+++ ASTON MARTIN has scaled back production plans for its first electric model after cash-strapped investment partner LeEco pulled out of the project, Chief Executive Andy Palmer told. The result, though, may be an even more exclusive car, aimed at customers who consider Tesla’s top of the range Model S 100D to be a little too run of the mill. Aston Martin will build only 155 of its RapidE, about a third of the initial plan, and lean more heavily on Formula One engineering specialist Williams after the withdrawal of Chinese TV and smartphone vendor LeEco, Palmer said. The setback and Aston’s response underscore the challenges and risks niche carmakers face as they scramble to address future demand for electrification from consumers and regulators. While the privately held Aston Martin brand benefits from the endorsement of fictitious spy James Bond, it lacks the backing of a large automotive parent that many rivals enjoy. “We’ve decided to make this car rare, which will obviously tend to push the price higher”, Palmer said. “Aston Martin now plans to proceed independently, funding further development of RapidE by ourselves”. Unveiling the alliance in February last year, LeEco and Aston pledged to launch an all-electric version of the Rapide S sedan in 2018. But the Chinese conglomerate has since slashed its electric car investments, including its U.S. startup Faraday Future’s planned 1.3 billion dollar factory in Nevada. Some Faraday suppliers, including seat maker Futuris and media provider Mill Group, have sued the company for non-payment, according to court records. Spokesmen for LeEco and Faraday did not respond to requests for comment on the end of the partnership with the British sports car maker. Aston Martin declined to discuss its partner’s business. It returned to profit in the first quarter, a decade after it was sold by Ford. Now owned by private equity groups Investindustrial and Kuwait’s Investment Dar, the company is rolling out a new model each year under a taut recovery plan drawn up by Palmer, who joined from Nissan in 2014. Without LeEco’s backing, the sports carmaker, based in Gaydon, Warwickshire, is pushing ahead as sole investor in the electric car, after paring down production and pushing back the launch date to 2019. The plan won board approval on June 21. Aston will start taking orders next month with 10 percent down payments on the RapidE, priced just shy of 230,000 euro (Dutch pricing). Batteries will come from a new production facility built by a consortium led by Williams Advanced Engineering, the F1 team’s technical division, with matched British government funding. Williams, which supplies power packs to the Formula E electric car racing series, also built the RapidE prototype unveiled in 2015. Beyond the RapidE, Aston’s first full-production battery car will be an electric version of the DBX crossover it is launching in 2019, hoping for a repeat of the success that greeted its DB11 coupe, with a little help from the latest Bond film. “The RapidE project was always about learning in readiness for the DBX derivative”, Palmer said. “We can do that through a limited series”. +++
+++ AUDI ’s management board, including Chief Executive Rupert Stadler, has been sharply criticized by company managers. An internal dossier says the executive board has shown no signals of a fresh start, change or readiness for the future, and that workers were frustrated with “disastrous” indecisiveness. Stadler has come under fire for how he has handled the fallout from parent company Volkswagen’s diesel emissions scandal. Munich prosecutors have been investigating Audi on suspicion of fraud and criminal advertising in the United States, where the Volkswagen scandal broke in September 2015. Stadler only got a 5-year contract extension last month because of an agreement among supervisory board members that he would not serve out his full term, 2 sources close to the company’s supervisory board have told. An Audi spokesman said: “We deny plans to get rid of Stadler”, adding that he declined to comment on the content of the dossier. Volkswagen is looking at rehiring the chief executive of General Motors’ Opel, possibly to lead Audi, a source familiar with the matter told this month, following his resignation from Opel. Oliver Blume, the head of Porsche, was quoted as saying he had no interest in replacing Stadler. “I have a dream job and am very happy at Porsche. Nothing else comes into question for me”. +++
+++ FERRARI , the Prancing Horse, admits self-driving tech can improve its performance cars in the future. Automated driving technology might make Ferraris more fun to drive, according to one of the Italian company’s top engineers. Corrado Iotti, who is in charge of powertrain design, says Ferrari currently uses a range of accelerometers and other sensors to manage engine and gearbox behaviour, and optimise performance, stability and other factors; but they are all onboard. “Up to now we are just reading what the driver is doing and what the car is feeling. In the near future, we will have some more information related to the road. Digital mapping for sure is something that will be a new possibility. There is a big potential on this side”, he said. When precise 3-dimensional maps are available, the drivetrain could prepare for what is coming up before any onboard sensors provide feedback. Iotti agreed that car-to-infrastructure communication will also become very important and “everyone will be doing it”. Although the company remains fiercely opposed to building self-driving cars, Iotti said the driving attributes of Ferraris have “a big potential to improve as soon as these techniques can be directly interfaced with our powertrain control”. Ferrari has just taken a small step towards adapting autonomous technology for its own ends with the electronic power steering system fitted to the new 812 Superfast V12. When there is oversteer, the steering wheel will provide feedback to the driver “suggesting” that he or she countersteers. The company says the input is small and can always be overridden by the driver. The important thing, from Ferrari’s point of view says Iotti, is that any use of information external to the car should be solely to enhance driver pleasure and vehicle performance while keeping the driver firmly in control. “You must have complete control of the car and the car must follow you as soon as possible, as best as possible”, Mr Iotti said. Beyond that, the company was studying every potential opportunity. “Industry-wide driving technology is improving quickly and differently. So a big capacity should be right now to understand how to merge these different potentials to have a better result in your own project”, he said. In response to questions about other engineering developments, including a rumoured V6 engine to be offered alongside the prancing horse’s V8 and V12 units, Iotti said: “We always evaluate everything. We must be ready, we must understand. Even if you don’t use it, you learn something you can use”. +++
+++ GENERAL MOTORS expects industry vehicle sales to fall short of its original forecast for the year, the latest sign of a slowdown in the U.S. auto market after a record run. GM now expects U.S. sales in the “low” 17-million range, down from an earlier expectation that this year’s tally would roughly match the 17.55-million record from last year, finance chief Chuck Stevens told analysts during a conference call. Stevens also said U.S. pricing has become “very, very competitive” amid slowing sales during the first several months of the year. But he said incentives have moderated recently, a sign that car makers aren’t willing to cut into profitability to maintain market share as demand cools. “It appears the industry is becoming a bit more rational, Stevens said. Industry sales in each month so far this year have fallen from a year earlier. In a note to investors, Barclays analyst Brian Johnson said he expects the seasonally adjusted sales rate to ease to 16.5 million in June. That would mark the fourth straight month that the pace of sales fell below 17 million, the slowest stretch since mid-2014. But Johnson agrees that auto makers “may be drawing the line” on big discounts that have helped fuel sales over much of the past year. He said incentives in June were at the lowest levels in about a year. Auto makers also are pulling back on less-profitable sales to rental companies, a tactic long deployed to sustain sales volumes during a market downturn. Separately, GM raised its estimate for special charges it will incur from the sale of its Opel division, to 5.5 billion dollar, about 1 billion dollar higher than originally expected. Stevens said heavier costs linked to the consolidation of some vehicle programs under the deal is a primary factor, describing the charges as “largely noncash”. GM announced the deal in March to sell Opel to France’s PSA for about 2.1 billion dollar, exiting a business that has suffered billions of dollars in losses over nearly 2 decades. Stevens said the sale is on track to close by the end of the year. He said GM will report Opel results as discontinued operations beginning with the auto maker’s second-quarter earnings, scheduled for July 25. GM also said it will tap about 3 billion dollar in short-term debt to help pay for pension-funding obligations that PSA will inherit once the deal closes. +++
+++ KIA says a hotter Stinger is not a priority. First, executives want to see how the Stinger performs in key markets around the globe. It would be relatively easy for Kia to build a more powerful version of the 370 horsepower Stinger GT, its ambitious BMW 4 Series rival. However, turning the dial up to 11 is not on the company’s list of priorities right now. “The car technically has more potential, no doubt, but at this point there is no plan to do more. We have to launch this car and see how it does in the market place. What kind of customers do we get? What would be their next requirement from Kia?”, Albert Biermann, the head of Hyundai and Kia’s respective performance divisions, told. That doesn’t mean we’ll never get a Stinger GTR. Biermann added he’d like to turn the GT nameplate into a full-blown performance sub-brand like Mercedes-AMG and Audi Sport. Kia isn’t exactly synonymous with performance, so executives are cautiously building the brand one step at a time. It could take years to establish the South Korean automaker as a credible name in the cut-throat sports sedan realm. Kia plans on launching more GT-badged models in the next few years to achieve its goals. And when GT is firmly established as a sub-brand, company executives will re-consider building a faster, more powerful Stinger as its halo model. +++
+++ SUBARU has rejected criticism that its re-engineered Euro6-compliant 2.0-litre petrol engine in the new XV is underpowered. The second-generation XV uses the same 156 hp / 196 Nm 2.0-litre naturally aspirated ‘boxer’ engine and continuously variable transmission. A spokesman described the engine/CVT combination as “perfectly matched” and said customers had raised no concerns. However, he did acknowledge that the newly devised Subaru Global Platform, used with the latest XV, was capable of handling much higher engine performance, which would be seen with the forthcoming turbocharged WRX and STI muscle cars. The Subaru spokesman explained that meeting emissions and fuel economy targets were paramount when it came to tuning the engine for the XV. “A bit more oomph would always make everybody happy but, for us, it’s always a balancing act around the Euro6 regulations; it’s around fuel economy, and it’ s around making sure that the car can do what it’s designed for”, he said. “And that’s why, at this point in time, we’re actually really happy with it, to be honest”. The spokesman admitted that the vastly stiffer Subaru Global Platform may have worked against the new model. “We’ve kind of created a rod for our own back, because the global platform is so good; it’s an exceptionally good platform”, he said. “That, I think, is why some of the journos are saying they’d like more power, because the platform can easily take more. Down the track, when the WRX and STI go onto that platform, I think that’s when the platform will really, really show how good it is. I can understand that there is a little bit of question mark around the engine power, but I think it’s perfect for what’s required and what it’s designed to do. The global platform is such a good technology that it could take a lot more power. Part of that power could come in the form of electric assistance for the next-generation WRX, as Subaru continues to search for ways to keep emissions in check for high-performance engines. Company officials admitted that they were “considering new technologies” for the WRX. However, the spokesman suggested the WRX would not be on the roads until at least 2020. “We haven’t got the exact timing of when they’d switch to the new platform, but you have to think it’s probably another 2,5 years away”, he said. +++
+++ Chipmaker Nvidia Corp had announced it was partnering with VOLVO Cars and Swedish auto supplier Autoliv to develop self-driving car technology for vehicles due to hit the market by 2021. Volvo is owned by China’s Geely Automobile Holdings. The Silicon Valley-based Nvidia also announced a non-exclusive partnership with German automotive suppliers ZF and Hella for artificial intelligence technology for autonomous driving. Nvidia came to prominence in the gaming industry for designing graphics processing chips, but in recent years has been a key player in the automotive sector for providing the so-called “brain” of the autonomous vehicle. The company, whose many partners already include Tesla, Toyota and tier one supplier Robert Bosch, announced its latest deals at an automotive electronics show in Ludwigsburg, Germany. Nvidia’s Drive PX artificial intelligence platform is used by Tesla in its Models S and X and upcoming Model 3. Audi is also using the system to reach full autonomous driving by 2020. In a call with reporters, Nvidia’s senior automotive director Danny Shapiro said carmakers and their main suppliers are now moving away from the research and development phase of autonomous vehicles and into concrete production plans. The system developed jointly by ZF and Hella, and using Nvidia’s Drive PX platform, will combine front cameras with radar and software to create technology meeting the EuroNCAP safety certification for so-called “Level 3” driving, in which some, but not all, driving is performed by the car. Volvo is already using the Drive PX for the self-driving cars in its “Drive Me” autonomous pilot program. Volvo’s production vehicles built on Nvidia’s platform, as announced on Monday, are planned for sale by 2021. +++