+++ The new AUDI RS5 is likely to better the official sprint time. That’s the opinion of Stephan Reil, Head of Technical Development at Audi Sport. Despite downsizing from a naturally aspirated 4.2-litre V8 to a 2.9-litre twin-turbocharged V6, the latest iteration of Audi’s RS5 Coupe makes the same 450 hp power output, but gains a significant 170 Nm more torque over the old engine for a total of 600 Nm. It’s enough to send it from standstill to 100 km/h in a claimed 3.9 seconds, only Stephan Reil says that’s a conservative number. “I’ve been in this job for nearly 20 years, and with all the cars I’ve worked on, the performance numbers we published were conservative. And it’s no different with the latest RS5. So, if we say 3.9 seconds, you will measure, maybe, 3.7 if the conditions are fine, probably 3.8, but even under the worst conditions, you’ll do it in 3.9 seconds. But you will not find a 4.0. And the reason we are conservative with these numbers is simple. I simply don’t want to hear, when you guys write ‘well, they claim 3.9, but we got 4.0’ . I don’t want to read that ”. I also quizzed Reil about the fact that the 450 hp peak power of the new RS5 precisely matches that of the outgoing V8 version. “Let me put it this way: The customer buys horsepower, but what he drives is torque. And what’s important is how the engine delivers that torque. Does it come early, does it come with some lag, or does it come the moment you give it some throttle? What we have done with the new RS5 is the best we can do right at this time, but of course technology gets old quickly, so we will be able to do better once new systems arrive, such as 48 Volt systems, which we will be able to fit into cars like this one, otherwise it’s more suited to SUVs like our SQ7 at the moment. For now, like with the RS5, we have placed the turbos inside the hot vee of the engine, and that reduces the pipework and increases gas flow and throttle response; therefore, minimal lag”, Reil ended with. +++
+++ The BENTLEY Continental GT may only have been facelifted a relatively short time ago, but underneath the bodywork the car is now 13 years old. As such Bentley has got to work on a brand new generation of the GT, which is set to go on sale in spring 2018. The new GT will look much sleeker than the heavily clad test versions that have been spied on the roads over the last few months, with several improvements made to boost performance. Flagship models will come powered by a new 6.0-litre W12 twin-turbo engine that first appeared in the Bentayga SUV, delivering 650 hp and 900 Nm of torque. This will bring with it a 0-100 km/h time of around 3.8 seconds, and a top speed in the region of 335 km/h. Meanwhile, a redeveloped version of the more modest 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 will also be offered. Performance figures aside, key to the overhaul is redesigned chassis technology that will underpin the two-door coupe. The MSB platform, first used on the new Porsche Panamera, is considerably lighter than the architecture from the current Continental. And having shaved 200 mm off the platform’s wheelbase, it represents a big step forward from the Volkswagen Phaeton underpinnings of the outgoing model. It’s likely that this GT will shed around 100 kg in total (thanks to the new aluminium body, fresh chassis and new engines) but will still tip the scales at over 2 tonnes. Bentley has had to significantly raise its game with the all new model following increased competition from the likes of the McLaren 570GT, Aston Martin DB11 and Mercedes-AMG S 63 Coupe. In addition to the conventional petrol engines, Bentley CEO Wolfgang Dürheimer has also previously expressed an interest in a plug-in hybrid version of the new Continental, which is expected to adopt the powertrain from the Panamera E-Hybrid (a mix of a twin-turbo 2.9-litre V6 and electric motor) for a combined output of 460 hp. Bentley has the option of introducing a diesel Continental for the first time, too. The 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 diesel also from the Bentayga could address a common gripe with current buyers, who are frustrated not by the cost of refills, but by the inconvenience of visits to the pumps. Spy shots from the first half of 2017 revealed that the coupe will take cues from the EXP 10 Speed 6 concept that appeared at the Geneva Motor Show last year. That model will make it into production as a 2-seater sports car (expected to be called the Barnato) while the Continental will remain a more practical 2+2. A lower nose, more sculpted bonnet and new 2-part LED headlamps will make up the bulk of the changes at the front, and while Bentley has gone to great lengths to ensure that the headlamps are disguised, I expect the trademark 2-part lights to remain. The iconic rear haunches and cascading roofline have also been spotted. While the car will be partly inspired by the EXP 10 Speed 6 concept, the spy shots confirm an evolution of the Continental GT’s look rather a radical overhaul. While the Continental GT will arrive first, the drop-top GTC (which has been spied alongside the coupe development testing) will follow shortly after, with the same visual and technology changes. As with the current model, it will stick with a folding fabric roof to help keep weight down. The range will then expand further with the addition of a new Flying Spur saloon. Bentley’s product offensive, initiated by the Bentayga, is part of Dürheimer’s plan to increase annual global sales to around 20,000 units by 2020. +++
+++ BMW , the quintessentially German luxury car maker, actually makes more vehicles in the United States than any other country. The Bavarian company just marked the 25th anniversary of its US plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina, where it makes X-badged SUV models. Continuous expansions of the plant with extensive additions have made the plant the largest manufacturing facility in the BMW Group production network. The BMW Group has invested 8 billion dollars in the production location to date and produced around 3.9 million vehicles since going online on 8 September 1994. About 1.400 units of the X3, X4, X5 and X6 models roll off the line every working day, 70 percent of which are exported to a pool of 140 countries. Maximum production capacity is 450.000 vehicles per year, a figure that’ll grow when the new X7 seven-seater launches late next year. According to the US Department of Commerce, the BMW Group is the largest vehicle exporter from the US in terms of monetary value. In 2016, a full 287.700 BMW vehicles with a total value of more than 10 billion US dollars were exported from Spartanburg. The site currently has more than 9.000 employees, with BMW flagging the creation of a further 1.000 jobs by 2021 , thanks to a 600 million dollar investment. The BMW Group has 235 local suppliers in the US. The US is the company’s second-largest purchasing market, after Germany, and accounts for 5.2 billion euros. BMW is hardly alone. Arch rival Mercedes-Benz has a plant in Alabama that opened in 1995, which currently has 3.700 staff and makes the GLE and GLS. +++
+++ German components firm Schaeffler has unveiled a new hybrid CLUTCH system that opens the way for electrified cars to be offered with manual transmissions. The so-called ‘P2 module’ is expected to go into production at the end of this year in China. The P2 module fits between the engine and the transmission (making it especially useful for transversely engined vehicles) and combines a 12 kW electric motor and a pair of clutches. A disconnect clutch allows the car’s engine to be decoupled from the transmission. An impact clutch is used to smooth out vibrations when the engine is restarted. Schaeffler said the P2 module would allow a car to drive electrically at low speeds in stop-start traffic, automatic parking could be performed in electric-only mode and the system also allows ‘active sailing’ at speeds up to 30mph. The active sailing system allows a vehicle to take advantage of rolling momentum or downhill stretches of road by either idling or shutting down the engine and disconnecting it from the transmission in order to save fuel. The new unit is designed to work with a 48V electrical system, which many car makers are rushing to adopt for future models. The 48V system means that not only can the electrical system handle a maximum of 12 kW (4 times that of the familiar 12V system) but also the system’s cabling can be 75% smaller, saving weight, reducing costs and improving the maker’s ability to package the wiring harness into the car. The P2 can also be used to recuperate energy under braking, saving it as electrical energy to a 48V battery. The P2 unit is designed to be retro-fitted to existing vehicle structures with minimal engineering changes. Around half of all global car sales are of cars with a manual gearbox. Changes are not needed to existing gearbox designs and the unit doesn’t need water cooling like some hybrid setups. It could help reduce fuel consumption by as much as 20%, according to Schaeffler. The P2 module is intended to be used with Schaeffler’s new E-clutch set-up, which, it claims, can help cut fuel consumption by as much as 8%. There are 2 versions of the E-clutch: one that uses a pedal and hydraulic or cable connection with the electronic ‘intelligent actuator’ and the other that dispenses with the clutch pedal altogether. Future versions of the P2 unit, one developing a continuous 34 hp and 100 Nm and the other 65 hp and 160 Nm, are also under development. +++
+++ New Super Clean Electrified DIESEL technology capable of reducing real-world emissions by 60 percent will be key to ensuring that “diesel has a future”. Engineers at tech and tyre company Continental have developed an electrified after-treatment system capable of reducing NOx emissions by nearly twothirds under real-world driving. The company says that it’s already in discussions with manufacturers over the technology. Key to the new set-up is an electrically heated catalytic converter that uses a 48V electrical system. Johannes Drechsel, development engineer at Continental, explaines how the tech works: “Instead of a normal catalytic converter that relies on the engine to bring it up to temperature, our catalyst relies on electricity from the 48V system to heat up”, he says. “Because it uses electricity rather than the engine, the catalyst heats up much quicker, which allows for high-efficiency NOx reductions”. Drechsel pointed out that some current electronically heated catalysts rely on 12V set-ups, but the bigger 48V system is able to heat up the catalyst much more quickly. The company also tweaked other parts of the after-treatment system, such as injecting the AdBlue urea solution into the exhaust stream immediately without requiring a separate mixer. Continental converted an existing Volkswagen Golf to run on a 48V system instead of a regular 12V set-up, and under the forthcoming real driving emissions (RDE) cycle, it saw a 60 percent reduction in NOx levels over the standard model, as well as a 3 percent fall in CO2 emissions and a 4 percent improvement in fuel economy. Drechsel told: “Diesel cars will continue to play a role, but they have to be clean in the future. This kind of technology will help to ensure diesel has a future”. I was able to try the modified Golf at Continental’s test track in Germany. A Portable Emissions Measurement System (PEMS) was fitted to the back of the car and during the test drive, where I accelerated up to motorway speeds, I recorded NOx emissions of 69 mg/km. That’s well below the current Euro6 limit of 80 mg/km. +++
+++ The Volkswagen Golf has knocked the FORD Fiesta off the top of the United Kingdom car sales charts for the first time since 2014. The Fiesta has consistently sat at the top of the UK sales charts for some time now, but its crown has been taken at long last. Figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) show that, in June, more Volkswagen Golfs were registered than versions of Ford’s supermini. It’s the first time since December 2014 that the 7th-generation Fiesta hasn’t been at the top of the leaderboard. 8,601 examples of the Blue Oval’s supermini were registered in total last month, compared with 8,808 Golfs. The Fiesta’s fall can be partly attributed to the introduction of the all-new model, which arrives in dealers this month. It’s likely that some buyers were holding out for the new car, and dealers reduce their stock as a result. The Golf, on the other hand, had recently gone on sale in facelifted form. Ford still holds the two top spots overall for 2017 so far with the Fiesta and Focus, however. Registrations as a whole dropped by 4.8 percent in June, following a record first quarter. The continued effects of the diesel emissions scandal are still being felt, too, as petrol cars rose by 2.4 per cent and registrations of oil-burners fell by 14.7 percent. +++
+++ Overpromising by TESLA Chief Executive Elon Musk does not usually faze his die-hard fans and investors. But that ended this week, when a trifecta of bad news began to hit the stock. Tesla shares wove in and out of bear territory, at one point during the trading day falling 20% off its record high of 383.45 dollar reached on June 23. It started with Musk’s update that the number of cars Tesla delivered in the second quarter was below Wall Street’s estimates, due to a severe battery production shortage. Then, Tesla was not included in the latest “Top Safety Pick” list of the safest cars. Combined with reports of looming new electric-car rivals, including Volvo, the developments culminated in a big hit to Tesla’s market cap and the loss of its status as the most valuable U.S. auto maker. Tesla has lost about $7.18 billion in market value in the past 2 trading sessions. “It’s an incredible company with a genius CEO who is revolutionizing the auto industry and a few other industries. It is changing the way people do business in the industry. But people were paying a lot in advance”, says Efraim Levy, an analyst at CFRA Research, who has had a sell on Tesla based on valuation since February. He noted that his estimates and the consensus on Wall Street have been declining. “Yet value has been going up”, he says. Tesla’s surprise wasn’t the first time the company and Musk squeezed in bad news when some investors might be otherwise distracted. It also was not the first time Musk has made big promises and had to walk them back. Last year, Musk predicted production of 100,000 to possibly 200,000 Model 3 units in the second half of 2017, one of its most anticipated models ever, a number it later scaled back to producing about 5,000 a week, “at some point in 2017”. Musk countered the news of the slightly lower delivery number with good news about the Model 3. Tesla said that its first certified Model 3 would be completed this week and about 30 cars would be handed over to customers at its Fremont, Calif., factory on July 28. The Model 3, Tesla’s lowest priced vehicle, is also expected to be its biggest volume seller, but that will depend on its manufacturing capabilities. Goldman Sachs analyst David Tamberrino, who reiterated a sell rating, wrote that the Model 3 will initially lower its profit margins. Tamberrino lowered his price target for the stock to $180 from $190. He believes that demand for Tesla’s other higher-end vehicles, the Model S and the Model X, are “showing plateauing demand”. “When you are priced to perfection, you have to deliver”, said Levy, who currently has a target price of $255. “I am willing to give them some flexibility on the time table. But the stock is vulnerable to more hiccups”. The big question is whether investors will be so forgiving in the future if Tesla hits more speed bumps. +++
+++ In the UNITED STATES , the auto industry’s boom times are braking to a halt, claiming manufacturing jobs and complicating President Donald Trump’s promises to unleash a manufacturing “renaissance” in America. Americans flocked to replace vehicles in 2015 and 2016, setting a record pace after a long dry spell during the recession and tepid early years of the recovery. Auto makers have stretched the buying spree as long as they can with deep incentives and lengthy financing terms; but at some point, demand will dry up. That time may be now. “Auto’s been powering the nation’s manufacturing sector forward but is reaching a cyclical plateau”, says Mark Muro, policy director for the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution. “We’re going the wrong way”. Industry data provider Autodata says that annual sales in June implied 2017 sales of 16.51 million; the slowest pace since February 2015. Some auto makers, like Toyota notched annual gains during the month, but General Motors and Ford reported June sales figures were about 5% lower than the same month a year ago, while Fiat Chrysler said sales were 7% lower. General Motor vehicle dealers are starting to see inventories build up, which could pressure the used-car market. Auto makers are responding. General Motors plans to keep plants closed for 10 weeks this summer, far longer than the normal 2 weeks that auto makers spend “retooling” their factories every year. Other companies are planning permanent job cuts: Ford said in May that it would cut 10% of its global workforce. Some analysts see broader implications that are even more sobering than planned job cuts. “Auto has had such a strong decade that it has obscured increased weakness in other manufacturing industries since 2015 or so”, says Muro, who has tracked auto manufacturing closely. Auto manufacturing lost jobs in June for the third month in a row, the Labor Department said Friday. But Muro’s analysis of Labor Department data shows that the auto sector made up as much as 80% of all manufacturing job growth over the past few years. While he believes “manufacturing is always important for both symbolic and genuine macroeconomic reasons”, Muro finds the timing of the natural slowing in the automotive growth cycle ironic, given the rhetoric about factory jobs from both President Trump during and after his campaign. “Trump has thrown more attention on this and essentially suggested that a manufacturing renaissance would begin now and power through his administration”, he said. “It’s turning out that the underlying industry cycles are not cooperating with those promises”. Another of Trump’s promises may be in jeopardy if the auto downturn is sharp enough. Earlier this year, Bank of America Merrill Lynch economist Michelle Meyer modeled the hit to the overall economy from declining vehicle sales. She estimated a GDP drag of .23 percentage points if sales slowed to a 16 million annual rate, but little impact from a 17 million annual rate. But Meyer’s analysis only took into account the direct impact from lower sales volumes, not knock-on effects from things like parts production and transportation, as MarketWatch’s Steve Goldstein noted in April. But Trump wants the U.S. to achieve 4% economic growth, a rate most economists believe is well out of reach under the best of circumstances. The Atlanta Fed is forecasting that the economy expanded 2.7% in the second quarter; a forecast it downgraded 0.4 percentage points because of weak car sales. The states that have the strongest auto manufacturing presence, such as South Carolina, Alabama, Kentucky, and Tennessee, Ohio, and Indiana, all voted for Trump in the presidential election. But as Muro points out, neither the president nor Congress seems to be giving any thought to policy moves that might mitigate a downturn in manufacturing. “The question is, where is the rest of the growth going to come from?” he said. +++