This is The Morning Shift, our one-stop daily roundup of all the auto news that's actually important — all in one place every weekday morning. Or, you could spend all day waiting for other sites to parse it out to you one story at a time. Isn't your time more important?
1st Gear: Where Would They Go?
Despite media reports to the contrary, FCA says that Ferrari isn't going to relocate their tax residency outside of Italy.
"These rumors have no grounds," FCA said in a statement. "There is no intention to move the tax residence of Ferrari SpA outside Italy, nor is there any project to delocalize its Italian operations, which will continue to be subject to Italian tax jurisdiction."
Right! That's a crazy idea, said the Italo-American company headquartered in London with a legal base in The Netherlands.
2nd Gear: Meet The Energy Utility CEO In Favor Of Cap-And-Trade
I can't imagine a cap-and-trade system is going to make it through a Republican-held Congress anytime soon, but current PG&E CEO and Ford board member told a bunch of Detroit business owners that it's not, like, the worst idea:
One of the nation's leading utility CEOs backed putting a price on carbon emissions, telling a Detroit business group that it would make electric vehicles a more viable option for consumers.
Tony Earley Jr., CEO of Pacific Gas and Electric, told the Detroit Economic Club that California's cap-and-trade system provides a reasonable model for putting a price on carbon, which is a major contributor to climate disruption.
He also asked Detroit's automakers to build EV trucks.
3rd Gear: Carmakers Get Together For Takata Intervention
It sounds like the press isn't the only one getting ignored by airbag supplier Takata. Ten rival automakers representing what's basically a Justice League of carmakers got together to try and figure out how to deal with the mess.
As David Shepardson reports, a bunch of them met in a big ass airport hotel boardroom in Detroit to address the issue (with lawyers in tow to make sure there were no pesky anti-trust violations.
Why is this meeting necessary? Because their reliance on one megasupplier has kind of pwned them:
Big questions remain: What is the root cause of the failures? Are replacement bags going to develop the same problems in five or 10 years? Is humidity’s effect on air bag propellant the key problem? Although most exploding inflators have been in high-humidity areas such as Florida, that hasn’t always been the case.
Automakers also face the reality that it could take Takata years to make enough replacement parts. Honda expanded its recall by 2.6 million vehicles last week to at least 7.7 million since 2013. It has contracted with two other suppliers to build additional inflators, but they won’t be ready for six months.
Some automakers have expressed some frustration with Takata, which has refused the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s demands to expand its driver side air bag recall nationwide.
Man, I'd love to be like the airbag supplier that was just smaller than Takata right now.
4th Gear: Does Anyone With A Public Face Work At Tesla More Than A Year?
If there's anything that Elon Musk has made more efficient than the car, it's the revolving door. There have been more PR people in the last seven years there than this website has iterations.
And now, from Bloomberg, there's news that yet another person is out (and, frankly, someone more important than a flack).
Tesla China President Veronica Wu resigned, just nine months into the gig for, uh, reasons unknown:
“We remain confident in the Chinese market,” the company said in an e-mailed statement. “We’ll continue to focus on providing an amazing experience to all customers, so that they can become our advocates and help us accelerate the transition to sustainable transportation.”
Cool.
5th Gear: A Sad Good Story About Uber
Hipster transportation service Uber is taking a lot of flack in India after one if its drivers allegedly assaulted a woman which, in a country grappling with issues of sexual violence, is not a good look.
The tragedy of this, as The New York Times reports, is that Uber was actually a boon for women in the country.
There is never a bad time to state a plain fact. Uber is a greater friend of urban women in India than the government ever was. Over the past several months, women have taken to the smartphone app with enthusiasm. They grade the drivers and convey to Uber their compliments — and their complaints about bad manners and body odor.
Many rate the Uber experience higher than sitting in their own chauffeur-driven cars because the relationship between the driver in front and the female employer in back is often filled with the chauffeur’s melancholic stories about the health of his children, which lead to requests for loans and time off from work. And there is the issue of his judgmental gaze at her clothes and ways. Also, as he spends most of his day playing cards with other drivers, he passes on a considerable amount of information about his employer — information that is sometimes tapped by the neighbors.
Uber’s drivers, on the other hand, are transient and have no incentive to whine. And, until Friday night, they were considered very safe.
I don't know enough about this to know how accurate this view is, but it sounds believable.
Reverse: Goodybe Olds
On this day in 2000, General Motors declares that it will begin to phase out the 103-year-old Oldsmobile, the oldest automotive brand in the United States. Oldsmobile had once been one of the most venerable and innovative American brands—Olds cars were the first to have decorative chrome trim, for example, and the first to have fully automatic transmissions—but a GM reorganization in the mid-1980s had drained the brand of most of its unique identity.
[HISTORY]
Neutral: EV Trucks? What are your thoughts?
Photo Credit: AP Images