Monthly Archives: November 2018

Plans to launch a ride hailing service in the Chinese city of Chengdu. (Reuters)

Daimler ^(history)

Invested in on-demand bus service Rally. (Rally)

FCA ^(history)

Unions said Maserati’s Grugliasco plant has been shut down for 102 of the 214 working days in 2018. (Torino Oggi)

A document given to workers at the Bridgend Engine plant suggested Ford will run a voluntary redundancy program in Britain in 2019. (Wales Online)

Postponed the production of Lynk&Co cars at the Volvo Ghent plant, citing economic volatility. (Reuters)

Announced the “unallocation” – GM-speak for almost certain closure – of three vehicle plants (Oshawa, Detroit-Hamtramck and Lordstown), two transmission plants (Baltimore and Warren) and two additional plants outside of North America. GM expects the redundancies to cost around $2 billion with an additional $1.8 billion in write downs. GM will also reduce the salaried workforce by 15% (program already underway) and cut 25% of the executives. (GM)
Reportedly will have to make more than 3,000 salaried employees forcibly redundant after too few signed up for voluntary severance packages. (World Socialist)
Increases in production at the Cami Assembly plant in Canada will likely have reduced the workforce on layoff to zero by the end of 2019. (London Free Press)
Cruise will open a new office in Seattle. (GeekWire)
The NHTSA is looking into braking problems that could affect 2.7 million vehicles in the US. (Detroit Free Press)
GM Ventures invested in MapAnything. (Venture Beat)

Honda ^(history)

Launched the all-electric Everus in China, built with JV partner GAC. (Electrek)

The US Department of Justice has reportedly opened an investigation into engine failures in Hyundai vehicles but declined to comment on the story. (Reuters)

Nissan’s board voted unanimously to terminate Carlos Ghosn’s role as chairman and set up a committee to review governance but held off naming a direct replacement. (Nissan)
Mitsubishi deeply apologised for Ghosn’s alleged offences and said it would remove him as chairman. (Mitsubishi), then chose the CEO to become CEO and chairman. (Mitsubishi)

PSA (includes Opel/Vauxhall) ^(history)

Held a ribbon cutting ceremony for the new PSA-AVTEC joint venture powertrain plant in Tamil Nadu, India. The plant will have initial capacity of 300,000 transmissions and 200,000 engines. (PSA)
Announced further job cuts at the Ellesmere Port factory, in the past year about half the workforce have been made redundant. Workers walked out in protest. (BBC)
Reportedly agreed to sell its share in the joint venture Kolin, Czech Republic, factory that makes the 108, C1 and Aygo to Toyota. PSA will then not commission successor vehicles after the current generation ends in 2021. The two companies will also partner on new small light vans. (Les Echos)

Appointed Thierry Bolloré as interim “deputy” CEO. (Renault)
Carlos Ghosn has lost the confidence of the French state, who are trying to defend the status quo of Renault having voting rights in Nissan, but not the other way around. Following Ghosn’s sacking from Nissan there has been speculation that the Japanese company could increase its Renault stake to a level that would see Renault lose its Nissan votes. (Reuters)
Mitsubishi’s CEO said it would be hard for anyone other than Ghosn to run Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi at the same time, calling into question the fate of the three-way alliance. (Reuters)
Ghosn has denied any impropriety, saying that the problems lie with Nissan’s regulatory reporting. (Reuters)

Unveiled the new Range Rover Evoque SUV. Although externally very similar to its predecessor, JLR believe that a series of detailed changes will attract customers to the new model. The car offers 48V augmentation for both gasoline and diesel models and a plug in hybrid will be available in 12 months. (JLR)
JLR will test driverless cars in London through a partnership with taxi firm Addison Lee as part of a scheme funded by the UK government. (City AM)

CEO Musk set off speculation of a tie-up with Daimler on electric vans by saying on Twitter than he would enquire about sharing the Sprinter electric model. Musk seemingly made no mention of Tesla’s earlier stated plan to build its own vans on the Model S / X platform. (Reuters)
Rolled back much of a Chinese price increase imposed to recover higher tariffs. Tesla said it wanted to keep the cars affordable, an alternative explanation is that the company exceeded the limits of its pricing power. (Business Insider)

Reportedly agreed to buy out PSA’s share in the joint venture Kolin, Czech Republic, factory that makes the 108, C1 and Aygo. PSA will not commission successor vehicles after the current generation ends in 2021. The two companies will also partner on new small light vans. (Les Echos)
Toyota’s MD in Ireland complained about the distortion caused by the weaker UK pound, saying that it encouraged excessive imports of used cars from Britain. He believes Sterling/Euro partity would be “disastrous”. (Independent)

Reportedly settled a lawsuit brought by Broadcom alleging VW had infringed its IP. (Reuters)
CEO Diess does not believe that individual ownership is on its way out, saying “people will continue to be fascinated by driving”. (VW)
Porsche’s electric offerings will have material cost increases of between €6,000 to €10,000 compared to equivalent combustion engine cars, according to offer the record sources. In response, Porsche intends to enact a profit improvement plan to yield €750 million annually over the next eight years. (Bloomberg)
Complexity was such that, in 2017, although VW sold 84,000 Golfs in Germany, the largest group of identical vehicles numbered only 400. (VW)
Acquired a 49% stake in software developer Diconium. (VW)
Restructured the management of its operations in India to put Škoda executives in charge. (VW)
Trademarks filed by VW have led to suggestions that the ID range will be branded as ID 1, ID 2 etc rather than being given names as the concept vehicles — which VW executives still refer to — have. (Green Car Reports)
Confirmed the Audi e-tron SUV will be localised in China from 2020 onwards. (VW)
Recalling around 75,000 cars to fix problems with seatbelts. (BBC)

Other

Leap Motor has so far raised $290 million of a targeted $360 million Series A round. (Deal Street Asia)
VinFast unveiled the Fadil, a rebadged version of Opel’s Karl Rocks beefed-up small MPV. (Auto Times)
BYD has put plans for a Canadian factory on hold until the “business case makes sense”. (Reuters)
McLaren’s CEO pronounced himself satisfied with the terms of the draft Brexit (Reuters) So did the UK’s car industry trade body. (SMMT)

News about other companies and trends

Economic / Political News

The CEOs of Daimler, VW Group and BMW have probably signed up for impromptu hand shaking lessons after reportedly being invited for a summit at the White House about car imports. (Detroit News)
An environmental lobby group called for combustion engine cars to be withdrawn from sale in Europe by 2035 and for all legacy vehicles to be banned by 2050. (Business Green)

Suppliers

Tower is selling its European operations to French supplier FSD. (Tower)
ThyssenKrupp won’t be hiring Daimler’s CFO as chairman after all, becuase the board decided that he wanted to be paid too much. (Handelsblatt)

Careem is reportedly trying to raise a further $200 million from Chinese investors. (Reuters)
Zipcar complained that London local councils and the mayor’s office were not aligned in how badly they wanted electric vehicles on the streets and this was delaying the roll-out of more electric shared cars. (Inside EVs)
Didi Chuxing launched a new development centre in Toronto, Canada. (FINSMES)
Daimler invested in the $5 million seed round of on-demand bus service Rally. (Rally)
BMW plans to launch a ride hailing service in the Chinese city of Chengdu. (Reuters)

Driverless / Autonomy ^(history)

AEye said it had raised $40 million in new funding from a group of yet-to-be-announced investors including “multiple global automotive OEMs, Tier 1 and Tier 2s”. AEye says it has developed a lidar that can track large trucks over 1 kilometre away “without difficulty”. Since the test was of a single vehicle on an isolated airstrip, competitors may question how representative this is of the real world. (AEye)
Commercial self-driving bus services will start on the Forth Bridge crossing in Scotland in 2021. (Independent)
GM’s Cruise division will open a new office in Seattle. (GeekWire)
JLR will test driverless cars in London through a partnership with taxi firm Addison Lee as part of a scheme funded by the UK government. (City AM)

Porsche’s electric offerings will have material cost increases of between €6,000 to €10,000 compared to equivalent combustion engine cars, according to offer the record sources. (Bloomberg)

Connectivity

Mitsubishi Electric and NTT DoCoMo said they had achieved world record vehicle to network data transmission rates of 27 Gbps (at 10m) and 25 Gbps (at 100m). (ZDNet)
Nuance will spin off its automotive voice recognition and personal assistant business into a separate unit called Nuance Auto. (ZDNet)
Driver monitoring telematics system developer Lightfoot raised £3 million. (TechCrunch)

Other

Swedish scooter rental start-up VOI raised $50 million, whilst German firm Wind raised $22 million. (TechCrunch)
Meituan, owner of bicycle rental service Mobike said it was reducing fleet sizes to avoid oversupply. (TechCrunch)

Find our archive here.

Auto Industry Briefing — week ending 18th November 2018

November 19, 2018 Ad Punctum TeamAd Punctum, Automotive0

VW building factories they don’t need; a smoother path to electrification; and is Uber on borrowed time? Please enjoy our auto industry and mobility briefing for 12^th November to 18^th November. A PDF version can be found here.

Favourite stories of the past week…?

Seriously — VW wants to build a new car factory in Eastern Europe because of all the new products they are going to launch. With the European industry already looking a bit ropey and storm clouds brewing because of Brexit and tariffs, this already seems like a prime candidate to become a white elephant. Surely there is a better way?
Smooth Operator — Nissan says that series hybrid (E-Power) models account for 40% of Serena minivan sales. If you aren’t familiar with the technology, the car has electric drive but the power comes from a plain old combustion engine creating the electricity as a generator, rather than having an expensive battery, so it drives like an electric car, with a faint hum of a petrol motor somewhere in the background. It’s a technology that might really help the transition to electric vehicles, looks like Japanese consumers quite like it too.
I Need A Dollar — Uber reported headline financial results for Q3. Net losses are about $ 1 billion (again), but with gross revenue growth plateauing (now at 30% YoY versus over 100% YoY in 2017 — which would still be amazing if it were an auto OEM), perhaps this demonstrates the reality of price elasticity (i.e. limited further growth without price drops); and that Uber can say goodbye to significant market growth in future without autonomous vehicles? And if robotaxis are many years away, can Uber stick around long enough to get there?

News is arranged by company and topic. Stories that apply to more than one company or topic are duplicated.

Find our archive here.

News about the major automakers

Has made one million components using additive manufacturing techniques in the last ten years and plans on making 200,000 in 2018. For instance, guide rails for the i8 Roadster are manufactured using an HP Multi Jet Fusion machining rather than mass manufacture, but it isn’t quick — 100 parts in 24 hours. (BMW)

Daimler ^(history)

Opening a second Chinese R&D centre in 2020 at a cost of around €150 million. (Daimler)
Launched the GLC F-Cell fuel cell vehicle. Daimler touted the larger-than-normal battery which allows an electric only range of about 30 miles if the vehicle has been plugged in to charge. (Daimler)

After billing Joe Hinrichs’ appearance at an investor conference as a chance to get greater detail on the firm’s recovery plan, attendees were left underwhelmed and gave Hinrichs a grilling. He protested that he couldn’t reveal further details because of the commercial sensitivity. (Detroit Free Press)
Gave journalists test rides in autonomous vehicles. Journalists could pick from one of four destinations in a six square mile area and reported that vehicles almost continuously return to base for sensor calibration. Dust thrown up by other vehicles are currently still an issue for Ford’s sensor set. (The Verge) Other journalists also reported manual interventions over the carefully chosen five mile test routes. (Detroit News)
After previously rejecting the potential buyer of the Bordeaux transmission plant, Ford gave them until the 28^th November to make a better offer. (Usine Nouvelle)
Will use its existing test fleet in Florida to trial delivery of Walmart goods, building on experiments with Postmates and Domino’s. The tests remain very low in volume — so far Ford has competed only 1,000 deliveries. (Ford)
- Significance: If Ford can prove to itself and partner companies that a larger fleet of vehicles can be justified by using them for a variety of delivery purposes, subject to suitably efficient design, then autonomous delivery businesses could quickly scale without requiring whole-hearted commitment from customers.
Issued recalls for around 38,000 vehicles that might have seat belts with insufficient restraint. (Ford)

Unveiled the new Geely Jia Ji MPV. (Geely)

GM’s Marketplace payment and advertising app has been judged a success internally and a version 2.0 is under development. GM says that for fuel stations the click through rate on offers is 20% and companies such as office equipment suppliers are finding it a useful source of customers. (Wards)
By around the middle of 2020, GM expects the Maven car sharing scheme to have annual revenues of around $200 million and be in a position where an IPO would be plausible. GM detailed a number of operating metrics about Maven, such as: current acquisition cost for new customers is “below $100”; and utilisation of car sharing vehicles is around 35%. (Seeking Alpha)

Announced a partnership with drone start-up Top Flight to look at business areas where lightweight drones might be applicable, such as inspection and transport within industrial areas. (Hyundai)
Came under renewed pressure from an activist investor to return cash to shareholders. (FT)

In a shock announcement, Nissan said that an investigation started by a whistleblower discovered that Chairman Carlos Ghosn had under-reported income and used company funds for personal use, and was aided in a cover up by one of the directors. Nissan took steps to dismiss both and has cooperated with Japanese authorities. (Nissan)
- Significance: As the key stakeholder in Alliance discussions, Ghosn’s rejection by Nissan is likely to have far-reaching consequences for the cooperation between Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi, and puts his job at Renault at risk.
The Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi VC fund invested in lithium ion battery developer Enevate. (Alliance Ventures)
40% of Nissan Serena minivan buyers in Japan are choosing the series hybrid option. (Nissan)

PSA (includes Opel/Vauxhall) ^(history)

Closing the stamping plant at Saint-Ouen by 2021. (Les Echos)
Reducing production at the Vigo plant due to falling sales of 301 and C-Elysée by removing a shift. (Europa Press)
Reportedly considering the closure of the Ellesmere Port plant if the UK market declines considerably. (Bloomberg)
Announced that preliminary agreements for Segula to take over part of the Rüsselsheim engineering centre had been completed, and stressed how vital the site was to PSA in the longer term. (Opel)

The Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi VC fund invested in lithium ion battery developer Enevate. (Alliance Ventures)
CEO Ghosn was accused by Nissan (where he is chairman) of gross misconduct related to reporting of personal income and use of company assets. Nissan plan to remove him as chairman. (Nissan) Renault expressed no support for Ghosn directly, pledging only to look after the company’s interests. (Renault)
Acquired peer to peer used car sales platform CARIZY. (Renault)

JLR’s InMotion fund invested in Festicket, a company that offers packages tailored to music festivals. Although seemingly unrelated to the carmaking business, JLR pointed to the services popularity amongst the same type of customers it aspired to serve. (JLR)

Bought “some trucking companies” to ensure it has enough capacity to deliver vehicles in the USA before the 31^st December cut off for more generous purchase incentives. (TechCrunch)
CEO Musk used an internal email to motivate his employees to produce a consistent rate of 50 Model 3 cars per hour from the end of November onwards. (Electrek)
Stopped offering (limited) free Supercharger access for Model S and X buyers. (Electrek)
Increased the price of Autopilot after the car has been purchased. It now costs $7,000 ($5,000 when new), but Tesla seems to be offering a series of time-limited discounts where the price can fall to $5,500. (Green Car Reports)

Reducing US production of the Camry in response to falling sales. (Bloomberg)

Announced a series of decisions taken under the latest planning round. VW committed to reduction in capital expenditure and R&D as a percent of revenues to 6% from 2020 onwards. CEO Diess is seeking a 30% improvement in productivity by 2025 saying that a chunk of this will come by increasing the number of multi-brand plants. (VW)
The Emden plant will become dedicated to electric vehicles and Hanover will convert “gradually”. Comments that the “main speciality” of Hanover will be the ID Buzz family of vehicles seem to confirm that Transport production is likely to move to a Ford plant. (VW)
The partnership with Ford “offers potential” for a profitable Amarok (pick-up truck) and “robust” SUVs. Whilst there are further joint projects that VW foresees, the company stressed that marketing and pricing (i.e. the sorts of things that would require a level of M&A) were out of the question. (VW)
Expects pure electric vehicles to be profitable, even in the first generation, and that VW Group’s economies of scale would make it the most profitable electric car manufacturer. (Reuters)
CEO Diess believes that Waymo are one to two years ahead in autonomous driving technology but that it is possible for VW to catch up. (VW)
Looking to build a new plant in Eastern Europe. (VW)
Gave employment guarantees lasting to 2028 to permanent workers at the three plants that will become dedicated electric vehicle factories but said temporary workers would have to move to other group locations if they wanted a permanent role. (VW)
Changed the management structure of the China business so that it reports straight into CEO Diess. (VW)
Said it could produce up to 50 million vehicles from the MEB platform over its lifetime, a statement that implies an upper end scenario of mass transition to pure electric vehicles since in September VW talked about 10 million vehicles from the “first wave”. (Reuters)
Announced a fourth battery supplier — SK Innovation — for MEB platform products. VW says the firm will supply all its needs for the US market and some of the European volume, which it will share with LG Chem and Samsung. VW says the four suppliers will collectively share around 150 GWh of capacity by 2025. (VW)
- Significance: Given that VW has already made public some cost data points for battery cells, this announcement suggests all the four suppliers are prepared to make cost commitments around the same level (raw material inflation potentially notwithstanding.

Other

McLaren’s CEO said it would be “insane” for politicians in the UK and EU to allow a no deal Brexit. (CNBC)
Rivian released teaser images of two pure electric vehicles: a pick-up truck and an SUV, that it was reveal fully at the LA show. (Green Car Reports)
Henrik Fisker said he would like for his company to have facilities in India but his present focus is on China because the government is “more forthcoming and moves significantly faster”. He also said there would be more details about a second Fisker vehicle before the end of 2018. (Autocar)
Ineos will decide on the production location for its new vehicle by the end of 2018, indicating that the UK and continental Europe were both under consideration. (Reuters)
Subaru revised its first half revenue and profit figures. (Subaru)
Zotye plans to enter the US market in partnership with HAAH. The initial portfolio will be two SUVs and the plan calls for a network of 325 dealers across the country. (Detroit News)
McLaren opened its new composites manufacturing facility in Sheffield. Test runs will now take place until volume productions starts in 2020 (McLaren)
XPENG unveiled the G3 electric SUV. Prices start at 200,000 RMB (about $29,000). (XPENG)
Mahindra and Mahindra reported financial results for Q2 of the 2018/19 financial year. (Mahindra)

News about other companies and trends

Economic / Political News

European passenger car registrations in October of 1,118,882 units were down (7.4)% versus a year earlier. (ACEA)
France will increase purchase incentives for low income buyers — they can now claim €4,000 on new cars. The government said the more generous scheme will cost €500 million. (Economic Times of India)
The draft Brexit agreement was published, along with a much shorter statement of the aims for the ongoing relationship, which the two hope to have resolved by the end of 2020. (UK Government)

Suppliers

Johnson Controls agreed to sell its power business to Brookfield in a $13.2 billion deal. (Johnson Controls)
Motherson Sumi reported financial results for the second quarter of the financial year. (Motherson Sumi)
Gestamp’s JV with BHAP opened a new €50 million press shop in Tianjin, China. (Gestamp)

Dealers

Renault acquired peer to peer used car sales platform CARIZY. (Renault)

Uber reported Q3 2018 financial results. There was a net loss of $(939) million on $2.95 billion of net revenue, growth in gross revenue continued to slow (up 34% on a year-over-year basis) and a considerable amount of the increase comes from Uber Eats rather than the ride hailing service. (CNBC)
Ride hailing service Gett is reportedly looking for buyers. (Deal Street Asia)
BlaBlaCar will buy Ouibus from SNCF, who will take a stake in BlaBlaCar as part of the deal. (TechCrunch)
Fleet management platform provider Ridecell increased the size of its Series B to $60 million. (Ridecell)
Daimler’s Beat ride hailing service said it would re-enter the Mexican market

Driverless / Autonomy^(history)

Waymo’s CEO said, “autonomy will always have some constraints” and that widespread usage is decades away. (CNET)
Long range infra-red camera developer AdaSky raised $20 million. (Deal Street Asia)
Continental and EasyMile are setting up a joint research team in Singapore. (Continental)
Self-driving operating system developerai emerged from stealth mode with $15.5 million. (TechCrunch)

Hot on the heels of its new VW supply contract, SK Innovation said it was looking at four sites for a new battery plant in the US and could build a second European plant. (Yonhap)
Panasonic executives said that solid state battery technology will not mature for another decade. (Business Insider)
The Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi VC fund invested in lithium ion battery developer Enevate. (Alliance Ventures)
40% of Nissan Serena minivan buyers in Japan are choosing the series hybrid option. (Nissan)

Connectivity

Rinspeed announced a partnership with Bamboo Apps to build a series of applications that will enable users to control the microSNAP reconfigurable autonomous vehicle. (Virtual Strategy)
Blackberry acquired cyber security firm Cylance. (ZDNet)
Hyundai and Kia will use Vodafone for connected vehicle infrastructure in Europe. (KIA)

Other

Parking platform ParkWhiz increased its Series D round to $25 million. (ParkWhiz)
Mobile car servicing provider Zippity raised $2.6 million from investors, including BP. (Zippity)

Find our archive here.

Auto Industry Briefing — week ending 11th November 2018

November 13, 2018 Ad Punctum TeamAd Punctum, Automotive0

GM planning in a vacuum; lidar companies opening up; and when is it a good idea not to give the customer what they want? Please enjoy our auto industry and mobility briefing for 5^th November to 11^th November. A PDF version can be found here.

Favourite stories of the past week…?

Wasn’t Expecting That — GM want to be the leader in electrification but don’t think there are going to be full size battery electric pick-up trucks any time soon. They might recall that Elon Musk has other ideas, can they really be planning not to respond?
Choices — Velodyne have written a blog post this week about why their technology is superior, as have Ouster (backing their approach, not Velodyne’s). Although much of the discussion appears aimed at investors, the level of technical content being openly shared is (from my point of view) getting better and better. If a real battle of ideas gets going, perhaps it might invite some thorough independent benchmarking..?
Way Too Much — Volvo’s subscription service is exceeding expectations. In fact, it is doing so well that Volvo have decided to ration cars and put people on a waiting list rather than annoy dealers by depriving them of too many sales. But what is the point of a disruptive new sales model if you fear upsetting the status quo? And what happens when someone comes along who isn’t?

News is arranged by company and topic. Stories that apply to more than one company or topic are duplicated.

Find our archive here.

News about the major automakers

Released financial results for Q3 2018. BMW delivered 592,303 vehicles, up 0.3% on a year-over-year basis. Revenue increased 3.3% YoY to €21.1 billion but group profit before tax fell (26)% to €1.8 billion. (BMW)
Started selling battery packs and electric motors to Turkish bus maker Karsan, who will use them to make a small bus for urban use. BMW also supply Deutsche Post’s StreetScooter with batteries. (BMW)
When asked about the possibility of more cooperation with other industry players, BMW executives stressed the difficulty in coordinating timing of new products so that all participating companies benefitted from them at similar times. They were happier to share mobility services. (Seeking Alpha)
Already planning the localisation of a further product in China after X2, but didn’t say which. (Seeking Alpha)
The EU approved the merger of BMW and Daimler’s car sharing assets, subject to measures to protect competition in six cities. (Reuters)

Daimler ^(history)

Daimler will launch a driverless ride hailing pilot in San José, California in partnership with Bosch. The service will use modified S-Class limousines and be offered to “a selected user community”. (Daimler)
The EU approved the merger of BMW and Daimler’s car sharing assets, subject to measures to protect competition in six cities. (Reuters)
Said that new facilities at the Kamenz, Germany battery plant were ready to produce parts for EQC. (Daimler)

FCA ^(history)

An investor called for FCA to sell its European operations, spin off Alfa Romeo and Maserati and then merge its US operations with Ford or GM. (Detroit Free Press)

Ferrari

Reported financial results for Q3 2018. Revenue of €838 million was almost unchanged from a year earlier although shipments of 2,262 units were 11% higher. Adjusted EBIT of €203 million was 0.4% higher. (Ferrari)

Acquired bicycle and scooter rental firm Spin. (Ford)
Will present updates to its “fitness” initiatives at a conference on 13^th November, focusing on complexity management; capital equipment reuse and; yield management. (Ford)
Closing the Warley, UK site by the end of 2019 and consolidating administrative functions at the Dunton location. Ford hopes that 350 new homes will be built on the location. (BBC)
Redesigned the entire “soundscape” of the new Lincoln Aviator to create 125 sounds recorded by concert musicians to replace the “dings and beeps” regular Ford customers must contend with. These were then whittled down to 25 through focus group testing. (Detroit Free Press)

Geely Holding is working on a joint research project that aims to create supersonic trains. (Geely)
Volvo’s subscription service is proving so popular that the brand has starting rationing vehicles and there is now a waiting list into 2019. Although Volvo hasn’t disclosed figures, it says the scheme beat its first year target within four months and has been capped at 10% of vehicle sales (against around 15% demand). (Automotive News)

GM believes air transport will become integrated with autonomous vehicles and leverage similar electric power technology but that in the near future (and the next “couple of decades”) gasoline will dominate North America sales. The firm is not intending for there to be “any AV/EV pickups”. (Detroit Free Press)
- Significance: GM might find that if Tesla successfully execute the pick-up truck Elon Musk has promised for the early 2020s, it has no choice but to revisit these statements.
Moving three quarters of the employees at the Pontiac propulsion development centre to the main technical campus in Warren, Michigan, raising speculation over the future of the site. (Detroit Free Press)
Transferring 200 workers from the Lansing plant (cars) to Flint (pick up trucks). (ABC12)

Invested a further $250 million in Grab and agreed a series of joint projects to better use electric vehicles in providing ride hailing services. (Hyundai)
Invested in machine vision company allegro.ai. (ai)
Senior Kia executives called on employees to “overcome the crisis of today” through “self-help”. (Yonhap)
Hyundai’s forthcoming large SUV will be called Palisade and is set to feature eight seats. (Hyundai)

Mazda

Intends for future powertrain developments to improve driving performance as well as fuel economy. (Reuters)
Recalling 640,000 vehicles because of problems with the valve springs in the engine. (Reuters)

Nissan reported financial results for the second quarter of the financial year (Q3 2018). Revenue of 2.8 trillion yen (about $24.7 billion) fell (2.7)% on a year-over-year basis. Operating income of 101 billion yen (about $890 million) fell (21)% YoY. (Nissan)
Nissan will make a new small van, called the NV250, based on Renault’s Kangoo and produced in Maubeuge, France. Mitsubishi will launch a 1 ton van based on the Renault Trafic to be manufactured in Sandouville. (Renault)
The Alliance Ventures VC unit invested in Canadian multi-modal app Transit. (Renault)
Mitsubishi reported financial results for the second quarter of the financial year (Q3 2018). Revenue of 1.2 trillion yen (about $10.2 billion) was up 23.4% on a year-over-year basis whilst operating income of 56.9 billion yen (about $500 million) was up 28.6% YoY. (Mitsubishi)
Mitsubishi believe that plug-in hybrids will not be cost effective for a few years and that 60 miles EV-only range will be the standard in the next generation. (Autocar)
Magazine tests suggested that Infiniti’s new variable compression engine wasn’t having quite the fuel economy benefit that was hoped for. (Green Car Reports)
Opened a new technical centre in St Petersburg, Russia, that houses 120 staff. (Nissan)

PSA (includes Opel/Vauxhall)

Declared that Opel was “back on course” following its restructuring plan. Opel has reduced senior management ranks by one quarter, cut fixed costs by 28% and says that sharing platforms with PSA has reduced the cost of new models by up to 50%. (Opel)
Peugeot’s scooter plant will shut down until the end of the year. (Usine Nouvelle)

Will make two new products for Nissan and Mitsubishi, improving plant utilisation and return on IP and manufacturing facilities. Nissan will get a Kangoo-based small van called NV250 from Maubeuge and Mitsubishi will have a Trafic-based one ton van from Sandouville. (Renault)
The Alliance Ventures VC unit invested in Canadian multi-modal app Transit. (Renault)

CEO Speth called for better cooperation between governments and industry to create standards for self-driving cars, especially in the domain of keeping information private whilst enabling connected services. (Reuters)
InMotion Ventures invested in Transit, the multi-modal app also backed by Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi. (JLR) It also backed Arc, an early stage start-up hoping to bring an all-electric motorbike to production. (JLR)

Announced that existing director Robyn Denholm has been appointed as Tesla’s new board chair. Once she has served the six month notice period with her current employer, she will take on the role full time. (Tesla)
A survey of electric car owners suggested that Tesla has a customer loyalty rate (i.e. a Tesla owner who intends to buy a Tesla as their next car) of over 80% in North America and Europe. (Clean Technica)

Reported financial results for the 2^nd quarter of the financial year (Q3 2018). Sales of 2.18 million units were up marginally on a year-over-year basis. Revenue of 7.3 trillion yen (about $64.3 billion) was up 2% and operating income of 579 billion yen (about $5.1 billion) rose 11%. Toyota increased the full year outlook to an operating income of 2.4 trillion yen (about $21 billion). (Toyota)

Unveiled the Tarok, a near-production car based pick-up destined for South American markets. (VW)
Having previously referred numerous times to a price target for its ID car that was comparable to an “equivalent” diesel, the company is reportedly planning an entry level BEV that will retail at under €20,000. (CNBC)
Reportedly planning to cease production of Passat in Germany by 2022 and manufacture electric cars at the Emden plant instead (having only recently moved Passat there). (Bloomberg)
Porsche Consulting published a “success formula” for cultural transformation. Since two of the steps are “decision making” and “risk taking”, could this be a bid for VW group’s much heralded transformation? (Porsche Consulting)
SEAT is going to start selling an electric scooter (a rebadged Segway model) that will retail at €599. (SEAT)

Other

Aston Martin’s CEO thinks “the internal combustion engine and, in particular, the gasoline engine still has a lot of life left in it”. (CNBC)
Danish firm Biomega unveiled the SIN electric car. The targeted release date is in the 2021 – 2023 timeframe and will include 20 kWh of battery power (of which 6 kWh is removable) for €20,000. (Biomega)
Subaru reported financial results for the first half of the financial year (Q2 & Q3 2018). Sales volumes, revenue and profits were all down versus a year earlier and the company reduced its full year guidance. (Subaru) The carmaker also expanded an existing recall to cover 530,000 vehicles. (Subaru)
Workhorse reported Q3 2018 financial results. Revenue was $11,000. (Workhorse)
VinFast announced a pricing policy that includes zero depreciation, zero financing costs and zero interest rates on all electric motorbikes and cars, in effect discounting come products by 40%. (Vietnam News)
The Nedcar plant suspended several employees after random drink and drugs tests showed they were in no state to work. (Dutch News)

News about other companies and trends

Economic / Political News

Brazil re-established incentives for ethanol powered vehicles and local production that had expired in 2017. (Reuters)
BMW, VW and Daimler each agreed to offer €3,000 for hardware that will improve emissions of existing diesel vehicles, although BMW positioned it as compensation rather than a contribution to the cost of the updates. None of the companies intends to develop the solutions themselves. (Bloomberg)
UK passenger car registrations in October of 153,599 units fell (2.9)% on a year earlier. (SMMT)

Suppliers

Faurecia invested in wireless charging supplier PowerSphyr. (PowerSphyr)
Delphi reported financial results for Q3 2018, including revenue of $1.2 billion. (Delphi)
Schaeffler announced the closure of two UK plants. The company said that although Brexit wasn’t the only deciding factor, it hadn’t helped. (BBC)
Magna reported Q3 2018 revenue of $9.6 billion and operating profit of $674 million. (Magna)
Continental released financial results for Q3 2018 and said that it would be sticking with the recently downgraded forecast for the rest of the year. (Continental) The firm is investing in new equipment at the Winchester, Virginia, fabrics factory. (Continental)

Taxify’s CEO hopes to grow by ten times in the next two years, with much of the growth coming from operations in Africa and believes it can become the European market leader. (Reuters) He also said that he believes the company can become 100 times larger than it is today. (CNBC)
Lyft removed an option that lets users split a far between them, saying an improved version would be coming along in a while (but for some reason stopping the current system now). (Business Insider)
Hyundai and Kia invested a further $250 million in Grab and agreed a series of joint projects to better use electric vehicles in providing ride hailing services. (Hyundai)
Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi and JLR invested in Canadian multi-modal app Transit. (Renault)
The EU approved the merger of BMW and Daimler’s car sharing assets, subject to measures to protect competition in six cities. (Reuters)

Driverless / Autonomy ^(history)

Ouster published a blog post arguing the merits of the 850 nm wavelength and saying that its lidar had been designed to scale with improvements in chip technology, meaning a 640 line system is “extremely likely” in future. (Ouster)
One of Waymo’s cars crashed into a motorcyclist. The company blamed the human driver and that the automated system would have avoided the incident, even though the safety driver had only recently taken over because they were concerned that the actions of a car in front were too difficult for the automated system to deal with. (Waymo)
Optimus Ride said it would use Nvidia’s hardware for self-driving vehicles, starting immediately. (Optimus Ride)
ComfortDelGro will start trials of driverless vehicles using equipment supplied by EasyMile. (Channel News Asia)
The inaugural season of Roborace seems set to use human drivers for half of each race. (Engadget)
Luminar says it now has contracts with 16 OEMs and is in detailed discussions with 16 more. (TechCrunch)
Velodyne published a blog post highlighting what they see as a number of drawbacks with the 1550 nm wavelength for lidar units, much-vaunted by some companies because it allows higher powered lasers to be used whilst remaining eye-safe. Velodyne argue 1550 nm can have worse impacts on eyes in some circumstances; are worse in rain, fog and snow than 905 nm lidars (Velodyne’s chosen wavelength) — a weakness that is offset by increasing power. Finally, Velodyne argues that 1550 nm units are inherently more costly due to the componentry required, something not all lidar developers accept as fact. (Velodyne)
- Significance: Whilst the main audience of the article appears to be investors who are being wowed by the claims of Velodyne competitors operating at 1550 nm, there seems to be something of a change of heart going on in the lidar community at present with companies (e.g Ouster, Velodyne and Quanergy) becoming more and more willing to discuss their technical solutions. Next stop, performance benchmarks?
Daimler will launch a driverless ride hailing pilot in San José, California in partnership with Bosch. The service will use modified S-Class limousines and be offered to “a selected user community”. (Daimler)

Mitsubishi believe that plug-in hybrids will not be cost effective for a few years and that 60 miles EV-only range will be the standard in the next generation. (Autocar)
Nikola showed off a European version of its fuel cell truck saying that it was planning to have 700 North American hydrogen (production and) filling stations by 2028 and was sitting on an order bank worth $11 billion. (Nikola)
Further to previous announcements that it would use existing telecoms infrastructure to create electric charging stations, Deutsche Telekom said that its stations could support 11kW charging and would also build fast charging stations that provided 150 kW charging. (Economic Times of India)
Battery developer TIAX says its technology can reduce the amount of cobalt needed for batteries by four-fifths and a major automaker has already committed to use it. (Bloomberg)
GM believes gasoline will dominate North America sales for the “next couple of decades”. The firm is not intending for there to be “any AV/EV pickups”. (Detroit Free Press)

Other

Panasonic announced a collaboration with Kent to adapt its Japanese e-bikes to the US market. (Panasonic) The firm is also looking into making IoT connected bikes with Mobike. (Panasonic)
SoftBank is reportedly considering an investment in HelloChuxing. (Deal Street Asia)
Lime is retiring scooters made by Chinese supplier Okai because they are susceptible to stress fractures. (The Verge)
Harley-Davidson showed off the production version of the LiveWire electric motorbike. (TechCrunch)

Find our archive here.

Auto Industry Briefing — week ending 4th November 2018

November 6, 2018 Ad Punctum TeamAd Punctum, Automotive0

Cars powered by the sun; subscription services shutting down; and OEMs spend too much money on the wrong things. Please enjoy our auto industry and mobility briefing for 29^th October to 4^th November. A PDF version can be found here.

Favourite stories of the past week…?

Good Day Sunshine — Hyundai and Kia are going to put solar panels on mass-production cars. Depending on how you read it, the news either fuels solar sceptics (Hyundai’s forecast electricity generation is too meagre to power a car on the move); or gives hope to solar supporters (Hyundai will harvest a fair amount of energy without either optimising the body to carry the cells, or covering all available areas of the vehicle). Who will be right?
Own It — Cadillac are shutting down their subscription scheme in the US and Hyundai are ending their all-inclusive electric vehicle offering. The search for a sustainable way of giving customers flexibility without sending them off to the major rental fleets continues. Carmakers are learning that people don’t want to pay nearly $2,000 a month just to have a sort of flexible lease on an 18-month-old car, but wasn’t that a bit obvious? Why not approach trials differently and find the compelling price point, then get fresh impetus to work out the supply side kinks that are building in too much cost (ahem: it’s depreciation & maintenance)?
You Keep It All In — FCA’s new CEO says in an economic downturn he will cut spending on all sorts of new product programs, except powertrain. But don’t customers normally care more about the look and feel of the car than the powertrain? The reason that engine development is such a burden has less to do with regulatory change; it’s really a reflection of carmakers’ inability to share engines and transmissions on a multilateral basis, causing continuous development of bespoke powertrain solutions that somehow don’t feel very different when you drive them. How long can this go on?

News is arranged by company and topic. Stories that apply to more than one company or topic are duplicated.

Find our archive here.

News about the major automakers

Will produce battery packs for the electric Mini at the Dingolfing, Germany plant. (BMW)

FCA ^(history)

Reported financial results for Q3 2018. Revenues of €28.7 billion were up 9% on a year-over-year basis. Adjusted EBIT of €1.995 billion was up 13% Despite the good news, FCA took down the full year guidance for net cash by €1 billion – €1.5 billion because it intends to reduce European dealer stocks. FCA has set aside $811 million to settle US claims relating to diesel emissions. (FCA)
When asked about potential actions in the face of an economic downturn, new CEO Manley said FCA would cut back on program spending, particularly refresh actions for models that seemed to be holding their own in the market but would preserve powertrain and technology investments already in the plan. (Seeking Alpha)
FCA’s “aim” is now to complete its five-year plan as an independent, rather than seeking a merger. (Seeking Alpha)
New CEO Manley wants FCA’s Ram pick-up to have the second largest US market share and might change the previously announced plan to stop making the vehicle in Mexico. (Reuters)
Recalling 86,000 SUVs in the USA to correct a potential engine stall. (FCA)

Reportedly in talks with Ineos to repurpose part or all of the Bridgend Engine plant to manufacture the Projekt Grenadier vehicle starting in 2019. (Financial Times)
Improved parental leave for US salaried employees so that mothers can have 16 weeks fully paid time off and fathers can have eight weeks, up from two weeks paid leave previously. (Fortune)
Discovered using big data that loyal customers are better than disloyal ones. Cynics had a field day. (AutoExtremist)
VW’s CFO said the firm is open to sharing its MEB electric vehicle platform with companies such as Ford but remains focused on internal applications. (Reuters)
Started jointly testing autonomous vehicles in China with Baidu. (Ford)

Volvo is partnering with Baidu to create customised, fully electric autonomous cars that will be sold by both companies in China. (Volvo)
Volvo’s deal to supply XC90 cars that will be used in autonomous ride-hailing by Uber is “back on track” according to the firm’s CEO. (FT)
Geely purchased a US racetrack (it had already been managing the site on a short term basis). (Road and Track)

Reported financial results for Q3 2018. Revenue of $35.8 billion rose 6.4% from a year earlier. Adjusted EBIT of $3.2 billion was 28% better than prior year. GM said Cruise recent run rate of cash spending was between $100 million – $200 million per quarter. (GM)
Believes that the methods of measuring the safety of autonomous vehicles are a “competitive advantage” and so it won’t disclose details of its approach. (Seeking Alpha)
- Implication: Given the need to satisfy a publicly-funded regulator in an environment of intense scrutiny, it will be interesting to see how sustainable GM’s approach of giving little away will be.
Said that Cruise will still spend around $1 billion in the full year, implying cash outlay of about $500 million in Q4 (a significant increase in trend rate) but that it wasn’t based on increases in the fleet size or a new testing location that explained the difference, leaving analysts scratching their heads. (Seeking Alpha)
Stopping two substantial renovation projects in Michigan and offering voluntary redundancy packages to around 18,000 salaried staff in the US in a bid to weather “an eventual downturn in the economy”. GM will consider involuntary redundancies if not enough staff sign up. (Reuters)
Launching two e-bikes and running a competition to decide the brand name. (GM)
Suspending Cadillac’s subscription pilot. Off-the-record sources blamed the high costs of delivering different vehicles all the time, Cadillac said it wanted to study the “insights” from the program. (The Verge)
Said that it was not economically feasible for US fleet fuel economy to reach 50 mpg by 2025 but that it would support improvements based on historic trend rates of progress. (Reuters)

Honda ^(history)

Reported financial results for Q3 2018 (Honda’s fiscal Q2). Revenue of 3.84 trillion yen (about $34 billion) was up 1.7% on a year earlier and operating profit of 214 billion yen (about $1.9 billion) was up 40.2%. (Honda)
Building a plant in China for new energy vehicles with GAC. (Reuters)

Hyundai launched a $100 million VC fund focused on hydrogen technology in partnership with BTIRDI. (Hyundai)
Hyundai is discontinuing its all-inclusive “Unlimited+” electric car leasing program because of a “whole range of factors” (presumably because it wasn’t making any money). (Green Car Reports)
Will offer solar roofs on vehicles from 2019, intending to progress from a first-generation model that is integrated into the roof structure; and a second generation that will be semi-transparent and can therefore be used in panoramic roofs. A version for battery electric vehicles is still under development and Hyundai hope it will ultimately be used on bonnets and roofs. Hyundai claim the roof mounted system can harvest enough electricity to charge a hybrid battery (presumably low teens of kWh) to between 30% and 60% over a day. (Hyundai)
Recalling around 10,600 Ioniq hybrids and plug-ins to replace componentry that could cause fires. (Bakersfield Now)
Kia says it will break even on European sales of battery electric vehicles within two to three years. (Autocar)

Mazda

Reported financial results for first half of the 2018/19 financial year. Sales of 796,000 units were up 2% on a year-over-year basis. Revenue of 1.7 trillion yen (about $15 billion) rose 4% YoY but profit before tax of 50 billion yen (about $440 million) was down (43)% YoY. Mazda cut its full year outlook. (Mazda)

The Alliance Ventures VC unit invested in Chinese self-driving technology start-up WeRide.ai. (Nissan)

The Alliance Ventures VC unit invested in Chinese self-driving technology start-up WeRide.ai. (Nissan)

Subaru

Recalling over 400,000 cars to fix valve springs that could cause engine stalls. (Newsweek)

Suzuki

Reported financial results for Q3 2018 (Suzuki’s fiscal Q2). Year to date revenue of 1.9 trillion yen (~$17 billion) was up 5.4% and operating income of 198 billion yen (~$1.7 billion) was up 14.8%, both versus the prior year. The firm raised its full year guidance. (Suzuki)

Tata Motors reported financial results for Q3 2018 (the second quarter of its financial year). Sales volumes of 322,914 units were up 4.4% on a year earlier and revenue of 72,112 Cr INR (about $9.9 billion) rose 3.3%, nevertheless, EBIT of 1,257 Cr INR (about $160 million) fell (62.6)% YoY, more than explained by JLR’s performance. The brand lost £(90) million in the three month period, saying sales had fallen and citing particular weakness in China. JLR said it would launch a turnaround plan. (Tata)
JLR thinks the growth of electric vehicles will lead to buildings being covered in greenery. (Autocar)
Opening a 100-person engineering centre in Hungary in early 2019. (JLR)
Researching ways to reduce motion sickness through adjusting vehicle settings once the car is on the move. (JLR)
- Implication: Travel sickness is a little-considered problem in most vehicle purchases since they are often driver-centric decisions and the impact on the passengers is normally left to chance. In a world of autonomous driving however, ride comfort will take precedence and JLR is right to be working seriously on this area now, although its initial recommendation to avoid reading and doing emails is something of a no-brainer.

Will soon release an update to enable limited low speed autonomy, primarily for parking but also, per CEO Musk, updated cars will “follow you like a pet” if you walk around whilst holding down a button in your app (the car tracks your phone location). Expect a rash of videos by YouTube influencers leading their pet Teslas on hysterical adventures in the coming weeks. (Twitter)
GM’s CEO thinks it is “highly possible” that Tesla will be around in 10 years. (Reuters) Tesla’s CEO says Ford has a “good chance” of failing in the next recession. (Detroit Free Press)
Booked $190 million in regulatory credits in Q3 2018. (Reuters)
CEO Musk said the design of Tesla’s forthcoming pick-up truck will be “futuristic-like cyberpunk”. Producers of online renderings if Model X’s with pick-up beds wondered if they had wasted their time. (Inverse)
Plans a partial presence in India, Africa and South America by the end of 2019 and believes that region sourcing (i.e. from the same continent) is “critical” to affordable pricing. (Economic Times of India)
CEO Musk is anti-electric scooter but open to electric bicycle production. (TechCrunch)

Launching a new car subscription service in Japan called Kinto, although details were scarce, Toyota envisages an all-inclusive monthly payment and some ability for users to switch cars. (Toyota)
Announced the plan for the staged replacement of its four different Japanese dealer brands with a single network by 2025. (Toyota)
Toyota cars are included in Subaru’s recall of over 400,000 cars to fix an engine stall issue. (Newsweek)

Released financial results for Q3 2018. Although vehicle sales fell (3.6)% versus a year earlier to 2,548,000 units, revenues improved 0.9% to €55.2 billion. Operating profit before special items of €3.5 billion was down (18.6)%, although profits were up once special items were included. VW said it was almost on track to meet full-year group projections, if you ignored special items. (VW)
Reportedly working on a long-term plan that will transfer much of Audi’s research budget to collaborations and reduce the brand’s role in leading the development of new technologies such as autonomy. (Reuters)
Will operate a self-driving ride hailing service in Israel in partnership with Intel and Champion Motors. The project will start pilot operations in 2019 and aims to run a commercial service by 2022. (Intel)
VW’s CFO said the firm is open to sharing its MEB electric vehicle platform but remains focused on internal applications. He also said the firm wants access to a self-driving system and is “speaking with relevant players”, despite its tie-up with Aurora. (Reuters)
Being sued by chipmaker Broadcom for $1 billion over alleged patent infringement in VW’s navigation and entertainment systems. The suit asks a judge to suspend production of VW group vehicles. (Handelsblatt)
Bentley’s CEO said the brand has already made changes to its logistics operations ahead of Brexit and was considering longer than usual shutdowns at Christmas and Easter. He has recently changed the long-term plan to increase the amount of electrification under development. (Reuters)

Other

Ineos is reportedly in talks with Ford to repurpose part or all of the Bridgend Engine plant to manufacture the Projekt Grenadier vehicle starting in 2019. (Financial Times)
Morgan are planning a new flagship model, to be priced against the Aston Martin Vantage, that will enter production in the mid-2020s and have 30 people working on the project. (Autocar)
Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus announced a new factory in Connecticut, USA. (Motor1)
Hispano Suiza is planning a relaunch at the 2019 Geneva show with an all-electric supercar. (Hispano Suiza)
Faraday Future said that in addition to previously announced redundancies it has asked some staff to take unpaid leave until the end of the year; the company’s co-founder has left. (Reuters)
VinFast launched electric scooter production, saying there are four more models on the way. (SGGP)

News about other companies and trends

Economic / Political News

US light vehicle SAAR in October was 17.46 million units, down (3)% on a year earlier. (Wards)
German passenger car registrations in October reached 252,682 units, down (7.4)% on prior year. (KBA)
October passenger car registrations in Italy of 146,655 units were down (7.4)% versus a year earlier. (UNRAE)
Spanish passenger car registrations in October totalled 88,410 units, down (6.6)% on a year earlier. (ANFAC)
There were 173,799 French passenger car registrations in October, down (1.5)% on a year earlier. (CCFA)
China is considering reductions on new car sales tax to increase demand. (Bloomberg)

Suppliers

Denso announced financial results for calendar Q3 2018. On a YTD basis. revenue is up 11.1%. (Denso)
Denso acquired EASE, a simulation and diagnostics provider. (Denso)
Johnson Controls will reportedly sell its power solutions business, which includes car batteries to Brookfield for between $13 billion – $14 billion. (Reuters)
Liberty House will buy three European steel plants from ArcelorMittal. (Deal Street Asia)
Abris Capital took a majority stake in Polish engineering services provider CADM. (Abris)
Schaeffler said volatile market conditions had harmed Q3 2018 financial results and consequentially the full year outlook had deteriorated. (Schaeffler)
Continental acquired antenna-maker Kathrein Automotive for an undisclosed sum. (Continental) It also purchased the anti-vibration technology business of Cooper Standard. (Continental)
Mahle opened a new plant for electric air conditioning compressors in Hungary. (Mahle)

Uber announced a trial of a new subscription plan that let’s users avoid surge pricing. (Vox)
Grab raised $200 million fromcom’s parent. (Deal Street Asia)
Lime said it will start a car sharing scheme with Renault Twizy-style electric cars. (TechCrunch)
MyTaxi is planning to launch an electric scooter rental scheme. (TechCrunch)
Lyft announced a tie-up with carpooling app Scoop that lets Scoop users request a Lyft car if their carpooling arrangements fall over. (TechCrunch)
- Implication: Lyft continues to find niche adjacencies for its services and partner with companies that can benefit from on-demand ride hailing in cases where their mainstream processes don’t work.

Driverless / Autonomy ^(history)

FAW’s Hongqi (Red Flag) brand will launch a L4 car at the end of 2019 in partnership with Baidu. (Reuters)
Waymo is the first company to be granted a Californian permit for driverless car testing without a safety driver inside the vehicle. It already operates cars without safety drivers in Arizona. (Reuters)
Uber requested permission to resume self-driving vehicle testing with safety drivers. (Business Insider) and released a safety report containing information about its self-driving program. Despite Uber’s efforts to provide greater detail than some of its peers have in their own safety reports, there are still gaps between the published document and best practice, for instance, Uber’s section on quality processes does not mention anything around sub-supplier selection to remove sources of underlying common hardware / software failures (by using completely different componentry) in different parts of the system (to improve redundancy). (Uber)
Sensible 4 showed off an autonomous bus designed by Muji that it says will be in operation by 2020. (Sensible 4)
Quanergy completed a Series C round that valued the business at over $2 billion. (Quanergy)
Baidu believes that you will soon be able to sing karaoke and eat hot pot in autonomous cars. (Bloomberg)
- Implication: Since chauffeur-driven vehicles today don’t offer in-car cooking we can only assume that this is either hyperbole or Baidu has some fancy new food preparation technology it is yet to show off.
Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi’s VC unit invested in Chinese self-driving technology start-up WeRide.ai. (Nissan)
Volvo’s deal to supply XC90 cars that will be used in autonomous ride-hailing by Uber is “back on track” according to the firm’s CEO. (FT)
VW will operate a self-driving ride hailing service in Israel in partnership with Intel and Champion Motors. The project will start pilot operations in 2019 and aims to run a commercial service by 2022. (Intel)
Volvo is partnering with Baidu to create customised, fully electric autonomous cars that will be sold by both companies in China. (Volvo)
Ford started jointly testing autonomous vehicles in China with Baidu. (Ford)