Tall American-Market Cars Are Uniquely Dangerous And Pedestrians Are Paying The Price

Good morning! It’s Tuesday, November 14, 2023, 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.

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1st Gear: Big Vehicles Are Putting Pedestrians At Risk

A new study from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says that vehicles with taller front ends are more likely to kill the pedestrians they hit. Findings show that even vehicles with medium front-end heights also pose an increased risk to pedestrians if they have a flatter nose. From Automotive News:

The IIHS examined 2,958 unique car, SUV, pickup, minivan and van models involved in 17,897 crashes where a single vehicle struck a single pedestrian. A vehicle with a hood more than 40 inches off the ground and a grille slope of 65 degrees or less was 45 percent more likely to produce a pedestrian death than one with a 30-inch-high hood and similar grille angle. Tall-hooded vehicles with noses angled by more than 65 degrees posed a similarly elevated risk of killing the pedestrian (44 percent more likely) when measured against shorter-hooded models with that slope.

Pedestrians fared no differently whether they were struck by vehicles with hoods off the ground by 30 inches or less and models with hoods between 30 and 40 inches — as long as the nose of the grille wasn’t angled by more than 65 degrees to the ground. However, if the medium-height vehicle had a flatter grille with a slope above 65 degrees, it was 26 percent more likely to kill the pedestrian than a similarly shaped shorter model.

The IIHS says vehicles with a flat hood, sloped at 15 degrees or less, was 25 percent more likely to kill a pedestrian regardless of the height or shape of the front end. Not good.

“Manufacturers can make vehicles less dangerous to pedestrians by lowering the front end of the hood and angling the grille and hood to create a sloped profile,” Wen Hu, IIHS senior research transportation engineer and the lead author of the study, announced Tuesday. “There’s no functional benefit to these massive, blocky fronts.”

The IIHS said the average passenger vehicle in the U.S. had gained 1,000 pounds and eight inches of height during the past 30 years, and many had reached the 40-inch mark for the height of their hoods’ leading edges.

“On some large pickups, the hoods are almost at eye level for many adults,” the IIHS wrote in a news release.

The research and crash-testing organization also examined the types of injuries produced by various hood configurations with a separate study of 121 crashes documented by the International Center for Automotive Medicine Pedestrian Consortium. This IIHS research divided the models involved into tall and short camps, depending on whether their hoods’ leading edges were more than 35 inches off the ground.

Overall, taller vehicles are the most dangerous “mainly because they tend to cause more severe head injuries,” the IIHS reportedly said. Also, among that group of vehicles, the greater risk to pedestrians happened when a vehicle had a flatter face. Impacts with those vehicles resulted in torso injuries that were more likely to come from hitting the vehicle’s flat front that impacting its hood.

2nd Gear: Fisker’s Delivery Problems

Fisker is slashing its 2023 production forecast as part of a bummer of a third-quarter earnings report. The EV startup is apparently struggling to deliver its electric Ocean crossover because of logistical issues.

Now, the California-based automaker is estimating production numbers between 13,000 and 17,000 vehicles this year. That’s down rather considerably from the 20,000 to 23,000 it was previously aiming for. The Ocean is currently being delivered in 10 countries, including the U.S. and much of Europe. From Automotive News:

“We have not been able to follow through with deliveries fast enough,” CEO Henrik Fisker said on the earnings call Monday. “People have paid and are waiting for their cars, and some of them are getting really annoyed.”

[…]

Fisker said it delivered 1,097 Oceans in the third quarter and produced 4,725. Since the quarter ended, the automaker delivered an additional 1,200 vehicles in October and is outpacing that in November, Fisker said.

The company is adding logistics partners, leasing its own facilities and adding staff as it tries to catch up to production from the factory in Graz, Austria, that makes the Ocean under contract, Henrik Fisker said.

CFO Geeta Fisker, Henrik Fisker’s spouse, said the new 2023 forecast would allow the company to balance production and deliveries as it adds infrastructure to get vehicles into customers’ hands. She said a vehicle might take up to eight weeks longer for delivery to a U.S. customer than for those in Europe.

Fisker has also pointed to a weakness in internal controls over financial reporting as an issue.

The company had postponed its results from Nov. 8, blaming the delay on completion of financial statements and related disclosures on the departure of its former chief accounting officer.

[…]

The company reported a net loss of $91 million, missing analysts’ estimates for a loss of $75 million, according to Visible Alpha. It posted net losses of $83 million during the 2023 second quarter and $149 million during the third quarter of 2022.

Fisker, which launched the Ocean in June, has already adjusted prices amid a price war kicked off by Tesla CEO Elon Musk in January. Industry analysts have said EV demand is solid in the U.S. but supplies are outpacing demand, boosting inventories and leading to lower prices and rising sales incentives.

Fisker has cut prices of the top trim Ocean Extreme, but it raised the prices of two lower-trim variants in the U.S. and Canada. Also, third-quarter production by the automaker’s manufacturing partner, Magna, was nearly five times the number of the second quarter when it built just 1,022 vehicles, according to AutoNews.

Altogether, revenue for the third quarter was lower than analysts expectations at $71.8 million with a larger-than-expected loss of $91 million.

3rd Gear: Stellantis Offers Buyouts To 6,400 Workers

Stellantis is offering buyouts to thousands of its U.S. white-color workers, blaming the transition to electric vehicles for the move. From The Detroit Free Press:

The company, which owns the Jeep, Ram, Chrysler, Dodge and Fiat brands and recently reached a tentative agreement with the UAW on a new labor contract for union-represented workers, is making offers to 6,400 of its 12,700 non-bargaining U.S. employees, those with five or more years of service, according to spokeswoman Jodi Tinson.

“As the U.S. automotive industry continues to face challenging market conditions, Stellantis is taking the necessary structural actions to protect our operations and the company. As we prepare for the transition to electric vehicles, Stellantis announced today that it will offer a voluntary separation package to assist those non-represented employees who would like to separate or retire from the company to pursue other interests with a favorable package of benefits,” according to a company statement provided by Tinson on Monday. “As we head into 2024, we remain committed to executing our Dare Forward 2030 strategy, which includes the launch of eight new electric vehicles.”

Employees interested in the offer will have until December 8 to make a decision, and the separation date will be December 31. The package offers lump sum payments based on years of corporate service. Five to nine years of service will equal three months of base pay, 10 to 14 years equals six months, 15 to 19 years equals nine months and 20 or more equals one year.

4th Gear: Chinese Supplier Cyberattack Hurts Stellantis

Chinese automotive supplier Yanfeng Automotive Interiors is dealing with a cyberattack that is hutting operations hard and disrupting production at assembly plants in North America. It’s even disrupted production for Stellantis and may be impacting General Motors. From Automotive News:

“Due to an issue with an external supplier, production at some of Stellantis’ North America assembly plants has been disrupted,” spokeswoman Ann Marie Fortunate told Crain’s Detroit Business, an affiliate of Automotive News. “We are monitoring the situation and working with the supplier to mitigate any further impact to our operations.”

The Chrysler parent company declined to identify which plants were impacted by the disruption.

Yanfeng, whose North American base is in Novi, manufactures seats, interiors, electronics and other parts for automakers on a just-in-time basis. Its website appeared to be broken Monday.

General Motors spokesman Kevin Kelly confirmed the disruption at its supplier.

“We’re closely monitoring the situation working closely with the supplier to help limit any impact to our operations,” he told Crain’s.

It’s reportedly possible that the disruption could impact Ford as well, meaning every member of the Big Three could be hit by the fallout from this cyberattack.

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