Welcome back to the latest episode of The Future of Automotive on CBT News, where we put recent automotive and mobility news into the context of the broader themes impacting the industry.
I’m Steve Greenfield from Automotive Ventures, and I’m glad that you could join us.
Let’s start this week’s segment with more evidence that Hybrid drivetrains seem to be really resonating with U.S. consumers, and satisfying a nice gap between internal combustion and full battery electric vehicle technologies.
Electric and hybrid vehicle sales made up 18.7% of all new light-duty vehicles sold in the second quarter of this year, according to new data from Wards Intelligence analyzed by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That’s up from 17.8% in the first three months of the year.
This increase was “driven primarily” by hybrid sales, according to Wards and the EIA, which grew almost 31% from 2023 and made up almost 10% of light-duty sales in the second quarter. Sales of plug-in hybrids grew, as well, while the battery electric vehicle share of the market was about flat compared to the second quarter of last year.
The trend appears to be continuing into the back half of the year. In July, hybrid sales were up about 23% in the U.S. compared to July of last year, and the gap between hybrid and electric sales grew, according to data from Morgan Stanley.
The legacy automakers are really embracing consumers’ newfound desire for hybrids. IN the last quarter, Ford reported that 245% of all F-150 sales are now hybrids, and that hybrid units are more profitable than ICE vehicles.
On to our second news item this week. By the end of 2024, Elon Musk expects more than 1,000 of its Optimus robots will be working at Tesla. Two robots are already on the Tesla factory floor, although the company has not said what duties they perform.
Deutsche Bank expects the Optimus robots to cost between $27,000 and $76,000 to make, although analysts expect the robots to generate “meaningful cost savings by the end of the decade.” Some of those “cost savings” would come in the form of replacing its people with robots.
Assuming that a manufacturing worker is on the clock for 40 hours a week and gets paid $62,400 in 2027, Tesla could save $31,900 by replacing them with a robot. Replacing 10% of those workers would save $141 million per year, according to Deutsche’s model.
If that same worker was still at the company in 2030 and making $72,800 a year, Tesla could save $57,550 by putting a robot in their place. Do that again and again until 20% of workers are replaced, and Tesla could save as much as $509 million annually, Deutsche says.
We are about to enter a brave new world, where companies justify replacing humans doing repetitive tasks with humanoid robots.
So, with that, let’s transition to Our Companies to Watch.
Every week we highlight interesting companies in the automotive technology space to keep an eye on. If you read my weekly Intel Report, we showcase a company to watch, and take the opportunity here on this segment each week to share that company with you.
Today, our new company to watch is Fleetyr
Even the most cutting-edge analytics tools are only as good as the data that fuels them.
“Dirty” data — like inaccurate GPS data, incorrect fuel readings, miscategorized data, duplicate entries, and overlooked errors — significantly skews your analytics and leads to poor decision-making across your fleet.
Fleetyr allows you to connect, clean, enrich and visualize all your fleet data.
Your data can do so much more for you — and it should. Fleetyr takes care of making your data work for your fleet, so you can focus on business decisions that matter.
With all your data connected and easily accessible in one place, you can track multiple systems at the same time and discover actionable insights that help you create a safer, healthier, more cost-effective fleet.
Fleetyr allows you to gain full visibility over all your fleet data, dig deeper into your most valuable insights, track expenses and identify cost savings, improve driver behavior and safety, and optimize and continuously improve your fleet.
Maintaining efficiency is crucial to keeping your fleet operations running smoothly — but how efficient can you be when your data sources are disconnected and limiting your full view?
From telematics to maintenance to fatigue management and more, Fleetyr ties all your data sources together to give you a 360° view and 100% transparency of your fleet’s operational ecosystem.
If you’d like to learn more about Fleetyr you can check them out at www.fleetyr.com
So that’s it for this week’s Future of Automotive segment.
If you’re an AutoTech entrepreneur working on a solution that helps car dealerships, we want to hear from you. We are actively investing out of our DealerFund.
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Don’t forget to check out my book, The Future of Automotive Retail, which is available on Amazon.com. And keep an eye out for my new book, “The Future of Mobility”, which is almost done, and will be out soon.
Thanks (as always) for your ongoing support and for tuning into CBT News for this week’s Future of Automotive segment. We’ll see you next week!
