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By nick.carey@thomsonreuters.com” style=”text-decoration: underline; color: #0274b6;” rel=”noopener”>Nick Carey, European Autos Correspondent

Greetings from London!

This is my first day taking the Auto File over from its creator, Joe White.

Talk about filling big shoes.

We’re all immensely happy for Joe that he’s driven off into the sunset to enjoy retirement. But we at Reuters will miss him, as will reporters at any other publication who ever encountered Joe.

A consummate gentleman with unbridled enthusiasm for a good story well told, Joe is well known in the auto journalists’ world for asking piercing, insightful questions of automotive executives in polite, measured tones.

That, combined with a vast library of instantly accessible automotive knowledge tucked away in his noggin, it’s fair to say I learned from Joe every day I worked for him and alongside him.

Simply put, Joe is a legend in his own lifetime. Like Ford’s Model T, they just don’t make them like that anymore.

So, like Joe’s beloved Detroit Tigers – who I see are 9.5 games back but with months to go before the playoffs – the rest of us have to step up to the plate because there is no shortage of automotive news to go round.

I come to the Auto File after a stint in Detroit, but based in London, I sit somewhere in the middle of the shifting tectonic plates of the auto industry, which is in constant flux and will remain so for years to come.

What could possibly go wrong?  

Which brings us to today’s Auto File…

Today –

• • Testing scandal grows for Japanese automakers 

  • Volvo launches world’s first battery passport

  • More fighting over Musk’s pay

Akio Toyoda feels the heat

Toyota’s troubles with its faulty testing data scandal continue, with the Japanese government launching an investigation at the automaker’s headquarters on Tuesday.

The scandal, which started at Toyota’s Daihatsu compact car unit last year – when it emerged Daihatsu had rigged side-collision safety tests carried out for 88,000 small cars, most of them sold as Toyotas – has now spread to other Japanese automakers.

Japan’s transport ministry has found irregularities in applications to certify vehicle models by Honda, Suzuki  and Yamaha Motor using incorrect or manipulated test data. 

While the scandal has spread, the focus remains on Toyota and chairman Akio Toyoda.

Last week, proxy advisory firms Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis recommended shareholders vote against re-electing Akio Toyoda as chairman at the automaker’s annual general meeting later this month.

Some analysts expect the scandal will have a limited impact on Toyota’s sales because it only affects a few models and Toyoda is seen as unlikely to lose his seat.

But this all comes as Toyota, like other legacy automakers, is under pressure to overhaul its business and faces rising competition in China – its global sales took a hit in April because of an intensifying price war in China and production stoppages at home because of the safety scandal.

The energy needed for that battle will likely have to be expended on overhauling its corporate culture instead.

Volvo EX90: have passport, will travel

Volvo has launched the world’s first battery passport for its flagship electric SUV,  the EX90 – due to launch production soon at the Swedish automaker’s plant in Charleston, South Carolina – that will record the origins of its raw materials, components, recycled content and carbon footprint.

The clock is ticking for others to do the same in Europe and for different reasons in the U.S. market.

Developed in partnership with UK startup Circulor, which uses blockchain technology to map supply chains for companies, the move comes well ahead of EU regulations effective from February 2027 that stipulate that automakers cannot sell EVs in Europe without a battery passport.

But Circulor CEO Douglas Johnson-Poensgen notes it took five years to map Volvo’s supply chain and develop the passport.

Because of Volvo’s work, other automakers are unlikely to take as long to develop battery passports, Johnson-Poensgen said. But for those starting now, it will be tough to complete the process by February 2027.

“If you don’t have a battery passport by then, you won’t be able to sell EVs in Europe,” Johnson-Poensgen said. “it’s that simple.”

The pressure is already rising in the U.S. because of the conditions attached for the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean vehicle tax credit – where to qualify for up to $7,500 in subsidies EVs cannot contain battery components from foreign entities of concern as of 2024 and critical minerals starting in 2025.

The U.S. government has been generous with its subsidies for EVs, but Johnson-Poensgen said automakers seeking the subsidies are scrambling to develop battery passports to demonstrate to the Internal Revenue Service that they qualify for those giveaways.

The U.S. government is known for taking a dim view of tax fraud.

Tesla: Musk is “tremendous value”

The fight over whether to ratify CEO Elon Musk’s proposed $56 billion pay package continues to consume oxygen ahead of a vote at Tesla’s June 13 annual meeting.

After Top proxy advisory firm ISS recommended late last week that Tesla  shareholders vote against ratifying the package and called it excessive, Tesla came out swinging on Monday, arguing that the package motivated Musk to create “tremendous value” for shareholders.

The compensation, set and approved in 2018 by shareholders, rewards based on Tesla’s market value and operational milestones. But a Delaware judge voided it in January, prompting Tesla to seek to move its state of incorporation to Texas.

Whatever the merits of awarding Musk a pay package equivalent to the gross domestic product of Uganda, this comes at a difficult time for Tesla.

After posting its first drop in deliveries in nearly four years for the first quarter and announcing it would lay off 10% of its workforce, Tesla faces no shortage of challenges.

Sales of Tesla’s  Chinese-made EVs fell 6.6% in May, extending a year-on-year decline for a second month, according to data from the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) released on Tuesday. Reuters reported in late May that Tesla has slashed production for its best-selling yet aged Model Y in China to address weakening demand.

And Tesla investor KLP, Norway’s largest pension fund, says it will back a shareholder proposal urging the U.S. EV maker to engage in wage and other negotiations as it faces continued industrial action in Sweden.

Geneva’s annual auto show is no more after over a century as it faced dwindling interest and rising competition from trade shows in bigger markets like China and Germany.  Such shows were once major events for automakers to unveil vehicles in stunning fashion, but smaller shows have struggled to attract exhibitors, a trend exacerbated by the global coronavirus pandemic.

ACC, an EV battery joint venture between Stellantis, Mercedes and Saft, a subsidiary of France’s TotalEnergies has halted work on a battery factory in Germanyand postponed plans for a gigafactory in Italy.       

China has granted approval to a first group of nine automakers to carry out tests on vehicles with advanced autonomous driving technologies on public roads, as part of a plan to accelerate adoption of self-driving cars.

U.S. auto safety regulators have opened an investigation into nearly 75,000 Nissan vehicles – the 2015 model year Rogue Select – over reports of unintended deployments of side airbags in some of them.

Toyota will recall over 100,000 SUVs and pickup trucks in the U.S. over debris in the engine potentially causing it to stall, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said.

Spirit Airlines CFO Scott Haralson is leaving the airline to join car rental company Hertz as its finance chief.

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