Good morning! It’s Friday, December 8, 2023, and that is The Morning Shift, your day by day roundup of the highest automotive headlines from world wide, in a single place. Listed here are the essential tales you’ll want to know.

1st Gear: The Cybertruck’s Design Will Harm You

The angular design and stiff stainless-steel exoskeleton of the Tesla Cybertruck are elevating issues from security specialists that the truck may harm pedestrians and cyclists and trigger a whole lot of harm to different automobiles on the highway.

Reuters spoke with half a dozen security professors and officers who’ve considered the Cybertruck’s crash checks carried out by Tesla. These movies have been streamed throughout Tesla’s November 30 Cybertruck supply occasion. From Reuters:

“The large drawback there’s in the event that they actually make the pores and skin of the automobile very stiff through the use of thick chrome steel, then when individuals hit their heads on it, it’s going to trigger extra harm to them,” mentioned Adrian Lund, the previous president of the Insurance coverage Institute for Freeway Security (IIHS), whose automobile crash checks are an trade commonplace.

Tesla touted the constructions of the truck that soak up impression throughout the crash. Tesla CEO Elon Musk mentioned in a social media submit on Tuesday that he was “extremely assured” Cybertruck shall be safer than different vehicles for occupants and pedestrians.

[…]

The automobile designed with flat planes and lengthy, linear edges is visually distinct. It’s the first automobile with a stainless-steel exterior for the reason that launch of the DeLorean automobile which was featured within the 1985 film “Again to the Future.” The fabric has even damaged the stamping machine that varieties the panels, Musk mentioned, touting the automobile’s toughness.

In the course of the launch occasion on the manufacturing facility in Austin, Texas, Tesla mentioned cold-rolled, stainless physique panels are designed to soak up impression throughout a crash.

The entrance and rear constructions have energy-absorbing ribs that assist dissipate power, and through a facet impression the pores and skin of the door carried a majority of the crash load, it mentioned.

Aamer Hamdar, an auto security professor at George Washington College (go Colonials!) raised issues about restricted crumple zones constructed into the Cybertruck. He did say that different options may make up for that.

“There is likely to be a risk of shock-absorbent mechanism that may restrict the truth that you have got a restricted crumple zone,” Hamdar mentioned.

Musk has mentioned of the Cybertruck, “If in case you have an argument with one other automobile, you’ll win.” Which will sound good to a man like Elon, however “successful” a automobile crash might be disastrous for different individuals.

David Friedman, the previous performing head of the Nationwide Freeway Site visitors Security Administration, described the impact for the loser of the crash: “If you happen to’re in a crash with one other automobile that has a crumple zone and your automobile is extra stiff, then their vehicles are going to crush and yours is resistant,” he mentioned.

Julia Griswold, director of the College of California, Berkeley’s Secure Transportation Analysis Heart, mentioned she was “alarmed” by the crash check movies Tesla posted. She mentioned the heavy weight of the vehicles and their excessive acceleration “increase crimson flags for non-occupants.”

[…]

U.S. regulators depend on automobile makers to self-test and certify their adherence to security requirements. Musk mentioned in a latest interview with auto marketing consultant Sandy Munro that the Cybertruck had handed regulatory assessment.

Every thing ought to be taken with a little bit of a grain of salt, although. Consultants say they nonetheless want crash check knowledge to verify their lack-of-safety issues. All I do know is that I don’t wish to be on the incorrect facet of a Cybertruck crash, nevertheless it shouldn’t be a lot of a problem. In any case, Tesla is barely constructing them.

2nd Gear: Stellantis Cuts Jobs At Two Crops

Stellantis is planning to chop shifts at two meeting vegetation, doubtlessly shedding 1000’s of staff as a result of it must construct fewer SUVS so it could possibly meet sticker emissions requirements. From Automotive Information:

The corporate’s plant in Toledo, Ohio, which builds the Jeep Wrangler and Gladiator, and certainly one of two Jeep Grand Cherokee vegetation in Detroit will transfer from three shifts of staff to 2, Stellantis mentioned.

The adjustments, efficient as quickly as Feb. 5, “will end in job losses,” the automaker mentioned in an emailed assertion, with out offering particular numbers. Collectively, the vegetation make use of greater than 10,000 staff. Media reviews in Toledo mentioned as much as 1,200 individuals could possibly be laid off at that plant.

Stellantis mentioned the vegetation are every dropping a shift “partially becuase of the necessity to handle gross sales of the automobiles they produce to adjust to California emissions rules which are measured on a state-by-state foundation.” In June, the corporate mentioned it was now not sending gasoline automobiles to dealerships in 14 states that observe the California rules until prospects had ordered them.

By transferring the Detroit plant to 2 shifts, Stellantis mentioned it could possibly “focus its consideration on enhancing the operational efficiency and throughput on the plant within the occasion {that a} change within the rules or market permits for a rise in quantity.”

Stellantis mentioned it filed notices about impending job losses Thursday to adjust to the Employee Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, which requires a 60-day warning of mass layoffs. Nevertheless it mentioned the variety of staff affected at both plant in the end could possibly be lower than the five hundred that the act considers a mass layoff.

Staff on the Toledo plant have been among the many first to go on strike in September when the United Auto Staff union was negotiating with the Large Three automakers.

third Gear: GM Should Pay Up To 800 UAW Members

The United Auto Staff union mentioned about 800 of its members who work at Basic Motors will get to share in practically $8 million in again pay due to an arbitration ruling that discovered GM violated the union’s 2015 contract when it closed three vegetation again in 2019.

The three vegetation have been Lordstown Meeting in Ohio and two transmission vegetation in Baltimore, Maryland and Warren, Ohio. The announcement got here from Mike Sales space, the UAW’s VP for the union’s GM Division. From the Detroit Free Press:

“It is a treatment to the unfavourable results of administration closing amenities, uprooting individuals’s lives and forcing them to relocate to different markets to maintain their GM jobs,” Sales space informed the Free Press Thursday. “This payout might be life-changing to the members and their households impacted by GM’s resolution.”

Within the letter, Sales space informed union members they’ll obtain funds for misplaced time beyond regulation, 401(ok) and pension contributions and efficiency bonuses, in addition to cumulative curiosity of practically $800,000.

“The arbitrator awarded practically all the pieces the UAW sought as a treatment for GM’s breach,” Sales space wrote. “The union is pushing the corporate to implement the award as quickly as potential.”

The ruling didn’t resolve a problem with mutually passable retirement, a plan that enables staff with no less than 10 years on the job who’ve reached age 50 to start advantages. The arbitrator discovered the difficulty to not be topic to arbitration, based on Sales space’s letter. However Sales space mentioned the union will proceed to battle for that profit for all eligible members.

GM spokesman Kevin Kelly mentioned in a press release to the Detroit Free Press: “GM is happy with the arbitrator’s resolution associated to the mutually passable retirement advantages. We plan no additional authorized motion concerning the arbitrator’s ruling on Doc 13.”

The ruling comes a couple of yr and a half after the arbitrator first mentioned that GM breached a provision of its 2015 UAW contract and staff deserved to be compensated due to it. The availability mentioned GM couldn’t “shut, idle … partially or wholly promote, spin-off, split-off, consolidate or in any other case dispose any vegetation throughout the time period of the settlement, which ran via mid-September 2019.”

GM shut down the three vegetation between March and August of 2019, and the union struck GM for 40 days beginning that December.

For these of you who’re dangerous at math, it really works out to about $10,000 per worker. Not too shabby.

4th Gear: Nio Is Going By It

Chinese language EV maker Nio is having a tricky time proper now, and it’s about to get even harder because it plans additional job cuts to cut back prices. Be mindful, this information comes just some weeks after the corporate mentioned it might be eliminating 10 % of its workforce. From Bloomberg:

Some departments have been requested to arrange reserve lay-off lists, which can widen the unique dismissals to twenty% to 30% throughout the unit, among the individuals mentioned, asking to not be recognized as a result of the deliberations are ongoing and aren’t public.

Any cuts would primarily apply to non-core companies or these requiring heavy funding that gained’t generate fast returns, the individuals mentioned, including that different extra central components of Nio’s enterprise, like gross sales, are nonetheless hiring.

As soon as thought of one of many brightest rising stars in China’s electrical automobile market, Nio has been falling badly in need of its gross sales targets and continues to submit losses. There have been 26,763 full-time employees on the firm on the finish of 2022, based on its newest annual report. Along with EVs, its companies embrace battery and semiconductor manufacturing, and cellphones.

Some worldwide enlargement plans, together with getting into the US market, have additionally been delayed or suspended, one of many individuals mentioned, noting these adjustments happened earlier this yr. Nio on Tuesday forecast income for the fourth quarter of as much as 16.7 billion yuan ($2.3 billion), in need of the 21.4 billion yuan common estimate from analysts.

Regardless of this, a consultant for Nio mentioned there haven’t been any extra job cuts and mentioned the corporate will proceed to make “dynamic changes” within the markets it sells automobiles.

Nio’s gross margin dropped to as little as 1% within the second quarter nonetheless recovered to eight% within the three months via Sept. 30. The corporate had a aim of delivery 250,000 EVs this yr, however via November had solely shipped 142,026.

In a letter to employees explaining the sooner jobs cuts, Nio’s founder and Chief Government Officer William Li mentioned the transfer was “a tricky however essential resolution towards fierce competitors.”

He additionally detailed plans to enhance organizational and useful resource effectivity, comparable to consolidating duplicate departments and roles, eliminating some positions, and deferring or reducing investments in tasks that gained’t contribute to the corporate’s monetary efficiency throughout the subsequent three years.

Who actually is aware of how for much longer Nio shall be round? All I do know is that it’s going to be a gradual burn on the way in which out.

Reverse: Al Kahn: Architectural Genius