Good morning! It’s Tuesday, January 14, 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: Global EV Sales Up 25 Percent In 2024
It’s been a rough couple of months for the world’s electric vehicle makers, after brands across the U.S. slashed millions of cars from their sales targets, European countries backtracked on EV incentives and the impending inauguration of Donald Trump threatens to cut American investment in EVs. It’s not all bad news, though, as sales of new electric cars were up 25 percent worldwide over the past year.
According to the latest global vehicle sales, deliveries of new electric models reached more than 17 million units, according to Automotive News. The huge milestone came after EV sales increased by more than a quarter over the last 12 months:
Incentives and emission targets pushed EV sales in China and aided Britain in overtaking Germany as Europe’s biggest battery-electric market in 2024, research firm Rho Motion said.
EV makers look into 2025 as a transformative year as China’s sales growth slows, tougher emissions targets come into force in Europe, and questions surround potential U.S. policy changes under the incoming Trump administration.
Global sales of full-electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids rose 26 percent year-on-year to 1.9 million in December, albeit slowing for a second consecutive month, the Rho Motion data showed.
Sales in China jumped 37 percent to 1.3 million vehicles in December and totaled 11 million for the whole of 2024.
In the U.S., sales were up by around nine percent and reached 0.19 million units in December. In contrast, Europe reported EV sales reached 0.31 million in the same period and Norway reported that nearly every new car sold in the country is now electric, reports the BBC.
The Scandinavian nation is putting the rest of the world to shame with its pivot to electric power and last year reported that nine in 10 new cars sold were electric. Despite not having a single electric car maker of its own, the country is showing the rest of the world how it’s done:
The Nordic nation of 5.5 million people has adopted EVs faster than any other country, and is on the cusp of becoming the first to phase out the sale of new fossil fuel cars.
Last year, the number of electric cars on Norway’s roads outnumbered those powered by petrol for the first time. When diesel vehicles are included, electric cars account for almost a third of all on Norwegian roads.
And 88.9% of new cars sold in the country last year were EVs, up from 82.4% in 2023, data from the Norwegian Road Federation (OFV) showed.
Clearly all those concerns about cold weather hitting range didn’t make it to Norway, which is officially the seventh coldest country in the world based on average annual temperatures.
2nd Gear: Maserati Doesn’t Expect To Turn A Profit In 2025
The troubles continue at Stellantis well into the new year after it emerged that sales at luxury brand Maserati had plummeted. Things have gotten so bad at the luxury Italian brand that the company’s new boss isn’t expecting the marque to turn a profit in 2025.
Maserati has been undergoing a period of evolution in recent months as it attempts to pivot to an all-electric lineup. The switch has received a mixed response from buyers, and sales for the brand halved over the course of 2024, reports Autocar. Now, new CEO Santo Ficili says he’s working to save the brand:
“I’m super positive because of the legacy of the brand, and if you have a little fire with a brand like this, you can then have a very different kind of fire,” he said.
Maserati sold just 8,600 cars in the first nine months of 2024, compared with more than 20,000 in the same period in 2023.
Revenues more than halved, too; in the first half of 2024, it was more than €80 million in the red.
Ficili – who is also now the CEO of Alfa Romeo – said focus areas would be building a strong team to run the Maserati brand as well as improving “product competitiveness”, including the contents of its cars and their pricing.
Key to the recovery of the brand will be re-building relationships with dealerships around the world, added Ficili. This, “product competitiveness” and improved marketing activities will be integral to the transformation of Maserati’s fortunes, which Ficili hopes will “change the trajectory” of the brand over the coming months.
The brand will also take steps to cut its costs, which follows the approach taken by Volkswagen to remain competitive and even luxury automaker Mercedes.
3rd Gear: Hyundai, Ford, GM Donate To Trump Inauguration Fund
There’s less than a week until convicted felon Donald Trump is sworn into office as the next president of the United States. Are you excited? I’m not. To make the day as big a deal as Trump thinks it is, a handful of automakers are donating to his inauguration fund to win favor with his administration.
The “Home Alone 2” actor will be sworn in during a ceremony next week, and so far automakers from Ford to Hyundai have all donated to the inauguration fund, reports the Wall Street Journal. The automakers are looking to get on Trump’s good side through the donations, as his threats of tariffs and targets could dictate their fortunes going forward:
Officials at Hyundai Motor, the largest automaker in South Korea, have been in touch with Trump’s aides since the election and are hoping to set up a private meeting with the president-elect, according to people briefed on the matter. The company also donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund through its U.S. subsidiary, Hyundai Motor North America, the people said. It marks the first time in Hyundai’s history that the company has donated to a U.S. inauguration.
General Motors, Ford Motor and Toyota Motor have also donated $1 million apiece to Trump’s inaugural fund, according to company representatives and other people familiar with the matter.
The efforts to build goodwill with the incoming president reflect the high stakes for the companies. Late last year, Trump threatened to impose tariffs on goods from China, Mexico and Canada if the leaders of those countries didn’t do more to stem the flow of drugs or migrants into the U.S. During the recent presidential campaign, he said he would put in place across-the-board tariffs of up to 20% on all goods imported into the U.S.
The $1 million donation reportedly gets companies six tickets to a private candlelight dinner with Trump on the eve of inauguration day, reports WSJ. The donation could also mean that Hyundai CEO José Muñoz and Hyundai Motor Group executive chair, Euisun Chung, will be able to attend the inauguration day festivities.
Hyundai is reportedly endeavoring to become a “U.S. job creator” to win favor with Trump, adds WSJ. Trump has repeatedly called for automakers to increase manufacturing jobs here in America and ramp up investment in the sector, which Hyundai is doing through expansions at its sites in Alabama.
4th Gear: Premium German Cars Are Taking A Beating
Maserati isn’t the only premium brand struggling these days, as falling sales have hit almost every premium German automaker in recent months. Now, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Porsche have all reported that struggles in China and Europe have hit deliveries over the past year.
BMW saw sales fall by 2.3 percent, Mercedes-Benz dropped three percent and Porsche was also down three percent in overall sales for 2024, reports Automotive News. The decline was reportedly driven by stiff competition in China:
In China and Germany, however, BMW saw falls of 13 percent and 5.3 percent, respectively, while Mercedes’ sales were off by 7 percent and 9 percent. Audi’s sales fell by 11 percent in China and by 21 percent in Germany.
China’s domestic market, the world’s largest, maintained steady growth in 2024, but foreign carmakers with less competitive EV lineups lost ground to Chinese EV-only rivals as a price war and subsidized trade-ins for greener vehicles drove demand.
In Germany, car demand remains well below pre-pandemic levels, with around 2.8 million cars sold last year — around 1 percent less than 2023 and a quarter below 2019 sales.
Declines were also felt by VW-owned Audi, which saw deliveries for 2024 fall by 12 percent and it now sits behind Tesla in global car sales rankings.
