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Another Green Episode | Autoblog Podcast #665

In this week's Autoblog Podcast, Editor-in-Chief Greg Migliore is joined by Senior Editor, Green, John Beltz Snyder and West Coast Editor James Riswick for an episode dedicated to electric cars. First, they talk about what they've been driving, including the Ford Mustang Mach-E, the new base, rear-wheel-drive Porsche Taycan as well as the Polestar 2. Then they dive into some green news, including the reveal of the Audi E-Tron GT, the new Chevrolet Bolt EV and Bolt EUV and plans to go electric by companies like General Motors and Jaguar Land Rover. Autoblog Podcast #665 Get The Podcast iTunes – Subscribe to the Autoblog Podcast in iTunes RSS – Add the Autoblog Podcast feed to your RSS aggregator MP3 – Download the MP3 directly Rundown What we're driving:Ford Mustang Mach-E Porsche Taycan Polestar 2  News 2022 Audi E-Tron GT revealed as sporty, electric cousin to Porsche Taycan 2022 Chevrolet Bolt EUV introduced along with revised Bolt EV General Motors sets goal of being carbon neutral, largely electric by 2035 Jaguar to sell all-electric cars by 2030, and six electric Land Rovers coming in next five years Feedback Email – Podcast@Autoblog.com Review the show on iTunes Autoblog is now live on your smart speakers and voice assistants with the audio Autoblog Daily Digest. Say “Hey Google, play the news from Autoblog” or "Alexa, open Autoblog" to get your favorite car website in audio form every day. A narrator will take you through the biggest stories or break down one of our comprehensive test drives. Related Video:

Jaguar Land Rover undergoes $3.2 billion turnaround plan as sales slump

MUMBAI — India's Tata Motors on Wednesday announced a turnaround plan for its luxury car unit Jaguar Land Rover, which has been hit hard by trade tensions between China and the U.S., low demand for diesel cars in Europe and worries over Brexit. Under "Project Charge," Tata Motors said it plans to cut costs and improve cash flows at Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) by 2.5 billion pounds ($3.2 billion) over 18 months. JLR also plans to launch several new vehicles, including the Jaguar I-Pace and the new Range Rover Defender over the next few years and will offer a hybrid or full-electric version of all its models by 2020. "Together with our ongoing product offensive and calibrated investment plans, these efforts will lay the foundations for long-term sustainable growth," JLR CEO Ralf Speth said after Tata Motors reported a quarterly loss. JLR has trimmed its pre-tax profit expectations for the current fiscal year ending March 31, 2019, and expects to break even, Speth said, versus an earlier target of profit growth. As part of the turnaround plan, JLR will first focus on cash-saving "quick wins" like reducing non-product investments and speeding up asset sales, Tata Motors said in an investor presentation. In the near term it will improve efficiency in areas including purchasing and material cost, manufacturing, logistics and people, and will focus on strategic and non-core asset sales. JLR has already reduced the number of production days at its UK plants in Castle Bromwich and Solihull. The company said in its presentation it has saved 300 million pounds since it initiated the turnaround plan six weeks ago and is working on 500 ideas for the future. Tata Motors reported a loss of 10.49 billion rupees ($141.9 million) for the July-September quarter, compared with a profit of 24.83 billion rupees in the year-ago period. That was worse than the estimate of a loss of 2.40 billion rupees, according to Refinitiv data. JLR reported a loss of 101 million pounds during the quarter and its margin on earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) fell 130 basis points to 9.9 percent. Retail sales of its Jaguar sedans and Land Rover sport utility vehicles (SUVs) fell 13.2 percent to about 130,000 units, hurt particularly by tariff changes in China and escalating trade tensions. Demand in China remained muted even after the country cut import tariffs for cars and car parts to 15 percent for most vehicles from 25 percent from July.

The UK votes for Brexit and it will impact automakers

It's the first morning after the United Kingdom voted for what's become known as Brexit – that is, to leave the European Union and its tariff-free internal market. Now begins a two-year process in which the UK will have to negotiate with the rest of the EU trading bloc, which is its largest export market, about many things. One of them may be tariffs, and that could severely impact any automaker that builds cars in the UK. This doesn't just mean companies that you think of as British, like Mini and Jaguar. Both of those automakers are owned by foreign companies, incidentally. Mini and Rolls-Royce are owned by BMW, Jaguar and Land Rover by Tata Motors of India, and Bentley by the VW Group. Many other automakers produce cars in the UK for sale within that country and also export to the EU. Tariffs could damage the profits of each of these companies, and perhaps cause them to shift manufacturing out of the UK, significantly damaging the country's resurgent manufacturing industry. Autonews Europe dug up some interesting numbers on that last point. Nissan, the country's second-largest auto producer, builds 475k or so cars in the UK but the vast majority are sent abroad. Toyota built 190k cars last year in Britain, of which 75 percent went to the EU and just 10 percent were sold in the country. Investors are skittish at the news. The value of the pound sterling has plummeted by 8 percent as of this writing, at one point yesterday reaching levels not seen since 1985. Shares at Tata Motors, which counts Jaguar and Land Rover as bright jewels in its portfolio, were off by nearly 12 percent according to Autonews Europe. So what happens next? No one's terribly sure, although the feeling seems to be that the jilted EU will impost tariffs of up to 10 percent on UK exports. It's likely that the UK will reciprocate, and thus it'll be more expensive to buy a European-made car in the UK. Both situations will likely negatively affect the country, as both production of new cars and sales to UK consumers will both fall. Evercore Automotive Research figures the combined damage will be roughly $9b in lost profits to automakers, and an as-of-yet unquantified impact on auto production jobs. Perhaps the EU's leaders in Brussels will be in a better mood in two years, and the process won't devolve into a trade war. In the immediate wake of the Brexit vote, though, the mood is grim, the EU leadership is angry, and investors are spooked.