+++ AUDI has taken out the gong with the world’s first level 3 autonomous vehicle, but the best news for consumers is that the manufacturer has confirmed it will take full responsibility in the event of an accident. The all-new Audi A8 debuts an autonomous driving technology designed to work in traffic jams. It gives drivers the ability to activate the system, take their eyes off the road and focus on more important tasks. The level 3 autonomy technology brings with it huge liability issues for manufacturers, which has driven Audi to implement a number of safeguards to ensure the system works flawlessly. Speaking at the reveal of the technology in Germany this week, Audi’s boss of pre-development of automated driving, Thorsten Leonhardt told that the technology is now here and Audi has accepted the liability risk. “When the function is operated as intended, if the customer turns the traffic jam pilot on and uses it as intended, and the car was in control at the time of the accident, the driver goes to his insurance company and the insurance company will compensate the victims of the accident and in the aftermath they come to us and we have to pay them”, said Leonhardt. Within the A8 autonomous control system is a data recorded that precisely records the activation, deactivation and sensor data. This data recorder also ensures that in the event of an accident where the driver claims the car was in control, Audi can cross-reference the data. The data remains the property of the customer and can’t be accessed by Audi remotely, which means they are always in control with regards to their driving history. If you’re unfamiliar with the autonomous driving hierarchy, there are 5 levels. Levels 1 and 2 are limited to vehicles where there’s never an expectation of full autonomy; that is, the driver always needs to be in control of the vehicle. Some of the systems that fall into these categories include radar cruise control, Tesla’s current iteration of AutoPilot, semi-automatic parking technology and so on. At level 3, the driver is able to let the vehicle fully control its operation when activated. The driver is able to take their eyes off the road and isn’t expected to pay attention. The vehicle is able to dynamically take control of random situations thrown at it and the driver only becomes responsible again once the system alerts them to take over. This is one step down from level 4 autonomy, where the car will be able to control the entire driving process from start to finish. An example of this is Google’s Waymo test car, which drives entirely on its own. Finally, level 5 autonomy is a vehicle that will drive itself, but doesn’t feature a steering wheel or pedals. +++
+++ BMW says that it misjudged the situation when it came to electric cars, as the German brand’s massive planned expansion into the segment with its BMW i sub brand didn’t go to schedule. BMW’s boss of electric mobility, Dirk Arnold, admitted the original idea for the BMW i brand of cars was to have more than just the current i3 and i8 by now. “That was the plan, actually. We started with the i3 and maybe it was not crystal clear, but it was obvious that we needed to learn. Of course, everyone pretends to know everything over the last 10 years and everyone did that in the past, thinking they know what will happen in 2021, but it’s predicting the future. No one knows that, otherwise, we would win the lottery if we were able to do that”, Arnold said. According to Arnold, the lack of support for electric cars from governments around the world came as a surprise to BMW, which is only just now seeing worldwide policies favouring such vehicles, admitting that the company was perhaps too hasty. “We are on track with the plan, of course. We were looking at the whole development and, to be honest, for some countries or for some aspects that are important for the whole development, we misjudged the situation”, he said. “We expected more pressure from the government or more support from the political side, it developed totally different. In some countries, like Belgium, it came in only 2 years ago”. Nonetheless, it’s full steam ahead for electric cars at the Bavarian brand, with promises of one new electrified vehicle per year for the foreseeable future, with the announcement of the BMW’s i Vision Dynamics concept just the beginning. “We now introduce update for the i3 and i8 roadster. Over the next couple of years, we will introduce at least one electrified vehicle per year. The 9 models we have today we will increase over time”. All upcoming electrified vehicles will come under the BMW i sub brand, which will also see them differentiated from the standard cars visually. “You need to recognise the car definitely and authentically as a BMW i model, so you can’t have it looking quite the same, you need certain BMW i for the design and other aspects”. BMW believes that the future of the automobile is electrified, with the path to electrification now irreversible. +++
+++ There’s been a lot said about DIESEL fuel over the past few years, but a statement from Simon Birkett, founder and director of Clean Air London, at the inaugural Jaguar Land Rover Tech Fest could be one of the more controversial ones yet. “Diesel is the devil, and we do need to ban it”, Birkett said while sitting on a panel of experts, including Jaguar Land Rover’s head of powertrain development, Iain Grey. “The more complex questions are: which vehicles; where; when; and how. That is much more complicated; it’s about providing the infrastructure, doing the sort of things Jaguar Land Rover is taking the lead on”, Birkett said of the British company’s commitment to have an all-electrified line-up from 2020 onwards. “It’s about some bans, some charging, some public education campaigns and some incentives. We are already finding there are a lot fewer people who would choose a diesel vehicle as their next vehicle”. Rather than agree with Birkett, Grey suggested the decision of the British company to only offer a range of mild-hybrid, plug-in hybrid and electric models in new vehicles from 2020 will build upon the four-cylinder Ingenium turbocharged diesel and petrol engine range. “Electrification is supplementing the Ingenium family of engines. We’re hybridising those engine technologies in different ways. Absolutely we see a future for the Ingenium engine family and the Wolverhampton manufacturing facility”, Grey said. “Fundamentally, when you look at the technology a diesel engine can provide in today’s tech, we’re looking at an engine that can achieve a comparable level of NOx (nitrous oxide) emissions compared to a petrol engine, but will consistently deliver 20 to 25 percent better fuel consumption, and therefore lower CO2 emissions. “When we look at these Euro6 engines that we use, that employ after-treatment technologies such as selective catalytic reduction and diesel particulate filters; the combination of those 2 reduce the NOx and emissions to a point where you can be confident you’re driving a ‘clean diesel’ ”, Grey said. “When you consider that we have to look at both the global warming picture and the localised air quality picture, the combination of those 2 things together means the diesel engine is absolutely a valid choice. But one of the key things from our perspective is we’re engineering petrol solutions, diesel solutions, fully electric solutions, and as per the recent announcement, all of our diesel and petrol versions will be hybridised in the future as well. “We’re engineering the full gamut of systems to allow the customer the choice, to make sure the customer can make the right decision for their particular circumstances”, Grey said. Jaguar’s first fully electric model, the I-Pace, will reach showrooms in 2018. Land Rover already has a couple of hybrid options on offer (the Range Rover Sport and the Range Rover Vogue) but no electric cars or plug-in hybrids, for that matter. +++
+++ ELECTRIC vehicles have not only arrived on the global stage, they’re well and truly on the rise. This is especially the case in Europe, where they were the fastest growing automotive segment in the first half of 2017. Overall, the segment grew by 27,000 units (or 56 percent) to 73,162 units for the January to June period (up from 46,949 in 2016), with a helpful boost provided by the recently launched Hyundai Ioniq. Even so, Hyundai’s EV contender failed to make it onto the sales podium, finishing in fourth place behind the BMW i3, Nissan Leaf and Renault Zoe, in that order, according to figures published by data agency JATO Dynamics. And, while the EV segment posted its best result of the year, the market share of battery-powered cars is still small at 0.9 percent, up from 0.6 percent in the same period the previous year. The big winner, though, and second fastest growing segment, is still ‘compact’ SUVs and crossovers, which leapt 37 percent to 989,421 sales to June. The big boost from that segment came from the new Peugeot 3008, adding more than 81,000 unit sales during the first 6 months, and jumping to number3 in the segment. Good thing Peugeot went from a MPV to an SUV with its latest-generation 3008, given the compact MPV segment was down 5.7 percent overall. Volkswagen’s latest-generation Tiguan also notched up a healthy 55,036 sales for total of 128,033 units in the same period. For EVs, the surge in European sales was spearheaded by Norway, where pretty much every city and town boasts bus-lane access for EVs, recharging stations (lots of them), preferential parking and toll-free travel for electric vehicles. It’s the result of initiatives that began in the 1990s, in an effort to cut not only pollution and congestion, but also noise in the cities, where many people actually live. And those initiatives seem to have paid off. Norway has the highest per-capita number of all-electric (battery only) vehicles in the world: more than 100,000 in a country of just 5.2 million people. In fact, in 2016, EV registrations made up almost 40 percent of new passenger car registrations. Earlier this year, Norway opened the world’s largest charging station for electric vehicles that can charge up to 28 cars at any one time, in 30 minutes. More radical still is its intention to phase out fossil-fuelled cars completely by 2025. Interestingly, it’s China that currently leads the world in EV usage, with around 600,000 all-electric vehicles registered, but with plans to grow that number to 5 million by 2020. +++
+++ It was more than 5 years ago that LAMBORGHINI introduced the Urus concept. So it’s about time the automaker set a date for the reveal of the production SUV. The Lamborghini Urus will debut on December 4 in Sant’Agata Bolognese, Italy. Ahead of the event, Lamborghini revealed a teaser, although the concept Urus probably gives us a better idea of the final model’s design. We’ve seen prototypes running around with a familiar raked roof and vent-happy front end. Expect the standard Urus to feature a twin-turbo V8 engine packing 650 hp. A plug-in hybrid version should arrive a year after the regular model. The SUV is expected to more than double Lamborghini’s annual sales, and production of the SUV could hit 3,500 units a year by 2019. Lamborghini isn’t giving much else away, but promises the SUV will have “the distinctive dynamic design DNA of a Lamborghini super sports car”. Of course, it’s too early for Lamborghini to announce prices. But we suspect the model will start somewhere around 280,000 euro here in The Netherlands. According to previous reports, the Urus will go on sale in Europe by the second quarter of 2018 before hitting the U.S. market in the third quarter. +++
+++ I am a big fan of MAZDA ’s past rotary engined cars, so anytime it files a new rotary patent, or a rumor surfaces that the RX-9 is finally headed to production, I get excited. I also appreciate that Mazda is still openly committed to trying to find a way to bring the rotary engine back. But we also have to accept that it’s probably not going to happen anytime soon, and one of the biggest reasons is that Mazda can only invest so much money into technology that’s unlikely to be a major profit driver. Kiyoshi Fujiwara, Mazda’s head of research and development, said other technologies have to take priority right now: “For surviving, Mazda needs money to spend on autonomous driving technology, co-pilot, and next-generation SkyActiv-D, and hybrid systems and electrifications. Therefore we need the money”. But Fujiwara also confirmed that the small Japanese automaker hasn’t given up on the rotary. “We are still working on a rotary engine itself with a limited number of engineers, but we have to get money now and also we have to be positioned to be able to become higher brand image. We can do that eventually. We don’t give up”, he told. At this point, though, bringing back a rotary engine is more about brand prestige than anything else. “Rotary is not for getting money. Just before deciding to start again on rotary engines, we need money; then if we need more brand image, more characteristics, we need rotary vehicles”, said Fujiwara. “Normally European or German brands have very strong characteristics cars; Audi, BMW or Mercedes, they have these kind of icon models (performance models) to pull up the brand itself. We are now not in this kind of situation”. To justify adding a halo performance model, Mazda knows it needs to increase its profits. “We have twice had bad experience for rotary engines for our financial situation, therefore we have to carefully consider and carefully decide how to do that. Some of the stakeholders and shareholders cannot allow it at this moment”, he said. But if the company’s financial situation improves, you may actually see Mazda build a rotary-powered performance car. “If we can get more robust business structure, I can explain it, I can get approval. If it’s needed”, Fujiwara said. So the rotary engine definitely won’t make a return anytime soon. But if we all give Mazda enough of our money, maybe the RX-9 will actually happen. +++
+++ NISSAN is looking to expand its EV lineup beyond the second-generation Leaf that debuted this week. Apparently, the automaker will offer a range of electric vehicles based on the Leaf’s new platform, and one of them will be a crossover. The crossover EV will debut at the Tokyo Motor Show this October. Nissan design boss Alfonso Albaisa said the vehicle will be “a little bigger” than the Qashqai, known as the Rogue Sport here in the U.S. It will go on sale globally in 2019. An electric sedan is also likely to debut at some point. Members of the new EV family are expected to use the same 40-kilowatt-hour batteries and autonomous driving technologies as the Leaf. By 2020, Nissan’s tech will be able to accommodate autonomous driving on urban roads and intersections instead of just highways. Right now, the Leaf’s ProPilot feature can handle steering, acceleration, and braking in single-lane highway driving situations. It’s unclear what Nissan will call the new EVs, but they won’t share the Leaf name in the same way that Volkswagen’s line of electric vehicles will wear the I.D. badge. When it arrives in the next few years, Nissan’s electric crossover will compete with a production version of the VW I.D. Crozz. This crossover could travel 500 kilometers on a single charge and will reportedly arrive in the showrooms in 2020. +++
+++ The White House issued new voluntary guidelines for SELF DRIVING cars, setting the scene for the acceleration of autonomous technologies. With the revised guidelines, the U.S. eliminates the need for automakers to receive regulatory approval before deploying autonomous features. States are told to focus on licensing, registering, and insuring autonomous cars while the federal government handles issues related to safety and performance. The guidance also revises “unnecessary” design elements from the safety self-assessment for autonomous cars. It focuses on Level 3-5 self-driving vehicles, which range from semi-autonomous to fully autonomous. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao defended the administration’s choice to issue voluntary guidelines rather than hard-and-fast laws. She said it was the right approach for technology that is constantly changing, and regulators will be able to bar autonomous vehicles if they prove unsafe in the future. “This advanced, updated guidance clarifies and incorporates many of the concerns we subsequently heard from stakeholders and users”, Chao said. “As the technology advances, and the department gathers new and more information, we will continue to refine and update this document”. The move is considered a win for automakers and manufacturers of autonomous technologies who want self-driving cars regulated at a federal level rather than having to deal with different requirements in different states. Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives signed off on a proposal to prevent states from banning autonomous cars. Automakers can receive exemptions to test autonomous cars without meeting current auto safety standards in the first year, although manufacturers would be required to demonstrate certain safety capabilities. The measure now goes to the Senate. U.S. regulators are gearing up to issue an even newer set of guidelines surrounding autonomous cars, so we could see more changes soon. Now the question is how quickly will consumers accept these vehicles. +++