It’s been a tough year for Jaguar Land Rover, with the Tata-owned company facing lower profits, higher tariffs, and a blowback to its new design direction. You can now add to that a cyberattack that’s completely crippled the company. Dealers, factories, and even independent shops in Tasmania are impacted.
I prefer to end Fridays at The Morning Dump with cheery news, but things are a bit mixed lately. Hyundai’s big expansion in America has also been severely disrupted, but this time because of a huge immigration raid that has led to the arrest of hundreds of people.
President Trump has signed an order to lower tariffs on Japanese cars. Expect car prices to still go up as suppliers are facing higher costs they plan to pass on to automakers, which will eventually pass those cost increases on to you.
Here’s some good news if you’re Mary Barra. She’s cashing out a bunch of GM stock and will bring home around $53 million before taxes.
JLR Gets Pwned
Jaguar Land Rover was a victim this week of a massive cyberattack, and not since the CDK Global ransomware incident has a cybersecurity incident so absolutely decimated a company in the automotive realm. The CDK incident was a dealership-level event. The JLR attack is even broader in scope, shutting down almost every facet of the company for days.
It’s bad. It’s real bad. The group of hackers appears to be made up of English-speaking teenagers–the most notoriously difficult group of people to bargain with. That’s extra embarrassing for the company, given that Tata-owned JLR announced a big deal with Tata Consultancy Services for its cybersecurity. Oops.
Everything about this is rough for JLR, which has had to either slow or completely pause basically everything a car company has to do at every level. Production? JLR sent workers at its Merseyside and Solihull factories home, telling them the production suspension could carry on into next week.
Can it sell the cars that it has already built? Maybe, but it’s been unable to register many cars in the United Kingdom, according to reports. Certainly, you should be able to get your Jaguar or Land Rover fixed.
From the BBC, that’s also going to be difficult:
James Wallis of Nyewood Express, an independent garage in West Sussex that repairs and services Land Rovers, told the BBC’s Today programme that he “can’t look up what I need to repair cars”.
“Essentially the parts list is a giant database of items that relates to every single car,” he said. “And if I can’t find the parts, I can’t buy them. I can’t fix the car.”
[…]
Land Rover dealers and repair specialists across the world are affected. Alan Howard, a Londoner who runs a Land Rover parts specialist in Tasmania, Australia, said he has “no idea” when the disruption will end.
“Even though I’m an independent here all the way down in Tasmania, I use exactly the same software as a Land Rover dealer in London,” he told the BBC’s World Business Report. “Monday morning we [came] in and the system is down.”
I love that BBC got the Tasmania angle.
It’s not entirely clear if this is a ransomware attack, but the hackers seem to be linked to the M&S breach, so it probably is.
Hyundai/Kia Plants In Alabama Shut Down After ICE Raid
It is a relatively bipartisan dream to have a bunch of industrial jobs sprout up in the United States, which is a reasonable policy goal that’s unfortunately wrapped in a fantasy of a 1950s-like blue-collar resurgence that would allow single-income households to have enough money to own a boat, a house, and two cars.
I am not going to list all the reasons why people aren’t exactly dying to move to rural areas to work in a car plant, but it’s a big cornerstone policy position of both the President of the United States and the governors of those states to expand automotive manufacturing there. Those plans have hit some snags.
First, the company and its suppliers were given penalties for employing children. I guess, being unable to find enough adults to do the job, Hyundai’s suppliers turned to underage teens. An investigation by the Department of Labor discovered “a 13-year-old worked up to 50-60 hours per week on an assembly line in Luverne, Alabama operating machines that formed sheet metal into auto body parts.”
This week, hundreds of employees building a new battery plant for LG/Hyundai and Kia in Georgia were nabbed in Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids. Per The Guardian:
Hundreds of workers at a factory being built in Georgia to make car batteries for Hyundai and Kia electric vehicles were detained in a massive raid by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) on Thursday that stopped construction.
The facility is part of what would be the biggest industrial investment in the state’s history and had been hailed as a huge boost for the economy by Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp.
At least 450 people were arrested, according to the Atlanta office of the US justice department agency, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
However the Korea Economic Daily later reported around 560 workers at the Hyundai facility and LG Energy Solution (LGES), had been detained, citing unidentified industry sources. Some 300 are South Korean nationals, according to local media reports. Hyundai Motor is a South Korean automotive company but has many international plants.
So that’s going well.
Japanese Carmakers Get Their Deal
There is finally a trade deal between Japan and the United States. Is it a good deal? That’s not yet clear. At the very least, much of the uncertainty is gone, as Reuters is reporting:
Formalizing the deal between the U.S. and a key Asian ally comes after months of negotiations, reduces uncertainty plaguing the massive Japanese auto sector since the July announcement and confirms an agreement for $550 billion of Japanese investment in U.S. projects.
The lower 15 percent tariffs on Japanese autos, down from the current 27.5 percent, are set to take effect seven days after official publication of the order.
The executive order also ensured that the 15 percent levy on Japanese imports agreed in July would not be stacked on top of those already subject to higher tariffs such as beef, while items previously subject to tariffs below 15 percent would be adjusted to 15 percent. This relief is retroactive to August 7.
In addition, it promised no tariffs on commercial airplanes and parts.
This is still going to make things more expensive, at least according to a recent survey of Japanese suppliers:
A Nikkei survey on U.S. tariff policies found that more than 80% of major Japanese auto parts makers have either forwarded the added costs of import levies onto customers or are considering doing so.
With automakers in the U.S. — namely, Japanese companies with American factories — having to pay higher prices from overseas suppliers, subsequent higher vehicle prices are likely to impact consumer demand in the country.
I’m glad I already bought my car.
Mary Barra Cashes Out $53 Million In Stock Awards
I don’t think I’d tell people if I got $53 million, but the Merkur dealership I opened up would probably be a giveaway. As CEO of a publicly traded company, Mary Teresa Barra had to post her sale of 907,024 common shares of GM last week.
Is there something nefarious going on here?
According to this Detroit Free Press article, the answer is naw:
According to Dan Ives, senior equity analyst and managing director at Wedbush Securities, Barra’s stock sale is not alarming to his firm.
“We are not concerned about this and it’s about shares that hit some triggers,” Ives said. “Barra remains a key part of the GM’s success and we do not view this as a needle mover.”
By triggers, he means GM may have an algorithm in place to automatically sell some executives’ shares when they hit a certain price. GM confirmed that this applies to Barra’s compensation.
I like to think that she’s buying a minor league baseball team. Maybe the West Michigan Whitecaps?
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
Since I teased They Might Be Giants yesterday, here’s Stniag Eb Thgim Yeht with “ECNALUBMA.”
The Big Question
How many cars would you buy with $53 million?
Top photo: Jaguar
In summary…
POTUS – DOGE fire the entire govt staff with specific experience in defending and chasing cyber threats.
POTUS dumps $2B into ICE to arrest hard working farm hands, cooks, and Hyundai workers.
Jaguar can’t manufacture, sell, or fix (very important emphasis on fix) cars due to cyber-attack.
Nothing much to see here folks…typical day in 1984.
I’m not surprised a big greedy corporation would break the law to pay it’s workers less, and I’m even less surprised it was Hyundai/Kia.
Someone at mid level of a company clearly made the decision to hire them, they should be fined and arrested too. Hold these corporations accountable.
Poor article
How many [vehicles] would I buy with $53M? A couple weird ultralight EVs from Toecutter. A tube-frame roadster with a Tesla drive unit. Prius-swapped Toyota pickup, LEAF-swapped Nissan pickup (gotta keep it in the family.) F350 with an Edison Motors hybrid conversion. Euro-style horse van for the wife (would have to ship a cutaway US-model Transit or Sprinter to EU for conversion.)
And most importantly, I’d commission enough one-off Spagthorpe “replica” motorcycles to fill a museum.
How many cars would you buy with $53 million?
Honestly, not many. If I got that kind of cash, securing the ability to have a couple residences across the country so I can always be in mild weather would be a priority. Putting money into a place it can do some work and ensure I can retire early. Once I got that sorted out, then and only then I’d assess how much money could be spent on more frivolous vehicles.
TCS / tata communications being the root of a problem seems right. You can tell them they have an issue and they will say no they don’t.
Negative manufacturing job growth this year and now the masked goons are raiding the factories to remove the people who are still working. I’m not surprised by this pure evil but I’m still amazed at the levels of anger I continue to reach over these evil idiots.
For $53 million? I’d keep a few hundred thousand for cars to be determined later, and then I’d give the rest to the local school districts to buy electric school buses and set up charging stations for them.
Maybe the hacker was a pissed off JLR customer sick of expensive repair bills LOL
A decent used Miata and a *bunch* of track time.
This is a great answer. I’d say a nice tow rig, a toy hauler trailer and a race Miata and then another Miata for a daily. Then the rest would be track time/seat time.
A decent used Miata and a track. FIFY ????
As someone who’s spent a long time in IT, I have to say you get what you paid for. My last job got sent to Mexico, although those people were incapable of doing it. Sigh…
I worked for a company that decided to offshore a bunch of their programming work. Said it would save money. The project scopes (when printed) went from about a quarter of an inch thick to almost an inch and a half, to ensure the piles of stuff that was previously just assumed (correctly) to be understood by the programming department were fully explained in excruciating detail so the new programmers wouldn’t “misunderstand” anything. That helped a lot, but still didn’t completely solve the problem, and any cost savings on the programming side was lost due to all the extra work the design and business analysts had to put into the design docs.
Then management gave them the task of converting an existing app to a new language. No enhancements or upgrades, just a “here’s the original source code, just make it do the same thing”, with the intent that after it was converted, the updates would begin. It was expected to take around six months. A year and about $1.4 million later, the project was abandoned because they were nowhere close to having a deliverable replacement.
I’m convinced the true reason for the offshoring was to move money out of the country for tax purposes, because from a productivity standpoint, it was basically throwing money into a black hole.
An old guy I used to work with contracted all over the world was convinced most of the places things were off shored to lacked creativity. You could give them something already made and they could probably copy it or keep it the same but couldn’t refine it or come up with something new. The mbas are always looking for a way to save a penny. I like munro’s saying “I can’t afford for you to save me money”. I bet the accountants figure out a way to profit from the mba blunders though and continue to allow it because they can make it profitable in some fashion.
I can’t see myself ever owning more than at most 5 or 6 cars at the same time.
I dunno. I’m a scarred millennial; I’d probably nuke all my debt and then start doing the same thing for friends, family, and others in my orbit until I was down to enough to live on until the end of my days.
I know I would but at least one car. But in all seriousness with the amount of money if it had to be all be used on cars I don’t know what I would do with it but if it can be used on other things car related I would go and buy a property that has private track or have one built and also have a giant hanger sized garage that is temperature controlled.
For $53 mil, I can probably manage a used T-80 and an M-60. Then I just drive around crushing stuff. Technically, I guess a bulldozer could do that too, but that doesn’t have a 105mm cannon.
This is a tough question today. I’d probably be adjusting that number on a daily basis. There are just too many great cars out there.
My big interest would be retired race cars of almost all types. INDY, F1, NASCAR, IMSA, and on and on. There is something about these cars that makes them historic when one considers the massive changes in last 60 years.
I would enjoy having the choice of maybe 10 different choices for daily drivers though.
Does today’s question allow for the use of 53 mil. to restore or reproduce new factory built copies of older classic cars, race cars, etc?
“How many cars would you buy for $53 million?”
However many Chevy Cruze’s $53 million gets me
All of them. And to where should we send the change?
What’s that chrome yellow Nissan in the second-to-last photo? Is it a current-gen Juke or something else we don’t get in the states? Or is it a model we actually have? Just curious. 🙂
It looks like a 2nd generation Juke that isn’t sold in the US. TIL they made a 2nd gen Juke.
Thought that it might be. Thanks Dottie! 🙂
I reviewed one a while back:
https://www.theautopian.com/the-original-nissan-juke-was-designed-to-be-outrageous-now-theres-a-new-one-with-a-brilliant-hybrid-system/
Not sure that I knew that. Thanks Adrian, I’ll go read it now. I only knew about the newer Juke from Youtube of course.
Today: ICE detains and deports hundreds of workers at an automotive plant in Alabama
Tomorrow: Alabama governor announces creation of hundreds of new jobs.
At minimum wage, most likely.
Would $53M be enough to renovate a derelict boutique car factory in Asia to start cranking out exact replicas of air cooled Porsches, Ferrari 250 GTs, Mercedes 300SLs, etc?
I think i could make a very solid 20 car garage with $53M. The big ticket would be a original Shelby Cobra Competition car, which leaves about $43M for other stuff. Plenty to buy all the classic JDM cars, trucks, and supercars i could want.
ICE raid on Hyundai and Kia – I can’t find anything in the news listing sanctions against the plant owners or managers. HR people had to know.
They are building a battery plant. It involves installing a lot of specialized equipment with trained experts from South Korea (in this case around 300). Everybody knew this including the state. They accepted this as part of the cost of getting the plant built to create future jobs. It is very common for companies building plants abroad to send over their own engineers, project managers, technicians etc.
This just demonstrates how appallingly stupid this administration is.
By the same token, TSMC is having problems finding qualified people to work in their Arizona fab. Killing the CHIPS Act was another stupid move.
I guess all the oil leaked out of JLR’s computers. Are they actually building/selling cars right now to start with?
If I had $53M I would buy a decent number of cars. But I would have the most epic Garaj Mahal the world has ever seen. Actually, I figure if I ever strike it rich I will just open a classic car dealership. Might as well let my favorite hobby make some money. Being rich, I won’t care THAT much about actually selling cars, but I can have my fun with the myriad cars I would love to sample, then easily be able to move them on to new homes.
I don’t want to be too greedy. I’d buy a used LC500 convertible and a VehiCross.
excellent taste
How many cars would you buy with $53 million?
I just freeze up when asked a question with so many possibilities. I have a hard enough time answering what cars I’d buy for $5,300
“How many cars would you buy with $53 million?”
The hard part’s going to be finding a piece of property with a building big enough, and then having enough left over to employ a full time steward of the lot to ensure they’re all in turnkey condition to go for a drive at a moment’s notice.
“The hard part’s going to be finding a piece of property with a building big enough, and then having enough left over to employ a full time steward of the lot to ensure they’re all in turnkey condition to go for a drive at a moment’s notice.”
Good news! I know of a professional at a Chicago car park that will take extra special care of your cars for you:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=c0_rKOlzVuY