Motoring Podcast - News Show

OCTOBER 2024 NEW CAR REGISTRATIONS

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) has revealed the new car registration figures, for October 2024. They are not good. For the month of October the market is 6% down on 2023. Even Fleet dropped, for the first time in a long while. One bright spark, no pun intended, is that EV registrations grew to 20.7% market share for the month. This is to be expected as the end of 2024 approaches and so do the fines for not hitting the mandated levels. Click this link to read more, from the SMMT’s own article.

FOLLOW UP: FINANCE INDUSTRY THROWN INTO TURMOIL

Following a court ruling regarding commission on finance agreements, the industry has been thrown into turmoil as there are questions on what they need to do in order to be compliant. Some companies have halted all offerings for car finance until the situation is clarified. You can find out more, by clicking this AMOnline article link here.

MANY MANUFACTURERS REVEAL STRUGGLING RESULTS

The number of brands that are reporting challenging results, after Q3, has grown. There is a real problem for the industry, globally, and it might not get better anytime soon. Expect a lot of management word salads, littered with the likes of “efficiencies” and “cost-cutting” etc.

BMW’s woes thanks to the ongoing brake recall and huge profit drop, can be read about by clicking this Reuters article link here.

To read about Audi’s problems, click this Autocar link. Audi plan to cut jobs to help save money, click this Reuters article link here, to find out what that means.

Toyota are also hit by problems, with quality issues, safety recalls, plant stoppages and a Chinese market that is proving tough for all but the home grown brands. Click this Yahoo Finance article link to read more.

Honda announced a surprise drop in profits, thanks in large part to the ongoing issues in the Chinese market as their economy struggles. Click here to read more from a Yahoo Finance article link.

Nissan are not immune to the industry wide slump. They announced the cutting of around 9,000 jobs and dramatically that they are entering “emergency mode” as profits drop 304%. You can read more, from Autocar, by clicking this link here.

JLR profits hall 10%, which is being blamed largely on the aluminium supplier issue discussed a few weeks ago, click this Liverpool Business News article link for more.

Lotus are far from immune to the problems the industry are suffering from, as they announce they will be shedding around 200 jobs at their Hethel site, ahead of the Lotus Technologies (Chinese sister brand that brought out the Emeya and Eletra EVs) financial results announcement later in the month. If you wish to find out more, click this Autocar article link here.

Rivian, the EV maker who recently signed a deal with VW Group, lost just over $39,000 per car sold in the last quarter. You can read more, by clicking this article link fro...

In this second Special Edition from Alan’s trip to the Nurburgring 24 Hours with Hyundai, he’s spliced together some of the more coherent parts of the many hours of on-site recordings he made.

Huge thanks, of course, to Hyundai UK for their hospitality.

Alan joined Hyundai UK on their pilgrimage to the 2019 Nurburgring 24 hour race. In this first part, Alan talks about the race and the whole weekend including interviews with Thomas Schmeera and Albert Biermann, two of the key figures behind the latest generations of Hyundai road and race cars.

Part 2 will follow shortly and have more of the on-site recording and atmosphere.

Huge thank, of course, to Hyundai UK, Herr Schmeera and Herr Biermann for all their time and hospitality.

REAR VIEW PODCAST

Don't forget the new show from the team at Motoring Podcast, Rear View, where we talk to fascinating people from the motoring universe. To go listen to the episodes already released on Apple Podcasts click here.

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