+++ The M8 has been spotted in development after being confirmed by BMW . The development car was taken to the Nürburgring, with large air intakes, quad exhausts and more aggressive styling than its cooking 8 Series counterpart. It’s expected to make its debut in 8 Series form at the Los Angeles motor show, later this year, with the M8 coming shortly afterwards. It’ll sit above the recently confirmed 8 Series, which itself was previewed by the 8 Series Concept, and will be joined by an endurance racing counterpart: the M8 GTE. It’s likely to be powered by a more highly stressed version of the next M5’s 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8 engine and share the same ‘M xDrive’ four-wheel drive system. The production car will have M’s signature quad exhaust pipes, larger brakes and uprated air intakes, BMW announced, although further details have not been given. M division president Frank van Meel said: “The conception and development of the standard 8 Series and the M model run in parallel. The future M8 will build on the genes of the 8 Series and augment its DNA with added track ability and generous extra portions of dynamic sharpness, precision and agility. It all flows into a driving experience that bears the familiar BMW M hallmarks and satisfies our customers’ most exacting requirements”. “We have been involved with the wider 8-series project from the very beginning”, van Meel told. “Our challenge as engineers was actually to ensure that the standard car wasn’t too sporty for its customers, because we wanted the M8 to feel like a proper step up. Also, because not all 8-series customers want an M car”. Insiders suggest the 8-series and M8 will use the same platform as both the 7-series and 5-series, and that the big M-car will share much of the engine and drivetrain of the forthcoming four-wheel drive M5. “For now I can’t confirm that”, said van Meel, “except to say that we have watched the luxury sports coupe market closely, and we see lots of four-wheel drive cars within it already. We have also already proven that our ‘M xDrive’ four-wheel drive system doesn’t adversely affect the handling purity of the new M5, and some journalists have already had a chance to test that and to write as much. There’s nothing to fear from four-wheel drive. We certainly want to make a statement with this car. It will sit at the very top of our model range, and for now we have no confirmed plans for any series production model above it, so we understand it must have a specification suiting its position in our hierarchy”. Expect more than the 625 hp expected of the next M5, therefore. The M8 GTE racing car, also announced at the Nurburgring 24hr endurance race, will be given its racing debut at the Daytona 24 Hours in January next year before returing a factory BMW effort to the Le Mans 24hr endurance race in 2018 for the first time in 6 years. The standard M8 is likely to be revealed ahead of this; the 8 Series goes on sale in the second half of next year, although no reveal date has yet been provided for either. The M8 will carry a heavy premium over the standard 8 Series, so a starting price surpassing that of even the i8 supercar is certain; the Mercedes-AMG S 63 Coupé kicks off at around 230,000 euro in The Netherlands, so the M8 should remain competitive with its Stuttgart competitor. +++
+++ FIAT CHRYSLER boss Sergio Marchionne has said the car industry needs to come together, cut costs and stop incinerating capital. So far, his confessions have mostly fallen on deaf ears among competitors in Europe and North America. But it appears Marchionne has finally found a receptive audience: in China. FCA shares soared Monday after trade publication Automotive News reported the $18 billion Italian-American conglomerate controlled by the Agnelli family rebuffed a takeover from an unidentified mainland carmaker. As ugly as the politics of such a combination may appear at first blush, a transaction could stack up industrially, and perhaps even financially. A Sino-U.S.-European merger would create the first truly global auto group. That could push consolidation to the next level elsewhere. Moreover, China is the world’s top market for the SUVs Jeep effectively invented, so it might benefit FCA financially. A combo would certainly help upgrade the domestic manufacturer; Chinese carmakers have gotten better at making cars but struggle to build global brands, and they need to develop export markets. Though frivolous overseas shopping excursions by Chinese enterprises are being reined in by Beijing, acquisitions that support the modernization and transformation of strategic industries still receive support, and the government considers the automotive industry to be strategic. A purchase of FCA by Guangzhou Automobile, Great Wall or Dongfeng Motor would probably get the same stamp of approval ChemChina was given for its 43 billion dollar takeover of Syngenta. What’s standing in the way? Apart from price (Automotive News said FCA’s board deemed the offer insufficient) there’s the not-insignificant matter of politics. Even as FCA shares soared, President Donald Trump interrupted his vacation to instruct the U.S. Trade Representative to look into whether to investigate China’s trade policies on intellectual property. Seeing storied Detroit brands like Jeep, Chrysler, Ram and Dodge handed off to a Chinese company would provoke howls among Trump’s economic-nationalist supporters. It might not play well in Italy, either, to see Alfa Romeo and Maserati answering to Wuhan instead of Turin, though Automotive News said they might be spun off separately. Yet, as Morgan Stanley observes, “cars don’t ship across oceans easily”, and political considerations increasingly demand local manufacture of valuable products. Combining with General Motors, as Marchionne once proposed, would have led to massive job cuts and plant closures. Opposing a Chinese bid for FCA makes an easy, inflammable tweet. Keeping Americans employed takes something a bit more rigorous. +++
+++ GENERAL MOTORS has accused the trust it used during its 2009 bankruptcy sale of plotting with attorneys in an attempt to make the car manufacturer pay 1 billion dollar in stock as part of a class-action settlement. AutoNews reports that the accord is part of a settlement between the plaintiffs and the General Unsecured Creditors Trust that’s been created to resolve hundreds of personal-injury cases triggered by GM’s faulty ignition switches. If the settlement is approved by a judge, the trust will be forced to pay 15 million dollar to plaintiffs while also accepting 10 billion dollar in undisputed claims. If this were to happen, total approved claims from the case would exceed 35 billion dollar, the mark allegedly stipulated in GM’s 2009 sale as the threshold. If that threshold is reached, GM has to contribute 1 billion dollar in stock to help pay for the claims. However, General Motors alleges that the trust has only accepted the 10 billion dollar in claims to force the automaker to pay. In a statement, the firm said: “This contrived scheme won’t work. We will aggressively protect our rights and our shareholders, and will work to hold the GUC Trust and plaintiffs accountable for their bad faith and improper actions”. General Unsecured Creditors Trust attorney Steve Berman refutes these claims, saying “this is what GM bargained for…It’s working exactly the way it’s supposed to work”. +++
+++ HYUNDAI ’s N performance division is preparing a hot version of the Veloster that will mark the N brand’s entry into the US market. The Veloster N, as it’s expected to be called, has been spotted testing under heavy camouflage at the Nürburgring a week after brand bosses said a second N model was due in 2018. It will follow the i30N in the N range, but likely won’t sold in the same markets as that car, including Europe, where the Veloster hasn’t been offered since it was deleted in 2014. The Veloster N will get 10-spoke wheels and more aggressive bodywork, which cladding suggests a large rear wing. At the back, a pair of large-bore exhausts hint at the car’s performance. Hyundai has refrained from commenting on the model, but it’s expected to use a more potent version of the i30N’s turbocharged 2.0-litre four-cylinder unit, producing around 275 hp. This would rank it close to the next-generation Ford Focus ST, which is expected to produce the same output from its 1.5-litre engine when it arrives in 2018. Hyundai’s decision to not sell the i30N in North America has been linked to the impending arrival of the Veloster N, which is predicated to be more suited to that market’s demands. N has also been spotted testing its Veloster RM16 N at the Nürburgring. Sources believe it shows that Hyundai N is experimenting with the idea of a high-performance halo sports car. +++
+++ Traffic was its congested usual this week, so I popped a test car into pilot mode with the tap of a button on the steering wheel. Volvo’s latest SUV assumed acceleration and braking duties, steering the car within its lanes to maintain progress and a safe gap to the car in front. In a way, SELF DRIVING cars are already here. Technology in cutting-edge models straddles the present and future as the automotive industry, legislators, academics and motorists grapple with the reality of autonomous cars. Dozens of vehicles already offered by luxury brands such as Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz have the ability to handle driving duties in some circumstances, and Tesla is famous for the Autopilot option in its electric cars. A believer in the role self-driving cars could play in reducing road trauma, Volvo is also at the apex of autonomous driving. The Swedish brand is set to use 100 autonomous cars in a trial will ferry motorists around Gothenburg. A taste of that will hit Sydney in coming weeks as Transport for NSW’s Centre for Road Safety takes delivery of a Volvo XC90 that will help shape research and legislation surrounding self-driving cars. Bernard Carlon, executive director at the Centre for Road Safety, says the Volvo SUV’s complex array of active driver aids represent “a stepping stone to driverless vehicles in the future”, and that his team will closely examine how they work on Australian roads. “We want to make sure we understand how driverless vehicles will improve the safety and efficiency of our transport system”, he said. “We’re also looking at what we need to do to enable trials of more highly automated vehicles in NSW”. Australia is home to a range of autonomous vehicle research projects. Volvo won headlines as the first car maker to conduct a brief trial on local roads in Adelaide in 2015, Mercedes flew a team from Germany to Melbourne to put its latest tech to the test in 2017, and a trial for lightweight autonomous buses underway in Perth will be joined by a similar project in Sydney this month. Further trials are likely to emerge as tech firms including Bosch and Codha Wireless work alongside carmakers and authorities to smooth the local introduction of self-driving cars. The NRMA future of car ownership report released this week suggests “high level autonomous vehicles will arrive in Australia as early as 2020”. “While there will be fundamental changes to vehicles and associated mobility services, we expect that some level of human interaction with a vehicle will still remain the norm within Australian society up until 2025”, it said. Responding to the NRMA report, Paul Fletcher, minister for urban infrastructure in the Turnbull Government, said “much remains uncertain” surrounding the introduction of fully autonomous cars. “We are not yet at the point where driverless vehicles can safely operate on public roads which are also being used by human driven vehicles”, he said. “Driverless vehicles will transform our society, although views vary as to exactly how quickly they will become dominant. We need to prepare for this transition, and in Australia as around the world there is plenty of work going on”. Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz banded together to buy Nokia’s HERE maps service in 2015, predicting that the array of sensors, cameras and lasers on self-driving cars will not be enough to make truly autonomous vehicles a reality. Mark Whitmore, Australia-based APAC director for HERE, said complex vehicle-to-vehicle and “car to x” communication with traffic lights, advisory signs, speed limits and other road furniture elements is “hugely essential” as “we cannot launch autonomous cars without car-to-car communication”. A passionate advocate for technology on the road, Whitmore says cars that encounter road hazards could warn following vehicles (both autonomous and human-driven) to be cautious, and that a fire truck or ambulance could get a clean run of green lights all the way to the scene of an emergency, wirelessly guiding cars out of its path. Those features could slow the introduction of autonomous cars in Australia, as our road network lacks the necessary digital infrastructure. Jerome Catbagan, traffic and transport planning manager for SMEC consultants, told an Australian Driverless Vehicle Initiative teleconference this week that autonomous vehicles “will be commercially viable in 5 years and commonplace in 10 to 20 years”, and that road authorities are “not considering this as part of our future transport system when developing long term plans”. The majority of new cars in the next 5 to 10 years are likely to look and feel much like cars today, but pod-like driverless vehicles are a possibility for the future. Several car manufacturers have exhibited cars that resemble wheeled lounge rooms at motor shows around the world, taking the temperature of drivers’ readiness to accept a future without steering wheels. Professor Mike Regan, chief scientist for human factors at the Australian Road Research Board, led an Australian study of more than 5.000 people surrounding their attitudes toward autonomous cars. Publishing the results in June 2017, Regan found “there was quite a high degree of potential acceptance of these technologies”. But that comes with a catch. “People really weren’t ready for a completely autonomous vehicle to drive their kid to school, for example”, Professor Regan said. “The majority of them, even though vehicles in the future will be totally autonomous, still want the option to flick it into manual mode”. There lies one of the big questions faced by legislators and car makers – should they allow customers control over cars with self-driving capabilities, and how would that work? The Society of Automotive Engineers has a widely accepted set of definitions for autonomous cars that run from level 0 (no automation) through varying grades of assistance to level 5 (fully autonomous driving in all situations, all of the time). Level 5 cars will not have a steering wheel. A spokesman for the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development told that level 5 cars “are some time away”. David Pickett, certification and engineering manager at Volvo Car Australia believes it will be “decades” before level 5 cars are viable. Current models such as the XC90, Mercedes-Benz E-Class and Tesla Model X offer level 2 assistance, while Audi will usher in level 3 with its upcoming A8 mid-2018. While level three cars can handle all driving duties for minutes at a time, they require drivers to be able to retake control at a moment’s notice. Pickett said Volvo will skip level 3 to offer a level 4 car in some markets in 2020. He believes level 4 vehicles may be restricted in autonomous mode to defined areas agreed upon by road authorities and car makers. The Department of Infrastructure says owners of such cars may need to pass a special driver’s test “demonstrating skills necessary to work with an automated driving system”. Such a test would require an understanding of the vehicle’s limitations as well as its ultimate capabilities. Associate Professor Vinayak Dixit is leading an ongoing University of NSW study into how, when and why Australian drivers would hand control to autonomous cars. His team uses a network of 10 video game-like driving simulators to measure driver perceptions, reaction times and productivity levels on the road. But it may go further than that. Dixit said his team will prepare a modified Toyota Yaris and “make sure it is safe” before releasing the car for proposed trials in early 2018. “The fundamental question we are asking is how people interact with autonomous vehicles”, he said. “We want to make this vehicle drive around to see how people interact with it. We’re keen to make it run on public roads”. Self-driving cars won’t tire or get drunk, make risky decisions or exceed speed limits. There is immense potential to reduce road trauma while liberating drivers from the monotony of stop-start congestion. But Dixit warns that the safety qualifications of autonomous cars are not well understood, and that overseas trials of self-driving cars “were found to have significantly high correlation and trends with accidents”; many caused by other motorists. Regan agrees that it is too early to assume that self-driving cars will consign road deaths to history. “People say automated vehicles are going to reduce 90 percent of crashes because 90 percent of crashes are human errors. I just don’t agree with that”, he said. “We simply don’t know what sorts of new types of crashes will be created when we have driverless vehicles and automated vehicles. We have no idea how it is going to play out”. +++
+++ VOLKSWAGEN has confirmed that a production version of the ID Crozz concept will be its first MEB-based vehicle when it lands in US showrooms. The Crozz is one of three new EV concepts proposed for the electric platform architecture, following the original ID Concept (a hatchback) and the ID Buzz throwback bus. The ID Crozz production confirmation suggests VW is placing a high priority on volume sales by targeting the most popular segment. The timing suggests it may face more competition in the space, however, as Tesla readies the Model Y as an affordable high-riding alternative to the Model 3. The ID Crozz was presented with a 306 horsepower electric drivetrain and an estimated range of around 500 kilometers according to the European test cycle. The company claimed its battery can be charged to 80 percent in just 30 minutes. Notably, an executive recently made a bold declaration that Volkswagen would undercut the Model 3 by up to 8,000 dollar. If true, the German automaker is planning an extremely aggressive foray into the modern long-range EV market with a 27,000 dollar crossover. It is unclear if there are any unspoken caveats, such as a wide gap in available battery sizes and electric range. +++