Welcome to today's edition of the Daily 5.
If you live in Michigan or Ohio, you probably are very well aware of the intense, bitter and expensive U.S. Senate races in your states — Republican Mike Rogers versus Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin for Michigan's open seat and Republican former car dealer Bernie Moreno versus longtime Democrat incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown in Ohio.
You almost cannot watch TV in Michigan without seeing a Rogers or Slotkin attack ad in the race for the seat being vacated by Democratic U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow. The seat is key for the Detroit 3 in Washington. It's anyone's opinion whether it's better for the Detroit 3 to have another Democrat team up with Democratic Sen. Gary Peters or to elect a Republican who may or may not work with Peters on issues that matter to domestic auto manufacturing.
In Ohio, we have Moreno — a well-known car dealer in the state — who has been targeted by Brown's attack ads trashing him for being — you guessed it — a car dealer. The attack ad says: "Now that he's running for Senate, Bernie Moreno hasn't changed — not one bit. You couldn't trust him as a car dealer, so why would you trust him as your senator?" Ohio car dealers have come to his defense.
Republican attack ads call Brown, an ardent UAW supporter who picketed with the union at Stellantis last year, a liberal who is weak on immigration and transgender issues.
Ultimately, these two races are probably the most important to Republican efforts to win back control of the Senate from their current 49-member minority position. West Virginia will most certainly flip to a Republican for its open seat, so the GOP needs to gain only one more seat to ensure a 51-member majority.
Given the overwhelming automotive influence in Michigan and Ohio, it's a good bet the winners of these two races will have plenty of incentive to support domestic automakers in Congress.
For more on today's elections and their impact on the automotive industry, see a recap of all our coverage here.
In other news today, Texas EV startup Canoo Inc. said it furloughed 23 percent of its factory workers for 12 weeks as part of a broader plan to consolidate its U.S. workforce and "redistribute some of our tenured and skilled employees to our Oklahoma City and Texas facilities." The company reported a net loss of $117.6 million during the first half of 2024, compared with a net loss $161.6 million during the same period last year.
You might recall this is the same Canoo that spent more on its CEO's private jet in 2023 than the revenue it generated from its business.
This headline — "Toyota to post first quarterly profit drop in 2 years as demand cools" — might sound bearish, but there won't be any alarm bells going off tomorrow when the automaker reports its fiscal second-quarter earnings. Toyota Motor Corp. is making tons of profits across the board. As Reuters reports, the Japanese automaker is still expected to report a quarterly operating profit of $7.9 billion. That's down 14 percent from last year, but Toyota is still on pace to hit its annual profit forecast.
Our reporter Molly Boigon also previewed the Nov. 7 earnings report for luxury EV maker Lucid Group Inc. While Wall Street will certainly be looking at the numbers, investors will be especially interested in updates on the status of the Gravity crossover production launch expected late in 2025.
Speaking of luxury automaker earnings, Ferrari had some good news today. Adjusted earnings grew 7 percent to $696 million in the third quarter while total revenue improved 6.5 percent to $1.8 billion. That's not bad considering Ferrari's sales in China slipped 29 percent, but investors weren't impressed and its shares fell about 7 percent in midday trading.
Looking ahead to Wednesday, we'll keep you up to date on the key election results that matter to the auto industry. We'll also have an update on the design plans for Scout's new Traveler SUV and Terra pickup. And, as mentioned, we'll have coverage of Toyota's quarterly financial report.
That's it for now. If you haven't voted yet today, please exercise your right and do so.
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— Philip Nussel, online editor
