Monthly Archives: September 2019

Daimler ^(history)

BMW is telling suppliers of future product components that drive controls must be isolated from the internet to protect the vehicle from cybersecurity attacks. (Reuters)
- Significance: Although on the surface this sounds reasonable, if correct, it also implies that BMW is creating a system that will make it impossible for much of the vehicle hardware to be changed remotely (it is near-impossible to stop this being done if you can plug in to the vehicle). The effect is that BMW will be unable to send out the type of updates that Tesla have become famous for, even as customers come to see it as the norm.
Launched a pilot project, with several other interested parties, to ensure that cobalt mined at “artisanal” Congolese mines (i.e. those not operated by large businesses) has been mined ethically. (BMW)
- Significance: Although on the surface this could appear to be about fluffy sustainability, it more reflects growing concerns that mainstream supplies of cobalt could prove insufficient in the face of higher usage from electric vehicle batteries. BMW and others are seeking to develop these alternatives in a manner that will not be criticised later.
Reportedly considering plans to cut 5,000 – 6,000 jobs by 2022, mostly at headquarters. (Reuters)
Invested in Trifacta, a provider of data management software. (BMW)

Daimler’s development chief gave an interview in which he suggested that the firm was not planning to create any brand new engines after the generation being currently rolled out (although he did not rule out updating them, or even reversing course at some point). (Auto Motor Und Sport)
Daimler trucks will use batteries supplied by CATL. (CATL)

FCA ^(history)

Running a pilot with utility company Terna to better understand the potential for vehicle to grid (V2G) technologies in charging large fleets. (FCA)

Geely (includes Volvo) ^(history)

Replaced earlier plans to overhaul the main US engineering site with designs more suited to CEO Hackett’s vision of Ford’s future than predecessor Mark Fields’s. Despite the revisions, Ford said that the new buildings will be delivered in time with the original announcements. (Ford)
Although Ford and VW have already said their collaboration on electric cars could yield a second model, Ford’s European boss said that although only the first project has been approved, it won’t make sense financially without the other one. (Reuters)

Lotus’s CEO said the brand was having a “good year” in 2019 in response to a question about whether it was still on track to deliver around 1,700 cars this year. Although he is looking for avenues to increase volumes and see personalisation as important, offering bespoke vehicles doesn’t appear to be a priority. (Bloomberg)
Volvo is reducing its use of consultants and “squeezing them a bit harder” to save money. The CEO believes that these measures, allied to more restrictive hiring criteria, will be enough to avoid job losses. (Automotive News)
Customers of Volvo’s all-inclusive leasing product (often referred to as subscription) are, on average, 10 years younger than the brand’s “typical” buyers. Volvo’s CEO attributes this to their decent pay but limited savings — although he compared all-inclusive customers to those paying cash upfront, a rarity these dasy. Take-up rates are still low. A recently German scheme is accounting for 2.5% of sales (versus a 5% target). (Automotive News)
- Significance: His comments suggest that Volvo’s analysis is much of the profit from all-inclusive products lies in the lower financing costs for the OEM versus the consumer (assuming they don’t find themselves being written off by bond rating agencies.

US Union officials are rumoured to be considering keeping workers out on strike until any new deal with GM has been formally ratified by workers. If true, this would mean prolonging the strike for about a week from the customary return to work date (when the negotiators agree a draft deal). (Detroit Free Press)
Striking US workers have forced stoppages at some non-US GM plants, and those of suppliers. (Reuters)
GM said that the UAW would have to cover the healthcare costs of workers that had gone out on strike. (Reuters)
Selling some of GM’s Indian engineering centre to Tata Consultancy Services with a five year contract for ongoing development, similar to PSA’s sale of non-core Opel research activities to Segula. Over 1,300 employees will transfer over to Tata under the agreement. (Tata)
- Significance: In an age where many technology companies tout engineering centres in India as a path to innovative value engineering and local market nous, GM’s move to reduce its footprint in the country suggests that it has a pessimistic view of its ability to compete in this emerging market (despite the Government’s proclamations of an all-electric future).

Nissan (includes Mitsubishi)^(history)

Opened a Beijing office for the CRADLE in-house VC unit, declaring the global network to be complete. (Kia)
Announced a joint venture with Aptiv to develop self-driving vehicles that will see Hyundai and Kia contribute $1.6 billion in cash in return for a 50% in the combined entity. There is an explicit target to have a commercially available system by 2022, although not necessarily for retail buyers. (Hyundai)

Nissan expanded an existing relationship with utility company EDF that offered electric vehicle charging and payment services to UK customers. The collaboration will now include France, Belgium and Italy too. (Nissan)
Reportedly in talks to sell its spare parts distribution business, with a figure of $1 billion mentioned. (Reuters)
Agreed to pay the SEC $15 million to settle charges of misstating director earnings. (Nissan) Carlos Ghosn also settled, paying $1 million for his role in the debacle, and agreeing to a 10 year ban on US directorships. (Sky News)

Held a capital markets day, amongst other nuggets: Citroen said that pricing power versus Ford was now up to 5 pts and the brand thinks it can hold this between 3 pts and 5 pts into 2021 and the DS7 Crossback has the best per unit profit in the entire PSA portfolio. DS says that dealers make their money back on new sites within three years. (PSA)

Toyota ^(history)

Renault and Mobivia are acquiring control of spare parts company Exadis, in which Renault already owes a stake, subject to approval by competition authorities. (Renault)

Toyota’s assembler in Pakistan has shut down for the remainder of September due to weak sales. (Dawn)
Investing $391 million in a new program at its San Antonio, USA, factory. (Toyota)
Lexus is launching a $4.2 million yacht. (Nikkei)
Investing 1 billion BRL (about $240 million) at the Sorocaba, Brazil, plant to launch a new product (the details of which will remain secret, for now). (Toyota)

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

Settled a case in Australia related to emissions cheating that will see VW pay upwards of $87 million (the final amount depends on how many owners the lawyers can track down). (The Guardian)
Chairman Pötsch and CEO Diess are reportedly safe in their jobs even if German prosecutors charge them with failing to notify shareholders of the diesel scandal quickly enough. (Handelsblatt)
Detailed some of the carbon offsetting VW has paid for to earn a carbon neutral badging for the ID3. (VW)
Bentley released its most exclusive product. Just 100 jars of honey produced by Bentley’s on-site beehives are available. Some will go to VIP guests, and the remainder will be taste tested by hungry employees. (Bentley)
Škoda hopes that the plug-in hybrid version of the Superb will make up around 20% of sales, meaning about 15,000 cars per year. (Automotive News)
The next generation Golf will have two plug-in hybrid derivatives. The first will be a near-carryover of today’s GTE specification (around 200PS) whilst the second will have higher performance (around 240PS). (Autocar)
Took a 25% stake in Indian online lender Kuwy. (Verna)
Audi says the electric car has the best lifetime carbon footprint of all drive systems (in developed markets). (Audi)
- Significance: Unfortunately Audi didn’t share its workings as the carbon footprint of different powertrain types is a hotly disputed topic.

Other

Faraday Future’s new CEO says he left Byton because the investment by Chinese carmaker FAW created too much government interference and had been a de facto takeover. (The Verge)
Arrival says it has budgeted £100 million to bring all-electric commercial vehicles to market and that production will begin using a fully automated process at the end of the year. (The Guardian)
Ineos confirmed that Bridgend, UK, will be the site of final assembly for the forthcoming Grenadier SUV, but it won’t be the Ford plant. The body and chassis will be built in Estarreja, Portugal. (Ineos)
Amazon said it will buy 100,000 electric delivery vehicles and they will be coming from Rivian, with initial vans in Amazon’s hands by 2021. (Reuters)
- Significance: Given Amazon’s focus on cost control, the deal implies that either: Rivian’s vehicles will be far cheaper to build than contemporary rivals can manage; Amazon is loosening the purse strings; Rivian has a funding model that keeps the vehicles on their books; or that it might do Rivian more harm than good.

News about other companies and trends

Economic / Political News

Registrations of 1,074,169 passenger cars in Europe during August dropped (8.6)% versus prior year. (ACEA)
The US government changed the rules so that individual states could no longer set their own vehicle emissions standards in a move aimed at ending California’s habit of setting more stringent requirements than those issued by the federal government. California says it will go to court to get the decision reversed. (Detroit News)
Germany’s government announced plans to combat CO₂ with a range of measures including a tradeable carbon price per tonne. (Climate Change News)

Suppliers

AAM is selling its US iron casting business to a VC firm. (AAM)
ZF completed its divestment of the stake in Haldex and seemed happy with the price. (ZF)
GM is selling some of its Indian engineering centre to Tata Consultancy Services with a five year contract for ongoing development, similar to PSA’s sale of non-core Opel research activities to Segula. Over 1,300 employees will transfer over to Tata under the agreement. (Tata)

Dealers

Fair raised $500 million to expand its financing business. (Fair)
Online car sales firm Carro invested $30 million in Malaysian website Tukar. (Deal Street Asia)
Used car sales site iCar Asia acquired Carmudi in a $3 million deal. (Deal Street Asia)

Indian short-term car rental operators are complaining that peer-to-peer services (illegal in India, despite being okay in other countries) are making it uneconomical to operate. (Economic Times of India)
White label fleet management firm Wunder Mobility raised $60 million. (Wunder)
Bicycle rental operator Lime is ending its short term car rental scheme, citing the lack of a suitable partner to create an all-electric offering. (Geek Wire)
Uber is challenging in court a New York rule that limits the amount of time drivers can spend cruising around waiting for work in central Manhattan. (Reuters)
Bid2Ride is the latest ride hailing app to launch with a business model that sees drivers bid for journeys. (Bid2Ride)
- Significance: Since Uber and Lyft long-ago adopted a model where drivers are unaware of the trip details until after they have accepted, it remains to be seen whether this counts as an innovation or is an approach that has had its time.

Waymo’s first monthly report about automated taxi trials with passengers in California was published. The firm carried almost 6,300 people 48,137 miles without a driver present (but monitored by someone remotely). (California)
- Significance: The average trip length of about 2.5 miles is in line with a normal taxi service, but the average waiting time between jobs of almost an hour suggests the company is yet to test the limits of capacity utilisation. Google said this was because when the cars aren’t in use for the ride hailing service they do other testing work, rather than waiting.
TuSimple raised $120 million, aiming to bring a self-driving truck to production by 2023. (Reuters)
AutoX raised $100m from a group of investors including Dongfeng. (Deal Street Asia)
Uber will start testing driverless cars in Dallas during November, but for the moment the cars will be driven manually with the automated system only operating in shadow mode. (Uber)
Hyundai announced a joint venture with Aptiv to develop self-driving vehicles that will see Hyundai and Kia contribute $1.6 billion in cash in return for a 50% in the combined entity. There is an explicit target to have a commercially available system by 2022, although not necessarily for retail buyers. (Hyundai)

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

Daimler trucks will use batteries supplied by CATL. (CATL)
Audi says the electric car has the best lifetime carbon footprint of all drive systems (in developed markets). (Audi)

Connectivity

BMW is telling suppliers of future product components that drive controls must be isolated from the internet to protect the vehicle from cybersecurity attacks. (Reuters)
- Significance: Although on the surface this sounds reasonable, if correct, it also implies that BMW is creating a system that will make it impossible for much of the vehicle hardware to be changed remotely (it is near-impossible to stop this being done if you can plug in to the vehicle). The effect is that BMW will be unable to send out the type of updates that Tesla have become famous for, even as customers come to see it as the norm.

Other

Navistar held an investor day, saying it was recession-ready. (Navistar – page 87)
British bus marker Wrightbus is on the verge of collapse. (The Guardian)
Navistar and Mack Trucks have been scheduling down days and reduced shifts, with Mack planning an additional two weeks off at one plant this winter. (Morning Call)

Find our archive here.

Auto Industry Briefing — week ending 15th September 2019

September 17, 2019 Ad Punctum TeamAd Punctum, Automotive0

Vauxhall expects a post-Brexit windfall; how to keep an electric car youthful; and preserving the staircase of talent. Please enjoy our auto industry and mobility briefing for 9^th September to 15^th September 2019. A PDF version can be found here.

It Takes Two — Vauxhall’s boss says that if there is a no-deal Brexit his firm might gain 0.5 points of share. It isn’t hard to see how if tariffs increase the price of cars built outside the UK and a wave of patriotic pride sweeps the UK (Vauxhall is French owned but a UK-specific badge). The question is… who would they take it from?
Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me — BMW won’t be replacing the i3 electric car, but won’t kill it anytime soon either. Although some observers were aghast, BMW’s approach of incremental improvements to the i3 is worth watching — battery capacity has increased significantly. Sales seem to be responding to BMW’s constant tinkering, so why have others (including Tesla) seemingly frozen their specifications?
Falling Down — VW’s ID will start at €30,000 with pricier models well above €40,000. VW’s marketing materials suggest that the electric version of the Golf will stay on sale, unashamedly offering a smaller battery (32 kWh vs 45 kWh) but at a lower price point. Will other manufacturers follow suit, putting electric versions of their ICE focused products as an entry level?

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

Daimler ^(history)

BMW’s Japanese offices were raided by officials looking for evidence of unfair sales practices, namely forcing dealers to buy cars to make their quota (ie pre-registration). (Japan News)
Mini’s head designer talked about how electrification and autonomy will change the way cars look. He thinks electrification will bring new proportions and generous surfaces while for autonomous vehicles, it could be possible to do away with conventional headlights altogether. (BMW)
Unveiled a hydrogen fuel cell prototype called the iHydrogen NEXT. BMW says that in 2022 there will be a limited series run of a vehicle based on the X5 — the level of differentiation is unclear. BMW thinks 2025 is the earliest that fuel cells will be commercially viable for volume production. (BMW)
Showed the Concept 4, a preview of the forthcoming 4-Series (and, by extension, i4). (BMW)
Three quarters of BMW’s registrations in Norway are PHEV or BEV. (BMW)
The head of BMW’s M tuning division said there were “concrete plans” for a standalone model. (Top Gear)
Following recent comments that there might not be a direct replacement for the i3, BMW’s sales head confirmed that there was “no specific plan” for a new car, but it would continue for a several years. (FT)
- Significance: Although many hoped for a direct successor, BMW has showed a willingness to continually upgrade the i3, particularly in terms of battery capacity and is learning valuable lessons about integration of new battery technology into an existing architecture.

CEO Källenius said that meeting 2020 / 2021 CO₂ targets would be a significant challenge, but admitted that the brand has “all the right vehicles” to meet targets, indicating that the company will incentivise customers to buy more economical models if they are proving reluctant, rather than paying fines. (Reuters)
Showed the EQS concept, previewing the next-generation S-Class and a likely all-electric derivative. (Daimler)
Around one in seven S-Class models sold are the highest Maybach trim level. (Daimler)
Daimler’s AMG tuning division has started work on the first purpose-built all electric models. (Autocar)
Will buy batteries from Farasis Energy’s new German factory. (Reuters)
Daimler’s CEO thinks flying taxis will help with traffic congestion in cities. (Handelsblatt)
- Significance: For air taxis to make any significant dent in traffic, hundreds of thousands of units will be required on a regional basis, suggested the comments were either offhand or Daimler genuinely sees this level of demand (but at what price point)?

FCA ^(history)

Renault CEO Bollore said the merger talks with FCA were over and Renault’s priority was helping Nissan. (Reuters)
Recalling around 3,400 Jeep Gladiators to make sure their driveshafts don’t fail. (Cars.com)
Agreed a temporary contract extension with unionised US workers, but will be nervously watching the outcome of talks and strikes at GM. (Reuters)
- Significance: The strikes at GM make it more likely that (a) if the UAW were to make another automaker the primary negotiating partner then there would be a very short lead time before strikes there too; and (b) any company that tries to pushback on the template terms, once one company has agreed, could expect swift retaliation.

Ferrari

In an interview, Ferrari’s technical head suggested that the company’s first SUV, dubbed Purosangue, will only have four seats and discussed the challenges with applying Ferrari’s DNA to a new segment. (Autocar)

Launch problems with the new Explorer and Aviator SUVs has resulted in finished vehicles being shipped from the Chicago plant (where they are built) to the Flat Rock, Michigan, factory for en masse repairs. (Detroit Free Press)
Sold the Canvas short term leading business to Fair. (Fair)
Ford’s boss in Europe said the recent ratings downgrade from Moody’s would not result in any new cost cutting actions and the fragile economic outlook was not his biggest concern. (Bloomberg)
Believes that by the end of 2022, more than 50% of its European passenger car sales will have electrification (if you include 48V). (Ford)
Recalling about 340,000 Explorers to fix sharp metal edges on the seat by covering them up. (Ford)
The much rumoured Focus-based pick-up truck has reportedly been testing in Australia. (Which Car)
Agreed a temporary contract extension with unionised US workers, but will be nervously watching the outcome of talks and strikes at GM. (Reuters)

GM’s US hourly workforce went on strike after contract negotiations were not concluded by the union’s deadline. GM said it had made a good offer including: higher pay, a ratification bonus, new products, saving some of the plants slated for closure and extra jobs (GM). The union said GM’s offer was insufficient on almost all fronts. (ABC News)
Recalling 3.8 million trucks and SUVs to fix problems with the brakes. (Reuters)

Honda ^(history)

Said that the Honda e all-electric city car will cost more than €30,000 in Germany. This is about in line with peers (e.g. VW e-Up!) but suggests either a limited demand or an untapped market for high priced city cars (something Aston Martin’s Cygnet failed to uncover). (Honda)
Confirmed that the next generation Jazz will only be available with a hybrid powertrain (a battery electric version is rumoured too). (Honda)

Hyundai showed off the 45 concept car, with an interior and exterior seemingly inspired by Byton, it isn’t clear which design elements will make it into production soon. (Hyundai)

The head of (UK-only) Vauxhall thinks that the brand’s “Britishness” could add 0.5 points of market share in a post hard Brexit world. (Autocar)
CEO Tavares said it was still a challenge to forecast consumer demand for electric cars and repeatedly stressed that electric cars would be expensive for consumers to buy (until and unless OEMs become desperate). He says that PSA has been planning for impending CO2 target increases for several years and thinks his company is well positioned to benefit from a “Darwinian” thinning of the herd. (Bloomberg)

Tata (includes JLR)^(history)

Unveiled the next generation Captur B-sized crossover, saying that a plug-in hybrid version was on the way. (Renault)
Although many manufacturers are fleeing the Sub-B (city car) segment due to rising technology costs, Renault says a fully electric version of the product is a must “to address customer needs”. (Autocar)
CEO Bollore said the merger talks with FCA were over and Renault’s priority was helping Nissan. (Reuters)

JLR’s CEO says the firm has a 40-strong team working on nothing but logistics for post-Brexit UK factories however his comments suggested that JLR has taken no actions to deal with Brexit permanently increasing raw material inventories (because of customs delays). (Autocar)
JLR participated in self-driving vehicle service Voyage’s $31 million fund raising. (JLR)
Unveiled the new Defender. With the re-imagining of the vehicle, JLR have taken the opportunity to hike the technology level of the car — and the price. (JLR)

Tesla ^(history)

After talking for many years about maximum plaid as the speed beyond ludicrous mode, CEO Musk confirmed a new higher powertrain called plaid was under development for Model S, Model X and Roadster. (Electrek)
Applications for building permits at Tesla’s Fremont factory suggested that preparations for Model Y were moving ahead in earnest. (Bloomberg)
CEO Musk reportedly told employees that Tesla’s current practice had been to hold completed build to order vehicles at the Fremont factory until customers were ready for delivery but the company would now become more proactive. (Electrek)

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

CEO Diess complained to journalists that the auto industry was treated unfairly when it came to CO₂ emissions reduction. His analysis says that it costs €1,000 to eliminate one ton of CO₂ from a car but it would only be €14 to get the same reduction in emissions from a power plant. (Handelsblatt)
VW Financial’s boss says that market share growth is near impossible once the 50% – 60% level is reached (as VW has in the large European markets). The company wants to be the largest pan-brand leasing fleet leasing company by 2025. (Handelsblatt)
Unveiled a new, yet familiar looking, VW logo. The change is a case study in bureaucracy: 19 internal teams and 17 external agencies were involved in finalising the new design in the “record time” of nine months and it will take until mid-2020 for everyone to have started using it. VW put this down to a “cost-optimized, resource-conserving” approach. (VW)
Unveiled the production version of the ID3. Prices start at €30,000 for the base 45 kWh version. (VW)
VW’s marketing materials indicate an intention to position the all-electric ID3 above the electric Golf in the range and use the more capable purpose built ID3 to justify continuing with a smaller (cheaper) battery in the Golf in a bid to attract price-conscious buyers. (VW)
Audi says that by using robots to apply body sealer (a paste-like substance that seals gaps in the body work before paint and is normally applied with a brush or stick on pads) saves several kilograms of material. (Audi)
The Moia ride hailing service in Hamburg aims to serve 10,000 customers per day by the end of 2019. (VW)
Said that with “just a few exceptions”, VW’s vehicles had been certified to the latest level of WLTP regulations that kicked in on September 1^st. (VW)
Running a pilot program that will give customer the option to fit 3D printed customised parts. (VW)

Other

Byton showed the production version of the M-Byte SUV saying the car would start at €45,000 with a 72 kWh battery. The firm also announced it was about to close $500 million in new investment. (Byton)
Great Wall’s boss says the brand would need to sell more than 50,000 units per year in Europe to consider setting up its own factory on the continent. (Reuters)
Rivian received $350 million from Cox Automotive. (Rivian)
Start-up electric carmaker e.Go is suffering problems with the waterproofing of the battery enclosure and full year volumes will be around 600 cars, rather than the 1,000 the brand hoped for. (Golem)

News about other companies and trends

Economic / Political News

The European trade body ACEA released a report saying that European infrastructure for electric cars wasn’t good enough and politicians needed to do more about it. (ACEA)

Suppliers

Plastic Omnium invested $30 million into hydrogen-focused VC funs AP Ventures. (Autocar)
ZF wants to sell its stake in Haldex. Haldex said its customers were over the moon. (Haldex)
Allison Transmission acquired two of its suppliers, a tool shop and die casting business for $103 million. (Allison)
Continental’s boss says the firm can achieve CO₂ neutral production by 2040 and thinks that the entire automotive industry could get there by 2050. (Reuters)
Michelin and Continental created a joint venture, although initial media reports said it was to make tyres, the truth is more mundane: it is for supply chain transparency. (Michelin)
Bosch invested in hydrogen fuel cell truck maker Nikola. (Inside EVs)
Calsonic Kansei is set to close four Japanese factories. (Nikkei)

Dealers

Mahindra & Mahindra started offering all-inclusive monthly leasing deals to Indian customers with prices starting at around 19,720 INR (about $275) per month. The offering is managed by Revv. (Mahindra)
Chinese firm Bitauto received a takeover offer from Tencent. (Bitauto)
Ford sold the Canvas short term leading business to Fair. (Fair)

Uber sacked about 8% of the product and engineering team (435 people) saying that a ground-up review of how the organisations should look had revealed staffing levels were too high. (TechCrunch) At the same time, the company intends to hire 2,000 people in its freight arm. (The Verge)
Despite recently saying that bicycles were a brilliant idea and had proved popular at attracting new customers to Uber’s platform, the company has been withdrawing from several territories. (TechCrunch)
Uber is raising $1.2 billion in debt (earlier in the day the figure had been $750 million but the proposal was over subscribed so Uber decided to give the people what they wanted). (Uber)

Simulation firm Applied Intuition raised $40 million. (Venture Beat)
Open-source driver assistance developer Comma.ai says its customers have collected 13 million miles of driving data. (Comma.ai)
JLR participated in self-driving vehicle service Voyage’s $31 million fund raising. (Robot Report)

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

Symbio, the Faurecia / Michelin joint venture that produces fuel cells says it will make 20,000 vehicle sets in 2025 and 200,000 in 2030. (Symbio)
Pininfarina, Benteler and Bosch announced a jointly-developed electric vehicle platform that they hope other OEMs will licence. (Pininfarina)
Volta, operators of ad-supported car charging, raised $35 million. (TechCrunch)
BASF, Suez and Eramet are conducting a two-year research project, with €5 million of public funding, to develop new methods for recycling lithium ion batteries. (Suez)
BMW thinks 2025 is the earliest that fuel cells will be commercially viable for volume production. (BMW)

Connectivity

Denso and Blackberry have developed a digital cockpit based on Blackberry’s QNX. (Blackberry)
ZF and Maxion Wheels say that anybody whose anybody will have a car with connected wheels. (ZF)

Find our archive here.

Auto Industry Briefing — week ending 8th September 2019

September 8, 2019 Ad Punctum TeamAd Punctum, Automotive0

Small electric cars; hoping for a trickle-down effect from Lambo’s supercar; and how to make even more special edition sportscars. Please enjoy our auto industry and mobility briefing for 2^nd September to 8^th September 2019. A PDF version can be found here.

Low — Renault’s CEO says electric cars costing under €10,000 will be here within five years, whilst PSA’s CEO says electric components are too expensive for small cars and are killing the segment. It would be easy to write PSA off as dinosaurs except their CEO used to be the number two at… Renault, so you would think he knows a thing or two about electric vehicle cost. Has it all changed since he left, or are Renault up to old tricks and talking about a car without a battery (like the Zoe)?
Starships — Lamborghini unveiled the Sián hybrid supercar. It was notable for a couple of reasons: firstly, they used a 48V motor, perhaps a bit weedy compared with most peers; the second (more interesting) thing is that the car boasts supercapacitors instead of a battery. Although they remain eye-wateringly expensive, the fact that Lamborghini thinks the technology is robust enough to go into production (even in limited quantities) is significant. How long before we get to see the technology on cars for real people?
Too Much Of Anything — There is another limited edition Aston Martin out, a re-imagining of the Vanquish. It’s the second car this year blessed by Aston and build by R-Reforged — the firm that runs Aston’s DTM racing team. The question is, are Aston Martin acting honourably, sanctioning third party products they think are cool, or cynically (finding a new channel for forcing yet more specials down the market’s throat)?

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

Daimler ^(history)

BMW’s top German union representative said that he expects the luxury car market to continue to grow, albeit slowly and that the firm would need two more factories to fulfil its demand outlook. (Detroit News)
Invested in image recognition developer Cartica. (BMW)
Mini is rumoured to be planning a small MPV based on the BMW i3. (Autocar)

German media speculated about the reason behind loads of Daimler vehicles stored on a disused airfield. Daimler said it was all part and parcel of normal business. (FAZ)
The CEO of Daimler Trucks has started a podcast. (Daimler)

FCA ^(history)

The UAW said that GM would be the lead company in contract negotiations that will establish the primary terms for the agreements with GM, Ford and FCA. Employees from all three companies approved strikes (should the union deem it necessary) by large majorities. (Detroit News)
Says that, by applying best practice ergonomic assessment, factory muscle and skeletal injury rates can be reduced to those of office workers. (Il Sole 24)
Stopping production of the 500 and 500e for North America. FCA says there is enough inventory to last into 2020. It was unclear whether this would affect the launch of the next generation car. (FCA)
Confirmed union estimates that it will invest around €1 billion in the Pomigliano, Italy, factory to make a new small SUV (rumoured to be the Alfa Romeo Tonale) and Panda hybrid. (Reuters)
Transatel will provide the European network for FCA’s connected vehicles. (FCA)

Ferrari

Unveiled two convertible versions: the F8 Spider (Ferrari) and the 812 GTS. (Ferrari)

Geely (includes Volvo) ^(history)

The UAW said that GM would be the lead company in contract negotiations that will establish the primary terms for the agreements with GM, Ford and FCA. Employees from all three companies approved strikes (should the union deem it necessary) by large majorities. (Detroit News)
New management in China has put a stop to Ford’s plan for a single sales operation in China that combined products from different joint ventures. Executives said (on the record) that the previous strategy stemmed from a misunderstanding of market conditions and (off the record) that it had angered the various JV partners. (Reuters)
Consumer surveys commissioned by Ford showed that many Americans think electric cars will be boring and have low range, admitting that this was in part because of underwhelming first efforts by Ford and its peers. (Ford)
Ford used a Medium blog post to explain how the case carrying the firm’s autonomous sensor set has been designed to reduce the number of insects hitting the sensor screens (and chow the ones that do get cleaned off). (Ford)
Reached a preliminary agreement to sell the Sao Bernardo, Brazil, factory that Ford has slated for closure to local firm Caoa. (Reuters)
Saw its credit rating downgraded by Moody’s to Ba1, the top junk rating. (CNBC)

The Polestar 2 all-electric car will cost between €40,000 – €60,000 according to the CEO. (Manager Magazin)
Volvo is selling a limited edition XC90 (15 units) in India where the front passenger seat has been removed to create extra legroom and a stowable table for one of the rear seat passengers. The price is almost $200,000. (Autocar)
Volvo is achieving around 60% localisation for India-built products. (Autocar)
Will form a JV with flying taxi maker Volocopter, in addition to Geely’s Terrafugia stake. (Reuters)

Will use Google as the basis for infotainment systems and navigation. (GM)
The UAW said that GM would be the lead company in contract negotiations that will establish the primary terms for the agreements with GM, Ford and FCA. Employees from all three companies approved strikes (should the union deem it necessary) by large majorities. (Detroit News)
GM employees in Korea are striking over stalled wage talks — the workers are apparently okay to forego pay rises but want more assurances over the future of the business. (Reuters)
CEO Barra had a face-to-face meeting with US president Trump but wouldn’t say what it was about (although off the record sources suggested it was about jobs, tariffs and fuel economy standards). (Reuters)

Honda ^(history)

Unveiled the production version of the Honda e electric city car. (Honda)
Will stop making cars at the El Salto, Mexico, plant (which will still make motorbikes and power products) and transfer production to the Celeya factory, also in Mexico. (Honda)

Nissan (includes Mitsubishi)^(history)

Despite diesel shrinking to only 10% of sales for some model lines, Hyundai still believes that the fuel type has a future in the Indian market. (Autocar)
Hyundai cars in Europe will use Lear’s Xevo marketplace to help customers receive loyalty offers and discounts from 3^rd party vendors. (Lear)
Kia says it already has 7,000 orders for the Mohave large SUV. (Korea Herald)
Hyundai and Kia are buying into the Ionity European fast charging consortium, taking an equal share to the existing OEM owners. The announcement suggested the new money is going towards reducing the investment from the other partners, rather than increasing the network. (Kia)
Hyundai will start selling the robotically assisted exoskeletons it has developed for assembly workers. (Kia)

Nissan unveiled the next generation Juke B-sized crossover. (Nissan)
After an audit that revealed several Nissan executives, including CEO Saikawa had received inflated compensation, which Saikawa admitted to reporters several days before Nissan published the findings, Saikawa resigned, effective 16^th September, the COO will become interim CEO. (Nissan)
Nissan reportedly has a list of 10 candidates to succeed outgoing CEO Saikawa. (Reuters)
Reportedly planning to pull out of South Korea amid dwindling sales due to heavy competition and consumer boycotts of Japanese products. (Korea Herald)
Alliance Ventures invested in design outsourcing company Superside (TechCrunch) and Sanity.io. (Sanity)

Confirmed plans to restructure the Chinese JV with Dongfeng by first shrinking the cost base so the business can break even at around 150,000 vehicles per year, before increasing sales to 250,000 units in the early 2020s and ultimately reach around 400,000 units by 2025. (Reuters)
Executives said PSA isn’t interested in acquiring GM’s Holden brand in Australia, although it hopes that contracts for rebranded Opel C and CD sized cars will be renewed. (Autocar)
CEO Tavares said a no deal Brexit would destroy the lives of the next generation in the UK and that if Boris Johnson and Michel Barnier worked for him he would tell them that they were smart enough to do better. (SP Global)
Opel has launched the OpelConnect live operator and telematics service, replacing GM’s OnStar which was swiftly axed after PSA took over. (Opel)

Tata (includes JLR)^(history)

CEO Bolloré says that an all-electric car costing €10,000 will be on sale within the next five years. He thinks that diesel is finished as a technology for passenger cars, but that there is a future for commercial vehicles. (Handelsblatt)
Alliance Ventures invested in design outsourcing company Superside (TechCrunch) and Sanity.io. (Sanity)
Renault Master production restarted late after the summer shutdown because of a fire in the paint shop that took around a week to repair. (Usine Nouvelle)
Fired several employees in Morocco after discovery of a fraud. (Morocco World News)

Suzuki

Maruti Suzuki says its Indian cars are built with over 90% local content and believes the remainder of the vehicle can only be localised with greater R&D investment from Indian suppliers. (Bloomberg)
Maruti Suzuki scheduled further down days at two Indian plants due to weak demand. (India Today)
Maruti Suzuki intends to defer around 10% of its budgeted CapEx if demand remains sluggish. (LiveMint)

JLR will use Blackberry’s software for future vehicles and has engaged the firm’s consulting arm to help with developing artificial intelligence and cyber security. (Blackberry)

Tesla ^(history)

CEO Musk said the pick-up truck unveiling would “most likely” be in November. (Twitter)
At the moment, Tesla’s insurance product calculates premiums using standard data of age, driving experience, safety record and annual mileage, bolted together with data about Tesla’s fleet performance versus competitors but the company hopes to create individual profiles, if the owners give permission for the required data collection. (Reuters)
The US road safety board is investigating a collision between a Model S and a firetruck where Autopilot was engaged, but the driver was repeatedly taking their hands off the wheel. (Reuters)
Tesla owners who had purchased full self-driving were left confused about whether they would be able to beta test updated Autopilot software with CEO Musk suggesting there would be two levels of test users, but without clearly explaining who would be in each group. (Electrek)

Toyota ^(history)

Japan’s prime minister said Toyota will invest a further $300 million in its Russian operations by 2028. (TASS)
Invested in image recognition developer Cartica. (Toyota)

Lamborghini unveiled the limited edition Sián supercar. Badged as a hybrid, the car uses 48V motors for torque infill and a supercapacitor in lieu of a battery for more rapid charge and discharge, plus higher power density (and therefore weight). (Lamborghini)
Will start production of a new MQB-based small “urban coupe” (ie style-led crossover) in Brazil in 2020, with European production to start in 2021. (VW)
Porsche unveiled the production version of the Taycan all-electric sportscar. (Porsche)
Finalised a joint venture with Northvolt that will lead to a 16 GWh capacity factory in Germany. The company estimates that by 2025 it will be using 300 GWh of batteries annually. (VW)
Porsche upped its stake in Rimac to 15.5%. (Porsche)
VW expects electric cars to have maintenance costs 20% – 30% lower than conventionally powered vehicles. To offset the revenue losses the company hopes to keep customers using official parts and franchised dealers for longer (many drop out of the OEM ecosystem when the vehicle is 3 – 5 years old). VW also has efficiency measures in mind, saying the average workshop job generates 80 minutes of paperwork. VW wants to improve this to 15 minutes. (VW)
SEAT showed off a new concept for a dynamically styled all-electric SUV. Based on VW’s MEB platform, SEAT’s concept has a 77 kWh battery pack. It isn’t clear whether this is an indicator of where VW believe battery capacities will head, even for mass market products. (SEAT)
Evasive answers from VW’s COO led reporters to the conclusion that VW was paying less than $100 per kWh for batteries used in the ID3. (New York Times)

Other

StreetScooter and Chery created a joint venture to build and sell electric vans in China. (Xinhua)
Faraday Future has a new CEO, Carsten Breitfeld, formerly of BMW and Byton. (Autocar)
Nio raised $200 million in convertible debt from Tencent and Tencent’s CEO. (Nio)
An article highlighted the reduced presence of automakers at the Frankfurt show, saying some companies had previously budgeted €60 million – €80 million for show stands. (Manager Magazin)
Evergrande will use Benteler’s electric drive system as the basis for its new electric vehicles. (Autocar)
The newest limited edition Aston Martin emerged: the Vanquish 25 is a re-skinned Vanquish (itself based on the DB9). It is the second officially sanctioned project by R-Reforged, an offshoot of the company that run Aston Martins in the German DTM race series. (R-Reforged)
- Significance: The emergence of a second project this year — following a series of new-build V12 Zagatos — implies a new strategy by Aston Martin to create off-the-books limited edition cars to reduce accusations of saturation. It might not work.

News about other companies and trends

Economic / Political News

Argentina’s government imposed capital controls. (Reuters)
- Significance: The impacts for carmakers will likely be similar to those seen when Greece implemented emergency measures, plus some linkage to a harder currency than the peso. With inventory already in the country, and likely cash hoarding by consumers, OEM should have plenty of time before they have to start making tough calls on whether to put incremental cash at risk. Some will dust off operations manuals setting out rules for bartering from the last time (such as Porsche’s cars-for-wine scheme).
The European trade body published a document calling on politicians to find ways to ensure cars remained cheap even as emissions technology increases and explicitly asking for an industrial strategy. (ACEA)
US light vehicle SAAR for August of 16.99 million units, 2.3% higher than prior year. (Wards)
German passenger car registrations of 313,748 units in August, down (0.6)% versus prior year. (KBA)
Italian passenger car sales in August of 88,939 units were down (3.11)% on a year-over-year basis. (UNRAE)
Spanish registrations of passenger cars in August of 74,490 units fell (30.8)% from prior year. (ANFAC)
French passenger car sales of 129,259 units in August fell (14.1)% from prior year. (CCFA)
UK registrations of 92,573 passenger cars in August were (1.6)% on a year earlier. (SMMT)
Indian ministers said that whilst the government might introduce incentives to encourage uptake of partial and full electrification, it wouldn’t ban purely combustion engine powered cars at any point. (Economic Times of India)
US carmakers will install systems to combat child deaths from heatstroke in locked cars, but they won’t become standard until around 2024. (Reuters)

Suppliers

Having already separated its powertrain activities into a separate division, Continental said it might completely spin off the new entity, rather than just having a partial listing. (Continental)
CATL took an 8.5% stake in lithium mine operator PilbaraMinerals. (Deal Street Asia)
Continental invested in image recognition developer Cartica. (Continental)
Dana renewed its credit line, it has a $1 billion agreed until 2024. (Dana)
Toyota Boshoku lost almost $40 million in an email scam after the payables department were convinced to transfer money to an outside party. The fraud may affect full year earnings. (Forbes)

Dealers

UK online used car dealer Spotawheel raised €5 million. (Fleet Europe)

Zenzic, the UK government-sponsored body encouraging adoption of autonomous vehicle technology unveiled a roadmap for widespread deployment by 2030. Zenzic’s belief is that around 2025 commercial scaling of autonomous vehicles will begin in earnest. (Zenzic)
Spy shots of what was claimed to be Apple’s latest effort at a self-driving car emerged, leading to speculation that the company might have abandoned lidar, without any clear proof. (9to5Mac)
Ford used a Medium blog post to explain how the case carrying the firm’s autonomous sensor set has been designed to reduce the number of insects hitting the sensor screens (and chow the ones that do get cleaned off). (Ford)

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

Bosch will source battery cells for 48V applications from CATL. (CATL)
CATL took an 8.5% stake in lithium mine operator PilbaraMinerals. (Deal Street Asia)
Germany has reportedly agreed in principle to create a European EV battery consortium. (Reuters)
Delta Motorsports showed off an electric vehicle platform it has developed. Unusually, the company has avoided the flat-topped skateboard philosophy of most non-unibody electric vehicles. (Inside EVs)
StreetScooter and Chery created a joint venture to build and sell electric vans in China. (Xinhua)
Consumer surveys commissioned by Ford showed that many Americans think electric cars will be boring and have low range, admitting that this was in part because of underwhelming first efforts by Ford and its peers. (Ford)
VW expects electric cars to have maintenance costs 20% – 30% lower than conventionally powered vehicles. (VW)
Hyundai and Kia are buying into the Ionity European fast charging consortium, taking an equal share to the existing OEM owners. The announcement suggested the new money is going towards reducing the investment from the other partners, rather than increasing the network. (Kia)
Evergrande will use Benteler’s electric drive system as the basis for its new electric vehicles. (Autocar)
Evasive answers from VW’s COO led reporters to the conclusion that VW was paying less than $100 per kWh for batteries used in the ID3. (New York Times)

Connectivity

Hyundai cars in Europe will use Lear’s Xevo marketplace to help customers receive loyalty offers and discounts from 3^rd party vendors. (Lear)
JLR will use Blackberry’s software for future vehicles and has engaged the firm’s consulting arm to help with developing artificial intelligence and cyber security. (Blackberry)
GM will use Google as the basis for infotainment systems and navigation. (GM)
Transatel will provide the European network for FCA’s connected vehicles. (FCA)

Other

CNH will spin off its truck, bus and engine division. The firm also announced a partnership with fuel cell electric truck developer Nikola, taking a $250 million stake. (Reuters)

Find our archive here.

Auto Industry Briefing — week ending 1st September 2019

September 3, 2019 Ad Punctum TeamAd Punctum, Automotive0

Ford’s Qashqai rival arriving unfashionably late; self-driving cars that are hard to teach; and learning lessons about all-inclusive leasing. Please enjoy our auto industry and mobility briefing for 26^th August to 1^st September 2019. A PDF version can be found here.

Getting Late — Ford is working on a C-segment crossover for European customers due in the mid-2020s. That’s a Qashqai fighter to you and me. Although this is a product that Ford sorely needs, it feels like a plan that involves waiting five or so years for the next generation platform lacks imagination and smacks of the old way of doing things that Ford says it has left in the dust. Wouldn’t a bolder move have been to enter the market earlier? Why not build it on the same platform as… Qashqai? It would do wonders for Ford’s post-Brexit natural hedging.
Real World — Aurora wrote a blog complaining of too little consistency between US states in how they expect cars to drive, citing several minor differences in the highway code. Why is Aurora so shocked? So a car has to learn when it can and can’t use a bicycle lane to make a turn, what’s the big fuss? Nothing, until you realise that they are probably in a lather because a neural net creating its own murky and unfathomable driving rules can’t easily (and maybe not at all) be told to simply do things a little differently somewhere else. Is it time to go back to the drawing board?
Free Your Mind — Porsche is going to offer all-exclusive monthly rentals in four more US cities whilst Volvo’s boss in North America says the firm’s all-inclusive “Care” package is one of his top three priorities. I’m afraid I don’t like the moniker “subscription” for these offerings because they plainly aren’t, they are simply leases re-packaged and re-badged. But it appears many are unbothered by my pedantry and perhaps some lessons are being learned. Is a monthly rental based on living the dream the way forward for luxury cars (e.g. Porsche) whilst mass-market customers just want to be told this isn’t yet another debt they owe (e.g. Volvo’s two year scheme), even though it really is?

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

Spending about $25 million on an expansion to the main parts warehouse in South Korea. (Chosunilbo)

Geely (includes Volvo) ^(history)

Recalling 550,000 large SUVs and pick-up trucks because the seats might be too weak to protect occupants properly in a crash. (Ford)
CEO Jim Hackett said the average order to delivery time for Ford is an “unacceptable” 81 days. He also wants Ford’s software to take a more expansive role, for instance using the app that can remotely start the car to also control the garage door opening. (Motor Trend)
Planning for all new battery electric vehicles to be profitable so that it can sell as many of them as there is customer demand for, pointing at waiting lists for competitor products. The firm’s research says that range is targeted to be 300+ miles. (Autocar)
Ford Europe’s boss wants to give more responsibility to talented young managers. (Autocar)
- Significance: Ad Punctum’s unscientific survey of Ford employees suggests that, by this yardstick, Ford thinks 40 – 45 years of age counts as “young” — a worrying attitude if correct.
Working on a Qashqai fighting C segment crossover for Europe, but the product is unlikely to hit the streets until the mid-2020s, presumably to align with the likely next generation C platform. (Autocar)
Reportedly will offer a 12 inch touchscreen in the F-150 starting in 2020 to match the Dodge Ram. (Detroit News)

Geely is apparently suing WM Motor for stealing trade secrets, asking for almost $300 million in compensation, in a case that goes to trial in September. (China Daily)
Volvo is adding more cars to the Care all-in two year lease (“subscription”) offering and will sometimes source cars from dealer inventory, rather than always requiring a new order. The CEO of Volvo in North America says the expansion of the scheme is one of his top three priorities. (Automotive News)
Opened the new Polestar factory in China with a press release highlighting the facility’s Aston Martin-ness. (Polestar)

Cadillac will go all-electric between 2025 – 2029. (New York Times)
Removed around 330 jobs (about half of which were permanent positions) in Thailand. (Bangkok Post)

Nissan (includes Mitsubishi)^(history)

Hyundai unveiled a fold-up electric scooter with a claimed 20km of range. Unlike some competitors, Hyundai’s scooter is a concept without a clear launch date. (Hyundai)
Concluded a pay agreement with South Korean unions without a strike, a historical rarity. (Reuters)
Rumoured to be in talks to buy the former GM plant in St Petersburg. (TASS)

Nissan’s US operations suffered five days of disruption to IT systems, affecting everything from new car ordering to customers attempting to make monthly payments. (Automotive Logistics)

Completed the transfer of 700 engineering employees to Segula. (PSA) PSA is reportedly providing €190 million to Segula in several instalments to finance the takeover. (Handelsblatt)
Told at least 27 holdout employees who didn’t want to take either early retirement or the offer of employment with Segula that their positions had been terminated. Unions took the news very badly. (Handelsblatt)
Said that all PSA’s passenger cars now comply with more stringent real driving emissions (RDE) monitoring tests, and that 80% of the products on sale comply with the rules that don’t start until 2020. (PSA)

Toyota ^(history)

Will no longer sell diesel vehicles in India beyond 2020. (Times of India)
One of the key executives involved in managing the alliance with Nissan resigned, saying he was off to PSA and that CEO Bolloré told him no one liked him anymore. (FT)

Suzuki

Maruti Suzuki has commissioned a fleet of mobile service vehicles, saying that customers in India may be either too remote, or live in locations with such heavy congestion, for straightforward visits to the dealership. (India Today)
Maruti Suzuki will continue to invest in new products, and expanded capacity, despite the slump in Indian market sales (although if the capacity isn’t required, the company hinted at reduced workforce levels). (Economic Times of India)
Toyota is buying 4.94% of Suzuki, and in return the smaller company will take a Toyota stake of around 0.2%. As a net result of the deal Suzuki will end up with 48 billion JPY (about $450 million), which it seems likely to spend on autonomous vehicle research (with Toyota). (Toyota)
Withdrew the Celerio and Baleno from the UK market, implying that European sales would cease before 2020 emissions regulations kick in. (Autocar)

Tesla ^(history)

Launched, and then almost immediately suspended, an insurance product for Tesla drivers. The company said the hiatus was in order to fine tune algorithms that, customers said, set premiums too high. (Business Insider) Tesla had said the scheme was “designed to provide Tesla owners with up to 20% lower rates”. (Tesla)
Tesla is quietly ramping up marketing events in China, although it still steers well clear of traditional advertising methods — preferring launch parties and trackdays. (Reuters)
The Chinese government will exempt Tesla from the 10% retaliatory tariff on US imports. (Reuters)

Buying 4.94% of Suzuki, and in return the smaller company will take a Toyota stake of around 0.2%. As a net result of the deal Suzuki will end up with 48 billion JPY (about $450 million), which it seems likely to spend on autonomous vehicle research (with Toyota). (Toyota)
- Significance: This follows a long-running Toyota strategy of buying minority stakes in fellow Japanese carmakers (e.g. Mazda and Subaru). It appears from Toyota’s recent dissolution of its stake in Isuzu that the trend is reversible, but perhaps not for all companies…
Recalling 191,000 cars to replace faulty airbags that were themselves replacements for units supplied by scandal-ridden Takata. (Detroit Free Press)
Halting production at the beginning of November at the Burnaston, UK, plant to avoid potential problems stemming from Brexit. (The Guardian)
Affiliate Toyoda Gosei invested in Tryeting, a firm that uses artificial intelligence to develop new types of, and uses for, materials more quickly than traditional methods. (Toyoda Gosei)
Agreed to open a new plant in Ivory Coast, according to the prime minister. (Reuters)

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

Settled a series of lawsuits in the US by agreeing to pay owners $96.5 million and restating fuel economy figures to a lower level. (Detroit News)
Škoda showed a concept for an electric bicycle — unlike many offerings, it can’t be pedalled and relies on battery power alone, with footrests provided for the rider. (Škoda)
Porsche will expand the all-inclusive Passport and Drive schemes to four more US cities. (Porsche)
Lamborghini’s CEO said half-jokingly that the company will take care of transporting your luggage between destinations should you find the pint-sized trunk too small. (Bloomberg)
Audi is reportedly in talks with BYD about a battery supply contract. (Bloomberg)
Appears to be in final negotiations with the Turkish government over a new plant, with VW’s only remaining concern being government agreement to change current tax rules that favour very small cars. (Reuters)
Former CEO and Chairman Ferdinand Piëch died. He was a member of the senior management team from 1988 to 2015 and oversaw a massive expansion in sales, products and brands. (VW)
Took a stake in 3D holography start-up SeeReal. (VW)
Planning to invest around $580 million in its Brazilian operations, according to a local politician. (Reuters)

Other

Aston Martin says that the average trip length for luxury cars is 11 miles and daily usage stretches to 25 miles. On this basis, the CEO thinks that the right combination of electric power, battery capacity and charging network availability will make electric cars attractive to customers. (Detroit Bureau)
McLaren says it takes 3,000 hours to restore an F1 — fitting the body panels and repainting account for around one third of the time. (McLaren)
Sono Motors showed the interior design for its city car, featuring a swathe of moss that Sono says acts as a filter for cabin air quality — less clear was how the material will degrade over time, and how easily it can be replaced. (Sono)
Weismann teased a new product with shots of a car under wraps. (Top Gear)

News about other companies and trends

Suppliers

LG Chem showed off a new type of LED that emits lights in more directions. The company says it can be used to create supercool shapes, or reduce cost and complexity in rear lights since fewer lenses are needed. (LG Chem)
Dana acquired electric powertrain integration specialist Nordresa. Terms weren’t disclosed. (Dana)
Benteler shed its distribution division, saying it wanted to concentrate on automotive parts. (Benteler)
Marelli (ex Magneti Marelli and Calsonic) entered into a strategic partnership with Shanghai Highly. As part of the deal, Marelli bought into a Highly / Johnson Controls Hitachi air conditioning JV. (Marelli)

Dealers

Mobiliti and carsales.com are launching a combined used car offering in Australia that will see customers able to select an automatically-created monthly all-inclusive rental price for cars listed on the carsales website, alongside traditional purchase options. (Mobiliti)
All-inclusive vehicle leasing provider Fair raised $100 million in debt and received an investment from traditional financing company Ally. Fair now has around 45,000 customers on the books. (Fair)
Porsche will expand the all-inclusive Passport and Drive schemes to four more US cities. (Porsche)
Maruti Suzuki has commissioned a fleet of mobile service vehicles, saying that customers in India may be either too remote, or live in locations with such heavy congestion, for straightforward visits to the dealership. (India Today)
- Significance: Mobile servicing appears to be on the rise, and unless some sharing agreement is put in place, this will be yet another lucrative area of the business where dealers could find themselves losing out to either the OEM or third parties.

Bide launched a ride hailing service, saying the algorithms had gone too far in matching drivers and passengers. Eschewing the two-click system favoured by Uber and Lyft, Bide will let individual drivers set unique bid and will leave the customer to decide what works best for them. (Bide)
The Chinese region of Tianjin has created new regulations that will show the driver’s rating (out of five stars) in the light that sits on top of the taxi. (Xinhua)
A survey of drivers suggested Uber and Lyft were taking around 30% – 35% of gross trip receipts in US cities, a higher amount than the companies themselves claim. Uber and Lyft said the study was not statistically significant, but declined to provide alternative figures. (Business Insider)
On-demand bus service Urbvan raised $9 million. (TechCrunch)

Autonomous vehicle fleet manager Bestmile raised $16.5 million. (Bestmile)
Aurora complained about the “patchwork” of different regulations for self-driving vehicles, and driving rules, across different parts of the USA. (Aurora)
- Significance: Although Aurora presumably hopes that someone will step in to intervene, it merely highlights an issue that any company hoping to develop safe vehicles internationally will confront — and points to why AI that combines clear rules that can be updated with neural net generated driving decisions is probably the minimum level of control that will be accepted by regulators..
A blog by Waymo explained how the firm has developed the passenger user interface. (Waymo)
A US mayor, invited to contribute to a blog by Ford, stressed that whilst he found the machinery under development to be impressive, and was excited about the benefits, local governments would quickly lose patience with companies who tried to do things their own way. (Ford)
Zenuity says that scientists at the large hadron collider with spare time on their hands whilst the machine is being rebuilt are helping to create new ways of machine learning (supercomputer owners only need apply). (Zenuity)
Didi Chuxing’s forthcoming autonomous vehicle pilot in Shanghai aims to deviate from its competitors by using 30 different types of vehicle. (Reuters)