The world’s largest automaker by sales is on the verge of yet another crisis. Earlier this year, Volkswagen’s CEO Oliver Blume, who replaced its previous CEO nearly a year ago, said in an internal meeting that the “roof is on fire” and that their “structures and processes are still too complex, slow, and inflexible.” VW’s…
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Two UAW Scenarios for Automakers: Heads, They Lose. Tails, They Also Lose.
UAW strikes have crossed the 10-day mark, with strikes expanding to 38 locations across 20 states last Friday. The UAW’s president said discussions with Ford have been progressing, but not so much with GM and Stellantis. Economic impact: Ford’s CFO says, “The auto industry has a huge multiplier effect on the economy” with recession implications…
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Impacts of the UAW strike could send the economy and car prices spiraling
Unions are about to slam the brakes on the auto industry with another potential unprecedented strike. Nearly 150K workers from the United Auto Workers (UAW) are prepared to walk out on the “Big Three” (General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler) by Sept. 15 if agreements aren’t reached, and such a scenario could wreak havoc on the…
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Luxury Carmaker Aston Martin is Driving to Survive
Big things are happening at Aston Martin — whose stock is up 154% this year. Yesterday, Goldman gave Aston a buy rating for the first time since 2019. Aston Martin has been through the corporate ringer in the past few decades — going through several owners while struggling to survive. In 2020, Canadian billionaire Lawrence…
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The subprime auto market is deteriorating. Should investors panic?
Struggling consumers are falling behind on car payments, and many are having their vehicles repossessed. Here’s the story of 21-year-old Kobe Hatch (BBG). With higher interest rates, his monthly car bill cost nearly $1,000 and he fell behind on payments. His car was repossessed, and without it, he got fired from his job as an…
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Five major electric vehicle trends; here’s the 2023 outlook
2022 was a milestone year for electric vehicles (EVs). The global electric vehicle market share crossed 10% for the first time. Sales grew 68% from the previous year. What’s the forecast for the industry in 2023? Code: 60s music for nothing in, 70s for new stuff, 80s for danger. Danger ahead. Didn’t get that reference?…
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Elon Musk dumps more Tesla shares; goes against his word
This week, Elon Musk disclosed an additional $4B sale in Tesla shares, despite saying he was done selling — bringing his total liquidation to ~$36B in the past year. $TSLA has lost over half its value this year, and investors are having doubts. Will he continue selling his remaining ~14% of Tesla shares? That depends…
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Carvana’s money-losing vending machine is eating investors’ cash
Online car retailer Carvana (NYSE:CVNA) — a.k.a. the “vending machine for cars” — is in the hot seat. During COVID, it more than tripled to as high as $370 per share and was widely pushed by finfluencers. Last Friday, Carvana reported earnings that were way short of expectations — sending its stock tanking nearly 50%…
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Ferrari’s earnings show why operational excellence leads to strong investor returns
Find a quality business at a fair price, and the rest will take care of itself. Aston Martin (LON:AML) investors are learning that the hard way. Two luxury car makers — Ferrari (NYSE:RACE) and Aston Martin reported earnings this week that couldn’t look any more different. Supercar demand remains strong for all Ferrari is seeing…
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Tesla Earnings: Did Elon Musk shoot himself in the foot?
Lots of chatter after Tesla’s earnings report. Investors are getting worried about Tesla after the release of their third-quarter financial results. But it was a record quarter, right? $21B in sales, with net income doubling to $3.3B. For most companies, this would have been impressive. But not for Tesla… There are extremely high expectations of…
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