Automotive research, Automotive strategy, Automotive trends, Auto industry trends, Automotive market research, Auto industry news

Auto Industry Briefing — week ending 14th January 2018

German OEMs showing off, Ford’s autonomous vision, Toyota autonomous partnerships, and solid state battery costs… What else happened in the automotive and mobility sectors? Please enjoy our auto industry and mobility briefing for 8th January to 14th January 2018. A PDF version can be found here.

Favourite stories of the past week…?

 

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

Find our archive here.

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News about the major automakers

 

 

BMW (history)

  • Said 2017 full year sales for BMW, Mini and Rolls-Royce totalled 2,463,526 cars, up 4.1% on 2016. (BMW)
  • Following on from other raw materials, BMW and Codelco will create a transparent copper supply chain. (BMW)
  • BMW’s Alphabet leasing subsidiary has created a contract hire offering in partnership with Deutsche Post’s StreetScooter to provides financing and maintenance packages for 3rd party customers. (Golem)

Daimler (history)

  • Sold 2,424,369 Mercedes and Smart cars in 2017, an increase of 8.8% on 2016. (Daimler)
  • Took a stake of “around ten percent” in what3words, a mapping/location start-up that uses unique three word addresses to cover all locations on earth. The company’s address system will be integrated in Mercedes cars. (Daimler)
  • Car2Go’s 2.97 million users (up 30% on year-end 2016), took 24 million trips in 2017. (Daimler)
  • The proposed separation of the company is reportedly causing tension among top executives. (Manager Magazin)

FCA (history)

  • Announced a $1 billion investment to relocate Ram pick-up truck production from Mexico to its Warren, Michigan plant by 2020, creating 2,500 new jobs. (FCA)
  • Will make a bonus payment of $2,000 to US employees , partly funded by the recent US tax reforms. (FCA)
  • CEO Marchionne said the company can double profits by 2022, with Jeep being a major contributor — with potential market share of 20%. (Bloomberg)
    • Implication: Whilst journalists salivated at the thought of 5 million Jeeps rolling off the production line each year, this unit volume would make the brand more ubiquitous than Kia or Hyundai. A more likely outcome is this level of share in particular market and segment niches — still potentially lucrative, just ask Land Rover.
  • Partnering with fuel company Eni and the Italian government to improve alternative fuel technologies, including biofuels. (FCA)
  • Is recalling about 154,000 Pacifica minivans to correct problems with the engine management software. (FCA)

Ford (history)

  • Has set a new electric vehicle investment target of $11 billion by 2022, funding 40 electrified vehicles, of which 16 will be BEVs. (Reuters)
  • Unveiled the US market Ranger, a facelifted version of the vehicle available in international markets for the past few years. (Ford)
  • Previewed the Mach 1, seemingly an all-electric performance SUV concept, at the Detroit show. (The Verge)
  • Recalling 3,000 Ranger vehicles to repair faulty airbags, advising customers to immediately stop driving them. (Ford)
  • Ford’s Russia JV will hire 600 permanent and temporary personnel and move to a six day week. (Ford)
  • Partnering with Postmates to experiment with on-demand delivery of goods (like the Domino’s tie-up). (Ford)
  • Has partnered with Qualcomm to develop standardised communications technologies for vehicles to share information with other connected devices (the internet of things). (Ford)
  • Is building a Transportation Mobility Cloud with software company Autonomic so that vehicles can be tracked and managed by companies and regional authorities. (Ford)
    • Implication: Although Ford makes it sound revolutionary, many companies are already offering white label solutions for managing fleets and Uber is already sharing (time-delayed) data with authorities and 3rd The danger for Ford is that it becomes distracted with building infrastructure alternatives and neglects the product and service portfolio that would benefit from its skill set.

General Motors (history)

  • Unveiled a Bolt without a steering wheel, and requested permission to use the vehicle on public roads in the US. Following Waymo’s example, the company released a “safety report” that explains the workings of an autonomous vehicle without providing any technical substance beyond widely-agreed and long-standing principles. (GM)

Hyundai / Kia

  • Hyundai invested in Grab; the two companies will partner on electric ride-hailing fleets. (Hyundai)
  • Kia will launch the WiBLE car sharing service in Europe during 2018. (Kia)
  • Following the announcement that Hyundai and Kia collectively would launch 38 “green cars” by 2025 covering hybrids, BEVs and fuel cells, Kia said it was planning 16 electrified vehicles — 10 x hybrid/FHEV; 5 x BEV and 1 Fuel cell — leaving 22 for Hyundai. (Kia)

Mazda

  • Selected Huntsville, Alabama for the site of the new 300,000 capacity plant it will build with partner Toyota — close to existing Toyota factories. The plant will cost $1.6 billion; reportedly supported by $700 million of incentives. (Mazda)
  • Was named as a technology partner in the Toyota e-Palette mobility vehicle program. Mazda executives suggested that the vehicle could have range-extended PHEV variants that use Mazda rotary engines. (Green Car Reports)

Nissan (includes Mitsubishi)

  • Nissan, Renault and Mitsubishi announced their venture capital fund. The rumoured €200 million investment turned out to be only the first year amount with the partners prepared to commit up to $1 billion over five years. (Nissan)
  • Will end production of the Pulsar and a passenger derivative of the NV200 at its Barcelona plant, with increased production from new pick-ups for Mercedes and Renault compensating for the lost workload. (Europa Press)
  • Has sold 75,000 vehicles equipped with its latest L1/L2 ADAS suite, almost all of them were in Japan. (Nissan)

PSA (includes Opel/Vauxhall) (history)

  • Announced targets for 2018 labour redundancies and hiring; PSA wants to shed 1,300 experienced employees and has committed to hire 1,300 new (presumably cheaper) permanent employees. Overall the company will take on 2,000 young people but many will be on temporary contracts. (PSA)
  • Cutting 250 jobs at the Ellesmere Port, UK, plant on top of the 400 redundancies previously announced. Following the changes, the plant will operate on a single shift. (Sky News)

Renault (history)

  • Nissan, Renault and Mitsubishi announced their venture capital fund. The rumoured €200 million investment turned out to be only the first year amount with the partners prepared to commit up to $1 billion over five years. (Nissan)

Tata (includes JLR)

  • JLR sales for 2017 totalled 621,109 units, an increase of 7% on 2016; Jaguar sales were up 20%. (JLR)
  • Invested in US ride-hailing start-up Voyage — a company that previously said it believed fares could be paid for by advertising. (JLR)

Toyota (history)

  • Showed the e-Palette concept vehicle at CES; a scalable electrified and autonomous vehicle. Toyota announced partnerships with Didi, Uber, Amazon and Pizza Hut to develop applications for the vehicle and said it was sharing technology development with Mazda, Uber and Didi. (Toyota)
    • Implication: Toyota seems to have decided that it is overkill to have a platform where mission-specific top hats can be quickly exchanged (an approach favoured by Ad Punctum) — perhaps they are right. Choosing Uber, Didi and Amazon as partners sends a strong message: Toyota wants to work with the companies it thinks are most switched-on, and it isn’t afraid of the consequences.
  • Forecasting 2018 US light vehicle industry of 16.8 million units, according to executives. (Reuters)
  • Selected Huntsville, Alabama for the site of the new 300,000 capacity plant it will build with Mazda — close to existing Toyota factories. The plant will cost $1.6 billion; reportedly supported by $700 million of incentives. (Mazda)

VW Group (history)

  • Settled a class action lawsuit (covering 20,000 owners) in Canada over diesel vehicles. (Reuters)
  • The VW brand is creating a e-mobility division, headed by a board-level executive, in order to reflect the importance of electrification. (VW)

Other

  • Genovation showed the all-electric GXE at CES. In a departure from conventional BEV engineering, the vehicle will be offered with a conventional manual 7-speed gearbox as an option. (Genovation)

 

News about other companies and trends

 

Economic / Political News

  • Draft documents shared between German political parties during coalition talks appeared to target refits for diesel engines. (Economic Times of India)

Suppliers

  • Continental said that it was analysing its structure in response to media reports of a re-organisation. The company gave no specifics by said it was being supported by external advisors. (Continental)
  • Bosch completed the sale of its starter motor division, now rebranded SEG Automotive. (Bosch)
  • GKN was the subject of an unsolicited bid by Melrose. (Bloomberg)
  • Panasonic has developed a scalable electric vehicle platform suitable for bikes and small EVs. (Panasonic)
  • Intel/MobilEye added SAIC to the list of partner OEMs that will help it crowdsource mapping data. The company will work with Ferrari to add racetrack analysis to vehicle capability. (Intel)

Dealers

  • Ford’s wholly owned dealer group, sold four UK dealerships to current Ford dealer Gates Group. (Motor Trader)
  • 56% of executives by KPMG polled predicted 30%-50% of dealerships could disappear by 2025. (KPMG)

Ride-Hailing, Car Sharing & Rental (history)

  • Singaporean fund BM Mobility is set to buy Malaysian electric car sharing firm UNiRide. (Deal Street Asia)
  • Hyundai invested in Grab; the two companies will partner on electric ride-hailing fleets. (Hyundai)
  • Kia will launch the WiBLE car sharing service in Europe during 2018. (Kia)
  • JLR invested in US ride-hailing start-up Voyage — a company that previously said it believed fares could be paid for by advertising. (JLR)

Driverless / Autonomy (history)

  • US transport officials said that new rules for self-driving cars would be released in the summer. (Reuters)
  • Navya and VIA announced the integration of the Navya AV features into VIA’s app so that customers can summon and then control certain aspects of the Navya vehicle. (VIA)
  • Gett, in partnership with MobilEye, will install mapping equipment on 500 London black cabs in order to map streets ahead of autonomous vehicle deployment. (Auto Express)
  • Baidu announced a JV with Singaporean group Asia Mobility Industries, in addition to a joint investment fund with $200 million to spend on advanced mobility projects. (Press Release)
  • GM unveiled a Bolt without a steering wheel, and requested permission to use the vehicle on public roads in the US. Following Waymo’s example, the company released a “safety report” that explains the workings of an autonomous vehicle without providing any technical substance beyond widely-agreed and long-standing principles. (GM)
  • Toyota debuted the e-Palette concept vehicle at CES; a scalable electrified and autonomous vehicle. Toyota announced partnerships with Didi, Uber, Amazon and Pizza Hut to develop applications for the vehicle and said it was sharing technology development with Mazda, Uber and Didi. (Toyota)

Electrification (history)

  • Valeo said that a BEV with a 48V system could achieve a retail price of $7,500 for a city car. (Valeo)
  • Henrik Fisker said in an interview that his company’s research into solid state batteries indicates unit costs of around $65 per kWh are realistic when the technology matures. (CNET)
  • Ford has set a new electric vehicle investment target of $11 billion by 2022, funding 40 electrified vehicles, of which 16 will be BEVs. (Reuters)
  • Kia said it was planning 16 electrified vehicles — 10 x hybrid/FHEV; 5 x BEV and 1 Fuel cell — leaving 22 for Hyundai (based on prior announcements). (Kia)
  • Panasonic has developed a scalable electric vehicle platform suitable for bikes and small EVs. (Panasonic)

Connectivity

  • Ford partnered with Qualcomm to develop standardised communications technologies for vehicles to share information with other connected devices (the internet of things). (Ford)
  • Baidu’s COO said that in time the company believed that HD maps for self-driving cars could become a bigger business than search. (Technology Review)
    • Implication: Absent a complete monopoly, its hard to see how this assessment can be correct. Maps are already largely commoditised and the value of HERE indicates that even global coverage is only worth a few billion dolllars in enterprise value. In addition, mapping companies will need feedback from the vehicles to improve the mapping service, weakening pricing power… unless they owned the vehicles themselves.
  • TomTom launched a service that streams HD maps for AVs (rather than the vehicle carrying an out of date map in its memory), signing up Baidu and Zenuity as launch customers. (TomTom)

Other

  • LimeBike said it will introduce e-bikes (LimeBike), as will the Ford-sponsored San Francisco scheme. (TechCrunch)

 

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Auto Industry Briefing — week ending 7th January 2018

Tesla’s crisis, financing for AVs, Toyota’s diesel strategy, Aurora’s collaborations and ICO-funded disruptive start-ups… What else happened in the automotive and mobility sectors? Please enjoy our auto industry and mobility briefing for 2nd January to 7th January 2018. A PDF version can be found here.

Favourite stories of the past few days…?

  • #EpicFail The Model 3 launch is now officially a catastrophe. Five months in and less than 3,000 cars manufactured, with ramp-up targets pushed back once again. For reference, take a look at the launch of the Mercedes X-Class, two months in and 3,000 produced already. Not fair because it’s based on an existing Nissan (and ignoring the point that it is low on Daimler’s priority list)? What about Nissan Leaf launch? Or Ford Fiesta? Tesla should be taking the existing best practices of the car industry and improving them. Instead, they are bottom of the class and are yet to test the run at rate of the suppliers (where more bad news probably lurks). One upside? All the glib talk of alien dreadnoughts has gone for the foreseeable future.
  • Baby I Got Your Money — Local Motors announced a financing scheme for companies interested in buying its autonomous vehicles. Interestingly, they’ve convinced some downstream service providers (they people who would maintain the physical assets) to guarantee financing if they win the operational business. Whether or not this particular product succeeds, it shows an innovative approach to funding at that their may be life after retail.
  • You Can Go Your Own Way Toyota is continuing to withdraw diesel cars from sale in Europe. The company has telegraphed its intent for some time and the momentum is building. Other carmakers are going to have a tough time arguing that diesels are indispensable if Toyota is getting by without selling any…
  • Jenny From The Block BlaBlaCar-esque ride sharing start-up SnagRide launched an initial coin offering (ICO). It’s the second company to try this method of gathering resources for a push into mobility services in recent weeks following CarSmartt. Both companies want the money first and then you’ll get the service second (even though we know success is pretty dependent on ease of use, coverage, quality of service and location — none of which are established upfront). Trends in other industries suggest these won’t be the last two mobility ICOs we see.
  • The Man With The Midas Touch — After quietly going about their business since founding, Aurora announced partnerships with VW, Hyundai and Nvidia. Although the three partners didn’t reference each other in their press releases, could this be the first step to a self-driving consortium to rival BMW/Intel/FCA?

 

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

Find our archive here.

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News about the major automakers

 

Daimler (history)

  • Sold 401,000 Mercedes-Benz vans in 2017, an increase of around 12 % on a year-over-year basis. The X-Class pick-up deliveries reached 3,300 units since launch in November. (Daimler)

FCA (history)

  • Increased stock trading volumes led to suggestions that a possible buyer was acquiring shares. (Detroit Free Press)

Ford (history)

  • Following a letter to suppliers cancelling a Fusion/Mondeo program for North American and European markets, sources told media the products would be part of the line-up for “at least three to four years”. (Detroit News)
  • Announced a diesel derivative of the F-150, using a version of the 3.0L V6 engine built in Dagenham, UK. (Ford)
  • US sales for 2017 were 2,586,715 units, a (1.1)% decline from 2016. Increases of 2.9% for SUVs and 4.3% for trucks failed to offset a (14.2)% drop in car sales. Despite heavy investment, Lincoln struggled, down (0.5)%. (Ford)

Geely (includes Volvo)

  • Volvo reported 2017 sales of 571,577 units, an increase of 7% on a year-over-year basis. Sales were up in all major markets except the USA. Q4 sales were down YoY in EMEA. (Volvo)
  • Proton said that 2017 sales in its home market (Malaysia) were 70,991, a drop of (2)% on a year-over-year basis. The company said that expertise from Geely and Volvo had improved “quality points threefold”. (Proton)
  • Proton was forced to deny rumours that it would begin accepting Bitcoin as a payment method. (Proton)

General Motors (history)

  • Announced 2017 sales results for USA (GM), Canada (GM) and China (GM). GM sold 3,002,241 vehicles in the US, a decrease of (1.3)% on a year-over-year basis. Only GMC saw an increase in the US, with many car models suffering. A high point was Bolt deliveries of 23,297 cars. In China, sales were up 4.4% YoY, and with 4,040,789 units sold, represents GM’s biggest market by some margin.

Honda (history)

  • Honda and AutoNavi will work to create a new payment service for connected cars in China. They will use Alipay (owned by AutoNavi parent Alibaba). (Business Insider)
  • Will undergo a slight re-arrangement of its Chinese JVs as GAC Honda takes over Honda China. The move will leave GAC Honda and Dongfeng Honda as the company’s partners in the country. (China Daily)

Hyundai / Kia

  • Announced a partnership with start-up Aurora — founded by the former head of Google’s program — to develop a level 4 capable car by 2021 (Hyundai’s earlier target was “possibly” 2022). (Hyundai)
  • Will show a pair of concept cars at CES; an all-electric model for KIA and a connected fuel cell vehicle for Hyundai.
  • Hyundai reported total 2017 sales of 4,504,825 units, a decline of (6.5)% versus 2016. Kia sold 2,746,188 units, a decrease of (7.8)% versus 2016 (Hyundai)

Mazda

  • Applied for a patent to increase driver awareness through gamification — the idea is for the vehicle to monitor whether the driver is paying attention and, if not, challenge them to improve driving characteristics such as throttle control in order to get them to concentrate on the road properly. (Wired)

Nissan (includes Mitsubishi)

  • Expected to announce a €200 million fund to invest in mobility companies with 40% of the capital from Nissan, 40% from Renault and 20% from Mitsubishi. (Les Echos)
  • Will demonstrate advances in brain-to-vehicle technology at CES. Nissan says that it can be used to improve reaction times and enhance computer-assisted driving. (Nissan)

PSA (includes Opel/Vauxhall) (history)

  • Will hire 600 people at its SevelNord plant to staff a fourth production shift (for the next 18 months) and has made the night shift permanent. When the shift is in place, annual capacity will be around 175,000 vehicles. (PSA)
  • Said that 6,000 internal transfers had taken place during 2017, in part enabled by a revised HR system that has 20 functions and 102 job roles. PSA said that the aim of the previously announced 9th January meeting with unions is, in part, to further develop this with a new jobs and skills alignment system (dubbed DAEC). (PSA)
  • Citroën said that the C3 Aircross had an order backlog of 20,000 units and was running with 75% high series trim. The brand hopes that in 2018, French market share will exceed 10%. (Journal Auto)
  • Faurecia signed a memorandum of understanding with Accenture to collaborate on mobility innovation, targeting user experience and services that enhance health and wellness. (Faurecia)

Renault (history)

  • Expected to announce a €200 million fund to invest in mobility companies with 40% of the capital from Nissan, 40% from Renault and 20% from Mitsubishi. (Les Echos)

Tesla (history)

  • Tesla reported Q4 2017 production and delivery figures. Total production was 24,565 vehicles, with 29,870 units delivered. The company made 2,425 units of the all-important Model 3, delivering 1,550 vehicles to customers. The company pushed out its ramp-up targets again, hoping to have a weekly run rate of 2,500 units by the end of Q1 and reaching 5,000 units per week by the end of Q2 (six months behind the original target and three months later than it said in November). Although the company had its best ever quarter, Model S continued to plateau, with 2017 overall production down versus 2016 (deliveries were improved). (Tesla)

o   Implication: The Model 3 launch is officially a disaster. Since Job #1 in early Q3, Tesla has built just 2,685 cars and has to find solace in nearly hitting 1,000 units per week (equating to about 1/5th of the intended production rate and 10/10th of its perceived requirements). Compare that to the Mercedes-Benz X-Class, a vehicle of limited importance that has shipped over 3,000 units in a month and a half since launch.

Toyota (history)

  • Ceased offering diesel cars (diesel 4×4, pick-ups and LCVs are available) in Italy from 1st January 2018. (Europa Press)
  • Published details of its latest self-driving test vehicles. The basis is a Lexus LS 600 PHEV saloon and uses four Luminar lidar sensors to provide longer-range (up to 200m) data, with four shorter-range lidar sensors (which look like 100m range Velodyne pucks) in the front wings and bumpers. (Toyota)

VW Group (history)

  • Porsche was affecting by warning strikes called by IG Metall ahead of negotiations with employers on a new wage agreement. (Handelsblatt)
  • Announced a partnership with start-up Aurora — founded by the former head of Google’s program — to develop self-driving systems. Unlike the similarly-timed Hyundai announcement which appears aimed at a retail product, VW have set their sights squarely on mobility as a service. VW said that the two companies have already been working together for six months. (VW)

Other

  • BYTON unveiled a production-intent SUV that will go on sale in China at the end of 2019 and US and Europe in 2020. The vehicle makes extensive use of facial and gesture recognition, including for door entry; and does away with side mirrors in favour of cameras. The vehicle will apparently offer level 3 autonomous driving capability from launch, with level 4 enabled via a software update. Two battery sizes will be offered: 71 kWh and 95 kWh. (BYTON)

o   Implication: BYTON is planning a three-vehicle line-up from this platform, with a sedan and MPV to join the SUV after 2020. A starting price of $45,000 for a vehicle with extensive use of technology, a large battery capacity and an autonomous sensor set seems a stretch. Either the company has found a new paradigm in vehicle purchasing and cost management that will shock the industry or profits will be scare.

  • Aston Martin sold 5,117 cars in 2017, a 38% increase on 2016 levels. The company said that there had been “sell out demand” for the DB11 model; with the new Vantage and (yet to be launched) new Vanquish, 2018 sales look set to be substantially better. The company said it will exceed its previous £180 million EBITDA target. (Aston Martin)
  • McLaren sold 3,340 cars in 2017, a slight increase from 2016. In 2018, overall production could be near capacity of around 4,500 units thanks to the sales rate of the recently-launched 720S and the new Senna model. (McLaren)
  • NIO and established Chinese automaker GAC have signed a strategic cooperation agreement and will create a joint venture, 55% owned by NIO and 45% for GAC, investing around $200 million in total. (NIO)
  • Chinese carmaker Qoros announced Baoneng Group as a strategic investor in the company, joining erstwhile joint venture partners Chery and Quantum. The partners will inject 6.5 billion yuan into the brand.  (Qoros)
  • Local Motors said it had created a financing agreement for its autonomous vehicles that would allow operators to lease over 84 months, subject to teaming up with Local Motors’s approved partners. (Local Motors)

 

News about other companies and trends

 

Economic / Political News

  • US light vehicle industry for December was 17.76 million; full year sales were 17.2 million units. (Wards)
  • UK 2017 full year passenger car registrations of 2,540,617 units were down (5.7)% on a year-over-year basis. (SMMT) The industry trade body tried to rally support for diesels and scrappage incentives by reporting that 2017 sales mix had contributed to an increase in the average emissions of new cars of 0.8% over 2016. (SMMT)
  • German passenger car registrations for 2017 were 3,440,000 units, a 2.7% increase over 2016. (KBA)

Suppliers

  • Faurecia signed a memorandum of understanding with Accenture to collaborate on mobility innovation, targeting user experience and services that enhance health and wellness. (Faurecia)
  • Denso said it would partner with FLOSFIA, a spin-out from Kyoto University, to develop next generation inverters for electric vehicles (Denso). Denso also provided seed capital for ActiveScaler, a developer of mobility as a service management. (Denso)
  • LG Chem will expand its Michigan battery plant that supplies the Chevrolet Bolt, amongst others. Capacity will increase from around 40,000 packs annually to 50,000 (note that in 2017, Bolt sold about 27,000 units). The company is reportedly investigating the additional of a further 2 assembly lines. (ET News)
  • Bosch and Continental both took “indirect ownership” stakes of 5% each in HERE. (Continental) & (Bosch)

Dealers

  • Malaysian conglomerate Samling is considering an IPO of part of its automotive dealer group, aiming to raise $250 million. (Economic Times of India)

Ride-Hailing, Car Sharing & Rental (history)

  • Following an earlier investment, Didi acquired Brazilian ride hailing firm 99 Taxis in its entirety. (TechCrunch)
  • Former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick is reportedly looking to sell 29% of his stake in the company. (TechCrunch)
  • Chinese carmaker FAW has taken a 10% stake in a new car sharing operation set up by Mobike. (Reuters)
  • Luxury peer-to-peer car rental service Ryde started operations. The company hopes to expand beyond Los Angeles soon. (Ryde)
  • SnagRide, a long distance peer-to-peer ridesharing service, launched an initial coin offering, with hefty bonuses for early subscribers. The company is planning to launch full-scale in Q4 2018. (SnagRide)

o   Implication: This is the second recent ride hailing venture funded from an ICO in recent weeks, following on from Carsmartt. It remains to be seen whether either operation will be a success, but if combining “blockchain”, “ICO”, “AI”, “disruptive” and “ridesharing” into a press release results in funding, expect plenty more people to try the same formula.

Driverless / Autonomy (history)

  • Aurora announced tie-ups with VW and Hyundai. The focus of the VW project is mobility as a service (robo taxis), whereas Hyundai are aiming for a level 4 vehicle by 2021 (presumably for retail). The company also said it would partner with Nvidia to create new hardware for self-driving cars based on existing Nvidia chips. (Nvidia)
  • Lidar maker Ouster said that it would sell its recently released OS-1 sensor for $8,000 per unit to research and educational customers — subject to them passing eligibility requirements. (Ouster)
  • Autonomous technology developer AIMotive said it had raised $38 million in a Series C round with investors including Samsung, Cisco and Bosch. (AIMotive)
  • Local Motors said it had created a financing agreement for its autonomous vehicles that would allow operators to lease over 84 months, subject to teaming up with Local Motors’s approved partners. (Local Motors)

o   Implication: One of the ongoing questions around on-demand fleets is how they will be funded in the absence of retail customers. Local Motors’s initiative represents the first attempt by a non-traditional OEM to answer that question and provides an interesting possibility: service providers (in this case operational support companies) could leverage their balance sheets to provide funding in return for long-term contracts with guaranteed income streams. Not quite a perfect analogy, but almost as if airports provided financing for planes if the airlines guaranteed for fly from there twice a day for ten years.

Electrification (history)

  • Denso said it would partner with FLOSFIA, a spin-out from Kyoto University, to develop next generation inverters for electric vehicles. (Denso)
  • LG Chem will expand its Michigan battery plant that supplies the Chevrolet Bolt, amongst others. Capacity will increase from around 40,000 packs annually to 50,000 (note that in 2017, Bolt sold about 27,000 units). The company is reportedly investigating the additional of a further 2 assembly lines. (ET News)
  • Sales of electrified vehicles in Norway passed 50% in 2017. 20.9% of vehicles were fully electric, 18.4% were PHEVs and 12.9% were non-plug in hybrids. There were also a number of used fully electric cars imported from other markets. Average new car CO2 emissions were 82 g/km. (BIL)

Connectivity

  • Denso said it had provided seed capital for ActiveScaler, a developer of mobility as a service management. (Denso)
  • Bosch and Continental both took “indirect ownership” stakes of 5% each in HERE. (Continental) & (Bosch)
  • Blackberry and Baidu announced a partnership that will see Blackberry’s QNX software underpin Baidu’s self-driving car software. (Reuters)
  • HERE partnered with EPAM to extend HERE’s object tracking technology to non-automotive markets. (HERE)
  • MapBox has acquired the IP and a development team from MapZen. (TechCrunch)
  • TeleNav is launching an in-car advertising platform that aims to help OEMs with both sales and targeting. The idea is to create revenue that would pay for services customers could subscribe to. (Telematics News)
  • Honda and AutoNavi will work to create a new payment service for connected cars in China. They will use Alipay (owned by AutoNavi parent Alibaba). (Business Insider)

Other

  • Didi is reportedly buying Chinese bicycle sharing operator Bluegogo. (South China Morning Post)
  • Chinese bicycle sharing start-up Gonbike raised $15 million. The company offers bicycles equipped with invisible locks. (Deal Street Asia)
  • NIO Capital participated in the Series A round of AI digital imaging company Black Sesame. (Deal Street Asia)

 

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Auto Industry Briefing — 5 days to 1st January 2018

VW’s resurgence, re-badged SEATs, labour problems, half-price lidar and Mission E sales forecasts … What else happened in the automotive and mobility sectors? Please enjoy our auto industry and mobility briefing for 28th December 2017 to 1st January 2018. A PDF version can be found here.

Favourite stories of the past few days…?

  • Guess Who’s Back?After making 6 million vehicles in 2017 it looks like the VW brand has been rehabilitated after the diesel scandal. But what can we really learn from the episode? VW didn’t do a particularly great job of dealing with the situation — including accusations of taking European consumers less seriously than Americans… Do customers even care?
  • Underneath Your Clothes VW are reportedly planning to create a new brand in China by simply selling SEATs badged as something else. Could the cast-offs from underperforming marginal Western brands / nameplates become the new way to satisfy government officials that technology transfer is taking place whilst protecting key brands?
  • This Is My Fight Song Ford and Hyundai start 2018 with labour unrest. Over the past few years, automakers have benefitted from rising sales whilst costs have stayed pretty well under control (emissions technologies notwithstanding). Will managers be able to maintain discipline if workers threaten sales?
  • It’s No Secret — Porsche’s PR strategy for Mission E seems to rely on giving selected journalists scoops on juicy details every few months. This week we got some more. Three power levels, pricing for an entry level car in the $75k – $80k range (previously we knew it was “like Panamera”) and a production target of 30,000 vehicle annually. Begs the question though… if the car is going to be so good and at the same price level as a Model S, why do Porsche only expect to sell about 60% as many? Under confidence? Or are they anticipating a wave of all-electric vehicle launches that saturate the market?
  • The Price Is Right Velodyne are slashing the price of their entry-level product by 50% (it should be <$4,000 now). Just being nice to customers or defensive tactics?

 

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News about the major automakers

 

 

FCA (history)

  • An executive said that the next all-new Alfa Romeo product, an SUV, will be a “little bit bigger” (by around 200 kg) than the recently launched Stelvio. They also implied that the likely powertrain is a 48V 2.0 litre gasoline engine, citing some DNA problems with a plug-in hybrid. (Detroit Bureau)

Ford (history)

  • Experienced industrial unrest in Craiova, Romania — employees staged an impromptu strike just before Christmas and this may continue in the new year. A recent internal memo reportedly asked whether workers wanted “a higher salary increase or to secure the future of this factory”. (World Socialist)

Hyundai / Kia

  • Union leaders in South Korea pencilled in strike action beginning on January 2nd after talks on a new labour agreement failed to reach an agreement by the end of 2017. An earlier tentative agreement was rejected by workers in a ballot. (Wards)

PSA (includes Opel/Vauxhall) (history)

  • Reportedly meeting with French unions to discuss a new labour law that came into force during December. There is speculation that PSA wish to use the new regulations to make it easier to separate employees. (Les Echos)

Renault (history)

  • Reported final 2017 French market registrations of 673,869 units in total — 554,505 Renault cars and LCVs and 119,357 Dacia vehicles. The total share was 26.4%, slightly down on 2016. (Renault)

Toyota (history)

  • A director at Toyota’s Indian JV said the government’s plan for all-electric vehicle sales by 2030 was “not practical and not the way forward”, calling for more leeway in meeting the underlying environmental aims. (Times of India)

VW Group (history)

  • Will reportedly create a new brand in China with joint venture partner JAC Motors with a portfolio made-up of re-badged SEAT vehicles. As part of the plan, some models may launch in China before traditional markets, including SEAT’s first electric vehicle. (Autofactil)
  • Porsche sources told a reporter at a recent test that the Mission E all-electric sports car will have three power levels: 300 kW, 400 kW and 500kW, with the higher power levels delivered through upgraded rear wheel drive units. The target starting price was said to be $75,000 – $80,000 with an annual sales goal of 30,000 units. (Automobile)
  • The German constitutional court ruled against VW’s attempts to stop a special auditor appointed by shareholders from looking into the diesel scandal. (Der Spiegel)
  • Confirmed that the VW brand manufactured more than 6 million units in 2017, setting a new record and marking a return to form following the diesel scandal. (VW)

Other

  • Ssanyong announced global sales of 143,685 units in 2017, a decrease of (7.8)% from 2016. A 3% increase in South Korea partially offset a (29)% fall in export markets, mostly a c.(13)k drop in Tivoli. (Ssanyong)

 

News about other companies and trends

 

Economic / Political News

  • China acted to improve emissions levels by banning 553 vehicles from sale effective 1st January 2018. (Xinhua)
  • Spain’s passenger car market had 1,234,931 registrations in 2017, an increase of 7.7% over 2016. (ANFAC)

Ride-Hailing, Car Sharing & Rental (history)

  • SoftBank said it had successfully closed its tender offer for 15% of Uber. Based on the share sale, Uber is valued at around $48 billion. (TechCrunch)

Driverless / Autonomy (history)

  • Didi Chuxing’s CEO said that he believes the company could be the second-best developer of self-driving cars — behind only Waymo/Google. (QZ)
  • Velodyne said it was reducing the price of the VLP-16 lidar unit by “up to 50 percent”. Although the press release contains no specific pricing, this implies unit costs of around $4,000 for the 16-line unit. (Velodyne)
    • Implication: In addition to being a market share grab / defence following on from a number of recent lidar announcements, recent improvements in signals processing hardware may mean that some groups are interested in using an array of 16-line units rather than waiting for more capable products to fall in price.

Electrification (history)

  • Shenzhen completed the transition of its public transport bus fleet to 100% all-electric vehicles, meeting an earlier target commitment. The Chinese city has around 16,500 buses in service. Taxis are next on the list. (EV Obsession)

Connectivity

  • Zurich Insurance acquired telematics hardware supplier Bright Box. (Telematics News)

Other

  • Repair bills in the 2020s could be lower thanks to advances in self-healing glass by Japanese researchers. (Autocar)

 

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Automotive research, Automotive strategy, Automotive trends, Auto industry trends, Automotive market research, Auto industry news

Auto Industry Briefing — 10 days to 27th December 2017

Toyota’s electric vehicle plan, solid state batteries for BMW, VW capital discipline and the Tesla pick-up… What else happened in the automotive and mobility sectors? Please enjoy our auto industry and mobility briefing for the week of 18th December to 24th December 2017, with bonus coverage of 25th to 27th A PDF version can be found here.

Favourite stories of the past few days…?

 

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

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News about the major automakers

 

BMW (history)

  • Mini will launch a range of home fit personalisation options, manufactured using rapid prototyping techniques. The components are specified online; manufactured by BMW in Germany and then shipped to the customer. (Autocar)
  • Partnered with Solid Power to develop solid state batteries for a future electric vehicle platform. (Solid Power)
  • Expect the cut in US tax rates to increase net income by between €0.95 billion – €1.55 billion. (BMW)

Daimler (history)

  • Acquired a 50% stake in French ride hailing company Chauffeur Privé with the intention of buying the rest of the company by 2019. (Daimler)
  • Will start a dynamic shuttle service in Berlin in partnership with Via and German public transport operator BVG. The initial fleet of 50 vehicles is forecast to eventually reach 300. The service is currently planned to run for two years before an evaluation of its merits will take place. (Via)
  • Said changes to US tax rates would improve 2017 net income by around €1.7 billion and €1 billion after some unrelated offsets were considered. (Daimler)

FCA (history)

  • Recalling 1.8 million trucks worldwide to correct problems with the parking brake (transmission interlock). (FCA)
  • Maserati has implemented an extended Christmas shutdown that will affect all models. (Auto Evolution)

Ford (history)

  • US union officials called on the company to raise the wages of its Mexican employees so that they were less competitive and actions such as the recent decision to build Ford’s first mass-market electric vehicle in Mexico might not take place in future. (Economic Times of India)
  • Ford Focus RS vehicles appear to be exhibiting a design defect that results in far higher than normal engine replacements — potentially exacerbated by owners modifying their vehicles after purchase. (Autocar)
  • Issued a recall for around 12,000 vehicles in the US. One of the problems looks as though it could have been easily fixed if Ford had installed vehicle connectivity that allowed over the air updates. (Ford)
  • Released an open letter to employees condemning harassment after newspaper reports uncovered a raft of issues at some US plants. (Detroit News)
  • Released photographs of a partially-disguised next generation Focus to build interest ahead of the 2018 launch. The effort uses #timetofocus on Twitter — perhaps poorly timed as it is likely to be overwhelmed by people planning new training / diet regimes post 1st January 2018. (Auto Express)

Geely (includes Volvo)

  • Bought an 8.2% stake in truckmaker Volvo Group for $3.8 billion, Geely will get 15.6% voting rights. (Autocar)

Hyundai / Kia

  • Executives said that all Hyundai and Kia vehicles launched after 2019 will be connected cars and all vehicles built after 2025 will be connected. (ET News)
  • Will release a safe-stopping mode in 2021 that acts if it detects that the driver is no longer capable. (ET News)

Nissan (includes Mitsubishi)

  • Nissan’s Canadian finance arm suffered a data breach in which customer data was taken. (Nissan)
  • Offering customers in Japan free home solar panels if they buy a Nissan Leaf and agree to a 20-year electricity supply contract. (Nissan)
  • Announced a series of executive moves. (Nissan)

PSA (includes Opel/Vauxhall) (history)

  • Faurecia will acquire heavy truck engine emissions specialist HUG Engineering. (Les Echos)
  • Announced a series of executive moves. (PSA)

Renault (history)

  • French media speculated over the top internal and external candidates to replace Carlos Ghosn, predicting that a CEO-designate will be chosen by February. (Les Echos)

Tata (includes JLR)

  • Land Rover is reportedly planning to release an all-electric version of the new Defender. (Motoring)
  • Fleet managers looking for £40k commercial vehicles with impaired package, small load space, no sliding doors and leather seats can now order a Land Rover Discovery Commercial. (Auto Express)

Tesla (history)

  • Some Tesla suppliers have said that orders for December and early 2018 imply that Model 3 production may reach a weekly rate of 5,000 units earlier than the end of Q1 2018 target. (Electrek)
  • CEO Elon Musk said on Twitter that the company will launch a pick-up “right after” Model Y. He also answered some questions about the vehicle saying it would be similar in size to a Ford F-150. (Business Insider)
    • Implication: Although the online dialogue between Tesla fans and Musk set the internet ablaze, something seems a little off. Musk has set expectations for a release date in 2020 but also indicated that external dimensions hadn’t been fixed. That doesn’t sound right for a vehicle supposedly so close to production. By the way, “Founders Series” Roadster reservations can still be made (they are supposedly capped at 1,000 units).
  • In a bid to increase residual / scarcity value of the original Tesla Roadster, Elon Musk said he would send one of his own into space. (Hotha Hardware)

Toyota (history)

  • Said that by 2025 every vehicle will have an electrified version (HEV — which may include 48V / PHEV) or be fully electric (BEV / FCEV). In the early 2020s the company will have 10 BEVs models worldwide and will introduce FCEVs on top. By 2030 the company aims to sell 1 million BEVs / FCEVs each year and 4.5 million HEVs / PHEVs — equating to an expected sales mix of around 10% BEV / FCEV. (Toyota)
    • Implication: Whilst this announcement represents a step forward in electric vehicle planning by Toyota, some of the logic still seems troubling. If there are at least 10 nameplates by 2030 then an average vehicle line volume of less than 100,000 units per annum seems inadequate from a profitability perspective. In fairness, as by far the richest OEM, Toyota can afford to be a bit fuzzy on how its estimates fit with consumer trends — at least it has acknowledged electrification as a trend to be taken seriously.
  • Will merge two existing leasing subsidiaries into a single entity with a broader mission that includes mobility services. The new arm will be called Toyota Mobility Service Co. (Toyota)
  • Merging three existing subsidiaries to create a conversion and accessories business. The rationale for the move appears to be a simpler business structure and efficiency gains. (Toyota)
  • Launched a new online leasing system in the UK called NGage. This allows customers to receive and sign documents digitally, which Toyota expects will improve turnaround time and reduce mistakes. (Toyota)
  • Released production and sales forecasts for 2018. The company expects overall sales to increase around 1%, although production will drop by (2)%. (Toyota)

VW Group (history)

  • Porsche executives said that sales of the Panamera hybrid were such a success that the model could soon become constrained by battery supply. (Euro News)
  • US regulators gave approval to the fix for Audi 3.0 litre diesel vehicles. (Reuters)
  • Audi is recalling almost 1.3 million vehicles due to risk of fire. (Autocar). Separately, Audi is recalling 52,000 vehicles to fix fuel lines that may leak. (Detroit Free Press)
  • The 3rd party inspector appointed after the US emissions scandal has said changing VW’s culture will be a “three year marathon” and that it was still unclear why the company had chosen to defy the testing regime rather than comply with it. (Manager Magazin)
  • Bugatti said that it has 300 orders for the Chiron model and delivered 70 vehicles in 2017. (Europa Press)
  • The chairman of Porsche’s works council called for emails sent after work hours or when employees were on vacation to be blocked and deleted. (Handelsblatt)
  • CEO Müller said that he believes the company must conduct greater political lobbying on transport issues, regardless of whether the position it advocates is popular. (Handelsblatt)
  • German dealers expressed unease at several of the points in VW’s proposed new contract, concerned that VW is attempting to ring-fence customer support so as to cut dealers out in future. (Autohaus)
  • Guaranteed the future of its Dresden “transparent factory” until 2025 and increased e-Golf production from 30 units per day to 70. (Handelsblatt)
    • Implication: This agreement is the latest in a long line of tough choices avoided by VW. Facing up to previous mistakes by not sinking anything further is a hallmark of good capital allocation. Instead, a company that bases its strategy on industry-leading scale makes a long-term commitment to a facility with 385 staff.

Other

  • Aston Martin is recalling around 5,500 vehicles in the US due to problems with parking brakes and fire hazards. (Reuters)
  • SAIC Capital, the investment arm of Chinese carmaker SAIC announced a partnership with Plug and Play, a start-up talent spotter. (SAIC)
  • Subaru issued a press release saying that a report stating it had falsified emissions data was incorrect and it was working with government authorities to explain its validation techniques. (Subaru)

 

News about other companies and trends

 

Economic / Political News

  • The OEM trade body in India, SIAM, released a report detailing measures that could be taken to reach the governments aspiration of widespread electrification by 2030. SIAM says that by 2030 40% of sales could be fully electric, with 100% fully electric sales by 2047. (Economic Times of India)
  • The Chinese government is reportedly planning measures to stop subsidies for EVs as soon as 2018. (Bloomberg)
  • The main German carmakers announced that they would extend their diesel scrappage incentive programs to June 2018, citing the success in encouraging replacement of old vehicles (70,000 trade-ins for VW). Carmakers followed suit in other countries too (e.g. Toyota extended their Uk program for an additional month). (Manager Magazin)

Suppliers

  • Plastic Omnium acquired two companies to improve its hydrogen offerings. Swiss Hydrogen produces fuel cell control equipment and Optimum CPV makes hydrogen tanks. (Plastic Omnium)
  • ThyssenKrupp reached an agreement with steelmaking employees to facilitate the merger of its European steel business with Tata steel. The deal is targeted at final agreement in 2018. (Economic Times of India)
  • Faurecia will acquire heavy truck engine emissions specialist HUG Engineering. (Les Echos)
  • Gestamp appointed a new CEO. (Gestamp)

Dealers

  • German dealers expressed unease at several of the points in VW’s proposed new contract, concerned that VW is attempting to ring-fence customer support so as to cut dealers out in future. (Autohaus)

Ride-Hailing, Car Sharing & Rental (history)

  • Didi Chuxing said that it had raised $4 billion to fund expansion, investments in AI and electric vehicles. (Didi)
  • Uber was declared to be a transport company for regulatory purposes within the EU after it lost a court case. Although it was hailed as a massive blow, the impact on most of Uber’s existing operations is minor. (BBC)
  • Grab launched ride hailing services in Cambodia. (Grab)
  • An article suggested that autonomous vehicles could herald free ride hailing, with users agreeing to visit sponsoring companies to get their trip paid for. (The Atlantic)
    • Implication: Aside from the examples that the article mentioned (where some high-margin businesses pay taxi drivers to set punters on their doorstep in preference to rivals), the economics of the idea simply don’t stack up. Global advertising spending is a bit more than $500 billion, of which Google and Facebook take about 20%. A fully developed ride hailing market would have costs in the trillions of dollars, so even if all advertising spending were directed to offering free rides it would only cover a fraction of journeys.
  • Uber hired a new COO — he worked with the recently appointed CEO at their previous employer. (TechCrunch)
  • Uber is selling its leasing business to com, some of the payment will be in Fair.com shares. (Business Insider)
  • Denso announced that it had invested in ride hailing and car sharing fleet management technology provider Ridecell and the two companies would work together to find uses for Denso’s technology in on-demand vehicles. (Ridecell)
  • Electric scooter sharing service Scoot said that it would add “hundreds” of electrically assisted bicycles to its network in San Francisco. (Press Release)
  • Car-pooling start-up Carsmartt announced that it was creating its own crypto-currency called Coinsmartt. The company claims that this will be fully interchangeable with other currencies and has been implemented to reduce transaction fees. (Press Release)
    • Implication: Initial coin offerings enter the word of on-demand mobility… it remains to be seen what real advantage the elimination of transaction fees have for both drivers and customers (they will still pay % of the bulk transactions they must make to feed the system). The advantages for Carsmartt are more obvious — it will control redemptions against fiat currency.
  • Daimler will start a dynamic shuttle service in Berlin in partnership with Via and German public transport operator BVG. The initial fleet of 50 vehicles is forecast to eventually reach 300. The service is currently planned to run for two years before an evaluation of its merits will take place. (Via)
  • Daimler acquired a 50% stake in French ride hailing company Chauffeur Privé with the intention of buying the rest of the company by 2019. (Daimler)

Driverless / Autonomy (history)

  • Quanergy opened a new lidar factory that would allow mass production of its S3 solid state lidar. The company says that the current price of the unit is a “few hundred” dollars and believes it will drop to below $100. (Quanergy)
  • Indian self-driving vcargo vehicle start-up Ati Technologies said that it plans to have a vehicle (which the firm is designing from a blank sheet of paper) available for sale in early 2019. The software controlling the self-driving vehicle was written in one month. (Economic Times of India)
  • Waymo is reportedly working with insurance company Trov to provide compensation for accidents or lost and damaged personal items. The intent is that the insurance in bundled with the fare. (TechCrunch)
  • Autoliv said it will demonstrate a concept that integrates voice and gesture recognition with in-cabin sensors to create a vehicle that can interact with occupants as if it were an additional passenger and also adapt its driving style based on non-verbal cues. (Autoliv)

Electrification (history)

  • Spanish company Endesa said that its incentive scheme for employees to buy electric cars was singlehandedly responsible for around 7% of the industry volume for electric cars. (Europa Press)
  • NIO launched the ES8, saying that the vehicle came with an advanced driver assistance system, battery swapping (in 3 minutes) and battery rental. There is a 70 kWh battery pack, providing over 500 km of range. (NIO)
  • Morgan said that it would put its electric three-wheeler into production in late 2018 in partnership with Frazer-Nash. The car will have a range of around 120 miles. (Auto Express)
  • Chinese electric vehicle maker Kandi said that it will buy Jinhua An Kao for $4 million because of the company’s battery swapping technology. (Kandi)
  • The founder of the solid state battery firm Dyson purchased to help it deliver an electric car program has left the company. It isn’t clear if this will affect plans for the vehicle. (Autocar)
  • McLaren engineers said that half an hour of high performance track driving requires battery capacity equivalent to 500 miles of on-road driving. (Autocar)
  • Nikola trucks received a $10 million investment from Wabco. (Autocar)
  • Faraday Future has reportedly secured an additional $1 billion in funding. (The Verge)
  • The US electric infrastructure scheme that VW has agreed to fund as part of its emissions settlement picked Greenlots to carry out installation work. (Green Car Reports)
  • Mysterious electric car start-up EVELOZCITY was reportedly created by ex-Faraday Future executives with backing from would-be Faraday Future investors put off by the behaviour of the controlling shareholder. (Electrek)
  • BMW partnered with Solid Power to develop solid state batteries for a future electric vehicle platform. (Solid Power)

Connectivity

  • LG and HERE agreed to cooperate on an LG-provided telematics service that will run on HERE’s platform. (LG)
  • Chery said it will work with Linkmotion to create a technology platform for connected vehicles. (Telematics News)
  • Continental said that recent V2X tests in China with 4G networks had delivered average latency (delays between sending and receiving signals) of 11ms and had a best result of 8ms. (Continental)
    • Implication: The tested latency is an interesting benchmark. Whilst impressive on a standalone basis, it shows that with current technology autonomous vehicles with a centralised AI are probably unsafe (i.e. the overall system latency would include sending information to the AI and then the processing / decision making time of the AI). As Continental point out, it does show promise as a way of sending emergency messages to vehicles.

Other

  • Limebike published a research paper on the benefits of bicycle sharing. It contains general statistics in addition to city specific case studies. (LimeBike)
  • Mobike will receive investment from Japanese messaging app Line and the two will partner to integrate bicycle rental into the app’s features (including payments). (TechCrunch)
  • Ola and Yandex both made food delivery acquisitions. Yandex will buy Foodfox, adding to its UberEats franchise (Reuters) and Ola will take on the Indian operations of Foodpanda. (Deal Street Asia)
Automotive research, Automotive strategy, Automotive trends, Auto industry trends, Automotive market research, Auto industry news

Latest Automotive Industry News Review — 11th December to 17th December 2017

What happened in the automotive industry last week? Please enjoy our automotive industry briefing for the week of 11th December to 17th December 2017. A PDF version can be found here.

Favourite stories this week…?

 

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News about the major automakers

 

BMW (history)

  • Said it will build a new proving ground in the Czech Republic at Sokolov, close to the German border. (BMW)

Daimler (history)

  • CEO Dieter Zetsche agreed to become the chairman of German holiday travel firm Tui from 1st October 2018 onwards, sparking inevitable speculation about him vacating his position at Daimler earlier than the end of his contract in late 2019. (Manager Magazin)
  • Will build a new office for its 900-strong US financial services staff in Texas. (Daimler)

Ferrari

  • Reportedly planning a move to two-shift production from 2018 onwards as annual volume ramps up to more than 9,000 units. (Bloomberg)

Ford (history)

  • Signed an agreement to develop digital mobility solutions for the residents of Hyderabad, India. Ford will work with the city’s government to assess the state of the current public transport and road network and then recommend solutions. Electronic payments appear to be a focus of the project. (Autocar)
  • Denied that it was intending to source the next generation Fusion/Mondeo from China and import to North America and Europe after suppliers leaked documents appearing to show China as the sole source of the vehicle from around 2020 onwards. The company declined to comment on the implications for factories in Valencia and Mexico that make the car now. (Reuters)

Geely (includes Volvo)

  • Volvo has started giving autonomous-capable vehicles to 100 families in Sweden in order to monitor how they use the vehicles everyday. At first the full capabilities of the vehicle will not be available. The company says it will have a fully autonomous car commercially available by 2021. (Volvo)

Honda (history)

  • Invested about $9 million in Chinese car-sharing platform Reachda. (Caixin)

Hyundai / Kia

  • Believes that battery prices will stop falling by 2020 because rising raw material prices will cancel out the benefits of design improvements and manufacturing scale. (Green Car Reports)
  • Hyundai said that it still sees fuel cell vehicles as “the ultimate direction” but that it will do more to work on battery electric vehicles. (Bloomberg)
  • Recalling about 520,000 Hyundai and Kia cars to fix problems with brake lights. (Detroit News)

Nissan (includes Mitsubishi)

  • Nissan is launching an all-electric carsharing scheme called e-Share Mobi in Japan. (Nissan)

PSA (includes Opel/Vauxhall) (history)

  • Announced that it had agreed a new labour contract with German unions. There will be an early retirement offering, with employees aged 57 and over eligible; contracted working hours will be 35 hours per week in lieu of 40 (saves money with no practical impact since PSA says the areas are underutilised); engineering and administration teams will work less than full hours over the next six months with the government refunding the lost time; the bonus scheme will reflect PSA’s turnaround plan. The company and unions also agreed to work on projects that will increase employee productivity and make it easier to move between jobs and locations. (PSA)
  • Reorganised the purchasing divisions of Opel/Vauxhall and the rest of Groupe PSA into a single unit, effective January 2018. PSA believes that it will ultimately save around €500 million annually from the move. (PSA)
  • Plans to double sales in Mexico (from 9,000 in 2017 ~0.6% share) by 2021, primarily through SUVs. (France Info)

Renault (history)

  • Signed a joint venture agreement with Brilliance China Automotive to develop and manufacture LCVs. Three segments of vehicle will be produced — MPVs, medium and heavy vans — for three brands: Renault, Jinbei and Huasong. The JV is targeting sales of 150,000 units annually by 2022. Renault will have a 49% share. (Renault)
  • Acquired a 40% stake in media company Challenges Group. Renault believes that it will help create content that is specific and engaging for users of autonomous vehicles. (Renault)
  • Said that production of the Alipne A110 sports car has now begun at the Dieppe, France, plant. (Renault)
  • Will achieve 55% local content in Morocco through a set of new agreements with the government. (Reuters)

Suzuki

Tata (includes JLR)

  • Executives said the Range Rover Velar was mainly attracting new customers, with around 20% of buyers coming from Evoque. (Autocar)

Tesla (history)

  • Was reportedly under investigation by the SEC over the way that the company used and reported deposits for the Model 3. The investigation ended with no action against Tesla but a refusal by the SEC to comment led some to speculate that further investigations were ongoing. (Detroit News)
  • Introduced a fair use policy for supercharger stations that forbids vehicles charging for commercial purposes. The exclusion appears to apply to new vehicles only. (Electrek)
  • External analysts said sales discipline by the former Solar City operations, following the takeover by Tesla, were single-handedly responsible for a year-over-year fall in home installations in the US. (Reuters)

Toyota (history)

  • Agreed to study the feasibility of a joint automotive prismatic battery business with Panasonic. (Toyota)
    • Implication: The hyperbole in some of the press about Panasonic abandoning Tesla ignored two things: (1) Toyota and Panasonic’s existing relationship already covers vehicles such as the Prius, so this is an extension of existing industrial logic; (2) the focus here is cylindrical cells, not the prismatic variety that Tesla and Panasonic have collaborated on so far.

VW Group (history)

  • Came under fire from German politicians after the CEO publicly suggested that the country should end the lower tax rate on diesel fuel compared to gasoline. (Manager Magazin)
  • Published the findings of a report into the activities of VW employees in Brazil during the military dictatorship. Evidence was found of employees cooperating with the regime, but not of systematic action by the company. (VW)
  • Said that declining diesel sales and residual values in Europe were not significantly affecting the performance of its captive finance arm. (Handelsblatt)
  • Executives said that one of the first BEVs for Audi will be a sports car that launches in 2020. (Autocar)
  • Audi’s CEO said that the company would not sell motorbike subsidiary Ducati because it is the “perfect implementation of our premium philosophy in the world of motorbikes”. (Detroit Bureau)
    • Implication: As compelling as the argument seems to Audi, it’s not clear that this passes the test of strategic alignment. Should the Audi of cheeses (Le Chatelain for my money) be next on the list? It might sit well alongside VW’s sausage factory…

Other

  • Three Chinese carmakers: Changan, FAW and Dongfeng (part-owner of PSA) signed a cooperation agreement to research new technologies and develop a common platform. (EV Obsession)
  • Chinese manufacturer BAIC said that it would end sales of fossil fuelled cars by 2024. (EV Obsession)
  • Aston Martin’s majority owners have reportedly engaged bankers to prepare for an IPO or sale in late 2018. The CEO has previously suggested that an IPO was likely sometime before 2022. (Reuters)

 

News about other companies and trends

 

Economic / Political News

  • European passenger car sales were 1,216,702 units in November, an increase of 5.9% on a year-over-year basis. The additional sales were mainly attributed to an extra selling day. (ACEA)

Suppliers

  • Autoliv confirmed that it would spin-off its electronics unit (which will include the Zenuity stake) during Q3 2018, having said it was planning a move earlier this year. The passive safety business will retain the Autoliv name. (Autoliv)
  • Denso said it had purchased InfiniteKey, a company that specialised in using mobile phones to control vehicles and determine relative positioning of driver and car. (Denso)
  • Lear will acquire EXO Technologies. The company specialises in improving the accuracy of existing GPS equipment (making it suitable for autonomous vehicles). (Lear)
  • Semi-conductor company Renesas and autonomous driving hardware start-up Dibotics said that they would offer a jointly-developed system on chip that would help with real tiem 3D mapping. (Press Release)
  • Visteon will transfer its listing from NYSE to Nasdaq. The company said that the move reflected its status as a technology company and provided cost benefits. (Visteon)
  • Valeo will invest in Cathay CarTech, a China-focused fund with total spending power of €200 million. (Valeo)

Dealers

  • Alibaba will trial two new car sales centres in Shanghai and Nanjing. The new sites will offer test drives to compliment the car vending machine concept that the company is investigating. The retail experiment is separate to the collaboration announced with Ford and will include vehicles from other brands. (Detroit Free Press)
  • UK dealer Sytner Group acquired (used) car supermarket Car People, its second such purchase. (Motor Trader)
    • Implication: not only is this yet another sign of the consolidation among UK dealers (there are plenty of smaller deals on a weekly basis we don’t normally mention); it also reflects acceptance by established dealers that used vehicle sales are becoming more commoditised…. New car sales will always be different though, right?

Ride-Hailing, Car Sharing & Rental (history)

  • BlueSG, run by Bollore, launched in Singapore with 80 vehicles and 32 stations. The company wants to get to 1,000 vehicles and 2,000 charging points by 2020. (Deal Street Asia)
  • Continental and Avis started a pilot scheme in Kansas City where vehicles can be driven off with a smartphone that runs Avis’s app rather than having to go through Avis employees. (Continental)
  • Go-Jek acquired three start-ups (Midtrans, Mapan and Kartuku) to help it expand its digital payments offering. (Deal Street Asia)
  • UK politicians got into a war of words over the future of transport. After transport minister Chris Grayling said that the future of buses was towards “Uber-style, demand led services”, the opposition transport spokesman said “nobody wants to see Uber replacing local bus services” and unions were similarly critical. (Politics Home)
    • Implication: Unfortunately for the opposition and unions, in Ad Punctum’s view, Mr Grayling is dead-right in this instance. Not only are local bus services often patchy but they require huge subsidies. Providing that the cost to the user remains the same, operating an on-demand service can actually cost less overall — especially with autonomy. The strong views expressed in the UK show that although many are concentrating on what they see as the compelling economic argument for on-demand travel, there are plenty of import hearts-and-minds that need to be won over.
  • Peer to peer car sharing operator Snappcar partnered with telematics provider Telia so that owners can see what is happening to their cherished steed whilst it is out of their sight. (Telematics News)
  • Nissan is launching an all-electric carsharing scheme called e-Share Mobi in Japan. (Nissan)
  • Honda invested about $9 million in Chinese car-sharing platform Reachda. (Caixin)

Driverless / Autonomy (history)

  • AEye released further details of its iDar sensor ahead of demonstrations at CES. The product integrates lidar and camera feeds to create a 3D point cloud with complimentary photographic image, similar to TetraVue’s The advantage is that this removes lots of calibration necessary in systems that combine separate camera and lidar elements. It is especially useful in creating ground truth for images. (AEye)
  • Honda representatives gave a presentation to authorised repairers that provided insight into the calibration routines of ADAS sensors. A repair shop will need a 40ft x 50ft area to perform the necessary routines. (Repair Driven News)
    • Implication: Calibration of driver assistance systems joins high-voltage electrification as an area where dealer groups are totally unprepared to properly look after vehicles. In addition to branding concerns for the OEMs, potentially dealers will lose business permanently if they don’t properly adapt.
  • Tencent and GAC unveiled the iSPACE concept, a shared, connected and autonomous electric vehicle. (EV Obsession)
  • Chinese start-up PIX said it had created an autonomous vehicle platform that reduces part numbers by 90% and dramatically improves manufacturing efficiency and time to market. (PIX)
  • ZF showed off a concept steering wheel with a screen in the centre aimed at autonomous vehicles. (ZF)
  • Volvo has started giving autonomous-capable vehicles to 100 families in Sweden in order to monitor how they use the vehicles everyday. At first the full capabilities of the vehicle will not be available. The company says it will have a fully autonomous car commercially available by 2021. (Volvo)

Electrification (history)

  • 2050 Motors said that it had signed a final agreement with Chinese partner Aoxin Automotive that confirmed the arrangements to launch the e-Go EV. The company also hopes that the Las Vegas authorities were sufficiently impressed to give it the sire for a factory. (2050 Motors)
  • Alibaba has invested an undisclosed amount to take a stake of around 10% in electric vehicle start-up Xpeng (Xiaopeng) Motors. (Deal Street Asia)
  • Faraday Future was the subject of a scathing in-depth article which compared the company’s funding model to a ponzi scheme and said executive management was in chaos. (The Verge)
  • Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi said it hopes to sell electric cars in India. (Zeebiz)
  • Electric car start-up NIO is reportedly considering an IPO in 2018, in addition to a possible sale of 30%-40% of its US arm, which concentrates on BEV technology rather than carmaking. (Bloomberg)
  • Dutch charging network operator Fastned raised €12 million through a public bond to fund expansion. (Fastned)
  • Hyundai believes that battery prices will stop falling by 2020 because rising raw material prices will cancel out the benefits of design improvements and manufacturing scale. (Green Car Reports)
  • A group of Japanese companies including Toyota, Nissan and Honda that previously agreed to work together on hydrogen infrastructure said that they would form a company to achieve their objectives. (Honda)
  • Tesla introduced a fair use policy for supercharger stations that forbids vehicles charging for commercial purposes. The exclusion appears to apply to new vehicles only. (Electrek)

Connectivity

  • Denso and Blackberry said that they had developed a digital cockpit product, based on Blackberry’s QNX software, that allows different parts to be integrated, yet operate securely. For instance, the infotainment element could share data with the driver’s instrument panel without being able to control it. (Blackberry)
  • Denso said that it will start trialling a quantum computer to assess traffic data from 130,000 connected vehicles in Thailand. The aim of the test is to see whether quantum computers can process the data more quickly than conventional supercomputers, which may lead to improved real-time optimised route generation. (Denso)
  • UK road operator Highways England is looking at ways of ensuring 5G connectivity on all major roads. (BBC)

Other

  • Aurora Flight Sciences, owned by Boeing, demonstrated a fully autonomous helicopter that could be requested by operators (US Marines) on the ground to transport goods to another location. (Press Release)
  • US bicycle sharing start-up Limebike launched in Germany and Switzerland, saying that by the end of 2017 it will have a fleet of 40,000 bicycles (mainly in the USA). On average the company serves 10,000 users each day. (Limebike)
  • US supermarket Target acquired delivery specialist Shipt to improve its on-demand offering. (Press Release)

 

 

Automotive research, Automotive strategy, Automotive trends, Auto industry trends, Automotive market research, Auto industry news

Latest Automotive Industry News Review — 4th December to 10th December 2017

What happened in the automotive industry last week? Please enjoy our digest of industry news for the week of 4th December to 10th December 2017. A PDF version can be found here.

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News about the major automakers

 

BMW

  • Rolls-Royce’s CEO sad that the Phantom will likely have an all-electric version (definitely no hybrid) but at the moment there is no demand from customers for such a model. (Autocar)
  • Denied claims by an environmental group that it had fitted defeat devices on diesel vehicles sold in Germany. The group said that it had tested vehicles on and off static tests and found discrepancies. (Economic Times of India)
  • Presented a strategy update. Although most of the targets, especially around longer term product are already in the public domain, there were some new slides explaining the company’s view on topics such as electrification and autonomy. (BMW)
  • When presenting the company’s strategy update, BMW’s CEO drew attention to the company having trademarked i1 to i9 and iX1 to iX9. He also said that the i3 has conquest rates in excess of 80 percent. (BMW)
  • BMW’s R&D head said that the company was better than all competition in technical competence and value creation around electrical powertrain and that it would always develop e-drives, power electronics and battery systems in-house, but could use make-to-print outsourcing. He illustrated the data challenge from autonomous vehicles saying that currently BMW’s entire storage requirement was 60 PB, but autonomous vehicles will increase this to 500 PB. On autonomous capability he was bullish saying vehicles would “fully master level 5 right from the outset in 2021” and mentioned access to free real-time HD maps as a key enabler that BMW has worked on delivering. (BMW)

Daimler

  • Reorganised its trucks division to give the China market greater prominence. (Daimler)

FCA

  • Opened a new distribution centre in Detroit, USA, adding 100 jobs. (Detroit News)

Ford

  • Said that it will launch 50 new vehicles in China by 2025 and that it local assembly will increase by a further five models, not including the Zotye JV, one of which will be the company’s first serious attempt at a BEV. As part of the plan, Ford wants to contain administrative costs, saying the structure would not increase beyond 2018 levels and that it was creating a single distribution group that would work with its three Chinese JVs. (Ford)
  • Agreed a collaboration with Alibaba that will potentially encompass a number of areas including digital marketing, smart vehicles and mobility services. The initial projects will look at retail sales. (Ford)
  • Planning to produce its first mainstream electric vehicle in Mexico rather than Michigan, USA. Ford said this was because it expects the market for fully autonomous vehicles to take off quickly so it wants to work on readying Flat Rock to meet the anticipated demand. (New York Times)
  • Introduced updated versions of the Transit Courier and Transit Connect (small commercial vehicles). Powertrain is now Euro 6.2-capable and Ford’s press release drew attention to the gasoline engine derivatives which feature fuel economy technologies such as cylinder deactivation. (Ford)
  • Released its 2018 trends report showing the areas that the company is watching. NOTE: the report is about societal change so those hoping for insights into diesel mix or adoption of autonomous vehicles will be disappointed. (Ford)
  • Not wishing to be outdone by GM, Ford released a blog post about its autonomous vehicle ambitions, led by a 250-strong team at Argo AI. Ford believes that a vehicle must be commercial-grade and feature upgraded attributes to enable a longer service life. The company will be beginning pilot trials in 2018, although it isn’t clear whether or not this will feature the all-new PHEV that the company is working on. (Ford)
  • Reportedly reduced the line rate in Valencia by 120 vehicles per day and will shed 280 temporary staff (up from around 100 a fortnight ago), with unspecified further employee reductions made through relocation and natural attrition. (Europa Press)

General Motors

  • Launched an online payments and reservation service called Marketplace that is integrated with the vehicle instrument panel. GM claimed the product as a world-first but it wasn’t clear how it is materially different to offerings from the likes of Ford and PSA. (GM)
  • Scheduled downtime at the Oshawa, Canada assembly plant due to weak sales of the Chevrolet Impala and Cadillac XTS made there. (Automotive News)

Honda

  • Signed a collaboration agreement with SenseTime to work on artificial intelligence applications for autonomous vehicles. Honda is particularly interested in improvements to image recognition. (Honda)

Hyundai / Kia

  • Suffered continued strikes in South Korean as management rejected union demands for higher pay. Five plants have been affected, with over 43,000 vehicles lost. (Yonhap)

Nissan (includes Mitsubishi)

  • Created a new brand for robo taxi ride hailing called Easy Ride, in partnership with DeNA. The companies are planning a two week long public trial in March 2018 in Yokohama, Japan. Full services will be introduced by the “early 2020s”. (Nissan)
  • Mitsubishi signed an MoU with the Indonesian government to find ways of promoting electrified vehicles in the country. This seems to be an opportunity to influence government policy around incentives. (Mitsubishi)
  • Will investigate vehicle-to-grid applications for electric vehicles in Japan with TEPCO — Nissan already has several projects running in different European countries. (Autocar)
  • CEO Carlos Ghosn gave an interview in which he said that the industry would be totally transformed in 10 years, with large changes starting in the next three to four years. He said that significant further guidance from regulators was necessary before the winning technology set could be identified. He also said the best business advice he had ever been given was “if you want recognition, buy yourself a dog”. (Nissan)

PSA (includes Opel/Vauxhall)

  • Announced a 50/50 JV with Nidec to develop and produce electric motors for vehicles, with PSA as the anchor customer. The manufacturing base will be in France. (PSA)
  • Created a concept urban mobility vehicle as part of a European consortium with public funding. The vehicle is a PHEV using 48V electrification and an engine from a scooter. (PSA)
  • CEO Carlos Tavares was appointed head of the European manufacturers association, ACEA, for 2018. (ACEA)

Renault

  • Launched a new 1.3L petrol engine that it has developed in partnership with Daimler. (Renault)
  • Announced the re-launch of Karhoo, the taxi aggregator app that Renault purchased after its failure. The company forecasts that by the end of December over 150,000 taxis will use the app. (Renault)
  • CEO Carlos Ghosn gave an interview in which he said that the industry would be totally transformed in 10 years, with large changes starting in the next three to four years. He said that significant further guidance from regulators was necessary before the winning technology set could be identified. He also said the best business advice he had ever been given was “if you want recognition, buy yourself a dog”. (Nissan)
  • Created a running prototype of the Symbioz concept vehicle in order to show the company’s vision of mobility in 2023 with a autonomous-capable, privately-owned, vehicle. Confusingly, part of this vision seems to be people sitting in the car as it drives, experiencing the drive through virtual reality (video at 01:00 if you don’t believe me). (Renault)

Tata (includes JLR)

  • Tata is working with Thai start-up DRVR to provide fleet management services in markets including Thailand and Indonesia. (Autocar)

Tesla

  • British Insurer Direct Line has started offering a 5 percent discount on vehicles fitted with autopilot. (Electrek)
  • CEO Elon Musk said that the company was creating its own self-driving hardware with help from AMD and that fully driverless vehicles would appear in two years time. (Futurism)
    • Implication: Given that some owners have already purchased the fully driverless option, this indicates that Tesla will have to replace hardware in the vehicles in order to enable the feature. If Tesla develop a cost-effective way of doing this then we could see hardware upgrades going from zero today (unless you want a new stereo for your McLaren F1), to a way of life in the future.

Toyota

  • Said that it has stopped selling the diesel powered Auris in the UK. (Autocar)

VW Group

  • Announced that Škoda would install a new paintshop at its Mladá Boleslav plant that will increase capacity to 2,700 cars per day from June 2019. (VW)
  • Launched a connected vehicles brand called RIO for MAN and Scania vehicles to supply telematics data to operators. RIO will operate a freemium model with a service called RIO Essentials on all vehicles. (VW)
  • Audi said that it had developed a system that could create a 3D awareness of the surrounding area using a mono camera and a set of neural network algorithms. The system operates at 15 fps, so will have large gaps in its situational awareness at higher speeds — e.g 0.9m between frames at 30mph — nevertheless it could have immediate application in low speed situations such as parking garages. (Audi)
  • VW’s inhouse mobility start-up Moia said it had created a purpose built vehicle for on-demand ride hailing The company plans to launch services in Hamburg at the end of 2018. The vehicle itself is fully-electric with a claimed range of 300km and space for six. It was created by VW’s commercial vehicles group. (VW)
  • According to Porsche executives, around 60 percent of Panamera models sold in Europe were hybrid versions. In some markets, the number is as high as 90 percent. The company is already working on derivatives of the Mission E to increase its all-electric portfolio. (Electrek)
  • Reportedly issued a stop-ship on T6 vans because of excessive emissions that the company has detected, and has yet to explain. (Reuters)
  • Lamborghini launched the Urus “super SUV”. To ensure it is “suitable for everyday driving”, the company equipped their latest model with a 650hp V8, rear wheel steering and a $200,000 price tag. (Lamborghini)

Other

  • Subaru said that its first BEV will be a variant of an existing car. The challenge with this route is normally battery package — expect a higher price and compromised range. (Autocar)
  • Chinese car company BYD signed an agreement for a plant in Morocco where it will assembly electric vehicles. The company also plans to produce battery packs and electric commercial vehicles in the country. (Les Echos)
    • Implication: Established companies like the low-cost footprint of North Africa but struggle to source the latest technologies there. If BYD helps to establish significant battery expertise in Morocco, more could follow (not least Renault and PSA).
  • McLaren unveiled the £750,000 Senna supercar. An upgraded version of the 720S, it has an engine with an output of 800PS and will be built in a limited edition of 500 models. (McLaren)
  • Saleen showed the 450hp Saleen 1 sports car at the LA show. The vehicle will be built with capital from Jiangsu Saleen Automotive Technology Group. (Auto Blog)
  • Morgan will end production of the Aero 8 with a limited edition run of eight Aero GT cars. (Car Buzz)
  • W Motors announced the production-ready 800 hp Fenyr SuperSport supercar. Priced at $1.85 million, the company is aiming to sell 25 examples during the production run. (Car Buzz)
  • Well-funded Chinese start-up WM Motor displayed the prototype of its first model, an SUV and said that it would use the Weltmeister brand for its products. The company hopes to sell 100,000 vehicles each year once it has launched all three vehicles in its portfolio. The CEO says that the company has raised $1.81 billion so far and requires a further $1.5 billion to bring all vehicles to production. (Electrek)
    • Implication: Although $3 billion sounds about right for a from-scratch three vehicle portfolio, this would be expected to provide three differentiated platforms and manufacturing capacity of near 500,000 units of each model (c. 1.5 million in total). Since stated intentions are for 100,000 vehicles per year, this seems an expensive way of producing this portfolio and footprint.
  • Spyker will end production of the C8 Aileron with a three car limited edition. It isn’t clear whether these are part of the “last five” units that the company announced in March 2016, or additions to the run. Production of its successor, the C8 Preliator, will begin in Coventry, UK in summer 2018. (Spyker)
  • NEVS said that it will restart production at the former Saab plant in Trollhättan, Sweden in order to assemble 9-3 EVs. The company is also looking to expand existing capacity in China. (Autocar)
  • Chinese start-up Leapmotor said it had received pre-A funding from Sequoia Capital — this is slightly confusing since the company claims to have already invested $395 million in production and R&D. (China Money Network)

 

News about other companies and trends

 

Economic / Political News

  • German new car sales in November of 302,636 vehicles were up 9.4% on ayear-over-year basis. Diesel share fell by (17)%. (KBA)
  • UK car sales in November of 163,541 units were down (11.2)% on a year-over-year basis. Diesel demand fell (30)%, only partially offset by increases in petrol and electrified products. (SMMT)

Suppliers

  • Rockwell Automation acquired Odos Imaging, a specialist in 3D time of flight sensors (a type of low-cost distance measurement). Automotive will be one of the application areas for the technology. (Vision Systems)
  • Samsung invested in Chinese machine vision firm Vion Technology. Although at present the firm is focused on image recognition from static cameras, the same techniques could have application in vehicles, or in V2I communication and decision-making networks. (China Money Network)
  • Continental showed the ProViuMirror, a product that replaces wing mirrors with a single in-car video. The company claims removing the wing mirrors will save 2% fuel economy. (Continental)
  • Denso said it would fully absorb ASMO, a business that it has so far consolidated on the basis of 92.4% ownership across various entities. (Denso)
  • As expected, ZF’s CEO resigned. The company announced it had appointed former VAG vetern Franz-Josef Paefgen as Chairman. He said it was “vital {for ZF to] settle down”. (ZF)

Dealers

  • UK dealers were reportedly loss-making in October. Used vehicles performed well across a range of measures — price and stock turns in particular — but failed to offset new vehicle sales deterioration. (Automotive Manager)

Ride-Hailing, Car Sharing & Rental

  • Renault announced the re-launch of Karhoo, the taxi aggregator app that Renault purchased after its failure. The company forecasts that by the end of December over 150,000 taxis will use the app. (Renault)
  • Uber has run into licensing problems in two further UK cities — York and Sheffield. As with London, the company is able to appeal. (BBC)
  • ComfortDelGro is buying a majority stake in a private hire vehicle fleet operator from an Uber (Reuters)
  • Didi will reportedly launch in Mexico early in 2018. It recently apparently gave up on the US. (Reuters)
  • Go-Jek said it was planning to open its first overseas service, in the Philippines early in 2018. (Reuters)
  • Go-Jek has invested in Bangladeshi ride hailing firm Pathao. (Deal Street Asia)
  • Chinese electric vehicle car sharing company PonyCar has reportedly raised $37 million in a series C round, bringing total fundraising to $83 million in just over a year. (China Money Network)
  • In a preview of some of the problems the sharing economy will yield, car rental operators were criticised for not wiping user data such as phone and location details when a vehicle was passed to a new user. (V3)
  • Fuelling rumours of an impending IPO, Lyft boosted its fund-raising by another $500 million and has just hired a VP of corporate development and IR. (TechCrunch)

Driverless / Autonomy

  • The autonomous vehicle trial in Boston between Lyft and nuTonomy (now owned by Aptiv) has now begun. Customers order a Lyft ride as normal and are sent a nuTonomy car if they are in the same area. (nuTonomy)
  • Aptiv’s CEO repeated the company’s view that autonomous vehicle system cost will have fallen to $5,000 per unit by 2025. Although this led to plenty of media excitement, the company has been showing this figure in public domain presentations for over a year. (Bloomberg)
  • Malaysian media profiled the efforts of local self-driving vehicle start-up Reka Studios. (Paul Tan)
  • Baidu led a $15 million investment in Chinese driver assistance start-up Smarter Eyes Technology. (SCMP)
  • A presentation by Apple at a machine learning conference showed more of company’s research into image recognition and scene understanding (such as identifying the movement of partially obscured pedestrians). Some commentators speculated that Apple are having to be more open in order to attract talent to the company. (Wired)
  • Rinspeed previewed the Snap autonomous vehicle, which will be displayed at CES in January. The vehicle uses a skateboard concept whereby different body shapes can be mounted quickly onto a running base, enabling re-purposing for new roles. (Autocar)
    • Implication: Ad Punctum has repeatedly supported skateboard concepts that can be adapted to different roles over unibodies that are more rigid. With the Snap following (relatively) hot on the heels of GM, the more the merrier. Skateboards have considerable technical challenges to overcome, not least secure connection for crash and how to avoid duplication of expensive sensors that are mounted on the top hat. The greater the number of teams working on the problem, the more likely a good solution will emerge.
  • Aston Martin said that it has intentionally not fitted ADAS technologies to new vehicles because customers want a more pure driving experience. CEO Andy Palmer said that partner Daimler could supply such devices on a plug-and-play basis if customer perspective changed. (Automotive News)
    • Implication: It seems likely that in a future of autonomous vehicles, the idea of driving oneself won’t disappear but it will be distilled into something more focused than today’s vehicles. Aston Martin are right to be monitoring this trend.
  • Lidar start-up Ouster emerged from stealth mode announcing that it has $27 million in funding. The company says that its 64 line product, the OS1 is available now for $12,000 per unit. The company hopes to manufacture 1,000 units per month at the beginning of 2018 and be running at a rate of 10,000 units per month by late 2018. (Forbes)
    • Implication: A run rate of 10,000 units per month would supply something in the region of 24,000 to 30,000 L4/5 vehicles each year or about 120,000 L3 vehicles per year. Those are serial production levels, far in excess of all cumulative prototype demand. It remains to be seen whether these production forecasts are based on customer orders or simply for scene-stealing effect. $12,000 per unit looks much too high for retail (L3) take-up.

Electrification

  • As a guide to the cost of high-performance electrification infrastructure, ABB announced that it had secured a contract to supply 600kW and 400kW chargers for a bus route in Nantes, France operated by 20 vehicles. The cost? A cool $20 million. (Inside EVs)
  • A group of OEMs have pledged to source raw materials for electric vehicles in an ethical and environmentally responsible way with monitoring by a 3rd BMW (which earlier announced a unilateral plan) is part of the group. (Green Car Reports)
  • A consortium of German companies, including Porsche and BMW, is working on a project called FastCharge to develop a prototype 450kW charger in 2018. If successful, the Ionity JV (of which both are members) could work on this technology, rather than the 350kW currently planned. (Inside EVs)
  • Compact electric car start-up Uniti says that it will provide five years of free electricity with each model for customers in Sweden. (Uniti). The company said that its launch product would be on sale for between €15,000 and €20,000. It can be reserved with a fully refundable deposit of €149. (Uniti)

Connectivity

  • Indian start-up Netradyne launched a low-cost driver monitoring and ADAS product, aimed at commercial fleets called Driveri. (Autocar)
  • Tata is working with Thai start-up DRVR to provide fleet management services in markets including Thailand and Indonesia. (Autocar)

Other

  • Bicycle sharing firm OBike reportedly suffered a data breach in which account details were stolen. (CNET)
  • Bicycle sharing firm Ofo is said to have raised $1 billion. (Business Insider)
  • Singaporean telecoms company M1 and university NTU have started a three year project researching drone traffic control systems. (Today)
  • Bicycle sharing firm Hellobike raised $350 million, despite recently merging with Youon Bike, reportedly because of weakness in the face of brutal competition. (China Money Network)
Automotive research, Automotive strategy, Automotive trends, Auto industry trends, Automotive market research, Auto industry news

Latest Automotive Industry News Review — 27th November to 3rd December 2017

What happened in the automotive industry last week? Please enjoy our digest of industry news for the week of 27th November to 3rd December 2017. A PDF version can be found here.

Favourite stories this week…?

 

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News about the major automakers

 

BMW

  • Launched an upgraded powerpack for the i8 whilst unveiling the roadster derivative. Battery capacity increases from 7.1 kWh to 11.7 kWh and the power of the electric motor now has an output of 141hp. (Green Car Reports)
  • Launched car sharing in China under the ReachNow brand (same as US) in partnership with Chinese car sharing operator EVCARD. The starting location is Chengdu and will only use all-electric vehicles. (BMW)
  • Halted production of i3 and issued a recall in the US due to concerns around seat belts. (Green Car Reports)
  • Open to sharing electrification technology on small cars with other manufacturers. (Times of India)
  • Said the price of an autonomous car (based on the iNext concept) could be below $100,000 in 2020. (Times of India)

Daimler

  • Reportedly rebuffed an offer by Geely to buy a stake of between 3% and 5% through a discounted offering of new stock. Daimler’s issue was supposedly the additional shares and it said it would be comfortable with a purchase of existing shares. (NASDAQ)
  • Presented with a large bill by Sixt after tearing down and testing a leased Tesla Model X in violation of the rental agreement. Daimler technicians thought they had done a good job of screwing the car back together but came unstuck when the vehicle’s geographic data showed it pounding the miles at Daimler test sites. Oops. (Handelsblatt)

FCA

  • In talks with Hyundai on component sharing with transmissions and fuel cells as areas of particular focus. (Economic Times of India)
  • CEO Marchionne said that the company “hadn’t made up [its] mind” on a spin-off of Magneti Marelli and Comau, but that should such an event take place, the two companies would be listed separately. (Economic Times of India)
  • Alfa Romeo will become the title sponsor of the Sauber F1 team, using Ferrari hardware, in an attempt to increase the brand’s image. (Economic Times of India)
  • Maserati has appointed Accenture Interactive as their marketing agency. Accenture have promised to dramatically improve the data and digital management capabilities of the sales and marketing arm, in addition to the more traditional work of content production and advertising placement. (Europa Press)

Ford

  • Unveiled the replacement for the Lincoln MKX and changed its name to the Nautilus. As part of a plan to deliver a more upscale user experience, Lincoln owners will get a paid subscription to a service that enables them to queue jump airport security lines. (Detroit News)
  • Announced four recalls covering over 200,000 vehicles. The main issue is loose front power seats. (Ford)
  • Enraged millions of wrestling fans by suing John Cena after the sports entertainment superstar sold his Ford GT before the end of the exclusivity period defined in the sales contract. (Economic Times of India)

Geely (includes Volvo)

  • Reportedly saw an offer to buy a shareholding of between 3% and 5% of Daimler through a discounted offering of new stock rebuffed. Daimler’s issue was supposedly the additional shares and it said it would be comfortable with a purchase of existing shares. (NASDAQ)
  • Lynk&Co began selling its first model and said that during a pre-launch sales event on 17th November it had sold the 6,000 allotted cars in under three minutes. (The Verge)
  • Investigating whether to manufacture Lynk&Co vehicles at Volvo plants in Belgium and the USA. (CNBC)
  • Rumoured to be considering a new product line-up for Lotus, including an SUV built off Volvo’s CMA platform (it isn’t quite clear how this will fit in with Lotus’s lightweight philosophy). Geely executives expressed a desire for the brand to be “ranked alongside Ferrari and Porsche”. (Autocar)

General Motors

  • Held its much-vaunted presentation and test drive of autonomous vehicle technology developed by Cruise. GM intends to have “thousands” of autonomous vehicles on the road in 2019. During the presentation, executives said the annual run rate of revenue would be measured in billions “pretty quickly” (webcast 1:25:00) and that the business would operate with a 20% – 30% margin. The company’s financial projections are based on “north of 50%” utilisation. Executives also said GM believes that “price is the dominant factor” in customers choosing different transport solutions. (1:34:00). Reaction to the event was mixed. Few rides earned rave reviews (see a selection below) and GM seemed at pains to compare itself favourably to Waymo’s efforts. At the same time, executives demurred whenever they were asked about objective benchmarks of performance, implying that they hand them at their fingertips but didn’t want to share. (GM)
    • Implication: GM’s view on the importance of price elasticity matches Ad Punctum’s analysis (please get in contact if you would like to discuss the bid/ask model that was built as part of the Mobility from first principles white paper earlier in the year).
    • Futurism — several failed attempts to summon the car, no disengagements during the drive although the vehicle stopped for a time in the opposite lane, “ride, while safe, was anything but smooth”
    • Reuters — human driver had to disengage automatic mode when the car stopped behind a stationary truck
    • TechCrunch — ride was uneventful “makes me optimistic seeing about self-driving become a transformative experience”
    • Recode — the car loitered awkwardly for a dog going to the toilet, overall the ride was “relatively smooth”

Honda

  • Demonstrated the use of augmented reality to show new features of a vehicle and even allow the occupants to simulate driving in it. (Honda)

Hyundai / Kia

  • Suffered labour disruption in South Korea as unions told employees not to support the launch of Kona SUV production due to wider disputes over pay, working conditions and outsourcing. (Reuters)
  • Teaming up with Smartcar to enable new services in connected vehicles. Amongst other things, 3rd party service operators will be able to locate and access the vehicle (with the owner’s permission). It will also be possible to use the vehicle in peer-to-peer carsharing. (Hyundai)
  • In talks with FCA on component sharing with transmissions and fuel cells as areas of particular focus. (Economic Times of India)

PSA (includes Opel/Vauxhall)

  • Said that Russian production of 1T CVs would commence in Q1 2018 and that the vehicles would have 50% local content — an improvement on the c. 35% local sourcing of C4 and 408. (PSA)
  • Reportedly considering trying to reclaim some of the purchase cost of Opel / Vauxhall from GM because of the poor state of the brands’ 2020 emissions compliance plan. A figure of €600 million – €800 million has been mentioned. GM publicly said no claim had yet been made formally and extensive due diligence had taken place. The central issue appears to be GM’s assumptions for mix-forcing into diesel and all-electric vehicles. (Reuters)
  • Warned Opel unions in Spain that the Zaragoza plant may not build the electric version of the Corsa, due sometime after the launch of the next conventionally powered model in 2019, without a competitive agreement. The offer from PSA/Opel is reportedly a (6)% decrease in wages for 2018 and wage freeze in 2019/20, in addition to reductions in break times and shift allowances. (Europa Press)
  • Reportedly having to increase gasoline engine production in China even further due to falling diesel sales in Europe, importing an additional 100,000 engines versus prior estimates of 50,000 units. PSA is apparently routing the imports through the engine plant at Douvrin rather than direct to assembly plants, creating logistical complexity. (Les Echos)
  • Completed the sale of all land at the former Aulnay site. (Journal Auto)
  • Citroën dealers in Germany are reportedly outraged at the company’s proposal to change their incentives from 2018 onwards. The key issue is the company’s desire to link more of the margin to dealer satisfaction surveys. (Autohaus)

Tesla

  • Activated a 100 MW stationary storage battery in Australia than Tesla had promised to build in 100 days or provide for free. The facility was switched on after 60 days and is situated next to a wind farm. (BBC)

Toyota

  • Announced a series of executive moves, including a new CFO and a change to the structure that will decrease the power of central functions and create greater regional control and accountability. (Toyota)
  • Announced that it will build a facility that can generate hydrogen from agricultural waste and then convert it to electricity using fuel cells. The power plant will be online in 2020 and have an output of 2.35 MW. (Toyota)
  • Created a $4 million fund to provide money for mobility solutions aimed at users with lower-limb paralysis. (Toyota)

VW Group

  • Reportedly in discussions to purchase a stake in Russian manufacturer GAZ. (Economic Times of India)
  • In talks with Chinese manufacturer JAC to deepen an existing relationship developing electric cars. The two companies are interested in making commercial vehicles together. (Automotive Manufacturing Solutions)
  • Audi has agreed a new employment guarantee that lasts until 2025 with unions. (Handelsblatt)
  • Audi launched a new facility for dealerships that allows a customer to quickly drop off vehicles for servicing without having to wait around for a receptionist. (Audi)
  • Seat is rolling out a new online ordering system where a buyer can specify a vehicle and then choose a dealership to collect from within 3 weeks. It says that so far the technology has been trialled in Austria with 300 units sold. (Europa Press)
  • Seat told employees that in the event of Catalonian independence it would probably close the Martorell factory because the region would be outside the EU. (Faconauto)

Other

  • Aston Martin have started work on a Formula 1 engine in the expectation of entering the sport in 2021. The company is already a sponsor of the Red Bull team. (BBC)
  • ATS showed off their €1.15 million 2500GT supercar, saying that only 12 would be built. (Auto Moto)
  • Aria launched the FXE hybrid supercar at the LA show. The $1 million vehicle features extensive use of additive manufacturing and should be available for delivery in 2019. The lifetime sales target is 400 units. (Motor Trend)
  • BYTON announced the opening of a North American headquarters, saying it it would have 320 employees there soon. The company is continuing to work on its three model line-up of an SUV, MPV and sedan and will show the SUV at CES in January 2018. (BYTON)

 

News about other companies and trends

 

Economic / Political News

  • US light vehicle sales in November totalled 1.38 million units, SAAR of 17.35 million units. (Wards)
  • Sales of cars in Spain for November reached 104,470 units, an increase of 12.4% on a year-over-year basis (Xinhua)
  • French passenger car sales were 180,012 units in November, an increase of 10.3% on a year earlier. (Xinhua)
  • The UK government expects to boost local sourcing of automotive parts from around 44% of average vehicle content to 50% by 2022. (Autocar)

Suppliers

  • Denso and NEC announced a JV to developed information and communications equipment for connected vehicles. (Press Release)
  • Japanese supplier Toray Hybrid Cord, who make textile products used in tyres and other products, said that it had uncovered incorrect quality testing from 2008 to 2016 at its plants. (Les Echos)
  • Brose is expanding in North America, adding 300 HQ jobs and building a new factory. (Detroit News)
  • ZF’s chairman resigned and the future for the CEO looks bleak after they fell out with labour representatives and major shareholders. (Handelsblatt)
  • ZF will purchase IEE’s sensing division (around 20 people) to improve its autonomous vehicle offering. (Autonomes Fahren)
  • French supplier Maike Automotive is struggling to find a buyer. Court appointed administrators have sent emails to competitors offering the firm and hope to have bids ahead of a 10th January deadline. (Les Echos)
  • Navdy, a start-up offering aftermarket heads-up displays, appears to be going out of business. (TechCrunch)

Ride-Hailing, Car Sharing & Rental

  • Didi Chuxing ended its pilot scheme in the USA and instead is directing users to download Lyft. (Technode)
  • Uber’s Q3 financials showed net losses of $1.46 billion on $9.71 billion of gross bookings and $2.01 billion of net revenue. (Business Insider)
  • Softbank’s offer for existing Uber shares apparently values the company almost a third lower than its last major funding round. (TechCrunch)
  • According to leaked documents, Lyft lost $(206) million on $483 million of revenue in the first half of 2017. (Business Insider)
  • Ola has launched a bicycle sharing service called Ola Pedal. (TechCrunch)
  • BMW launched car sharing in China under the ReachNow brand (same as US) in partnership with Chinese car sharing operator EVCARD. The starting location is Chengdu and will only use all-electric vehicles. (BMW)

Driverless / Autonomy

  • Fisker said it would build an autonomous shuttle called Orbit with backing from Chinese company Hakim Group. Deliveries are targeted to start by the end of 2018. (Boss Magazine)
  • Zoox gave a rare test ride to a reporter — they were impressed with the vehicle, saying it “trumped [all the other AVs they had experienced] in terms of the complexity of situations it could handle”. (Bloomberg)
  • KPMG released a whitepaper saying that new vehicle sales could decrease by half in 2030 in a world of proficient autonomous vehicles. (KPMG)
  • Waymo said that its test fleet has now driven 4 million real-world miles. In the last six months the vehicles covered 1 million miles and the company says that this is accelerating. In the past year Waymo has completed 2.5 billion simulated miles. (Waymo)
  • Continental said its fifth-generation radar would be in production by 2019/ The company claims a range of up to 300m for small objects. Note that Continental view “small” as things like spare wheels, not bricks. (Continental)
  • Optimus Ride will operate autonomous buses in a large US housing development. Testing has already begun, and passenger rides should start in 2018. (Boston Globe)
  • Intel formed a partnership with Warner Bros. to develop immersive experiences in autonomous vehicle cabins, possibly through the use of augmented reality. The companies aim to create a concept vehicle together. (Intel)

Electrification

  • Former BMW designer Chris Bangle unveiled the REDS all-electric city car. The vehicle uses an aluminium spaceframe and incorporates a solar panel to augment battery charging. Chinese truckmaker CHTC will produce the vehicle. The launch date isn’t yet specified, but will be soon. (Autocar)
  • Swedish start-up Uniti will unveil their prototype all-electric city car on 7th The company says that the vehicle can be produced with a fully automated process. The company aims for deliveries to begin in 2017. (Autocar)
  • Lucid announced that it had moved into snazzy new headquarters in California. (Lucid)
  • The German government has proposed to subsidise up to 80% of the additional cost of electric buses to encourage uptake. Critics said that the proposed funding was only sufficient for around 400 vehicles. (Golem)
  • The US Department of Energy published a study of electrical charging infrastructure now and in the future. In addition to creating some studies for future growth it includes some detailed statistics on current operators. (DoE)
  • China will rollout green licence plates nationally, following a trial in three states. The plates are intended to help cities differentiate between electrically and conventionally powered vehicles more easily and owners of vehicles already on the road can apply to swap their plates for the new version. (EV Obsession)
  • According to leaked internal emails, Faraday Future is close to obtaining investment but employees haven’t been turning up for work. (The Verge)
  • Ionity, the charging network JV between BMW, Daimler, Ford and VW, said it had partners for about half the 400 sites it is planning in Europe. Shell will be the partner for 80 stations in 10 countries. (Inside EVs)

Connectivity

  • Denso and NEC announced a JV to developed information and communications equipment for connected vehicles. (Press Release)
  • HERE said it was buying over the air technology developer ATS to improve its capability. (TechCrunch)
  • TomTom has created the Open-LR association with two other partners to create a royalty-free location reference standard. (Telematics News)
  • Hyundai is teaming up with Smartcar to enable new services in connected vehicles. Amongst other things, 3rd party service operators will be able to locate and access the vehicle (with the owner’s permission). It will also be possible to use the vehicle in peer-to-peer carsharing. (Hyundai)
  • White label connected vehicle platform company Mojio said it had raised $23 million in new funding. (Geek Wire)

Other

  • Mapping company Mapbox acquired Fitness AR, in part to use the company’s augmented reality technology for super-imposing various kinds of information onto maps. (TechCrunch)
  • 3D Laser Mapping said it would give free access to selected lidar mapping data collected by vehicles. (3D Laser Mapping)
  • Elf showed off their covered e-tricycle. It can be pedalled or, on battery power alone, it has a 45 mile range and a top speed of 30mph. Given the $7,000 list price, it isn’t clear that this is a convincing alternative to a car. (Futurism)
  • Airbus, Rolls-Royce and Siemens announced a project to test electric engines on a passenger aircraft. The current design still uses a jet-fuel powered generator to create the electricity. (Futurism)
  • Amazon have patented a drone that tries to blow itself to smithereens in the event of a technical failure, rather than crashing into the ground as one big lump. (The Verge)
  • Chinese on-demand logistics providers Yumanman and Houochbang are merging, but will retain separate brand identities. (China Money Network)
  • Zagster showed off their new PACE bike which has an integrated lock that can be used with conventional bike stands rather than bespoke docking stations. The company says this helps cities create bike sharing schemes without having to install expensive infrastructure or suffer dockless bikes strewn about the pavement. (Curbed)

 

Automotive research, Automotive strategy, Automotive trends, Auto industry trends, Automotive market research, Auto industry news

Latest Automotive Industry News Review — 20th November to 26th November 2017

What happened in the automotive industry last week? Please enjoy our digest of industry news for the week of 20th November to 26th November 2017. A PDF version can be found here.

Favourite stories this week…?

  • I Like To Move It, Move It — PSA are going to move production into Opel plants rather than building a new facility in Slovakia as previously planned. PSA are clearly moving fast but once they finish the nice bits (in-sourcing, re-direction of existing capacity expansions), they’ll have to take on the remaining surplus capacity across their European operations.
  • It’s A Small World — After an inspiring but ultimately unsuccessful attempt to bring car ownership to a wider audience in its original guide as the low-cost car, the Tata Nano’s BEV alterego, the Jayem Neo looks set to use 48V rather than a high voltage set-up. If this works well, more people might look at 48V as a plausible route for low-cost electrification of small vehicles.
  • Dare To Be Different — Divergent 3D have raised $65 million, with an option for $40 million more, providing serious firepower to develop more flexible manufacturing techniques (dare to dream of a batch size of one).

 

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SIGN UP FOR THE WEEKLY UPDATED TO BE EMAILED TO YOU HERE

 

News about the major automakers

 

BMW

  • Selling its stake in carbon fibre joint venture SGL Automotive Carbon Fibre to partner SGL (in which BMW is a shareholder). (BMW)
  • Will invest $200 million in a battery cell competence centre, employing 200 people, opening in 2019. (BMW)
  • Published a vision for two-wheeled emission free transport in future cities involving elevated roads reserved for such vehicles. (BMW)
    • Implication: Although much is being made of the threat to cars of autonomy, the impact on motorcycles of emerging technologies is doubly bad: electrification means vehicles must either have very low range or heavy batteries that impair handing; and the safety case for travelling at high speed with only a millimetre of leather for protection may also appear dubious to many. BMW and others will have to work hard to find a way to re-position the motorcycle.
  • Sensing an opportunity in a French regulation that says large companies and towns must provide comprehensive mobility plans; Alphabet, BMW’s wholly-owned leasing company and a select group of partners are offering an out-of-the-box multi-modal package that includes car-sharing, bicycle-sharing and asset financing. (Journal Auto)

Daimler

  • Said that it will launch electric drive in all Mercedes-Benz products. The first product, eVito, launches in 2018 and further products will follow starting in 2019. The eVito will have a range of around 150km and a top speed of up to 120km/h. (Daimler)
  • Has asked employees to submit ideas for new businesses with the aim of identifying 100 million of benefit from the best 15 ideas. It wasn’t clear if this is revenue or profit. (Daimler)

FCA

  • Signed an MoU with fuel company Eni for further collaboration on fuel research. (Journal Auto)

Ford

  • Denied it may exit some or all South American markets following a note to investors from JP Morgan implying knowledge of management plans for an “out-of-the-box transformation plan”. (Detroit News)
  • Despite last week’s announcement of a new product in Valencia, local unions are unhappy with recent proposals from Ford to change holiday patterns and terminate the contracts of over 100 temporary employees. (Europa Press)

Geely (includes Volvo)

  • Volvo signed a non-excusive supply agreement to supply “tens of thousands” of vehicles (the number was quoted as up to 24,000) to Uber between 2019 and 2021 for Uber to install its autonomous driving suite. Volvo said that it wants to be the supplier of choice for robo taxi services. (Volvo)
  • Started production of the XC40 small SUV in Belgium, saying it already has 13,000 orders. Reflecting Tesla’s contribution to automotive culture, the company was keen to emphasise its robot nicknamed “the Beast”. (Volvo)

General Motors

  • GM Korea unions, concerned at the negative impact of Opel’s transformation plan (which will bring work in-house), are pressing the company to guarantee replacement products. (Wards)

Nissan (includes Mitsubishi)

  • Said that it will introduce a new internal combustion technology, variable compression, in the 2019 Infiniti QX50, claiming at least 30% improvement in fuel economy over the prior generation vehicle. (Nissan)

PSA (includes Opel/Vauxhall)

  • Said that it will no longer build a new engine plant in Slovakia and will build engines in an existing Opel plant instead. (Les Echos)
  • Announced the appointment of a new importer for the Opel brand in South Africa. (PSA)
  • Has launched an e-payment platform, administered by its finance arm in partnership with a bank and online payments company, to be used across the range of mobility services PSA will offer. (PSA)
  • Said it had learned from the failure of its Berlin carsharing operation Multicity that in future it must provide more vehicles and suffered from having a 3rd party (in this case DB) run the software platform. (Usine Nouvelle)

Renault

  • Signed a joint venture agreement with Al-Futtaim to manufacture and sell vehicles in Pakistan. Construction will begin on a new plant in Karachi in Q1 2018 and car sales will commence in 2019, with locally built units becoming available in larger quantities from 2020. (Renault)

Suzuki

  • May move production of the Swift and Baleno between plants in India in a bid to maximise output of the Suzuki and Maruti Suzuki footprint in the country. Suzuki is launching 3 plants between now and 2020 and has reportedly already purchased land for an additional three. (Economic Times of India)

Tata (includes JLR)

  • Will reportedly supply glider Nanos to Jayem Automotive, who will add an all-electric powertrain and market the vehicle as the Jayem Neo. Tata NEO. The vehicle is said to be powered by a 48V system. (Autocar)

Toyota

  • Is reportedly seeking to “heighten awareness” of US employees about their need to improve cost competitiveness by creating an internal video that says it is cheaper to import cars from Japan than make them in the US. Presumably the video doesn’t highlight the c.(30)% depreciation of yen to dollar over the past few years. (Bloomberg)
  • Issued a new €600 million green bond which will be used exclusively to finance retail contracts on Toyota and Lexus vehicles that meet certain emissions criteria. (Daimler)

VW Group

  • Union representatives from VW’s Works Council held meetings with investors in London and appeared to indicate a willingness to support an arms-length relationship, and even possibly a spin-off, provided that it was in the best interests of the company and the employees. (Bloomberg)

Other

  • Mahindra & Mahindra’s chairman said that the company was looking to sell electric vehicles in the US but had not yet decided which brand to use from Mahindra, Pininfarina and Ssanyong. The company has just opened a new US factory — dedicated to production of off-highway vehicles for the time being. (Times of India)
  • Mahindra & Mahindra announced that it was collaborating with Uber to put electric vehicles in the hands of Indian drivers. (Mahindra)
  • Aston Martin revealed the new Vantage, saying “most” of the 2018 production is already sold out. (Auto Evolution).
  • Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus unveiled the SCG 004S, a $400,000 all-carbon fibre supercar with a three-abreast seating layout. The company aspires to produce around 250 vehicles each year. Deliveries of the first 25 vehicles are set for 2018. (Car)
  • Devel Motors announced pricing for its V16 12.3 litre supercar. Deliveries of the $1.8 million Sixteen, which has a claimed output of 5,000hp will hopefully start in the next 18 months. The company is also planning an SUV. (GT Spirit)

 

News about other companies and trends

 

Economic / Political News

  • European commercial vehicle sales in October were up 10.7% on a year-over-year basis. (ACEA)
  • The UK government announced more funding for all-electric vehicles and infrastructure development in addition to a reform of laws that will allow more extensive use of autonomous vehicles by 2021. (The Guardian). The industry body was disappointed that government support was aimed at BEVs to the detriment of PHEVs and that negative messages were being sent on diesel’s future. (SMMT)

Suppliers

  • An investment firm is buying a 40% stake in Carglass, control will remain with the existing owners. (Journal Auto)
  • Echoing the scandal surrounding Kobe Steel, Mitsubishi Materials said that the company had shipped material that failed to meet internal quality standards — although the company stressed that the materials are safe. (Seattle Times)
  • Divergent 3D said that it had raised $65 million, with a potential further $40 million available, to fund development of flexible manufacturing processes for automobiles and aircraft. (Press Release)

Dealers

  • Parisian used car peer-to-peer marketplace Kyump raised €2.4 million to fund expansion. The company says that it is already self-sustaining. (Journal Auto)
  • A possible sign of things to come due to weakness in the UK: Marshall Motor Holdings announced the closure of five franchised dealerships (Honda, Nissan, Vauxhall, Citroën and Maserati) and a used vehicle centre. (Motor Trader)

Ride-Hailing, Car Sharing & Rental

  • Uber suffered a data breach in 2016, losing control of data for 57 million drivers and customers. The company, apparently with the knowledge of the then-CEO, paid for the data to be deleted and stayed silent on the matter until the new CEO decided it needed to be transparent. (Uber)
  • Chinese ride-hailing company Shouqi said that it had secured new investment of around $195 million from companies including NIO and Baidu. (Press Release)
  • Sixt intends to expand the MyDriver ride hailing service from its existing 16 US cities, including launching the service in Europe. (Bloomberg)
  • HopSkipDrive, the ride hailing service dedicated to transporting children, said it had raised a further $7.5 million, bringing total funding to over $21.5 million. (TechCrunch)
  • Lyft is looking to raise an additional $500 million. (Axios)
  • Messaging service LINE acquired Indonesian carpooling platform TemanJalan, citing the company’s local language chatbot expertise, rather than business model, as the primary reason for the purchase. (Deal Street Asia)

Driverless / Autonomy

  • Singapore is planning to put driverless buses onto the streets in three locations from 2022. The idea is for the vehicles to operate on-demand during off-peak times. (Straits Times)
  • Volvo signed a non-excusive supply agreement to supply “tens of thousands” of vehicles (the number was quoted as up to 24,000) to Uber between 2019 and 2021 for Uber to install its autonomous driving suite. Volvo said that it wants to be the supplier of choice for robo taxi services. (Volvo)

Electrification

  • Utilising some of the technology contained in their fuel cell trucks, Nikola unveiled the Zero off-road vehicle. It is offered with a range of battery packs, the largest being 125 kWh. (Futurism)
  • Taiwanese start-up Xing Mobility said that it would launch an all-electric supercar named Miss R, with the equivalent of over 1,300 hp and capable of 0-60mph in 1.8 seconds, in 2018. The primary purpose of the vehicle is as a technology demonstrator for the company’s electric drivertrain technology. (Xing Mobility)
  • Mahindra & Mahindra announced that it was collaborating with Uber to put electric vehicles in the hands of Indian drivers. (Mahindra)

Other

  • Chinese bike-sharing firm Mingbike is reportedly close to failure. (Deal Street Asia). Bluegogo and Coolqi appear to be falling into the arms of Biker — it isn’t yet clear what the implications are for existing customers of either firms. (Tech In Asia)
  • Indian bike-sharing start-up Yulu will soon launch in Bangalore. (TechCrunch)
Automotive research, Automotive strategy, Automotive trends, Auto industry trends, Automotive market research, Auto industry news

Latest Automotive Industry News Review — 13th November to 19th November 2017

What happened in the automotive industry last week? Please enjoy our digest of industry news for the week of 13th November to 19th November 2017. A PDF version can be found here.

Favourite stories this week…?

  • I Don’t Wanna Be A Player No More — GM’s presentation at a conference hosted by Barclays made it sound like the company can’t get out of the traditional car business quickly enough, ranking the company alongside Aptiv / Delphi as amongst the most bearish on the outlook for the car market as we know it. The upside of this approach is that you can offload the legacy assets while there is still a market for them… given VW’s strong product announcements in South America over the past fortnight, one can’t help wonder if we’ll soon be hearing more about those markets. They sound increasingly in the wrong part of GM’s Highly Profitable / Forward-Looking Boston matrix.
  • I Want More, More, More — Volkswagen has met the target of 9,200 voluntary redundancies three years early and says that it will keep on going. It sounds as though the unions are happy to participate. Could the company quietly raise its productivity beyond expectations?
  • Greased Lightning — the Roadster reveal was interesting because of its top speed aspiration. Thus far, electric sports cars have come with ever-more impressive 0-60 times but top speeds well below those of ICE-engined GTs (around 155mph vs 200+mph). If the Roadster can deliver on its claims then petrol power is going to start looking like an odd choice rather quickly for highway-focused sports cars (the weight of a 200 kWh pack makes it unlikely that the Roadster will shine in handling tests). There is also a heavy dose of thunder stealing from the forthcoming all-electric sports cars from mainstream brands, in particular the Mission E. Porsche is now going to have to choose between increasing its specifications or patiently explaining to buyers that they haven’t got a second-rate product (price will surely be part of the explanation).

 

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SIGN UP FOR THE WEEKLY UPDATED TO BE EMAILED TO YOU HERE

 

News about the major automakers

 

BMW

  • Pledged that as of 2020, all its global electricity needs will be met from renewable energy, up from 63% today. (BMW)

Daimler

  • Opened a new R&D centre in Tel Aviv, Israel, to work on digital technologies, initially with a staff of 25. (Daimler)
  • Opened a new R&D lab in Seattle that will eventually have 150 employees. (Daimler)

Ford

  • Said it would build the next generation Kuga at its Valencia, Spain plant, investing €750 million in the factory. (Ford)
  • Ended production of C-MAX Energi PHEV and will soon stop HEV as well. (Plug In Cars)
    • Implication: The C-MAX was Ford’s sole hybrid-only nameplate in the US. Its demise (whilst the European model is still in production) indicates the technology is perhaps mature enough to no longer require differentiated bodystyles. Could this have a bearing on the future of the Prius?

Geely (includes Volvo)

  • Bought flying car maker Terrafugia and plans to launch the first product in 2019. (Ars Technica)
  • Released details of Lynk&Co intended product line-up. The brand is working towards three crossovers, an SUV, a sedan and an electric scooter. (Gasgoo)

General Motors

  • CEO Mary Barra said at an investor conference that the next two all-electric vehicles will be Bolt-based crossovers, one of which will be a Buick. The company will then launch an all-new EV platform in 2021 that it expects to reduce costs by over 30% — at which stage the company expects EVs to be profitable. (GM)
  • Said that its sales of new energy vehicles in China by 2019 would be high enough that it could avoid purchasing credits. (Reuters)
  • Issued a recall for fuel leaks in almost 49,000 Sierra and Silverado pick-up trucks. (USA Today)
  • The “Book by Cadillac” monthly leasing scheme is expanding to two additional markets (beyond the New York pilot): Dallas and Los Angeles. (GM)

Honda

  • Issued a recall for about 900,000 minivans (almost all in North America) to fix problems with second row seat latches not engaging correctly. (Reuters)
  • Announced a cooperation with SoftBank to research applications for 5G connectivity in vehicles. (Honda)

Nissan (includes Mitsubishi)

  • Issued its report into the final inspection scandal. Following the incidents, Nissan’s CEO will forego some of his pay. (Nissan)
  • Said that it might need a new factory in the US because existing plants are “maxed out”. (Bloomberg)
  • Installed a solar roof on its Netherlands distribution centre that has been funded in part by selling long-term claims on the electricity produced to local households. (Nissan)

PSA (includes Opel/Vauxhall)

  • Reportedly planning to create work for Opel’s Rüsselsheim engineering centre through a massive cull of engineering agency resource (around 1,200 people) that PSA has traditionally used. (Les Echos)
  • Said that it has 450,000 users of its Free2Move app and that it is developing a secure internet-of-things platform with Huawei. (PSA)

Renault

  • Rated the worst OEM for ethical cobalt purchasing in a report by Amnesty International. Page 78 is the key summary. (Amnesty International)

Suzuki

  • Announced a cooperation with Toyota to sell electric cars in India. The current working assumption (at MoU stage) is that Suzuki will make the vehicles and Toyota will sell a badge-engineered version. (Toyota)

Tata (includes JLR)

  • JLR announced that it had started testing autonomous vehicles on public roads (with safety drivers). (JLR)
  • Was forced to deny that it had taken a stake in Faraday Future. (Green Car Reports)

Tesla

  • Unveiled the Semi truck. Tesla will offer a “Mega Charger” network that adds 400 miles of range in 30 minutes, leading to speculation about the charger’s power output being well in excess of 1,000 MWh. Truck production begins in 2019. Tesla say that they will guarantee a wholesale electricity price of $0.07 per kW and the truck will have cheaper per mile economics than diesel trucks — and even trains if a convoy of autonomous vehicles headed by a single human driver is used. The truck was hailed as having a drag coefficient of 0.36, comparing favourably to a Bugatti Chiron. Tesla were silent on why they didn’t choose the Toyota Prius’s 0.30 cd as the benchmark. (Tesla)
  • At the same event as the truck, Tesla also showed off the next generation Roadster. The 2+2 vehicle has a claimed 0-60mph time of 1.9 seconds and top speed above 250mph “for the base model”, thanks in part to 10,000Nm of torque and power from a 200kWh battery with a claimed 620-mile range. It costs $250,000 to reserve one of the first 1,000 Founders Series models. Production begins in 2020. (Tesla)
    • Implication: The roadster performance figures, if true, will send some electric sports car manufacturers back to the drawing boards. Following the example of Tesla Model S, many had been planning vehicles with quick 0-60 times but top speeds below the 200mph level that is the de-facto standard for luxury grand tourers. Ad Punctum’s volume assessment? Less than 4,000 units per year. If that sounds too harsh then just remember that would be double the volume of competing products from Aston Martin and McLaren. By the way, how much will this thing weigh?
  • Almost lost in the aftermath of the Roadster and Semi-truck reveals, Tesla is now selling mobile phone top-up chargers. At $45 each, it’s probably the cheapest way to tear down a Tesla 18650 cell. (Tesla)

Toyota

  • Announced a cooperation with Suzuki to sell electric cars in India. The current working assumption (at MoU stage) is that Suzuki will make the vehicles and Toyota will sell a badge-engineered version. (Toyota)
  • Recalling around 29,000 C-HR and 40,000 Prius in the US for problems with the parking brake and fuse system respectively. (Toyota)
  • Launched a scheme in partnership with Launch Mobility aimed at ride-hailing drivers to offer used vehicles for short term rentals. (Toyota)
  • A senior executive predicted that internal combustion engines would power only 10% of new vehicles by 2040 and have been phased out of production entirely by 2050. (Autocar)

VW Group

  • Will add a new model in South American markets called the Virtus, a small sedan. Between investments in Argentina and Brazil, the company says it is spending around €2.4 billion on new products that will launch before 2020. (VW)
  • German officials raided the offices of several VW executives. The issue under investigation is reportedly the nature of payments made to works council head Bernd Osterloh. (Der Spiegel)
  • Announced VAG spending targets for the period 2018 to 2022. The company will spend more than 34 billion on new technologies and is aiming for capex and R&D each to be 6.0% of revenue from 2020 onwards — an amount that the company calls “competitive” (they might want to check Carlos Tavares’s opinion). (VW)
  • Will move production of Golf from Zwickau to Wolfsburg and Passat production from Zwickau to Emden. Zwickau will then become a “pure e-mobility facility”, building the ID and other derivative products. (VW)
  • Issued an update on the Future Pact saying that 94% of the 2020 voluntary redundancy target (9,200 positions) had been met. The company will continue to reduce jobs in “working areas which are not viable for the future”. (VW)

Other

  • Aston Martin will make a track-only version of the Valkyrie hypercar called the AMR Pro. Only 25 examples will be produced. (Auto Express)
  • Executives at Great Wall said that the company was intending to launch the Haval and Wey brands in Europe at the beginning of the 2020s. (Autocar)
  • A Subaru executive said that the company’s boxer-engine “can simply not exist in the future”. (Autocar)

 

News about other companies and trends

 

Economic / Political News

  • European passenger car sales of 1.169 million units were 5.9% higher on a year-over-year basis. (ACEA)
  • Daimler and Toyota championed a study by McKinsey saying that hydrogen was indispensable to 2030 energy mix, powering 10 to 15 million cars and 500,000 trucks. (Toyota)

Suppliers

  • Delphi announced it will spin off the powertrain division to 4th December 2017 — earlier than expected. (Delphi)
  • Aptiv (Delphi as will be) gave a presentation about autonomous and connected vehicle technologies. Probably the most interesting slide was number 12. Despite the example of Tesla, Aptiv is not planning to have many over the air updates in service until 2019. (Aptiv)
  • Federal Mogul acquired powertrain engineering company Controlled Power Technologies. (Federal Mogul)
  • Michelin signed an agreement with Hyundai to develop all-weather tyres for EVs. (Yonhap)
  • Battery supplier CATL said that it was planning for an IPO by June 2018 that would raise $2 billion. (Reuters)
  • ClearMotion has purchased Bose’s suspension technology. (Xconomy)
  • Lear said that their CEO would retire at the end of February 2018. (Press Release)
  • GKN said that their CEO-designate would leave the company with immediate effect and appointed an interim-CEO instead. (The Guardian)

Ride-Hailing, Car Sharing & Rental

  • Lyft bought streaming start-up Kamcord to hire its engineering staff. (Kamcord)
  • Lyft saw some of its financial details published (after a leak), including medium-term growth targets. (Bloomberg)
  • Lyft has chosen Canada Toronto for its first international location. (Lyft)
  • Softbank completed its much-anticipated investment in Uber. (TechCrunch)
  • It looks like Uber is safe in London for a while yet. The mayor said that the appeals process could “go on for a number of years”. (BBC)
  • Media reports questioned the popularity of Autolib, the car sharing scheme in Paris run by Bolloré, saying that subscribers have fallen 5% since the start of the year and only 17 new vehicles have been registered to the scheme this year, compared to 941 last year. (Journal Auto)
  • French carpooling start-up LESS said that it had raised €16 million. (Journal Auto)
  • Toyota Financial Services launched a scheme in partnership with Launch Mobility aimed at ride-hailing drivers to offer used vehicles for short term rentals. (Toyota)

Driverless / Autonomy

  • Renovo announced that it would work with Velodyne and use the latter’s lidar as the reference sensor for the bolt-on driverless vehicle solution it is developing. (Press Release)
  • Israeli vision company Newsight Imaging and Chinese laser maker LeiShen Intelligent will partner to create solid-state lidar for automotive application. (Press Release)

Electrification

  • WiTricity and Texas Instruments will collaborate on wireless charging products with improved vehicle to infrastructure communication. WiTricity says that microcontrollers supplied by Texas Instruments will be able to overcome some of the practical problems of first generation wireless charging such as misalignment and inefficient transfer rates. (WiTricity)
  • Fisker announced that it was applying for patents on breakthrough solid state battery technology that it believes can be commercialised by 2023. Fisker says that the new battery could charge in one minute. (Green Car Congress)
  • eMotorWerks has created a partnership with ca to make a sell an electric vehicle charging platform aimed at the Canadian market. (Press Release)
  • A report by Amnesty International into ethical sourcing of cobalt in batteries ranked Renault lowest of a (non-exhaustive) group of automotive OEMs. BMW and Tesla were joint first, but still only merited half marks. Page 78 is the key summary. (Amnesty International)
  • Toyota and Suzuki announced a cooperation to sell electric cars in India. The current working assumption (at MoU stage) is that Suzuki will make the vehicles and Toyota will sell a badge-engineered version. (Toyota)
  • GM CEO Mary Barra said at an investor conference that the next two all-electric vehicles will be Bolt-based crossovers, one of which will be a Buick. The company will then launch an all-new EV platform in 2021 that it expects to reduce costs by over 30% — at which stage the company expects EVs to be profitable. (GM)

Connectivity

  • Honda announced a cooperation with SoftBank to research applications for 5G connectivity in vehicles. (Honda)
  • Huawei have won the contract to supply connected vehicle hardware and software to PSA ahead of several more established names. (Les Echos)

Other

  • Bluegogo, operator of around 700,000 bicycles seems to be shutting down operations. (TechCrunch)
  • Varhana, Airbus’s in-house flying car effort, said it was intending to carry out its first test flight this year. (The Verge)
  • Geely bought flying car maker Terrafugia and plans to launch the first product in 2019. (Ars Technica)

 

 

Automotive research, Automotive strategy, Automotive trends, Auto industry trends, Automotive market research, Auto industry news

Latest Automotive Industry News Review — 6th November to 12th November 2017

What happened in the automotive industry last week? Please enjoy our digest of industry news for the week of 6th November to 12th November 2017. A PDF version can be found here.

Favourite stories this week…?

  • If You Change Your Mind — Audi is experimenting with making diesel fuel from renewable energy sources. Will they succeed in turning common wisdom about environmental responsibility on its head or is it a last throw of the dice for the diesel cycle?
  • Open Your Mind — Shock, horror… OPEC made the headlines this week by acknowledging a scenario in which electric vehicle demand could result in demand for oil plateauing (admittedly not the most probable outcome in their eyes). Thus far, the oil industry have viewed the impact of electrification as negligible, even in the long term. Could this be a turning point? And if so, what will they do?
  • Stop Telephonin’ Me — Deutsche Telekom have realised that the same infrastructure used to run telephone exchanges sets it up rather nicely to provide electric vehicle charging. It has surprised me for a while that telecoms and other companies haven’t recognised charging as an adjacency. Perhaps that will now change.
  • Look Where You’re Going — Autonomous vehicle safety has been in the spotlight again with someone crashing into a Navya vehicle in Las Vegas and Waymo announcing that they will release driverless vehicles into the wild (or make it appear that way). I have something of my own to contribute: Autonomous vehicles will drive below the speed limit because their sensor set doesn’t enable them to see far enough into the distance to brake safely if they go any faster. You can see why here.

 

Find our archive here.

SIGN UP FOR THE WEEKLY UPDATED TO BE EMAILED TO YOU HERE

 

Our latest research

 

How fast can autonomous vehicles travel safely? With current state of the art technology, autonomous vehicles are likely to have maximum speeds below those human drivers are held to. The reason is simply the range limitations of the sensor set (in the medium term) and a higher standard of safety than humans apply to themselves. The flip side is that this could reduce the cost, weight and environmental impact of the vehicles.

 

News about the major automakers

 

BMW

  • Reported financial results for Q3 2017. Automotive revenue of €21.04 billion was down (2.4)% on a year-over-year basis, despite a 1.2% increase in volume to 590,415 vehicles sold. Group PBT of €2.4billion was down (5.9)% YoY. (BMW)
  • Despite Q3 earnings being lower than the prior year, BMW said it was in good shape on a year to date basis and increased its forecast for full year results. (BMW)

Daimler

  • Daimler said it was acquiring CINTEO, a German digital services company with around 100 employees, to accelerate digitisation of its marketing, sales and media functions. (Business Review Europe)
  • Daimler’s car sharing service Car2Go published a white paper covering essential conditions for successful fleet operation of autonomous vehicles. (Car2Go)
  • Is working on a pilot project to use automotive fuel cells for stationary power generation. (Daimler)

Ford

  • Signed a $765 million deal with Zotye to produce electric cars in China under a new brand. The two companies had previously signed an MoU. (Ford)

Geely (includes Volvo)

  • Proton suppliers have reportedly been told to cut prices by 20%. Several are saying that they cannot compete with prices from Geely’s Chinese suppliers that they are now in competition with. (Free Malaysia Today)
  • The CEO of Lotus said that the company has a ten-year plan for new products and electrification, to be unveiled next year. Lotus will stay at its current sales level of around 1,500 cars per year for the next “two to three” years and then sales will rise. (Top Gear)
  • Geely Automobile Holdings will acquire several automotive components plants from its parent. (The Standard)

General Motors

  • Will host an investor event on November 30th to “share our vision for an autonomous future”. (GM)
  • A review of the Super Cruise system being fitted to Cadillacs found that the vehicle’s facial recognition (intended to ensure that the driver is concentrating on the road) cannot recognise some beverage type and still has problems in difficult lighting conditions. (Detroit Free Press)

Honda

  • Will expand the Honda Xceletrator program to work with start-ups in more locations. (Autocar)
  • Said that it would be unable to afford a 10% tariff on UK-built cars if post-Brexit trading conditions used WTO tariffs. (Reuters)

Nissan (includes Mitsubishi)

  • Reported Q3 2017 / 1H fiscal year financial results. Although revenues were up, profits were down, in part due to market mix. Nissan reduced full year profit outlook, partly due to the final inspection issues in Japan. (Nissan)
  • Mitsubishi reported Q3 2017 / 1H fiscal year results. Revenue was up 9.6% on a year-over-year basis and the business has a YTD operating margin of 4.7%, up from a negative (3.7)% margin the previous year. (Mitsubishi)
  • Carlos Ghosn said in an interview that car ownership would continue and the growth of ride-hailing did not affect negatively affect sales volumes “a lot of people think this is substitution, it’s not — it’s addition”. (Bloomberg)

PSA (includes Opel/Vauxhall)

  • Released details of its turnaround strategy for Opel and Vauxhall, named PACE! (as in speed, not an olive branch to anxious unions). The plan relies on cost cuts in external material purchasing, manufacturing and engineering; improved brand position and revenue; and an expansion of products and markets — particularly LCV where Opel / Vauxhall aim to increase sales by 25% by 2020. Although PSA was keen to stress that there was no need for job cuts (recent Ellesmere Port announcements notwithstanding), it isn’t clear how financial targets will be achieved without them, especially since there is an explicit target of lowering the breakeven point from an unknown level today to 800,000 units per annum. (PSA)
  • Finalised a joint venture to manufacture cars in Algeria with three local partners. Operations will start in 2018 and reach full production in 2019. (PSA)
  • Has recently increased the price of the all-electric Opel Ampera-e (Chevrolet Bolt) by $5,000 in some European markets, blaming GM for the price hike. (Electrek)
  • Opel’s integration into PSA has begun in earnest, with the Opel France sales team moving into shared premises with the other PSA brands. (Journal Auto)

Renault

  • Renault declared that its autonomous vehicles have industry-leading obstacle avoidance capabilities. This claim is solely in relation to the way the vehicle executes emergency manoeuvres, not how well it detects obstacles. (Renault)

Suzuki

  • Would like to cooperate on electric vehicles and batteries with other companies and is open to joining the Toyota-Mazda-Denso electric joint venture. (Reuters)

Tata (includes JLR)

  • Reported Q3 2017 / Q2 fiscal year financial results. Revenue and profits increased on a year-over-year basis but the Tata Motors brand is still lossmaking. (Tata)

Tesla

  • Bought automation supplier Perbix to help it improve manufacturing efficiency. (Bloomberg)
  • Had reportedly only assembled 440 Model 3 to the end of October. (Electrek)

Toyota

  • Reported Financial results for Q3 2017 / Q2 fiscal year. Sales of 2,174,324 were down (0.8%) on a year-over-year basis, although revenue of 7.14 trillion yen (about $64.4 billion) was up 10.2% YoY. Operating income of 522 billion yen / $4.0 billion was up 10.0% YoY. (Toyota)
  • Now offers behaviour and usage based insurance in Japan using telematics data received from the car. (Toyota)

VW Group

  • Seat and Telefonica will collaborate on the application of 5G in connected cars and are working on pilot projects to use blockchain in Seat’s operations. (Telecom paper)
  • Lamborghini unveiled a concept for an all-electric supercar and said that it was working on super capacitors to overcome weight problems with batteries. (Autocar)
  • Audi is working with two partners on a trial to produce diesel using hydropower. The result is being branded as an “e-fuel” with a view to convincing consumers that it is an environmentally friendly alternative to electric vehicles. (Autocar)
  • Said that VW’s IT department will collaborate with Google to apply quantum computing in the company’s processes, with a view to reducing calculation times. (VW)
  • Will produce a new SUV at its Pacheco, Argentina plant starting in 2020. The €560 million investment is forecast to create 2,500 jobs. (VW)
  • VW’s CEO mused that making an all-electric vehicle would allow a product that was close to the philosophical routes of the original. (Autocar)

Other

  • Brazilian company Grupo Caoa has purchased 50% of Chery’s operations in Brazil as part of an expansion plan for the Chinese brand. The company is Hyundai’s local partner in Brazil. (Economic Times of India)
  • James Dyson said that his company had not yet chosen a production location for its new electric car. (City AM)
  • Hennessey unveiled the Venom F5, a supercar that the company says will have a top speed greater than 300mph. The engine has a claimed power output of 1,600 hp. (New Atlas) The car will have to beat the benchmark set by the Koenigsegg Agera RS which recently claimed to have set a new record of 277.9 mph (Autocar)
  • Subaru released Q3 2017 / 1H fiscal year financial results. Although sales increased, Subaru reduced their full year forecast for both sales and profit, citing weaker than expected growth and adverse exchange. (Subaru)
  • OSVehicle unveiled their modular self-driving electric car called EDIT. (Medium)
  • British sports car maker Westfield said it won’t abandon its roots just because its autonomous pod business is growing. The company plans to release a new mid-engined car in 2018 called the GTM. Hybrid and fully electric versions are on the cards. (Autocar)

 

News about other companies and trends

 

Economic / Political News

  • The EU released its proposal for 2025 and 2030 vehicle emissions. 2025 emissions targets are 15% below 2021 fleet average levels and 2030 targets are 30% below 2021. (EU)
    • Implication: At face value, this is a bit harder than the vehicle industry wanted, since ACEA’s earlier paper had proposed no new target for 2025. ACEA’s response called the proposal “challenging” (ACEA). In the detail of the proposals however is a bit of a softening of the blow. Although the EU wants to measure vehicle emissions by the WLTP standard from 2021 onwards, it will rebase the 95 g/km CO2 measured on NEDC basis — hence why the proposals are expressed in percentages rather than absolutes. If the targets had simply continued from 95g, including the move to the new test, then the gradient would have been steeper.
  • UK car sales in October were 158,192 units, down (12.2)% on a year-over-year basis. Diesel sales were down by (30)%. The trade body urged the government to “restore confidence in new cleaner diesels”, saying that there was “confusion over government policy”. (SMMT) Light commercial vehicle registrations fell (7.4)% YoY to 24,968 units. (SMMT)
  • The US EPA appeared set to relax rules that would have banned putting remanufactured engines in new build trucks. The older engines tend to pollute more heavily but reduce the vehicle cost (partly because they use cheaper technologies that pollute more heavily!). (Economic Times of India)
  • Paris is expected to confirm in its new climate plan that it will ban diesel cars by 2024 and petrol by 2030. (Journal Auto)
  • Opec issued a new forecast for oil demand to 2040. Although the group’s most likely scenario sees demand continuing to rise through the period, in the faster EV growth scenario, demand plateaus after 2034. (Bloomberg)
  • South Korea’s environment ministry has threatened BMW, Mercedes and Porsche with a combined €55 million of fines because it says that they have violated emissions test procedures. (Der Spiegel)

Suppliers

  • Continental and Osram will create a 50:50 joint venture for automotive lighting. Both companies will contribute existing business units to the new enterprise. (Continental)
  • International Automotive Components has started production at its new Opole, Poland plant dedicated to tailored interiors. (Economic Times of India)
  • Plastic Omnium announced it had participated in a $240 million fund run by VC company Aster. (Press Release)
  • 3D Systems said that it had won a 3 year contract from BMW to produce prototype parts on-demand. (3D Systems)
  • Magna announced financial results for Q3 2017. Revenue of $9.5 billion was up 7% on a year-over-year basis but income from operations of $670 million was slightly down on the prior year. (Magna)
  • Continental reported Q3 2017 financial results. Revenue in the first nine months was €32.7 billion and adjusted EBIT margin was 10.6%. (Continental)
  • Bridgestone reported financial results for Q3 2017. In the first nine months, sales increase 8.9% versus a year earlier but operating income was down (9.0)%. (Bridgestone)

Dealers

  • UK online used car start-up Hellocar ceased operations saying that its model had proved difficult to scale. (TechCrunch)
  • UK dealer group Lookers said that although new car sales were weak, profit per unit was holding up well and used cars were “buoyant”. The company believes that there are “significant consolidation opportunities”. (Automotive Manager)

Ride-Hailing, Car Sharing & Rental

  • Uber said that it will trial flying taxis in Los Angeles from 2020 (Dubai was already on the cards) and sees “heavy use” of Uber Air by 2028. It is collaborating with NASA to develop the necessary control systems. (Business Insider)
  • Hertz’s CEO said the company does not view ride hailing as “the enemy” and that it is a likely area of growth, suggesting that it may be a way for vehicles to be retained for longer periods. (Bloomberg)
  • Daimler’s Car2Go said that Madrid was one of its top 3 busiest cities globally, with 180,000 users sharing the 500 vehicles it has in the city. (Europa Press)
  • Uber has created a new service option called “Express Pool” to reduce fares. Rather than being collected and dropped off at the exact spot they want, passengers begin and end their journeys at nearby “smart spots” which are easy for the cars to reach. (TechCrunch)
    • Implication: with this service, Uber is getting close to how a dynamic bus might look-and-feel.

Driverless / Autonomy

  • Waymo said that it had begun trials of self-driving vehicles on public roads without safety drivers. Subject to further tests, the company plans to offer rides to members of the public within a few months. (Waymo)
    • Implication: Waymo have yet to explain how they intend to supervise the vehicles and what actions they would take in the event of the vehicle find its route is blocked or otherwise undrivable. Likely the company is planning to either “shadow” the cars, enabling fast reaction to incidents or to manage them from a remote command station where operators can drive via video. The former seems more likely.
  • Navya launched a self-driving bus service in Las Vegas, the assembled media were more captivated by the truck that crashed into the demonstration vehicle within minutes of the service starting. (The Verge)
    • Implication: The more stories that appear in the media about self-driving vehicle crashes where the other driver is to blame, the better from our point of view. Although at first they appear wrong-headed, if they build up a picture in the minds of everyday consumers that self-driving vehicle crashes are (a) normally minor shunts and (b) caused by bone-headed humans, people will be less wary of using the technology.
  • Velodyne launched the VLS-128, a 128-line lidar sensor with a range of nearly 250m. Pricing is still near-prohibitive for production applications. (Press Release)
  • Embark has begun testing driverless trucks on a 650 mile stretch of highway in the USA. (Wired)
    • Implication: Although the company talks about “end to end” driving, the test does not perform the start and end legs of the delivery, leaving the trick navigation of small roads and distribution centres to human drivers. Instead, it shows how driverless vehicles, in concert with human-driven ones can fractionally reduce the human cost of transportation, saving money and getting to market more quickly than relying on a complete solution.
  • Apple has acquired InVisage, an imaging sensor company that has short-range lidar amongst its product range. (Electronics Weekly)
  • A review of GM’s Super Cruise system being fitted to Cadillacs found that the vehicle’s facial recognition (intended to ensure that the driver is concentrating on the road) cannot recognise some beverage type and still has problems in difficult lighting conditions. (Detroit Free Press)
  • The RAND Corporation issued a study saying that autonomous vehicles should be deployed quickly, once their standard of driving was beyond that of the average driver, arguing that cumulative lives saved by implementing early outweighed the benefits of waiting until vehicles were substantively safer than humans (and avoiding retrospective moral quandaries about how a vehicle should have perhaps acted in a situation that caused a fatality. (RAND)
  • A recent trial of commercially available L1/L2 vehicles by Danish authorities found significant deterioration in sensor performance in wet roads, with only one vehicle on test demonstrating the same obstacle detection ability in both wet and dry conditions. (Autonomes Fahren)

Electrification

  • Chinese EV start-up NIO has reportedly raised $1 billion from investors including Tencent, giving the firm a $5 billion valuation. (Reuters)
  • EON and Clever are planning to build a 180 station charging network between Norway and Italy with a maximum highway distance of 180km between stations. (Bloomberg)
  • Continental’s CEO said that the company was interested in making battery cells, but with solid state rather than lithium ion chemistry. He said that the company would prefer to do this in partnership with others. (Reuters)
  • Faraday Future has recently suffered from several executive departures, including the CFO (with whom the company is now engaged in a war of words / lawsuits) and CTO. (Digital Trends)
  • LeEco founder Jia Yueting said he plans to sell his stake in Lucid Motors, indicating he will focus on Faraday Future. (Global Times)
  • Researchers in the Netherlands showed off a Tesla Model S that they have converted to use a hydrogen fuel cell as a secondary power source. (Futurism)
    • Implication: The early-2000s saw a flood of aftermarket natural gas conversions for European petrol cars. Could aftermarket fuel cells be a significant trend in future (this particular vehicle cost over $500,000, so a bit of work left to do).
  • Lamborghini unveiled a concept for an all-electric supercar and said that it was working on super capacitors to overcome weight problems with batteries. They appear to have thought of everything except how the car will go over speed bumps. (Autocar)
  • OSVehicle unveiled their modular self-driving electric car called EDIT. (Medium)
  • Baidu is reportedly leading a new round of investment in Chinese electric car maker WMMotor. Tencent may also be involved in the funding. (China Money Network)
  • Deutsche Telekom is looking to integrate electric car charging into local telephone exchanges in Germany. The company has over 330,000 locations in the country and has earmarked 12,000 for potential conversion to charging stations. (Golem)
  • US company Workhorse have unveiled their next range-extended product: the N-Gen van. The vehicle has an electric only range of around 100 miles and has a novel optional extra: a drone that docks on the roof to increase the number of delivery drops the vehicle can make. Patent attorneys at Daimler and Amazon: pay close attention… (Green Car Reports)

Connectivity

  • Seat and Telefonica will collaborate on the application of 5G in connected cars and are working on pilot projects to use blockchain in Seat’s operations. (Telecom paper)
  • Ola and Microsoft have formed a partnership to develop connected vehicle services. The aim is to offer car manufacturers a platform that combines diagnostics, condition monitoring and navigation. (Reuters)
  • Tata Elxsi and Blackberry announced a partnership to create secure communications applications. Blackberry will provide the QNX platform and Tata Elxsi will undertake integration and customisation. (Press Release)
  • Toyota now offers behaviour and usage based insurance in Japan using telematics data received from the car. (Toyota)
  • Fujitsu and Here formed a partnership to provide combined location and analytics solutions, initially aimed at Japanese carmakers. (Fujitsu)
  • LexisNexis said that it had created a telematics exchange that would allow insurers and OEMs to share data and give a consistent view of risk and driver scoring, regardless of vehicle type. (LexisNexis)

Other

  • Bicycle sharing service Mobike’s cofounder said that the company was investigating ways to provide transport solutions beyond the “one to five kilometres” of range people normally cover on bikes. He said that in the next three months the company would offering services in the Chinese market aimed at between 3km and 25km trips. (Wired)
  • Deliveroo said that it would offer its Deliveroo Plus food delivery service (a flat monthly rate for all delivery costs akin to Amazon Prime) for £7.99 per month across the UK. Deliveroo’s claimed savings for users in a trial scheme imply that subscribers use the service around 12 times each month. (Business Insider)
  • Mahindra’s GenZe division unveiled its latest e-bike, retailing at $1,899. The battery has a 30-50 mile range. (Press Release)