Tesla gets exclusive drive-through line at U.S.-Mexico border, Volkswagen CEO steps down

Yahoo Finance's Pras Subramanian discusses the latest auto news from the Tesla-only lane at the U.S.-Mexico border to Volkswagen replacing its CEO.

Video Transcript

DAVE BRIGGS: All right, Tesla has been working hard to increase output, so much so that its suppliers don't have time for pesky things like border crossings. Yahoo Finance senior autos reporter Pras Subramanian here with more. What's the deal here?

PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: It's a pretty sweet deal if you can get it, right? Nice, like, fast, easy pass fast lane at this lesser known border crossing from connecting Laredo to Nuevo Leon. Tesla has about six suppliers in the Nuevo Leon area. And I guess they're able to kind of go through there-- Bloomberg reporting. They have to go there with that, kind of showing documentation back and forth, back and forth, and getting those parts there for that Giga Austin factory.

DAVE BRIGGS: They have a Tesla lane. Is that what you're telling me?

PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: A Tesla lane. It literally says Tesla on the signage. And Bloomberg had the story there. They spoke to the Nuevo Leon minister there, talking about how they had set this deal up. And it's like they want to make Nuevo Leon an EV sort of mobility hub in Mexico. So it works out for both parties, I guess.

DAVE BRIGGS: Did they pay for it?

PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: They didn't disclose how that deal was structured. We don't know what's going on in terms of, like, what kind of benefits Tesla is giving the state of Nuevo Leon. But it works for the suppliers in Mexico. And it works for the company at the Giga Austin plant in Austin. So it kind of works out for both companies, or both sides.

DAVE BRIGGS: Sweet.

JARED BLIKRE: Pras, another story in EV land, and I guess, also, the Iceland as well, VW change-up at the top. The C-suite, also the chairman. What's going on there?

PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: Yeah, a bit of a surprise here, kind of out of the blue on a Friday news jump, right? CEO, global CEO of VW-- I mean, this company has spent $100 billion on EV transformation in the next decade. He's gone. The Porsche CEO, Oliver Blume, is going to be installed in his place. Apparently, Dice had a bunch of sort of run-ins with the labor boards in Germany. They're half the seats on the board of VW.

So he was trying to talk about how, like, they need to cut a lot of jobs to do this transformation that wasn't sitting well with them. So this is sort of why he was on the hot seat. And now they got him out. And Blume, who was going to be his successor in a few years, is now the CEO.

DAVE BRIGGS: But to your point, a lot of good things happening there. Is that timing really unfortunate?

PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: I think it's a little strange. You have the guy that's like-- he is the one that wants to make this happen, right? this big transformation. Like I said, $100 billion in the next five, six years. You're taking him out and putting in--

DAVE BRIGGS: Getting a lot of accolades, quite frankly, for the EV transformation.

PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: But I think he-- there was one thing that was a problematic issue, was that they had a software unit that was making their EV software. And it was sort of failing. They're having kind of delays in their cars. And apparently, this was not sitting well with the board. So this was the kind of the last straw that made it diced-- expendable at this point.