+++ After years toiling away in secret on a car project, APPLE Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook has for the first time elaborated on the company’s plans in the automotive market. “We’re focusing on autonomous systems”, Cook said in a June 5 interview on Bloomberg Television that amounted to his most detailed comments yet on Apple’s automotive plans. “It’s a core technology that we view as very important”. He likened the effort to “the mother of all AI (Artificial Intelligende) projects”, saying it’s “probably one of the most difficult AI projects to work on”. The prospect of self-driving cars has seen a slew of technology companies push into the auto industry, according to McKinsey & Co. Alphabet’s Waymo unit has signed partnerships with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Lyft to develop the technology. And carmakers from BMW to General Motors have opened sizable Silicon Valley offices and dedicated hundreds of millions of dollars to acquire autonomous vehicle startups. Apple had initially been seeking to build its own car, before recalibrating those ambitions last year to prioritize the underlying technology for autonomous driving, Bloomberg News reported. The iPhone maker had hired more than 1,000 engineers to work on Project Titan, as the car team is known internally, after it started in 2014. Ballooning costs and headcount led to Apple veteran Bob Mansfield being given the reins of the team in 2016. Cook has never before openly outlined Apple’s plans, though public filings have surfaced in recent months that provided snapshots of Apple’s efforts. The iPhone maker secured a permit from the California Department of Motor Vehicles in April to test 3 self-driving sports-utility vehicles, photos of which emerged several weeks later. A half-dozen vehicles had been surreptitiously testing the autonomous technology on public roads in and around the San Francisco Bay area for at least a year, according to someone familiar with Project Titan. Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr declined to comment on how long the company has been conducting road tests. In December, Steve Kenner, Apple’s director of product integrity, penned a letter to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration revealing the company’s interest in automotive technology. It became public when it was published on a federal website. In the letter, Kenner wrote about the company’s excitement surrounding the potential for automated systems in fields like transportation. “There is a major disruption looming there”, Cook said on Bloomberg Television, citing self-driving technology, electric vehicles and ride-hailing. “You’ve got kind of 3 vectors of change happening generally in the same time frame”. Cook was also bullish about the prospects for electric vehicles, a market which last week helped Tesla become the world’s 4th-biggest carmaker by market capitalization, even as it ranks well outside the top10 by unit sales. “It’s a marvelous experience not to stop at the filling station or the gas station”, Cook said. Apple invested 1 billion dollar last year in Didi Chuxing, the biggest Chinese ride-hailing service. The announcement came soon after Mansfield took over Project Titan and set about cutting hundreds of engineers. Whereas Apple had initially been building its own car, Mansfield scrapped those plans in favor of building an autonomous driving system. The company will make a decision on whether to proceed with the push later this year, the people said at the time. “Apple has long been the wild card in the autonomous car game”, said Michelle Krebs, executive analyst for Autotrader. “Now we know Apple is all in, and, judging by its track record in other areas, it will be a force. Apple’s strategy to commercialize autonomous vehicles remains to be seen: will they partner and sell the technology or actually develop their own vehicles?” In the interview on Bloomberg Television, Cook was hesitant to disclose whether Apple will ultimately manufacture its own car. “We’ll see where it takes us”, Cook said. “We’re not really saying from a product point of view what we will do”. +++
+++ The ubiquitous 3 Series family from BMW is coming to a conclusion in its current generation and we’re thus keeping an eye on reports surrounding the G20 next installment. There’s also new competition on the block, such as the Jaguar XE or the Italian ruler of the Nurburgring, the Alfa Romeo Giulia, meaning it has to come up better not only than its traditional rivals, but also best new opponents. BMW’s engineers are doing exactly what they did with the 7 and 5 Series before that (allegedly) getting ready for a new lightweight platform that will lose around 40 kilograms by using even more aluminum and even some carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP). This is of course thanks to the switch to the CLAR platform. Reports are also talking about improved power thanks to a new 0.5-liter engine kit, on average for the gas versions the gains stand at 7 horsepower and 20 Newtonmeters of torque, with 5 percent lower emissions. The diesel entry-level 316d is also expected to surge from 115 to 136 hp and the 318d will jump to 163 hp. The ubiquitous 320d is going for 204 hp, while the 325d is surging to 240 hp, and again the engines will be more efficient by losing 5 percent CO2. BMW is also apparently going to bring new versions (M340i and M340d) to gain new customers in between the regular and mighty M models. +++
+++ GENERAL MOTORS builds a Chevrolet Bolt (Opel Ampera-e) fleet with next-generation autonomous hardware. With 130 new prototypes and dozens of first-generation cars on the road, GM now has a fleet of more than 180 self-driving EVs deployed in 3 cities. General Motors has finished building its second fleet of autonomous Chevrolet Bolt prototypes. The latest round includes 130 EVs outfitted with the company’s “next generation” of self-driving hardware including new LIDAR sensors, cameras and other upgraded equipment. The new vehicles join more than 50 Bolt prototypes outfitted with first-generation autonomous technology. The company has not disclosed specific details of the hardware differences between the older and newer models, however the latest announcement hints at progress toward full production. “To achieve what we want from self-driving cars, we must deploy them at scale”, says Kyle Vogt, chief executive of Cruise Automation, a San Francisco-based startup now owned by General Motors. The cars are currently deployed in San Francisco; Scottsdale, Arizona; and metro Detroit. +++
+++ The HYUNDAI Kona range will be expanded with an electric version, allegedly arriving late next year. It’s going to make inroads into the electric market, with its tiny size and funky design, as well as an estimated NEDC range of 500 km, which equates to about 350 km of usable, real world range. The long-range credentials will be enabled by the rumored battery pack sporting a capacity greater than 50 kWh; as we can see, larger batteries are being offered in more compact packages now. The Opel Ampera-e for example has compact segment credentials and a 60-kWh battery. The Hyundai offering is also becoming compelling in terms of pricing as well: 35.000 euro. Next year the electric car segment should be very interesting in Europe, because the Hyundai-Kia Group advent with electric versions of the Kona and possibly Stonic will have to face the arrival of the new Nissan Leaf and Renault Zoe from the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance. Tesla is also going to easily dominate the top end of the electric segment once it finally introduces this week the Model 3. The Kona, which will join the medium Tucson and the large Santa Fe SUVs, is set to attract buyers not currently served by the brand’s other offerings. “They will be a different buyer to an i30 or Tucson customer”, a spokesman said. “They see a higher driver position and the SUV image as a desirable thing, but the Tucson may be too big. They may also have a young family where a smaller, easier-to-park SUV suits their needs more closely than an i30 or Tucson”. Based on the underpinnings of the recently launched i30, the Kona will drop directly into a segment in the European market that is primed to explode. Pricing has not yet been revealed, but Hyundai said it will offer “competitive pricing and superb value for money” against key competitors including the Mazda CX-3, Toyota’s equally quirky C-HR, the Honda HR-V and the Mitsubishi ASX. Said to be benchmarked against aggressively styled cars such as the Nissan Juke, the Kona’s front end is its most striking feature, with a thin grille line dissecting the upper half of the front valance and cascading grille, while narrow LED daytime running lights are placed above the low-mounted headlight cluster along the leading edge of the bonnet. Spotlights are located on the bottom edge of the bumper bar on higher grade cars. At the rear, the tail-light arrays are built into the bulbous rear guard’s plastic sheathing, which runs along the flanks to join up with equally pumped front guards. The appearance of a floating roofline is created through the use of blacked out C-pillars, while oversized rims exaggerate the increased ride height of the Kona over the i30. At 4.165 mm long and 1.800 mm wide, the Kona will be shorter and wider than its main competitors, while offering what it claims to be “best-in-class” interior space. The interior, while reminiscent of the new i30, manages to separate itself thanks to strong horizontal lines across the dash and simple, uncluttered button arrays. The platform that underpins the fourth-generation i30 has been modified to provide more ground clearance and more interior room through tighter packaging of key mechanical components. It is 50mm shorter in the wheelbase than the i30. Items like Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, along with Hyundai’s latest tablet-style multimedia system, are likely to be included as standard across the range, while inductive phone chargers and head-up displays are set to be offered on higher spec cars. Hyundai engineers have restructured the packaging of the Kona’s platform to minimise intrusion into the cabin. The front end sports a new intercooler design and a relocated gearbox, while rear suspension parts, fuel tank and exhaust system have also been tweaked to make more room for the all-wheel-drive system, thought to be a revised version of the system used in the Tucson. All Konas will use MacPherson strut front suspension, with all-wheel-drive versions running multi-link rear suspension. Front-drive models will use a torsion beam rear end. Safety inclusions such as autonomous emergency braking (AEB), lane departure warning, high-speed blind spot collision warning and rear cross-traffic alert are also set to feature, although the entry level car is unlikely to get AEB as standard. +++
+++ LEXUS wins this year’s AutoIndex in Norway with the score of 932 points, which is the highest score ever achieved in the 16-year history of AutoIndex in Scandinavia. Besides being the overall winner, Lexus also achieves the highest score in all four surveyed areas: ‘Car and driving experience’, ‘Brand loyalty’, ‘Dealership and purchase experience’ and ‘Repair shop service’. “Receiving this award for the sixth time is nothing short of incredible. It is a testimony, not just to the quality of our cars, but to the effort and pride our dealerships put into their work. We feel humble and grateful towards our customers, who show us great trust and rank us so highly year after year. It is a strong motivation, and we will not be resting on our laurels. Continuous improvement is a fundamental ingredient of the Lexus philosophy”, says Tone Thunes, Marketing & Customer Care Manager at Lexus Norway. Lexus also holds the top spot in Sweden for the 6th consecutive year, with the score of 892 points; a clear lead over all other brands. “For us, the result is an important confirmation that we are doing the right thing but we are humble for the challenge of continually developing our customer care to continue to have the most satisfied owners”, said Dick Zachrisson, Head of Lexus in Sweden. AutoIndex is carried out on an annual basis by Loyalty Group International. This year, it is based on 15,934 unique responses from randomly selected car customers in Norway and more than 15,000 in Sweden. The survey covers 23 car manufacturers. The vehicles must be initially registered between 2010 and 2016. +++
+++ MITSUBISHI , engulfed by trouble, has decided to kill off the rally legend that the Lancer Evo has been and always be, when back in 2015 they presented the Final Edition for the already very old generation. Now safely under the umbrella of the Renault Nissan Alliance, the folks over at Mitsubishi are contemplating the future; one that doesn’t involve a direct successor, but rather something entirely different. According to a recent interview with the company’s global chief, Trevor Mann, there’s still hope for the Evo badge, though not as quick as one might expect, because plans are being put into motion for a performance model to appear in the long-term, not the mid-term. And he even clarified what’s going on in the backroom, pointing out it will happen in 6 years and it won’t actually be a sedan. That sounds like SUV hints, which is not surprising considering the segment’s good fortunes around the world and Mitsubishi’s desire to get a very focused SUV range. By the way, leaving aside the halo car attributes that a Lancer Evolution has always had and speaking of the regular model, it turns out this one isn’t as dead as we thought. The model, which is close to reaching a decade in this current iteration will stop being produced since August at the Mizushima plant in Japan (meaning the US model will also die) but soldier on at a factory in Taiwan. +++
+++ The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety ( IIHS ) in the United States says most midsize SUV headlights are still ‘marginal’ or ‘poor’. The Volvo XC60 and Hyundai Santa Fe are the only midsize SUVs earning ‘good’ ratings so far. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has raised concerns over headlight performance in the midsize SUV category. The organization says the majority of models in the segment still have headlight ratings of ‘marginal’ or ‘poor’ since the new evaluation program was rolled out in 2016. Midsize SUVs are the fourth group of vehicles tested so far. The 2017 Hyundai Santa Fe and Volvo XC60 were the only models available with ‘good’ headlights among the 19 midsize models included in the latest round of trials. Only a dozen models were available with headlights rated ‘acceptable,’ while 23 aren’t available with anything above ‘marginal’ or ‘poor’. “As a group, midsize SUV headlights perform slightly better than the other SUVs and pickups we evaluated last year, and that’s encouraging”, says IIHS senior research engineer Matt Brumbelow. “Still, we continue to see headlights that compromise safety because they only provide a short view down the road at night”. One of the worst midsize SUVs was the Kia Sorento. Even the Sorento’s curve-adaptive HID projectors fail to adequately illuminate the road on the straightaway, left curves and gradual right curve. “On the right side of the straightaway, for example, the Sorento’s low beams only illuminate 148 feet, compared with 315 feet for the XC60’s low beams”, the institute says. The Ford Edge was also a “poor performer,” with inadequate visibility in all test scenarios whether equipped with halogen projectors or HID projectors. Both low beams also produce unacceptable glare to oncoming traffic. “The halogen low beams, for example, put more light in the eyes of oncoming drivers on a straightaway than on the left side of the road”, the IIHS says. Vehicles must now receive an ‘acceptable’ or ‘good’ headlight rating to qualify for the Top Safety Pick Plus award. +++
+++ TESLA begins rolling out new Autopilot software. The long-awaited Autopilot 2.0 brings a host of improvements, and a few new functions. Autopark now enables the Model S and the Model X to back into a perpendicular parking spot. Previously, motorists were only able to use the function when parallel parking. The feature works the same way as before, meaning Autopark detects a suitable parking spot when the vehicle is traveling at no more than 15 km/h. The update also brings a new feature called Display Brightness that automatically adjusts the brightness of the touch screen embedded into the center console. Tesla promises the screen is now clearly visible in all lighting conditions, and it even learns users’ individual preference. The updated Autopilot brings a “silky smooth” new control algorithm for Autosteer, and full-speed Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB). It’s a step towards Tesla’s goal of proving the system’s worth by performing a completely autonomous coast-to-coast drive. Autopilot-equipped cars are now rolling out of Tesla’s Fremont, California, factory with the new software. Current owners will receive it via an over-the-air software update that Tesla will send out in the coming days. +++
+++ UBER Technologies Chief Executive Officer Travis Kalanick told staff he plans to take a leave of absence, without disclosing a return date. The company will be run by a management committee as it tries to navigate a wave of scandals. Upon Kalanick’s return, Uber will strip him of some duties and appoint an independent chair to limit his influence, according to an advance copy of a report prepared for the board. At a staff meeting, the company conveyed the results of a probe conducted by Eric Holder, the former U.S. attorney general who Uber hired to look into allegations of harassment, discrimination and an aggressive culture. The 47 recommendations include creating a board oversight committee, rewriting Uber’s cultural values, reducing alcohol use at work events, and prohibiting intimate relationships between employees and their bosses. Uber’s board met to review a detailed version of the report and voted unanimously to approve the recommendations. Afterward, the San Francisco-based company ousted Emil Michael, Uber’s head of business. The board will move to diminish Kalanick’s role once he comes back by giving some of the CEO’s job responsibilities to a chief operating officer; a position Uber has been actively recruiting for but has yet to fill. This person would “act as a full partner with the CEO but focus on day-to-day operations, culture and institutions within Uber”, the report said. “The ultimate responsibility, for where we’ve gotten and how we’ve gotten here, rests on my shoulders”, Kalanick wrote in an email to employees. “For Uber 2.0 to succeed, there is nothing more important than dedicating my time to building out the leadership team. But if we are going to work on Uber 2.0, I also need to work on Travis 2.0 to become the leader that this company needs and that you deserve”. Uber lost or removed much of its management team in recent months as scandal after scandal emerged. The 14,000-plus workforce lacks a clear No. 2 who could run things in Kalanick’s stead. Uber has started taking steps to fill out the executive bench. Last week, it hired Harvard Business School’s Frances Frei as senior vice president of leadership and strategy, and will add Nestle’s Wan Ling Martello as an independent director. Despite recent turmoil, Uber’s business is growing. Revenue increased to $3.4 billion in the first quarter, while losses narrowed, though they remain substantial at $708 million. But Lyft has stolen some market share in the U.S., and Uber’s internal strife could open opportunities for competitors globally to lure partners, raise funds or poach talent. Executives at Uber had looked to the Holder report as a likely turning point in their efforts to put the company’s past indiscretions behind them and provide a road map for the future. Holder, an attorney at law firm Covington & Burling, interviewed employees as part of a 14-week probe he conducted with his colleague Tammy Albarran. A separate examination by Perkins Coie is reviewing 215 HR claims. More than 20 people have been fired as a result of that inquiry. “The process was longer than we thought and more painful than we thought, but this chapter comes to an end today”, Arianna Huffington, an Uber board member, said in a statement prepared for the staff meeting. “Our task now is to learn, rebuild and move forward together to write Uber’s next chapter”. The proposals refer to policies that should have been in place at an earlier stage, said Cindy Schipani, a professor of business law at the University of Michigan’s business school. “What it really comes down to in my mind is having people in charge who have integrity”, Schipani said. “This is not rocket science to avoid sexual harassment; that’s about just treating people with respect”. The crisis was sparked by a February 19 blog post by former Uber software engineer Susan Fowler. She alleged that her former manager had propositioned her for sex and that Uber’s HR department told her it wouldn’t punish him because he was a top performer. In addition to her sexual harassment allegation, Fowler’s nearly 3,000-word post chronicled day-to-day indignities women faced at the startup. In one instance, female employees were told they would need to pay for their own leather jackets even though men were getting them for free; a manager explained to her that there weren’t enough women to justify buying them in bulk, she wrote. Fowler’s accusations ignited an uproar inside the company and throughout the tech industry. Many women shared their own horror stories, and the controversy prompted companies throughout Silicon Valley to reexamine their diversity practices. At Uber, Bloomberg reported that at least a half-dozen members of the recruiting team le ft after their attempts to prioritize diversity hiring initiatives faced resistance from Kalanick. “I’m going to keep saying this until things actually change”, Fowler wrote on Twitter after the report’s release. She linked to her tweet from last week that read: “Remember that this is not about diversity and inclusion, it’s about laws being broken. Harassment, discrimination, retaliation are illegal”. The public report doesn’t address Fowler’s individual claims, but the board-approved changes could offer a path to make Uber a more hospitable workplace for women and minorities. The company intends to raise the profile of the head of diversity, adjust executive compensation to incentivize good behavior, institute mandatory leadership training and establish an employee diversity advisory board. Uber published workforce demographics for the first time March, which show that only 15 percent of tech workers at Uber are women. Holder’s interviews with current and former Uber employees eventually became far broader than Fowler’s initial complaints, including a look at a trip to a Korean karaoke bar in 2014 that was the subject of an HR complaint, the use of software called Greyball to help drivers avoid government officials and the mishandling of a 2014 India rape case. However, anyone hoping that the report would name names or call out problematic incidents at the company will be disappointed. The report offers no such details. No new dismissals are expected Tuesday, but the other probe by Perkins Coie is ongoing. Several of Uber’s planned changes are symbolic. For example, a conference room known as the War Room will be renamed the Peace Room. The company also plans to scrap many of its cultural values, notably “Let Builders Build, Always Be Hustlin’, Meritocracy and Toe-Stepping, and Principled Confrontation”, which the Holder report described as being “used to justify poor behavior”. “Many of Uber’s 14 cultural values, while well-intended, had been allowed to be weaponized”, Huffington said in her statement. “That’s completely unacceptable”. Chief Human Resources Officer Liane Hornsey, who joined Uber in January, said the company will reform. Uber is looking to improve its HR practices and daily life for employees, including flexible hours, clearer guidelines for attaining promotions, a revised performance review process and earlier on-site dinners so that the “benefit can be utilized by a broader group of employees, including employees who have spouses or families waiting for them at home”, according to the report. Uber will also create stricter guidelines for what’s acceptable in the office. Several rules outlined in the report deal with alcohol, controlled substances and sexual relationships. “Uber should consider limiting the budget available to managers for alcohol purchases”, according to one recommendation in the report. The company hopes to “ensure the mistakes of the past will not be repeated”, Hornsey said in a statement. “While change does not happen overnight, we’re committed to rebuilding trust with our employees, riders and drivers”. +++