phil lebeau with us.tting big on evs, really big. >> huge investment, shep it is the single largest investment it just announced it, that ford has ever made. they have said we're going all electric they want to have 40% of all of their vehicle sales will electric vehicles by the end of this decade. so they've got to put the pieces in place in order to build those batteries as well as those vehicles and really ramp up sales between '26 and '29, later in this decade why tennessee, west tennessee in particular, and kentucky for these plants why not michigan >> well, you want to spread out your footprint if you're ford. they have a number of plants. >> reporter: in michigan in the case of louisville, they have two truck plants there. it makes sense to put battery plants there that will supply for those plants outside of memphis, that's a green sheath location. they'll be doing it from the ground up, designing it so there's no pollution at all. they don't use water they are making this carbon neutral. it's a b

let's get to phil lebeau with the latest on the supply shortages slowing car sales, phil >> reporter: when you look at the numbers we're seeing today it's clear the automakers are struggling to meet the demand that's out there and that's why you'll see negative numbers in just a little bit. it's also reflected in this chart here look at the red line this is the percentage of vehicles selling at dealerships in less than ten days come off the car carrier, heading out the door now almost 50%, and what a huge increase here we've seen in quick selling vehicles the new auto day supplies at dealerships are down to a record low 26 days. that means the dealers have extremely slim pickings. if you haven't already preordered a vehicle, it's going to be tough to find what you want at a dealership and will be paying record high amounts $41,738 is the average transaction price in august, a record high. the sales rate about 13.1 million vehicles look at the annual sales rate that we've seen over the last several years. 17 million a couple years ago. down to 14.5 million last year people say higher i

take a look at shares of ford getting a pop today after making a major hire from a big tech name phil lebeau has the details. >> hi, melissa there are hires in the auto industry every day we see them, we go, interesting. then there are hires that really get your attention and this is one of them. doug field has left apple and has joined ford. at ford, he will essentially be in charge of electric, autonomous connected vehicles. it's a title that basically falls under chief advanced technology and embedded systems officer. he will report directly to jim farley, the ceo. he's not being brought in just to tinker with things. he's been brought in to put a stamp on what ford is doing when it comes to electric and connected vehicles here's his resume. he was in charge of the apple car program. the apple project titan they've never divulged the end product, but he's been working on that. prior to that, he was at tesla senior vp of engineering he helped develop the model 3. before that, he was at apple for five years he began his career back at ford here he is during a conference call talking about h

let's get to phil lebeau with the details. hi, phil. >> hey, melissa. this is confirmation of something we've talked about for at least three or four weeks there has been a plateau in travel and it's starting to pull back a little bit. you need some proof of that? take a look at the tsa passenger screening levels we're showing you this because you can see that there was a peak in july since then if you take a look at the levels yesterday, down 22% the lowest since may 11th, 13th, somewhere in that range when 1.4 million people were screened, the month of august down 23% to 19 2 million passenger days and just 9 in the month of august. in july there were 18. so when you look at whaets ha -- what's happening delta has said that its flights between september and december, they're likely going to be down about 22%, approximately the airline capacity as we reported earlier this week when we had the research firm oag crunch the numbers for us, it's down 9.1% the month of september. as we look at these stocks and what they have done, it has them all cutting th

. >> steve, we will take a break here stick with us because we have breaking news on general phil lebeau. >> general motors has put together a plan to fix the recalls on chevy volts to fix the battery fire problems. chevy will be repairing these modules starting in october. they don't say how long it will take but they are working through this process of not only fixing the defective modules now that they have determined exactly what the problem is, in these chevy bolts that have these batteries that were manufactured by lg chem. they are going to be fixing them and putting in diagnostic software so they will be able to even better monitor these vehicles so they can determine if there are any problems in the future again, the significance here is that for chevy bolt owners -- i think there are 1,400 of these bolts that have been recalled all together they now will have a fix in place so they can have their cars fixed at a chefsy dealership and they will no longer eventually have to have restrictions put on them in terms of charging them, not charging them alone, parking the vehicles away

thanks phil lebeau on the airlines. reporting mixed quarterfinal results frank colin has more hey, frank. >> you know, not clear earnings or fundamentals matter anymore when it comes to gamestop. the earnings call lasted seven minutes and left many investors including these in wallstreetbets with questions. one reddit posting, why are the calls so short something dawned on me another post saying, how can less be more if more is more, maybe alluding to the shortness of the call or lack of details the transformation strategy the chairman has been promising, gamestop, amc, koss, others, falling hard td ameritrade says it may be the start of a trend with the original meme names. >> i don't believe it's the end of the meme stocks, but it's a reconsideration of the meme stocks, at least in the shorter term by many of those who invested in them in the past >> yesterday, clover meme stock was the most talked about ticker on the wallstreetbets site, a post this morning putting the spin on the uncle sam poster, recruiting people

it's on ford phil lebeau has more for us. >> ford announcing a big hire. doug field, who is at apple and is centered around all of their plans when it comes to what they may or may not do in the future with regard to an automobile, he's going to be leaving apple and joining ford in fact, he has joined ford. he will be in charge of advanced vehicle technology at ford this is a key hire and big win for jim farley, as he builds out the team that the not only by further developing electric vehicles, all autonomous vehicles in the future again, doug field, a longtime executive at appearing,'s they were developing automobile plans for the future, never fully div divulged, as well as working in the past at tesla. no d no doubt he will be key to mapping out the future for electric vehicles, and more importantly, autonomy vehicles. >> is this a bigger reflection of ford's strategy into autonomous and into electric vehicles in or equally a reflection of apple losing its key engineer, and there, i guess, aspirations where a car is concerned >> i think it's a bit of b

house is holding a virtual event on sustainable aviation today i'm not sure what that means i guess phil lebeauld know more with natural gas prices so high, that would make it high to do that >> the plug-in won't work. i talked to an airline executive recently you need turn the plane over too quickly. the only that i think would work is the battery swap. there would be no room to do that at the airports i don't know if it is a bio-fuel did you see new york is going to ban gas-powered cars by 2035 that is 14 years from now. everybody in brooklyn or queens. do you have a plug in your apartment? >> it is interesting i was at a garage yesterday. i was doing a report in midtown. i parked in the garage just to park, you had to pay $10 in addition to the parking to charge your car. in new york city, it is very expensive to charge your car they don't have them on every street corner. the infrastructure really needs to get built up if we're going to move toward that in new york state. >> the chargers are $150,000 to $450,000 on a large scale. i'm sure every landlord in queens or brooklyn is going to rus

that's up nearly 25% from last august and up more than 30% from the august before that cnbc phil lebeau hurricane ida is major factor but that's a lot of money. >> it is a lot of money. we talked about the chip shortage for a couple of months. you go do late ughaugust and the early part of september, you had ida and nicholas think about the video of all the cars that were flooded ultimately totalled by insurance companies. that left the owners scrambling to find a vehicle to replace what they lost that put new pressure on the used car market that was already feeling stress in part because of the chip shortage which we have talked about. spl speaking of that, is there any sign that will get better soon >> no. i think it might get marginally better we'll see really low supply especially for new vehicles. if you're in the market for something that's hot right now, be prepared to wait. >> like a housing -- in this housing market where everybody bids up the price, that's happening with cars? >> they are willing to do that a new survey came out today, get this, 35% of the people who were surv

phil lebeau is here. expiring today. but the rest of the ev space is -- >> when you look at the ev stocks, this is a lucid issue. we're also going to talk about workforce. with lucid, the lock-up ended yesterday and today was the first day people could sell. some people decided they wanted to sell. the stock has been down between 9% and 11% today i haven't been able to check the total numbers in terms of, if this is the biggest sell-off in terms of shares of lucid, in terms of the stock moving lower that we've seen since it went public but clearly you're seeing pressure on lucid that we have not seen in some time. then workhorse late today "the wall street journal report"ing that the s.e.c. is reportedly investigating work horse we've reached out to the ev automaker to see if they have any comment on this. nothing back from them at this point and take a look at charge point. we're just a few minutes from the quarterly results from that company. we'll have them for you and bring them to you as soon as we g

phil lebeau has the latest from chicago's o'hare airport hi, phil >> hi, courtney.f these people probably coming back from a long labor day weekend and enjoying the last bit of summer vacation, if you will if you take a look at the passenger levels, however, it is clear that the trend is not one that's favorable over on the right-hand side you see a little bit of a tick there. that's labor day weekend it was down 14% compared to 2019 but the trend is clear and many believe it will continue in september and october. we were down 21% in july compared to 2019, down 23% in august, many believe it will be down 25, 26% in september, and in october so as you take a look the airline index, this is the reason airlines are cutting capacity tore september. it's going to be down about 9% compared to august and down about another 6% when you look at the fourth quarter. so when you look at the airline stats, this week is a pivotal one because we will be getting updated guidance at the cowan airline conference that happens on thursday. we will hear from almost all of the airlines,

. >>> news just breaking on united airlines phil lebeau joins us now with more you're up? good >> reporter: i got the call from the bed sleeping 8k united dropped ahead of the presentation made today. united adjusting expectation for the third quarter saying it expects a pre-tax loss they are not giving an exact figure the street estimate is for a loss of 5 cents a share. the company says if trends continue as a deceleration in bookings as covid-19 has been resurging around the country, they now have anestimate of profit of 23 cents a share united, because of the deceleration of bookings is cutting capacity it will now be down 28 p%. that sis a drop of 2%. finally,revenue for the third quarter is expected to be down 33%. take a look at shares of united. under pressure pre-market. dropping 8k ahead of the conference we will hear from all of the airline executives today expect to hear more. deceleration of bookings as a result, trimming q3 estimates if they haven't already announced it we will see pressure on q4 guys, back to you. >> we understand, don't we, phil with what i

. >> we've got some breaking news here on lordstown motors phil lebeau has the story. >> this was reported today by the "wall street journal" and it has become official. an announcement by fox con and lordstown motors and fox con for $230 million will buy most of the lordstown motor final assembly plant in lordstown, ohio there are parts of it including the motor hub facility, some of the other areas within the is assembly plant that will remain but for the most part fox con will become the owner and operator of this plan. it will work with lordstown motors to be the contract manufacture for the pickup truck, the model they're trying to build and hopefully they hope that they could deliver it by the end of year. if not early next year in fact i think they moved it into early next year the significance here that this lordstown motors, a., with a cash infusion, and b., some certainty, for fox con, this is a great deal you're getting a final assembly plant, it is the old gm plant is it is not like you're building it up from the ground up and wait however long it might take for the facility to

company solid power is making a big investment to increase production capacity for more, let's get to phil lebeaulet's bring in doug campbell, ceo of solid power, joining us from the company's facilities in louisville, colorado my old stomping grounds. doug, let's talk about this expansion. how important is this for solid power as you work towards development of solid state ev batterys >> first of all, thanks for having me on your program. this development is quite simple it basically supports us executing on our road map to getting our batteries into commercial vehicles. >> you know and we have talked about it and everybody is well aware, solid state batteries hold great promise, but there are a lot of hurdles that need to be overcome, not just by you, but by others who are working on this how confident are you that we are going to see solid state batteries which allow -- have greater power, quicker charging and allows for quicker charging, how confident are you we'll see those in electric vehicles by 2020 or 2025 >> yeah, absolutely. so we're quite confident and the reason, the justification re

. >>> ford making a huge investment in the midwest betting millions on electric vehicles phil lebeau im farley and has the details now hi, phil >> take a look at this investment we're talking about four brand-new plants two that are going to be in tennessee. one building the electric f series another one for battery self-protection. then two battery cell plants, brand-new, outside of louisville where ford has a couple of plants the whole idea here if they add 11,000 jobs is that these are green sheet facilities they're going to be building these from the ground up they want to cut down on the pollution as well as have these facilities next to the plants where the evs will be built. >> look at the chip situation. we have to insource the batteries. we have to learn how to manufacture them in this country. we can no longer import raw materials from around the world. these materials have to come from north america >> and there will be a recycling component at all of these ev battery plants one last thing, guys, you take a look at share of ford, this is a stock that is up by 40% in the las

let's get the latest from phil lebeau >> melissa, i think the stocks were up today because the guidance that we heard from the airline executives today presenting at a conference, they weren't surprising in fact, when you look at the airline index, what we've seen from all the airlines was a trim of their guidance for the third quarter. it was not a big cut it was essentially what we all expected because we're seeing traffic that is slowing down if you take a look at all of the airline passenger levels, they clearly ticked lower in the second half of august. it is expected that we're going to see that continue if we get past this labor day bump that you see higher there, you're going to see move down for the remainder of the month we'll start with southwest and american southwest saying its september revenue down 25 to 30% it previously was expecting it to be down anywhere from 15 to 25%. american, down 24 to 28% previously, it was expected to be -- >> biden at the white house. let's listen in. >> where we are in the battle against covid-19 the progress we've made and the work we have l

phil lebeau joins us now h hey, phil. >> hey, joe.demand for those. this is the global fleet today, or actually in 2019, before the pandemic 25,000 it's actually going to double worldwide by 2040. when you look at the regions where the new airplanes will be delivered -- this is not just for boeing, but airbus, the entire industry, it's pretty evenly split between the four largest regions in the world the chief strategy officer for boeing says that a big part of what is driving all of this, at least over the next couple of years, will be aircraft retirement here is what he had to say i am told we do not have what he had to say we talked to him yesterday and said you're seeing a big surge in the number of retirements quickly take a look at boeing and airbus over the last couple of years going back to the pandemic and usually these guys are trading in tandem. that's what we're seeing here. no surprise airbus is doing better than boeing, given the fact that boeing has had a number of issues with the 73 max and now the 787 dreamliner that

if you see one take it customer demand remains high phil lebeau will tell us what to keep in mind laterure going to expedite vaccines for children. we'll speak to the president of american academy of pediatrics about that and return to school. >> announcer: time now for today's aflac trivia question. what was the best performing stock in the s&p 500 in 2020 the answer when cnbc "squawk the answer when cnbc "squawk box" continues ♪ did somebody say money? he said aflac. well if they're paying out billions of dollars to help cover unexpected medical expenses, what's the difference? coach prime. what... no smoke machine? [aflac!] looks like aflac is ready for prime time. [eh eh eh! eh eh eh!] hey, coach to coach... what do i need to do to get one of those jackets? ♪ get help with expenses health insurance doesn't cover at aflac.com what happens when we welcome change? get help with expenses health insurance we can transform our workforce overnight out of convenience, or necessity. we can explore uncharted waters, and not only make new discoveries, but get there faster, with better outcomes

but ark's cathie wood says there is more at play here phil lebeau has that story next. and anything could happen. it could be the day you welcome 1,200 guests and all their devices. or it could be the day there's a cyberthreat. get ready for it all with an advanced network and managed services from comcast business. and get cybersecurity solutions that let you see everything on your network. plus an expert team looking ahead 24/7 to help prevent threats. every day in business is a big day. we'll keep you ready for what's next. comcast business powering possibilities. this is lisa. she's a posh virtual receptionist. when you're busy, she'll answer your calls and assist your clients. you can't be in two places at once, let posh answer. posh virtual receptionists. >>> wedge back, everybody. gm and forpd idle more plants as the global chip shortage takes a toll but cathie wood says there is more to the story. phil lebeau has the story to follow up on a tweet that had the investor world buzzing >> the tweet came out wednesday night early thursday morning cathiy wood said thi

said, the airlines have been lower of late, but mostly higher today, despite a number of warnings phil lebeau has the details. hi, phil. >> wilf, the airlines stocks are moving higher, not a shocker it's been forecasted for us over the last four, five weeks. it's an air pocket that's what the industry is in right now. when you look at what's happened with travel bookings, september is seeing a slowdown revenue estimates were trimmed today -- not cut today, but trimmed, and you have soft bookings that have lasted. need some proof of that? look at air passengers levels. what you are looking at here, check out august we saw a definite decelerations. keep in mind, september is bankly been the labor day holiday. it's been expected to continue slowing down, so in terms of individual airline stocks, let's start first off with jetblue and american storks trimming the upper end by at least $50 million. american sis it's weaker than the previous guidance of down just 20% united now saying it expects a pretax loss in the third many expected them to take a slight profit, and finally delta likely on the l

phil lebeau has the ceo scott kirby with us. >> thank you, scott, for joining us this morning. have 97% compliance, saying they have at least one shot, fully vaccinated in the next couple weeks, if they aren't already. yet you're going to have to fire 593 workers. what are your thoughts about having to cut those workers? >> look, i'm really proud and gratified that the united team, excluding the people who have applied for exemptions, 97% got vaccinated it proves that vaccines do work and you can get a huge percentage of your workforce vaccinated it was never going to be 100%. i feel bad for the 593, less than 1% that are going to leave, but we're focused on doing the right thing for united airlines. it's great to have the ability to just move forward now. >> scott, after you let those workers go, and you have 2,000 who have applied for a religious our medical exemption. likely those jobs will either be put on some type of a leave, but they won't be working the front lines, so you're looking at roughly 3% of your workforce who will not be on the job, so to speak, in the office

we have uber that reported a good number, we have a new head of auto nation i like him very much phil lebeaund i were going back and forth brian sozzi at yahoo does good work on retail and says be careful. can you give us the big story of the day? >> no, i'm not ready yet. >> you're watching, though you're watching some pots boil. >> i'm more than watching. i'm waiting for my phone to ring. >> royal dutch -- >> that was a large transaction. tell me, what are your thoughts? >> that's a lazy susan deal. we have a lot of carbon here, give the carbon to conoco, now we have less carbon. that's called lazy susan that's what it was, there's no reduction in carbon. are you kidding me >> they reduced their carbon and conoco increased its carbon. conoco increased the dividend. look, i'm trying to focus on the oil companies that are focused on reducing carbon mike worth was spending $3 billion in carbon what happened when he boosted it to 10 billion? do you remember what wall street said >> they don't believe it >> no. opposite >> not big enough. what did they say? >> j.p. morgan downgraded it mike wor

. >>> a news alert, meanwhile, on united phil lebeau has that >> an update on united and covid-19 vaccination27th when all employees must be either vaccinated or receive an accommodation from the company for religious or medical reasons for why they don't have to be vaccinated otherwise they leave the company. a couple of things the company is not saying how many employees, what percentage of employees have been vaccinated but it does say that more than half of those employees who were not vaccinated when this policy went into effect are now vaccinated obviously, we don't know what percentage of employees that is. so it's a little bit open there in terms of what -- how significant this is. but the company feels good about the progress they're making. in terms of those employees who are seeking either a medical or a religious accommodation from the company they said it depends on what job you have in the company. if that exemption request is denied, you'll have to either get vaccinated or you are leaving the company within five weeks of that denial if it's approved, depending on the job, the e

. >>> ford is due out soon with its retail sales figures for august phil lebeau is going to have those numbers for us let's get over to him now. >> as we wait for these numbers from ford, we're not expecting anything fantastic not just because of what we're seeing in terms of chip shortage impacting demand -- or supply i should say also because what you're noticing when you talk with dealers is there are a number of buyers out there who they would like to buy, but they're not seeing the supply that they're looking for, so as a result, i wouldn't call it a buyer strike, but i think what we're seeing in the market right now is definitely a number of people who are saying i want to buy, but i'm not just going to buy to buy. i'm going to wait until i can get what i'm looking for so it's a bit of a chicken and egg situation. we'll get the ford numbers here shortly. we expect them to be negative as they were for all of the automakers yesterday the industry sales pace, 13.1 million vehicles for some perspective in terms of how much the market has fallen off over the last four months, the pace