Just the facts ma'am and some thoughts* VW has been jockeying with Toyota as the #1 or #2 car maker in the world for decades. The head of VW noted last week that VW is "sick" admitting that "we are no longer competitive as the Volkswagen brand". VW intends to cut annual costs by 10 billion Euros which includes slashing labour by 20%. VW currently has just under 300,000 employees in Germany. Perhaps the 60,000 displaced VW workers will be able to find work by moving east a bit on Highway 2 to alleviate the worker shortage at Giga Berlin located in Brandenburg. VW isn't just bailing on ICE vehicles as it has abandoned its plan to invest $2.1 billion in an EV plant in Germany.
In the meantime, VW has invested $700 million to buy 5% of Xpeng, a Chinese EV maker. VW also invested $2.3 billion to buy a 21% stake in Horizon, a Beijing robotics company intending to enter the self-driving automobile market.
VW is going to milk its ICE business for as long as it can before closing down operations in Europe. The future of VW lies in the hands of the Chinese.
* GM announced it was slashing US labour costs earlier this year and has now put its EV expansion plans on hold until at least 2025. GM's future remains in China through its 49% ownership in SAIC
* Stellantis recently spent $1.6 billion to buy a 51% position in a new JV deal with Chinese EV startup Leapmotor. Stellantis has previously announced plans to spend 50 billion Euros on EV plants to create 100% EV sales in Europe and 50% EV sales in America by 2030. However, Stellantis has been very slow out of the gate on EV development and is now blaming slow demand for EV's for taking a wait and see position.
What's the common theme for the major legacy automakers? They are putting everything in Europe and America on hold while investing in EV development in China. Legacy auto has been very clear about its plans to milk ICE until the bitter because they realize they can't compete with Tesla or Chinese EV's.
Some things to think about:
* Ford/GM/Stellantis make almost all of their money now on pickup trucks in America and vans in Europe. They better hope that Tesla Cybertruck sales fall flat on its face and that Tesla doesn't come out with a van. I wouldn't count on either of those happening.
* SU has put all of its eggs in one basket and needs ICE to continue to thrive and EV's to fail. I wouldn't count on that happening either.
* SU shareholders might want to watch carefully for Ford's next move.
* SU shareholders might want to watch what is going on with the election in the US in less than 11 months from now.
* Daily "news" about oil prices are created to stimulate interest for trading purposes but are fluff in the big picture