It’s being widely reported that the United Auto Workers are going to present Detroit automakers with an “audacious” plan to try to recoup wages lost to inflation and concessions made during the Great Recession. A union fight is nothing new, but what’s new is the leadership of the UAW, run by a guy who is giving real “uncle” vibes.
If you’re not into labor stuff we’re going to talk about the blisteringly hot Indian SUV market and Fisker’s not-so-hot production plans.
Uncle Shawn Doesn’t Have Time For Your Nonsense
If you’re lucky, you’ve got both kinds of uncles in your family: The Uncle who helps you get into trouble and the Uncle who helps you get out of that trouble. The former is the one who buys you the illegal fireworks and shows you how to mount a Roman Candle launcher to your Jeep. The other guy shows up to explain to the cops that this was a physics projects and promises that you’ll definitely help replant that ficus.
Shawn Fain, the man who was elected to lead the United Auto Workers before perhaps their most pivotal negotiation in century, feels like the second kind of Uncle. A former electrician from a then-Chrysler plant in Indiana, Fain ran against the long-entrenched incumbent UAW administration as someone who wasn’t going to pretend to fight and then rollover. He won, barely, and so far he seems to be sticking to his guns.
If you’re really bored you can watch the video above of Fain, in a livestream, laying out the reasons why he thinks UAW workers deserve more compensation, which are, essentially:
- Automakers are posting record profits.
- They’re saying they’re using those profits for the EV transition.
- They’re actually using some of these profits for share buybacks, special dividends, and executive compensation.
- With the incoming EV transition, labor demands more protections for future job losses, et cetera.
Perhaps it’s because I grew up in anti-labor Texas, but my sense of what a UAW leader should be is a boisterous, aggressive, Jimmy Hoffa type and I cannot quite wrap my head around Fain’s tough-but-fair high school physics teacher mood. The real telling bit in all of this is in the video above when Fain complains that he worked as a national negotiator, only to have the UAW President and UAW President’s Office make a backroom deal with the companies. He says, quite clearly, that he’s not going to do that.
More details will surely come out this week, but Automotive News has a preview of the ask, which includes:
The gains would include a 20 percent raise upon ratification, followed by 5 percent raises each year of the four-year deal, according to the people, who requested anonymity discussing the negotiations.
General Motors seems, to some degree, on board with wage increases, but has issues with other demands (the end of two-tier worker pay, the return of Cost-Of-Living-Adjustemnts, et cetera). Here’s a statement they made in response to Fain’s video:
The breadth and scope of the Presidential Demands, at face value, would threaten our ability to do what’s right for the long-term benefit of the team. A fair agreement rewards our employees and also enables GM to maintain our momentum now and into the future. It’s an exciting time to be part of GM, as our entire manufacturing team can benefit from leading in the EV transformation. We think it’s important to protect U.S. manufacturing and jobs in an industry that is dominated by non-unionized competition.
You can hear the subtle implication that more cars could surely be built in non-union places, which most foreign automakers are currently doing.
I don’t know where this ends up and, surely, both the UAW and automakers will have to each find ways to bend and compromise to make a deal. That’s the nature of negotiation.
But is Detroit ready for this guy and his volunteer JV baseball third base coach schtick? I’m not so sure. I’m wondering if Detroit automakers aren’t going to start missing the older, corrupt generation of UAW leaders.
UPS Workers Avoid A Strike
I’ve got a buddy who is a UPS driver, and the talk over the last few months was over who was going to strike longer: the UPS/Teamsters union (of which he is a member) or the Writers Guild of America (of which I am a member). Well, we know how that worked out, because the WGA and SAG-AFTRA are now on strike and UPS workers, it seems, have avoided one.
From Reuters:
The tentative deal covering 340,000 Teamsters-represented workers at United Parcel Service (UPS.N) averted a threatened strike that could have wreaked havoc on the U.S. economy by disrupting about a quarter of the nation’s parcel shipments.
In a meeting in Washington on Monday, Teamsters local leaders voted 161-1 for the deal. The agreement would raise wages for all UPS workers, provide another paid holiday, end a two-tier wage system for drivers and add air conditioning to new models of the company’s ubiquitous brown trucks, according to the Teamsters.
Teamsters know how to strike and are not afraid to get active, so it’s interesting to see that the UPS/Teamsters workers union (arguably, the best organized and most effective union in the United States), managed to avoid a showdown. Is this a recognition from corporations that it’s better to make a quick deal than risk rocking a boat that’s currently full of gold? Is this a result of historically low unemployment? Will this help the UAW? Questions, questions, questions.
Indian Carmaker Profits Way Up In Q1
We don’t talk about India often, though it’s a huge and important growing car market.
Mahindra & Mahindra, one of India’s biggest automakers (along with Tata and Maruti-Suzuki), saw profits nearly double with a year-over-year quarterly increase of 98%. Here’s the skinny from the The Economic Times:
Auto major Mahindra and Mahindra on Friday has reported a standalone net profit of Rs 2,774 crore for the quarter ended June 2023, up 98% from Rs 1,404 crore clocked in the last year period.
The profit beat the ET Now Poll estimate of Rs 1,923 crore.
It’s not the only company doing well. Maruti-Suzuki saw profits up by nearly 250% and Tata saw its quarterly balance sheet improve from a loss in 2022 to a profit in Q1 of 2023. Where’s this money coming from? Obviously, the easing of supply chain woes is helping all automakers, but it’s particularly an increase in Indian purchasing power that’s leading to to consumers picking up SUVs.
From The Deccan Herald:
Sales of utility vehicles (UVs) have also outpaced overall passenger vehicle (PV) sales growth so far this year. UVs generally cost two to three times more than compact cars or sedans. Their sales grew around 18 per cent in the quarter to June, compared to a 9.4 per cent rise in sales of PVs.
Man, now I want a RWD Mahindra Thar (pictured).
Fisker Is Making Money, But Not Making Vehicles Fast Enough
The Fisker experiment is an interesting one, as the EV carmaker isn’t actually making cars. Instead, it’s been outsourcing production to Magna Steyr, the Austrian arm of Canadian supplier giant Magna. How’s that going?
Fiskerati did a dive through the company’s Q2 guidance and found a pretty steep reduction in planned production:
[D]uring Q2 2023, Fisker produced 1,022 vehicles, and in July, they produced 1,009 units, which had fewer working hours due to the planned Magna Steyr annual summer shutdown. The calendar 2023 production forecast was updated to a range of 20,000-23,000 units due to a short-term capacity constraint at one supplier. This new guidance, down from 32,000-36,000 units, assumes support from Fisker’s suppliers and partners to meet this volume and ramp up production.
That’s pretty bad, but at least Fisker is making and selling cars.
The Big Question
Has anyone actually seen a Fisker Ocean on the road? A Lucid Air? A VinFast?
I’ve never seen a Fisker Ocean on the road, let alone the rode.
…but have you seen one in the ocean?
I’ve seen both a Lucid Air and a group of 2 VinFasts here in Ann Arbor, but they were all M-plates. That means they’re likely either development mules by their manufacturer, being tested by the EPA at their facility here, being competitively tested by rival manufacturers or a comp-eval house like Munroe, A2Mac1 etc, or here for review by Car & Driver or another media outlet.
Lots of Rivian R1T & R1S’s, Ford F150 Lightnings (in fact, I think the town itself owns a few now), a few Hummer H1s etc around too. Only one Cadillac Lyric in the wild so far though.
I see the occasional Lucid on the highway. Looks absolutely massive, even next to all the massive trucks and SUVs.
Considering Vinfast only registered 128 cars between January and May, that’s likely to be a Unicorn. I live in Memphis. I see people on here who live in car meccas. They see all sorts of fancy cars, Ferrari, Lambo, Bentleys, etc. I see clapped out Altima’s and lifted super-duty/heavy-duty trucks. With that in mind, I have seen two Rivian R1Ts and one F-150 Lightning cruising around. I don’t expect to see a Fisker, Lucid, or Vinfast ever.
There’s at least one hummer ev cruising around Germantown, and I saw what I assume was an equinox EV yesterday
laughing at the idea of a website entirely dedicated to fisker
I’ve never seen any of the above listed cars in the wild. I did once see a Fisker Karma driving around in 2018 though.
To my nieces, I’m both uncles in the same person. If you want to do things that can get you into trouble, do so in a way that you don’t get caught. Plan ahead, KNOW what you are doing along with the potential implications, don’t harm anyone, and have contingency plans for things that may go wrong. I did all kinds of fun/illegal things as a kid and never got caught. 🙂
I’m still psyched to see a Rivian now and then, I haven’t noticed anything rarer than that. I did see my first SUV variant recently.
I see Rivians almost every day here in Colorado. I can’t afford one but I’m glad to see them out and about. Maybe I’ll be able to get a used one one day?
And this is why you need to join a union and get involved. If people were actually paying attention, that shit wouldn’t have gone down, deliberately screwing all the members.
I know y’all are quoting, but we’re well past the point where “oh the poor shareholders” is going to fly with any decent human being. “OH NOES THE ECONOMY!” Yeah. Who cares about the UPS drivers quite literally dying of heat stroke; putting another $5B+ into stock buybacks and paying out dividends is way more important. Full-time UPS employees having to rely on food banks and heating assistance? “They can’t strike, my Amazon packages will be late!”
It’s not at all surprising.
Corporations are not people. Corporations are not ethical. Corporations exist to make a profit no matter what or how. If they could use slave labor, they would not hesitate to do so.
Therefore, the workers are the ones with the actual power. Period. I don’t give a crap about the various boot-licker or amateur takes. The Teamsters absolutely have the power to put UPS out of business permanently. Without the Teamsters, UPS cannot operate, period.
And the negotiations were already more or less done. UPS was purely posturing because as a corporation, their ‘obligation’ is to seek out slave labor and if they can’t do that, the absolute cheapest they can. And the Teamsters had already laid out an entirely reasonable contract. Here’s some of the highlights.
But are they making and selling cars profitably? Probably not. Said it before, I’ll say it again: pretty much every ‘EV’ or ‘new energy’ startup is a grift in one form or another. All of ’em. Especially Fisker – they already went bankrupt with the same owner once before. And they’ve already got the SPAC scam going, including the funny-money cross investments via that SPAC.
Oh, and if you had any doubts? Fisker is taking reservations for their ‘PEAR’ “urban” electric vehicle, which allegedly will cost $30k. Who wants to guess where it is to be built? Those of you who said “Lordstown,” take a bow. You know, in case the unrealistic claims about the Ocean being made out of recycled materials wasn’t enough of a hint. Or the failed “nanotech” partnership. Or the basically bogus patents on “solid-state” batteries that they couldn’t make work.
Nope, but a local bought a Lucid Air that was finally delivered this week. Zenith Red Metallic is really nice.
All of this, I’d give you a gold star for the day if I could
I had this backwards for awhile. When I was younger, dumber, and a little more idealistic, I was a bit of a corporate bootlicker and ascribed to the idea of boot straps and promotion by virtue. Now, as someone who’s a little more worldly, and had to support a family on various degrees of income, I throw my lot in with union members. Everything you said is true. Eventually, more people will realize that Wall Street is just a rigged shell game and that companies will have to invest in their workforce to continue making profits. Naturally, they should be compelled to balance that investment against gratuitous CEO pay and shareholder dividends. They can’t realistically continue increasing prices to defray that, because whether they want to believe or not, there is a threshold of consumer tolerance. Anyway, my point is, fuck the corporations, CEOs, and shareholders. The “little guy” deserves a win now and again.
I, too, went through a libertarian phase; most of us learn empathy and move on. Glad to see the pro-union takes here.
YES YES YES!! (pumps fist)
Right on brother. Workers deserve the value of their labour.
I keep waiting to see a Lucid. I saw my first Nikola a few weeks ago (on a flatbed) which should be considerably harder to do.
I saw a Lucid for the first time a week ago. It looked nice!
See lots of Vinfasts on my commute here in Montreal. There’s a dealership opening up soon and their lot is full, but the showroom isn’t ready.
Also saw my first Lyriq yesterday. Jason should do a deep dive on the rear lights on them.
I’ve seen Lucids but then again, my office used to be across the street from their headquarters… I don’t think I’ve seen a Vinfast yet, but I might have been near one and not realized it as they look quite generic.
I want to see an Ocean in person as I think they are supposed to be small (or whatever passes for small these days).
I wonder what would happen if GM & Ford went full German and invited labor into the boardroom.
That could only happen through govt intervention, just as it did in Germany post-WW2.
They’d rather set the company on fire than ever do that without a fight.
The UAW does own about 10% of General Motors and had a seat on the board until 2018. They would probably like to get that back at some point, but I guess there’s other priorities right now
I wonder if the UAW could just buy stock in the automakers to muscle their way in, is that even allowed?
Several Rivians in town, both trucks and SUVs. Tons of them out west when I was on vacation.
I’ve seen a couple Lucids.
Nothing else from any of the startups.
Sometimes I feel like 9/10 Rivians are sold in Colorado
I saw a high school kid in one at the mtn bike trails here in Maine. WTF dad, buy me one too.
Where do you bike in Maine? I’ve only ever done Blackstrap
I mostly ride the Camden Snow Bowl, it’s 5 minutes from my house. Also Thomaston Town Forest are really well maintained trails. For a road trip, Saddleback and Sugarloaf are awesome.
I’m actually going to be in Mid Coast this September. Got any recommendations for bike rentals? The Side Country at the snow bowl does demos, but that’s my best lead so far
I live an hour from the factory. Some days I think they outnumber the Teslas around here.
I don’t think I’ll see a VinFast any time soon, but the Lucid I saw looked pretty nice. I’d love a Rivian R1T, but I wouldn’t love to pay $80k. I’ve seen several of them in Idaho, though. I look forward to seeing an Ocean in the wild, but I haven’t yet.
I’ve seen one VinFast, a few Lucid Airs, but the only Fiskers I’ve seen are the mustachio’d cars.
Shawn Fain is awesome and I hope the UAW gets what they’re asking for; GM’s $5B in share buybacks last year alone could cover all of what the UAW wants. It’s disgusting to see $80k Silverados and the Blazer EV being priced at $60k when the labor in Mexico that are assembling it are paid $2 an hour. Supervisors in these plants are making less than $30k a year. Fuck all of these automakers.
https://truthout.org/articles/mexican-gm-workers-win-an-8-5-percent-wage-hike-in-first-union-contract/
https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/General-Motors-GM-Ramos-Arizpe-Salaries-EI_IE279.0,17_IL.18,30_IC3494369.htm
Oh, that’s the best part. Glassdoor absolutely cannot be relied upon. They outright lie about not deleting or altering reviews of companies and salaries.
Rest assured the actual pay down there is WAY less than even that.
I saw a Rivian the other day. It was nice looking and a little smaller than I thought it would be.
I’ve seen 2 Lucid Airs, several Rivians, and finally yesterday spotted my first GR Corolla.
“On the rode?” Is this a hip new way to say being driven?
Saw my first Lucid on the road in Michigan last week. Looked nice. But still wonder if they are real cars, as in made in real volumes.
I’ve seen a Fisker on the road, it definitely was attention grabbing, in a “that doesn’t look like something I recognize, what is it?” Rather than a “wow that’s a beautiful car” way. I’ve seen a lucid at work; it looks so much better in person than it ever does in pictures, it’s got some serious presence. Yet to see a Vinfast anywhere
Another important piece of news: Car and Driver is reporting that Mercedes has heard the rampant backlash against their ridiculously overstressed 4 cylinder hybrid nonsense in cars like the C63 and is planning to bring their 4 liter V8 back to the C and E Class as early as 2026. It’ll still be paired with some hybrid wizardry, as will the still V8 upcoming M5, but hey…V8s living on is incredible news, comrades!
I’ve seen a few Lucids on the road and expect to see Fiskers soon. I live in DC, where the combination of ultra wealth and virtue signaling with electric vehicles is as potent as anywhere. Having the fanciest EV of your friends is the ultimate limousine liberal flex. I see Rivians all the time at this point.
The old adage “there’s no replacement for displacement” mostly holds true. The exception is of course electric drive systems. If Mercedes wants to have big horsepower numbers using a 4-cylinder hybrid, they should increase the size/power of the hybrid drive, nd have less output from the 4-cylinder to keep it under-stressed. Turbos shouldn’t ever be necessary in a hybrid, either.
Although I certainly wouldn’t bet on the turbo V8 set up being reliable, I’m inherently less stressed about them getting 600+ horsepower out of a hybrid setup with than than with a 2 liter turbo 4 that’s making over 200 horsepower per liter. I can’t even begin to imagine how expensive the current C63 would be to own out of warranty.
I’ve saw a Vinfast in light camouflage last month. I’ve seen a few Lucid Airs, including one yesterday in matte black. I have not seen a Fisker (outside of a few Karma’s).