Good morning! It’s Tuesday, January 7, 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: ‘First Buddy’ Musk Is A Bit Too Clingy
President-elect Donald Trump might be publicly thrilled that his “First Buddy” Elon Musk is hanging around at Mar-a-Lago constantly, but privately, he sort of just wants his mega-donor to go home. Like Jerry and Kramar, sometimes he just doesn’t want Musk dropping by all the time.
After spending over a quarter-billion dollars to get Trump re-elected in 2024, Musk has been renting out a $2,000-per-night Banya Cottage at Trump’s club. It’s apparently very close to Trump’s private residence and his presidential headquarters. It may actually be a little too close for Trump’s comfort. From the Daily Beast:
“Trump does complain a bit to people about how Musk is around a lot,” New York Times journalist and “Trump whisperer” Maggie Haberman told tech reporter Kara Swisher during the latest episode of Swisher’s podcast, On.
[…]
It’s not clear who will ultimately foot the bill for the cottage, which is just a few hundred feet from Trump’s main residence and transition-team headquarters. From Banyan, Musk has been able to attend Trump’s personnel meetings and crash awkward dinners with rival tech billionaires, like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
“He really parked himself in Trump’s face,” Haberman said.
For now, Musk seems to be on the winning side of the MAGA civil war that’s pitted Silicon Valley’s regulation-hating tech bros against the original grassroots loyalists who have backed Trump since 2016, she said.
It’s not exactly clear how long this honeymoon will last, though. Trump hasn’t even taken office yet, but Musk has already inserted himself into policy battles. In an effort to get under Trump’s skin, some Democrats have been calling the tech billionaire “President Musk,” and it seems like it’s working.
“It definitely bothers him,” Haberman said of Trump’s reaction to the taunt. “The ‘President Musk’ line was always going to be a way to get him. Trump’s not a wind-up toy, but there certainly are very specific things that can zotz him.”
Trump is a “one-ring circus,” according to his long-time friends, and “I’m not sure Musk has figured that out yet,” Haberman added.
She predicted that Musk will try to maintain his current level of physical proximity to Trump even after the inauguration on Jan. 20. But it’s likely to be far more difficult once the Trump apparatus moves from Mar-a-Lago to the White House.
“I don’t anticipate that Musk is going to have an office in the West Wing,” Haberman said. “I don’t even know that he will have a blue pass to wander around.”
The blue badge gives staffers access to the White House and Executive Office Building.
In public, members of Trump’s inner circle have commented on what a great supporter Musk is, but that does not mean they particularly like having him around.
“I think a bunch of people around him are also struggling with how aggressive Musk can be in their interactions,” Haberman said.
Musk, she noted, seems more willing to “irritate” Trump than some of his other advisers. The fact that he’s willing and able to fund primary challengers probably buys him more time than usual, but it’s still a fraught relationship.
“It’s like watching shifting sands around Trump,” she said. “It’s like this one’s up, this one’s down, but nobody’s ever totally out.”
Listen, the U.S. is already going to hell in a handbasket. At least we can get some fun drama out of it from a couple of divorced guys.
2nd Gear: Lucid Reports Record Sales In 2024
Holy hell, Lucid actually hit a sales target! That’s right, folks, because of Lucid’s fourth-quarter sales record, the automaker was able to meet its full-year 2024 production guidance of 9,000 vehicles. 3,099 of those sales came in the last three months of the year, and that represents a 79 percent increase over the 2023’s Q4 numbers.
All in all, Lucid’s 2024 sales rose 71 percent to 10,241 vehicles, and its full-year production increased 7.1 percent to 9,029 vehicles. In early 2024, the automaker set its full-year production guidance at 9,000 vehicles after building 8,428 Airs in 2023. From Automotive News:
“This marks our fourth consecutive quarter of record sales,” Lucid spokesman Nick Twork said on X. He said 2025 promises to be even better for the Newark, Calif., automaker, which just began production of its second vehicle in December.
Nearly all of Lucid’s fourth-quarter deliveries were for the Air sedan, its sole vehicle until last month. Lucid began production of the Gravity crossover in early December and said it delivered nine vehicles to customers at the end of the month.
[…]
The automaker boosted sales last year through incentives, including subsidized financing rates and lease deals. Motor Intelligence said Air incentives averaged $15,542 per vehicle in 2024 and hit nearly $20,000 in October. The Air starts at $71,400 with shipping.
The good news won’t last forever, though. Lucid is set to release its fourth-quarter financial results on February 25. In the third quarter, Lucid reported a net loss of $950 million. That’s, uh, not great.
3rd Gear: 2.6 Million Teslas Probed For Summon Feature
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is opening a probe into about 2.6 million Teslas because of issues with its “actual Smart Summon” driverless feature that have led to crashes. NHTSA is looking into at least one direct complaint of a crash and reviewing several other media reports of similar smash-ups related to the system. From Reuters:
The Tesla vehicles involved in the crash failed to detect posts or parked vehicles when they were operating on Actually Smart Summon, the regulator said.
“The ODI is aware of multiple crash allegations, involving both Smart Summon and Actually Smart Summon, where the user had too little reaction time to avoid a crash, either with the available line of sight or releasing the phone app button, which stops the vehicle’s movement,” it added.
Actually Smart Summon was launched in September and allows users to allows users to remotely move their vehicle towards them or another location using a smartphone application.
The predecessor to the feature, now called Dumb Summon, allowed users to move their car forward or backward into or out of a parking spot.
NHTSA says it will look into Actually Smart Summon’s maximum speed, how it’s used on public roads and line of sight requirements. It’s also going to assess the system’s remote control phone app, connection delay impacts and how the system reacts to unanticipated conditions.
This marks NHTSA’s second major probe into Tesla’s driver-assist features in just four months. Back in October of 2024, the regulation board opened an investigation into 2.4 million Teslas equipped with Full Self-Driving software after four reported collisions. A 2023 crash left a driver dead.
4th Gear: UK Overtakes Germany For Largest European EV Market
The United Kingdom’s electric car market is now the biggest in Europe after surpassing Germany. The country’s EV sales mandate helped it push back against a demand slowdown seen elsewhere on the continent. From Bloomberg:
Registrations of new fully electric vehicles in Germany fell more than a quarter to 380,609 last year, according to data released Monday by the KBA regulator. That’s fewer than the 381,970 sold in the UK, where EV registrations surged 21%.
Battery-powered cars have gained share in the UK in recent months as manufacturers tried to hit the country’s EV sales mandate. Automakers face fines of as much as £15,000 ($18,800) per vehicle for failing to comply, but can avoid penalties by using a credits-trading system and exceeding requirements in later years.
Meanwhile, EV sales have plummeted in Germany, where the removal of purchasing incentives in late 2023 has hurt demand. Sales in markets including Sweden, France and Ireland have also come in behind expectations after subsidy cuts and a lack of affordable models.
Registrations also suffered as manufacturers waited to launch new EV models in 2025 to boost their chances of meeting new European Union regulations that come into effect this year, said Matthias Schmidt, an independent autos analyst who flagged the UK overtaking Germany earlier Monday. Manufacturers are facing billions of euros in fines if they fail to meet these stricter fleet-emissions rules.
A surge in December sales boosted EVs’ overall share of the UK car market to 19.6% for the year — still behind the 22% target — with price cuts continuing as manufacturers tried to meet the sales quota to avoid fines. The target increases to 28% this year. In Germany, EVs made up 13.5% of registrations in 2024.
In an effort to help the industry meet its goals, the UK government may lower them. That feels a bit silly if you ask me. Why would you lower an arbitrary number just so automakers can feel good about themselves? Clean energy advocates are on the same page, saying a watered-down quota could slow the shift toward EVs, according to Bloomberg.
The bulk of the UK’s EV sales went to businesses and fleet customers. Just 10 percent of private buyers decided to pick up an electric car in 2024.
