for Dieselgate, the states must do the same. The latest is Texas, and VW has just agreed to pay $ 85 million for emissions cheating in Lone Star land. polite Reuters:
The settlement stipulates that the German automakers must pay a civil penalty of $85 million for their unlawful actions, [Texas Attorney General Ken] Paxton said.
Earlier this month, the Texas Supreme Court ruled the state’s environmental lawsuit against Volkswagen and Audi could go ahead.
Volkswagen, which declined to comment on Thursday, had previously addressed US actions as a result of an emissions scandal that caused more than $20 billion, but that did not protect it from regulatory liability. local and state, the courts have ruled before.
“If a company thinks they will shirk responsibility by breaking Texas law, endangering Texans and polluting our environment, they are completely wrong. Volkswagen and Audi were figuring that out the hard way, and now they’re paying the price,” Paxton said in a statement. […]
Volkswagen’s U.S. subsidiary in 2021 has unsuccessfully argued that under the Clean Air Act, the landmark U.S. environmental law, only the federal government can pursue the requirements. emissions.
That avoidance strategy didn’t work very well for the German automaker, though punishment in Ohio last year was less severe, up to $3.5 million. As of 2022, There are still pending lawsuits in counties in Utah and Florida, so it certainly won’t be the last we hear of Dieselgate at the local level.
2nd gear: Today in battery factories
It really is every day now. Yesterday We discussed how General Motors and Samsung gained approval for their battery manufacturing facility in Indiana, and now Hyundai and LG are also officially approved. Location: Bryan County, Georgia. Price? $4.3 billion. Time frame? The premises are expected to be up and running around the second half of 2023, with the site online before the end of 2025. Each Bloomberg:
Jaehoon Chang, CEO of Hyundai Motor Co. in the statement.
Automakers and EV battery makers are increasingly rushing to invest in North America to receive tax credits provided by Biden’s landmark climate change bill, the Reductions Act. inflationary. Automakers are also looking to diversify their supply of EV batteries, a market dominated by China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Ltd.
Hyundai is planning to invest $5 billion in another battery factory with SK On Co. in Georgia. Affiliate company Hyundai Mobis Co. will manufacture battery packs to power electric vehicles manufactured at Hyundai’s new plant in Georgia.
Youngsoo Kwon, managing director of LG Energy Solution, said: “Two powerful leaders in the automotive and battery industries have joined hands and together, we are ready to accelerate the electric vehicle transition in China. America.
we mentioned much time before the importance of having battery and EV plants in North America for Hyundai and Kia. 2025 is shaping up to be a pivotal year for brands’ electric vehicle business.
3rd device: Today in Tesla data breaches
Everyone’s favorite electric car maker could be hit with a massive data breach in Europe. A whistleblower leaked 100 gigabytes of sensitive, personal information to the German newspaper Handelsblattand data protection officials in the region have taken notice. Apparently, Elon Musk’s social security number was in the dump. OH! From Reuters, by car news:
The files include tables containing more than 100,000 names of former and current employees, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s social security number, along with personal email addresses, phone numbers, employee salaries, expenses customer bank details and confidential details from manufacturing, Handelsblatt reported.
Citing leaked files, the newspaper reported on thousands of customer complaints related to the automaker’s driver assistance systems with around 4,000 complaints about unintended acceleration or virtual braking. .
Last month, a Reuters report found that groups of Tesla employees privately shared through an internal messaging system, sometimes highly invasive photos and videos captured by customers’ car cameras. from 2019 to 2022.
The data protection office in the German state of Brandenburg, where Tesla’s European factory is located, described the data leak as “huge”.
Dagmar Hartge, Brandenburg’s data protection officer, said: “I cannot recall the scale of that, adding that the case has been handed over to the Dutch authorities, who will be held responsible if the charges are taken. allegation leads to an enforcement action. […]
A breach would violate the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). If such a violation is proven, Tesla could be fined up to 4% of its annual revenue, or 3.26 billion euros.
Germany’s IG Metall union said the revelations were “disturbing” and called on Tesla to notify employees of all data protection breaches and promote a culture in which employees can raise issues. issues and grievances openly and fearlessly.
“These revelations… are in keeping with the picture we have achieved in less than two years,” said Dirk Schulze, upcoming district director for IG Metall in Berlin, Brandenburg and Saxony.
Of course, This isn’t the first time we’ve heard of it of Tesla employees watching “funny” (read: potentially traumatic) videos captured by a customer’s car camera. It’s just that now, a real government can step up and do something about it. Thank God for GDPR, every advertiser’s worst nightmare.
4th Gear: Today in Cummins News
We rarely talk about Cummins, the diesel engine manufacturer that has The name has been deified by truck stans everywhere. Cummins recently decided to separate its engine filter unit on the stock market, which is very specific and went all out with a $27 million IPO that left some analysts scratching their heads in this volatile economy. From Reuters:
Atmus Filtration Technologies sold 14.1 million shares at $19.5 per share, the company said in a press release. The company previously guided the IPO could be valued at between $18 and $21 a share.
The IPO valued Atmus at $1.6 billion. The stock is expected to begin trading on Friday on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “ATMU”.
Financial markets are tense over the timing of an agreement between the White House and Republicans in Congress to raise the debt ceiling by a June 1 deadline set by the US Treasury Department.
However, despite the heightened volatility, the Cboe Volatility Index, known as Wall Street’s “fear gauge,” remains below 20, a level many bankers say makes it difficult for investors to trade. pricing of IPOs.
The VIX has almost always been above 20 since the first quarter of 2022 as the war in Ukraine and interest rate hikes by central banks fueled market anxiety. This has created an IPO drought, with only a handful of hopes in the stock market going against the trend.
Good luck to Atmus, a name I didn’t expect to carry the same cachet as Cummins.
5th device: Today companies leave Russia
It’s Michelin! One last time, Reuters:
French tire maker Michelin said on Friday that it had sold Russian Tire Manufacturing Company and Camso CIS in Russia to Power International Tires, a tire distributor in the country.
The team did not provide details on the sale price. […]
The deal, approved by the local government, will retain 250 jobs, mainly at Michelin’s only factory in Russia in Davydovo, the group said.
The Davydovo plant, located near Moscow, employs 750 people. It produces up to 2 million tires a year, mainly for passenger cars for the Russian and some Nordic markets.
Michelin said it was not possible to transfer every employee to Power International Tires and so those who wanted to leave the company would be allowed to do so “on good terms”.
Sales in Russia appear to account for 2% of the company’s total sales, so this is probably not a huge loss for the French tire maker. However, the Russian government has made it quite expensive to close stores there since they invaded Ukraine, as some automakers have discovered. Hey, that’s a revenue stream.
Reverse: 15 million served
On this day in 1927 — 96 years ago — the Model T ended production, the last model to roll off the production line. From History.com:
Neutral: Long weekend?
What are you doing for it? I’m heading to a house in the mountains.
