Good morning! It’s Tuesday, December 3, and this is The Morning Shift, your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, in one place. Here are the important stories you need to know.
1st Gear: Elon Musk’s Massive Pay Rejected
After a Delaware judge rejected Elon Musk’s $56 billion pay package for leading Tesla, the electric vehicle boss thought he could side-step the move by moving Tesla’s headquarters out the state. That doesn’t seem to have worked, though, as the very same judge has blocked the enormous pay once again.
Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick of the Delaware Court of Chancery has rejected the pay deal for a second time this year, reports Reuters. The move comes after shareholders in the electric vehicle company voted to reinstate the eye-watering compensation deal back in June, as Reuters explains:
Tesla in a statement on X said, “The ruling is wrong, and we’re going to appeal,” adding that the judge had overruled a supermajority of shareholders.
Musk and Tesla can appeal to the Delaware Supreme Court as soon as McCormick enters a final order, which could come as soon as this week. The appeal could take a year to play out.
Tesla has said in court filings that the judge should recognize a subsequent June vote by its shareholders in favor of the pay package for Musk, the company’s driving force who is responsible for many of its advances, and reinstate his compensation.
McCormick said Tesla’s board was not entitled to hit “reset” to restore Musk’s pay package.
“Were the court to condone the practice of allowing defeated parties to create new facts for the purpose of revising judgments, lawsuits would become interminable,” she said in her 101-page opinion.
The judge’s ruling determined that Musk had controlled the negotiations that led to his enormous payout, putting its validity in doubt. In addition, the judge added that the vote conducted among shareholders could not be seen as a “cure-all” that justified the payout, Reuters added.
Obviously Musk wasn’t happy with the news and did as he always does in such situations, he ranted on Twitter X. Over on the social media platform that he bought, Musk claimed that “shareholders should control company votes, not judges,” which is presumably something he’ll campaign for in the government department that president-elect Donald Trump has invented for him.
2nd Gear: GM Worker Hospitalized By EV Plant Explosion
An employee at General Motors’ Factory Zero facility was taken to hospital following an explosion at the plant. The explosion at the East Grand Boulevard plant, which assembles the Hummer electric pickup trucks for the automaker, occurred on Thanksgiving and follows a string of incidents at the site that have required first responders on the scene.
The explosion at the Hummer EV factory did not cause a fire, reports the Detroit Free Press, but did leave one employee in need of medical attention. The site, which also builds the Silverado electric pickup truck, has been at the center of several emergency responses already this year, as the Free Press explains:
The employee at the East Grand Boulevard plant, formerly known as Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly, sustained non-life threatening injuries when a cylinder exploded Thursday morning, a Detroit fire spokesperson told the Free Press.
In March, the Free Press reported the city’s fire department had been called to the Factory Zero facility at least eight times within about a nine-month span, prompting fire and union officials to call for the company to come up with an enhanced safety plan.
Major incidents included a December 2023 three-alarm blaze that required the building to be evacuated and production halted. According to the incident report obtained by the Free Press, there were 22 fire trucks and 88 firefighters at the scene, many of whom were exposed to “the tremendous hazards of a toxic environment.
Thursday’s incident was a much smaller affair, with the employee receiving non-life threatening injuries and no fire sparking as a result of the explosion. Additionally, CBS News added that the incident was not related to electric vehicle batteries and that first responders gave the site the all-clear shortly after.
Explosions at electric vehicle sites are a serious issues, with fire services across the U.S. still figuring out the best way to tackle EV blazes.
3rd Gear: U.S. Pledges $7.5 Billion Loan For Stellantis Battery Plants
Despite the incoming administration being hell bent on cutting all the progress the U.S. has made to electrify how we get around, support for electric vehicles is still coming into force across the country. Now, lawmakers have thrown their support behind a $7.5 billion loan that would help Stellantis develop two new battery plants here in America.
The U.S. Energy Department has committed to a $7.54 billion loan to Jeep owner Stellantis to support a joint venture with Samsung SDI that will see the two companies build two electric vehicle battery plants in Kokomo, Indiana, reports ABC News. The plant could create more than 2,000 jobs through its construction and operation, as ABC reports:
The loan still must be finalized, but the government said the commitment shows its intent to finance the project. To get the loan, StarPlus must develop a plan to engage with community and labor leaders to create good paying jobs. It also has to meet technical, legal, environmental and financial conditions before the government will fund the loan.
It’s unclear whether the loan will be finalized before President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20. On the campaign trail, Trump pledged to end funding for such projects, which he called the “green new scam.” A message was left Monday seeking comment from the Trump transition team.
The Energy Department didn’t directly answer a question about whether the loan would be funded before the inauguration, but said it would be irresponsible for “any government to turn its back on private sector partners, states, and communities that are benefiting from lower energy costs and new economic opportunities” from the loans.
Once constructed, the two facilities would make battery cells and modules for electric vehicles. The output would target north American models, with production set to create enough parts for around 670,000 vehicles per year.
Increasing America’s battery output will be key to reducing cost rises as a result of the barrage of tariffs incoming president Trump has promised for countries like China and Mexico. A lot of EV tech is currently imported from China, so additional tariffs on battery parts and control modules would be passed onto consumers.
Creating components and EV batteries here in America would help reduce that and would also aid further technological advancements in the U.S., which can only be a good thing.
4th Gear: Tax Breaks More Important Than Price For EV Buyers
As it stands, creating more battery components in the U.S. will mean that more cars qualify for the tax breaks currently on offer, and a new study has found that those very incentives have more sway on EV sales than vehicle pricing, reports Automotive News.
Tax breaks for electric vehicles that were implemented as part of the Inflation Reduction Act can shave up to $7,500 off the price of a new electric car. Qualifying for those tax breaks influenced almost two-thirds of EV buyers in their decision to go electric, the site reports:
Driving performance and expected lower operating costs were the only purchase considerations that ranked higher than the tax credit and incentives, according to a J.D. Power survey released Nov. 27 as part of the firm’s E-Vision Intelligence report.
Nearly two-thirds of customers who own premium electric vehicles, which includes Tesla models, said federal tax credits and other incentives influenced their purchase decision, according to the J.D. Power survey of nearly 8,000 EV owners. About half of mass-market EV owners were influenced by the tax credit and incentives.
The tax credit swayed buying decisions significantly more than the vehicle purchase price or lease offer, J.D. Power said.
That extra little incentive proved sufficient to convince EV buyers to hand over their hard earned cash more so than “price alone,” adds Automotive News.
The bad news for fans of neat little offers is that incoming president Trump has repeatedly warned that these kind of tax breaks may be on the chopping block when he takes office in the new year. If you want to make the most of these offers before then, these are some great EVs to consider.