Good morning! It’s Friday, May 3, 2024 and this is it Morning change, a daily roundup of the biggest automotive headlines from around the world in one place. Here are the crucial stories you need to know.
1st gear: Interns are the latest victims of Tesla’s cost cuts
It’s a stressful time for anyone currently working as a boss at Tesla Elon Musk is cutting teams, right and center. First, there were layoffs at bases in California, then the marketing team was fired and this week it was it the brains behind the Supercharger network. Now it appears the electric vehicle maker may also be laying off interns, with some finding out their positions have been made available days before they start. Some students had invested thousands of dollars in housing and were only planning to eliminate their positions without much time to find replacements.
Youthful people who are due to start summer internships at an electric vehicle manufacturer in the coming weeks are having their number of internships reduced, reports Automotive news. The company withdrew many job offers, and some people turned to LinkedIn for other opportunities. How Automotive news reports:
“At 8:46 I opened my Tesla email with flight information. “At 11:25 my internship offer was gone,” wrote University of Miami student Joshua Schreiber, who said his start date was in three weeks and that he had already spent “thousands on housing.”
Schreiber, like many other potential Tesla interns, is uncomfortably approaching the end of the school year. They say surprise calls from Tesla informing students that their offers are no longer valid have left them without much time to find replacement gigs for the summer.
Apprenticeship cuts are coming Musk has pledged to reduce Tesla’s workforce by as much as ten percent in order to reduce costs and escalate profitability. In its latest financial reports, the electric vehicle maker reported a huge drop in profits, the first decline since before the pandemic.
Apparently Tesla employees who they are not stuck with job cuts stepped in to aid potential interns find fresh positions for the summer, and some praised students who abandoned their projects.
Second gear: Stellantis may hybridize some electric vehicles to meet demand
This is a tough time for car manufacturers, wondering how to move away from gas power. Governments around the world do mandate to apply cleaner energy we move on, some of us people are eager to choose electric vehicles, while others try to convince. It has caused a slowdown in sales of electric vehiclesexactly as they should fly out of the plots.
For this reason, car manufacturers are increasingly switching to electric drive General Motors announces renewed interest in hybridsFord is slowing its electric vehicle expansion, and now Stellantis has revealed it may look for ways to add some gasoline power to its electric vehicles again, Autoblog reports. As the website explains:
As the electric vehicle segment is caught in a tug of war between market demand and government regulations, automakers must adapt to avoid losing both money and sales. Stellantis is considering every option, including putting a gasoline engine in its electric models.
Natalie Knight, Stellantis’ chief financial officer, made the announcement while presenting the automaker’s first quarter sales and revenue results. She cited the Jeep Wagoneer S as an example: presented in January 2024, it will go on sale with an electric drive system, but according to Wards Auto, the brand has not ruled out later expanding its offer with a model with a gasoline engine. It may be a hybrid or it may not get any type of electrification. The conversation will depend on whether there is a “clear demand for it in the market,” the executive said.
However, the move to hybrid power will not cover all Stellantis models, said fresh Jeep CEO Antonio Filosa Wagoneer S assembly with a hybrid powertrain is not an option.
One car that can go from all-electric to electric the hybrid is the Fiat 500e, which will return to American shores this year. The car, which will be offered as an electric vehicle at launch, is built on the company’s multi-energy platform, which means that if there are any fluctuations, Stellantis could consider converting the car to both a hybrid and electric model.
3rd Gear: Rivian donated $800 million to expand electric vehicle production
If you can’t stay in business by cutting a huge number of employees, what can you do instead? Well, keep it its future EV ambitions are alive and wellstartup Rivian turned to local authorities with a request for a huge loan your plans for the next generation from Earth.
Rivian, which builds its cars in Illinoisreceived more than $800 million from the state to fund plant expansion plans that would enable it to begin producing next-generation models. As reported by Reuters: :
On Thursday, Rivian Automotive said it received an $827 million incentive package from the state of Illinois to expand operations at the Normal plant.
Shares of the Irvine, California-based company rose nearly 10% in afternoon trading after losing more than 60% of their value this year as of Wednesday’s close.
The Illinois plant, where Rivian also makes electric delivery vehicles for its biggest investor, Amazon.com, can produce 150,000 vehicles a year, the company said.
The electric vehicle manufacturer stated that massive injection of funds it would aid it expand the factory, improve public infrastructure and train staff, Reuters reports. The entire investment will aid it prepare for the construction and launch of the next model, R2, which was presented in March.
The fresh R2 and R3 models with Rivian hope to aid it escalate sales of electric models to more than 200,000 units a year with more budget-friendly pricing.
4th gear: Ferrari and Aston Martin still think the V12 is king
Electrification is very frigid and all, but it is what it is not in the direction that the world’s supercar manufacturers want to go. After pledging to explore the switch to electricity, Ferrari i Aston Martin decided they preferred to stay with what they know for now, so they have unveiled shiny fresh V12 engines for their future models.
Announcing its latest financial results earlier this week, Aston Martin revealed that the fresh model will be powered by a V12 engine will appear later this year and will be powered by a fresh, highly refined V12 engine. Now Ferrari has followed suit and dropped the covers on two fresh V12 models. As Reuters explains: :
As part of broader electrification efforts in the industry, the company known for its “Prancing Horse” logo has been adding hybrid-electric cars to its lineup since 2019 and has promised the first fully electric vehicle (EV) will arrive in behind schedule 2025 .
However, Ferrari has also committed to continuing to sell cars with a classic internal combustion engine (ICE), which was also helped by the European Union’s decision to exclude e-fuel vehicles from its planned phase-out of ICE vehicles.
According to the company, the fresh 12Cilindri two-seater and its convertible version, the 12Cilindri Spider, are inspired by the historic Ferrari Grand Tourer (GT) models of the 1950s and 1960s.
The two fresh Ferrari cars that were unveiled last night in Miami apply the same V12 engine you’ll find in the Purosangue SUV from Italian costume. However, in the case of the fresh V12 models, Aston Martin has a fresh powerplant up its sleeve.
According to Automotive news, the British company’s fresh V12 flagship has redesigned its engine with an updated cylinder block, redesigned cylinder heads and revised spark plug positions. These updates and a number of other changes the V12 unit means yes they produce as much as 824 HP.
Reverse: Has he found Santa Claus?
On the radio: James Brown – “It’s a man’s world”
James Brown – It’s a man’s world
