Good morning! It’s Monday, January 13, 2025, and this is The Morning Shift, your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, in one place. Here are the important stories you need to know.
1st Gear: Bannon Not ‘Prepared To Tolerate’ Musk Anymore
There are no two ways around it, we’re going to see an awful lot more of Tesla boss Elon Musk once Donald Trump takes office next week. Musk backed Trump on the campaign trail to the tune of $259 million, and was rewarded with a seat at the table via a new made-up department focused on government efficiency that Musk will co-chair. Because if there’s one thing more efficient than having one boss, it’s having two.
It turns out that not everyone is happy to see Musk hanging on Trump’s coattails at every turn, and former advisor to the incoming president, Steve Bannon, has now made it his mission to “take down” Musk, reports the Guardian. The former Trump advisor has ripped into Musk this weekend, branding the Tesla boss “truly evil” and pledging to drive him out the White House:
In an interview with the Corriere della Sera newspaper in Italy, excerpts of which were published this weekend by Breitbart, Bannon criticised Musk’s embrace of some forms of immigration and vowed to ensure that Musk does not have top-level access to the White House.
“He is a truly evil guy, a very bad guy. I made it my personal thing to take this guy down,” Bannon said. “Before, because he put money in, I was prepared to tolerate it – I’m not prepared to tolerate it any more.”
He added: “I will have Elon Musk run out of here by inauguration day”, which falls on 20 January. “He will not have full access to the White House. He will be like any other person.”
The attacks seem pretty out of the blue, considering the two men’s shared love of Trump and everything he stands for. The divide between Bannon and Musk appears to stem back to the latter’s support for H1-B visas, which allow companies in the U.S. to hire specialist workers in specific fields. Musk supports the visas and appears to have brought Trump on side, while Bannon argues that “the entire immigration system is gamed by the tech overlords.”
Bannon’s attacks on Musk go further, and he’s called the SpaceX boss “racist” and demanded that he “go back to South Africa.” The former Trump advisor also claimed that Musk’s “sole objective is to become a trillionaire” and gain as much power as possible.
The former White House chief strategist has given himself until inauguration day to banish Musk from the White House, which means he has just one week left to break up the Musk/Trump love-in. As recent reports have suggested that Trump may be tiring of Musk, this might not be as big an ask as you first think.
2nd Gear: USPS Pivot To Gas Trucks On The Cards
The rollout of the all-new, all-electric postal truck has been a resounding success. The cutesy electric trucks have won fans in and out of the postal service, and the trucks have reportedly performed better than expected. That isn’t enough for the U.S. to go all-in on electric delivery vans, however, and the company behind the electric trucks is preparing for a switch back to gas power.
Oshkosh, which builds the duck-shape postal trucks for USPS, says that it is prepared to switch the next-generation trucks to gas power, reports Automotive News. The move comes as a result of the incoming administration’s disdain towards battery power:
“We’ll do what they want us to do — supplying either gas or electric,” John Pfeifer, the company’s chief executive officer, said in an interview at the CES trade show in Las Vegas. “A new Congress could come in and repeal, I guess, part of the IRA that hasn’t been spent.”
President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act provided $3 billion over 10 years to transition the Postal Service to an electric fleet, including $1.3 billion for vehicles and $1.7 billion for charging stations. The agency has said it plans to buy more than 100,000 delivery vehicles through 2028, of which at least 62 percent will be fully electric.
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy last month told Bloomberg his independent agency needs to replace aging mail trucks and that he hasn’t heard from the incoming presidential administration about its planned electric vehicle purchases.
But Trump’s team is looking at whether it can get out of USPS contracts with Oshkosh and Ford Motor Co., Reuters has reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson also has said Biden’s signature climate law would be an early target for the new Congress.
Electric vehicles make up three quarters of the trucks that USPS has ordered from Oshkosh, which equates to around 37,000 of the vehicles ordered as part of a $3 billion deal between USPS and the company.
Should the percentage of electric trucks ordered be cut from 75 percent down to zero, Oshkosh has warned that its company valuation could take a 60 percent hit. This would be a pretty dramatic hit for one of the few success stories in the EV world at the minute.
3rd Gear: Stellantis Slashes U.S. Inventory
After a woeful 2024 saw Stellantis lose its CEO, face backlash from its dealers and deliveries drop, the Jeep owner is endeavoring to begin 2025 on better footing. As such, the automaker has slashed its inventory of new cars in America in recent months and has now succeeded in reaching its target for the cuts.
Stellantis cut its inventory of new cars by more than 100,000 vehicles, reports Reuters. The dramatic drop in inventory came as a result of discounts at dealerships to boost sales:
Antonio Filosa, who has led the carmaker’s North American operations since last October, detailed efforts to turn around a slumping regional business in the wake of former CEO Carlos Tavares’ abrupt departure.
He said the company had made a “very big improvement” in working down bloated inventories on dealer lots by offering huge discounts to consumers. “That cost us a lot, but was needed,” he added.
In September, Stellantis publicly targeted dealer inventory of no more than 330,000 vehicles by year end.
Stellantis lost CEO Carlos Tavares at the end of 2024, the automaker is now led by company chair John Elkann while the search for a new CEO continues. After the successful drive to cut its inventory, Filosa is now said to be a leading candidate to take on the role of CEO at the head of the Jeep and Fiat owner.
4th Gear: Elon Musk’s Government Ties Aren’t Hampering Space Race
Elon Musk’s ties to the incoming administration may be worrying Steve Bannon, but they aren’t bothering one of his closest rivals in the race to space and the competition to be the richest man alive. Amazon boss Jeff Bezos has played down concerns that Musk’s ties to the Trump administration could hamper the competition to rule space that’s hotting up between Blue Origin and SpaceX.
Bezos told Reuters that he doesn’t think SpaceX boss Musk will use his ties with Trump to undercut Blue Origin. Instead, Bezos says Musk is doing his work in space for the betterment of people, rather than himself:
“Elon has been very clear that he’s doing this for the public interest and not for his personal gain. And I take him at face value,” Bezos, founder of Blue Origin, told Reuters on Sunday.
Musk, who has spent more than a quarter billion dollars to help elect Trump, has had the latter’s ear on space matters.
Last month, Musk said the U.S. should send missions straight to Mars instead of to the moon first, fueling industry concerns of a major shakeup to NASA’s space exploration program.
“My own opinion is that we should do both – we need to go to the moon and we should go to Mars,” Bezos said, when asked if he was concerned about changes to NASA’s moon program.
It’s nice to hear that billionaires can play nice, but will the mood change once Trump takes office and we find out the full extent to the new power that Musk may hold? We’ll find out next Monday, I guess.
