+++ BENTLEY is one of the most prominent and most revered names in the automotive industry. It is one of the most favored British classics with unparalleled abilities performance-wise and of course, in terms of customer service. Recently, Bentley has been stepping up the latter by offering the new Bentley On-Demand service. It is a new and innovative luxury connected-mobility service that is designed to provide ‘luxury mobility solution’ to their customers in any location of their choice without having to go through the inconvenience of traditional car rental services. What does this new Bentley On-Demand service offer? Well, as its name suggests: members may request for a Bentley to be delivered at a time and place of their choice. It’s like a rent-a-car program that exclusively caters to Bentley owners. So, for days when the good old Mulsanne doesn’t feel posh enough to get you through your errands, the Bentley On-Demand service is the way to go. How do existing Bentley owners access or avail of this concierge service? First step is to download the Bentley Network app, and then owners are asked to validate their account. Once the app is downloaded and the account validated, the users may then browse through an extensive range of luxury Bentley models available and reserve their choice and specify a convenient location for the delivery. An hour before delivery, a “courteous reminder” of the said reservation is sent to the customer and prior to the arrival of the vehicle, the customer is once again notified prior to the arrival of the vehicle to inform them of the concierge’s (and the car’s) arrival. These steps ensure that there will be minimal disruption on the part of the customer. Upon delivery, the same concierge who took the reservation will explain and demonstrate to the customer the car’s features. At the end of the reservation, the concierge will meet the customer at his/her preferred location to pick up the car. That’s a pretty neat customer service right there, don’t you think? However, I am assuming that similar to most rent-a-car services, the Bentley On-Demand is valid only for round-trip and not for one-way trips. People who frequent car rental services would be familiar with the pains of long queues at rental kiosks especially at major metropolitan airports and some rental agencies may use this as an opportunity to offer ‘upgrade programs’ to customers who want to bypass these long queues, and of course for a fee. The Bentley On-Demand is no different to these regular car rental service agencies except that it offers luxury Bentley vehicles and of course, it comes with door-to-door service and exclusivity. In terms of costs, Bentley has not released any information yet, but we’re expecting that the Bentley On-Demand service would likely cost more than the typical gold-to-platinum rental membership upgrade. Well, what do you expect when you want exclusivity and luxury? As of the moment, there is a limited choice of Bentley vehicles. The Bentley On-Demand program will be available only through the summer and in only three cities in the United States: New York, Los Angeles, and Dallas. +++
+++ The chicken or the egg? Forget that. What about the government subsidy or the ELECTRIC car? Renault-Nissan Alliance chairman and CEO, Carlos Ghosn, told media this week that in order for electric vehicles to be in the minds of consumers there needs to be government support in the form of subsidies. Without subsidies, Ghosn warned, there is little to no demand from private consumers. “Electric car sales are not driven by consumer demand. Consumer demand is very limited for electric cars. Sales are driven by emissions regulations, and by mainly state and company incentives, which is pushing the consumer to buy these types of cars”, Ghosn said. “It is very difficult to make the electric car an attractive buy without government subsidies for the consumer”, he said. “So how can you support electric cars if it depends on government subsidies? We need not for an infinite period of time: just to make sure that you jump-start the sales. When you jump-start the sales, and you get the scale you need, then you can be on your own. That’s why the electric cars are mainly thriving in countries where the government is supporting the consumer: China, being the number one, the United States being the second one. In the United States you have not only federal support but you have state support, which is different from one state to the other. And we can see that the sales of electric cars is higher in states with more support”. Ghosn suggested that while battery tech is not at the point to offer budget car buyers an electric solution just yet, that the process of making them is simpler, requiring fewer moving parts and, therefore, greater potential for profit. “Electric cars, by definition, are simpler to assemble: there is nothing expensive in the technology of electric cars: they can be extremely competitive. But as long as electric cars represent less than half a per cent of the total industry, it’s very difficult for them to compete against 99.5 per cent of the industry, which are internal-combustion engines. The subsidies are important to jump-start the technology”, he said. +++
+++ Tesla and GENERAL MOTORS face potential proxy battles at their annual shareholder meetings this week amid very different trajectories for their share price and investor expectations. Tesla, which this year surpassed GM to become the No. 1 U.S. car maker by market capitalization, faces challenges related to its board of directors. Meanwhile, GM is under pressure from David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital to split the stock into 2 classes to create what Greenlight says would be “tens of billions of dollars” in shareholder value. GM has rebuffed Greelight’s idea, saying the fund’s proposal would be tantamount to a “high-risk financial engineering experiment”, one that would reduce the company’s flexibility and undermine progress without benefits for the shareholders. 2 influential shareholder proxy services, Institutional Shareholders Services and Glass Lewis & Co., have sided with GM in that regard. +++
+++ The Volkswagen Group’s diesel scandal is finally starting to settle in the United States but in Europe things are flaring up again. This time it’s the Audi and PORSCHE brands in the crossfire. Germany’s Wirtschaftswoche reported on Friday that Porsche is being investigated by Germany’s official transport authority, the KBA, for using defeat device software to hide emissions from regulators. The defeat device was said to rely on measuring steering wheel movements to determine whether a vehicle was on a laboratory testbed. Porsche denied it was using any such device in an email sent to Reuters. The report follows a statement made by the KBA that some Audi A7 and A8 diesel models sold in Europe feature a defeat device that relies on detecting steering wheel movements. The vehicles in question emit excess nitrogen oxides when the steering wheel is turned more than 15 degrees, the ministry said. Audi has since issued a recall of approximately 24,000 A7 and A8 models. The automaker said the cars, which date from the 2010 through 2013 model years, are emitting NOx that exceed the permissible limit by a factor of up to two. According to Audi, in some situations, engine revs is unfavorably influenced by the transmission software, which can have a negative impact on the engine’s emissions. The automaker says all that’s needed is a software fix that can be applied in 30 minutes. In the U.S., the VW Group has already agreed to pay more than $20 billion in penalties and settlements and pleaded guilty to three felony charges over the diesel scandal. Six of the automaker’s executives also face criminal charges in the U.S. relating to the scandal. +++
+++ The global head of the RENAULT – Nissan Alliance says autonomous cars will be commonplace in just 5 years, giving drivers more time to handle other tasks at the wheel. Carlos Ghosn spoke with reporters this week, saying cars with advanced self-driving features will have a “huge advantage” over rival models. “By 2022 most of the cars are going to have some kind of autonomy and some kind of connectivity”, he says. “We’re going to go much further, we’re going to have big screens, video conferencing; a much bigger level. In the next 5 years most of the cars which will be on the street will have some capacity for autonomy”. The Renault Nissan Alliance, which includes other manufacturers such as Mitsubishi, Alpine and Infiniti, has been testing self-driving tech in Infiniti luxury models that will take on the likes of Tesla as well as the prestige German trio of Audi, BMW and Mercedes. Ghosn tested a prototype autonomous Infiniti Q50 in January, reporting that “once you’ve experienced a car that drives itself, you will feel like you have stepped into the future”. The executive says vehicles with self-driving capabilities will be “indispensable” as motorists win back time lost to traffic jams. “This is going to change the way people see cars: the car is becoming a mobile space where you can relax, teleconference, watch movies… compared to today where it is a transportation device”, he says. “It’s a productivity gain, it’s a comfort gain. It’s a lot of quality of life you are adding to the consumer”. +++
+++ Apple has unveiled an “important step in safety” for cars, introducing a new “Do Not Disturb While Driving” feature for the SMARTPHONE that should reduce distraction behind the wheel. The tech firm released a host of upcoming updates and devices. The first change involves updates to Apple Maps, which will soon offer speed limit information for every road, as well as lane guidance information during navigation. Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, says the brand wanted to reduce distraction behind the wheel for people who do not have Apple CarPlay fitted in new cars, cutting down on the temptation to reply to alerts or messages that arrive as you drive. The new feature builds on Apple’s Do Not Disturb feature, which is already used to prevent texts, calls, Facebook notifications and other messages from bothering owners while they are sleeping. “We’re building on ‘do not disturb’ with a feature called ‘do not disturb while driving’, and it’s all about keeping your eyes on the road”, Federighi says. “When you’re driving you don’t need to be responding to these kinds of messages, in fact you don’t need to see them. So now when you install iOS11 we’re going to use Bluetooth to understand if you’re connected to a car; even if you don’t have Bluetooth we’re doing to use WiFi doppler effect to measure that you’re moving in a car and when you finish that first drive we’re going to suggest ‘hey, how about we activate do not disturb while driving”. The feature is part of iOS 11, the operating system set to be standard in the next-generation iPhone 8 tipped to go on sale in September 2017. It will then be rolled out to older devices as a downloadable update. Drivers have to opt-in to Do Not Disturb, which won’t automatically lock people out of their phone. People who are tempted to unlock their phone in a moving car will receive a message saying “you will not receive notifications while driving”, and those who text a driver will get an automatic reply saying “I’m driving with Do Not Disturb turned on. I’ll see your message when I get where I’m going”. Apple says you can disable the new function by telling the phone you are the passenger, a loophole determined drivers could use to text while behind the wheel. Federighi says the new operating system “is going to be a real important step in safety in the car”. The development is likely to be welcomed by police in Australia, who are fighting to stop people from using their phone behind the wheel. +++
+++ TESLA owners carrying policies through AAA aren’t going to like this news: rates are going up. AAA determined the Tesla Model S and Model X are both affected by abnormally high claim rates. In turn, AAA could raise rates up to 30 percent. Tesla has disputed the analysis by AAA and said the data is flawed. “This analysis is severely flawed and is not reflective of reality”, Tesla said. “Among other things, it compares Model S and X to cars that are not remotely peers, including even a Volvo station wagon”. AAA compared its data to the Highway Loss Data Institute which also showed frequent and expensive claims for the Model S and Model X. AAA believes the rate hikes are warranted since every vehicle’s premium is partially determined by similar sets of data. “Looking at a much broader set of countrywide data, we saw the same patterns observed in our own data, and that gave us the confidence to change rates”, Anthony Ptasznik, chief actuary of AAA, said. AAA found the Model S is involved in 46 percent more claims than average. The claims also cost twice the average to fix. The Model X is involved in 46 percent more claims than average and the all-electric crossover costs 89 percent more to fix than the average claim. Those fancy doors probably aren’t helping the situation. Tesla argues the HLDI data does not house the Model S and Model X in appropriate categories, therefore, the models are being compared unfairly. The automaker said if both models were compared to their respected rivals, the crash data wouldn’t be quite so extreme. Furthermore, the Tesla Model S has been called a vehicle with the lowest likelihood of injury, per the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Other insurance companies have not commented on the matter and did not say if insurance rates would rise in accordance with AAA’s findings. +++