Category Archives: Ad Punctum

Does not think there will be any supply risks for batteries, even if demand grows, thanks to the long term contracts it has signed with “reliable” suppliers. BMW says that it is working to reduce dependence on hard-to-source raw materials and has already eliminated the use of rare earth metals in the latest generation of electric motor. (BMW)
Says its battery technology is equal or superior to the competition, when all characteristics are considered, and believes that electric motors are more important to make in-house than batteries. (BMW)
South Korean regulators fined BMW $10 million, saying the company had delayed recalls for engine fires and referred the matter to prosecutors. (Reuters)

Expects the Russian market to grow by 5% to 6% in 2019. (Reuters)

Nissan’s US operation said that it had learned several things about marketing electric vehicles: customers really want a decent range (200 miles+); because there is less of an existing infrastructure for electric cars than gasoline and diesel vehicles the customer needs to be provided with additional services; people want a wide choice of bodystyle; cultural and other factors mean that response is different across markets. (Green Car Reports)
Will reduce production in China by 30,000 units between December and February because of slow sales. (Reuters)

CEO Tavares believes that electrification will benefit cars more than SUVs because they have better aerodynamic efficiency and will therefore require smaller batteries to accomplish the same range. He also said PSA’s strategy for re-entering the US market is not based on sharing with other OEMs, but he remains open to the idea. (Automobile)

One of the main French unions has called upon the company to be more transparent about the financial dealings of the Dutch registered entity that carries out some of Renault and Nissan’s joint business. (Reuters)

Suzuki

Maruti Suzuki is looking for a new site to move the Gurgaon factory to because the fields that once surrounded the plant have given way to urban sprawl which has made logistics far more challenging. (Bloomberg)

Tata Motors has reduced its tier 1 supplier list from 1,100 to 800 in the last 12 months. (Autocar)

CEO Musk promised 100% supercharger coverage for European customers. (Futurism)
According to leaked internal emails, Tesla has stepped up its internal testing program for a new level of self-driving software and plans to retrofit new computers to existing cars but will not need to adjust the sensor set. (Inverse)
Increased the number of independent board directors to fulfil Tesla’s settlement with the SEC. (Reuters)

Reported a set of newly-discovered “abnormalities” with the upgraded emissions control software of 1.2 litre diesel engined cars to the German regulator. VW has stopped updating vehicles and hopes to find a resolution during January. (Handelsblatt)
Porsche says the Taycan is sold out in the US for a year if all reservations turn into firm orders and that the biggest cohort of buyers are defecting from Tesla. (CNET)
According to US sales representatives, the all-electric Porsche Taycan (formerly Mission E) will have three models, the base version will retail in “low $90,000” range, the 4S will have a “high $90,000” price tag whilst the range-topping Turbo will be “over $130,000”. (Green Car Reports)
According to Audi’s new chief, getting a CEO spot should be on more new year’s resolution lists. He claims the new job has helped him shed 10 kilos. (SZ)
Showed off a prototype charging station that uses the same batteries as MEB platform vehicles (either new, or more likely, used) to provide high capacity and fast charging, regardless of local infrastructure. The 360 kWh unit can provide charging rates of 100 kW. (VW)

Other

Great Wall launched an electric city car under the Ora brand in the Chinese market. The R1 will have ~150 miles of range thanks to a 33 kWh battery but a starting price of $8,860 (after incentives). (Electrek)
GAC announced the completion of a new 200,000 unit capacity plant for electrified vehicles (to be expanded to 400,000 at a later date) and a 400,000 unit capacity automatic transmission plant (a joint venture with Aisin). (GAC)

News about other companies and trends

Economic / Political News

Germany’s government has reportedly finalised technical specifications for diesel emission upgrade retrofits and will publish them in the new year. (Manager Magazin)

Suppliers

Following GM’s announcement that it will (probably) shut the Lordstown, Ohio plant, Magna said that it will cease production at its nearby seat factory. (WTOL)
ZF will have a €100 million charge in Q4 2018 due to likely EU-imposed fines against TRW for being in a cartel of safety systems suppliers, before it was acquired by ZF. (ZF)
Denso announced a restructuring (Denso) and that joint ventures announced earlier in the year have been formally agreed for control software (Denso) and electric drive modules. (Denso)
BASF is building a new plant in China to produce components for exhaust systems. (Autocar)

After raising almost $3 billion in 2018, Grab seems to have upped its target by another $2 billion. (TechCrunch)
Careem launched a bike messenger service. In addition to providing a simple way to order couriers, customers will be able to order the rider to spend up to $80 on an item for them and then pay when it arrives. (Careem)

Nikon invested $25 million in Velodyne and the two will collaborate on ways to use Nikon’s optics know-how in lidar units. (Velodyne)
Self-driving start-up Ottopia raised $3 million. (Ottopia)

Groups of pick-up truck drivers in the USA have started an odd trend of blocking Tesla supercharging stations, leading to speculation about their motives. (Green Car Reports)
BMW does not think there will be any supply risks for batteries, even if demand grows and says its battery technology is equal or superior to the competition, when all characteristics are considered, and believes that electric motors are more important to make in-house than batteries. (BMW)
Nissan’s US operation said that it had learned several things about marketing electric vehicles: customers really want a decent range (200 miles+); because there is less of an existing infrastructure for electric cars than gasoline and diesel vehicles the customer needs to be provided with additional services; people want a wide choice of bodystyle; cultural and other factors mean that response is different across markets. (Green Car Reports)

Connectivity

NEC is buying Danish IT firm KMD saying the acquisition will help it create better solutions for connected cities to provide services such as public transport. (Deal Street Asia)

Other

Despite market conditions hobbling rival bicycle rental firms, Hellobike has raised more money. (TechCrunch)
Mobile refuelling start-up Filld is struggling to get fire department permits for kerbside refuelling in some cities, undermining its business model. (Geekwire)

Find our archive here.

Auto Industry Briefing — week ending 23rd December 2018

December 24, 2018 Ad Punctum TeamAd Punctum, Automotive0

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 17^th December to 23^rd December. A PDF version can be found here.

Favourite stories of the past week…?

I Got The Power — BMW’s latest prototype self-driving chips were put on display. The power demands (600W for a fully autonomous chip) are far beyond what is considered acceptable for fuel economy today in a private car. Will we need to wait for power consumption to drop dramatically (and AI to improve) before we see autonomous cars on the road, or will better fleet management, with more frequent recharging, and high capacity batteries mean there is never any issue?
The Sharing Song — BMW and Daimler are rumoured to be working on an agreement to share car parts, including potentially the basic platform. This move makes total sense — although consumers care deeply about the finished product, there are plenty of areas of the vehicle where unique parts serve no distinct value apart from meeting specific packaging requirements and design standards.
Hype — VW’s self-driving experts think GM Cruise is “hyping a bit”. Perhaps they’ve heard something on the grapevine, or from prospective ex-GM employees? Comments about the difficulty of moving beyond 95% object recognition accuracy might be an indicator of where they believe Cruise’s problems lie (but probably so do everyone else’s).

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

Find our archive here.

News about the major automakers

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)

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)

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

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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

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’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.

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)

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)

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.

Find our archive here.

Auto Industry Briefing — week ending 16th December 2018

December 18, 2018 Ad Punctum TeamAd Punctum, Automotive0

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 10^th December to 16^th December. A PDF version can be found here.

Favourite stories of the past week…?

Voice Of Truth — A real person who knows what it is like to sit in a Waymo driverless car has come forward to tell their story. They said that the safety driver had to take control once during their four journeys, something confirmed by Waymo. But, hold on a second, that would make for a far higher rate of disengagements per mile than Waymo’s California reporting suggests (by several hundred times). Maybe he just got unlucky?
We Can Work It Out — European 2025 and 2030 targets for passenger car CO₂ have now been agreed. Sort of (there is still lots of technical work required to turn them into absolute targets). At least now that they’ve been decided, the industry can get on with the job of making better cars rather than lobbying in vain. Although a 37.5% improvement from 2021 levels by 2030 looks tough, might a 15% gain by 2025 be the tougher milestone?
Life Is A Highway — When Lyft ran a scheme for 2,000 people to give up their cars for a month, there were 130,000 applicants. Even considering that a month of free travel was on offer, that still seems like a hefty figure. Could the attractions of car ownership be weaker than many assume?

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

Find our archive here.

News about the major automakers

Invested in cyber security firm Claroty. (BMW)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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

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”.

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)

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)

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.

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)

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)

Find our archive here.

Auto Industry Briefing — week ending 9th December 2018

December 18, 2018 Ad Punctum TeamAd Punctum, Automotive0

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

Favourite stories of the past week…?

Change My Mind — VW keeps saying that billions will be spent on electric vehicles but seems to change what will be done with it. The VW brand was previously talking about 23 new models by 2025, now it is “about 20”. There were going to be 10 million vehicles in the “first cycle”, now there will be 15 million. Where will they settle eventually?
Way Down We Go — The Fiat Panda scored rather badly in the latest round of Euro NCAP crash tests (it got zero stars). Under the previous rules, the same car got four out of five stars. This is what happens when you keep building the same product without investing much in updates — will FCA need to go back to the drawing board earlier than planned?
End Of The Road — VW executives said that the final generation of European combustion engine cars will be developed from 2026 onwards. VW sees internal combustion engine sales ending in Europe by 2040 and is (sensibly) working back from there to decide when to stop coming up with new cars. But why do VW (and everyone else) seem so oddly relaxed about the transition from one technology to the other — there are still over 100,000 jobs in Europe that will somehow disappear? Have customers suddenly become predictable? Executive hand wringing over diesel and the move from passenger cars to SUV/crossover body styles suggests not.

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

Find our archive here.

News about the major automakers

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 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)

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’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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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

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

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)

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)

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)

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)

Find our archive here.

Auto Industry Briefing — week ending 2nd December 2018

December 4, 2018 Ad Punctum TeamAd Punctum, Automotive0

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 26^th November to 2^nd December. A PDF version can be found here.

Favourite stories of the past week…?

Could It Be Magic — Rivian Automotive unveiled their new all-electric pick-up truck and SUV offerings to the world. They come with massive batteries (>100 kWh), lidar for eyes-off driving and a starting price (net of incentives) of $60,000. Have Rivian found a new purchasing paradigm that lets them cram in all this kit and still come out cheaper than a high spec Tesla Model 3 or will the reality fall short of the promises?
Heard It All Before — Volvo’s CEO says car companies that assume they can make lots of money of selling customer data are getting it all wrong. His plan is to stick to the knitting and concentrate on making cars people want to own. The most likely explanation is that Volvo has concluded there isn’t much money in data anyway. But if that is the case, where does that leave the likes of Ford and Audi (€1 billion from data services annually in the mid-2020s)?
Don’t Get Me Wrong — The UK automotive trade body published a survey of member attitudes to Brexit. Although the headline was predictably angry, the detail showed many companies seemingly unfussed by the consequences. Even more intriguing, whilst some said there could be a loss of work overseas post-Brexit, a larger number said it would result in more work for their business in the UK. Wishful thinking?

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

Find our archive here.

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

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)

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’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?

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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?

Find our archive here.

Auto Industry Briefing — week ending 25th November 2018

November 26, 2018 Ad Punctum TeamAd Punctum, Automotive0

Maybe Ghosn wasn’t so bad after all; Toyota’s mysterious appetite for capacity; and GM’s mega job cuts. Please enjoy our auto industry and mobility briefing for 19^th November to 25^th November. A PDF version can be found here.

Favourite stories of the past week…?

Two Tribes — With Ghosn out, Renault and Nissan executives are already at each other’s throats. Despite the vast column inches from armchair pundits claiming to have sensed something rotten with Ghosn long ago, his ex-underlings seemed hell bent on proving his genius by instantly disagreeing in public about the very basis of the alliance. How will they be brought back under control?
You Can Go Your Own Way — Toyota and PSA seem set to drop their collaboration on Sub-B cars, with Toyota buying out PSA’s share in the Czech factory. Seems weird that Toyota would want a European plant with capacity for 300,000 units annually when two thirds of that was going PSA’s way… unless there was a certain macropolitical event playing out in farcical fashion that might render circa 200,000 units worth of capacity in the UK economically unviable? By the way, PSA are going to vacate the plant in 2021…
The First Cut Is The Deepest — GM announced a massive restructuring plan. At least that’s what I assume “unallocating” plants means (just as we were getting used to “rightsizing”). Closing plants at this stage of the cycle is unusually bold, as executives normally worry about worker protests disrupting wholesales. It also seems GM are unphased by Donald Trump’s threats — is it because they are vital to national security?

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

Find our archive here.

News about the major automakers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other

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

News about other companies and trends

Economic / Political News

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

Suppliers

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

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

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

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

Connectivity

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

Other

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

Find our archive here.

Auto Industry Briefing — week ending 18th November 2018

November 19, 2018 Ad Punctum TeamAd Punctum, Automotive0

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

Favourite stories of the past week…?

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

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

Find our archive here.

News about the major automakers

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

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

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

Unveiled the new Geely Jia Ji MPV. (Geely)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other

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

News about other companies and trends

Economic / Political News

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

Suppliers

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

Dealers

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

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

Driverless / Autonomy^(history)

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

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

Connectivity

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

Other

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

Find our archive here.

Auto Industry Briefing — week ending 11th November 2018

November 13, 2018 Ad Punctum TeamAd Punctum, Automotive0

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

Favourite stories of the past week…?

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

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

Find our archive here.

News about the major automakers

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

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

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

Ferrari

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

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

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

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

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

Mazda

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

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

PSA (includes Opel/Vauxhall)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other

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

News about other companies and trends

Economic / Political News

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

Suppliers

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

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

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

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

Other

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

Find our archive here.

Auto Industry Briefing — week ending 4th November 2018

November 6, 2018 Ad Punctum TeamAd Punctum, Automotive0

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

Favourite stories of the past week…?

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

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

Find our archive here.

News about the major automakers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mazda

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

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

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

Subaru

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

Suzuki

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

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

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

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

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

Other

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

News about other companies and trends

Economic / Political News

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

Suppliers

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

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

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

EDF Energy and Nuvve are launching a scheme in the UK that aims to recruit enough businesses to buy 1,500 chargers and create a virtual 15MW power station using vehicle to grid technology. (Inside EVs)
Austria will let electric vehicle owners drive faster than the traditional speed limit. (Green Car Reports)
Great Wall will invest in hydrogen filling station operator H2 Mobility. (Automotive News)
All non-electric vehicles will be banned from one street in the centre of London, starting in 2019. (FT)
Hyundai and Kia will offer solar roofs on vehicles from 2019, intending to progress from a first-generation model that is integrated into the roof structure; and a second generation that will be semi-transparent and can therefore be used in panoramic roofs. A version for battery electric vehicles is still under development and Hyundai hope it will ultimately be used on bonnets and roofs. Hyundai claim the roof mounted system can harvest enough electricity to charge a hybrid battery (presumably low teens of kWh) to between 30% and 60% over a day. (Hyundai)

Connectivity

Garmin will supply Geely with cameras and data recorders for 2020 model year onwards. (Garmin)
HD map maker DeepMap said it was valued at $450 million in its latest round. (TechCrunch)
Avis will use Amazon’s cloud services to run its connected vehicle fleet. (Auto Rental News)

Other

Lime said it was working to combat problems with some of its scooter fleet that could lead to fires. (Lime)
Delivery firm Deliv raised $40 million from a group of investors including a mysterious “world leading automotive manufacturer”. (Deliv)
Chinese bicycle manufacturer and rental firm Youon has partnered with land to expand the latter’s offering in the UK. (TechCrunch)

Find our archive here.

Auto Industry Briefing — week ending 28th October 2018

October 30, 2018 Ad Punctum TeamAd Punctum, Automotive0

BMW’s relentless self-driving collective; cars as power stations; and stop over-thinking robot decision making. Please enjoy our auto industry and mobility briefing for 22^nd October to 28^th October. A PDF version can be found here.

Favourite stories of the past week…?

Big Attack — BMW welcomed two software firms into its self-driving collaboration. They have been brought in to adapt the core technology for other OEMs (so that BMW can concentrate on its own cars). At present, everyone is so focused on getting a self-driving system to work (see this article on Cruise’s problems) that the notion of redundancy still isn’t getting much attention. Could BMW’s technology become the secondary system of choice?
All Sparks — Nissan says it has enough Leaf owners in Germany signed up for its vehicle to grid charging scheme that it can sign up as a power station for electricity trading purposes. Using the (relatively) large batteries of electric cars, when they are parked, to manage peaks and troughs of energy demand seems very sensible, but it needs scale to work, since the benefits of a swarm are needed to offset the irregular choices occasionally made by individual users. Have Nissan reached critical mass to turn the theory into practice? How big an impact will Tesla have when they get their act in gear?
(Waiting For) The Ghost Train — Researchers in America have concluded after years of studying responses to an online survey about trolley problems, that there is no right answer. Millions of people gave their opinion on what an autonomous car should do if presented with a certain crash but a choice of who to run over and when the votes were counted, different cultures had varying interpretations. Since, even if they could agree, many (most?) humans are incapable of exercising such judgement in a real-life pressure situation, why are we spending time trying to hold robots (and their programmers) accountable?

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

Find our archive here.

News about the major automakers

Increased the size of a recall linked to diesel cars with EGR problems to cover 1.6 million vehicles. (BMW)
Announced that software firms KPIT and TTTech would join its self-driving platform with the specific aim of developing tailored solutions for third parties. (BMW)
BMW might bid for its own 5G spectrum in Germany, rather than relying on the mobile phone companies to provide the infrastructure the company believes it needs. (Handelsblatt)

Announced Q3 2018 financial results. Revenue of €40.2 billion was down (1)% on a year-over-year basis, EBIT of €2.5 billion was down (27)% (previously declared). Daimler called the business environment “volatile”. (Daimler)
As rumoured, Daimler and Geely formed a “premium ride-hailing” joint venture that will use Mercedes-Benz cars, and in time possibly some of Geely’s offerings, for on-demand travel in Chinese cities. It isn’t yet clear how the service will integrate with Geely’s existing CaoCao ride hailing venture. (Daimler)
CEO Zetsche said he wouldn’t rule out a future collaboration with Tesla, despite having sold all Daimler’s shareholding. Daimler’s PR said he was talking in hypothetical terms. (Reuters)
Launched a new range of prams featuring AMG-inspired wheels. Although Daimler declined to comment on specific volume and profit expectations, it appears the benefit of the new product was already taken into account in the company’s recent profit warning. (Daimler)
Opened a new technology centre for the Truck and Bus group in Lisbon, Portugal. (Daimler)
Said that it might make some money on electric cars. (Seeking Alpha)
Looking at alternative production locations that would reduce the effect of tariffs on vehicles shipped from the USA to China but believes it is too early to say anything about what it might do. (Reuters)
Under investigation from US regulators for the way in which it handles recalls (they think: too slowly). (Bloomberg)

Idling minivan production in Windsor, Canada for one week. (Blackburn News)

Reported Q3 2018 financial results. Revenue of $37.6 billion was slightly improved versus the prior year but adjusted profit of $1.7 billion was $(0.6) billion worse than Q3 2018. Only North America and Middle East and Africa were profitable. (Ford)
Said that market conditions had been tougher than expected and the business was no longer on track to meet the 2020 financial objectives it recently set itself, but that the executive team still intends to achieve them at an as-yet undetermined future date. (Ford)
Said that the European business has two key problems: cost control and too few SUV products. (Ford)
Shutting down vehicle production in Valencia, Spain for nine days and engine production for 13 days, citing lower demand. (Reuters)
Will start testing self-driving cars in Washington DC. (Ford)
Stopped production of JLR engines in Bridgend for a week, mirroring the customer shutdown. (Wales Online)
Launched production of the Ranger pick-up at the Michigan Assembly plant. (Ford)
Hired a new CEO in China and reorganised its operations so that China will now report directly to the head of global markets rather than through the Asia Pacific region. Ford’s press release also said the leader of the rump Asia business would head up a new International Markets unit, implying a wider reorganisation including some of the markets in Europe, Middle East and South America. (Ford)
VW and Ford are reportedly exploring in-depth sharing of autonomous driving technology. Ford already has a majority share in partner Argo AI whilst VW has partnered with Aurora but was apparently rebuffed in an informal takeover approach. Ford executives stressed that nothing was off the table. (Bloomberg)
Recalling 1.46 million Focus vehicles in North America to fix a problem that might lead to cars stalling. Ford has advised customers to keep tanks at least half full until they’ve been serviced. (USA Today)
Skipping the 2019 Geneva show, after missing Paris in 2018. Sources said it still considers the event an ongoing priority but just doesn’t think it will have enough interesting things to talk about. (Autocar)

Volvo reported Q3 2018 revenue of 56.8 billion SEK (~$6 billion), up 18% on a year earlier and operating profit of 1.8 billion SEK (~$200 million), down (50)% on the prior year — blamed by Volvo on launch costs, higher tariffs and royalties. Volvo preferred to focus on the full year, where it expects to beat 2017. (Volvo)
As rumoured, Daimler and Geely formed a “premium ride-hailing” joint venture that will use Mercedes-Benz cars, and in time possibly some of Geely’s offerings, for on-demand travel in Chinese cities. It isn’t yet clear how the service will integrate with Geely’s existing CaoCao ride hailing venture. (Daimler)
Volvo invested in charging firm FreeWire. (Volvo)
Lynk&Co might enter the US market by selling merchandise first and only putting cars on sale once the brand has become established. (Automotive News)

GM’s Cruise self-driving unit is having problems meeting pre-launch targets, according to off-the-record sources, but the unit’s CEO expressed confidence in the previously announced 2019 launch date. (Reuters)
- Implication: The concerns focus on the vehicle AI’s ability to identifying other road users and in correctly assessing whether they are moving or stationary. These are common problems to self-driving researchers, with many systems struggling with the particular problem (called out in the article) of working out whether an object is a locked up bicycle, a person on a bicycle or someone walking with a bicycle.
Said that a nationwide US zero emissions vehicle incentive program could boost demand such that in 2030 there would be 7 million such vehicles on the road. (GM)
- Implication: Since 7 million vehicles isn’t a very large number in terms of the overall fleet, GM’s statement implies the company only believes market shares in excess of 15% are possible with sales incentives.
Korea’s state development bank said that although it was not “unconditionally” opposed to a separation of GM’s production and research units in the country, but wanted to see more information on how it would be run as a going concern. (Yonhap)

Reportedly considering producing the Fit small car in Japan for sale into the US market. It is currently shipped from Mexico. Honda denied any firm plan was already in place. (Reuters)
Will use technology from SoundHound to create an AI personal assistant. (SoundHound)

Hyundai reported Q3 2018 Financial results. Sales of 1.121 million units were down (0.5)% versus the same period in 2017. Revenue of 24.4 trillion KRW (~$21.4 billion) was up 1%, driven by increased financing. Operating income of 289 billion KRW (~$250 million) was down (76)% with the automotive division recording a loss — blamed on one-time recall costs. (Hyundai)
KIA reported Q3 2018 revenue of 14 trillion KRW (~$12 billion), down (0.2)% on a year-over-year basis. Operating profit of 117 billion KRW (~$100 million) was a turnaround of almost 550 billion KRW (~$480 million) from the prior year loss. (KIA)

Mazda

Revised full year profit expectations downwards, citing the impact of floods earlier in the year and adverse exchange rates. (Nikkei)

Said it had enough Nissan Leaf vehicles enrolled in its vehicle-to-grid scheme to qualify as a power station under German regulations. (Nissan)

Announced Q3 2018 revenues (PSA only reports profits at half-year and full-year) of €15.4 billion, up from €14.3 billion in Q3 2017 (but missing one month of Opel / Vauxhall sales). (PSA)
Faurecia will buy navigation systems supplier Clarion after agreeing terms with majority shareholder Hitachi. It will headquarter its connectivity-related businesses in Japan. (Faurecia)
Chose Washington DC as the first location for Free2Move carsharing services. Users will also be able to access a variety of bicycle and scooter rental options. It looks like Chevrolet is providing the vehicles. (PSA)

Reported Q3 2018 revenue of €11.48 billion (Renault only reports profits at half-year and full-year), down (6)% on a year-over-year basis. Renault said the decrease was down to exchange rate volatility and weakness in markets outside Europe. Renault expects market growth in the full year to be worse than previously hoped for. (Renault)
Will reportedly increase annual production in Casablanca, Morocco to 160,000 units by 2022. Combined with another plant in Tangier Renault will have capacity for 500,000 units in the country. (Xinhua)
Transferred production of the Renault Twizy to a Renault-Samsung factory in Busan, South Korea. The 33 workers who had previously manned the line will now make PHEV battery packs instead. (Wards)

Launched operations at JLR’s new plant in Nitra, Slovakia. JLR has already launched a second stage of recruitment to take employment from 1,500 to around 2,350. (JLR)

Reported financial results for Q3 2018. Revenue of $6.8 billion was up 129% on a year-over-year basis, explained by higher shipments. Net income of $312 million was almost $1 billion better than Q3 2017. Tesla also had positive cash flow. (Tesla)
During the earnings call, Tesla confirmed that it intends to launch an autonomous ride hailing network that will run both customer-owned and Tesla-owner cars. Elon Musk speculated at a 30% cut for Tesla on the billings of customer-owned vehicles. (Seeking Alpha)
- Implication: We could well be proven wrong but we believe the number of private customers opting in will be low. The premium they will expect — several hundred dollars in revenue per month based on our straw polls — plus Tesla’s mark-up is likely to make the cost per mile similar to taxis today. The high level of Musk’s figure (versus about 10% commission that is common on platforms like eBay and Amazon) suggests Tesla has not thoroughly researched the topic yet.
Intends to reduce delivery times from factory gate release to customer handover to under 10 days for North American vehicles. (Seeking Alpha)
Believes latent demand for Model 3 is between 500,000 and 1 million vehicles per year, seeing BMW 3 Series as a competitor it should outsell. (Seeking Alpha)
- Implication: As our 2017 analysis showed, we strongly disagree with Tesla’s analysis, seeing 3 Series as having a distinct advantage in terms of: product portfolio; dealership network and strength of finance offering.
CEO Musk said “many” interior options for Model S and Model X will be dropped from the start of November. He said this was to simplify production. (Business Insider)
Tesla’s new factory in China will produce two models, according to environmental assessments. (Reuters)
The US state of Oregon clawed back tax credits awarded to Tesla solar power projects saying costs had been inflated. Tesla denied any wrongdoing, but also pointed out this had happened prior to the SolarCity takeover. (CNBC)
Under investigation by the FBI for the statements it made around Model 3 production. (Economic Times of India)

Considering an all-electric MR2. (Autocar)

CEO Diess said there was too much emotion in the debate about retrofitting German diesel-powered vehicles with additional hardware to improve emissions. (Handelsblatt)
VW’s Heycar used car sales platform is apparently growing faster than the targets it was set and has sold over 320,000 vehicles. (Handelsblatt)
VW is reportedly planning to produce batteries with SK Innovation and might collaborate with Waymo on ride hailing. The firm is said to be contemplating purchasing a 10% stake in Waymo for €12 billion. (Reuters)
VW is reducing its sales forecast for China according to the head of its local business unit. (Nikkei)
Unveiled the T-Cross, saying SUVs will make up 50% of VW brand sales by 2025. (VW)
Undertook a restructuring of the truck division so that the energy and powertrain portfolio stays with Volkswagen group and the truck and bus unit (Traton) can approach an IPO as a “pure” business unit. (VW)
Audi said that more than 95% of electric vehicle batteries could be recycled, in a laboratory. It will now develop a higher volume process and a way to re-use the recovered raw materials. (VW)
Agreed with its Algerian JV partner to produce Amarok pick-up trucks in the country. (VW)
VW and Ford are reportedly exploring in-depth sharing of autonomous driving technology. Ford already has a majority share in partner Argo AI whilst VW has partnered with Aurora but was apparently rebuffed in an informal takeover approach. Ford executives stressed that nothing was off the table. (Bloomberg)
Porsche suggested that it could charge US dealers between $300,000 to $400,000 each to partially offset some of the cost of superchargers the company proposes to install on their premises. (Automotive News)
Lamborghini’s boss said the firm is contemplating building a limited series super car following the example of the McLaren Senna and Aston Martin Valkyrie. (Autocar)
Unveiled an “extensive update” for the Audi R8. (Audi)

Other

Dyson’s electric car will be built in Singapore. Production is due to start in 2021. (Auto Express)
McLaren unveiled the £1.75 million Speedtail hypercar. The vehicle has several design features to emphasise aerodynamic performance including front wheel fairings and retractable rear view cameras. (McLaren)
Chinese firm Aiways plans to build several hundred RG Nathalie fuel cell sportscars and says it has a factory in China capable of building 150,000 mass-market cars per year. (Autocar)
WM Motor is reportedly raising over $400 million in a round that will value it at around $3 billion. (Reuters)
Fisker has received strategic investment from Caterpillar’s VC arm. (Caterpillar)
Aston Martin opened a new (and slightly cramped) design studio in China, saying it would work on interiors for forthcoming vehicles. (Aston Martin)
Chinese automaker FAW secured a 1 trillion yuan ($144 billion) credit line, but didn’t explain what it needed that much money for. (Reuters)
Uniti is creating a pilot production plant in the UK at Silverstone. (Uniti)
Faraday Future reportedly announced layoffs and a 20% salary cut to staff in an effort to save money after a dispute with its newest investor, who said that nearly $800 million has been spent in only a few months. Faraday Future now says it welcomes “all investors who share our vision”. (Faraday Future)
Lucid Motors has reportedly gone on a massive hiring spree. (Thinknum)

News about other companies and trends

Suppliers

Gestamp reported financial results for Q3 2018. Year to date revenue is €6 billion. (Gestamp)
Faurecia will buy navigation systems supplier Clarion after agreeing terms with majority shareholder Hitachi. It will headquarter its connectivity-related businesses in Japan. (Faurecia)
Lear reported financial results for Q3 2018. Revenue was $4.9 billion and net income was $253 million. (Lear)
Faurecia launched a joint venture with Liuzhou Wuling for emissions components. The two companies already have a partnership for automotive interiors. (Faurecia)
Veoneer said it would achieve long-term profit targets later than expected because lucrative contracts were being delayed by problems in customer vehicle programs. (Reuters)
Autoliv reported $2 billion of revenue and $193 million of operating income in Q3 2018. (Autoliv)
Goodyear reported Q3 2018 financial results. Revenue was down but profits were up. (Goodyear)
Magna is acquiring mechatronics control company Haptronik. (Magna)
Gestamp opened a new stampings plant in Matsuska, Japan. (Gestamp)

Dealers

Due to high demand for used cars in the UK, some dealers are finding there is a shortage of cars in good condition and so are purchasing lower quality vehicles and spending money reconditioning them. (Motor Trader) There is also a strong demand for used diesel vehicles, despite the drops in new car sales. (Motor Trader)

Uber will support drivers in London, UK to buy electric cars with higher incentives for those who drive more and have shown loyalty to the firm. The money is coming from a levy on all trips in London. (Autocar)
Waze will start offering its carpooling service throughout the USA. (Detroit News)
As rumoured, Daimler and Geely formed a “premium ride-hailing” joint venture that will use Mercedes-Benz cars, and in time possibly some of Geely’s offerings, for on-demand travel in Chinese cities. It isn’t yet clear how the service will integrate with Geely’s existing CaoCao ride hailing venture. (Daimler)

Waymo has started charging customers to ride in self-driving vehicles. (Financial Times)
Lyft acquired augmented reality develop Blue Vision labs in a deal said to be worth up to $100 million. (BlueVision)
Lidar developer Innovusion raised $30 million from a group of investors including NIO Capital and said it would begin sales of Cheetah lidar units. (Innovusion)
Researchers published a paper that collated data collected from an online survey of 40 million responses to the best way to act in trolley problem scenarios (i.e. where one of two people / groups must die to spare the other). The results showed that opinion varied considerably by country. (Technology Review)
- Implication: Although trolley problems are frequently among the earliest arguments against self-driving cars raised by sceptics (as if most humans are even aware enough to decide such things for themselves in the heat of the moment), the paper shows the limitation of such thinking. Namely, there is no “right” answer, that is, a common rule set that is universal across cultures. In addition, since this is a decision humans are normally incapable of making even when placed in the same situation, it holds the machines to an artificial standard few can claim to properly understand.
ai has launch a free ride hailing scheme in Texas to test its autonomous vehicles. (Auto Rental News)
A senior official at the US department of transportation criticised the quality of safety metrics being used by self-driving vehicle developers and said they were insufficient to prove that vehicles are road-worthy. (Bloomberg)
US authorities halted the testing of an autonomous school bus saying that the terms of the permit didn’t cover transportation of school children, despite the presence of a full time conductor, the trips being on a closed course and the maximum speed of the vehicle being set at 8mph. (BBC)
- Implication: Although US rules appear to encourage a laissez-faire approach to self-driving vehicle development, this is a reminder that regulators will have few qualms about shutting down tests they dislike, even if the risks appear very low.
Indian ride sharing start-up Zoomcar will install Netradyne driver monitoring hardware in customer vehicles to provide “feedback” on the quality of their driving. (Autocar)
BMW announced that software firms KPIT and TTTech would join its self-driving platform with the specific aim of developing tailored solutions for third parties. (BMW)
VW and Ford are reportedly exploring in-depth sharing of autonomous driving technology. Ford already has a majority share in partner Argo AI whilst VW has partnered with Aurora but was apparently rebuffed in an informal takeover approach. Ford executives stressed that nothing was off the table. (Bloomberg)
Or, VW might collaborate with Waymo on ride hailing. The firm is said to be contemplating purchasing a 10% stake in Waymo for €12 billion. (Reuters)