🚦Autowist Report 118

Key headlines shaping the auto industry this week

Top insights and analysis that is moving the needle in the automotive industry

✅ BYD is slashing EV prices overseas by as much as 50%, particularly in Europe and Southeast Asia, to counter slowing demand and tariffs.

✅ Discounts apply across several models, with the aim to move inventory quickly and maintain market share. This comes as global overcapacity and price wars hit the EV sector.

✅ European suppliers are lobbying for EU-made content requirements in EVs and batteries to protect jobs. This concern stems from a flood of cheaper Chinese imports that could hollow out the European supply chain.

✅ Suppliers argue that without local-content rules, the EU could lose hundreds of thousands of jobs.

🔍 Lobbying when disruption is at your doorstep is apparently the strategy many of the European auto suppliers are taking. If this trend continues, it is safe to say that the overall pie will get smaller for all these suppliers. As more and more OEMs are looking to replace them with in-house activities or prefer Chinese suppliers instead.

✅ Reports indicate growing tension in the VW–Rivian joint venture, with challenges in software integration. Rivian insiders cite slower-than-expected progress, while VW faces pressure from shareholders and tariffs.

✅ Both sides insist the partnership remains intact, but analysts warn of delays in shared platform rollouts.

🔍 To me this is a classic example of “Culture eats Strategy”. No matter how well you can design a partnership and allocate the best engineers towards it, if the overall company culture is flawed and not aligned with the strategy, it won’t matter.

✅ Bosch will cut 13,000 jobs by 2027, citing tariffs, intense competition, and a hydrogen slowdown. Cuts will hit administrative and support roles worldwide, but core R&D remains intact.

✅ Follows similar retrenchments at other European suppliers facing EV transition headwinds.

🔍 Reflects mounting pressure on suppliers to restructure in order to survive the shift to EVs and new technologies.

✅ New patents reveal Rivian working on a deployable aerodynamic diffuser, integrated screen tech, and novel EV platform designs.

✅ Suggests Rivian is investing in performance aero and user experience differentiation.

✅ What was filed

🔍 It is interesting to see how they are managing this at the time when they are not doing that well financially. However, one aspect to keep in mund is that patents usually take a while until it gets filed. Conservatively thinking, these patents were thought of at least 6-10 months before it was filed as a patent.

✅ China to mandate export permits for EV makers, aimed at curbing low-quality exports and protecting brand reputation abroad.

✅ Policy responds to concerns that overcapacity and weak players are flooding foreign markets with cheap, unreliable EVs. Analysts see this as part of China’s broader industrial policy correction in autos.

🔍 This tracks quite well with what China has said before about consolidation. This change in policy will force that in the Chinese markets to better ensure the best Chinese products are promoted overseas. In a lot of aspects Chinese technology is ahead of it’s counterparts in the west, except brand value. This move could help make that shift in the coming decade.

✅ Spy shots show a BMW iX test mule with sensors and hardware for autonomous driving research in Munich. Vehicle outfitted with roof-mounted lidar, cameras, and radar arrays, confirming advanced ADAS/AV testing.

✅ BMW continues to refine its modular SDV architecture while pursuing autonomy partnerships.

🔍 This sighting confirms BMW’s ongoing pursuit of AV tech, even as the company hedges with multi-powertrain strategies.

This week’s key movers in the automotive stock market

Volvo’s EX90 was supposed to be a showcase for the company’s electric and software-defined future. Instead, it has become a case study in the difficulty of making that future real. Over the past year, EX90 owners have dealt with many software problems such as: unreliable phone-as-key, flaky infotainment, and missing safety features that were promised at launch.

But before we dive into that, lets take a quick look at it’s financial performance