GM’s weak maths, the VW and Tesla love-in and AMG isn’t so keen on artificially noisy electric cars. Please enjoy our auto industry and mobility briefing for 4^th October to 17^th October 2021. A PDF version can be found here.

• What Do You Mean? — GM told investors that it will save over $1 billion for each plant it converts to all-electric vehicles. But the maths is a bit suspect: that saving comes from not having to invest in new stamping, body assembly and paint facilities. These are exactly the same parts of the factory that would be re-used by an internal combustion engine model. So all GM is really saying is that it is better to convert a plant than bulldoze it and build a new one somewhere else (assuming there is no endemic workplace culture). But isn’t that kind of obvious?
• Friends Will Be Friends — VW CEO Diess invited Elon Musk to address top managers at the German firm and show them what they were up against, and Musk agreed. Musk told the enraptured throng that Tesla was an amazing problem-solving culture created in his own image. They probably all clapped. Are we on our way to a new, happier, world where top executives exhort their rivals to attempt to outdo them in the spirit of ultimate competition? Or does Musk have an underlying reason for sprinkling his magic dust over VW… like, convincing Europeans that his company isn’t a threat?
• Make Some Noise — AMG’s technical chief doesn’t think that artificial engine noises are the way to go for all-electric cars, fearing the creation of a pastiche. He still wants to give a nod to the internal combustion engine experience by incorporating vibration. Remember when polyphonic ringtones used to cost several pounds to download (looking at you, Crazy Frog fans)? Yet now everyone has their phones set to silent. Will there be a time when the whole discussion appears academic?

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

Find our archive here.

SIGN UP TO GET THE WEEKLY BRIEFING EMAILED TO YOU

News about the major automakers

BMW ^(history)

• Sold 583,189 cars in Q3 2021, down (12)% on a year earlier. Electrified vehicles saw sales increases and the Rolls-Royce brand jumped more than 20%. (BMW)
• Invested in lithium extraction firm Lilac Solutions. (BMW)
• CEO Zipse says that BMW will be ready for a wholesale transition to electric cars by 2030. (Reuters)
• Union strikes unions over pay are harming output at BMW’s South African plants. (Economic Times of India)

Daimler ^(history)

• Sold 428,361 cars and light vans in Q3 2021, down (30)% versus prior year. Mercedes trumpeted the performance of its fully electric cars, with EQC and EQA selling just over 30,000 units on a year to date basis, slightly under half the number of cars sold by Nio in the same timeframe. The Maybach sub-brand sold almost 11,000 cars in the first nine months. (Daimler)
• AMG built a new customer reception at the factory so that owners can pick up the keys in person. Some buyers are more equal than others: only those collecting top end models will be allowed a special Formula 1-themed zone. All others must make do with a more pedestrian “Business Lounge”. (Daimler)
• On top of existing sub-brands AMG, G (Class) and Maybach, Mercedes has added “Manufaktur”. The portfolio comprises a line of ultra-expensive options over and above the existing palette. The offerings are mainly trim and paint but there are some extra-cool puddle lights available. (Daimler)
• The CTO of the AMG division poured scorn on the idea of artificial sounds for sportscars to recreate the engine note. Instead, all-electric products will use vibration to communicate the idea of sound. He believes that top speeds below 155 mph will be acceptable to the customer. (Golem)
• Mercedes CEO Källenius says that electric vehicles with performance capable of “tens of laps” around a race track are “further away” than 2025. (High Snobiety) When asked in another interview about whether it will be confusing for customers that there will be an EQS SUV and a EQS car, with EQE then following the same pattern, he said that Mercedes thinks it will be “so obvious when you see the vehicle, you know whether you’re buying an SUV or a sedan”. (The Detroit Bureau)

Ford ^(history)

• Will start making electric motors, instead of manual transmissions, at the Halewood, UK, plant. (BBC)
• Ford and GM appear to have resolved their legal case over both having driver assistance systems with “Cruise” in the name. (Reuters)

Geely (includes Volvo) ^(history)

• Volvo will list at the end of October on the Nasdaq Stockholm exchange. The brand hopes to achieve a market capitalisation of between 163 billion – 200 billion SEK (about $19 billion – $23 billion). (Volvo)
• Volvo reported Q3 2021 sales of 149,892 cars, down (17)% versus prior year. (Volvo)
• Volvo agreed terms to take over the Luqiao, China, plant where the Polestar 2 is built from Geely. (Volvo)
• Volvo is looking to sell surplus European CO₂ vehicle emission credits for 2021. (EU)

General Motors ^(history)

• Held an investor day to lay out GM’s future plan. The firm was clear that it sees a place in the market for internal combustion engine powered vehicles into the next decade, but probably not for cars. Despite the increased cost of technology to deal with emissions legislation in many parts of the world, GM says that margins on internal combustion engine vehicles will increase, presumably through a combination of digital services and increased technology such as driver assistance. GM promises all-electric vehicles will reap margins comparable to internal combustion engine models – which will be higher than today – by 2030. (GM)
• GM says that in the next-next generation of battery cells (that come after the ones it hasn’t yet launched) will see a 60% cost reduction from today’s levels, and around a third less than soon-to-be-launched models. GM says that the firm will develop a leadership position in automotive based on its new technologies, but since it will be such a smash hit success it is unclear why it isn’t forecasting substantial revenues from licencing to less clever competitors. (GM)
• GM is working on potential entry into 20 new developing business lines. The smallest has an estimated market size of $3 billion, whilst the largest, aerial mobility, could one day be worth $500 billion according to GM’s maths. GM says that it receives $2 billion in annual revenue from connected vehicle services and that could rise to $6 billion annually for smart insurance alone by 2030. The company was silent on how a famously cut-throat industry will deliver massive margins in future simply because the quality of information has improved. Overall, GM says that these new businesses (which include defence and the Brightdrop commercial vehicles as a service division) will yield $80 billion in revenue by 2030, up from $2 billion today (the connected vehicles business). (GM)
• In a review of self-driving subsidiary Cruise’s outlook, GM showed a dimensionless Boston matrix chart (high to low performance versus high to low cost) suggesting that SAE L2 systems in future may be almost as capable as Cruise’s vehicles are today, or maybe it didn’t because the chart didn’t specify whether the axes were linear or a meaninglessly variable scale of Cruise’s own design. The company promises a 90% reduction in computing power cost by 2025, although since it doesn’t yet have a fully working system, this remains speculative. Nevertheless, the plan is to rapidly scale from 2023 onwards, following pilot roll outs in San Francisco and Phoenix, Arizona. Cruise reckons that it will be able to charge far less than human-driven ride hailing yet make bumper profits. Assessing the claims was difficult due to the iffy chart sizing GM presented. GM reminded investors of the truism that if autonomy is a smash hit success, it will lower costs and therefore increase market size. GM also suggested Cruise should attract a first to market premium, without proving that the business will in fact be first to marker. (GM)
• In an analysis of the costs to transition to electric vehicles, GM told investors that it could save $1 billion to $1.5 billion per plant by re-using assets, which seems relatively straightforward to prove, since assets such as the press shop, paint and body shop could all expect considerable re-use. But the foundation for the claim seems suspect: you can claim the same conversion benefits for replacement internal combustion engine programs today. The maths proves the case for retaining existing plants and people rather than shuttering existing factories and starting afresh: it doesn’t prove that there is a manageable transition plan in place to move from internal combustion engines to EV and explains little of how the redundant engine and transmission infrastructure is dealt with. (GM)
• Announced an advanced driver assistance system called Ultra Cruise which GM says will one day offer hands free driving in “95% of all driving scenarios” suggesting that a combination of weather conditions and less-used roads will probably never be covered. GM hopes to activate the feature on 3.4 million miles of North American roads, with 2 million having been mapped by the time of launch, slated for 2023. At first, it will only be available on GM’s most expensive vehicles, such as the Cadillac brand. GM’s system incorporates lidar. (GM)
• GM announced that LG has agreed to foot $1.9 billion of a $2 billion bill to recall Bolt all-electric vehicles that have faulty batteries. (GM) LG said that it would pay less than that – about $1.1 billion. (Economic Times of India)
• A judge dismissed a suit that GM brought on FCA (now part of Stellantis) accusing the latter of increasing labour costs through a corrupt relationship with the UAW union. (Reuters)
• Launching a Cadillac financing company. Apparently the deals offered won’t differ in substance to those on offer from GM’s existing captive lender (which will write the new loans too). GM sees unspecified brand-specific benefits in having its own finance presence. (Detroit Free Press)

Honda ^(history)

• By 2030, Honda will only sell heavily electrified or fully electric vehicles in China. As part of the announcement, Honda showed off two new all-electric SUVs bound for the Chinese market and three slab-sided concepts covering an SUV and two passenger cars. (Honda)
• Honda will roll out a new driver assistance system called Honda Sensing 360, starting in Chia but gradually making it to all major markets by 2030. (Honda)

Hyundai / Kia ^(history)

• Kia announced a minor refresh of the Forte. (Kia)

Mazda

• Mazda is planning to bring a series of large crossovers to market in Europe and North America. Named the CX-50 to CX-90 (and going up in units of 10), the range will deliver plug-in hybrids and although the cars in the two regions sound similar, they will be different enough to have unique names. (Mazda)

Nissan and Mitsubishi ^(history)

• Nissan wants all its vehicles to be carbon neutral in both manufacturing and use by 2050. (Nikkei)

Stellantis (formed via the merger of PSA and FCA)

• Announced a plan to create a North American joint venture for battery cells with LG. This is in addition to the existing European battery joint venture which Daimler recently bought into. (Stellantis)
• Maserati delayed the launched of the new Greycale SUV, blaming the semiconductor shortage and saying that the car is so advanced that it is particularly hard hit. Tesla’s ability to launch new factories and products with advanced technology suggests the existence of semiconductors in the car isn’t the sole obstacle. (Maserati)
• Stellantis is making moves remove Opel’s legal responsibilities for German factory management and hand it to Stellantis HQ, worrying German labour unions who feel that the brand is being dismembered. (Handelsblatt) Unions are becoming increasingly concerned that the Eisenach and Aspern plants, which have been shuttered since the summer because of a shortage of semiconductors, are secretly slated for closure because other Stellantis factories make the same products. (WSWS)
• Will reportedly cease carmaking at the Grugliasco, Italy, plant by shifting its (Maserati) models to the Mirafiori site in Turin. (Detroit News)
• Removing a shift at the Windsor, Canada, plant that produces minivans. (Detroit News)

Tata (includes JLR) ^(history)

• Tata (including JLR) sold 251,689 vehicles in Q3 2021 (Tata’s fiscal Q2), up 24% on a year-over-year basis. JLR sold 92,710 cars, down (18)%. JLR’s number includes China sales, unlike the Tata overall figure. (Tata)
• Raising $1 billion by creating a new subsidiary that will specialise in electric vehicles and selling a shareholding to investor TPG. The plan is for the offshoot to create 10 EVs within five years. (Tata)
• Unveiled the Tata Punch, a small SUV. (Tata)
• Will start making tools in-house at Halewood. (JLR)
• JLR is trialling the use of blockchain to track supplies of real and artificial leather interior trim. The idea is that the ledger will contain environmental data. (JLR)

Tesla ^(history)

• CEO Musk said Tesla’s new German factory will soon start production, but that it will take until the end of 2022 for the plant to reach full capacity. (Reuters)
• Tesla has removed pricing and specification details of the Cybertruck from its website, prompting speculation that it is encountering further problems in executing the product. (Futurism)
• After losing a racial discrimination case, Tesla was told to pay a former employee $137 million. (Reuters)
• Although Tesla said that only drivers with top safety scores (determined using a Tesla-proprietary algorithm) would be invited to test the beta version of advanced driver assistance, it emerged that an investor with a relatively high public profile and a score of 37/100 had been allowed into the program. (Electrek)

Toyota ^(history)

• Lexus unveiled the LX large SUV. (Lexus)
• Toyota is being sued by Nippon Steel because of a supply deal Toyota made with Baosteel that Nippon Steel says uses its IP. Toyota said it wished Nippon Steel would have resolved the matter amicably. (Toyota)
• Toyota Tsusho is collaborating with raw materials supplier BHP and battery producer PPES to create a lifecycle for electric car batteries. (Toyota)
• Toyota will build a battery plant in the USA in partnership with Toyota Tsusho. (Toyota)

VW Group ^(history)

• CEO Diess invited Tesla CEO Elon Musk to address a gathering of top VW executives and let them observe first-hand the culture of the US automaker. (Reuters)
• Q3 sales of all-electric vehicles showed that the ID4 is now outselling ID3 almost 3:2. The VW ID vehicles sold around half as many in full nine months as Tesla’s Model 3 and Model Y sold in Q3 2021. (VW)
• Porsche is offering customers a 3D printed insert for bucket seats to make their car seem racier. The almost €3,000 option can be retrofitted. (Porsche)
• Lamborghini announced that it is installing a new biomethane power plant at its factory as part of emissions reduction efforts. (Lamborghini)
• Rumours emerged that CEO Diess had told the supervisory board that the company might need to shed 30,000 jobs if it gets the transition to electric vehicles wrong. (Automotive News)

Other

• NEVS, Evergrande’s Swedish factory (ex-Saab), says that it is up for sale. (Reuters) The Chinese part of the carmaking business says it is on course to make cars, despite the problems of the parent firm. (Reuters)
• WM Motor is looking to raise $500 million. (WM)
• Foxconn showed off three prototypes it has been developing: an SUV, a car and a bus. (Reuters)
• VinFast confirmed that the brand was still planning to launch in North America, using the LA auto show as a platform. (VinFast)
• Fuel cell vehicle developer Hyzon was forced to deny a report issued by a short seller that called into question the business relationships Hyzon has and its longer term outlook. (Hyzon)

News about other companies and trends

Economic / Political News

• The head of the UN called for the end of production of vehicles with internal combustion engines in richer countries by 2035 and all others by 2040. (Economic Times of India)
• German registrations of 196,972 passenger cars in September fell (25.7)%  versus prior year. (KBA)
• September passenger car registrations of 215,312 units in the UK fell (34)% year-over-year. (SMMT)
• Spanish passenger car registrations of 59,641 units fell (16)% compared with September 2020. (ANFAC)
• Passenger car registrations in Italy during September of 105,175 units fell (33)% versus prior year. (UNRAE)
• French passenger car registrations of 133,835 units fell (20)% compared with September 2020. (CCFA)

Suppliers

• Sono Motors is supplying solar panels for ARI Motors’s electric vehicle. (Sono Motors)
• Novares says that it wants to sue some customers because they have been cancelling orders at the last minute because of the semiconductor supply crunch. (Reuters)
• Automotive software firm NeuSAR raised $100 million. (Deal Street Asia)
• Miner Neo Lithium is being acquired by Zijn Mining. (Reuters)
• Magna called off its pursuit of Veoneer, which will instead be sold to Qualcomm. (Magna)

Dealers

• South Korean automotive online marketplace K Car raised $285 million in an IPO. (Deal Street Asia)
• Indian car website CarDekho raised $250 million. (TechCrunch)
• Auto1 FT will offer car financing where the contracts are signed in blockchain via Ethereum. (Auto1)
• UK dealer group Motorline was acquired by bigger rival Marshall. (Motor Trader)
• Automatic tyre replacement company RoboTire raised $7.5 million. (TechCrunch)

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

• Ex-Ford CEO Mark Fields has been appointed interim chief of Hertz. (Auto Rental News)
• Ride hailing provider Ola acquired mapping data company GeoSpoc. (Deal Street Asia)
• Car rental firm Kyte raised $30 million. (Auto Rental News)
• Via is trialling an on-demand bus service with a rural UK council. (Via)

Driverless / Autonomy ^(history)

• Self-driving developer Wayve raised $14 million. (TechCrunch)
• Hyundai Mobis showed off a foldable steering system that the company has been developing. It seems that in trying to overcome design constraints stemming from airbag storage, the design team opted against a traditional steering wheel, instead creating two handles that can be used for left and right steering. Since the device is designed for occasional use, which is likely low speed, the lack of steering movement might not matter. (Hyundai)
• Lidar maker Ouster is buying smaller rival Sense Photonics. (TechCrunch)
• GM announced an advanced driver assistance system called Ultra Cruise which GM says will one day offer hands free driving in “95% of all driving scenarios” suggesting that a combination of weather conditions and less-used roads will probably never be covered. GM hopes to activate the feature on 3.4 million miles of North American roads, with 2 million having been mapped by the time of launch, slated for 2023. At first, it will only be available on GM’s most expensive vehicles, such as the Cadillac brand. GM’s system incorporates lidar. (GM)

Electrification ^(history)

• Battery developer Our Next Energy raised an undisclosed amount. (ONE)
• The RAC, one of the UK’s biggest roadside recovery services says that it is working towards 20% of the fleet being capable of providing emergency charging top-ups. Unfortunately, it won’t be fast. (Autocar)
• ITM Power raised £250 million to build more machines to extract hydrogen from water. (Motley Fool)

Connectivity

• Apple is reportedly working on a way to expand the role of CarPlay so that iPhone owners can adjust air conditioning, seat position and other settings. (Bloomberg)

Other

• Bird increased the size of the loan facility it uses to buy scooters to $150 million. (Bird)
• German electric scooter rental firm emmy was acquired by GoTo Global. (TechCrunch)

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Find our archive here.

GM’s weak maths, the VW and Tesla love-in and AMG isn’t so keen on artificially noisy electric cars. Please enjoy our auto industry and mobility briefing for 4^th October to 17^th October 2021. A PDF version can be found here.

• What Do You Mean? — GM told investors that it will save over $1 billion for each plant it converts to all-electric vehicles. But the maths is a bit suspect: that saving comes from not having to invest in new stamping, body assembly and paint facilities. These are exactly the same parts of the factory that would be re-used by an internal combustion engine model. So all GM is really saying is that it is better to convert a plant than bulldoze it and build a new one somewhere else (assuming there is no endemic workplace culture). But isn’t that kind of obvious?
• Friends Will Be Friends — VW CEO Diess invited Elon Musk to address top managers at the German firm and show them what they were up against, and Musk agreed. Musk told the enraptured throng that Tesla was an amazing problem-solving culture created in his own image. They probably all clapped. Are we on our way to a new, happier, world where top executives exhort their rivals to attempt to outdo them in the spirit of ultimate competition? Or does Musk have an underlying reason for sprinkling his magic dust over VW… like, convincing Europeans that his company isn’t a threat?
• Make Some Noise — AMG’s technical chief doesn’t think that artificial engine noises are the way to go for all-electric cars, fearing the creation of a pastiche. He still wants to give a nod to the internal combustion engine experience by incorporating vibration. Remember when polyphonic ringtones used to cost several pounds to download (looking at you, Crazy Frog fans)? Yet now everyone has their phones set to silent. Will there be a time when the whole discussion appears academic?

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

Find our archive here.

SIGN UP TO GET THE WEEKLY BRIEFING EMAILED TO YOU

News about the major automakers

BMW ^(history)

• Sold 583,189 cars in Q3 2021, down (12)% on a year earlier. Electrified vehicles saw sales increases and the Rolls-Royce brand jumped more than 20%. (BMW)
• Invested in lithium extraction firm Lilac Solutions. (BMW)
• CEO Zipse says that BMW will be ready for a wholesale transition to electric cars by 2030. (Reuters)
• Union strikes unions over pay are harming output at BMW’s South African plants. (Economic Times of India)

Daimler ^(history)

• Sold 428,361 cars and light vans in Q3 2021, down (30)% versus prior year. Mercedes trumpeted the performance of its fully electric cars, with EQC and EQA selling just over 30,000 units on a year to date basis, slightly under half the number of cars sold by Nio in the same timeframe. The Maybach sub-brand sold almost 11,000 cars in the first nine months. (Daimler)
• AMG built a new customer reception at the factory so that owners can pick up the keys in person. Some buyers are more equal than others: only those collecting top end models will be allowed a special Formula 1-themed zone. All others must make do with a more pedestrian “Business Lounge”. (Daimler)
• On top of existing sub-brands AMG, G (Class) and Maybach, Mercedes has added “Manufaktur”. The portfolio comprises a line of ultra-expensive options over and above the existing palette. The offerings are mainly trim and paint but there are some extra-cool puddle lights available. (Daimler)
• The CTO of the AMG division poured scorn on the idea of artificial sounds for sportscars to recreate the engine note. Instead, all-electric products will use vibration to communicate the idea of sound. He believes that top speeds below 155 mph will be acceptable to the customer. (Golem)
• Mercedes CEO Källenius says that electric vehicles with performance capable of “tens of laps” around a race track are “further away” than 2025. (High Snobiety) When asked in another interview about whether it will be confusing for customers that there will be an EQS SUV and a EQS car, with EQE then following the same pattern, he said that Mercedes thinks it will be “so obvious when you see the vehicle, you know whether you’re buying an SUV or a sedan”. (The Detroit Bureau)

Ford ^(history)

• Will start making electric motors, instead of manual transmissions, at the Halewood, UK, plant. (BBC)
• Ford and GM appear to have resolved their legal case over both having driver assistance systems with “Cruise” in the name. (Reuters)

Geely (includes Volvo) ^(history)

• Volvo will list at the end of October on the Nasdaq Stockholm exchange. The brand hopes to achieve a market capitalisation of between 163 billion – 200 billion SEK (about $19 billion – $23 billion). (Volvo)
• Volvo reported Q3 2021 sales of 149,892 cars, down (17)% versus prior year. (Volvo)
• Volvo agreed terms to take over the Luqiao, China, plant where the Polestar 2 is built from Geely. (Volvo)
• Volvo is looking to sell surplus European CO₂ vehicle emission credits for 2021. (EU)

General Motors ^(history)

• Held an investor day to lay out GM’s future plan. The firm was clear that it sees a place in the market for internal combustion engine powered vehicles into the next decade, but probably not for cars. Despite the increased cost of technology to deal with emissions legislation in many parts of the world, GM says that margins on internal combustion engine vehicles will increase, presumably through a combination of digital services and increased technology such as driver assistance. GM promises all-electric vehicles will reap margins comparable to internal combustion engine models – which will be higher than today – by 2030. (GM)
• GM says that in the next-next generation of battery cells (that come after the ones it hasn’t yet launched) will see a 60% cost reduction from today’s levels, and around a third less than soon-to-be-launched models. GM says that the firm will develop a leadership position in automotive based on its new technologies, but since it will be such a smash hit success it is unclear why it isn’t forecasting substantial revenues from licencing to less clever competitors. (GM)
• GM is working on potential entry into 20 new developing business lines. The smallest has an estimated market size of $3 billion, whilst the largest, aerial mobility, could one day be worth $500 billion according to GM’s maths. GM says that it receives $2 billion in annual revenue from connected vehicle services and that could rise to $6 billion annually for smart insurance alone by 2030. The company was silent on how a famously cut-throat industry will deliver massive margins in future simply because the quality of information has improved. Overall, GM says that these new businesses (which include defence and the Brightdrop commercial vehicles as a service division) will yield $80 billion in revenue by 2030, up from $2 billion today (the connected vehicles business). (GM)
• In a review of self-driving subsidiary Cruise’s outlook, GM showed a dimensionless Boston matrix chart (high to low performance versus high to low cost) suggesting that SAE L2 systems in future may be almost as capable as Cruise’s vehicles are today, or maybe it didn’t because the chart didn’t specify whether the axes were linear or a meaninglessly variable scale of Cruise’s own design. The company promises a 90% reduction in computing power cost by 2025, although since it doesn’t yet have a fully working system, this remains speculative. Nevertheless, the plan is to rapidly scale from 2023 onwards, following pilot roll outs in San Francisco and Phoenix, Arizona. Cruise reckons that it will be able to charge far less than human-driven ride hailing yet make bumper profits. Assessing the claims was difficult due to the iffy chart sizing GM presented. GM reminded investors of the truism that if autonomy is a smash hit success, it will lower costs and therefore increase market size. GM also suggested Cruise should attract a first to market premium, without proving that the business will in fact be first to marker. (GM)
• In an analysis of the costs to transition to electric vehicles, GM told investors that it could save $1 billion to $1.5 billion per plant by re-using assets, which seems relatively straightforward to prove, since assets such as the press shop, paint and body shop could all expect considerable re-use. But the foundation for the claim seems suspect: you can claim the same conversion benefits for replacement internal combustion engine programs today. The maths proves the case for retaining existing plants and people rather than shuttering existing factories and starting afresh: it doesn’t prove that there is a manageable transition plan in place to move from internal combustion engines to EV and explains little of how the redundant engine and transmission infrastructure is dealt with. (GM)
• Announced an advanced driver assistance system called Ultra Cruise which GM says will one day offer hands free driving in “95% of all driving scenarios” suggesting that a combination of weather conditions and less-used roads will probably never be covered. GM hopes to activate the feature on 3.4 million miles of North American roads, with 2 million having been mapped by the time of launch, slated for 2023. At first, it will only be available on GM’s most expensive vehicles, such as the Cadillac brand. GM’s system incorporates lidar. (GM)
• GM announced that LG has agreed to foot $1.9 billion of a $2 billion bill to recall Bolt all-electric vehicles that have faulty batteries. (GM) LG said that it would pay less than that – about $1.1 billion. (Economic Times of India)
• A judge dismissed a suit that GM brought on FCA (now part of Stellantis) accusing the latter of increasing labour costs through a corrupt relationship with the UAW union. (Reuters)
• Launching a Cadillac financing company. Apparently the deals offered won’t differ in substance to those on offer from GM’s existing captive lender (which will write the new loans too). GM sees unspecified brand-specific benefits in having its own finance presence. (Detroit Free Press)

Honda ^(history)

• By 2030, Honda will only sell heavily electrified or fully electric vehicles in China. As part of the announcement, Honda showed off two new all-electric SUVs bound for the Chinese market and three slab-sided concepts covering an SUV and two passenger cars. (Honda)
• Honda will roll out a new driver assistance system called Honda Sensing 360, starting in Chia but gradually making it to all major markets by 2030. (Honda)

Hyundai / Kia ^(history)

• Kia announced a minor refresh of the Forte. (Kia)

Mazda

• Mazda is planning to bring a series of large crossovers to market in Europe and North America. Named the CX-50 to CX-90 (and going up in units of 10), the range will deliver plug-in hybrids and although the cars in the two regions sound similar, they will be different enough to have unique names. (Mazda)

Nissan and Mitsubishi ^(history)

• Nissan wants all its vehicles to be carbon neutral in both manufacturing and use by 2050. (Nikkei)

Stellantis (formed via the merger of PSA and FCA)

• Announced a plan to create a North American joint venture for battery cells with LG. This is in addition to the existing European battery joint venture which Daimler recently bought into. (Stellantis)
• Maserati delayed the launched of the new Greycale SUV, blaming the semiconductor shortage and saying that the car is so advanced that it is particularly hard hit. Tesla’s ability to launch new factories and products with advanced technology suggests the existence of semiconductors in the car isn’t the sole obstacle. (Maserati)
• Stellantis is making moves remove Opel’s legal responsibilities for German factory management and hand it to Stellantis HQ, worrying German labour unions who feel that the brand is being dismembered. (Handelsblatt) Unions are becoming increasingly concerned that the Eisenach and Aspern plants, which have been shuttered since the summer because of a shortage of semiconductors, are secretly slated for closure because other Stellantis factories make the same products. (WSWS)
• Will reportedly cease carmaking at the Grugliasco, Italy, plant by shifting its (Maserati) models to the Mirafiori site in Turin. (Detroit News)
• Removing a shift at the Windsor, Canada, plant that produces minivans. (Detroit News)

Tata (includes JLR) ^(history)

• Tata (including JLR) sold 251,689 vehicles in Q3 2021 (Tata’s fiscal Q2), up 24% on a year-over-year basis. JLR sold 92,710 cars, down (18)%. JLR’s number includes China sales, unlike the Tata overall figure. (Tata)
• Raising $1 billion by creating a new subsidiary that will specialise in electric vehicles and selling a shareholding to investor TPG. The plan is for the offshoot to create 10 EVs within five years. (Tata)
• Unveiled the Tata Punch, a small SUV. (Tata)
• Will start making tools in-house at Halewood. (JLR)
• JLR is trialling the use of blockchain to track supplies of real and artificial leather interior trim. The idea is that the ledger will contain environmental data. (JLR)

Tesla ^(history)

• CEO Musk said Tesla’s new German factory will soon start production, but that it will take until the end of 2022 for the plant to reach full capacity. (Reuters)
• Tesla has removed pricing and specification details of the Cybertruck from its website, prompting speculation that it is encountering further problems in executing the product. (Futurism)
• After losing a racial discrimination case, Tesla was told to pay a former employee $137 million. (Reuters)
• Although Tesla said that only drivers with top safety scores (determined using a Tesla-proprietary algorithm) would be invited to test the beta version of advanced driver assistance, it emerged that an investor with a relatively high public profile and a score of 37/100 had been allowed into the program. (Electrek)

Toyota ^(history)

• Lexus unveiled the LX large SUV. (Lexus)
• Toyota is being sued by Nippon Steel because of a supply deal Toyota made with Baosteel that Nippon Steel says uses its IP. Toyota said it wished Nippon Steel would have resolved the matter amicably. (Toyota)
• Toyota Tsusho is collaborating with raw materials supplier BHP and battery producer PPES to create a lifecycle for electric car batteries. (Toyota)
• Toyota will build a battery plant in the USA in partnership with Toyota Tsusho. (Toyota)

VW Group ^(history)

• CEO Diess invited Tesla CEO Elon Musk to address a gathering of top VW executives and let them observe first-hand the culture of the US automaker. (Reuters)
• Q3 sales of all-electric vehicles showed that the ID4 is now outselling ID3 almost 3:2. The VW ID vehicles sold around half as many in full nine months as Tesla’s Model 3 and Model Y sold in Q3 2021. (VW)
• Porsche is offering customers a 3D printed insert for bucket seats to make their car seem racier. The almost €3,000 option can be retrofitted. (Porsche)
• Lamborghini announced that it is installing a new biomethane power plant at its factory as part of emissions reduction efforts. (Lamborghini)
• Rumours emerged that CEO Diess had told the supervisory board that the company might need to shed 30,000 jobs if it gets the transition to electric vehicles wrong. (Automotive News)

Other

• NEVS, Evergrande’s Swedish factory (ex-Saab), says that it is up for sale. (Reuters) The Chinese part of the carmaking business says it is on course to make cars, despite the problems of the parent firm. (Reuters)
• WM Motor is looking to raise $500 million. (WM)
• Foxconn showed off three prototypes it has been developing: an SUV, a car and a bus. (Reuters)
• VinFast confirmed that the brand was still planning to launch in North America, using the LA auto show as a platform. (VinFast)
• Fuel cell vehicle developer Hyzon was forced to deny a report issued by a short seller that called into question the business relationships Hyzon has and its longer term outlook. (Hyzon)

News about other companies and trends

Economic / Political News

• The head of the UN called for the end of production of vehicles with internal combustion engines in richer countries by 2035 and all others by 2040. (Economic Times of India)
• German registrations of 196,972 passenger cars in September fell (25.7)%  versus prior year. (KBA)
• September passenger car registrations of 215,312 units in the UK fell (34)% year-over-year. (SMMT)
• Spanish passenger car registrations of 59,641 units fell (16)% compared with September 2020. (ANFAC)
• Passenger car registrations in Italy during September of 105,175 units fell (33)% versus prior year. (UNRAE)
• French passenger car registrations of 133,835 units fell (20)% compared with September 2020. (CCFA)

Suppliers

• Sono Motors is supplying solar panels for ARI Motors’s electric vehicle. (Sono Motors)
• Novares says that it wants to sue some customers because they have been cancelling orders at the last minute because of the semiconductor supply crunch. (Reuters)
• Automotive software firm NeuSAR raised $100 million. (Deal Street Asia)
• Miner Neo Lithium is being acquired by Zijn Mining. (Reuters)
• Magna called off its pursuit of Veoneer, which will instead be sold to Qualcomm. (Magna)

Dealers

• South Korean automotive online marketplace K Car raised $285 million in an IPO. (Deal Street Asia)
• Indian car website CarDekho raised $250 million. (TechCrunch)
• Auto1 FT will offer car financing where the contracts are signed in blockchain via Ethereum. (Auto1)
• UK dealer group Motorline was acquired by bigger rival Marshall. (Motor Trader)
• Automatic tyre replacement company RoboTire raised $7.5 million. (TechCrunch)

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

• Ex-Ford CEO Mark Fields has been appointed interim chief of Hertz. (Auto Rental News)
• Ride hailing provider Ola acquired mapping data company GeoSpoc. (Deal Street Asia)
• Car rental firm Kyte raised $30 million. (Auto Rental News)
• Via is trialling an on-demand bus service with a rural UK council. (Via)

Driverless / Autonomy ^(history)

• Self-driving developer Wayve raised $14 million. (TechCrunch)
• Hyundai Mobis showed off a foldable steering system that the company has been developing. It seems that in trying to overcome design constraints stemming from airbag storage, the design team opted against a traditional steering wheel, instead creating two handles that can be used for left and right steering. Since the device is designed for occasional use, which is likely low speed, the lack of steering movement might not matter. (Hyundai)
• Lidar maker Ouster is buying smaller rival Sense Photonics. (TechCrunch)
• GM announced an advanced driver assistance system called Ultra Cruise which GM says will one day offer hands free driving in “95% of all driving scenarios” suggesting that a combination of weather conditions and less-used roads will probably never be covered. GM hopes to activate the feature on 3.4 million miles of North American roads, with 2 million having been mapped by the time of launch, slated for 2023. At first, it will only be available on GM’s most expensive vehicles, such as the Cadillac brand. GM’s system incorporates lidar. (GM)

Electrification ^(history)

• Battery developer Our Next Energy raised an undisclosed amount. (ONE)
• The RAC, one of the UK’s biggest roadside recovery services says that it is working towards 20% of the fleet being capable of providing emergency charging top-ups. Unfortunately, it won’t be fast. (Autocar)
• ITM Power raised £250 million to build more machines to extract hydrogen from water. (Motley Fool)

Connectivity

• Apple is reportedly working on a way to expand the role of CarPlay so that iPhone owners can adjust air conditioning, seat position and other settings. (Bloomberg)

Other

• Bird increased the size of the loan facility it uses to buy scooters to $150 million. (Bird)
• German electric scooter rental firm emmy was acquired by GoTo Global. (TechCrunch)

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Tesla’s supply chain wrangling, Polestar’s IP-light strategy and GM’s cringe-worthy naming conventions. Please enjoy our auto industry and mobility briefing for 27^th September to 3^rd October 2021. A PDF version can be found here.

• Boom, Boom, Pow — Tesla sales rose 73% year over year in Q3 2021. But with a company in growth mode, that isn’t particularly interesting, what is remarkable is that Tesla is managing to grow at a time when other major automakers can’t get their hands on enough chips — and Tesla’s cars are full of more electronics than your average motor. Are rivals studying the company hard enough to see what it has done right, or did it just get lucky with the timing of China and Model Y launches?
• Fine By Me — Polestar is listing through a merger with a special purpose vehicle, a so-called SPAC deal. If it all goes according to plan, the business will be worth $20 billion. For a manufacturer with a single carline (in production), that depends entirely on the technology and manufacturing assets of others, that isn’t bad going. Could this be the start of a new business model where OEMs list each vehicle line as a separate business and let the market decide how to allocate capital?
• Dancing In The Moonlight — GM announced that its connected car software will be branded “Ultifi”. Another meaningless name you might think, until you start to connect the dots with GM’s battery architecture: Ultium. Will we be inundated with a raft of new “Ulti-X” badged initiatives? Dealers as Ultistores, car parks as Ultispaces, negotiating positions as Ultimatums. Can anyone save us from the marketing equivalent of dad-dancing?

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

BMW ^(history)

• Rolls-Royce announced the brand’s first all-electric car, to be named Spectre, which will launch at the end of 2023. Although the product announcement had be widely expected, the rumours were that the car would be called “Silent Shadow”. Rolls-Royce confirmed that the brand will be fully electric by 2030. (Rolls-Royce)
• BMW is doing so well that the firm increased full year margin expectations as improved pricing and financing profits offset lower volumes. (BMW)
• Mini’s market research shows that in addition to being increasingly receptive to electric cars, younger customers are expecting them to be fun to drive. Overall, around half of US respondents surveyed believe that all-electric cars will outsell internal combustion engine powered counterparts in 15 years. (BMW)

Daimler ^(history)

• Shareholders officially approved of the separation of the trucks division, and for the remaining car company to be renamed Mercedes-Benz. (Daimler)

Ferrari

• Announced a fixed price servicing deal for LaFerrari hypercars. Although such offerings are becoming increasingly common they are still unusual for cars this expensive. (Ferrari)
• Collaborating with superstar designers Jony Ive (Apple iEverything) and Marc Newson (industrial designer par excellence) on an unspecified new range of products, which may or may not be cars. The effort will be likely different from the Ford 021C concept Newson developed in 1999. (Ferrari)

Ford ^(history)

• Reported Q3 2021 US sales of 383,805 units, down (27)% versus prior year. Segment exits in small and mid-size car explained about one third of the drop. (Ford)
• Renewed $15.5 billion in credit lines. Ford agreed to special terms with the banks providing the loans that link the interest rate to the company’s impact on the environment from manufacturing and vehicles. (Ford)
• Appointed recent Board appointee Alexandra Ford English to a newly-created head of merchandising role, declaring that the Blue Oval is “becoming a lifestyle brand”. (Ford)
• Announced a new plant in Tennessee that will produce electric pickup trucks and batteries, to be grandly named “Blue Oval City”. The new factory’s size implies that it will be capable of a six-figure annual output of trucks. Because the new plant will not open until 2025, the move still doesn’t address the apparent gap left by Ford’s capacity announcement of a few weeks ago where production of all-electric F-150 was increased, but not to the level of orders. (Ford)
• CEO Farley says Ford is undergoing the biggest change since the Model T. (CNBC)

Geely (includes Volvo) ^(history)

• Polestar will list via a merger with a special purpose entity, with an expected valuation of $20 billion. Volvo will hold around 50% of the firm once it goes public, boosting the larger brand’s IPO hopes. (Volvo)

General Motors ^(history)

• Delivered 446,997 US vehicles in Q3 2021, a dop of (33)% from prior year. Within the figures, GM’s selection of preferred vehicles for allocating scare semiconductor components was clear: high priced models such as Escalade, Suburban and Corvette saw increases amongst the wider sales drop. (GM)
• Announced a smaller Brightdrop van, the EV410, and said that the EV600 had been delivered in GM’s quickest ever programme – 20 months from “concept to commercialization”. Since the production is not taking place in GM’s stated mass-production plant, and GM is not making the units available for general sale (it is placing them with selected customers) the claim is debatable. (GM)
• Said that 100% of US manufacturing will use renewable energy by 2025. (GM)
• Announced that GM’s connected car software, and accompanying smartphone apps, will be branded Ultifi. (GM)
• A shortage of semiconductors means that GM isn’t producing any cars with the Super Cruise advanced driver assistance package. (The Verge)

Hyundai / Kia ^(history)

• Unveiled the Genesis GV60, an all-electric SUV. (Hyundai)
• Kia sold 682,196 cars in Q3 2021, down (2)% versus prior year. (Kia)
• Hyundai sold 894,655 vehicles in Q3 2021, down (10)% versus prior year. (Hyundai)

Nissan and Mitsubishi ^(history)

• Will begin serious talks with Great Wall over a possible takeover by the Chinese carmaker of Nissan’s unwanted Barcelona site. (Nikkei)

Stellantis (formed via the merger of PSA and FCA)

• Sold 410,918 vehicles in the US during Q3 2021, down (19)% versus prior year. (Stellantis)
• Opel’s plant in Eisenach is being furloughed until at least 2022. (Reuters)

Tesla ^(history)

• Reported Q3 sales of 241,300 cars, up 73% on a year-over-year basis. Sales and production of the Model S and Model X continued to underwhelm falling (75)% versus Q3 2020. (Tesla)
• Owners joining Tesla’s test of the beta version of its advanced driver assistance (“full self-driving”) are being told not to distribute evidence of the system going wrong because “there are a lot of people that want Tesla to fail”. Reportedly, those opting into the trial are made to sign NDAs (to try a system that in some cases they paid for several years ago). (The Verge)

Toyota ^(history)

• Invested in Burro , a company developing autonomous farming robots. (Toyota)
• Subsidiary Woven Planet acquired vehicle software developer Renovo Motors. (Toyota)

VW Group ^(history)

• Lamborghini’s restoration department built a one-off replica of the original Countach prototype. With a reported 25,000 hours of labour involved in producing the car, the price tag is probably eye-watering. (Lamborghini)
• Replacing the CEO and CFO of truck unit Traton. (Reuters)

Other

• Nio delivered 24,439 cars in Q3 2021, up 100% on prior year, thanks primarily to the EC6. (Nio)
• Workhorse announced the departure of its COO and CFO. (Reuters)
• Lordstown sold its factory to Foxconn, which will now become the contract manufacturer for Lordstown’s trucks, plus cars from Fisker. (Nikkei)
• Mahindra is reportedly looking at funding options for Pininfarina. (Economic Times of India)
• Rivian’s IPO documentation showed that the firm is spending over $1 billion per year and has almost $1.5 billion of physical assets on the books. (Rivian)

News about other companies and trends

Economic / Political News

• US light vehicle SAAR of 12.2 million in September fell (25)% from prior year. (Wards)

Suppliers

• Bosch and Dana will jointly develop components for fuel cells. (Dana) Dana also held an investor day. (Dana)
• Faurecia launched a takeover bid for Hella. (Faurecia)
• Adient and Yanfeng have dissolved their Chinese joint venture. (Adient)
• Battery maker CATL is acquiring lithium miner Millennial Lithium. (Deal Street Asia)
• Continental is adopting a different divisional structure now that the Vitesco powertrain business has been separated. There will be three units: tyres, COntiTech and automotive. (Continental)
• Hitachi believes that in-wheel motors can improve range by 20%, thanks to reduced losses. (Nikkei)
• ZF increased its stake in software firm DoubleSlash to 51%. (Autocar)

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

• BP invested in Indian ride hailing service BluSmart. (Deal Street Asia)

Driverless / Autonomy ^(history)

• Self-driving truck developer Kodiak Robotics has a new prototype truck. The firm emphasised how “discreet” the new sensor set is, implying that it is somehow naturally easier to set up than worse looking alternatives. (Kodiak)

Electrification ^(history)

• Chinese battery swapping firm Aulton raised $232 million. (Deal Street Asia)
• Ola Electric raised over $200 million. (Deal Street Asia)

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Volvo sees a cheaper future and GM is making money in customer’s homes. Please enjoy our auto industry and mobility briefing for 20^th September to 26^th September 2021. A PDF version can be found here.

• Hell Bent For Leather — Volvo says that leather is on its way out. New car launches won’t feature the material and by 2030 you won’t find it in any Volvo vehicles. Volvo is doing a great job of identifying trends that seem inevitable and then making a first public move. Why is this interesting? Because they are choosing options that will be cheaper than the components they replace, yet have greater value. Can they come up with a reason to ditch air conditioning?
• Won’t Go Home Without You — GM’s OnStar service will be available to customers in their homes. Thanks to a tie-in with Amazon’s Alexa, people will be able to call up for help in all manner of distressing situations. So far, carmakers have talked up the revenue potential of connected services, only to see tech companies make in roads as the automotive companies jealously guard their subscale territories. In the situation with OnStar, an OEM is at last providing a service that extends beyond the car and may have some benefits. Where to next?

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)

• Daimler joined as a partner in the Stellantis-led ACC battery consortium, with a 33% stake. (Daimler)
• Daimler Truck hopes that, by 2030, sales of electric trucks will outstrip non-electric versions. (Handelsblatt)
• CEO Källanius said that some Mercedes customers are waiting over one year for their cars. (Reuters)
• Priced the all-electric EQS almost 10% lower than the gasoline powered S-Class. (TechCrunch)

Ford ^(history)

• Invested $50 million in battery recycling firm Redwood Materials. (Ford)
• Unveiled a mild facelift for the Fiesta small car. (Ford) There is also an update for the Expedition SUV. (Ford)
• CEO Jim Farley is “deeply worried about the affordability” of electric cars because “average people cannot afford [them]”. (Detroit News)

Geely (includes Volvo) ^(history)

• Volvo says that sustainable materials matter and published a report into the variety of possible outcomes it sees that consumers might champion. (Volvo) So convinced of the trend is Volvo that it has vowed all new battery electric models will be leather-free and the material will be phased out entirely by 2030. (Volvo)
• Lotus says it has created a common set of components that can be used to build all-electric sportscars. Lotus seems to be betting that owners will be prepared to sacrifice range for cabin space because whilst the two seat design can accommodate a battery just under 100 KWh, the 2+2 has to make do with 66 kWh. (Lotus)
• Geely says it will have 5,000 battery swapping stations by 2025. (Reuters)

General Motors ^(history)

• Says that it has solved problems that resulted in all-electric Bolts catching fire. Production restarted. GM will also start sending battery packs to dealers to replace faulty ones in cars. (GM)
• Announced a $300 million investment in Chinese self-driving firm Momenta. (GM)
• GM’s OnStar service will now be available in the home, through Amazon Alexa-enabled devices. (GM)

Honda ^(history)

• Honda is hoping that its Prologue all-electric SUV will sell 70,000 units a year. (Reuters)
• Will integrate Google’s in car entertainment services, starting in North America and then going global. (Honda)

Stellantis (formed via the merger of PSA and FCA)

• Head of the Americas (and former FCA CEO) Mike Manley is leaving to become CEO of megadealer AutoNation. Instead of replacing him, CEO Tavares will add to his sprawling list of direct reports. (Stellantis)
• Daimler joined as a partner in the Stellantis-led ACC battery consortium, with a 33% stake. (Daimler)

Tesla ^(history)

• CEO Musk says that new semiconductor plants should be on stream next year and will put an end to supply shortages. (Reuters)

Toyota ^(history)

• Invested in Xona, a company which hopes to make a new GPS network. (Toyota) Toyota also invested in Near Space Labs, which takes photographs from high altitude. (Toyota)

VW Group ^(history)

• Porsche says the average Chinese buyer is 35 and half its customers are women. (Porsche)
• Porsche is trying to expand its use of free open source software. (Porsche)

Other

• ATLIS says it is on course to raise another $5 million through crowdfunding and is worth $385 million. (ATLIS)
• Workhorse is stopping production of its all-electric delivery van so that it can be redesigned to increase cargo capacity. (Yahoo)
• Japanese automakers including Honda, Mazda, Toyota, Subaru and Nissan announced a new joint research centre. With a modest budget of under $1 million per year, it isn’t clear how profound the initiative will be. (Honda)
• Evergrande’s EV unit said it was unsure about the future and cancelled a plan share sale. (Economic Times of India)
• Local Motors has a new CEO. (Local Motors)

News about other companies and trends

Economic / Political News

• BMW and Daimler are being sued by a German environmental action group because they aren’t planning to move away from internal combustion engines quickly enough and, their accusers say, are not doing enough to combat climate change. (Handelsblatt)

Suppliers

• LG is acquiring cybersecurity firm Cybellum. (LG)
• Faurecia warned that profits will drop after industry volume forecasts were lowered. (Reuters) Kongsberg did the same. (Kongsberg)
• Lear and Hu Lane announced a joint venture for electrical connectors. (Lear)
• Schaeffler’s boss in Asia Pacific says that hybrids are a better fit for the needs of many Indian consumers than battery electric vehicles. (Economic Times of India)
• TI Fluid Systems has a new CEO. (TI)

Dealers

• Indian used car site Cars24 raised $450 million. (TechCrunch) Competitor Droom is reportedly set to file papers for an IPO in 2022. (Deal Street Asia)

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

• Chinese ride hailing firm T3 looks set to raise $775 million. (Technode)

Driverless / Autonomy ^(history)

• GM announced a $300 million investment in Chinese self-driving firm Momenta. (GM)

Connectivity

• GM’s OnStar service will now be available in the home, through Amazon Alexa-enabled devices. (GM)

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Tesla’s marketing miracle; Foxconn takes the road less travelled; and Ford’s electric F-150 might soon outsell the Lincoln brand. Please enjoy our auto industry and mobility briefing for 13^th September to 19^th September 2021. A PDF version can be found here.

• Know Your Enemy — Tesla is ending its referral program, which has substituted for traditional marketing by encouraging word of mouth referrals. The firm has shown that you truly can grow by word of mouth (a superstar CEO helps). Overall, by spending less on advertising, Tesla is saving 2%+ of net revenue compared to an established manufacturer (I’m not going to get into wholly-owned dealers, that is a different subject altogether). To put that in perspective, that’s not far off a 5% material cost bill, the sort of performance carmakers would shout about and analyse to death if their rivals achieved it. So… why does everyone else still have their chequebooks out?
• Boulevard of Broken Dreams — Foxconn is reportedly planning to pull out of a venture to build an electric car with Byton, thanks to the latter’s poor finances. The thing is, you can’t really chop and change parts sharing very easily with cars: either you are sharing everything and you are disturbed or were sharing nothing, so breaking apart is easy but what was the point in the first place? Does Foxconn have a secret ingredient that will make tactical collaborations a plausible strategy, or will it learn the approach’s shortcomings the hard way?
• Longview — Ford is boosting capacity for the all-electric F-150 before production has even started. But even at the new, higher, rate, Ford reckons it has almost enough orders to fill the plant for two years. At the car’s current level, sales won’t be much below the entire Lincoln line-up. Will buyers happily stand in line, or does Ford need another round of capacity increases?

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News about the major automakers

Ford ^(history)

• Announced that it will increase capacity for the all-electric F-150 to 80,000 per year. Ford says it has almost enough orders to fill two years of production. (Ford)
• Ford’s COO of North America wouldn’t commit to when the company might reduce production capacities for vehicles with internal combustion engines, saying that currently demand for all-electric vehicles appears to be incremental. The company’s current, favoured, route is to build cars that can have either fully electric drive or internal combustion engines, but with the added hassle of separate final assembly facilities. She also said that the decision to move from purchasing batteries from third parties to use joint ventures was purely driven by a greater ability to reap scale benefits (which she didn’t quantify). (Ford)
• Appointed a new chief information officer, with a background in online retail. (Ford)

Geely (includes Volvo) ^(history)

• Volvo is reportedly set to list with a valuation of $15 billion to $20 billion. (Reuters)

General Motors ^(history)

• GM said it has sent process improvement experts into plants owned by LG Chem as it bids to get enough parts to refit all-electric Bolts with batteries that could catch fire. (Reuters)
• GM invested in sensor startup Oculii. (TechCrunch)

Honda ^(history)

• Honda’s researchers are studying human brain waves to try and understand how drivers perceive risk out on the road. They aren’t yet sure that the company can realise its ambition of having zero fatal accidents by 2050. (Nikkei)

Hyundai / Kia ^(history)

• Hyundai’s upmarket Genesis brand will start offering face recognition for vehicle access. Each vehicle can register two faces. (Hyundai)
• Hyundai is using robot dogs for real time safety inspections in factories. (TechCrunch)
• Used Hyundai and Kia electric batteries will go into a stationary storage system in Texas, USA. (Autocar)

Nissan and Mitsubishi ^(history)

• Mitsubishi will stop designing its own products for the Japanese market and will instead rely on engineering provided by part-owner Nissan. (Nikkei)

Stellantis (formed via the merger of PSA and FCA)

• CEO Tavares is giving up his board seat at Airbus to concentrate fully on Stellantis. (Stellantis)

Tesla ^(history)

• CEO Musk says Chinese automakers have his respect, thanks to their software expertise. Some journalists thought the remarks might have been made to please the Chinese government. (TechCrunch)
• Tesla will monitor how well owners drive for seven days before allowing them to try out the most advanced release of its driver assistance system. (CNBC)
• Ended its referral program (for the second time). (Engadget)

VW Group ^(history)

• Bugatti has launched a new razor. As if Bugatti buyers shave their own faces. (Bugatti)
• VW’s captive finance company sold off its Indian loan portfolio, which the company said was because of a “refined digital strategy”. (Autocar)

Other

• Solar powered vehicle developer Lightyear raised $110 million. (Lightyear)
• Rivian is reportedly hoping that its IPO will raise $8 billion in cash. (Reuters)
• Workhorse accepted that it wouldn’t win its legal case against the US Postal Service choosing a competitor’s product for a big fleet deal. (FreightWaves)
• AM General showed off the next generation Humvee. (AM General)
• Foxconn’s project to build an all-electric car with Byton is reportedly on the ropes due to the OEM’s worsening financial situation. (Economic Times of India) Despite the troubles, Foxconn signed a joint venture with Thai fossil fuel producer PTT to build electric vehicles. The partners hope for 150,000 vehicles per year. (Nikkei)
• Evergrande is in grave financial problems. (Deal Street Asia)
• Xpeng wants to expand and is open-minded about acquiring weaker rivals to do so. (Deal Street Asia)
• Lucid celebrated achieving a 520 mile range in US certification. (Lucid)
• Rivian is launching a scheme that will bundle charging, data and membership of an owners’ club along with software updates. It will be free for an unspecified period. (Rivian)
• There are reportedly three final bidders for Ssangyong. (Economic Times of India)

News about other companies and trends

Economic / Political News

• US regulators are reportedly looking at another round of failures related to Takata airbag inflators. (Reuters)
• Chinese ministers hope to consolidate the country’s electric vehicle brands. (Reuters)
• CATL and BASF will work together on battery materials. (CATL)

Suppliers

• Allison Transmission is acquiring AVTEC’s Indian off-highway components division. (Allison)
• Continental completed the spin-off of Vitesco. (Handelsblatt)
• Redwood Materials hopes to have enough capacity to produce cathode and anode materials for 500 GWh of batteries by 2030. (TechCrunch)
• Chipmaker GlobalFoundries says it will double production for automotive parts. (Nikkei)

Dealers

• UK used car dealer Cazoo acquired vehicle reconditioning business SMH. (Motor Trader)

Driverless / Autonomy ^(history)

• Self-driving firm DeepRoute.ai raised $300 million. (Deal Street Asia)

Other

• Electric scooter maker Gogoro is merging with a special purpose vehicle in a $2.4 billion deal. (Deal Street Asia)
• Volta Trucks raised €37 million. (TechCrunch)
• Xpeng Heitech, part-owned by carmaker Xpeng says it will have flying cars on sale by 2024. (Deal Street Asia)

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Ford’s expansion comes to an end; Hyundai’s continued quest for a hydrogen future; and premium CFOs promise to behave themselves. Please enjoy our auto industry and mobility briefing for 6^th September to 12^th September 2021. A PDF version can be found here.

• Moving On Up — Ford is shutting down manufacturing operations in India, effectively ending the firm’s challenge in the country. Although cars like the Mustang will remain on sale, they are niche products. Along with retreats from Russia and South America, Ford is undoing 20 years of expansion built on the assumption that it could serve the needs of an emerging middle class, even though it struggled to make money on similar cars in mature markets where they sold for higher prices. Automotive executives crave growth stories, so what comes next?
• Search For The Hero – Hyundai is still pursuing its plans for hydrogen fuel cells and says that by 2030 the technology will reach price parity with battery electric cars. Since both types of vehicle use electric motors and power electronics, that boils down to a bet that a fuel cell stack and hydrogen fuel system can become cheaper than a battery. With Toyota reckoning that battery costs will fall 50% in the next few years thanks to a combination of scale, energy density and new technology, what do Hyundai know that others don’t?
• Dreaming — The CFOs of BMW and Daimler both claim that when the semiconductor shortage is over they will keep their newfound pricing power. Their firms have learned the lessons of disciplined supply, they say, and incentives are banished forever. Through many cycles we have seen automakers gain pricing, and profits, as rising demand outstrips capacities that have just been slashed. How come this time it will be different?

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News about the major automakers

BMW ^(history)

• BMW’s new development centre will have 14 driving simulators, although it seems as though only one will be a near-realistic dynamic simulator. (BMW)
• Plans to increase the amount of recycled and reusable materials in each vehicle (a measure which includes some brand new material) from 30% in the current generation to 50% in future. BMW unveiled a concept called the I Vision Circular, which the brand claims shows how to get the figure to 100%. In design terms, the car appears to be the spiritual successor to the i3. (BMW)
• BMW’s CFO says that even when the chip shortage is finished, his company will produce at nearly the same levels, hoping to keep prices high. (FT)
• Invested in networking company GenXComm. (FINSMES)
• BMW’s CEO said the company’s future is as an independent. (Handelsblatt)

Daimler ^(history)

• Daimler’s CEO says chip shortages may extend into 2023. (Reuters)
• Daimler’s CFO says that even when the chip shortage is finished, his company will produce at nearly the same levels, hoping to keep prices high. (FT)
• Unveiled the all-electric EQE. (Mercedes) and a concept version of an electric G-Class. (Mercedes)
• Showed off an all-electric concept called the Maybach EQS. Despite sharing a name with the recently revealed Mercedes EQS, this Maybach is an SUV, rather than a sedan. (Mercedes)

Ford ^(history)

• Announced a restructuring in India that will see manufacturing in the country end and Ford scaling back its marketing and sales activities to concentrate on only very high end customers. Engines will still be built in India for export and Ford will retain its 11,000-strong office workforce. Ford’s pull-out comes only a little while after the collapse of a planned joint venture with Mahindra. Ford says it will cost about $(2) billion to close its operations in India. (Ford)
• Has started serious efforts to incentivise customers to join the FordPass program by offering US participants the option to book pickup and delivery for servicing – and if they are sufficiently “loyal”, they can even do it for free (once per year). (Ford)
• Headhunted Doug Field, the chief of Apple’s constantly-under-development car project to head up the team looking after advanced technologies and embedded hardware and software. (Ford)

Geely (includes Volvo) ^(history)

• Investing $50 million into ECARX, founded by Geely’s founder. (Geely)
• Has a new design director as the previous incumbent stepped down to concentrate on Lotus. (Geely)
• Lotus plans to open 70 dealerships in China next year, up from four today. Nio has invested in Lotus’s Chinese unit, which is apparently worth over $2 billion. (Reuters)
• Geely’s ride hailing subsidiary Caocao Chuxing raised $600 million. (Nikkei)

General Motors ^(history)

• GM reckons that the facelift for the Silverado will put the pickup truck at the top of the sales charts. (Reuters)

Honda ^(history)

• Honda intends to launch a new sub-brand of rugged pick-up trucks called Trailsport. (Honda)

Hyundai / Kia ^(history)

• Hyundai sell only electric or hydrogen powered vehicles in Europe from 2035 onwards and says that by 2040 all major markets will have phased out fossil fuels. (Hyundai)
• Hyundai says every commercial vehicle will have a fuel cell offering by 2028 and hopes that fuel cells will reach price parity with battery electric models by 2030. Hyundai says that durability is improving and in the next generation the fuel cells will last for 500,000 km. (Hyundai)
• Hyundai says it will be carbon neutral by 2045 and will reduce emissions 75% between 2019 and 2040. (Hyundai)
• Kia will be in charge of making military hydrogen powered vehicles. (ET News)

Renault ^(history)

• Dacia unveiled the seven seat Jogger minivan. (Dacia)
• Unveiled the all-electric version of the Megane. (Renault)
• Reportedly close to ending its Chinese joint venture for vans with Brilliance. (Reuters)
• Renault executives hope to be able to push back plans to ban internal combustion engines in Europe by 2035, preferring a target of 2040. The logic is that it will still be too expensive for some customers to have fully electric cars in 2035. (Auto Express)
• Renault’s design chief reckons that door handles and touchscreens are on their way out because they are unhygienic. Whilst automatic door handles have been demonstrated, touchscreen replacement may require greater use of voice control, or better gesture recognition. (Autocar)

Stellantis (formed via the merger of PSA and FCA)

• Will consolidate its two joint venture factories in China with GAC to a single site. (Economic Times of India)

Subaru

• Unveiled the next generation Subaru WRX. (Subaru)

Toyota ^(history)

• Gave a presentation on battery strategy re-confirming a plan to sell 6 million electrified, but not all-electric vehicles in 2030, plus 2 million all-electric models. Toyota is still pushing hybrids, declaring that the 18 million vehicles it has sold are equivalent to 5.5 million battery electric models on the streets, for the equivalent battery capacity of 260,000 models. Toyota also says that experience with hybrids has helped the company to develop battery technologies that will be highly relevant for all models. Toyota says that battery costs will fall by 50% towards the end of the decade through a combination of new low cost technologies and improved power density (which means a smaller battery can go the same distance). (Toyota)
• Toyota says that currently solid state batteries suffer from deterioration in their structure that mean their useful life is too short. If the challenges can be solved, Toyota intends to apply them to hybrids in addition to all-electric vehicles. By 2030, Toyota says it will consume more than 200 GWh of batteries. (Toyota)
• Expects to produce 300,000 fewer vehicles in this financial year. Toyota said that although chip shortages were part of the problem, coronavirus was mostly to blame. (Reuters)
• Acquiring Chinese vehicle leasing firm SK Auto Service for about $45 million. (Nikkei)

VW Group ^(history)

• Unveiled the ID.LIFE a concept version of a Polo-sized all-electric car, likely to be badged the ID.2 when it launches in 2025. VW says the car will cost €20,000. (VW)
• Porsche unveiled the Mission R, an all-electric track concept car. Porsche says the vehicle’s battery is sufficient for “sprint racing”, Porsche’s shorthand for not very many laps. The company hinted that the vehicle could participate in a future one-make championship, saying that it is as fast as a 911 GT3. (Porsche)
• Building work has begun on the synthetic fuels factory Porsche and Siemens hope will eventually produce 550 million litres of petrol equivalent annually. (Porsche)
• VW is setting up an in-house VC fund to invest €300 million in decarbonization. (Reuters)
• CEO Diess says there is enough money available to invest in all the new battery plants the automotive industry needs, saying that Northvolt has proven investor appetite. (Reuters) He also told journalists that electric cars were “kind of easy” compared to autonomous cars, which will be the industry’s real “gamechanger”. He thinks that by 2030, mobility services could buy around 15% of vehicles, which although seemingly relatively small, is a big increase on the share of sales today. (Reuters)
• Sold a 75% share in its in-car payments business to JP Morgan. (Reuters)
• CEO Diess had his house vandalised by climate change protesters. He said that oil executives should be targeted instead. (Handelsblatt)
• Porsche’s CEO said that he supported a European ban on internal combustion engines by 2035, saying that competitors should play their part in emissions reduction. (Bloomberg)

Other

• Nio is seeking to raise an additional $2 billion. (Nio) Nio’s venture capital arm invested in Lotus’s Chinese technology unit. (Reuters)
• Koenigsegg announced that it has bought back the 65% share NEVS took in a joint venture company to make the Gemera hypercar. (Koenigsegg)
• Great Wall unveiled two new cars in Munich, the Wey Coffee 01 PHEV and the all-electric ORA 01CAT. (GWM)

News about other companies and trends

Economic / Political News

• UK passenger car registrations in August of 68,033 units fell (22)% versus prior year. (SMMT)
• The Italian government is seeking an exemption from stringent EU emissions legislation for small volume manufacturers, such as Ferrari and Lamborghini. (Electrive)
• US politicians are proposing to extend incentives for all-electric vehicles with a series of escalating rebates for vehicles built by unionised workers, and with US-sourced batteries. (Reuters)

Suppliers

• Intel plans to turn production capacity at a plant in Ireland over to automotive use. (Reuters)
• Magna will contract manufacture trucks for Volta. (Autocar)

Dealers

• Singaporean multipurpose car ownership app Motorist raised $800,000. (Tech In Asia)

Driverless / Autonomy ^(history)

• WeRide showed off the Robovan, basically an off-the-shelf van with autonomous driving kit. (TechCrunch)
• The head of Apple’s car project defected to Ford. The move suggests that Apple is still not close to signing off on a full program. (Ford)

Electrification ^(history)

• Four motorbike manufacturers, including Honda, Yamaha, Piaggio and KTM officially formed a consortium for battery swapping, after originally announcing the move in March 2021. (KTM)

Other

• BP invested €10 million in in-car payments firm Ryd. (TechCrunch)

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Tesla moves out of shopping malls; Everyone wants an electric F-150 except Ford traditionalists; and off-street charging costs too much. Please enjoy our auto industry and mobility briefing for 26^th July to 1^st August 2021. A PDF version can be found here.

• I Like To Move It — Tesla is reportedly changing its retail strategy and will move to stores in cheaper locations with less passing trade. The imperative seems to be to cut costs, indicating that passing trend is far less important that customers who had decided in advance to pay Tesla a visit. If correct, the move raises questions about the retail concept, which has been gaining adherents in recent years, with Tesla often held up as a poster child for success (which has proved elusive for some OEMs). Will customers notice the difference?
• Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It — Ford says that there are 120,000 reservations for the all-electric F-150 pickup, and claims some stunning conquest metrics with 75% of customers new to Ford. The car looks as though it will deliver impressive performance and be easy to live with. If the conquest rate is 75%, it sounds as thought loyal Ford customers aren’t actually so interested in going electric. What does that mean for the future of internal combustion engines? Are they needed for the long term, or will the all-electric version change minds of Ford buyers?
• Bills, Bills, Bills — UK politicians are worrying that streetside charging facilities cost customers too much. They have reviewed the maths and seen that although at home charging costs a fraction of the cost of an equivalent amount of petrol, on-street charging is closer in price to fossil fuels. This seems okay because it is what the customer shows they can pay (because they do it today), but it makes electric cars more expensive to own and there is a large difference between whole life cost for on-street and off-street parking, which will restrict access. Unfortunately, the infrastructure for a street-side charger genuinely costs far more than one on the side of a house with both the charger and the ground work increasing the price. Is government subsidy inevitable?

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

BMW ^(history)

• Developing scooters that fold into the boot of small cars believing that they have “firmly established themselves in the urban mobility mix”. (BMW)

Daimler ^(history)

• Says that the trade in counterfeit car parts is a big problem, with over 1.7 million fake Daimler components confiscated in 2020 in raids the firm has supported. Daimler’s claim that fakers make higher margins than counterparts in the drug industry highlights the profitability of official manufacturers. (Daimler)

Ferrari

• Ferrari raised €150 million in debt. Competitors will wince at the pitifully low interest rate – less than 1%. (Ferrari)

Ford ^(history)

• Reported Q2 2021 financial results. Revenue of $26.8 billion rose 38% versus prior year, outstripping wholesales which rose 18%. Net income of $0.6 billion fell to almost half the level of a year earlier. Adjusted EBIT of $1.1 billion improved from a $(2) billion loss in prior year.  (Ford)
• Ford says that the all-electric F-150 has now reached 120,000 reservations. (Ford)
• Ford says it has met with over 2,000 Silicon Valley start-ups since 2016, a figure less impressive than it would have seemed two weeks ago before Daimler claimed to have met 5,000. (Ford)
• CEO Farley says that the company is “wasting money on incentives. I just don’t know where”. He hopes to overcome the problem by trying to move towards build to order. He also said that Mach E was profitable at the bottom line. (Ford)
• Expects $1 billion in revenue from subscriptions to the Ford Pro service by 2025. (Ford)

Geely (includes Volvo) ^(history)

• Geely is aiming to make a sales push in South America by signing up Inchcape as a regional importer. (Geely)

General Motors ^(history)

• Appointed a new CTO, Kent Helfrich, through an internal promotion. (GM)
• Released details on US workforce diversity that it submits to the government. Within the information, GM revealed the structure of its workforce, and the number of senior executives (almost 200). (GM)

Honda ^(history)

• Produced 1.05 million vehicles in Q2 2021, an increase of 27% on prior year. (Honda)

Hyundai / Kia ^(history)

• Working with Next Hydrogen Corporation to develop low CO2 methods of creating hydrogen using alkaline water electrolysis. The machines created to perform the electrolysis will incorporate Hyundai parts. (Hyundai)
• Hyundai and LG Chem are creating a battery joint venture plant in Indonesia. (Economic Times of India)

Nissan and Mitsubishi ^(history)

• Reported Q2 2021 revenue of 2 trillion JPY (about $18.4 billion), 71% better than prior year. Operating profit of 76 billion JPY (about $690 million) rose from a prior year loss. (Nissan)
• Sold 1,046,700 vehicles in Q2 2021, up 27% on a year-over-year basis. (Nissan)
• Nissan issued its annual sustainability report. (Nissan)

Renault ^(history)

• Renault reported 1^st half 2021 financial results. Revenue of €23.4 billion rose 27% from prior year while operating profit of €654 million rose from a €(1.2) billion loss a year earlier. (Renault)

Subaru

• Produced 184,000 cars in Q2 2021, almost double the figure in prior year. (Subaru)

Tata (includes JLR) ^(history)

• Reported Q1 2021 revenue of 66,406 Cr INR (about $9 billion), up 108% on a year-over-year basis. Within this, JLR revenue of £5 billion rose 74% year-over-year. Both JLR and Tata Motors made an EBIT loss. (Tata)
• JLR says it has the highest ever retail order pipeline in its history. (JLR)

Tesla ^(history)

• Reported Q2 2021 automotive revenue of $10.2 billion, up 97% on a year over year basis (deliveries rose over 120% on the same basis). Operating income was $1.3 billion, a fourfold increase from the same period last year and more than double the prior quarter, primarily because operating expenses were nearly flat whilst revenue and variable margin grew. Tesla expects says to grow on average 50% per year, a forecast that seems to be driven more by expanded market access than product, and rely heavily on Model Y. (Tesla)
• CEO Musk thinks chip supply is already improving – which in part he attributes to efforts by Tesla and suppliers to source alternative hardware and then rewrite the controlling software. It isn’t clear if Tesla have done anything out of the ordinary here since no quantification was given. He also believes that Tesla is scaling faster than any company of large manufactured objects in history. (Seeking Alpha)
• CEO Musk claimed that he won’t attend earnings calls in future, unless he has something to say.
• Comments by Tesla engineering staff suggested that the Cybertruck will share components with the Model Y. If correct, this implies that the vehicle may not be a full-size pickup. (Seeking Alpha)
• Reportedly planning to move retail locations to cheaper buildings with lower foot fall in a bid to cut costs. (Electrek)
• Agreed a settlement with disgruntled Model S owners who sued Tesla because of software updates that reduced battery capacity in the name of extending battery life. The will each receive just over $600. (Electrek)

Toyota ^(history)

• Reported Q2 sales of 2.5 million vehicles, up 50% on prior year. (Toyota)

VW Group ^(history)

• Porsche launched a minor facelift of the Macan SUV. (Porsche)
• Reported Q2 2021 group revenue of €67.3 billion, up 64% versus prior year as sales rose 29%. Earnings before tax of €6.7 billion rose from a €(2)billion loss in prior year. (VW)
• A consortium led by VW agreed terms to take over rental firm Europcar. VW will own a majority shareholding but says it will not have control. (VW)
• Established a joint venture with software firm TraceTronic, called neocx, to develop automated software testing routines. (VW)
• VW’s CFO says that the firm is looking for “strong partners” to share the investment burden necessary to ready the company for emerging technologies and profit pools. (Handelsblatt)

Other

• Aston Martin reported Q2 2021 revenue of £274 million, up almost fourfold from prior year. The operating loss of £(23) million was one quarter of the same figure a year earlier. The difference was mainly explained by volume which shot up from 317 cars in Q2 2020 to 1,548 this quarter. (Aston Martin) CEO Moers feels relatively bullish about the outlook for fully-electric luxury cars because “you don’t see the impact on margin” that lower priced carmakers experience. He also believes that brand will be the most important differentiator for EVs. (Aston Martin)
• Workhorse have a new CEO, former Delphi boss Richard Dauch. (Workhorse)
• Rivian is reportedly in talks to create a UK factory. (Reuters)
• Canoo appointed one of its board members, a (professional) lifelong diplomat, as president. (Canoo)
• Evergrande is selling internet assets to raise cash. (Deal Street Asia)
• GAC and Huawei confirmed that they will build an SUV together. GAC will provide the hardware whilst Huawei will concentrate on connected vehicle technology. (GAC)
• Nikola’s ex-CEO has been charged with securities fraud. (Manager Magazin)
• Former Opel CEO Lohscheller has been appointed to lead VinFast. (VinGroup)

News about other companies and trends

Suppliers

• Lesjöfors acquired spring specialist Alcomex. (Lesjöfors) The firm is also selling off subsidiary S&P Federnwerk.
• Marelli and Motherson will collaborate on body parts with integrated lighting. (Marelli)
• Faurecia reported 1^st half 2021 revenue of €7.8 billion and operating income of €510 million. (Faurecia)
• Dana reported Q2 2021 revenue of $2.2 billion and net income of $53 million. (Dana)
• Michelin reported 1^st half 2021 revenue of €11.2 billion and operating income of €1.4 billion. (Michelin)
• American Axle reported Q2 2021 revenue of $1.3 billion and net income of $16 million. (AAM)
• Allison Transmission reported Q2 2021 revenue of $603 million and net income of $110 million. (Allison)
• Denso reported Q2 2021 revenue of $12.3 billion and operating profit of $970 million. (Denso)
• Kongsberg reported Q2 2021 revenue of €296 million and adjusted EBIT of €5 million. (Kongsberg)
• LG’s automotive division had $1.7 billion of revenue in Q2 2021, with a $(92) million loss. (LG)
• Visteon reported Q2 2021 sales of $610 million and a net loss of $(11) million. (Visteon)

Dealers

• Norwegian all-inclusive leasing firm imove raised $22 million. (TechCrunch)
• UK all-inclusive leasing firm Onto raised $175 million in equity and debt. (TechCrunch)

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

• UK politicians are worrying that consumers without access to private charging will have to pay too much. (BBC)
• Egyptian ride hailing firm Swvl is listing through a merger with a special purpose entity in a deal that will value it at $1.5 billion. (TechCrunch)
• Peer-to-peer rental operator Getaround was find almost $1 million by regulators in Washington, D.C. because it did not have the requisite licences. (TechCrunch)
• A consortium led by VW agreed terms to take over rental firm Europcar. VW will own a majority shareholding but says it will not have control. (VW)

Electrification ^(history)

• Johnson Matthey acquired the intellectual property of defunct UK battery developer Oxis Energy. (JM)
• TotalEnergies acquired the Singaporean charging assets of Bollore. (Economic Times of India)
• Battery firm SVOLT raised 10.3 billion RMB (about $1.6 billion). (SVOLT)
• Battery recycling firm Redwood (led by Tesla’s former battery czar) raised $700 million. (Reuters)
• Charging firm Allego is listing through a merger with a special purpose vehicle. (Reuters)

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Question marks over battery factor reusability; more dosh for Rivian; and battery electric platforms with an ageing problem. Please enjoy our auto industry and mobility briefing for 19^th July to 25^th July 2021. A PDF version can be found here.

• Brothers In Arms – Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares says his engineers aren’t sure how to reuse equipment designed to make lithium ion cells if solid state batteries dominate. This matters because OEMs and their suppliers are going to invest tens of billions in a technology that could be outdated in fewer than two product cycles. Manufacturers are essentially betting that even if solid state performs better, it won’t be economical for many. But they didn’t call the technology cycle correctly last time, did they?
• Sultans Of Swing – Rivian raised another $2.5 billion. The company has now taken in $10.5 billion without putting a car in the hands of customers (I’m discounting Amazon’s prototypes). So what are people really investing in?
• Walk Of Life – Daimler held an investor day to show off its electric car credentials. The company is going to launch three new platforms: for vans, cars and sportscars. But, hold on a second, I thought EVA (which underpins EQS) was supposed to be the next big thing, now it’s being binned? How long before investors tire of being told that manufacturers need yet another massively expensive new platform to be able to deliver competitive electric vehicles?

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)

• Reported Q2 2021 financial results. Revenue of €43.5 billion rose 44% versus the prior year whilst EBIT of €5.2 billion was strongly up from a year ago. Mercedes is happy with its double digit margins but sad that it has come through supply being restricted due to semiconductor shortages. Executives assured customers that “we are doing what we can”. (Daimler)
• Daimler held an investor day and updated its electric vehicle strategy. From 2025 onwards, only all-electric architectures will be launched, although this doesn’t prevent new non-electric cars being launched after that date. To fill in the gaps from the already-announced electric products there will be three new platforms, one for vans, one for cars and one for sportscars (AMG). The large car EVA platform is being dumped for a newer one called MB.EA. The goal is to position Mercedes to completely switch off conventional powertrain by 2030, if the market moves that way. Daimler says that the core business plan assumptions are now that new car sales have “in essence [switched] to fully electric by the end of the decade”. Due to a drop in battery costs, margins are expected to be comparable to products with internal combustion engines today, however this rests on an assumption that ICE costs will increase and part of the gap closure is through higher battery electric revenues as the cost-only chart (p. 29 in the strategy presentation) shows a cost gap remaining into the 2030s. The prior target of 50% of sales from BEV and PHEV by 2030 has been pulled forward to 2025. (Daimler)
• Daimler made a point of describing its strategy as moving capital from “EV-first to EV-only”, however spending on traditional technologies isn’t ceasing. The company says it will drop by 80% between 2019 and 2026 – seemingly measuring only the powertrains. Mercedes hasn’t explained how it will keep conventionally powered products up to date if customer interest is sustained for longer than expected. (Daimler)
• Expects to grow revenue per unit from Mercedes cars and vans through mix, net pricing, revenue from digit services and the direct (or agent) sales model currently being implemented. (Daimler)
• Acquired electric motor manufacturer YASA as part of an ongoing strategy to develop motors in-house. Mercedes says that it will have a global battery capacity of 200 GWh, not necessarily owned outright, and similar to VW the company plans to use the same batteries across a large swathe of the line-up, In Mercedes’s case, 90% (although since this terminology allows for changes in size and chemistry they won’t really be the same). (Daimler)
• Claims to have met with 5,000 startups in the past five years. (Daimler)
• Will reportedly bundle AMG, Maybach and G-Class into a combined group with a single leader. (Automotive News)
• Will reportedly offer improved rear wheel steering on the EQS (10 degrees rather than 4.5 degrees) to customers who pay a subscription of €489 per year. In some markets it will come as standard. (Auto Motor Und Sport)

Ford ^(history)

• Ford’s autonomous vehicles will be available for paying customers in two US cities, with the company opting to use Lyft’s ride hailing service, rather than create its own. (Ford)
• Agreed a deal for customisation company MS-RT, affiliated with Ford rally partner, to build a facility at Ford’s Dagenham location, close to where vehicles are shipped into the UK. (The Manufacturer)
• Facing a lawsuit from GM saying that Ford’s driver assistance name BlueCruise infringes trademarks belonging to GM and self-driving subsidiary Cruise. (CNBC)

Geely (includes Volvo) ^(history)

• Volvo reported financial results for the first half of 2021. Revenue of 141 billion SEK (about $16.4 billion) rose 26% versus prior year, slightly lagging wholesales which grew 28% to 357,000 cars. Operating income of 13.2 billion SEK (about $1.5 billion) rose from a loss the year before. (Volvo)
• Volvo is taking full ownership of its Chinese manufacturing operations, with parent Geely handing over some of its shares. The move is seen as a precursor to a listing and will complete after local regulations change in 2022. (Volvo)
• Volvo’s CEO says that he wants the firm’s products to have names rather than code numbers. (Auto Express)

General Motors ^(history)

• GM’s Super Cruise advanced driver assistance will soon be able to tow a trailer. (GM)

Hyundai / Kia ^(history)

• Hyundai reported financial results for Q2 2021. Sales of 30.3 trillion KRW (about $26.4 billion) rose 39% from prior year. Operating profit of 1.9 trillion KRW (about $1.6 billion) more than trebled from Q2 2020. Hyundai said high margin cars were selling well but it was worried about semiconductor shortages. (Hyundai)
• Kia reported Q2 2021 financial results. Revenue of 18.3 trillion KRW (about $16 billion) rose 61%, outstripping sales which rose 46% to 754,000 cars. Operating profit of 1.5 trillion (about $1.3 billion) rose more than tenfold from prior year as volume and mix more than offset exchange headwinds. (KIA)
• Invested in connected car software company Sonatus. (TechCrunch)

Stellantis (formed via the merger of PSA and FCA)

• Raised a new credit line of €12 billion, replacing earlier facilities of €9.5 billion. (Stellantis)
• Recruited a new CTO, the previous head of Amazon’s Alexa automotive division and a Toyota veteran. (Stellantis)
• CEO Tavares says Stellantis still isn’t sure how to reuse equipment designed for lithium ion battery cells to make solid state batteries, if the technology matures. (Detroit News)

Suzuki

• Suzuki is joining Toyota’s Japanese technology partnership for connected and electrified vehicles with advanced driver assistance, along with Toyota’s Daihatsu brand. Both entities will take a share in the cooperative. (Toyota)

Tesla ^(history)

• CEO Musk said that he wanted to build a factory in India, but Tesla needed to pay lower import taxes first, perhaps intentionally missing the point of protectionist tariffs. (Business Insider)
• Sold assets from the Maxwell Technologies ultracapacitor business to UCAP Power. (UCAP)

Toyota ^(history)

• Suzuki is joining Toyota’s Japanese technology partnership for connected and electrified vehicles with advanced driver assistance, along with Toyota’s Daihatsu brand. Both entities will take a share in the cooperative. (Toyota)

VW Group ^(history)

• Porsche sold 153,656 cars in the first half of 2021, up 31% on a year earlier. Taycan sold just under 20,000 units, indicating the Porsche was wise to invest in additional capacity. (Porsche)
• VW group sold almost 111,000 all-electric vehicles in Q2 2021. The growth rate potentially puts it on course to eclipse Tesla soon. (VW)
• Audi’s design boss says autonomy will change car styling more than electrification. He is slightly critical of newer arrivals, saying that companies such as Tesla “don’t have a face, because they don’t have a history”. (Autocar)
• Audi won’t have a successor to the A1, arguing that emissions legislation is making the cost prohibitive. Reading between the lines, a battery electric city car isn’t an impossibility, albeit with a different name. (Automotive News)
• Audi is looking to switch to an agency sales model for electric cars, which soon will be all the brand makes. The brand plans to implement a switch beginning in 2023 for key European markets. First, a new dealer contract needs to be negotiated. (Automotive News)
• Believes it is two to three years ahead of competitors in planning for a transition to electric cars. (Handelsblatt)

Other

• Rivian raised another $2.5 billion, taking the total investment to a whopping $10.5 billion without a single car produced. (Rivian)
• Kandi acquired a small battery producer, Jiangxi Huiyi. (Kandi)
• McLaren is raising $620 million, mainly to refinance existing loans, but with higher interest. (McLaren)
• Lightyear agreed a deal for Valmet to contract manufacture its solar-powered car. (Lightyear)
• Long-time suitor HAAH is apparently back in the running for Ssangyong. (Yonhap)

News about other companies and trends

Economic / Political News

• The UK Government is interested in synthetic fuels, but sees the benefit as coming from aviation and shipping as those “sectors are hard to decarbonise”. (Autocar)

Suppliers

• Veoneer reported Q2 2021 sales of $398 million and that it will be acquired by Magna. (Veoneer)
• Veoldyne’s CEO stepped down amid a war with the firm’s deposed founder. (The Verge)
• Valeo reported 2021 first half revenue of €9 billion and operating margin of €415 million. (Valeo)
• Nidec reported Q2 2021 sales of 447 billion JPY (about $4 billion) and operating profit of 44 billion JPY (about $405 million). (Nidec)
• Nidec and Foxconn are discussing deepening their relationship and may form a JV to produce electric vehicle motors and other components. (Nidec)

Dealers

• Indian on-demand servicing website Automovil raised $500,000. (Economic Times of India)
• Vehicle inspection firm UVeye raised $60 million. (UVeye)
• Electric vehicle leasing specialist WeVee raised $7 million. (FINSMES)

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

• Ford’s autonomous vehicles will be available for paying customers in two US cities, with the company opting to use Lyft’s ride hailing service, rather than create its own. (Ford)
• Uber will acquire transport company Transplace for $2.25 billion. (Uber)

Driverless / Autonomy ^(history)

• Driverless vehicle developer Venti Technologies raised $8 million. (Tech In Asia)
• Driverless warehouse vehicle firm Ati Motors raised $3.5 million. (Deal Street Asia)
• Vision firm CalmCar raised $150 million. (Deal Street Asia)

Electrification ^(history)

• Charging operator ChargePoint acquired software maker has.to.be. (TechCrunch)

Connectivity

• Connected car software company Sonatus raised $35 million from Hyundai / Kia and others. (TechCrunch)

Other

• Parking management business ParkHub acquired CurbTrac, a payments firm. (ParkHub)

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Audi’s rules for making electric cars look exciting; Aurora’s unclear path to profits; and Tesla wants driver assistance addicts. Please enjoy our auto industry and mobility briefing for 12^th July to 18^th July 2021. A PDF version can be found here.

• Hip To Be Square — Audi’s designers have been discussing the challenges of styling electric cars. The thing is, so much of what we perceive about cars comes from the internal combustion engine which brings a form-follows-function element to even budget vehicles. With electric motors, so many of the design constraints disappear that stylists have to stop themselves from creating a “one-box” vehicle (industry parlance for a blob). Audi skirts the issue of replacing the internal combustion engine derived design cues with something new by making the leap to autonomous cars, arguing that in the future vehicles will be lounge-like. But what if autonomy doesn’t take off? Who will save us from the march of the blobs?
• Runaway — Self-driving firm Aurora is listing via a merger with a special purpose entity. The firm will be worth more than $10 billion, despite not having a commercial product. The main asset seems to be that Aurora is the destination of choice for carmakers shunned by Google and unable to afford their own schemes (a pool which is shrinking as Google become more welcoming, OEMs share more and failed start-ups can be snapped up more cheaply – or expensively if you are Toyota). But since Aurora isn’t an OEM, it isn’t in charge of product deployment. How will it stay in business long enough without revenue to not only develop driverless systems but hang around for OEMs to put them into production?
• Endless Love — Tesla is offering subscriptions to driver assistance features for $199 per month. You can pay a single upfront fee, but at $10,000 it seems unlikely that you’ll make your money back before you offload the car (especially since ,as a Tesla buyer, you are an early adopter with a keen sense of the global zeitgeist). Tesla therefore clearly prefers for people to pay monthly – and once hooked, customers are likely to pout up only mild resistance to price hikes. What percentage of monthly lease payments will then ultimately be prepared to shell out for self-driving?

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

BMW ^(history)

• Invested in synthetic leather company Natural Fiber Welding. (BMW)

Daimler ^(history)

• Said that Q2 2021 financial results have been better than expected with group EBIT of €5.2 billion and free cash flow of €2.6 billion. Daimler will report full results later on. (Daimler)

Ford ^(history)

• Recalled almost 850,000 vehicles for problems with suspension that might break, drivelines that might break and electric wiring that could rub against other parts and catch fire. (Ford)
• Reckons that because small accidents or near misses are under-reported, city planners don’t know about accident hotspots and aren’t able to properly create heat maps (or Heinrich’s triangles). Ford says that feeding in near miss information from connected cars should make cities far safer. (Ford)
• Released a petrol-scented perfume, seemingly aimed at electric vehicle drivers who miss the smell of fuel station forecourts (Ford says they account for 20 percent of owners). (Ford)
• Exploring the option of shipping incomplete vehicles to US dealers to partially offset the impact of the semiconductor shortage, under the proposed terms Ford would continue to own the cars. (Detroit News)

Geely (includes Volvo) ^(history)

• Volvo upped its stake in Polestar to 49.5% (it had been diluted from 50% in a private share offering). Volvo acquired the shares from Geely’s boss. (Volvo)
• Volvo sold 15% of its autonomous driving division Zenseact to Chinese supplier ECARX. (Volvo)

General Motors ^(history)

• Confirmed that BrightDrop vans would be built by robot supplier Kulka whilst GM waits for its Canadian factory to be ready. (Reuters)

Honda ^(history)

• Honda’s CEO said the firm is ready to convert to only electric vehicle sales in Europe as soon as politicians demand and thinks regulations are becoming “stricter by the day”. Although the fuel cell powered Clarity is being retired, Honda will launch more cars with the power source. (Nikkei)
• Released its latest sustainability report. (Honda)

Hyundai / Kia ^(history)war

• Launched an autonomous on-demand bus service in Sejong, South Korea. The minibus in use will have “minimal intervention” from an ever-present safety driver. (Hyundai)

Renault ^(history)

• Delivered 757,525 vehicles in Q2 2021, up 40% on a year earlier. (Renault)

Stellantis (formed via the merger of PSA and FCA)

• Opel’s boss is leaving for unspecified pastures new, to be replaced by an executive from Renault. (Stellantis)
• Alfa Romeo has extended its sponsorship of the Sauber Formula 1 team. (Alfa Romeo)

Tata (includes JLR) ^(history)

• Recruited a new chief commercial officer from Dyson. (Economic Times of India)

Tesla ^(history)

• Started offering monthly subscriptions to the latest driver assistance features for $199 per month. Unfortunately for owners of pre-2020 cars, Tesla is asking them to stump up $1,500 to upgrade their hardware before they can access the subscription offer. Instead of the monthly fee, owners can pay a single $10,000 lifetime payment. (Electrek)

Toyota ^(history)

• Toyota’s Woven Capital subsidiary acquired Carmera, a mapping company. (Toyota)

VW Group ^(history)

• Held an investor strategy presentation day. VW says that increasing regulation will erode margins on internal combustion engined cars so much that margin parity with battery electric vehicles will be reached within two to three years. VW thinks that autonomous driving technologies will be maturing by 2030 sufficient for large-scale deployment. CEO Diess said the company is “well on track” to be the world’s biggest EV seller. (VW)
• Says that “software enabled sales” could be worth €1.2 billion by 2030, with the head of the company’s software division quoted as seeing automated driving software as a “major source of income”. (VW)
• Will use the scalable systems platform (SPP) as a single architecture for all battery electric products from 2026 (dumping the MEB and PPE platforms that VW promised would bring unparalleled scale for ever and ever). VW says that 40 million vehicles will be made on the platform. Since VW has also talked about different battery technologies, ranging from lithium ion to solid state, the question is whether VW has found a way to integrate the technologies or is stretching definitions to breaking point. By 2025, VW says it will have a single operating software to be used across brands. (VW)
• Lamborghini sold 4,852 cars in H1 2021, up 37% year-over-year with increases across the range. The brand says it has a ten month order book. (Lamborghini)
• Porsche sold 81,670 cars in Q2 2021, up 28% versus prior year. (Porsche)
• Installing a network of 3,000 chargers in Italy in collaboration with Enel X. (VW)
• Audi’s designers discussed how electric and driverless vehicles will change styling priorities. (Audi)
• Building a battery factory in partnership with Chinese firm Gotion High-Tech. (VW)
• German VW employees fired over the diesel scandal are fighting back through the courts — and winning. VW says it will continue to contest the wrongful dismissal suits. (Handelsblatt)
• Bentley’s technical boss says that the user interface will be one of the most important elements in the brand’s future cars. He sees a role for e-fuels but none for hydrogen. (Autocar)

Other

• McLaren raised £550 million from investors, with £150 million from existing shareholders. McLaren will use the money to repay debt and finance future growth plans. (McLaren – not accessible for US readers)
• VinFast has opened offices in North America and Europe ahead of a market push. (Reuters)
• AYLI expects brand recognition to “explode” once details of its strategy come to light. (AYLI)
• Aston Martin unveiled the Valhall supercar. Many elements of the design have changed since the concept was originally revealed as the RB-003 (including the engine). (Auto Express)
• SAIC revealed a new logo which the firm calls “youthful”. The hope is that it will persuade consumers that the company is now a high-tech firm. (SAIC)
• Pininfarina showed off the Teorema concept car. It isn’t clear if the vehicle is intended to herald one of the brand’s planned five cars, or is just to generate interest. (Autocar)

News about other companies and trends

Economic / Political News

• The EU is contemplating a ban on all sales of non-battery electric vehicles by 2035. (Nikkei)

Suppliers

• Autoliv reported Q2 2021 revenue of $2 billion and operating income of $166 million. (Autoliv)
• REE Automotive is partnering with bodybuilder EAVX to develop vehicles. The first product will be a light van due for released in 2024 (Electric Drive)
• Haldex reported Q2 2021 sales of 1.1 billion SEK (about $131 million) and operating income of 79 million SEK (about $9 million). (Haldex)
• Grammer reported Q2 2021 revenue of €469 million and EBIT of €5 million. (Grammer)

Dealers

• Carsome is acquiring iCar Asia. (Deal Street Asia)

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

• Uber’s CEO expects prices to return to historic norms by around September. (Business Insider)

Driverless / Autonomy ^(history)

• Self-driving firm Aurora plans to list in an $11 billion merger with a special purpose entity. (FT)
• AEye says its lidar unit can see over 1,000m through the rain, a performance it claims is “twice the range as the nearest LiDAR competitor”. (AEye) At an investor day, AEye said that Continental would use its lidar units and it would partner with Sanmina to contain production costs. (AEye)
• Warehouse vehicle maker Ati Motors raised $3.5 million. (Deal Street Asia)
• Driver assistance developer Netradyne raised $150 million. (Netradyne)

Electrification ^(history)

• Battery developer SES Holdings (investors include GM, Hyundai and Geely) will list via a merger with a special purpose vehicle. (Deal Street Asia)

Connectivity

• Connected car services supplier Banma Technologies raised $434 million. (Deal Street Asia)

Other

• Cummins and Chevron will collaborate on developing hydrogen infrastructure. (Cummins)

Scooter rental company Veo raised $16 million. (TechCrunch)

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Rimac takes Bugatti under its wing; Stellantis aims to top the EV league; and battery swapping is spreading. Please enjoy our auto industry and mobility briefing for 5^th July to 11^th July 2021. A PDF version can be found here.

• Where’s Your Heat At — As rumoured, Bugatti will become a joint venture between Rimac and Porsche, or put more simply: taken over by Rimac. The Croatian company has big plans for the storied French brand, but then so did VW, and others before them. Are VW saving Bugatti from irrelevance, or consigning Rimac to a death spiral of distraction?
• Nobody Does It Better — Stellantis held an EV day and made myriad promises of a better world. You want every brand to have electric vehicles at its core? You got it. You want best in class electric vehicle engineering from a standing start? Done. Think that battery costs should drop massively and erode the competitiveness of others? By 2024, you’ll apparently get your wish. Stellantis is now blessed with considerable scale and a presence in the lucrative US pickup market to fund development but can it ramp up electric vehicle plans without the same mistakes that competitors have had to learn from, and then dominate?
• Counting Stars — Nio says that the battery swapping business is exceeding expectations and in the next four years it will increase the number of sites in China tenfold. Perhaps even more interestingly, the company plans to open 1,000 swapping stations internationally. Given the brand’s launch plans, that suggests Europe is the target. How will consumers (and competitors) react?

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)

• Settled charges brought by the EU of a cartel amongst German manufacturers (as BMW earlier suggested it when the EU agreed to trim the charges). BMW is paying a €373 million fine. BMW says that is understands the legal reasons behind the fine (“excessive transparency” = competitors sharing too much information with one another), but that there was never any potential for consumers to be harmed. Part of the justification for punishing excessive transparency is that suppliers can be disadvantaged. BMW didn’t mentioned them at all. (BMW)
• Sold 702,474 cars in Q2 2021, up 45% on a year-over-year basis, with strong performances across all brands and the regions. Sales in the US and Europe grew by 75% or more. (BMW)

Daimler ^(history)

• Sold 675,915 cars and vans in Q2 2021, up 29% versus prior year. Passenger car sales grew strongly in the US and Europe, but lagged BMW’s recovery. (Daimler)
• Daimler trucks will create a European high power charging network for heavy vehicles in partnership with Volvo trucks and Traton (VW / MAN / Scania), echoing the Ionity network for light vehicles. Charging power will be aligned to the mandatory 45 minute rest breaks for long-distance truckers in Europe. (Daimler)

Ford ^(history)

• Completed the sale of some large sites in the US and Canada that were surplus to requirements. (Detroit Free Press)

Geely (includes Volvo) ^(history)

• The merged powertrain division of Geely and Volvo will be called Autobay. (Volvo)
• Lotus unveiled the Emra, its new sportscar, which features a Mercedes-sourced engine and transmission alongside the existing V6 unit (which comes from Toyota, but whom Lotus didn’t mention in their press release). (Lotus)

General Motors ^(history)

• Saw sales in China rise 5% year-over-year in Q2 2021 to 750,800 vehicles. Although there were increases overall, the Chevrolet and Baojun brands dropped. (GM)

Hyundai / Kia ^(history)

• Unveiled the next generation Kia Sorento. (Autocar)

Nissan and Mitsubishi ^(history)

• Nissan will underwrite more of the development cost incurred by suppliers and will compensate them for sunk costs if programs get cancelled or deferred. (Nikkei)

Renault ^(history)

• Rumoured to be studying a plan that will see the Alpine brand spearhead Renault’s return to China, with the hope that the Formula 1 team will build brand awareness. (Les Echos)

Stellantis (formed via the merger of PSA and FCA)

• Held an EV day fror investors and journalists. Stellantis says that by 2026 the cost of ownership for EVs will equal internal combustion engines by 2026. The company is picking and choosing its electric portfolio, acknowledging that capabilities will only upwards of 80%, but not all, of customer needs. Each of the Stellantis brands has a tagline trumpeting its electric credentials, such as “Tear up the streets… not the planet” for Dodge. Alfa Romeo will become Alfa E-Romeo in a reminder of “Voltswagen”. (Stellantis)
• Stellantis’s electric vehicle offensive will rest on four electrified platforms covering three sizes of passenger car and a body on frame version for pickup trucks. Stellantis reckons that by 2024 its products will meet or beat all competitors across a broad range of specifications. There is hope that the four platforms will bring massive scale, especially as they will use common components, such as drive motors. In addition, Stellantis believes that its battery technology will be leading the industry in both cost competitiveness (the firm expects a 40% drop by 2024) and energy density by the mid-2020s. (Stellantis)
• Said that first half 2021 financial results will be better than expected, with adjusted operating profit of more than 7.5% of net revenue, thanks to stronger pricing and mix. (Stellantis)
• Announced, as widely leaked the week before, that the Ellesmere Port, UK , factory will make battery electric light vans and passenger cars (which will actually just be car versions of the vans). (Stellantis)
• From 2028, Opel will be battery-electric only and the brand will relaunch in China. The brand CEO said that Opel is moving from “cold to cool”, whatever that means. There will be a new Manta model, but unlike its large coupe forebears it will be a crossover. (Stellantis)

Subaru

• 98% of the cars Subaru sells are four wheel drive. (Subaru)

Tata (includes JLR) ^(history)

• Group wholesales in Q2 2022 were 214,250 units, including 97,141 from JLR. (Tata)
• Published its annual CSR report. (Tata)
• JLR CEO Bollore says quality levels have been unacceptable but he is confident they will be fixed. (Autocar)

Tesla ^(history)

• CEO Musk said that he “didn’t expect it to be so hard” to develop self-driving cars. (Economic Times of India)
• Hackers reckon that Tesla’s self-driving system can make out objects up to 60ish metres away. The limiting range has implications for the maximum speed the car can travel at. (Electrek)

Toyota ^(history)

• Found itself in political hot water after it emerged that Toyota has been making donations to politicians that say the 2020 US presidential election was not valid. Toyota apologised and said it will weed those candidates out. (Toyota)

VW Group ^(history)

• VW said that it has been more profitable than expected in Q2 2021 (€11 billion operating profit in 1H 2021) and that the lack of semiconductors will impact the company in the second half of the year more than the first half. (VW)
• As rumoured, Bugatti has been offloaded to Rimac, in the form of a joint venture which will see Rimac hold 55% and Porsche owning 45%. The partners insist that manufacturing will remain in both Croatia and France with cars released under both Rimac and Bugatti brands. (VW)
• Mate Rimac says new Bugatti products will still have internal combustion engines, but that there is a fully electric car on the way. (Autocar)
• Will present the new group strategy on the 13^th of July. (VW) The supervisory board were so pleased with it that they agreed to extend CEO Diess’s contract to 2025. (VW)
• Porsche is going into the hotel business. (Porsche)
• Porsche invested in motorsports data logging company Griip. (Porsche)
• Porsche is recalling 43,000 Taycans to fix software problems that can result in the motor shutting down. Although the issue is solved with a software upload, Porsche can’t do it over the air. (Porsche)
• Audi’s CEO expects electric vehicles will be as profitable as combustion engine models within the next two to three years. (Spiegel)
• Bentley’s boss says there are no plans to collaborate with Bugatti and Rimac on future products. (Detroit News)
• Bentley’s bespoke division has completed 1,000 projects in the last seven years. This ranges from applications of non-standard materials through to one-off vehicles (where Bentley is less engaged than competitors). (Bentley)
• Porsche’s CEO says that he has to position his brand to be ready for the transition to electric vehicles, but doesn’t want to push the consumer too hard and is happy if they drive internal combustion engines powered by synthetic fuels. (Handelsblatt)

Other

• Nio says that its battery swapping plans are gathering pace and that by 2025 there will be 3,000 stations in China (up from 300 today) and over 1,000 in the rest of the world. Nio’s figures suggest that each swapping station has been used an average of around 10,000 times. (Nio)
• Great Wall says it will invest 100 billion RMB (about $1.5 billion) in electric and smart vehicles over the next five years. (Great Wall)
• Ineos revealed the interior of the Grenadier SUV. (Ineos)
• Wells launched the Vertige, a small sportscar. Despite costing only £40,000, the company plans production of only around 25 examples per year. (Autocar)
• Xpeng’s CEO thinks that Chinese automakers already rival Tesla in terms of feature quality. (Yahoo)

News about other companies and trends

Suppliers

• Panasonic’s CEO said the company’s relationship with Tesla wouldn’t be affected by the sale of its stake in the automaker. (Reuters)

Dealers

• Used car website Carsome invested in Indonesian auction company PT Universal Collection. (Deal Street Asia)
• UK dealers say that they are making bumper profits as used car sales boom with constrained new car supply. Used cars are normally far more profitable than new cars. (Motor Trader)

Driverless / Autonomy ^(history)

• Self-driving developer Freetech raised $100 million. (Caixin)

Electrification ^(history)

• Solid state battery developer Ampcera received a US government grant. (Ampcera)
• Charging company Electra raised €15 million. (Charged EVs)

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