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By Joseph White, Global Automotive Correspondent

Greetings from the Motor City!

Happy Friday and Happy May Day and Golden Week to readers in Asia!

There’s an American songbook classic that goes, “accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, latch on to the affirmative, don’t mess with Mr. In-Between.” This is today’s theme song for the news from the World of Cars.

Mr. In-Between will be playing the piano. He insisted. Today –

• • Mercedes delivers a more upbeat outlook

  • The UAW’s contract campaign heats up

  • An embarrassing admission by a Toyota affiliate

It’s Star Time!

Luxury automaker Mercedes-Benz raised its forecast for profit margins at its van business, said its luxury car business is tracking to the high side of earlier margin forecasts and told investors demand in the U.S. and China is looking up.

This against the backdrop of continued fears of recession among financial market actors.

Auto industry executives are living with high levels of cognitive dissonance. All around are warning signs that consumers are stressed by inflation and rising rates. Headlines about bank sector troubles and mass layoffs don’t help.

And yet demand for expensive Mercedes cars, SUVs and trucks remains strong. Businesses are spending on Mercedes Sprinter vans.

Mercedes is not alone. At General Motors, 60% of the orders for the redesigned Chevy Colorado pickup truck are for high-end versions of the truck, up from 42%, CEO Mary Barra said earlier this week. GM also highlighted strong commercial fleet demand.

If the global economy is careening toward recession, no one told affluent consumers or commercial fleet operators.

UAW President Shawn Fain

United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain this week enlisted U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and other political figures to advance his campaign for better wages and benefits for Detroit Three manufacturing workers.  

Fain and Sanders blasted GM and its Ultium battery venture for paying workers at a battery factory starting wages of $16.50 an hour, while preparing to rake in more than $1 billion in taxpayer-funded subsidies for the batteries produced there.  Ultium, half-owned by South Korean battery maker LG Energy Solutions, is bargaining with the UAW for a new contract at the Ohio facility.

Fain also flamed Stellantis for offering buyouts to 33,500 U.S. employees, most of them UAW-represented factory workers. The UAW is fighting to stop Stellantis from closing an assembly plant in Belvidere, Ill. Buying out UAW workers would make it easier for the automaker to find new work for Belvidere workers losing jobs. Fain wants the Belvidere plant kept open to build a new vehicle.

All in the family.

Toyota Chair Akio Toyoda and CEO Koji Sato said they have ordered investigations into why engineers at Daihatsu, a Toyota affiliate, rigged test vehicles to pass side-impact crash tests.

Daihatsu said a whistleblower disclosed that someone had cut a notch into door trim in the vehicle used for side-collision tests to prevent the piece from shattering with a sharp edge when side airbags deployed. The models involved include vehicles sold as the Toyota Yaris and made in Thailand and Malaysia.

Proxy advisory firm Glass, Lewis urged Tesla shareholders to reject Tesla co-founder and former chief technology officer JB Straubel’s bid for a seat on the board of directors.

Glass, Lewis said Straubel cannot be considered a truly independent director given his long association with Musk and the fact that he departed Tesla management only four years ago. Former managers should be gone five years at least to unwind potential conflicts, Glass, Lewis said.

SOC Investments, which works with union pension funds, also has urged a no vote on Straubel.

Elon Musk must answer questions about recorded statements he made about Autopilot, a California judge ruled. Musk’s lawyers had tried to block the demand for testimony about videos in which he claimed a Model S could drive itself more safely than a human, arguing that Musk was often the subject of “deepfake” videos.

GM said former Vice Admiral Jan Tighe has been nominated to join its board of directors. Tighe was Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Warfare and Director of Naval Intelligence. GM is building a defense business, and cybersecurity issues are front and center as it develops connected vehicles.

EV charging for the UK is doubling this year, maybe. That’s the goal of a new industry group, ChargeUK, that said its members are ready to invest 6 billion pounds in new charging infrastructure over the next seven years.

Rizon – that’s the U.S. electric truck brand created by Daimler Trucks for a new line of medium-duty electric trucks it will offer. Regulators in California and Washington are proposing to clamp down on commercial truck emissions and push the commercial trucking sector toward electrification.

Japan promised $1.8 billion in subsidies for storage battery projects, including one proposed by Honda and battery maker GS Yuasa.

Stellantis will get nickel for batteries from Western Australia as part of a new deal with miner Alliance Nickel. The automaker will take a stake in Alliance. Australian nickel would help Stellantis batteries qualify for US EV subsidies.

A manager at Continental has admitted involvement in Volkswagen’s Dieselgate emissions test cheating scandal, and implicated others, German prosecutors said.

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