Recent Automotive News – More plant delays, $1 trillion dollar infrastructure bill and more.

With the auto manufacturers still unable to secure the parts they need to build vehicles, the supply of new vehicles reaches an all time low. GM announced that their 1500, 2500, and 3500 truck production at Flint, Silao and the Fort Wayne Assembly plants will all resume full production on Monday, Aug. 2. Most of their other plants are scheduled for major downtime over August and September. So far I haven’t seen any solutions coming by way of the manufacturers and it seems as though they are content to wait for the problem to work itself out.  

Auto Forecast Solutions latest numbers show that North American auto manufacturers have reduced production by almost 1.8 million vehicles as a result of the parts shortage, and the number is expected to be over 2 million by the end of the year.

GM will be adding features to their Super Cruise driver assist technology. These features will include the ability to go hands free when towing heavy trailers and will also allow the vehicle to change lanes without a prompt from the driver. The new features are going to be available on the new all electric GMC Hummer Pickup later this year and will also be on many other models like the 2022 Silverado and Sierra and also the Cadillac Escalade, CT4 and CT5.

Electric delivery vehicle manufacturer Rivian is said to be ready to invest $5 billion into a second US assembly plant. Reuters is reporting to have seen an economic development document laying out the second plant named “Project Tera”. This plan is said to have a target start of production date in Q2 of 2023, with construction planned to start this Fall. Rivian has been contracted by Amazon to build 100,000 electric delivery trucks by 2030.

Wednesday the U.S. senate voted to take up an almost $1 trillion dollar infrastructure bill. More than half of this money is new spending and much of the money is expected to greatly benefit the auto industry. The bill has 7 and a half billion dollars set aside to build a nationwide network of charging stations for EVs and over 70 billion dollars to update the US power grid. Biden’s team is also looking for commitments from auto manufacturers to have 40% of new sales be electric vehicles by 2030.

Trevor Milton, founder of electric big rig company Nikola, was indicted for allegedly making false and misleading statements meant to convince investors to purchase Nikola shares. Some of the specific charges include, stating that their semi-truck prototype named Nikola One was fully functional, even though it was inoperable, he also claimed that Nikola was producing hydrogen at a reduced cost when in fact Nikola had not produced any hydrogen at any cost.  US attorney Audrey Strauss said in a news conference, “Milton lied about nearly every aspect of his business.” If convicted each criminal count carries a max penalty of 20 to 25 years in prison.

Don’t forget that first day to order many GM Fleet vehicles is on August 16th, barring another delay. With production limited by all of the issues right now, the earlier you can order the better.  With incredibly long estimates for production times and limited slots available some companies may find themselves in a bad situation in the next 6-12 months.