Good morning! It’s Thursday, January 9, 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: Honda Eyes Nissan’s Large Trucks And SUVs
Ever since Honda and Nissan announced their planned merger, folks have been asking what the hell Nissan was bringing to the table. Well, now it seems we’re getting a slightly better idea of what Honda execs have in mind: big trucks and SUVs by way of Nissan. It’s a segment in which Honda has very little experience, and they’re obviously very important in the United States. Noriya Kaihara, Honda’s executive vice president, said sharing those vehicles will help fill the gaps in its lineup. From Automotive News:
“Nissan has a little bit larger class, e-segment vehicles that we don’t have at this moment. So, if we can exchange some of our vehicles, that would be a benefit for us in the short term,” Kaihara told reporters Jan. 7 on the sidelines of the CES technology expo.
Nissan’s Titan pickup is one of two Japanese trucks, besides the Toyota Tundra, that compete against domestic U.S. brands in the fierce full-size category. Nissan also offers the midsize Frontier, a long-standing rival to the Toyota Tacoma, and the three-row, body-on-frame Armada SUV.
Honda’s largest offering is the Pilot three-row crossover. Its Ridgeline small pickup has an open-bed option for do-it-yourselfers. Both have off-road-oriented TrailSport trims, but their unibody construction hinders them from delivering the utility of a traditional truck.
Leveraging Nissan’s truck platform could benefit Honda in the North American region where large vehicles are the preference de jour.
Honda might “get some of those Nissan vehicles,” Kaihara said.
Still, Kaihara was quick to caution that the key would be keeping Honda’s brand identity intact. “The important thing is that the Honda brand is still Honda – we are not merging the brand,” he said.
Honda doesn’t want you to worry if you think adding Nissan to the team will dilute the brand Honda has built for itself. Kaihara said the automaker’s brand identity would remain intact and that “the Honda brand is still Honda – we are not merging the brand.
Along with large vehicles, Honda also hopes to share development costs with Nissan and add extra production capacity.
Kaihara said initial discussions of a Honda-Nissan merger spun from Honda’s desire to ease the financial burden of its transition to electric vehicles.
“Our concentration on the current development of software-defined vehicles makes us very unique, and also developing our own battery will benefit us in differentiation from other OEMs,” he said.
“From that point of view, it is wise for us share that area of the business with someone else,” Kaihara said.
[…]
While nothing has been decided, Kaihara said a merger would allow Honda to have “better performance from a financing point of view” as it develops its ASIMO OS software system for its new line of 0 Series EVs.
[…]
Honda also may benefit from using excess capacity at Nissan factories to produce vehicles for its own lineup that are in tight supply.
Kaihara said Honda is operating at full production levels in North America. He declined to comment in detail about Nissan’s state of production but said he understood its output to be under capacity.
That could free up capacity for Honda as it expands its lineup to include new 0 Series EVs from its own factories.
Production flexibility will be key as automakers prepare for possible tariffs under the incoming Trump administration.
Honda fanboy nerds: please do not worry about your beloved company. From the sound of it, it’s going to be alright, and Nissan isn’t going to harm it in any real way. Plus, a big SUV or truck from Honda would probably be pretty neat. You can all relax now. Please.
2nd Gear: Volvo Slowly Leaves The Car Subscription Business
Volvo is in the process of completing several deals to give up control of its car subscription business in some European markets. The Swedish automaker finalized a deal that’ll relinquish its Care by Volvo contrast in the Netherlands to Ayvens, a local partner. It’ll still keep the name despite the new owner.
It made a similar move in its home country, selling its subscription business to Ziklo. Identical deals with Care by Volvo are also happening in Germany, Norway and the United Kingdom. In theory, all of these deals will be completed before the end of 2025. From Automotive News:
Volvo announced Sept. 12 that it was quitting the car subscriptions business.
The automaker said it was moving away from in-house leasing toward a partner-based setup “to ensure we are providing products that suit customers’ needs, while at the same time ensuring we are allocating resources toward further digitizing our whole business.”
Volvo has also ended the program in the U.S., where it was available in more than 40 states.
The U.S. version of the program faced strong opposition from dealers in California after it was launched there in 2018. However, Volvo rebooted the program as recently as 2023, which included bringing it back to California.
However, not every automaker feels the way Volvo does about vehicle subscription services. Hyundai is bullish about the idea of its Mocean subscription service. It has plans to expand throughout Europe’s major markets after finding solid success in Spain and the UK. It also recently debuted in Germany.
3rd Gear: Ford, Teamsters At Odds Over Hauler Contract
Ford is terminating its decades-long contract with car hauling company Jack Cooper, and this may shock you to hear, but the Teamsters union isn’t happy about the move. It says it’ll fight for the now-endangered 1,400 union jobs at the company, and the move has created an “existential crisis” for the company itself, according to its CEO. More likely than not, the layoffs will impact about 100 Jack Cooper employees in metro Detroit. From the Detroit Free Press:
Ford, which is Jack Cooper’s second-largest customer behind General Motors, notified Jack Cooper that it ended its contract with the hauler on Jan. 2, with a 30-day notice, according to two people at Jack Cooper, as well as an internal memo sent to Jack Cooper employees Tuesday at its facility in Liberty, Missouri. That memo was obtained and first reported by trade publication Freightwaves. The people asked to not be named because of strict confidentiality agreements between Jack Cooper and Ford.
The contract was not set to expire on that date, but it did have a clause that would allow Ford to end it sooner, the sources said. But because Ford did not offer a reason for the termination, some believe it is because Jack Cooper drivers are members of the Teamsters and that Ford could take its business to nonunion haulers for cheaper rates. Sources familiar with Ford’s decision deny that’s the reason.
Jack Cooper, founded in 1928, is based in Kansas City, Missouri, and Kennesaw, Georgia. It is owned by the Riggs family, which is a female-owned company certified by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council. It employs 2,500 people, 1,400 of whom are union-represented. Jack Cooper CEO Sarah Amico told the Free Press that Ford’s decision is “an existential crisis” for the company.
“I am disappointed to see the end of a 40-year partnership and I’m disappointed for the employees it will impact and the jobs that will be lost,” Amico said. “We will continue to focus our efforts on being a top-performing carrier in the industry thanks in large part to what I feel is the best driver and workforce in the car haul industry.”
The company says Ford’s January 2 notice was completely unexpected. Here’s what the memo read:
“You are hereby notified as an ‘affected employee’ that the position of employment you have held with Jack Cooper shall be terminated in connection with the closure of the facility, effective as of February 2, 2025.” It said the loss of employment “is expected to be permanent.”
The document said Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act notices of pending layoffs have been listed for Jack Cooper employees at Dearborn and Wayne facilities. Outside of Michigan, the affected facilities include: Avon Lake, Ohio; Liberty, Missouri; Cottage Grove, Minnesota, and Louisville, Kentucky. One of the people familiar with Jack Cooper said there are eight jobs at Dearborn that will be impacted, five of which are union. At Wayne, 88 people will be laid off, 75 of which are union jobs.
Teamster General President Sean O’Brien called the move both “shameful” and “un-American,” according to Freep.
By taking steps to end its relationship with Jack Cooper, the Ford Motor Company has officially threatened the livelihoods of more than 1,400 Teamsters-represented car haul workers and their families. Ford, a once iconic American brand, wants to boost its own bottom line by walking away from a family-owned company and into the arms of second-rate third parties that will pay workers less money and far fewer benefits to haul Ford vehicles.”
O’Brien urged Ford to reverse the decision and said he is “prepared to use the full force of the Teamsters Union to defend our members and protect honorable union jobs in America.”
Folks close to Ford say the decision to kill the contract has more to do with the financing instability of Jack Cooper, rather than performance. Back in 2019, it filed for federal bankruptcy protection to remove about $330 million in debt from its books.
4th Gear: Rolls-Royce Dumps $376 Million Into Bespoke Car Plant
Rolls-Royce announced it is investing 300 million pounds ($376 million) to expand its plant in Goodwood so it can design and build more bespoke vehicles for high-end clients. From Reuters:
As with other high-end automakers, Rolls-Royce has seen rising demand for high-margin, personalized car content from wealthy consumers.
In 2024 alone, the BMW unit said its “artisans crafted exquisite details” that included solid 18-carat gold sculptures, embroideries consisting of more than 869,500 stitches, wood veneers including 500 individually-shaped pieces of wood and holographic paint finishes.
Rolls-Royce said that the Goodwood plant expansion is to serve customers for its Bespoke services and Coachbuild programme – an invitation-only service where wealthy clients get to “craft an entirely original motor car.”
The investment is the largest since the plant opened in 2003, when it employed 300 people and made one car a day, the company said. Today, Goodwood employs 2,500 people and produces 28 cars daily, it said.
In 2024, Rolls-Royce saw a bit of a downtick in global sales, selling just 5,712 cars. That number represents an over five percent drop from the 6,032 vehicles it moved in 2023. These numbers were apparently in line with expectations as the company switched over to new models.
I know the idea of RR selling these one-off cars for millions of dollars to some of the most evil people on the planet can feel a bit icky. However, I implore you to look at them as works of art and craftsmanship. The whole thing is a lot more palatable for us regular folks if we look at these cars through that lens.
Reverse: Dude Was A Moron
On The Radio: Penn State Blue Band – “Fight On, State”
If PSU loses to Notre Dame today I will scream.
