Monthly Archives: May 2019

Stingy electric car charging stations; buy-what-you-see car showrooms; and can FCA and Renault do a deal without Nissan? Please enjoy our auto industry and mobility briefing for 20^th May to 26^th May 2019. A PDF version can be found here.

Before you read the detail, what were my favourite stories of the past week…?

• Juice — Tesla’s great idea to reduce queues at charging stations is… let them charge less. Is the company losing its edge in terms of customer focus with such old-world solutions?
• Price Tag — Lynk&Co’s showrooms will be different because everything in there will be for sale: cars; sofas and coffee cups. But, aside from a PR talking point, how much of a difference does this make? Can anyone remember leaving a car showroom wishing they had bought the waiting room chairs too?
• You Belong With Me — FCA and Renault have gone public on their merger talks. As the first big automotive deal is the offing for many years, it is certain to get lots of attention. But does it really make sense? In Europe, FCA looks weak (especially with CO₂ headwinds) whilst Renault is no more than so-so. In North America, Jeep and Ram are going great guns but the synergy with Renault’s business appears limited. The question really is… does this deal need Nissan to join the party if it is going to make sense?

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

Find our archive here.

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News about the major automakers

BMW ^(history)

• Says that it will only participate in motorsport which relates to core brand values such as electrification (Formula E) and handling (DTM touring cars). (BMW)
• Launching an electric scooter with a 12km range that will retail for €800. (BMW)
• Recalling a small number of i3 models for electronic components that could cause a shutdown. (Green Car Reports)
• The BMW / Daimler mobility joint venture acquired Validated, a service for companies to subsidise travel costs for employees and customers. (Validated)
• There was media speculation that CEO Harald Krüger might not have his contract renewed. (Business Times)

Daimler ^(history)

• Opening a new factory making truck cabins in Russia. (Daimler)
• The BMW / Daimler mobility joint venture acquired Validated, a service for companies to subsidise travel costs for employees and customers. (Validated)

FCA ^(history)

• Made a public proposal (FCA stressed it was not an offer) for a 50:50 merger with Renault, following weeks of secret meetings between executives of the two firms. FCA estimates that a combined business could save €5 billion annually by 2025, mainly in the fields of purchasing, R&D efficiency and manufacturing economies of scale. The firm foresees €3 billion – €4 billion of implementation costs. FCA says that since it is worth more, its shareholders will have to be paid a €2.5 billion special dividend. (FCA)
  • Significance: Although many welcomed the move, FCA appear to have an optimistic view of their worth, especially given the tough European CO₂ outlook which the company is poorly positioned to weather.
• CEO Mike Manley told employees that even if a merger with Renault went ahead, it could take a year. (Reuters)

Ford ^(history)

• US insurance data shows that, as promised, the aluminium-bodied F-150 pick-up is no more expensive to repair than steel-bodied rivals. In fact, repair costs are about 7% lower. (Automotive News)
• Despite reducing the production footprint and portfolio in Russia, Ford’s joint venture hopes that 99% of dealers will continue with the brand. (World News Monitor)
• Ford wants to use fold-up robots to deliver packages. They will sit in the boot/trunk when not in use. (Ford)

Geely (includes Volvo) ^(history)

• Everything in Lynk&Co showrooms will be for sale, including sofas and coffee cups. (Automotive News)
• Volvo wants to sell 10,000 cars in South Korea this year. (Korea Times)
• Will use voice recognition from Nuance for in-car assistants. (Nuance)

General Motors ^(history)

• Will reduce the number of cities in which the Maven car sharing scheme operates from 17 to nine, saying that it wants to focus on demand and growth. (Wall Street Journal)

Honda ^(history)

• Recalling 137,000 SUVs to fix problems (unrelated to Takata) with the airbags. (Reuters)
• Claims 25,000 expressions of interest for the Honda e electric city car. (Express)

Hyundai / Kia ^(history)

• Received over 17,000 pre-orders from Indian customers for the Venue SUV. (Autocar)
• Hyundai’s executive vice chairman says the company needs to focus on customers more and look at what competitors are doing less, citing a need to boost R&D efficiency as the greatest challenge. (Hyundai)
• Kia showed some sketches of what the interior of the next generation small SUV will look like. The designers should probably expect a call from BMW. (Kia)

Nissan (includes Mitsubishi) ^(history)

• FCA says that if the proposed merger with Renault went ahead, Nissan and Mitsubishi would save €1 billion per year on top of current alliance plans. (FCA)
• Mitsubishi will reportedly change the sizes of SUVs in the next generation to create a gap of around 200mm between the overall lengths of different models. (Autocar)

PSA (includes Opel/Vauxhall) ^(history)

• Released pictures of the next generation Corsa. (Opel)
• 1,340 German engineering staff have apparently agreed to take voluntary redundancy from Opel. (Handelsblatt)

Renault ^(history)

• FCA Made a public proposal (FCA stressed it was not an offer) for a 50:50 merger with Renault, following weeks of secret meetings between executives of the two firms. FCA estimates that a combined business could save €5 billion annually by 2025, mainly in the fields of purchasing, R&D efficiency and manufacturing economies of scale. The firm foresees €3 billion – €4 billion of implementation costs. FCA says that since it is worth more, its shareholders will have to be paid a €2.5 billion special dividend. (FCA)
• Renault’s board said they will study the FCA proposal with interest. (Renault)
• France’s finance minister said the status quo of the Renault-Nissan alliance was harming Renault. (Reuters)

Tata (includes JLR) ^(history)

• Reported full year financial results for the year ending March 2019. Revenue of 301 KCr (about $43 billion) rose 3.7% on a year-over-year basis, JLR’s revenue fell (6.1)% with Tata Motors up 20.3%. There was a full year loss of (1.720) KCr but JLR had some good news: 4^th quarter free cash flow of £1.4 billion. (Tata)
• JLR’s CFO is leaving, to be replaced by the chief transformation officer. (JLR)
• Started talks with factory workers in Coventry about job losses when production of the XJ ends in the summer. JLR confirmed that the nameplate will continue. (Birmingham Mail)

Tesla ^(history)

• CEO Elon Musk told employees that there had been more than 50,000 orders in the second quarter so far and that the current production rate of Model 3 was about 900 cars per day. (Business Insider)
• An investment analyst says he has it on good authority that Apple wanted to buy Tesla for $240 a share in 2013, and that the interest may be re-ignited given recent falls in Tesla’s share price. (CNBC)
• Will only let owners charge until their batteries are 80% full at some charging stations, to reduce queues. Tesla says that charging less, together with higher peak charging rates, will increase capacity by 34%. (Economic Times of India)

VW Group ^(history)

• Scania will spend $344 million to upgrade a truck factory in Brazil. (Reuters)
• Created a service called We Experience to sell physical services located nearby to drivers. (VW)
• A VW board member said the company was in the process of detailed planning for a battery factory with Northvolt and might add further European locations. (Reuters)
• Audi’s on-demand short term rental service will have about 10,000 cars in the fleet by late 2019. (VW)
• Audi’s CEO says the brand will be the benchmark for electric cars in two to three years. (Manager Magazin)
• Audi will spend €40 billion on R&D and manufacturing assets between now and 2023, with €14 billion of that going towards electric vehicles, autonomous driving and digitalisation. (Audi)

Other

• Streetscooter will develop a hydrogen fuel cell delivery van alongside electric offerings. It will be based on the same Ford Transit chassis used for the Work XL. (DHL)

News about other companies and trends

Economic / Political News

• In elections for the European parliament, about 35% of UK voters supported no deal Brexit parties in what was seen by many as a proxy referendum. Politicians were left to ponder the significance. (BBC)

Suppliers

• Veoneer said it would raise $600 million – $700 million through a mix of new shares and debt. (Veoneer)
• First Sensor says it has been approached with a takeover offer by TE Connectivity. (Reuters)
• Denso expects $10 billion in annual revenue by 2025 from autonomous and mobility service offerings. (Denso)
• German regulators have given Bosch a €90 million fine for the firm’s role in the diesel scandal. (Manager Magazin)
• British Steel entered insolvency. (BBC)
• Denso invested in Quadric.io, a company developing a chip to control autonomous robots. (TechCrunch)
• Schaeffler’s CEO told staff that times are tough and will probably get even harder. (Handelsblatt)
• Continental opened a new centre dedicated to 3D printing in Germany (3^rd parties can use it too). (Continental)

Dealers

• Indian online used car marketplace Spinny raised $13.2 million. (Deal Street Asia)

Ride-Hailing, Car Sharing & Rental ^(history)

• Nigerian ride hailing firm Gokada raised $5.3 million. (TechCrunch)
• Consumer Reports found that one in six Uber and Lyft vehicles have outstanding safety recalls against them. It wasn’t clear what the rate is for the average private vehicle. (Auto Rental News)
• GM will reduce the number of cities in which the Maven car sharing scheme operates from 17 to nine, saying that it wants to focus on demand and growth. (Wall Street Journal)
• The BMW / Daimler mobility joint venture acquired Validated, a service for companies to subsidise travel costs for employees and customers. (Validated)

Driverless / Autonomy ^(history)

• Researchers say that autonomous cars operating as a swarm can reduce traffic by 35% compared to the same volume of manually-piloted vehicles. (BBC)
• TuSimple is undergoing trials with self-driving trucks for long distance routes in partnership with the US Postal Service, saying that it is targeting jobs that require multiple drivers. (Reuters)
• Aurora is buying lidar developer Blackmore. (Aurora)
• Immense Simulations, a maker of digital replicas of cities, raised $4.6 million. (Reuters)

Electrification ^(history)

• A study of UK consumers said only one in four would consider buying an all-electric car at present. Customers still seem to be conscious of range, and even if a reliable 300 mile range was on offer 10% of drivers said that they still wouldn’t be interested. (BBC)
• A VW board member said the company was in the process of detailed planning for a battery factory with Northvolt and might add further European locations. (Reuters)

Other

• Ravin.ai, a firm developing automated vehicle inspections (e.g. post rental) raised $4 million. (Auto Rental News)
• Bosch believes that air taxis will probably cost about $550,000, once mass production begins. (IEEE Spectrum)
• US bus company Gillig launched an all-electric bus with a 444 kWh pack. (Gillig)
• Bicycle rental firm Lime replaced its CEO. (TechCrunch)

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Life moving more slowly; hands-off highway driving by Nissan; and is Ford managing its restructuring the right way? Please enjoy our auto industry and mobility briefing for 13^th May to 19^th May 2019. A PDF version can be found here.

Before you read the detail, what were my favourite stories of the past week…?

• Slow Hand — After Volvo said top speeds would be restricted to 112 mph, news reaches us that the VW ID3 electric car won’t go beyond 100 mph. Beyond the headline-friendly safety rationale, a more plausible reason is energy efficiency (and cost). Designing a vehicle optimised for  lower top speeds brings benefits, for instance different gearing that improves fuel economy at lower speeds (and very few of us drive that fast anyway). Is 100 the new 130?
• Hands Up — Nissan says that next year it will start selling a car that will drive on the highway and the driver won’t need their hands on the wheel. But you still need to monitor the road in front and be ready to take the wheel at a moment’s notice. So can I really take my hands off the wheel?
• Forever Young — Ford is cutting 10% of staff and reducing the number of management grades (to nine). What isn’t clear with all this downsizing is how the organisation has taken steps to prevent a demographic time bomb. Ford’s executive team already looks old compared with the competition. Coincidence, or sign of things to come?

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

Find our archive here.

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News about the major automakers

BMW ^(history)

• Invested in on-demand manufacturing start-up Xometry. (FINSMES)
• Has simulated 240 million km (150 million miles) of autonomous driving so far. (BMW)
• Called off a plan to sponsor German football club Bayern Munich after Audi refused to end their deal early and then made an improved counteroffer. (Manager Magazin)
• Rumoured to be planning a switch for the next generation i8 to an all-electric powertrain. (Autocar)
• Confirmed that plans for a plant in Debreen, Hungary are unchanged. (Reuters)

Daimler ^(history)

• Following rumours that he might be planning to reduce Daimler’s involvement with Renault and Nissan, incoming CEO Källenius said “the intensity of cooperations will increase” as the company battles against rising product costs associated with electric cars. (Economic Times of India)
• Reorganised the financial services executive team to give more prominence to mobility. (Daimler)

FCA ^(history)

• Received a credit rating upgrade from Moody’s. (FCA)
• Maserati will be the first FCA brand to use self-driving technologies developed together with BMW. (Business Times)
• Maserati will drop Ferrari engines by the end of 2022. (Motor Authority)
• Recalling almost 210,000 vehicles to deal with wiring harness problems. (FCA) There is also a recall for about 485,000 pick-up trucks to fix tailgates that might open suddenly. (FCA)

Ford ^(history)

• CEO Hackett sent an email to employees telling them that 7,000 staff would be made redundant by August 2019 (including some job losses already announced), with 20% of senior managers going as part of an effort to reduce the number of management layers from 14 to nine. Hackett’s email shed some light on the current inefficiency at Ford as only 35% of managers currently have at least six people reporting directly to them (excluding subordinates of the direct reports), a level Ford sees as “healthy”. Even after the reorganisation, that number will only be 80%. (CNBC)
  • Significance: Even though Ford regards nine management layers as an improvement, eight should be enough (assuming the CEO as the top tier) if all managers had 6 or more direct reports. Since many management consultants recommend a direct report ratio of 1:8, some people may question whether Ford has gone far enough. It isn’t clear how well Ford will manage the ageing of the remaining workforce.
• Outgoing CFO Shanks said the company was not undergoing a normal restructuring and would very different (and be much stronger) when the task was completed. He believes that a 6% return over the cycle (not just peak year) is possible in Europe and says that since this includes a joint venture, return on invested capital would be great. (Ford)
• Ford will meet the CO₂ targets in Europe for 2020 and beyond with no fines or credit purchases, per outgoing CFO Bob Shanks. (Ford)
• Ford plans to increase the amount of locally produced Lincoln models sold in China. (Reuters)
• Ford-owned Autonomic will partner Fujitsu to develop cloud-based fleet management software and will then offer the service to other carmakers. (Telematics News)
• Ford executives believe that rivals are underestimating the benefit of hybrid vehicles and have become too obsessed with all-electric vehicles. (Detroit Free Press)
• Recalling about 275,000 vehicles in North America for two different gearbox problems. (Ford)
• Unions at Ford’s Bridgend plant believe that compulsory job cuts are looming because there are 1,500 employees and (they say) future production plans that support only 550 people. (Wales Online)

Geely (includes Volvo) ^(history)

• The CEO of Group Lotus says Porsche is the brand’s benchmark and target, but is wary of copying everything, for example committing to motorsport for the sake of it. (Autocar)
• Volvo started with a shortlist of 10 battery suppliers before narrowing to two. (Automotive News)
• By 2020, Volvo will have sufficient battery capacity secured for plug-in hybrids to make up 25% of overall production, should there be customer demand. (Bloomberg)
• Geely opened a new development centre in Germany and hopes to employ 500 people there soon. (Geely)
• Volvo and Polestar signed “multi-billion dollar” battery supply agreements with CATL and LG Chem. (Volvo)

General Motors ^(history)

• The Chevrolet Bolt is apparently selling well in South Korea, despite only being offered in a limited number of dealers. (Inside EVs)
• GM’s new electronic platform will be capable of collecting 4.5 TB of data per hour. (GM)

Honda ^(history)

• Taking orders for the Honda e electric city car, with deliveries set to start in summer 2018. (Honda)
• After earlier announcing a partnership, Honda has now led an £8.6 million investment round in Moixa. (Electrive)

Hyundai / Kia ^(history)

• Hyundai and Kia will invest a collective €80 million in electric car developer Rimac and will work with the Croatian company on high performance electric and fuel cell vehicles. Porsche took a 10% stake in Rimac last year. (Kia)
• Kia teased images of the new small SUV it plans to unveil in the summer. (Kia)

Nissan (includes Mitsubishi) ^(history)

• Nissan reported earnings for the fiscal year ended March 2019. Revenue of 11.6 trillion JPY (about $105 billion) dropped (3.2)% on a year-over-year basis whilst operating profit of 318 billion JPY (about $2.9 billion) fell (44.6)% YoY. Nissan believes that in the next fiscal year sales will rise slightly but revenue and operating profit will both be worse. (Nissan)
• Nissan reportedly wants to take a 25% stake in a Chinese electric car brand and has shortlisted WM Motor, Zhejiang Hozon and CHJ Automotive. (Deal Street Asia)
• Said that lidar need further work to be worthwhile, given the relative costs and capabilities of radar and cameras. Unlike Tesla, Nissan appeared to leave the door open for application in future, and has made less extravagant promises about when the technology will be commercially available. (Reuters)
• Announced a plan for Renault’s CEO to join the Nissan board, whilst current CEO Saikawa stays in charge of Nissan, despite indicating he might be ready to stand down. (Nissan)
• Standard & Poor’s said Nissan had a negative credit rating outlook. (The Mainichi)
• Mitsubishi’s current CEO Osamu Masuko will become chairman and Takao Kato will take over as CEO. (Mitsubishi)
• Outgoing CEO Masuko says he will remain in charge of alliance discussions with Renault and Nissan. (Japan Times)
• Will debut hands-off highway driving on the forthcoming Skyline. (Nissan)

PSA (includes Opel/Vauxhall) ^(history)

• Reportedly gave 1,700 Opel engineers a blunt choice: join Segula or take redundancy. (Handelsblatt)
• Creating a new brand for selling used cars called Spoticar. (PSA)
• Said that, despite shared underpinnings with the next-generation Astra, Opel / Vauxhall plants in the UK and Germany would not produce the new Peugeot 308. (Automotive News)

Renault ^(history)

• Says that Renault Samsung’s South Korean operations will remain an important part of the global research and development operations. (Korea Herald)
• Engaged Publicis to create content that, Renault hopes, will make people want to sit in their cars for longer. (Renault)
• Nissan announced a plan for Renault’s CEO to join the board, whilst current CEO Saikawa stays in charge, despite indicating he might be ready to stand down. (Nissan)

Tata (includes JLR) ^(history)

• JLR’s CEO said he hadn’t been involved in any discussions with PSA about a sale but that he couldn’t speak for Tata because he is just “a normal employee in this empire”. (Bloomberg)
• Although the economies of scale from sharing vehicle components are attractive JLR’s CEO says that, if they mean giving up control of key product or strategy elements, they may not be worthwhile. (Bloomberg)

Tesla ^(history)

• CEO Musk told employees in a call-to-arms email that the company had only ten months of cash left, at the current burn rate, and announced restrictions on spending. (Electrek)
  • Significance: Whilst many observers agree that Tesla seems to run very lean on cash, what is more surprising is the CEO Musk has only just gone to the market and apparently is conscious of asking for too little. Why not raise more?
• Slightly increased the price of the entry level Model 3 to $35,400 — still $35,000 if you round down. (CNN)
• The US Safety regulator said it was investigating a fatal accident where a Model 3 had been in Autopilot mode leading up to the crash. (Reuters)
• Completed the acquisition of Maxwell Technologies. (Tesla)
• Moved production of superchargers to the under-utilised Gigafactory 2 plant. (Reuters)

Toyota ^(history)

• Said that the US government’s stance again car imports made it feel unwelcome. (Toyota)

VW Group ^(history)

• Announced a plan to invest almost €1 billion into building a factory for battery cells in Salzgitter, Germany. Unions welcomed the move. (VW)
• Confirmed rumours that it is interested in selling Man Energy and Renk to raise cash. (VW)
• Decided that the IPO for truck division Traton is back on, after deciding in March that market conditions wouldn’t deliver the hoped for returns. It should happen before the summer break. (VW)
• The VW ID3 will have a top speed of 160 km/h (100 mph). (VW)
  • Significance: Cutting back on top speeds will significantly improve range and reduces the motor size required (saving weight and therefore adding to range, plus costing less).

Other

• Aston Martin reported Q1 2019 revenue of £196 million on wholesales of 1,057 cars. An operating loss of £(2.2) million was considerably worse than prior year. Aston Martin said that planned fixed cost increases were responsible for the loss (with the positive news yet to come). (Aston Martin)
• McLaren unveiled a new mid-engined GT car. (McLaren)
• Ineos might make a fuel cell powered version of the Grenadier. (Autocar)
• The CEO of WM Motor said that new brands aiming for the premium end of the market will struggle against established marques, and it is better to focus on mainstream customers. He concedes however that even though this is what WM is doing, it isn’t yet profitable. (Autocar)
• Bolt Mobility unveiled its purpose-built two seater car sharing vehicle called the Nano. Prices start at $9,999. (Bolt)
• Pïech is aiming to create a three car portfolio with a four seat GT and an SUV joining the sports car already unveiled as a concept. (Auto Express)
• Ace EV wants to start building electric vehicles in Australia from next year onwards with a mini car, a four seat hatchback and small commercial vehicle on offer. (Which Car)
• Pininfarina workers loaned out to support the Bolloré BlueCar program are getting nervous about job security after the French firm declined to confirm ongoing production plans. (Torino Oggi)

News about other companies and trends

Economic / Political News

• The US government said that car imports were a national security risk but that it would defer taking any specific actions for six months to allow time for negotiations with trading partners. (CNBC)
  • Significance: the linkage between automotive sales and the ability to invest in defence technologies was surely higher in the days of GM owning Hughes, but that’s none of our business…
• European passenger car sales in April of 1,351,352 units fell (0.5)% year-over-year. (ACEA)

Suppliers

• Denso and Aisin are in talks that could see Aisin take over parts of Denso’s powertrain components business, with Denso taking a larger stake in Aisin, possibly through buying shares from Toyota. (Denso)
• Aisin invested in lidar developer AEye. (Aisin)
• Toyoda Gosei invested in optics firm Imuzak, partly to help with developing vehicle materials that do not interfere with lidar signals. (Toyoda Gosei)
• Grammer reported Q1 2091 revenue of €534 million and EBIT of €24 million. (Grammer)

Dealers

• Indian used car website Cars24 is reportedly in line to receive $80 million from investors. (Economic Times of India)

Ride-Hailing, Car Sharing & Rental ^(history)

• Ola’s international operations have been growing rapidly and are now apparently responsible for one third of company revenues. (Economic Times of India)
• Non-emergency ambulance service Uzurv raised $5 million. (FINSMES)
• Xpeng started a limited ride hailing pilot in Guangzhou, China. (TechCrunch)

Driverless / Autonomy ^(history)

• AEye said (sensibly enough) that although detection range was often cited as a lidar metric, a better measure would be the range at which objects were detected (i.e. the system understands that they are things rather than erroneous results). AEye said it can detect objects at up to 1 km. (AEye)
• Nissan said that lidar need further work to be worthwhile, given the relative costs and capabilities of radar and cameras. Unlike Tesla, Nissan appeared to leave the door open for application in future, and has made less extravagant promises about when the technology will be commercially available. (Reuters)
• BMW has simulated 240 million km (150 million miles) of autonomous driving so far. (BMW)
• Nissan will debut hands-off highway driving on the forthcoming Skyline. (Nissan)

Electrification ^(history)

• Samsung is reportedly offering a battery cell with an energy density of 500wh/L to top carmakers. (ET News)
• CATL and LG Chem will supply batteries for all-electric vehicles to Volvo. (Volvo)
• Incoming Daimler CEO Källenius sees a 8:1:1 ratio of nickel, manganese and cobalt becoming the standard in the next generation, with some suppliers moving to 9:0.5:0.5. (Economic Times of India)
• China says it has found a way to dramatically reduce the cost of extracting lithium, a key raw material in electric vehicle batteries. (SCMP)
• Northvolt has signed a battery supply deal with VW Group’s Scania. (Reuters)

Connectivity

• Stratio hopes to launch AI-based condition monitoring that will improve vehicle availability. (Stratio)
• HERE and Mitsubishi Electric will offer a real-time road hazard alert system to automakers that combines HERE’s maps and Mitsubishi’s precision position sensors. (HERE)
• Michelin is acquiring telematics provider Masternaut. (Michelin)
• A UK think tank has released a stages of connectivity matrix that the UK government hopes will in time become as widely referenced as the SAE model for autonomy. (Telematics News)
• Ford-owned Autonomic will partner Fujitsu to develop cloud-based fleet management software and will then offer the service to other carmakers. (Telematics News)
• GM’s new electronic platform will be capable of collecting 4.5 TB of data per hour. (GM)

Other

• Air taxi developer Lilium has started test flights of its all-electric aircraft. (The Verge)
• Electric scooter company VOI said customers have logged 2 million rides and the firm intends to expand into 150 European cities. (Reuters)

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Life goes on for diesel; Audi’s treatment of disgruntled customers; and BMW and Tesla’s software woes? Please enjoy our auto industry and mobility briefing for 6^th May to 12^th May 2019. A PDF version can be found here.

Before you read the detail, what were my favourite stories of the past week…?

• Please Don’t Go — Mazda thinks diesel has enough of a future that it is planning a new six cylinder engine. The contrarian view is an interesting one. Will they be left high and dry with a load of engines that no one wants, or will they have a powertrain choice that others wish they hadn’t been so quick to back away from?
• Don’t Leave Me This Way — Despite the problems Audi is having in getting eTron electric SUVs into the hands of customers, it is taking a dim view of any cancellations (threatening penalties of $5,000+). Amongst the ways that Tesla has changed industry norms is the expectation that customers can loudly support a product one minute and walk away the next. Refusing to give customers their money back even when you aren’t giving them the car the wanted all seems a bit old-world thinking. Is this the right way to embark on a glorious era of electrification?
• Radio Ga Ga — Problems with BMW’s servers stopped Apple CarPlay working for some customers and Tesla seems to have deactivated Ludicrous Mode on older vehicles by mistake. The issues raise a number of questions. Firstly, how can these problems happen? Secondly, what are the implications for manufacturers if they sell software-activated upgrades for huge mark-ups and then rescind them, leaving customers waiting weeks or months for the problem to be sorted out?

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

Find our archive here.

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News about the major automakers

BMW ^(history)

• Reported Q1 2019 results. Automotive revenue of €19.2 billion fell (0.6)% year-over-year and automotive EBIT was a loss of €(310) million, a sharp decline from a €1.8 billion profit a year earlier. BMW said most of the drop was due to making a provision for a fine from the EU (that it previously reported). (BMW)
• After trumpeting a plan to save $12 billion, BMW’s CFO admitted that since this was a gross number he couldn’t be sure how much would flow to the bottom line. He also said that BMW has made a “low to mid three-digit million” budget provision for Brexit as part of current guidance. (Seeking Alpha)
• CEO Harald Krueger dismissed the idea of taking a stake in Daimler, even as the two companies discuss component sharing projects. (Reuters)

Daimler ^(history)

• Announced that by 2039 Daimler wants all of the cars it sells to be either battery electric or a plug-in hybrid. Daimler says that by 2030, these cars will be more than 50% of the mix. (Daimler)
• Outgoing CEO Zetsche backs the German automakers to stay ahead of the competition saying “for the past 40 years I have heard that German manufacturers have missed all the important trends”. (Economic Times of India)
• EQC production began in Bremen, Germany. (Daimler)
• Daimler’s Chinese joint venture partner BAIC is said to want a 5% stake in the German firm. (Reuters)

Ferrari

• Reported Q1 2019 revenue of €940 million, up 13% on a year-over-year basis on shipments of 2,610 cars (up 23%) and EBIT of €232 million, up 11%. Ferrari said the portfolio of cars were performing nicely, and the revenue growth included lower engine sales to Maserati. (Ferrari)

Ford ^(history)

• Ford’s in-house accelerator program targets new businesses ideas that can launch in 90 days, with under $500,000 investment. (Ford)
• Making about 550 non-manufacturing staff in the UK redundant as part of wider European restructuring plans already announced. (City AM)
• Talks between Ford and Ineos for the latter’s new 4×4 to built at the Bridgend, UK, plant are apparently going nowhere. (Mail on Sunday)

Geely (includes Volvo) ^(history)

• All-electric brand Polestar is setting up an engineering base in the UK. (Polestar)
• Volvo is reportedly cutting staff in Sweden, starting with consultants. (Reuters)
• Lotus wants to recruit 200 staff and increase annual sales to 5,000 units. (Telegraph)
• Geely’s design head believes the design quality of Chinese automakers has overtaken western brands. (Deezen)

General Motors ^(history)

• Received a further round of investment in Cruise, providing $1.15 billion and valuing the unit at $19 billion. (GM)
• Working on a deal to sell the Lordstown, USA plant to EV developer Workhorse under a complicated deal where GM would continue to own the much of the factory through a new entity that Workhorse will have a stake in. (GM)
• Reportedly will no longer shut the Ontario, Canada plant, instead choosing to reduce operations so that it becomes a standalone stamping facility. (Reuters)

Honda ^(history)

• Reported financial results for the fiscal year ended March 2019. Revenue of 15.9 trillion JPY (about $144 billion) rose 3% on a year-over-year basis, mainly down to an increase in automotive sales. Profit before tax of 979 billion JPY (about $9 billion) fell (2.7)% — with operating margin of only 1% in the final quarter — Honda said it would do more to improve profitability. (Honda)
• Plans to overhaul the way it approaches product development through the introduction of a shared architecture that Honda claims will reduce development time by 30% by 2025. At the same time, Honda wants to improve capacity utilisation so that factories are fully utilised by 2022. Trim levels will be simplified and the claimed total benefit of all these actions will be a 10% reduction in the cost base by 2025. (Honda)
• The cost of Honda’s hybrid system will drop 25% between 2018 and 2022. (Honda)

Mazda

• Mazda’s released full year results for the year to the end of March. Revenue from global sales of 1,561,000 vehicles was 3.6 trillion yen (about €28 billion) and operating profit was 83 billion (about €650 million). (Mazda)
• Re-shuffled senior roles to create new audit and supervisory committees, a move Mazda says will speed up decision making. (Mazda)
• Will develop a new generation of inline six-cylinder engines, including a diesel version. (Auto Express)

Nissan (includes Mitsubishi) ^(history)

• The Alliance Ventures VC unit is partnering with Plug and Play China to reach start-ups in the country. (Renault)
• Will cut 600 jobs at the Barcelona factory. (Economic Times of India)
• The head of the Infiniti brand left to join FCA. (Nissan)
• Mitsubishi reported financial results for the full fiscal year to March 2019. Revenue of 2.5 trillion JPY (about $22 billion) and operating profit was 119.9 billion JPY (about $1.1 billion). Although Mitsubishi expects revenue to increase in the next year, profit is forecast to decline. (Mitsubishi)
• Will re-organise the board structure. (Mitsubishi)

PSA (includes Opel/Vauxhall) ^(history)

• Will start producing large commercial vans at Opel’s Gliwice plant in Poland, they will continue to be produced in FCA’s Sevel Sud plant too. (PSA)
• After the leaking of a document purporting to show how JLR would be integrated into PSA post-sale, PSA said it was open minded on the move but Tata immediately flatly denied that a sale was contemplated. (Reuters)

Renault ^(history)

• The Alliance Ventures VC unit is partnering with Plug and Play China to reach start-ups in the country. (Renault)

Suzuki

• Released financial results for the fiscal year ended March 2019. Revenue of 3.87 trillion JPY (about $35 billion) rose 3% year-over-year but operating income of 324 billion JPY (about $3 billion) fell (13.3)%. (Suzuki)

Tata (includes JLR) ^(history)

• After the leaking of a document purporting to show how JLR would be integrated into PSA post-sale, PSA said it was open minded on the move but Tata immediately flatly denied that a sale was contemplated. (Reuters)

Tesla ^(history)

• After the recent demonstration of how amazing Tesla’s progress in self-driving technology is, reports emerged of an internal restructuring that suggest all was not so rosy. (Electrek)

Toyota ^(history)

• Reported financial results for the fiscal year to the end of March 2019. Revenue of 30.2 trillion JPY (about $272 billion), up 2.8% on a year-over-year basis. Net income of 1.88 trillion JPY (about $17 billion) was down almost (25)% versus prior year. (Toyota)
• Toyota believes that by expanding into new types of services it can offset some of the pressure to reduce the manufacturing and retail base. (Toyota)
• Establishing a joint venture with Panasonic to work on technologies for homes and towns. (Toyota)

VW Group ^(history)

• VW announced that the Golf-sized all-electric car will be called ID3 when launched, implying a numbering system consistent with age-old alphabetical segment nomenclature (e.g. Golf is c-segment). (VW)
• VW booked 10,000 fully refundable orders for the launch variant of the ID3 (with up to 30,000 on offer) unfortunately, the IT systems struggled to cope with interest in the ID and kept crashing. (VW)
• Porsche has agreed to pay German authorities a €535 million over the diesel scandal. (Porsche)
• Despite long delays in getting eTron vehicles to customers, Audi reportedly is threatening them with huge break fees of over $5,000 if they cancel. (Teslerati)
• Audi says the eTron can charge quicker than all its competitors (although it doesn’t explicitly say who the competition are). (Audi)
• Reportedly casting around for buyers of MAN’s large engines division, according to sources who sound exactly like investment bankers trying to drum up interest in the sale. (Reuters)

Other

• A release of patent filings by Dyson gave a potential glimpse of the car the company wants to build. (Autocar)
• US start-up Neuron wants to create pod-like electric vehicles. (Neuron)
• Workhorse reported Q1 2019 revenue of $364,000 and a net loss of $(6.4) million. (Workhorse)
• Byton wants to raise $500 million and says that its Nanjing, China, plant is almost ready to go. (Byton)
• Subaru reported fiscal full year financial results. Revenue of 3.16 trillion JPY (about $30 billion) fell (2.2)% on a year-over-year basis. Operating income of 195 billion JPY (about $1.8 billion) fell (49)%. (Subaru)
• SAIC’s MG brand is reportedly planning a drastic downsizing at its UK operations. (Autocar)
• DHL apparently wants to sell the StreetScooter electric vehicle division. (Handelsblatt)

News about other companies and trends

Economic / Political News

• US president Trump said he would implement much-threatened tariffs on Chinese imports, importers into China braced for impact. (Reuters)
• Electric vehicles continued to gain ground in Europe. During Q1 2019, plug-in hybrids and battery electric vehicles accounted for 2.5% of overall sales. Diesel had a 32% share. (ACEA)
• UK passenger car registrations in April came to 161,064 units, down (4.1)% on 2018. (SMMT)

Suppliers

• ZF is buying occupant monitoring firm Simi Reality Systems. (Autocar)
• Meritor will acquire AxleTech for $175 million. (Meritor)
• China Automotive Systems reported Q1 2019 revenue of $109 million, down (18)% from prior year. (CAS)
• BorgWarner is taking a 60% stake in a joint venture with battery developer Romeo Power. (BorgWarner)
• Adient announced Q1 2019 revenue of $4.2 billion and EBIT of $(22) million. (Adient)
• Magna’s Q1 revenue was $10.6 billion, with adjusted EBIT of $720 million. (Magna)
• Allison Transmission announced a buyback program to get an active investor off their board. (Allison)
• Schaeffler is buying XTRONIC (Schaeffler) and offloading a UK plant it previously planned to close. (Schaeffler)
• Continental reported Q1 2019 revenue of €11 billion and EBIT of $823 million. (Continental)

Ride-Hailing, Car Sharing & Rental ^(history)

• Uber’s IPO was a bit of a damp squib. After debuting with a valuation north of $80 billion, the stock failed to maintain its price. (Fortune)
• Ugandan ride hailing firm SafeBoda received investment from GoJek. (Deal Street Asia)
• Grab is considering spinning off the payments and financial divisions from the ride hailing business. (FT)
• Gett raised $200 million and probably won’t want any more before an IPO planned for early 2020, saying that operations have reached profitability, on an EBITDA basis. (TechCrunch)
• French ride hailing service Heetch raised $38 million. The CEO says it is close to profitability. (TechCrunch)
• Ford will expand the GoRide Health non-emergency hospital transfer service to a second US location. (Ford)

Driverless / Autonomy ^(history)

• Waymo executives called Tesla’s reliance on cameras for driverless cars “very risky”. (Business Insider)
• Uber’s CEO poured scorn on Tesla’s timeline for driverless cars saying that they will arrive several years later than Elon Musk believes (in 2020). (CNBC)
• Some of the driverless vehicles operated by Waymo in Phoenix will be available via Lyft. (Waymo)
• Intel’s Mobileye division is undertaking a mapping project with the UK’s Ordnance Survey to create an official register of roadside infrastructure. (Intel)

Electrification ^(history)

• Farasis Energy is planning a 6 GWh battery factory in Germany. (Sachsen-Anhalt)
• Bosch says next generation fuel cells will use the same amount of platinum as a diesel catalytic converter. (Reuters)
• The cost of Honda’s hybrid system will drop 25% between 2018 and 2022. (Honda)

Connectivity

• Over the air updates had a bed week. BMW seemingly managed to wipe Apple smartphone integration from vehicles because of a server migration issue (Engadget), whilst Tesla owners who shelled out Ludicrous amounts of money to enable super acceleration modes found a recent update has removed the big red button they use to access it. Tesla said the feature removal was inadvertent. (Inside EVs)
  • Significance: In both cases, the removal of content is not simply incompetence, these are features that customers have paid extra for.

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Cheaper 3D printing of metal parts; Tesla’s lean cash experiment; and is a battery raw material supply crunch real or imagined? Please enjoy our auto industry and mobility briefing for 29^th April to 5^th May 2019. A PDF version can be found here.

Before you read the detail, what were my favourite stories of the past week…?

• Dip it Low — Daimler hopes that next-generation 3D printing of metal parts will cost half as much as today. If they are right, we can expect to see plenty more parts made this way. Are castings suppliers, and component design engineers, thinking hard enough about the changes this could bring?
• Money Don’t Matter 2 Night — Tesla raised $2.7 billion in debt and new shares. That might seem like a lot, but after spending about $1.5 billion of cash in the last three months it isn’t hard to see it disappearing quickly if things go worse than planned. Is there a business rationale to running so lean on cash or is it just about only diluting the existing shareholders a little bit at a time?
• Let’s Go Fly A Kite — JLR think that constraints on raw materials might lead to cost increases, as do Tesla. But nobody is quantifying the risk. Is that because, with contracts still open for negotiation, no one wants to set a baseline, or because it is just old-fashioned conservatism of flagging risks early on if they sound like they are out of your control? Does it change anything?

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

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News about the major automakers

Daimler ^(history)

• A research project Daimler collaborated on has concluded that next-generation metal additive printing processes will reduce costs by around 50%. (Daimler)

FCA ^(history)

• Reported financial results for Q1 2019. Revenue of €24.5 billion was (5)% down versus prior year and adjusted EBIT of €1.07 billion was down almost (30)%. FCA said profit would be much stronger in the second half. (FCA)
• CEO Mike Manley’s comments on the earnings call suggested that FCA was in preliminary discussions with potential strategic partners, but that details would not be forthcoming until “subsequent calls”. (Seeking Alpha)
• CEO Mike Manley says FCA will achieve European CO₂ compliance, avoiding (by their maths) a fine of around €400 million. The benefit of the pooling agreement with Tesla will come mainly in 2020 to 2022 — in 2020 he expects pooling to be responsible for around 80% of the gap closure but by 2022 pooling, if any, will be “very small”. (Seeking Alpha)
• Spending about €1.8 billion on emissions credits in “various jurisdictions” that will be used up to 2023. FCA didn’t break out the exact amount of this that applies to Tesla in Europe. (FCA)
• Combined the manufacturing and sales arms of its Chinese joint venture with GAC and established a new executive team incorporating representatives from both companies. (FCA)
• Will follow the lead of GM and Ford by moving US sales reporting to every quarter, rather than monthly, from Q3 2019 onwards. (FCA)
• Settled a US lawsuit about emissions from diesel engines, agreeing to provide a software update to adjust output and offer financial compensation to affected customers. (FCA)
• All new FCA vehicles from 2022 will have infotainment systems connected to the internet using hardware supplied by Samsung’s Harman division. (FCA)
• Completed the sale of Magneti Marelli to Calsonic Kansei. (Magneti Marelli)

Ford ^(history)

• Reducing production of the 5.0L V8 engine that powers many Mustang and F-150 vehicles. (Fox News)
• Reached a settlement with Brazilian workers that clears the way for Ford to either sell or close the Sao Bernardo do Campo plant. (Reuters)
• Argo is “about two years” away from the first commercial deployment. (Argo)
• Announced a new rewards program based around the FordPass payments system and a raft of measures designed to improve customer satisfaction in the USA, such as a new call centre and the introduction of Tesla-style mobile servicing for minor matters. After getting US dealers to implement a new set of dealer standards, at an average cost of $2 million per site by Ford’s figures, the company has decided more change is required and is now promoting a concept that sounds much like a Tesla store. (Ford)
• Said that several third parties will join the FordPass service to offer services in the vehicle while the customer is away, including parcel delivery and car washing. (Ford)
• Ford’s recently appointed China boss is said to be clearing out expatriate managers at a rate of knots. (FT)

Geely (includes Volvo) ^(history)

• Geely’s all-electric Geometry brand claims 26,000 orders for the Geometry A model. (Top Gear)

General Motors ^(history)

• Released financial results for Q1 2019. Net revenue of $34.9 billion was down (3.4)% on a year prior while adjusted EBIT of $2.3 billion fell (12)%. On an unadjusted basis, profit of $2.16 billion was almost double the prior year figure; helped in no small part by a massive tax windfall. (GM)
• CEO Mary Barra declined to confirm the year end 2020 timing for Cruise to launch a fully autonomous vehicles, choosing instead to talk about how happy she was with Progress. When asked to explain whether GM’s design processes had enough room for innovative thinking, Barra pointed to a pretty weak example involving a tailgate redesign for pickup trucks. (Seeking Alpha)
• Confirmed that there will be a full line-up of electric vehicles, including pick-up trucks, but remained hazy on the timing, indicating that GM will perhaps be slower to market than Ford. (Seeking Alpha)
• Recalling 368,000 full size pick-up trucks because of problems with the engine block heater. (Reuters)

Mazda

• Re-entering the Greek market. (Mazda)

PSA (includes Opel/Vauxhall) ^(history)

• Plans to offer all-electric version of the Peugeot Boxer and Citroën Jumpy large vans. Using an aftermarket specialist to modify the vehicles for battery power suggests PSA does not expect large demand, or hope to make any money. Electric versions of smaller vans will be released when the vehicles are updated in 2020/21. (PSA)
• Issued €500 million in debt. (PSA)
• German and French politicians are reportedly backing a plan for a joint venture between PSA and Saft to make batteries at the Opel plant in Kaiserslautern — and are preparing to commit substantial state aid. (Fleet Europe)

Tata (includes JLR) ^(history)

• JLR CEO Ralph Speth said the business had the full support of Tata but stopped short of an outright denial that a partial or outright sale was under consideration. He is conscious of supply constraints on batteries for electric cars and believes the cost will rise over the next two to three years. (Automotive News)
• Confirmed that the new Defender will be built in Slovakia (at the end of a tedious press release about the vehicle’s development programme). (JLR)

Tesla ^(history)

• Tesla’s purchasing team believes that there will soon be a shortage of raw materials for batteries, hence why the automaker is trying to partner directly with mines to ensure supply. (Reuters)
• Decided to raise $2.3 billion through a mixture of new shares and debt. (Tesla) In the end, investors were more generous than expected and Tesla got $2.7 billion. (CNBC)
  • Significance: Although the cash infusion will be welcome, it is less that two quarters of cash burn, at the current rate. Part of this is due to Tesla’s model of selling directly and therefore having to carry new vehicles on the balance sheet — a problem that will only increase if the business meets Elon Musk’s sales objectives. As with previous raises, the new cash leaves Tesla richer, but not rich enough to weather much of a storm.
• Being sued by the family of a US driver killed whilst his vehicle was using the Autopilot driver assistance system, who are in effect accusing the firm of negligence. (Economic Times of India)
  • Significance: The case is interesting because it will test Tesla’s underlying philosophy that any change introduced is positive, even if it does not conform to industry norms.
• FCA will spend about €1.8 billion on emissions credits in “various jurisdictions” that will be used up to 2023. FCA didn’t break out the exact amount of this that applies to Tesla (but it seems likely to be most of it). (FCA)

Toyota ^(history)

• Will produce the Lexus NX at the Cambridge, Canada, plant from 2022 onwards. (Toyota)
• Launched a new $100 million fund to invest in autonomous mobility and robots. (Toyota)

VW Group ^(history)

• Announced Q1 2019 group revenue of €60 billion, up 3.1% on a year-over-year basis. Operating profit of €4.85 billion rose 15% YoY but bottom line profits were worse, with the passenger car division responsible. (VW)
• Will reportedly use electric scooters source from Chinese firm NIU. (Reuters)

Other

• Mullen selected a site for US production of the Qiantu K50, currently sourced from China. (Mullen)
• Chinese electric vehicle developer CHJ Automotive is reportedly hoping to raise up to $500 million. (Reuters)
• NIO recently laid off about 10% of the company’s US workforce. (The Verge)
• Faraday Future secured a bridging loan, with significant strings attached, worth up to $255 million. The plan is to raise $1.25 billion. (The Verge)
• Alcraft says it is developing a three car line-up. (Alcraft)

News about other companies and trends

Economic / Political News

• US light vehicle SAAR for April of 16.43 million units fell (4)% from a year earlier. (Wards)
• German passenger car registrations for April came to 310,715 units, down (1.1)% on prior year. (KBA)
• French passenger car sales of 188,197 units fell (4.4)% when selling days were taken into account. (CCFA)
• Passenger car sales in Spain for April of 119,417 units rose 2.6% from a year earlier. (ANFAC)
• Italian passenger car registrations of 174,412 units in April rose 1.5% from prior year. (UNRAE)
• UK car production fell (17)% in Q1 2019 versus the same period a year earlier. The manufacturers association warned that a no-deal Brexit would send back to the 19080s. (SMMT)

Suppliers

• Seemingly contradicting statements made last week, Continental announced that Vitesco (the renamed powertrain division) would have a partial IPO in the second half of 2019. (Continental)
• Delphi reported first quarter revenue of $1.15 billion and PBIT of $25 million. (Delphi)
• Electric bicycle rental firm Bond Mobility raised $20 million from investors including DENSO. (DENSO)
• The former Johnson Controls power division rebranded as Clarios. (Clarios)
• American Axle reported Q1 2019 sales of $1.72 billion and net income of $41.6 million. (AAM)
• Knorr-Bremse’s CEO stood down with immediate effect, citing artistic differences. (Reuters)
• Tower’s Q1 2019 revenue was $379 million and net loss was $(5) million. (Tower)
• Meritor reported Q1 2019 sales of $1.16 billion and net income of $72 million. (Meritor)
• Magna opened two new component factories in China. (Magna)
• Dana reported Q1 2019 revenue of $2.2 billion and net income of $98 million. (Dana)

Ride-Hailing, Car Sharing & Rental ^(history)

• Pakistani ride hailing firm Bykea raised $5.7 million. (Deal Street Asia)
• Blacklane’s CEO says the ride hailing business wants to IPO in two to three years. (Reuters)
• Zūm, a service focused on driving children around, raised an undisclosed amount. (FINSMES)
• Uber’s IPO has apparently been a runaway success, with investors promising all the money executives wanted in just a few days. (Bloomberg)
• Ride hailing firm Ola has so far raised over half of a planned $1 billion round. (Deal Street Asia) Ola’s electric vehicle division received funding from Tata’s chairman. (Deal Street Asia)

Driverless / Autonomy ^(history)

• GM CEO Mary Barra declined to confirm the year end 2020 timing for Cruise to launch a fully autonomous vehicles, choosing instead to talk about how happy she was with Progress. When asked to explain whether GM’s design processes had enough room for innovative thinking, Barra pointed to a pretty weak example involving a tailgate redesign for pickup trucks. (Seeking Alpha)

Electrification ^(history)

• LG Chem is suing SK Innovation in US courts, accusing its rival of stealing technology. (Reuters)
• An unnamed Chinese battery maker is in talks to take a stake in nickel producer St George Mining. (Reuters)
• JLR CEO Ralph Speth is conscious of supply constraints on batteries for electric cars and believes the cost will rise over the next two to three years. (Automotive News)

Connectivity

• Samsung’s Harman division is supplying FCA with Android-based infotainment that includes over the air updates. First deliveries start in 2019 and the product will be offered as standard from 2022. (FCA)

Other

• Masabi, an app selling tickets for public transport, raised $20 million. (FINSMES)
• Electric bicycle rental firm Bond Mobility raised $20 million from investors including DENSO. (DENSO)
• Indonesian logistics platform Ritase raised an undisclosed amount. (Deal Street Asia)
• Colombian delivery service Rappi raised $1 billion. (Reuters)
• Multi-modal information provider TransitScreen raised $3 million. (FINSMES)
• Indian logistics platform BlackBuck raised $150 million. (Deal Street Asia)
• A US report into accidents on electric scooters found that one third of injuries were caused the first time the rider was using an electric scooter. (The Verge)
• SoftBank is reportedly investigating the possibility of listing the Vision fund. (Reuters)
• Logistics matching firm Fretlink raised €25 million. (FINSMES)
• Scooter rental firm Bird now offers a $24.99 monthly rental where you get to keep the scooter for personal use, which sounds a lot like leasing. (The Verge)

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