Autonomous vehicles

Xpeng’s smart cars confront commoditisation

19 Mar 2025

The $22 bln Chinese firm's assisted-driving systems helped propel its sales 33% in 2024. Now rivals including Tesla, BYD and Geely offer such tech at low prices. Throw in CEO He Xiaopeng's plan to mass produce flying cars in 2026 and the lossmaking group's strategy looks shakey.

Tesla’s future may be more GM than OMG

4 Mar 2025

The $970 bln electric-car titan survived near-death experiences thanks to faith in CEO Elon Musk. Autonomous-vehicle and talking-robot hype turbocharged its valuation. Now rising rivals and political toxicity may herald sales stagnation, while its edge in tech could narrow.

Trump and Tesla will turbocharge self-driving race

23 Dec 2024

The incoming president could speed up the development of autonomous driving tech in the US. Elon Musk’s marque is poised to reap the rewards in what could be a $400 bln global market. Stragglers, like China’s BYD, will have to play catchup with a flurry of deals and partnerships.

China’s cars fine-tune their driving skills

21 May 2024

Automakers in the country are touting autonomous driving, and Tesla is preparing to join the fray. On this week’s Exchange podcast, Maxwell Zhou, CEO of Alibaba-backed DeepRoute.ai, explains why progress is accelerating and how that is already changing consumers’ expectations.

Mobileye’s bullwhip will come for Nvidia too

4 Jan 2024

The maker of chips for autonomous-car systems warned that customer stockpiling would hit first-quarter revenue. Gluts are inevitable across the industry, but this one sent the Intel-backed company’s shares down 25%. AI-semiconductor suppliers are bound to face similar surpluses.

GM’s driverless ride heads into a ditch

21 Nov 2023

The carmaker’s robo-taxi unit is on pause after an accident; its two co-founders have left. As OpenAI’s drama shows, losing visionary leaders is a big problem. The silver lining: In GM’s case, investors never seemed to take the cash-guzzling Cruise division seriously anyway.

VW and Xpeng get much-needed mutual fuel injection

27 Jul 2023

The $77 bln German carmaker has bought a 5% stake in $18 bln Xpeng. Access to the electric-vehicle maker’s technology could boost VW’s own flagging business in the People’s Republic. But Xpeng equally needs the cash to help withstand a fierce domestic EV price war.

Tesla’s new burden: shouldering the market

19 Jul 2023

The $920 bln automaker effectively jump-started the electric car market; now, it’s trying to sustain it, opening up its once-differentiating charging network and technology while driving down prices. That could grow the battery-powered pie but threatens Tesla’s share.

Detroit wisely gives up to Tesla this time

9 Jun 2023

General Motors joined rival Ford in adopting electric-car leader Tesla’s charging tech. It eases the path for their battery-powered divisions by ceding modest revenue to Elon Musk’s company. The risk is that other more lucrative parts of their vehicles will head the same way.

Tesla’s governance autopilot heads for disaster

17 May 2023

Despite a 60% drop from peak market value and Twitter distractions, shareholders backed the EV-maker’s board yet again. Boss Elon Musk’s indulgence of conspiracy theories and avowal to keep speaking his mind raise more red flags. The supine stance invites dangerous consequences.

Volkswagen has increasingly narrow recovery track

4 May 2023

The $77 bln German auto giant reported bumper revenue, but faces an era of slowing growth as slick rivals like Tesla expand. CEO Oliver Blume hopes to boost car sales by 15% and avoid a collapse in prices. Neither looks easy, but at least its stock is priced for the worst.

Automakers won’t go back to normal

4 Jan 2023

Covid-era shortages weren’t all bad for the industry. Prices soared amid tight supply, adding $7 bln to profits at GM alone. Car companies are trying to manage inventory so that supply and demand – now falling – will match up. They only have so much in their control.

Capital Calls: ABB, Italian budget

21 Nov 2022

Concise views on global finance: The $57 bln Swiss engineering group is selling a minority stake in its car charging unit, as a fallback to volatile IPO markets; premier Giorgia Meloni’s hard-right government targets a budget deficit of 4.5% of GDP in 2023.

GM and Ford are now juggling three crises

27 Jul 2022

The U.S. automakers are starting to figure out Covid-driven shortages – that was the first pickle. But long-term risks to both pricing and lithium supplies will make it more difficult to efficiently grow EVs. Plus pent-up demand only covers for a weakening consumer for so long.

SoftBank’s Cruise exit hits self-driving cars hard

21 Mar 2022

Selling its Vision Fund stake in the autonomous unit to largest owner GM is a reminder of the Japanese group’s woes. And the carmaker had to inject $3.5 bln it could have used elsewhere. Any lingering hope that driverless cars are just around the corner is the biggest casualty.

CNH pays hefty price for driverless tractor ride

21 Jun 2021

The Italian-American agricultural equipment group is paying $2.1 bln for Raven Industries, which makes tech for autonomous farm machines. With few cost savings, the multiple of almost 40 times EBITDA looks rich. CNH will need a big sales boost to harvest a decent return.

Elon Musk has the right amount of market cynicism

27 Jan 2021

Tesla’s CEO is often flippant about share price moves – whether his own or other so-called meme stocks like GameStop. But the automaker’s first full year of positive profit suggests Musk is working in shareholders’ long-term interests. That matters even if the stock bubble pops.

Tesla’s wacky valuation has a link to reality

22 Jul 2020

At $295 bln, Elon Musk’s firm accounts for a third of the market worth of the world’s big carmakers. Its surge has helped upstarts like Rivian, Nikola and Fisker raise cash, too. Tesla is way overpriced. But as a proxy for overall electric-vehicle success, it’s not far off.

Navistar should be thankful for Volkswagen deal

15 Jul 2020

Activist Carl Icahn’s bet on the U.S. truck maker looked dead after Covid-19 upset a $2.9 billion cash bid from the German auto company. But VW insists a deal still makes sense. Given the sector’s grim outlook, accepting the offer – and bagging a juicy premium – is a no brainer.

Trucks inch towards electric-vehicle critical mass

5 May 2020

Automakers have invested heavily in electric cars. But selling enough to justify needed infrastructure remains a chicken-and-egg problem. Putting batteries into the haulage fleets of Amazon, UPS and others could vault to a solution. A new report shows how utilities can help, too.