Good morning! It’s Monday, July 15, 2024, and that is The Morning Shift, your every day roundup of the highest automotive headlines from around the globe, in a single place. Listed here are the necessary tales you must know.
1st Gear: Elon Musk Endorses Trump For President
After months of forwards and backwards between Tesla boss Elon Musokay and presidential hopeful Donald Trump, Musk has this week formally endorsed Trump’s bid to re-enter the White Home. The EV maker’s boss made the transfer on Twitter X over the weekend, the place he branded the previous president and convicted felon “sturdy.”
Musk has lengthy had shut ties to Trump, showering the previous president with reward whereas he was in workplace and even reportedly eyeing a spot within the White Home ought to Trump win the election in 150 days time. Now, the Tesla boss has formally thrown his backing behind the Trump marketing campaign, stories Automotive Information. In response to the positioning:
Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk publicly endorsed Donald Trump for the primary time within the U.S. presidential race, calling the Republican former president “powerful.”
Musk, the world’s richest individual, posted the endorsement with a video of Trump with blood on his face pumping his fist after a number of pictures rang out at Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday. Trump was protected.
The posts cement Musk’s shift in the direction of right-wing politics and hand Trump a high-profile backer in his quest to return to the White Home within the Nov. 5 election.
“I totally endorse President Trump and hope for his speedy restoration,” Musk posted on his social media platform X.
The submit got here simply hours after an assassination try was made on the previous president whereas he was talking at a marketing campaign rally in Pennsylvania. Trump was shot within the ear whereas on stage, with the previous president saying he was “saved by luck or God.”
It isn’t simply on-line that Musk has been throwing his weight behind the Trump marketing campaign, although, and he’s additionally been placing his cash the place his mouth is. In response to Reuters, the world’s richest man has donated to teams working to re-elect Trump in November:
Billionaire Elon Musk, who has been ramping up criticism of U.S. President Joe Biden, has donated to a political group working to elect rival presidential candidate Donald Trump, Bloomberg reported on Friday, citing sources.
The report didn’t point out how a lot Musk donated however added it was “a large quantity” given to a bunch known as America PAC.
Musk’s assist for Trump comes because the “House Alone 2″ actor continues to put future EV mandates, tax breaks and funding on the chopping block. The previous president has mentioned he will scrap each “loopy” EV mandate throughout America ought to he be returned to the White Home later this yr.
2nd Gear: Vinfast Cuts Goal And Delays U.S. Plant
The electrical automobile trade doesn’t want one other Trump presidency to run into troubles, because it’s already going through issues of its personal lengthy earlier than the voting has even begun. After Tesla posted declining gross sales for its EVs in America, Vietnamese automaker VinFast has now slashed its manufacturing targets for the yr and delayed plans for a plant right here within the Land Of The Free.
The EV maker, which presently presents its VF 8 electrical SUV Stateside, has pushed again the opening of its North Carolina plant by three years, in line with a brand new report from Fortune:
VinFast Auto Ltd. mentioned it would delay the opening of its electrical automobile manufacturing facility in North Carolina by three years to 2028, including to the Vietnamese firm’s challenges of turning into a worldwide model.
The choice will permit it to handle short-term spending “extra successfully” and focus assets on near-term development targets, the automaker mentioned in a press release. It additionally lowered its full-year gross sales goal to 80,000 items from 100,000 beforehand.
“We’ve adopted a extra prudent outlook that’s fastidiously calibrated to near-term headwinds, taking into full consideration the realities of market volatility and potential challenges,” VinFast Chairwoman Le Thi Thu Thuy mentioned within the assertion.
The reduce in targets of 20,000 automobiles follows related decreasing of expectations from firms similar to Tesla and VW, which delayed the rollout of its new ID 7 electrical sedan in America.
For VinFast, nevertheless, the issues run slightly deeper because the launch of its mannequin within the U.S. has been removed from clean. The VF 8 obtained some fairly woeful evaluations and its gross sales have been struggling ever since. In actual fact, final yr the corporate offered, on common, simply 26 automobiles per thirty days.
third Gear: Partial Self-Driving Doesn’t Make Vehicles Safer
Vehicles have gotten fairly protected over time due to the appearance of issues like affect constructions, airbags and even the humble seatbelt. Now, the following nice security options are coming from the world of laptop expertise, however not all driver help tech is definitely making automobiles safer.
In actual fact, a brand new report from Ars Technica has discovered that some partial automated driving programs don’t make automobiles any safer to drive in any respect. The report particularly calls out issues like lane-keeping help, which it says has little proof to assist its reported security advantages. As the positioning explains:
Driver assists that assist steer for you on the freeway haven’t contributed a lot to highway security, in line with a brand new examine from the Insurance coverage Institute for Freeway Security and the Freeway Loss Knowledge Institute. That’s in distinction to different options usually bundled collectively as “superior driver help programs,” or ADAS, lots of which have proven a marked discount in crash and declare charges.
“Every part we’re seeing tells us that partial automation is a comfort characteristic like energy home windows or heated seats fairly than a security expertise,” mentioned David Harkey, IIHS president.
Nonetheless, Ars was wanting to level out that the examine relied on older lane-keep tech and driver help options. The examine used 2017 – 2019 Nissan Rogues with ProPilot Help and 2013 – 2017 BMWs geared up with Driving Assistant Plus because it was a observe as much as an earlier investigation into the security advantages of superior driver help options.
Within the preliminary examine, it was discovered that there have been “loads of advantages to some ADAS options.” Nonetheless, researchers wished to uncover the security advantages of particular tech, similar to lane-keeping.
4th Gear: Italy May Promote Stellantis Manufacturers To China
Italy is having fairly the yr for car-making headlines after it threatened Stellantis with authorized motion over the naming of its new Junior electrical SUV. Now, the European nation is getting ready for one other battle with Stellantis because it threatens to unload defunct Italian automotive makers to China so as to deliver them again from the lifeless.
Italy is reportedly contemplating a sale of two long-dead manufacturers which have been below Stellantis’ possession for years. The manufacturers may very well be offered to China on the situation that they’re revived at new vegetation based mostly in Italy, stories Reuters. In response to the positioning:
Italy’s authorities is contemplating taking up by decree defunct auto manufacturers owned by Stellantis and providing them to Chinese language firms to encourage them to arrange factories in Italy, Il Sole 24 Ore every day reported on Friday.
The plan would contain the Innocenti and Autobianchi manufacturers, each shut down within the Nineteen Nineties.
Innocenti was well-known within the Nineteen Sixties and Nineteen Seventies for producing an Italian model of the British Mini, earlier than it was taken over by Fiat, now a part of Stellantis. Former Fiat unit Autobianchi produced upmarket metropolis automobiles such because the A112 and Y10.
Thus far, the 2 firms have been registered at Italy’s model of the U.S. Patents Workplace, the place they’ve been noticed with new graphic identities in contrast with those utilized by Stellantis. The federal government refused to touch upon Reuters report, and Stellantis knowledgeable the positioning that it had seen the rumors however hadn’t been knowledgeable of any sale by Italy’s minsters.
