U.S.-EU Talks Struggle, Threatening New Front in Trade War
Even though President Donald Trump held fire earlier this month on auto tariffs that have the potential to further roil Europe’s struggling economy, a succession of domestic dilemmas on both sides of the Atlantic threaten to frustrate efforts at a trade pact before they’ve even begun, reports Bloomberg. Ten months after Trump and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker struck a Rose Garden truce meant to clear the way for negotiations to reduce tariffs on industrial goods and eliminate regulatory hurdles, those talks are showing few signs of going anywhere meaningful. The 180-day deadline that Trump set for a negotiation with the EU and Japan over reducing their exports of cars and parts to the U.S. holds to the president’s pattern of steadily increasing pressure on trading partners to cut a deal more to his liking. With Japan he may have some luck. For Europe, though, the signs are more ominous. The auto deadline will hit just as a new European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, is due to take over from the Juncker-led one that has governed for the past five years. Read more here.
WTO Likely to Shoot Down Trump's 'National Security' Tariffs
President Donald Trump’s potential plan to implement new tariffs on inbound goods, such as autos and automotive components, claiming they represent a threat to the national security of the U.S. likely won’t survive a challenge with the World Trade Organization, reports The Detroit Bureau. Trump order the Commerce Department last fall to determine if the imports could be national threats under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. Recently, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross delivered a recommendation that they could indeed be viewed that way, allowing the administration to slap a 25 percent tariff on the goods. The clause in the trade act has been considered a kind of “third rail” in international trade until 2016, when Trump became president. It had been avoided because trade experts feared it could become a common way to get around the rules and erect the kind of trade barriers the WTO was designed to remove. Read more here.
VW Employees to Vote on Whether to Join UAW in Tenn.
Volkswagen Group and the UAW confirmed Wednesday that workers at the German automaker's Chattanooga, Tenn., assembly plant will vote June 12-14 on whether to unionize. According to Automotive News, the UAW had petitioned the National Labor Relations Board to set the dates for the election to represent about 1,700 trade and production workers at the plant, which builds cars and crossovers. Workers at the plant in 2014 voted against unionizing in a blow to the UAW's efforts to organize U.S plants operated by foreign automakers. VW has said it has taken a neutral position on whether the Tennessee workers should unionize. VW began production in 2011 at the plant, which builds the Passat car and the Atlas crossover. In January, VW said it was investing $800 million to build a new electric vehicle in Tennessee and add 1,000 jobs at the Chattanooga plant that will begin EV production in 2022. UAW membership has plummeted 75 percent since 1979 and now stands at about 396,000. The UAW has failed for two decades to organize foreign automaker plants in the United States despite repeated efforts. Read more here.
Barclays Says Tesla is 'Stalling as a Niche Automaker' and Cuts Its Price Target to $150
Barclays cut its price target on Tesla on Thursday and said the market is finally coming around to the firm’s thesis on the automaker, reports CNBC. The firm also said Tesla is “stalling as a niche automaker,” and cut its 12-month price target to $150 from $192. “Model 3 demand is stagnating in the US, the company still doesn’t have a path to significant auto profitability and solar storage installations have declined sequentially over the past two quarters,” analyst Brian Johnson said. “While Mr. [Elon] Musk is pivoting to the remaining ‘hyberbull’ full robotaxi scenario, his efforts to spring excitement around Tesla’s full self-driving capabilities was broadly met with the appropriate skepticism. We expect more investors to gravitate back to Tesla’s near-term fundamentals of demand, profitability, and cash generation, areas that are now more exposed as the blue pill thesis washes away.” Read more here.
10 Features on New Cars That Need to Go, Right Now
The auto industry is a multi-billion dollar business aiming to stay on top of the cutting-edge of technology, yes? So why are so many cars mired in bizarre, redundant, and needlessly complicated design? Here’s one Forbes writer’s top ten list of the puzzling, the ill-thought out and the aggravating. First is what he calls incomprehensible, slow, lame nav systems. Every driver he knows prefers their phone to the clunky, slow, outdated auto nav systems of today. His phone has never displayed “Route Not Found,” when he enters ”123 Main Street,” nor has it ever said “You have arrived at your destination” when I’m looking at an empty field. You also shouldn't have to look up where the "Cancel route" icon is after spending ten minutes trying to figure out where they've buried it. And how about letting a passenger set the nav system while the car is in motion, instead of disabling it across the board when moving? Find out which other features he says need to go by clicking here.
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