Welcome to The Morning Dump, bite-sized stories corralled into a single article for your morning perusal. If your morning coffee’s working a little too well, pull up a throne and have a gander at the best of the rest of yesterday.
Ferrari’s Business Model Can Apparently Withstand Supply Disruptions
In our ongoing evaluation of whether inflation is a long-term marcoeconomic response to numerous intersecting factors or, perhaps, a short-term reaction to those factors exacerbated by large corporations extending their profits I would like to present Exhibit B: Ferrari. The storied Italian brand has sold out most of its models and raised its expectations for revenue for a second time this year, according to this Bloomberg story. From the same piece: In its own story “Defying gloom, Ferrari sees strong demand for luxury cars,” Reuters mentions the Italian supercar company’s positive outlook, writing: The manufacturer follows other luxury brands like Mercedes-Benz AG raising guidance to defy economic gloom with wealthy car buyers less acutely affected by soaring inflation and rising interest rates. To counteract higher input costs from industry-wide supply-chain pressures, Ferrari is raising prices for models like the €215,000 Portofino and €1.6 million Monza in the first quarter of next year. It sort of makes sense that Ferrari, unlike other automakers, can survive limited supply because limited supply is the company’s business. Waiting for a Ferrari is part of buying a Ferrari, which is not true for people buying a Honda Accord. Ferrari owners have told me about the months they’ve waited for cars and they weren’t complaining, they were bragging. Cars have become harder/slower to build, so Ferrari raises prices and doesn’t worry about losing customers. And you can bet that when the cars are easier to build, those prices ain’t dropping; but maybe I’m wrong. […] We are also very positive for the next year. This is thanks to the order book that we have, that is spanning all the products we have as well as all the regions,” Vigna said. […] A double digit growth in shipments helped Ferrari beat expectations in the third quarter, with its adjusted core earnings rising 17% to 435 million euros. With a 73% increase, the China, Hong Kong and Taiwan region scored the largest shipment growth in the quarter.
Stellantis Isn’t Half Bad Either
Ferrari’s, er, cousins at Stellantis reported a 29% increase in sales in the third quarter as their supply chain improved and deliveries started catching up to demand. They believe their financials will improve along with the sales increases as the business starts to normalize. This, I thought, was interesting: That’s from this Automotive News story on the Q3 report, and I think it’s interesting for two reasons: Palmer added the company was currently seeing “no red light flashing” on possible energy constraints affecting its supply chain and that the level of concern was now relatively lower compared to a few months ago, as “everyone is taking actions.” “If the winter is normal … then I think we’re reasonably confident that we can manage production without any significant interruptions,” Palmer said.
Russians Are Looking To Japan For Used Cars
As if there weren’t enough reasons to despise Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, it sounds like anyone hoping to import a car from Japan is going to have to compete with some desperate Russian citizens. We know that sanctions are already taking their toll on Russian car production, but people still need cars. Where are they coming from? According to this Reuters report, the answer is Japan.
West Virginia Gets Its First ADA-Compliant EV Bus
We’ve talked before about how electric school buses make a lot of sense and it seems like West Virginia is getting in on the action already. Canadian bus company GreenPower Motor Company is building this, the NanoBEAST, which is a “clean sheet” Class A school bus that’s been delivered to Clay County Schools in South Charleston, WV. From a company press release: It’s not the sexiest part of the market, but it’s the most logical. That this is apparently a fresh design is interesting because it looks a lot like a repurposed Sprinter, though most vans in this class look fairly identical. Riley also noted the Nano BEAST all-aluminum body is stronger than any other body used for other Type A school buses on the market and the GreenPower design has a higher passenger floor that keeps students out of the typical crash zone.
The Flush
We got to spend last night with some readers at the Taco Bell Cantina in Las Vegas and it made me wonder: What car most exemplifies the Live Mas lifestyle? Photos: Ferrari, Stellantis, GPMC, Nissan Well no shit. They’re rich. It’s the budget/mainstream line of DPA (Dual Parallel Arm) lifts, generally used in smaller buses/vans like this one. The ramp-converted minivans are the rock stars of the company, because they are usually sold to consumers rather than transit agencies, but Braun has basically 100% market share in the lift business for good reason. As for the revision/series of this line that I worked on in 2016-18, we had lots of new and exciting features prototyped and ready to deploy, but our customers basically told us the only things they valued were low cost and high reliability. So a lot of the design and testing work was never implemented. But it was still a pretty through revamp of the existing model, though mostly behind the scenes visually. Very much in tune with the “give me a $10,000 car with crank windows and no screens” vibe of this place in fact. Flush: 1987 El Camino, the final year they made it. It had outlived its novelty, yet it persisted. I remember reading about the russian used imports some years ago.The story (written by a westerner) was particularly interesting because he showed how the small guys did it.Basically they’d ride the train to vladivostock, buy one car then drive it aaaaaallllllll the way back to moscow. Apparently a lot of people did this.And it probably surprises no one to hear a lot of car buyers bought their own car that way.Hey,road trip and save money?What’s not to like? 🙂 So these days how does Ukraine get their used imports now?The overland route is impossible so are they getting them delivered by ship?Surely not with the ongoing war? Are they now buying cars from europe?
