Automotive trends, Auto industry trends, Automotive market research, Automotive market analysis, auto industry news

Auto Industry Briefing — week ending 23rd December 2018

Merry Christmas! Here’s hoping you get everything you’ve wished for!

The power of self-driving hardware; possible BMW and Daimler parts sharing; and VW trash-talking GM. Please enjoy our auto industry and mobility briefing for 17th December to 23rd December. A PDF version can be found here.

Favourite stories of the past week…?

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)

  • Received regulatory approval for the mobility joint venture with Daimler. (BMW)
  • BMW’s works council chief criticised the company for relying on external partners for battery cells saying that BMW was “dependent” on its suppliers and should have made Tesla bankrupt by now. (Manager Magazin)
  • BMW iVentures invested in AI chipmaker Graphcore as part of a $200 million funding round. (Graphcore)
  • Showed off its latest state of the art self-driving hardware, giving an insight into the power demands of current prototypes. BMW’s L3 chip draws a respectable 25W but the L4 (200W) and L5 (600W) chips probably need a fair bit of work before they are production ready for long range or high utilisation roles. (Autocar)
  • Reportedly in talks with Daimler on a component sharing agreement that will potentially cover batteries, autonomous driving technology and vehicle platforms. (Bloomberg)
  • Currently operating a test fleet of 80 autonomous cars globally. Believes that a new working practice called large scale scrum has improved the efficiency of technology development. (BMW)

Daimler (history)

  • Received regulatory approval for the mobility joint venture with BMW. (BMW)
  • Dropping prices in China for US-built vehicles after import tariffs were reduced. (Handelsblatt)
  • Reportedly in talks with BMW on a component sharing agreement that will potentially cover batteries, autonomous driving technology and vehicle platforms. (Bloomberg)

Ford (history)

  • Recalling 874,000 pick-up trucks in North America to fix corrosion problems that can cause fires. (Ford)
  • Announced a limited edition run of 80 Lincoln Continentals that have been modified to have suicide rear doors. The price tag is described as “north of $100,000”. (Detroit Free Press)
    • Significance: In addition to being an interesting test case about whether limited editions could have an appeal in the mass-market (albeit in this case at uninterestingly low volumes), the cost compares favourably with the multi-million pound special editions launched by the likes of Aston Martin, Jaguar and Ferraru and reveals the extent of price gouging in this resurgent sector.
  • Developed a noise cancelling dog kennel that it won’t sell just to prove that it has the technology to solve problems no one has. (Detroit Free Press)

Geely (includes Volvo) (history)

  • Geely-controlled Saxo Bank plans to buy Dutch lender BinckBank. (Deal Street Asia)
  • Forming a joint venture with CATL to produce car batteries. (Geely)

General Motors (history)

  • Laying off 50 workers at the Brownstown battery plant, suggesting that the cessation of Chevrolet Volt will not see an increase in sales of other hybrid vehicle types. (Detroit Free Press)
  • Although the Lordstown, Ohio plant is “unallocated”, GM said the “next steps” will be part of the 2019 negotiations with the UAW union. (Reuters)

Hyundai / Kia (history)

  • Launching fingerprint recognition to unlock and start cars in Q1 2019, starting with the Santa Fe SUV in China. The system has an error rate of one in 50:000; better odds than playing the lottery. (Auto Express)
  • Will build a 250,000 unit capacity car plant in Indonesia, with electric cars set to be amongst the products built, according to government ministers. Hyundai said no firm decisions had been taken. (Reuters)
  • Created a joint venture to build commercial vehicles in Algeria from 2020 onwards, aiming to capture around 25% market share. (Hyundai)

Nissan (includes Mitsubishi) (history)

  • Eliminating 1,000 jobs at two Mexican plants due to falling demand. (Reuters)
  • Mitsubishi strengthened strategy oversight at a board level, with a bias towards external directors. (Mitsubishi)

PSA (includes Opel/Vauxhall) (history)

  • Faurecia invested in user experience assessment firm ESP Consulting. (Autocar)
  • Reportedly shrinking the executive committee of Opel so that fewer areas are not integrated with the rest of PSA. CEO Tavares is said to be still contemplating how to best balance visible independence for Opel with the desire for maximum operational efficiency. Falling sales of Zafira and Insignia have caused a surplus labour problem estimated at 600 people. (Handelsblatt)

Renault (history)

  • Will take a “significant” stake in JMCG’s electric vehicle subsidiary JMEV and will elaborate more on plans for the Chinese market once the deal is approved by Chinese authorities. (Renault)
  • CEO Ghosn was released and then re-arrested on addition charges meaning that he may be in prison until the new year. (Reuters) Ghosn’s lawyer said that he believes his honour will be restored in court. (Reuters)
  • Internal company documents allegedly show Renault and Nissan trying to create executive pay schemes that would not be subject to full public disclosure. Renault said none of the proposals mentioned went ahead. (Reuters)

Tesla (history)

  • Will refund US customers who receive lower tax rebates because of delivery delays (Tesla owners will be entitled to less money after 31st December because the company has made so many electric cars). (Reuters)

Toyota (history)

  • Published the 2018 environmental report for its North American operations. (Toyota)
  • Toyota AI Ventures invested in Sea Machines, a start up working on autonomous ships. (Toyota) The company also put money into Elementary Robotics. (Toyota)
  • Released a new offering aimed at ride hailing companies that bundles telematics with the vehicle to more effectively scheduled maintenance and keep vehicles on the road for longer. The telematics suite also enables usage based insurance through a third party partner. (Toyota)

VW Group (history)

  • VW’s initial analysis of EU CO2 target reductions of 30% by 2030 had reportedly settled on a figure of 1.2 million pure electric vehicles per year being needed across the group. The final figure of a 37.5% reduction has supposedly increased this by a further 600,000 units — or seven additional vehicle lines. CEO Diess said that the company would still be able to achieve the tougher 2030 target but would have to revisit its footprint plan. (Handelsblatt)
    • Significance: Absent a mandate to sell a fixed number of pure electric vehicles (currently unclear but presumed not to be in the final agreement), the number of electric cars required by an OEM is a factor of their mix and efficiency of plug-in hybrid and conventionally powered vehicles. In fact, many carmakers have plug-in hybrid vehicles on sale today emitting less than 50g / km CO2, implying that a firm could meet the new targets without selling a single battery electric vehicle (so long as they only offered vehicles with impressive CO2 performance — and were immune to consumer demand for electric-only models).
  • Rumoured to be planning a one third reduction in manning levels at plants in Emden and Hanover over the next ten years as electric vehicle sales increase. VW is said to hope that natural attrition, early retirement and redeployment to other factories will be enough to meet the target. (FAZ)
  • The head of VW’s in-house self-driving unit, AID, has a “high opinion” of Waymo but thinks GM’s Cruise is “hyping a bit”. He says that 90% perception accuracy is now standard but things get tough at 95%. (The Verge)
  • Said to be planning to write off the investment in ride hailing provider Gett (VW’s stake is apparently only valued at €16 million versus the $300 million+ VW has given the business — we shall see in the 2018 FY accounts). (Reuters)
  • Acquiring a majority 75.1% share in telematics firm WirelessCar. VW plans to use the company’s technology for vehicle to cloud data exchange in its forthcoming services. (VW)
  • Implemented a new executive pay scheme. There will be no personal performance bonus and incentives will be geared towards success of the entire group, rather than brands. There is also a clawback provision. (VW)
  • Porsche is recalling 74,585 Panameras to fix problems with the power steering. (Porsche)

Other

  • GAZ is in talks to have US sanctions removed. (Reuters)
  • Chinese electric car start-up CHJ Automotive is buying Lifan Motors for 650 million RMB (~$94 million), rather than outsourcing production to the company as had been originally intended. (Nikkei)
  • Maruti Suzuki’s chairman says that pure electric small cars will be an infrastructure and cost challenge for many years in India and prefers compressed natural gas for cutting emissions. (Autocar)

News about other companies and trends

Economic / Political News

  • The UK automotive trade body called for a no deal Brexit to be taken “off the table” saying that there was no way that it would be an impossible event for most companies to manage. (SMMT)
  • Detailed rules for the EU’s proposed 2025 and 2030 CO2 targets for cars (37.5% lower by 2030) and vans (31% lower by 2030) will be drawn up and submitted in the “coming months”. (EU)
  • The EU car making trade body reacted with predictable anger to the 2025 and 2030 CO2 targets, saying employment was under threat but not explaining why non-EU carmakers were being handed a competitive advantage given that all have to offer fleets with the same overall efficiencies and are all subject to the same technology costs. (ACEA)
  • Germany’s transport minister said that diesel’s image needed to be rehabilitated to achieve future emissions targets, but that it was the job of the manufacturers to convince consumers. (Manager Magazin)

Suppliers

  • Grammar and AllyGrow opened a jointly-operated research facility in India, mainly aimed at boosting Grammer’s in-house R&D efficiency. (Grammer)
  • Veoneer’s CFO is leaving. (Reuters)
  • IAV agreed to pay a $35 million fine to settle charges it helped VW cheat on US emissions tests. (Reuters)
  • Tower’s COO is stepping down and will not be replaced. (Tower)
  • Goodyear is expanding production capacity at its Slovenian plant by 25%. (Goodyear)
  • Samsung is reported to be the source of Tesla’s next-generation driver assistance hardware. (Green Car Reports)
  • Continental has automated cars that test tyre durability. (Continental)
  • South Korea’s government is starting a $3 billion rescue fund for suppliers struggling to cope with Chinese competition and falling orders from Hyundai and Kia. (Nikkei)

Dealers

  • Augmented reality developer Blippar shut down. The firm had been working on car sales applications. (Blippar)
  • Online used car retailer Shift agreed to use part-owner Lithia Motors’s physical infrastructure to store and deliver vehicles, saying it is now positioned to reach one billion dollars in annual revenue soon. (Shift)
  • Mitsubishi says a dealer site needs to generate an average of 30 kW each day through renewable energy to be self-sustaining. (Autocar)
  • US used car prices are up on a year-over-year basis but down versus the prior month. (JD Power) UK used car prices have continued to grow, but the rate of increase is slowing, to 4% year-over-year in November. Electric car prices have risen by almost 12%. (Motot Trader)
    • Significance: Higher used car values are supporting cheaper leases. As growth in new car sales fall off, OEMs need used car values to hold up well otherwise profitability will be adversely affected.

Ride-Hailing, Car Sharing & Rental (history)

  • Short term rental firm Fair raised $385 million in a round led by SoftBank. The company provides cars to ride hailing drivers and partners with Uber. (Fair)
  • Ride hailing firm Ola will invest $100 million in Indian electric scooter rental start-up Vogo. (Reuters)
  • Lyft has gone on a hiring binge, snapping up senior design talent. (Lyft)
  • Researchers think they have cracked the problem of modelling taxi demand in unusual scenarios. (IEEE Spectrum)
  • Driveitaway, a car rental firm aimed at ride hailing drivers acquired peer-to-peer rental app Whip and ended a partnership with HyreCar. (Driveitaway)
  • VW is said to be planning to write off the investment in ride hailing provider Gett (VW’s stake is apparently only valued at €16 million versus the $300 million+ VW has given the business. (Reuters)

Driverless / Autonomy (history)

  • Lidar developer Luminar announced that it is partnering with Audi’s autonomous driving subsidiary AID. AID said that the Luminar product was “clearly above the pack in terms of range and density”. (Luminar)
  • Uber received approval to restart self-driving vehicle tests in Pittsburgh. (Uber)
  • Zoox released a safety report about the company’s approach to self-driving vehicles. Zoox detailed their chic-looking remote operations centre, suggesting they believe cars can easily be driven from large screen iMacs. (Zoox)
  • ai head Anthony Levandowski said he had sat in a self-driving car on a car cross-country trip lasting four days. He apparently did not have to take control of the vehicle at any time and the whole journey was accomplished with a basic set of maps and cameras. (The Guardian). Levandowski says the demonstration served to show how a driver assistance feature will be more than capable. (Pronto)
  • Leddartech will collaborate with French light shaping firm Cailabs to improve lidar performance. (Leddartech)
  • Rinspeed is working with Luxoft on an autonomous version of the microSNAP reconfigurable vehicle. (Luxoft)
  • The head of VW’s in-house self-driving unit, AID, has a “high opinion” of Waymo but thinks GM’s Cruise is “hyping a bit”. He says that 90% perception accuracy is now standard but things get tough at 95%. (The Verge)
  • BMW showed off its latest state of the art self-driving hardware, giving an insight into the power demands of current prototypes. BMW’s L3 chip draws a respectable 25W but the L4 (200W) and L5 (600W) chips probably need a fair bit of work before they are production ready for long range or high utilisation roles. (Autocar)
  • Ouster detailed the robustness tests it has devised for its lidar units — with short videos of the rigs in action. (Ouster)

Electrification (history)

  • Solid state battery developer 24M raised $22 million. (Inside EVs)
  • Geely is forming a joint venture with CATL to produce car batteries. (Geely)
  • Engie and Arval have launched a combined vehicle and charging infrastructure leasing scheme aimed at European businesses to help them adopt electric vehicles without a high upfront cost. (Engie)

Connectivity

  • Driver monitoring developer Cambridge Mobile Telematics raised $500 million from SoftBank. (Bloomberg)
  • Haas Alert and Zenuity formed a strategic partnership to feature real-time infrastructure data in driver assistance systems. (Haas)
  • Grab has run into problems with crowdsourced mapping initiative OpenStreetMap because it has been making a series of inaccurate map updates that are replacing (better) user generated content. (TechCrunch)
  • VW is acquiring a majority 75.1% share in telematics firm WirelessCar. (VW)

Other

  • Shell bought 49% of renewable power firm CleanTech Solar. (Deal Street Asia)
  • Elon Musk’s Boring Company showed off a one mile stretch of underground test track that Musk says will whisk specially adapted cars around at 155 mph. Since test runs were limited to around 50 mph at the press day, there was no way to verify the claims at present. (Business Insider)
  • Electric skateboard brand Boosted raised $60 million. (TechCrunch)
  • Bicycle rental firm Ofo is under “immense cash flow pressure” according to the CEO. (Reuters)
  • Uber’s Jump bicycle rental division is using swappable batteries in new models of electrically assisted bikes and has created a retrofit kit for older versions. (TechCrunch)
    • Significance: One of the problems faced by dockless electric bike and scooter operators has been recharging, leading to schemes such as paying users to take custody of scooters and charger them privately. Removable batteries will make it easier to maintain the fleet centrally and ensure better uptime.

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Auto Industry Briefing — week ending 16th December 2018

Waymo’s reliability in Arizona vs California; European CO2 targets; and what does it take to give up your car? Please enjoy our auto industry and mobility briefing for 10th December to 16th December. A PDF version can be found here.

Favourite stories of the past week…?

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 cyber security firm Claroty. (BMW)

Daimler (history)

  • Said it has signed up for battery purchases worth €20 billion and will have 130 electrified vehicles (including 48V) on sale by 2022. Daimler reiterated the 15% – 25% mix of total sales target for Mercedes by 2025. (Daimler)
  • Will let third party repairers access remote diagnostics from Mercedes vehicles, but only where the owner has given permission and only for the types of data Mercedes deems relevant. (Daimler)

FCA (history)

  • Threatened to review future Italian production plans if the country raised taxes on gasoline and diesel cars. (Reuters)
  • Planning extra downtime at some US factories in January. (Detroit News)

Ford (history)

  • After Ford followed-through on earlier suggestions that it would reject alternative plans for the Bordeaux automatic transmissions plant, French president Macron called the move “hostile” and vowed to find a recovery plan. (Reuters)
    • Significance: During an earlier closure attempt in 2009, the French authorities talked Ford into funding a buyer for the site, who subsequently collapsed. Ford was then obliged to take back the plant and seems determined to avoid a repeat.
  • Confirmed that it was in talks with German unions about ending production of the C-MAX in Saarlouis. The loss of the product will mean the cessation of the night shift and about 1,500 redundancies. (Reuters) The move is slightly tricky for Ford since at the start of the year it gave assurances that the 3 shift pattern and C-MAX were not under threat. (Saarbrucker Zeitung)
    • Significance: The future for C-MAX looked dim once the Focus was replaced without an accompanying new product and Ford would need to make substantial investment to keep the product running beyond 2020 when EU rules on CO2 emissions become tighter. Ford’s communications with suppliers indicate a similar fate for Mondeo, S-MAX and Galaxy.
  • Stopped production of Fiesta and Ecosport in Russia until at least the start of 2019. Ford said it was because it had completed the production plan for 2018. Some analysts blamed slow sales. (Wards)
  • Moving employees out of transmission production at Van Dyke into SUV factories. (Detroit News)
  • Released the 2019 Ford Trends Report. (Ford)
  • Worked with a third party to design an algorithm-based tool designer for positioning jogs used by line workers. (TCT)

Geely (includes Volvo) (history)

  • The first Proton vehicle to use Geely underpinnings, the X70 SUV was launched by Malaysia’s prime minister who made a series of apparently supportive comments about Geely’s role but may still harbour ambitions for an independent Malaysian car company. (ABC News)

General Motors (history)

  • Said that 1,100 employees at plants facing “unallocation” have taken up offers to fill some of the 2,700 vacancies GM has across the US. (CNBC)

Honda (history)

  • Developed an off-road autonomous vehicle based on a quad bike chassis. (Honda)
  • Will show a concept wireless vehicle to grid charging system at CES 2019. (Inside EVs)

Hyundai / Kia (history)

  • Plans annual fuel cell production capacity of 700,000 units by 2030 for Hyundai and Kia, of which half a million will be used for vehicles and the rest will go to off-highway and industrial applications. Hyundai says an investment of 7.6 trillion KRW (~$6.7 billion) will be required and 51,000 jobs will be created. (Hyundai)
    • Significance: Apart from the statement of intent, the productivity of 51,000 employees being required to design and build fuel cells seems remarkably poor versus the supply chain of an internal combustion engine or battery electric vehicle.
  • Announced a series of executive moves, including the first non-Korean R&D chief. (Hyundai)

Nissan (includes Mitsubishi) (history)

  • Opened a new software development centre in Kerala, India. (Nissan)
  • Journalists said that Nissan was making unusually large cash transfers from its Chinese subsidiary to the Japanese parent to build a war chest for a potential fight with Renault. Nissan said it was business as usual. (Bloomberg)
  • Sources said Nissan plans to appoint more external directors. In addition to providing oversight, the move could have the (useful?) side effect of diluting Renault’s board presence (but not its shareholder voting rights). (Reuters)
  • Mitsubishi is moving to a new headquarters in Tokyo. (Mitsubishi)

Renault (history)

  • A Board review found no issue with Carlos Ghosn’s Renault but did not pass comment on his Nissan remuneration, saying the firm’s lawyers are still looking into the matter. (Renault)
  • At present, Renault is not considering a permanent replacement for Ghosn. (Renault)
  • Reportedly called for an extraordinary meeting of Nissan shareholders following the Carlos Ghosn scandal. The French government is said to be pushing the appointment of Michelin’s CEO as Ghosn’s replacement. (Reuters)

Tata (includes JLR) (history)

  • Rumoured to be working on a JLR recovery plan that will see the loss of 5,000 jobs. (FT)

Tesla (history)

  • Sending a message to those who might be tempted to mess with the company by suing a former employee, who CEO Musk called a “saboteur” for $167 million. (CNBC)
  • An unflattering expose into Elon Musk’s behaviour suggested he was rude to people and sometimes ordered that they be made redundant with only minor provocation. (Wired)
    • Significance: Perhaps Tesla is less Auto 2.0 than it hopes. Musk’s behaviour wouldn’t be out of place in a 1980s car factory. The firm may want to prepare for what comes next though: the shopfloor reaction. One of Ad Punctum’s more publishable anecdotes is the time a senior executive interrupted some poor operative with an inane comment about the production process only to be brushed off and told (impolitely) that they were a distraction. The executive’s response of “do you know who I am” triggered the line workers to cry in unison “Can anybody please help!? We’ve got some bloke over here who doesn’t know who he is”.

Toyota (history)

  • Recalling around 65,000 vehicles in the US to replace Takata airbags that have already been previously upgraded with new ones from a different supplier. (Toyota)

VW Group (history)

  • Audi will show a concept next-generation in car entertainment at CES 2019. (Audi)
  • Moia’s CEO said the approval processes required to launch the ride hailing service in Hamburg and Hanover had been tedious and that without change, they were a risk to Germany’s competitive position. (FAZ)
  • Audi appointed the interim CEO on a permanent basis. (Audi)
  • VW’s employees in Germany are in a 70.8% good mood, up from 70.6% last year. They are concerned about the firm’s public perception but think it is a fantastic employer. (VW)
  • Has reportedly tasked the Seat brand with developing a small BEV to be sold to car sharing fleets. (Europa Press)
  • Will brand all driver assistance and automated driving technologies for VW vehicles as IQ.Drive. (VW)

Other

  • Aston Martin are reportedly developing an inline six-cylinder gasoline engine, with hybrid elements, aiming to replace the Daimler-sourced V8 sometime in the 2020s. (Autocar)
  • Subaru announced a series of executive changes. (Here), (Here) & (Here)
  • StreetScooter won an order for 500 electric vans from German car sharing provider Uze Mobility, which aims to offer the vehicles free of charge to users because they will be emblazoned with advertising. (Handelsblatt)
  • VinGroup, owner of VinFast, set up an in-house VC fund. (Deal Street Asia)
  • XPENG launched sales of the all-electric G3 and plans to open 70 dealer stores in around 30 Chinese cities and have 200 super charging stations by the end of 2019. (XPENG) XPENG’s CEO says the company needs annual sales of over 100,000 units to breakeven and that it has 3,000 R&D staff, 98% of whom are based in China. (Bloomberg)
  • Pininfarina’s PF0 supercar will be called the Battista and will sport 1,900 hp with a range of 450km. (Autocar)
  • NIO launched the ES6 all-electric SUV at an event named NIO day that the firm hopes will catch on. It also said that so far it has delivered 9,726 of its ES8 model and opened 26 stores so far. (NIO)
  • Gordon Murray Design and Shell unveiled the final design of the flat-pack OX utility vehicle that the two companies believe will find widespread application in rural India. (GMD)
  • A company developing microwave ignition technology for internal combustion engines says it can reduce CO2 emissions by up to 30% and be retrofitted to existing products. (Energy Live News)
  • CH-Auto and Mullen Technologies signed a cooperation agreement that will see Mullen co-develop, manufacture and sell the Qiantu K50 electric sportscar in North America. (Mullen)
  • Lightyear will offer its solar powered car via a leasing scheme offered by LeasePlan. Although Lightyear’s original launch timing has slipped (from 2019 to 2020), the high level attribute targets remain the same. (Lightyear)
    • Significance: Given the initially low residual values of pure electric cars, due to misplaced concerns about the durability of the batteries, it will be interesting to see what steps Lightyear and LeasePlan take to establish and protect used values ahead of launch.

News about other companies and trends

Economic / Political News

  • The Chinese cabinet agreed to return car import tariffs to their prior level of 15%. (BBC)
  • A European court overturned part of the 2016 real world testing rules, saying that it has set excessively high limits for nitrogen oxide. The EU now has one year to re-write the regulations. The effect on customers who have already purchased vehicles is uncertain (but diesel owners would be most affected). (Economic Times of India)
  • European trade body ACEA got into a spot of bother by playing down the difference between two systems being considered by the EU to combat speeding. One limits the vehicle’s speed based on known local speed limits, whereas the other (which ACEA prefers) simply displays the limit to the driver. ACEA said the accident rate was about equal, its technical advisors said about 1,300 more lives would be saved annually with automatic limiters. (The Guardian)
  • After initially failing to reach a deal on new 2025 and 2030 emissions targets, the EU parliament and member states agreed on a 37.5% reduction versus 2021 levels. For 2025, the improvement required is 15%. (Bloomberg)
  • European passenger car registrations for November of 1,158,300 units were down (8.1)% on a year earlier. (ACEA)

Suppliers

  • Continental published a study into consumer attitudes towards a variety of automotive technologies. (Continental)
  • Textiles supplier UTT has been acquired by a subsidiary of Indorama Ventures. (Indorama)
  • Knorr-Bremse purchased the commercial vehicle steering business of Hitachi Automotive. (Autocar)
  • Continental is offering an automatic door opening system that will detect collisions and open when the owner walks near. Whether the system is a luxury that customers can afford is less clear. (Autocar)
  • Brose and Plastic Omnium are partnering to create lightweight doors. (Autocar)
  • After Goodyear said it would close a plant in Venezuela, the government announced it would reopen and all 1,160 jobs would be saved. (Reuters)
  • Motherson Sumi and Leoni are rumoured to be in merger talks. (Reuters)
  • Continental is building an automotive interiors plant in Pune, India that will start production in 2020. (Continental)

Dealers

  • Used car sales website Vroom raised $146 million from investors including US dealer AutoNation. (TechCrunch)
  • German online car listings firm Scout24 may be the subject of a private equity bid. (Bloomberg)
  • US online used car wholesaler BacklotCars raised $8 million. (Startland News)

Ride-Hailing, Car Sharing & Rental (history)

  • Uber lost a court case in Germany where it argued that EU transport rules should take precedent over German regulators. The loss means that ride hailing operators in the country will have to operate to (what they sometimes consider arcane) regional rules. (Reuters)
  • Taxify is rebranding as Hopp. (Business Insider)
  • Hertz has created a scheme where customers can rent a car using biometric data, but rather than improving the service for all, it is only available to members of their rewards program. (Hertz)
  • Yamaha will invest $150 million in Grab. (TechCrunch)
  • Firefly, a start-up that sells digital advertising on ride hailing cars, raised $21.5 million. (FINSMES)
  • Grab opened a new research facility in Malaysia. It now has over 1,800 technical staff working in seven development centres across Asia. (ZDNet)
  • Public transport route planning start-up Optibus raised $40 million. (VentureBeat)
  • Lyft’s scheme to get car owners to leave their cars at home for a month apparently attracted 130,000 applicants for 2,000 places. (Lyft)
    • Significance: Although it is dangerous to draw too many conclusions from a scheme that was free and lasting only one month, it indicates that there are a substantial number of cash-strapped car owners who are open to alternative modes of transport if the price is right.

Driverless / Autonomy (history)

  • The 2018 AI Index report was published. Much of the publication is given over to statistics on paper publishing and university course entry but the pages on technical performance help quantify the latest state of the art. For instance, in object recognition in context, an essential component for self-driving vehicles, the highest average precision is 72%. The expert opinion “what’s missing?” section also makes for interesting reading (AI Index)
  • Waymo’s test fleet in Arizona has been attacked 21 times according to local police, with offences ranging from pointing a gun at the cars to a Jeep driver who repeatedly brake-tested them. With 400 Waymo cars roaming the streets and the low severity of some of the incidents it was unclear whether vehicles were being “targeted” as headlines suggested or this is a normal amount of problems over a two-year period. (Telegraph)
  • BASF has a paint in development that reflects lidar better but it is unclear how performance will benefit unless all legacy cars are resprayed. (Cnet)
  • Although self-driving vehicles still can’t identify black ice, one team has shown a possible path towards a solution: lidar is used to gauge how much sunlight is falling on a patch of road and this is combined with weather and other data to guesstimate how likely it is to develop icy conditions. (Digital Trends)
  • Bosch will unveil its own autonomous vehicle concept at CES 2019. (Bosch)
  • Continental published a consumer survey around driving habits and opinions on driver assistance and automated driving, conducted in several countries. There is considerable scepticism on the benefit and timescale for autonomous vehicles — something that is unlikely to change whilst the technology is not widely available. (Continental)
  • First-hand feedback of Waymo’s driverless ride-hailing service in Phoenix surfaced (seemingly by mistake). A repeat customer said that they had been generally impressed but noticed that the vehicles often took longer routes to avoid difficult manoeuvres and the pick up and drop off points were restricted meaning that on one occasion they were set down a block away from their intended destination. Their experience of disengagements (one in four trips) was substantially higher than Waymo’s reported figures from testing in California. (Ars Technica)
  • A group of companies including Toyota, Velodyne, Intel and ARM have joined an open-source initiative for autonomous driving called the Autoware Foundation. (Autoware)
  • Further adding to the fragmentation of SAE levels 0 – 5 for driver assistance, BMW executives talk about level 2, 2+, 3 and 3 minus. (Automotive News)

Electrification (history)

  • Electric car maker Picchio has developed a battery swapping station which takes two minutes to complete the operation. The company believes that this will be a good solution for car sharing. (Picchio)
  • California will only buy zero emission buses from 2029 onwards and thinks it will retire the final fossil-fuel powered bus by 2040. (Economic Times of India)
  • A Bavarian consortium including BMW and Porsche unveiled a 450kW charger. (Porsche)
  • Honda will show a concept wireless vehicle to grid charging system at CES 2019. (Inside EVs)

Connectivity

  • Daimler will let third party repairers access remote diagnostics from Mercedes vehicles, but only where the owner has given permission and only for the types of data Mercedes deems relevant. (Daimler)
  • BMW invested in cyber security firm Claroty. (BMW)

Other

  • Electric scooter rental start-up Dott has raised €20 million for a European launch starting in 2019. (TechCrunch)
  • McLaren have become a 50% partner in a professional cycling team. It isn’t yet clear whether this is a precursor to launching a bicycle rental scheme. (BBC)
  • Parking provider ParkJockey announced an investment from SoftBank and the acquisition of Impark, which has over 3,600 locations in North America. (ParkJockey)

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Auto Industry Briefing — week ending 9th December 2018

The shifting electric vehicle landscape; cars past their best; and thinking harder about the future. Please enjoy our auto industry and mobility briefing for 3rd December to 9th December. A PDF version can be found here.

Favourite stories of the past week…?

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)

  • Executives said BMW was in talks with two or three large carmakers about joining its consortium to develop technology for driverless vehicles. (Bloomberg)
  • Daimler and BMW’s joint mobility company will start operations in 2019, later than planned, because talks with US regulators are not yet complete. (Daimler)

Daimler (history)

  • Daimler and BMW’s joint mobility company will start operations in 2019, later than planned, because talks with US regulators are not yet complete. Daimler said this will adversely affect the financial division’s 2018 profits because the partnership will allow Daimler to recognise a higher valuation on its books, but overall profits will be okay. (Daimler)
  • Reportedly working on a plan to take a majority share in the Chinese joint venture it runs with BAIC by increasing its stake from 49% to 65%. (Reuters)

FCA (history)

  • Expected to announce the reopening of the Mack Avenue Engine II plant, which FCA will use to build the forthcoming Jeep Grand Cherokee from 2020 onwards. (Detroit Free Press)
  • Announced a series of executive appointments. (FCA)
  • Saw the Fiat Panda receive a score of zero stars (out of five) in the most recent Euro NCAP crash tests. (NCAP)
    • Significance: Since the tests become harder each time, this shows the Panda falling back in relative terms, rather than performing worse than it did in 2011 (when it won four stars) and reflects the downside of extending a vehicle lifecycle with minimal updates.

Ford (history)

  • Ford’s operation in Venezuela is rumoured to be offering buyouts of $150 for each year of employment to factory staff because orders have fallen to less than 50 vehicles per month. (Reuters)
  • VW might build some vehicles in US Ford plants rather than installing capacity for itself. (Reuters)
  • Ford is letting employees in the US bring their dogs to work to show it can look after talented people just as well as Silicon Valley rivals. (Detroit Free Press)
  • Announced several executive moves. Incoming heads of product development in Europe and Asia will have a lower grading than their predecessors and there will be a new role for a global product development vice president. (Ford)
  • Announced new executive directors to head transformation in the UK and Germany, revealing that the new European plan will be called “sprint to 6” (presumably % operating margin). (Business Motoring)
  • CEO Hackett foresees a future where people own one vehicle and share one, rather than owning both. He believes that an increase in travel will offset the lost volume from lower ownership. Despite the advent of electric cars, he says the sound of a Mustang is not going away. (Newsweek)

Geely (includes Volvo) (history)

  • Lotus is rumoured to be planning a £2 million all-electric supercar codenamed Omega. (Autocar)
  • Within Geely’s November 2018 sales, there was a first month-over-month drop for Lynk&Co sales, despite a third product only recently launching. It remains to be seen whether this is an aberration. (Geely)
  • Volvo’s Californian dealers have reportedly asked the brand to end its “Care by Volvo” two-year flexible leasing (subscription) model saying it is in direct competition with them. (Automotive News)

General Motors (history)

  • CEO Barra faced questioning by US lawmakers over the company’s recently announced factory closures. She said that she understood worker concerns but that GM had over capacity and would not resort to taking work away from non-US plants as it would be costly to move products during their production cycle. Her comments seemed to also imply that some or all of the US plants could remain open in return for unspecified sacrifices by the UAW union at a national level. The UAW says GM is violating the current contract if it closes US plants during 2019. (Reuters)

Honda (history)

  • Has been developing a new fluoride-ion battery chemistry that Honda claims has up to ten times the energy density of lithium ion. (Honda)
  • Investing in four VC funds to funnel cash to early stage start-ups. (Honda)

Hyundai / Kia (history)

  • Suffered a half day strike in protest at Hyundai’s plan to form a non-union joint venture with an outlying South Korean regional government. (Reuters)
  • Hyundai is reportedly looking to open a plant in Croatia. (See News)

Nissan (includes Mitsubishi) (history)

  • Conspiracy theories about Carlos Ghosn’s ouster continued to swirl with rumours that he was about to replace Nissan’s CEO. (WSJ)
  • Announced a new series of inspection procedure problems in Japanese plants that require around 150,000 vehicles to be recalled and re-tested because the methods used were not strenuous enough. (Nissan)
  • Carlos Ghosn, another director and Nissan were all charged by Japanese prosecutors for falsely reporting Ghosn’s income. (Nissan)
  • The Nissan GT-R50 by Italdesign will go into production. 50 will be built and the price tag is €990,000. (Nissan)

PSA (includes Opel/Vauxhall) (history)

  • Confirmed a series of all-electric vehicles for the Opel and Vauxhall brands: There will be electric versions of the Corsa, Mokka and Vivaro van. All we be available in 2020, but you can order the Corsa in 2019. (Opel)
  • Citroën’s sales head in Spain and Portugal criticised incentives for electric vehicles saying the technology is not mature and few customers want them. He thinks the money should be spent on scrappage incentives. (Europa Press)

Tata (includes JLR) (history)

  • JLR will not attend the 2019 Geneva motor show. (Autocar)

Tesla (history)

  • CEO Musk said Tesla would possibly be interested in taking over idled or closed plants from other carmakers. He also commented that despite his settlement with the SEC, he does not respect the market regulator and no one checks his tweets before he sends them, although he clarified that he would need to if he was sending any messages that could be market moving. He expects that the $35,000 Model 3 could be available in five or six months (but said it wasn’t a promise). (CBS)
  • Documents that Tesla called “outdated” reportedly called for the forthcoming Model Y to reach production volumes of 12,000 vehicles per week by 2021 from two factories in the US and China. (Business Insider)
    • Significance: Since Tesla didn’t deny the authenticity of the documents, the company appears to believe that annual sales north of 550,000 units is possible for the Model Y.

Toyota (history)

  • Toyota AI Ventures invested in Parallel Domain, a company that develops simulations to test driverless cars. (Toyota)

VW Group (history)

  • Recalling about 6,000 vehicles because they have been built with non-standard parts, such as updated components that had not been fully approved at the time of sale. (Handelsblatt)
  • Increased its forecast for the “first wave” of MEB-platform sales from 10 million units to 15 million units. VW remains unclear about the timescale. (VW)
  • Having previously talked about 23 battery electric models for the VW brand by 2025, the company now talks of “around 20”. Since automotive OEMs tend to round up for PR purposes (e.g. 23 = “more than 20” or “almost 25”), this indicates that VW may have dropped some vehicles from the plan. (VW)
  • Targeting further profitability actions at the VW brand, with an expectation of at least 6% operating margin by 2022. VW said that the 2020 cost saving target had almost been achieved already and further savings are therefore being sought from the business. Amongst the improvements, VW are eliminating all powertrain combinations in the bottom quartile for customer demand. (VW)
  • Audi will spend €14 billion out of a planned €40 billion from 2019 to 2023 on electric vehicles, digitalization and autonomous driving. (VW)
  • VW might build some vehicles in US Ford plants rather than installing capacity for itself. (Reuters)
  • Executives said that working back from a final sale date for combustion engine only vehicles in 2040, VW was forecasting for there to be no new diesel and gasoline vehicle launches after the early 2030s, meaning that the final development cycle would begin in 2026. (Handelsblatt) Another executive said afterwards that the comments were about Europe and internal combustion engine development would continue for other markets. (Autocar)
  • Working towards CO2 neutral production of the all-electric ID vehicle range. Initially, VW will accomplish this through a combination of renewable methods and purchase of carbon offsets (e.g. tree planting). (Handelsblatt)
  • Production of the Audi A3 and Q2 began at VW’s joint venture plant in Algeria. (VW)

Other

  • Aston Martin will begin offering retrofit electric powertrains for historic models. The concept is somewhat unique in that Aston Martin will attempt to engineer a solution that means the internal combustion engine, transmission and exhaust could be re-installed at a later date if the owner wished. (Aston Martin)
  • Mahindra’s chairman said the turnaround at Pininfarina is ahead of schedule, but still not complete. (Bloomberg)
  • DHL’s StreetScooter received type approval for the small electric van it produces, meaning the company can sell more than 1,000 per year. It says there is annual production capacity for 20,000. (Post and Parcel)
  • Pininfarina have already confirmed that Rimac parts will underpin the PF0 supercar but the next model, an SUV called PF1, is rumoured to use components supplied by Rivian. (Autocar)
  • Rivian plans to sell vehicles direct to customers but have dealers for aftersales and servicing (but it might be willing to let dealers handle sales in US states where manufacturers are forbidden from doing so). (Green Car Reports)

News about other companies and trends

Economic / Political News

  • The UK government said, via the department of health, that it was assuming a no deal Brexit would create up to six months of chaos at British ports and that a previously advised six-week emergency stock of essentials may be insufficient. Medical supplies will be prioritised in the event of problems. (UK Government)
  • UK warehouse operators say the price of storage is rising due to concerns over Brexit: in September it was £1.85 per pallet per week, now it is in excess of £2. (Reuters)
  • US light vehicle SAAR in November was 17.4 million, slightly up on a year-over-year basis. (Wards)
  • November passenger car sales in Germany of 272,674 units were (9.9)% lower than a year earlier. (KBA)
  • UK passenger car sales in November of 158,639 units were down (3)% on a year earlier. (SMMT) but there was a ray of sunshine from light commercial vehicle sales where November 2018 was 9.6% better than a year ago. (SMMT)
  • November passenger car sales in France came to 171,611 units, down (4.7)% on the prior year. (CCFA)
  • There were 91,063 passenger cars sold in Spain in November, a drop of (12.6)% on a year earlier. (ANFAC)
  • Italian passenger car sales during November totalled 149,991 units, down (6.3)% on the prior year. (UNRAE)
  • The CEOs of BMW, Daimler and VW met US president Trump, who pressed them to increase investments in the country. (Reuters)

Suppliers

  • Autoliv is making a $210 million provision to reflect likely fines for participating in a cartel. (Autoliv)
  • Continental is looking at further acquisitions (potentially more than one) in the software domain and could spend up to €5 billion if the target was sufficiently attractive. (Handelsblatt)
  • ZF will spend €800 million at the Saarbrucken plant for production of transmissions for electric vehicles. (ZF)

Dealers

  • Price comparison and lead generation service TrueCar acquired dealer software provider DealerScience. (TrueCar)

Ride-Hailing, Car Sharing & Rental (history)

  • Lyft filed for an IPO set to take place in 2019. (The Guardian)
  • Uber also reportedly filed for a 2019 IPO in secret and may even be hoping to beat Lyft to market. (WSJ)
  • New York regulators set minimum pay standards for ride hailing drivers in the city so that those driving high mileages will see earnings of at least $17.22 per hour after expenses. (NY Taxi Commission)
  • Didi announced a series of organisation changes to improve passenger safety. (Reuters)
  • Luxembourg’s new government announced that all public transport in the country will be free at point of use by the middle of 2019. (Futurism)

Driverless / Autonomy (history)

  • Waymo launched the Waymo One driverless ride hailing service. The initial service seems much like the trial the company has already been running in Phoenix: it even has the same customers. Waymo promises that in time a wider group will be able to use the vehicles. (Waymo)
  • Lidar developer Ouster announced a tie-up with data labelling firms Playment and ai to offer embedded data labelling software that the partners say could reduce workload by 50%. (Ouster)
  • Leddartech secured a $24 million credit facility. (Leddartech)
  • Cleveron showed off autonomous cars with arms that allow it to place deliveries outside the vehicle. It hopes to begin testing in 2020. (Futurism)
  • Toyota invested in Parallel Domain, a company that develops simulations to test driverless cars. (Toyota)

Electrification (history)

  • President Trump’s top economic advisor said the administration wants to end subsidies for electric cars by around 2021 but such a move needs support from Congress. (Bloomberg)
  • CATL expects that battery cells on sale in 2020 will have an energy density of 300Wh/kg (up from 160 today), which will translate to 240 Wh/kg at a pack level. (CATL)
  • Aston Martin will begin offering retrofit electric powertrains for historic models. The concept is somewhat unique in that Aston Martin will attempt to engineer a solution that means the internal combustion engine, transmission and exhaust could be re-installed at a later date if the owner wished. (Aston Martin)

Connectivity

  • Automated vehicle dispatch software developer Wise Systems raised $7 million. (FINSMES)

Other

  • Singaporean electric scooter start-up Neuron Mobility raised $3.7 million. (TechCrunch)
  • Chinese bicycle rental operator Ofo said it might have to abandon the free floating docking model in some cities and insist that users park bikes in designated areas. (Technode)
  • The Bloodhound supersonic land speed attempt has ended after administrators failed to find a buyer. (Autocar)
  • Google offshoot Wing will start deliveries of small packages using drones in Finland during 2019. (TechCrunch)
  • Madrid scared electric scooter rental companies by ordering them off the streets with 72 hours’ notice. (TechCrunch)
  • Lime launched rentals of electrically-assisted bicycles in London. (Engadget)

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Auto Industry Briefing — week ending 2nd December 2018

Rivian’s unbelievable specification; Volvo wants data to be free; and could Brexit mean more work for the UK? Please enjoy our auto industry and mobility briefing for 26th November to 2nd December. A PDF version can be found here.

Favourite stories of the past week…?

 

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

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Our Latest Research

 

Last week, Evercore ISI published a report that was written in collaboration with Ad Punctum. It exposed OEM future spending forecasts as highly unrealistic. At the same time as OEMs are seeking to invest in electrification, mobility and autonomous vehicles, they are promising to cut spending and boost profits. The maths doesn’t add up. Concentrating on powertrain, we recommend two actions vehicle makers can take to address the gaps and improve their resilience to external shocks:

  • Commoditise the internal combustion engine. Really. This needs to be a multi-lateral venture that helps the participating companies truly exit the business of developing conventional powertrain. There are upfront costs involved, but these are quickly recovered by the savings in variable cost and investment. Would there be job losses? Yes. Lots. But our argument is that this is an inevitability anyway, a managed exit from combustion engines is preferable to a chaotic one from the perspective of both the human costs and the cold hard cash.
  • Re-think the way electric vehicles are being designed. At present, car companies are finding that when they make an existing internal combustion engine vehicle fit an electric powertrain, the result is a vehicle with too many compromises. As a result, most are choosing to develop purpose-built EVs. So far so good, but this quickly leads to duplication of the kind we are already seeing with large SUVs (e.g. Mercedes GLE and EQC). We think the problem needs to be approached the other way around: develop the electric vehicle first, then fit an internal combustion engine with a fuel tank as an alternative to a larger (and more expensive) battery. Doing things this way means the transmission can be deleted, the savings from which help pay for the electric drivetrain.

It was a very interesting project and we expect to be met with a frosty reception from those with too much invested in the old way of doing things.

 

News about the major automakers

 

BMW (history)

  • Considering building an engine plant in the US. (Greenville News)
  • Might order connected BMW cars to use electric-only mode in polluted city centres, potentially putting the wishes of regulators above those of owners. (Reuters)
  • Showed off several in-house factory automation projects that BMW says are helping make considerable productivity improvements. For instance, automated trailer shunting robots could carry out over 1,000 manoeuvres daily at the busiest plants. (BMW)

FCA (history)

  • Fitch upgraded FCA’s credit rating to BB (from BBB-) with a stable outlook. (FCA)
  • Reportedly believes it could realise €1.5 billion to €2 billion from a sale of robotics unit Comau and could begin a sale process in early 2019. (Bloomberg)
  • Announced to Italian unions that it will build the forthcoming Fiat 500 BEV in Italy and is increasing engine production in Termoli. FCA plans to spend €5 billion in Italy between 2019 – 2021. (FCA)

Ford (history)

  • Ford’s European boss said a no-deal Brexit would spell “catastrophe”. The company is considering whether to import more vehicles end of the March deadline to help ride out teething problems with the new customs arrangements — given that any affected vehicles would need to be quickly added to the production plan, it isn’t clear how much time Ford has left before it needs to make a firm decision. (Reuters)
  • Re-assigning workers in Kentucky and Michigan to other factories nearby that have higher demand. As part of the measures, Flat Rock will go down to a single shift. (CNBC)
  • Issued a press release in response to GM’s restructuring plans reiterating the announcements Ford had made about its recovery plan, and highlighting the lack of detail provided to investors so far. (Ford)
  • Ford has no plans for “anything like” plant closures in Canada. (Reuters)
  • Ford sold three of its UK dealers to Pentagon. (Motor Trader)
  • Published a series of insights gathered from a fleet of 160 connected commercial vehicles in London. Ford said it showed the power of big data and enabled hidden accident blackspots to be revealed for the first time. (Ford)
    • Significance: Since the test fleet was only 160 vehicles, was Ford saying the real insight was not many connected vehicles were required to unlock a world of possibilities — in which case, why not begin a rollout to all major cities now since the cost is clearly minimal? Or was Ford over-hyping the findings?

Geely (includes Volvo) (history)

  • Volvo’s CEO called plans by rivals to make money from selling customer and vehicle data the “wrong approach”. The firm instead plans to make money from the cars themselves. (Bloomberg)
  • Volvo is not currently looking at an IPO for Polestar and sees the future relationship between the two as affiliates rather than fully arm’s length. (Bloomberg)
  • Malaysia’s prime minister called for Proton to make cars for export saying Malaysians would not believe the vehicles were any good until they saw them being sold on international markets. (Malay Mail)
  • Issued a press release about Volvo’s collaboration with lidar developer Luminar in which Luminar’s CEO said the company’s lidar units repeatably demonstrated 250m range, allowing highway speeds. (Volvo)
  • Geely signed a cooperation agreement with China Telecom to work on future mobility projects. (Geely)
  • Volvo will use Ericsson’s connected vehicle services for the next five years. (Fleet Europe)

General Motors (history)

  • Announced GM President Ammann would leave the car business and become CEO of the Cruise self-driving unit. The current CEO (and founder) will become the CTO. GM will eliminate his role. (GM)
  • Donald Trump was unimpressed by GM’s restructuring plans and suggested that they cease making vehicles in China or alternatively put cars that are selling well into the factories slated for closure. (Reuters)
  • Tried to soften the blow of its restructuring announcement by saying “many” of the workers at the factories that will close would have the “opportunity” to work in other locations. GM also thanked the current US government and summarised the number of plants in Ohio that would remain open. (GM)
  • Showed off some of the data insights it has gained from customers using the Marketplace app. GM knows that owners mostly order takeaways on Wednesday night and go to the petrol station after 3pm on a Thursday. Less clear was whether this information has any revenue-raising potential. (Detroit Free Press)

Hyundai / Kia (history)

  • Unveiled the new Kia Soul EV with a 64 kWh battery pack. (KIA)

Mazda

  • Unveiled the new Mazda 3 in both saloon and hatchback forms. (Mazda)
  • Mazda’s European design boss said some competitor electric vehicles looked like “fridges” and the company would do far better with its own effort, due in 2020. (Autocar)

Nissan (includes Mitsubishi) (history)

  • There was a joint Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi press release saying that the boards of the three companies “emphatically” reiterated the importance of the alliance between them. The press release was only necessary because executives from Nissan and Mitsubishi had openly questioned the sustainability of the present arrangement. (Renault)
  • Nissan’s CEO reportedly told staff that the alliance with Renault was unequal and needed to be reviewed. (Reuters)
  • Illustrated how Nissan’s various pilot projects about an electrification ecosystem link together and should ultimately result in a broad customer offering. (Nissan)

PSA (includes Opel/Vauxhall) (history)

  • Purchased a stake in Chinese aftermarket supplier UAP. (PSA)
  • Confirmed the already-leaked plan to sell its share in the Kolin, Czech Republic plant to Toyota. (PSA)

Renault (history)

  • There was a joint Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi press release saying that the boards of the three companies “emphatically” reiterated the importance of the alliance between them. The press release was only necessary because executives from Nissan and Mitsubishi had openly questioned the sustainability of the present arrangement. (Renault)
  • French president Macron and Japanese prime minister Abe discussed the importance of preserving the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance during a G20 meeting. (Reuters)
  • Will stop building the Nissan Rogue at the Renault Samsung factory in Busan during 2019. (Chosun)
  • Commissioned two wind powered cargo ships for transatlantic routes to be in operation by 2020. (Renault)

Tata (includes JLR) (history)

  • JLR’s InMotion VC fund invested in WeTrip, a travel agent aimed at group “adventures”. (JLR)
  • Slowing production at the i54 engine plant by stopping one shift per week until Christmas. At Solihull, 200 jobs will be lost through a combination of fewer agency staff and a voluntary redundancy scheme. (Express and Star)

Tesla (history)

  • CEO Musk said Tesla was “single digit weeks” from bankruptcy earlier in 2018. Since there were no concerns raised about the firm’s ability to continue as a going concern in SEC filings over the same period, investors are left to speculate whether this was hyperbole or there is a problem with Tesla’s reporting standards. (Business Insider)
  • Announced that Tesla owners have now driven a cumulative 1 billion miles with Autopilot driver assistance systems active in the vehicle. (Detroit Free Press)
  • Disputed reports that October sales in China plummeted (70)%. (CNBC)

Toyota (history)

  • Confirmed the already-leaked plan to buy out PSA’s share in the Kolin, Czech Republic plant. (PSA)
  • Announced a series of executive changes to take effect from January 2019, including the elimination of some lower level executive grade bands. Toyota will also adopt a less functional approach to development of senior leaders to give them a more rounded experience. (Toyota)

VW Group (history)

  • Audi released pictures of the electric drone concept is has been developing with Airbus. The drone carries a passenger pod which can be installed onto a car base so that passengers can take a trip that involves flying and driving without having to get out of the vehicle. At present the companies are testing a 1:4 scale model. (Audi)
  • VW’s head of HR said the brand expected electric cars to require 20% to 25% less productive labour and that there would not be a second “future pact” German labour agreement beyond 2025. (Handelsblatt)
  • Executives said VW was “100% deep in the process” of choosing a site in North America to build all-electric vehicles, although they might just end up selecting their existing Tennessee plant. (Reuters)
  • Setting up a charging scheme in the UK in partnership with supermarket group Tesco. The plan it to provide around 2,500 chargers in 600 locations. There will be a free 7 kW service and a pricier 50 kW offering. (BBC)
  • Said that via a reorganisation of media agencies it will improve “marketing efficiency” by 30% without increasing the budget and increase the share of spending on digital media to 50% of the total by 2020, up from 25% in 2015. (VW)
  • VW’s head of compliance said 2019 would be the most difficult for the carmaker’s legal team to manage because of the number of ongoing court cases and complexity. (FT)
  • Signed an agreement with JAC to form a joint venture that will produce and market SEAT cars in China. (VW)
  • Unveiled the Audi e-tron GT concept, previewing an A5-type vehicle that will be presented in 2020. (VW)

Other

  • Rivian showed off a pick-up and SUV that will form the initial line-up. There will be three different battery packs on offer, including a whopping 180 kWh unit (with an accompanying claimed 400+ mile range). The vehicles will also have a lidar fitted. Despite the high specification, Rivian say pricing will start at around $60,000 (including US tax credits) for vehicles with the “base” 105 kWh battery pack. (Rivian)
  • Faraday Future lost a court case against its primary investor, prompting questions about whether it can now survive bankruptcy. (The Verge)
  • TVR’s chairman said it was “virtually impossible” to give delivery dates for the first cars from its new factory as the company does not know when the site will be handed over. (Autocar)
  • Byton showed the K-Byte concept, previewing a sedan it hopes to launch in 2020. (Byton)

 

News about other companies and trends

 

Economic / Political News

  • Qatar is leaving OPEC in January 2019 because it wants to concentrate on natural gas rather than oil. (Reuters)
  • China and the US have agreed to pause implementation of new trade tariffs for 90 days. (Reuters)
  • A survey by the UK automotive trade body of its members found that more businesses were planning to invest in and expand UK facilities than intend to withdraw or relocate from the UK. (SMMT)

Suppliers

  • Schaeffler acquired Elmotec Statomat, a supplier of production machinery to make electric motors. Schaeffler seems to have been particularly attached to the technology for winding (Schaeffler)
  • Hella and Faurecia formed a strategic partnership that will see Hella’s interior lighting integrated into the Faurecia cockpit of the future offering. (Faurecia)

Dealers

  • Used car auction company KAR acquired CarsOnTheWeb in a deal worth around €155 million. (KAR)
  • Ford sold three of its UK dealers to Pentagon. (Motor Trader)

Ride-Hailing, Car Sharing & Rental (history)

  • Sixt denied that it was in talks to buy US rival Hertz. (Bloomberg)
  • China’s ministry of transport severely criticised Didi’s safety and driver recruitment processes. (Reuters)
  • The Lyft-owned bicycle rental scheme in New York will expand to 40,000 bikes, a significant portion of which will be electric models. (Fortune)
  • Uber’s rumoured takeover bid for Deliveroo appears to have hit a snag; Uber wants to pay $2 billion but Deliveroo believe they are worth double that. (FT)
  • Uber reportedly wants to expand its electric scooter offering by buying either Bird or Lime. (Telegraph)
  • Uber has stopped offering car rentals to its drivers in San Francisco but didn’t rule out the return of a similar scheme in future. (Quartz)
  • Following in the footsteps of its rivals, Via is planning to launch scooter services. (TechCrunch)
  • Indian short-term scooter, motorbike and car rental firm Drivezy raised $20 million from investors including Yamaha. Drivezy will use the money to increase the car rental fleet. (TechCrunch)

Driverless / Autonomy (history)

  • The CTO of Starsky Robotics claimed in a blog post that “many” of the lidar markets currently on the market fall apart in less than six months and that cameras and radar alone (backed up with on-demand remote human operators) were enough for the kind of highway only driving the company intends to carry out. (IEEE Spectrum)
  • Volvo issued a press release about a collaboration with lidar developer Luminar in which Luminar’s CEO said the company’s lidar units repeatably demonstrated 250m range, allowing highway speeds. (Volvo)

Electrification (history)

  • Charging network ChargePoint raised $240 million from investors including Daimler and BMW. (TechCrunch)
  • Chinese battery developer Qing Tao (Kushan) announced the start of a solid-state battery production line. The company claims 0.1 GWh capacity and to have spent $144 million on the technology. Its says that by 2020, when some big production contracts start, it will have 0.7 GWh of capacity. (Xinhua)

Connectivity

  • Volvo’s CEO called plans by rivals to make money from selling customer and vehicle data the “wrong approach”. The firm instead plans to make money from the cars themselves. (Bloomberg)
  • Phiar raised $3 million to develop augmented reality navigation software. (TechCrunch)
  • Didi said it collects 100 terabytes of data about user vehicles daily, or about 30MB per trip. (CNBC)
  • The amount of data China collects about individual vehicles, and the acquiescence of Western OEMs in handing it over were scrutinised in a news article. (AP)
    • Significance: Whilst the OEMs defend themselves on the basis that data sharing is a government-mandated scheme, the inconsistency with statements made by several CEOs about not releasing data without the customer’s permission is clear (none of whom ever clarify that the remarks are aimed at a regional rather than global audience).
  • Volvo will use Ericsson’s connected vehicle services for the next five years. (Fleet Europe)

Other

  • Electric vehicle developer Workhorse has received an order from a company that hopes to launch air taxi services in Los Angeles. (Workhorse)
  • Scooter rental firm Bird started a new scheme called Bird Platform where individuals can buy their own fleet of Bird-branded scooters and place them on the Bird app for a cut of the fees. (TechCrunch)
    • Significance: Since a major selling point of the scooter business (allegedly) is the crazily high return on investment, with payback periods of only a few weeks being mentioned, shouldn’t this be a business that would always favour debt as a route to growth rather than allowing others to muscle in?

 

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