March 26 -

Joe White

Global Autos Correspondent

Greetings from the Motor City!

Anticipation is the word of the day this morning, and not

just for kids waiting for Easter chocolates. We are speeding

toward days of reckoning in the World of Cars as the quarter

closes.

The Auto File will take Good Friday off along with the New

York financial markets, and when we meet again on April 2, it is

possible that Tesla will have disclosed its first quarter

deliveries. Those are numbers that investors and automakers

everywhere are keen to know - because they might not look that

good.

Tesla is acting like a company that is

not having a great 2024

.

By contrast, Toyota and the Motor City Three seem to be

doing fine right now in the

electric vehicle slow lane

.

We'll look at the state of the Tesla, assess the divergent

fortunes of two struggling EV startups and check in on Chinese

automakers storming the Bangkok Auto Show. Here we go -

Today -

* Tesla's

sales stress

* Fisker

and

Lucid

at the crossroads

* Chinese EV makers

drive into Southeast Asia

Tesla is offering

free one-month trials

of its "Full Self Driving" software - which does not fully

automate driving. FSD normally costs $12,000 - but the share of

Tesla buyers signing up is dropping as the delivery date for

actual autonomous driving capability keeps slipping, analysts

said.

Tesla's FSD sales gimmick is the latest sign that EV demand

has hit a rut. Here's another:

World EV sales leader BYD

earlier today reported an 18.6% increase in quarterly

profits - but that was the slowest growth rate since early 2022

as price cuts and slower demand took a toll.

Tesla shares rose Tuesday, but they have slumped 30% since

Jan. 1. Tesla remains the world's most valuable automaker, but

Toyota is now just $207 billion behind, not $600 billion or

more.

Elon Musk and Tesla executives have twisted dials all year

to stabilize demand.

Tesla has cut prices

, then warned customers prices will go back up if they do

not

order right away!

The automaker that once rejected advertising is now

promoting its vehicles

on various platforms and peppering would-be buyers with

promotional emails.

Tesla

cut production in China

as growth in

EV demand decelerated

in the world's largest market. The company took downtime at

its German factory earlier in the year, blaming Red Sea shipping

disruptions. Then Tesla lost a week's worth of output after an

arson attack took out the

Berlin plant's power supply.

Wall Street analysts are slicing their forecasts for

Tesla's Q1 deliveries

ahead of the expected release April 1 or 2.

Tesla data-wonks

who post production estimates on Elon Musk's X.com are even

more bearish.

Meanwhile, shares in the anti-Tesla, Toyota, have soared by

50% since Jan. 1 - adding the value of three Fords, as Morgan

Stanley put it in a note.

Remember when investors were frustrated by

Toyota's go-slow strategy

on EVs? Now

they are cheering it

as more wreckage builds up in the EV fast lane (see below.)

Toyota has

benefited from a weak yen,

to be sure.

But Akio Toyoda's bet

that mainstream consumers - especially in the United States

- would be more

comfortable buying hybrids

than fully electric vehicles is paying off.

Toyota stands to be a beneficiary of the Biden

Administration's decision to open a wide lane for hybrids in

its most recent vehicle CO2 standards.

The contest among Tesla, BYD and Toyota to set the pace for

the global auto industry is far from over. But investors have

decided that for this quarter, Toyota has the right formula.

* China attacks Biden's EV subsidies

* Baltimore's deadly bridge collapse

could hit automakers

* Tangled laws leave

America's lithium miners in limbo

The Chief Financial Officers of General Motors and Ford

today

delivered reassuring messages

to Wall Street at a conference ahead of the

New York Auto Show.

GM CFO Paul Jacobson said the company is on track to deliver

200,000 to 300,000 EVs this year - that's the level at which the

automaker could start to break even on a cash basis, Jacobson

said earlier this year. It's short of the

400,000 EVs

GM once projected it could build from 2022 through 2024.

(Jacobson's remarks at the Bank of America conference should be

here

.)

Ford CFO

John Lawler reaffirmed

earlier projections that the company can earn $10 billion

to $12 billion this year before taxes and generate $6 billion to

$7 billion in free cash flow. Investors like free cash flow

because Ford has promised to return 40-50% of it to

shareholders. (Lawler's webcast remarks

should be here

.)

Both companies have

shifted EV programs into lower gear

and are focusing on delivering

profits from combustion trucks

. That change in emphasis has been well received on Wall

Street.

GM shares are up 21% for the year and are cruising near a

52-week high. Ford shares are up a more modest 7.4% - but that's

still better than Tesla.

Money-losing luxury EV maker

Lucid got a $1 billion lifeline

from a unit of Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund to

cover its

mounting losses

and help fund the launch of its Gravity SUV lineup later

this year.

The investment underscores a key advantage Lucid and CEO

Peter Rawlinson have in the race to

survive the EV industry shakeout:

The Kingdom's determination to

diversify its economy

beyond pumping oil.

The Saudi Arabian government has

invested billions in Lucid

via the PIF, committed to buying 100,000 Lucid vehicles,

and is helping the company launch a

factory in Saudi Arabia

.

The Saudi public investment fund, or PIF, owns 60% of Lucid,

according to data from LSEG Workspace. The PIF could own more if

the convertible debt issued Monday is converted to Lucid shares

- which could happen if the shares hit $5.50. (See Lucid's

disclosure

here

.) That price is roughly double Lucid's closing price last

week, but a long way from the peak of $55 back in 2021.

EV startup Fisker is veering toward a cliff

after the company said talks with a large automaker toward

a potential alliance have collapsed, putting the cash-burning

company's future in doubt.

The New York Stock Exchange halted trading in the company's

shares on Monday after they fell below 9 cents a share. With no

rescuer coming over the hill, the NYSE said it could delist

Fisker entirely. The company said that could result in lenders

calling in debts it cannot currently pay.

Fisker said it is evaluating alternatives, including "in or

out of court restructurings" - legalese for a debt restructuring

or a potential Ch. 11 bankruptcy filing. (Fisker's SEC filing is

here

.)

Fisker last week

missed an interest payment

on certain debt, but said it was in talks to raise $150

million that could bridge the gap while it pursued an alliance

with an unnamed major automaker. Reuters had reported that

automaker was Nissan

.

The scuttling of the alliance talks means the $150 million

financing deal is off unless the investor, a Polish investment

fund, agrees to new terms, Fisker said in an SEC filing.

Meanwhile, Fisker has roughly 4,700

unsold Ocean electric SUVs

in storage. Whether those are worth the $200 million the

company estimated earlier this month is an open question given

the

scathing reviews for the early versions.

Watch out Toyota. Chinese EV brands used this week's

Bangkok Auto Show

to accelerate their drive into Southeast Asia.

Auto shows may be fading away in Western markets, but

they're alive and well in Thailand, China and other Asian

markets. The Bangkok Show dramatizes the battle shaping up

between Chinese and Japanese automakers in the region.

Chinese EV makers are investing more than

$1.4 billion to establish production in Thailand,

which has long been a production hub for Japanese and

Western automakers such as Ford.

But Toyota and other Japanese brands plan

a $4.3 billion investment blitz

of their own to counter the challenge.

GM said it will no longer

sell customer driving data collected from vehicles via its

OnStar telematics service to information brokers that supply

auto insurers with the ammunition to raise drivers' coverage

premiums.

GM's decision to stop selling data to LexisNexis and Verisk

came after the New York Times published an article on

how the data was used to jack up insurance premiums

, and how little GM customers knew about how GM's OnStar

Smart Driver system worked. Times reporter Kashmir Hill's story

was

widely recirculated.

This is

not the first time

GM and OnStar have gotten in trouble for harvesting

customer data.

The latest controversy underscores the risks automakers face

as they try to make money from the streams of data pouring off

connected cars - especially when the vehicles are owned by

individuals who expect privacy in cars and trucks they own.

Commercial fleets

can and do make acceptance of in-vehicle data collection a

condition of employment.

"We are actively evaluating our privacy processes and

policies," GM said in a statement replying to a question about

whether it will change the way it asks customers for permission

to share vehicle data.

turnaround plan

designe to increase sales by 1 million vehicles by 2027.

The No. 3 Japanese automaker by sales will rely on a mix of EVs

and hybrids, but still plans to internal combustion models to

account for 60% of sales by 2027.

showed off

four one-off concept models

at its annual Easter Jeep Safari in Moab, Utah. The Jeep

brand needs a shot of something new - or perhaps, something old

as represented by the vintage vibe of the latest show vehicles.

(Is turquoise green making a comeback as a vehicle color?)

Jeep's

overall U.S. sales fell 6%

last year under pressure from Ford's Bronco lineup.

emulated the United States with new vehicle CO2 emissions

standards that

gave a break to popular pickup truck

models.

is in talks with potential partners to

recycle EV batteries

and reuse lithium and other metals inside.

, a Chinese autonomous vehicle startup, has

filed to sell shares in Hong Kong

, bucking the chill in AV and EV valuations.

will collaborate to

build out fast chargers

at Ford's European dealerships.

(Editing by Bernadette Baum)