UAW win helps nonunion workers too as Tesla is latest to hike pay
Tesla has announced that it will raise factory worker pay for some workers at its Nevada Gigafactory by 10% or more. The news comes not long after UAW’s historic strike wins, in which it earned 25% pay increases at all of the Big Three American automakers.
After VW, Hyundai, Toyota, and Honda did the same recently, this shows how union wins tend to affect entire industries, raising conditions for even nonunionized companies who have to compete for workers.
CNBC reported that Tesla internal documents confirmed that workers at the Gigafactory will receive “cost of living adjustments” of between $2.00 and $8.30 per hour, with raises of 10% or more for most hourly workers at the plant. It will also “streamline” wage tiers and reduce the differences in pay between them.
These are two major points of the UAW negotiation, which not only sought raises but also cost-of-living adjustments (which UAW gave up as part of negotiations after the 2008 financial crisis and only just got back in this year’s negotiations) and the elimination or reduction of tiered pay structures. CNBC’s report doesn’t state whether Tesla’s timelines have been made shorter, but the wage progressions will be compressed to have fewer tiers.
Tesla is currently in the sights of UAW as a potential target for unionization. But UAW is not the only union targeting Tesla. The automaker is currently facing a strike from workers in Sweden as the nation’s largest industrial union, IF Metall, wants Tesla to sign a collective bargaining agreement (an agreement the likes of which 90% of Swedish workers are covered). This strike has been gradually expanding via sympathy strikes over time.
The new pay raises will take effect starting January 2024, just two weeks from now.
Other companies have also raised pay
Tesla’s raises aren’t the only similar recent announcement from a nonunionized company.
Last month, Volkswagen of America announced that it would increase wages in a press release. It was pretty light on details but said that the wage increase would start in December and that a compressed wage progression timeline would begin in February.
Volkswagen of America annually evaluates compensation for our production team members at the end of the year to ensure we continue to offer a competitive and robust compensation package designed to attract and motivate employees who make our daily operations possible at the plant.
Prior to that, Hyundai announced a 25% pay increase for nonunionized workers by 2028, matching the headline 25% gain that UAW won in its negotiations. Hyundai COO Jose Munoz said, “Hyundai continuously strives to maintain competitive wages and benefits commensurate to industry peers.”
Also, Honda raised the wages of some workers by 11%, along with a faster progression to the top of the wage scale and additional benefits like child care and student loan help. Honda said it “continuously reviews our total rewards packages to ensure we remain competitive within our industry.” The company also said, “We will continue to look for opportunities to ensure that we provide an excellent employment experience for Honda associates.”
And Toyota took the opportunity to hike the pay of most of its US assembly workers by 9.2% immediately after the UAW deals were announced. After Toyota’s pay hike, UAW President Shawn Fain recognized that it was a response to his union’s new contract, saying, “Toyota, if they were doing it out of the kindness of their heart, they could have chosen to do it a year ago.”
The “UAW Bump”
Fain called these wage increases “the UAW bump” and said, “UAW, that stands for ‘U Are Welcome.’”
UAW wants to maintain this momentum and has openly stated that it wants to unionize more nonunionized companies in the US. In UAW’s original strike victory announcement, Fain said that it plans to come back to the bargaining table in 2028 on May 1, otherwise known as May Day or International Workers’ Day, but that time, it “won’t just be with a Big Three, but with a Big Five or Big Six.”
At the time, he didn’t specify who exactly those extra two or three companies would be, but later, we found out when UAW launched a campaign to unionize the entire auto industry at once. So perhaps UAW is aiming for even more than a Big Five or Big Six at this point.
Tesla specifically has been brought up, too. President Biden said he would support UAW’s push to unionize Tesla and Toyota, with Honda’s pay raise announcement coming right after that well-publicized meeting.
(Note: this article has been updated multiple times as more automakers have announced pay raises for US factory workers since UAW’s win)
Electrek’s Take
Unions are having a bit of a moment in the US, reaching their highest popularity ever since surveys started asking about them.
Much of union popularity has been driven by COVID-related disruptions across the economy, with workers becoming unsatisfied due to mistreatment (labeling everyone “essential,” companies ending work-from-home) and with the labor market getting tighter with over 1 million Americans dead from the virus and another 2-4 million (and counting) out of work due to long COVID.
Unions have seized on this dissatisfaction to build momentum in the labor movement, with unions striking successfully across many industries and organizers starting to organize workforces that had previously been nonunion.
Announcements like these show how high union membership has a tendency to improve working conditions for every worker and why the US has had gradually lower pay and worse conditions over the decades since union membership peaked. It’s really not hard to see the influence when you plot these trends against each other.
It’s quite clear that lower union membership has resulted in lower inflation-adjusted compensation for workers, even as productivity has skyrocketed. As workers have produced more and more value for their companies, those earnings have gone more and more to their bosses rather than to the workers who produce that value. And it all began in the 80s, around the time of Reagan – a timeline that should be familiar to those who study social ills in America.
Conversely, these raises show the impact that unionized workers can have, not only for their own shops but for nonunionized workplaces as well. If workers gain a big pay increase in one part of an industry, all of a sudden, workers at other companies might start thinking they want to jump ship, maybe move over to another company where they can get better pay or better conditions. To retain workers, companies then need to raise wages.
In addition, nonunionized companies may want to keep their employees nonunionized and thus see the pay raises as a way to satiate their employees into maintaining the status quo. If workers at Toyota see that UAW workers are getting huge pay increases and lots of additional benefits, maybe they’ll think that UAW can bring them the same benefits and start talking about unionizing.
Companies generally think they should avoid having a unionized workforce because a unionized workforce means more pay for workers, which to them means less pay for the executives and shareholders making the decisions. So they’ll offer whatever carrots they can to keep workers from organizing to have their voices heard collectively. Individually, workers have little influence over what their pay and conditions should be.
All of this isn’t just true in the US but also internationally. If you look at other countries with high levels of labor organization, they tend to have more fair wealth distribution across the economy and more ability for workers to get their fair share.
We’re seeing this in Sweden right now, as Tesla workers are striking for better conditions. Since Sweden has a 90% collective bargaining coverage, it tends to have a happy and well-paid workforce, and it seems clear that these two things are correlated. And while that strike is continuing, meaning we haven’t yet seen the effects of it, most observers think that the workers will eventually get what they want since collective bargaining is so strong in that country.
These are all reasons why, as I’ve mentioned in many of these UAW-related articles, I’m pro-union. And I think everyone should be – it only makes sense that people should have their interests collectively represented and that people should be able to join together to support each other and exercise their power collectively instead of individually.
This is precisely what companies do with industry organizations, lobby organizations, chambers of commerce, and so on. And it’s what people do when sorting themselves into local, state, or national governments. So naturally, workers should do the same. It’s just fair.
And it’s clear that it helps – so even if you aren’t unionized yourself or have a job that doesn’t lend well to unionization, you should probably be happy about other union efforts since they tend to buoy entire economies for the people who are creating the value in the first place – the workers.
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That $20,000 luxury Lucid EV you’ve been waiting for will likely never hit the market. CEO Peter Rawlinson said Lucid (LCID) has no plans to launch a $20K vehicle. However, it could play a role in bringing cheaper EVs to market.
After its third straight quarter of record deliveries in Q3, Lucid is gaining traction. The EV maker is now outselling its German luxury rivals in the US, including the Porsche Taycan and Mercedes EQS.
Lucid’s Air even outsold the Tesla Model S in the third quarter. According to Kelley Blue Book, Lucid sold 1,944 Air models in Q3, up 33% from last year, while Tesla Model S sales slipped 47% to 1,669.
The company’s growing sales come despite many media headlines claiming that EV sales are slowing or cooling.
On The Wall Street Journal’s recent Bold Names podcast, Rawlinson said there is a “false narrative” that EVs are in decline. Sales are still up, Rawlinson explained, but they may not be climbing as fast as some had predicted.
Lucid’s CEO is not surprised by some legacy automakers’ “lame efforts.” According to Rawlinson, the company was established for a different reason. Lucid exists “to advance the state of the art of EVs,” the company’s CEO said on the podcast.
Is Lucid launching a $20K EV?
In 2021, Lucid launched the first EV with over 500 miles range. To this day, “There’s no competitor within 100 miles of that car,” according to Rawlinson.
Lucid is focused on efficiency or enabling more range with fewer batteries. To promote widespread adoption, Rawlinson said we must hit the core issue: the cost of batteries as a function of their size.
To get there, Lucid had to start with a high-end premium product, its luxury Air sedan. The company’s leader said Lucid exists to advance “the state of the electric car” with its advanced tech. In other words, it is about driving down costs while unlocking more driving range with smaller, more efficient technology.
So does this mean we will eventually see a $20,000 Lucid EV hit the market? It’s still not likely. According to Rawlinson, Lucid has no plans to build a $20K EV because “that market sucks.”
Lucid’s CEO pointed to Porsche, one of the most profitable legacy automakers, saying, “It doesn’t operate in that sphere.”
Meanwhile, Rawlinson explained that Lucid is “commercially viable in the future.” He believes that is where Lucid could have an opportunity to license its tech.
Enabling cheaper EVs
Regarding a $20K or $25K EV, the company’s advanced tech will “enable that tomorrow,” Rawlinson said, but it will not be a Lucid vehicle. When asked, “Are you going to build that $20,000 vehicle?” Lucid’s CEO responded, “No, because that market sucks.”
The mass market segment has “terrible low margins,” and that’s not where the company is trying to compete.
Rawlinson said other OEMs already have the manufacturing network and could put such a vehicle in place.
The premium EV maker plans to launch several lower-cost vehicles on its upcoming midsize platform, but they will still be around $50,000. Lucid’s midsize SUV, which is due out in 2026, will be “priced around 48 to $50,000,” Rawlinson confirmed.
That’s the price range Lucid wants to do business in, but licensing its tech will enable others to make more affordable products.
Rawlinson said when the new midsize model model launches, “we become a Tesla competitor, head-to-head.” Lucid’s CEO said he believes the upcoming EV will be “massively better than a Tesla Model Y.” He added:
Because of our technological advantage, we should be able to make that car with its competitive range, but with less batteries than anyone else.
According to Rawlinson, doing so will not only save resources but also “allow a better gross margin per vehicle than anyone else.”
That is the game plan, the “chess game” Lucid is playing. Although the media portrays Lucid as a Tesla competitor now, the company is actually targeting Mercedes and Porsche. In a few years, it will challenge Tesla head-to-head with its midsize SUV.
Before that, Lucid is launching its first electric SUV, the Gravity. It has already begun taking orders for the higher-end $94,000 model, which is scheduled to enter production later this year. A more affordable $80,000 version is planned for late 2025.
After securing another $1.75 billion through a recent capital raise, Lucid said it has enough funding for “well into 2026,” right in time for the midsize model.
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Eco Wave Power (Nasdaq: WAVE) has secured the final permit from the US Army Corps of Engineers to install its first onshore wave energy system in the US at AltaSea’s site in the Port of Los Angeles. This pilot project will be the first of its kind in the US.
The permit, issued under Nationwide Permit 52 for water-based renewable energy generation pilot projects, allows Eco Wave Power to install eight wave energy floaters on the existing concrete wharf at Municipal Pier One. The setup will include an energy conversion unit housed in two 20-foot shipping containers, which are already on-site and ready to go. Eco Wave Power plans to complete the US’s first onshore wave energy installation by the end of Q1 2025.
Eco Wave Power’s floaters – the blue dinghy-like things in the water in the photo above, which are in Gibraltar – convert the rising and falling motion of the waves into energy generation.
The movement of the floaters compresses and decompresses the connected hydraulic pistons that transmit biodegradable hydraulic fluid into accumulators on land, where pressure builds. The pressure rotates a hydraulic motor, which rotates the generator, and then electricity is transferred into the grid via an inverter. After decompression, the fluid flows back into the hydraulic fluid tank, where it’s then reused by the pistons, creating a closed circular system.
The whole wave-energy power station is controlled and monitored by a smart automation system.
Eco Wave Power partnered with Shell in April 2024 on the Port of Los Angeles wave energy pilot in April 2024, and the two companies will work together on the execution phase of the project now that the permit is in place.
Inna Braverman, CEO of Eco Wave Power, said, “We are thrilled to receive this final permit and move one step closer to bringing wave energy to the US. This project represents not only a technological breakthrough but also a crucial step in advancing the global transition to renewable energy.”
Eco Wave Power operates the first grid-connected wave energy system in Israel and is also preparing to install projects in Taiwan and Portugal.
Wave energy holds massive potential. The US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates that wave energy could potentially generate enough energy to power hundreds of millions of homes. Eco Wave Power’s aim is for its Port of Los Angeles pilot project to advance wave energy as a potential reliable and mainstream renewable power source.
Read more: China powers up the world’s largest open-sea offshore solar farm
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Damon Motorcycles, the startup that in 2019 unveiled a flashy electric motorcycle intended to best its combustion engine-powered competition, has announced that it has gone public and will assemble its first production-intent motorcycles next year.
The company’s announcement today claims that it has gone public on the Nasdaq and touts its US $100M in “deposit backed reservations”. The deposit amounts vary, but for the brand’s flagship US $40,000 Damon HyperFighter Colossus, the US $250 fully-refundable deposit would imply somewhere around 2,500 to 3,000 reservations.
However, those reservations have been rolling in for quite some time and many were likely based on the brand’s earlier announcements and unveilings – several of which trickled out between 2019 and 2022.
But the company’s founder and CEO Jay Giraud says riders should still expect Damon to make good on its promises of a 200 mile, 200 mph, and 200 hp (320 km, 320 km/h, 150 kW) electric motorcycle coming next year.
“Our vision is resonating with a global community that’s ready for a more modern riding experience – what the old guard keeps selling year after year has gotten stale,” explained Giraud. “And reaching $100M in reservations is a pretty good indication that it’s time to think different.”
For years now we’ve heard that Damon’s upcoming electric motorcycles won’t only be powerful sport bikes, but will also be brimming with new technology and advanced features never before seen in motorcycling.
That technology suite includes a feature that Damon first touted in January of 2020 known as CoPilo, an AI-enhanced 360º collision warning system, as well as Shift™, electronically adaptive ergonomics that transform the riding position from sport to commuter on the fly.
While a shapeshifting motorcycle with 360 degree AI-enhanced vision sounded like science fiction when the company was launched in 2019, we’ve since seen affordable commuter e-motos like Ryvid rollout frame-shifting tech that lets owners adjust the bike’s geometry while actively riding, and startups like RiderDome are already providing 360-degree AI-enhance motorcycle sensor systems.
Damon Motorcycles could still reach uncharted territory if the company can produce a 200 mph and 200 hp electric motorcycle with its claimed 200 miles of highway range, but that still sounds like a big “if.”
For now, the most up-to-date goalpost location appears to now be 2025, though the company is only claiming to be preparing “for assembly of a fleet of production intent vehicles in 2025.” It remains to be seen when true production will begin and that supposed US $100M sitting out there can be converted into bikes
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