+++ Ford and Vodafone are testing a system to ALERT drivers of upcoming incidents, and instruct them to clear path for emergency services. Ambulances, police cars and fire engines could soon have a smoother path through traffic when heading to emergencies, after Ford and Vodafone confirmed they are testing a system the will alert drivers to incidents. Dubbed eCall Plus, the system builds on the eCall system, which automatically alerts emergency services if a car is involved in a serious accident. eCall Plus will go several steps further than eCall, however. Its architects envisage it will use car infotainment systems to warn drivers of an incident, such as a crash, up to 500 metres ahead. It will also inform them that emergency services are approaching, and instruct them to move to a specific side of the road. This would create an “emergency corridor” for rescue vehicles to travel down, saving paramedics, police officers and fire-fighters from having to weave between vehicles that pull over on random sides of the road. Experts estimate the victims of accidents have a 40 % better chance of survival if they are reached by emergency service personnel just four minutes more quickly. Countries that legislate for emergency corridors typically mandate that on dual carriageways, corridors are created in the middle of the 2 lanes. One study in Germany, however, found almost 50 % of drivers don’t know how to create an emergency corridor, while another found victims of accidents have a 40 % better chance of survival if they are reached by emergency service personnel just four minutes more quickly. Gunnar Herrmann, Ford’s German CEO, said the company has a long history of “testing vehicle to traffic infrastructure and vehicle to vehicle communications that can contribute to greater road safety and efficiency”. Hannes Ametsreiter, CEO of Vodafone Germany said the “digital revolution” has the potential to “help save lives on our roads”. The new system is being developed as part of KoMoD (Kooperative Mobilität im digitalen Testfeld Düsseldorf), a €15 million German programme designed to investigate autonomous vehicles, connected car technologies and “the interplay of several driver assistance functions in real driving situations”. While eCall Plus may be some years off, all new cars sold in Europe since April 2018 must be fitted with eCall. As well as alerting emergency services to an incident, eCall lets authorities know the vehicle’s precise location, which kind of fuel it runs on, and in which direction it was travelling when it crashed. eCall is estimated to reduce emergency response times by up to 50 % in the countryside, and 60 % in built-up areas. The system also features an SOS button, allowing drivers to summon assistance manually. +++
+++ BMW veteran Andreas Wendt will be the new head of the company’s purchasing and supplier network, taking the post vacated by Markus Düsmann who quit the automaker in July to join Volkswagen Group. Wendt, 60, will take the role on Oct. 1, BMW said in a statement. Wendt’s promotion comes as reports say boardroom bickering has intensified at the automaker amid slowing sales momentum and rivals Mercedes-Benz and Audi launching new electric vehicles to challenge Tesla. BMW issued its first profit warning in a decade, blaming trade tensions and new WLTP emissions rules in Europe. Leadership tensions have intensified amid a prolonged lackluster period under CEO Harald Krüger, a BMW lifer at the helm for the past 3 years, company sources told. They asked not to be identified discussing internal deliberations. The company has gone from a leader to laggard on electric cars, and in 2016 it lost its luxury-sales crown to Mercedes. Moving early among major carmakers with the electric i3 in 2013, BMW won’t match a fresh generation of Mercedes and Audi battery-powered SUVs unveiled this year until 2020. At next week’s Paris auto show, the carmaker will present the revamped 3-series sedan, a bread-and-butter vehicle that is among its biggest seller by volume. BMW’s top management has been thinned out following the surprise departure of Düsmann to VW where he is being lined up to head Audi. Düsmann was a strong candidate to replace Klaus Fröhlich, 58, as development chief once Fröhlich reaches BMW’s age limit in 2 years, a source told. Düsmann was also a potential eventual successor to Krüger. The loss of Düsmann, after former BMW executive Herbert Diess became VW’s CEO, irked both BMW Chairman Norbert Reithofer and Deputy Chairman Stefan Quandt, who holds a 26 % stake. As a result, Düsmann is unlikely to be released early from non-compete provisions of his contract, sources said. This would prevent Düsmann working for VW for 2 years. BMW has set up a special working group to help new sales head Pieter Nota get on the front foot, and Krüger is considering a broader shakeup of the sales structure, according to people familiar with BMW’s strategy. Nota joined BMW from consumer-electronics giant Royal Philips last year, a rare top hire from outside the company signaling a search for fresh expertise. BMW’s delivery growth of 4.2 % in 2017 has been cut by more than half this year through August. Nota has started working with Chief Financial Officer Nicolas Peter and Krueger to come up with new strategies. BMW is also considering whether to bundle group sales in one management-board position again, after creating a dual structure that splits responsibilities. While Nota leads sales for BMW’s namesake brand, Peter Schwarzenbauer has oversight of all operations including sales for Rolls-Royce ultra-luxury vehicles, Mini city cars and motorcycle nameplates. A BMW spokesman declined to comment on board discussions or on any potential overhaul in the company’s sales organization. BMW and its rivals face growing challenges to their supply networks from the U.S. administration’s threat to impose tariffs on European imports and the possibility of the UK leaving the EU next March without a trade agreement. “The ongoing internationalization of our business and growing volatility greatly increase the level of complexity and demand even greater flexibility from our supplier network and purchasing division”, Reithofer said in the statement. Wendt’s focus on innovation throughout his career and his expertise in managing quality and complexity puts the purchasing division in an “excellent position to meet all these demands”, Reithofer said. Wendt has been in charge of BMW’s largest German plant in Dingolfing since early 2017. Prior to that, he managed the automaker’s factory in Regensburg, Germany, for 8 years. A mechanical engineer, Wendt began his career at BMW in 2002, as head of strategy development production. In the past, BMW has usually applied an age limit of 60 years for management board positions and only allowed executives to stay on for longer in exceptional cases. +++
+++ New BUGATTI boss Stephan Winkelmann is looking to push through a second model line-up alongside the Chiron, with a potential SUV bodystyle favoured over the originally mooted 4-door saloon. Winkelmann, previously of Lamborghini and Audi Sport, took up his position as Bugatti’s chief executive in January, pushing the recently revealed Divo from a working project to a production reality in just 8 months. He confirmed the luxury brand is “ready to do more than one model”. He said: “It’s clear that if we do something different from a super-sports car like the Chiron, then it would not be enough just to be in love with one type of car”. When asked if a second model would be a saloon or an SUV, Winkelmann said: “We would look at every bodystyle and regional demand and not put our money into something that is fading”. Prior to the new CEO’s arrival, Bugatti had previously worked on the idea of a 4-door saloon under the Galibier name. But Winkelmann’s suggestion that such a bodystyle may be ‘fading’ is reflective of the decline in 3-box saloon sales in more mainstream brands in favour of more desirable SUVs. Winkelmann was in charge at Lamborghini during the conception of the Urus SUV, which has recently been launched. Ferrari is also set to bring an SUV to market next year, while luxury brand such as Rolls-Royce and Bentley also have high-riding models. Investment in a second Bugatti bodystyle has had to take a back seat behind the Volkswagen Group’s other priorities, such as electric vehicle and autonomous technology development. However, that could change as the profitability of cars like the Chiron proves high-end, low-volume models make money. +++
+++ DAIMLER boss Dieter Zetsche will step down next year from his position of chairman of the board of management at the automotive giant and will be replaced by group research and Mercedes-Benz development boss, Ola Källenius. Zetsche, who has been on the Daimler board since 1998, chairman of the board since 2006 and head of Mercedes-Benz cars since 2005, will step down after Daimler’s annual shareholder meeting on 22 May 2019. A 2-year cooling-off period will follow, before Zetsche’s transfer to the supervisory board takes effect. In his future role on the supervisory board, Zetsche will replace Manfred Bischoff after the 2021 annual shareholders’ meeting. Zetsche has been at Daimler since 1976, when he joined the research division. He has never worked outside of Daimler. Under Zetsche, Mercedes-Benz has become the best-selling luxury car maker in the world, outselling rivals Audi and BMW. Zetsche’s successor Källenius has been appointed as chairman for 5 years. “In Ola Källenius, we are appointing a recognised, internationally experienced and successful Daimler executive as chairman of the board of management of Daimler AG and head of Mercedes-Benz Cars. At the same time, we are relying on the proven dual responsibility of the chairman of the board of management as the head of the largest division, Mercedes-Benz Cars”, said Bischoff. Swedish-born Källenius has been at Daimler since 1995, although had a 2-year stint as executive director at McLaren Automotive between 2003 and 2005. He was appointed in his current role at the helm of group research and Mercedes-Benz development at the beginning of 2016, having joined the Mercedes-Benz board in 2015 as head of marketing and sales. Källenius will be replaced by head of production and supply chain management Markus Schäfer. +++
+++ FERRARI ’s upcoming SUV model finally has a name: Purosangue. It may not flow off the tongue like Italia or Lusso but, Ferrari has selected the name Purosangue for its upcoming utility model. Purosangue is the Italian word for thoroughbred. Not much else is known about Ferrari’s answer to the Lamborghini Urus, which was confirmed late last year, but the prancing horse of SUVs is set to launch sometime in 2022. It will ride on a new front mid-engine architecture that will be shared with other Ferrari models. The Purosangue will likely be motivated by a turbocharged V8 paired to a hybrid system. The Purosangue will have all-wheel drive and an adjustable suspension, which should give the SUV at least a semblance of off-road ability. Pricing is far from concrete, but expect at least 300.000 euro in The Netherlands. +++
+++ With its stock trading near a 6-year low late last month, FORD boss Jim Hackett gathered the automaker’s top 300 executives near its headquarters in Michigan for a global leadership meeting. Hackett’s message: Ford must put in motion plans to restructure its business now in order to secure promised costs savings, Ford executives present at the meeting said. “We have clarity of purpose and now it’s time to take action”, Hackett told in an interview. A key part of that plan to save money calls for Ford to deepen partnerships with other automakers around the world to share factory floor capacity and develop vehicles together, Ford executives. Specifically, they said Ford is engaged in talks with Volkswagen and India’s Mahindra about expanding product and technology alliances. With Volkswagen, discussions are focused on how to expand a commercial vehicle tie-up they previously announced to include collaboration in South America and Europe (where Ford is losing money) and co-develop other types of vehicles, according to a Volkswagen executive and 2 sources familiar with Ford’s thinking who asked not to be identified. Pablo Di Si, chief executive for Volkswagen in Latin America, told the companies are studying a partnership in Brazil and the talks are “advancing positively”, although he did not expect an announcement until 2019. A VW spokesman declined further comment on the alliance discussions. An expanded alliance would give Volkswagen access to some of Ford’s most profitable vehicles, including the Transit commercial vans and Ranger compact pickups, said the 2 sources. VW could also help Ford strengthen its money-losing South American and European operations by combining vehicle production in those markets, the sources said. Separately, product sharing talks are underway with Mahindra, including using the Indian automaker as a benchmark to bring down supplier costs in the region, 2 other people familiar with Mahindra’s plans said. The first vehicle from the platform they are jointly developing will likely be launched in 2020, they added. A spokesman for Mahindra did not respond to a request for comment. The twin efforts are meant to help remake Ford in conjunction with the $11 billion restructuring it outlined for the next 3 to 5 years. Ford needs to improve profitability because it is investing billions of dollars to develop electric and self-driving vehicles, and gearing up for a major roll out of products over the next 2 years. Hackett, who recently spoke with the heads of Volkswagen and Mahindra, told the alliance talks are going well and hold a lot of promise for Ford. He declined to comment on specific deal structures being discussed or locations, however. Broader product and cost-sharing deals with Volkswagen and Mahindra could allow the No. 2 U.S. automaker to reduce the number of different vehicles it builds and shrink engineering and purchasing costs, Ford executives said. Fewer vehicle architectures, combined with increased numbers of electric vehicles, would also help Ford reduce the number of plants and employees it needs for that work over the next several years, according to the 2 sources familiar with Ford’s thinking. The moves are aimed to help Ford hit its goal of doubling global pre-tax profit margins to 8 % by 2020, up from 4.3 % in the second quarter of this year. Hackett remains under pressure to show results. The stock is down about 24 % this year. “Hackett’s job really is to cut the costs”, said Edgar Wachenheim III, chairman of Greenhaven Associates, which is Ford’s 9th largest investor with almost 33 million shares at the end of June. “You have this possibility that Hackett can eliminate the $4.5 billion of losses (in its weaker operations) that were there in 2017 and the earnings will shoot up”. The capital demands currently in the industry have never been greater, Ford executive vice president Joe Hinrichs told at the company’s headquarters outside Detroit. “A big opportunity is around leveraging other people’s strengths”, Hinrichs, who is president of global operations, said of the alliances. “There’s a lot of opportunity to share capital, share engineering resources”. Ford and Volkswagen said in June they were discussing whether to jointly develop and build a range of commercial vehicles, including vans. The commercial vehicle deal is a “quick win” and more will follow with VW, said Hau Thai-Tang, Ford’s executive vice president in charge of Ford’s product development. “If you look on paper, we complement each other really well”, he said of Ford and Volkswagen. “There’s opportunities for some synergies without us stepping on each other”. Alliances also offer automakers the chance to share the costs, Hinrichs said. “Everyone wants higher capacity utilization, but they want someone else to come to their capacity, and so we have to work through that”, he said. In Europe, Ford’s Mondeo, C-Max, S-Max and Galaxy are set to be phased out when they reach the end of their product lives over the next several years, 2 other people close to the company said. That will ultimately lead to capacity cuts and job losses at assembly plants in Valencia, Spain and Saarlouis, Germany, the sources said. The level of optimism at the annual leadership meeting last month about Ford’s transformation was high, and now those executives want to get the message out more broadly to employees, according to Ford’s Thai-Tang. “We have the right plan”, he said. “We now have to go execute and execute quickly”. +++
+++ MERCEDES-BENZ has flatly rejected the idea of building an AMG-tuned X-Class pickup. The Nissan Navara-based truck will max out with the X 350d trim, powered by a turbodiesel V6 with 258 hp and 620 Nm. Mercedes-AMG boss Tobias Moers said there will “never” be an X-Class AMG. “No chance”, he added. “We’re too busy. We’re fully locked in to our programs”. The issue apparently comes down to cultural differences with the Japanese and French, rather than any technical factors that might prevent the German automaker from dropping a twin-turbo V8 in the Navara chassis. “AMG culture would be a difficult fit with Nissan and Renault cultures”, Moers concluded. The company likely also has less incentive to build an X-Class AMG because it won’t be heading to the pickup-dominated US market. +++
+++ PORSCHE has confirmed some of the figures it is aiming for with its first production electric vehicle, the Taycan, which will launch towards the end of 2019. Revealed at the Frankfurt Motor Show in 2015, the Taycan, wihch builds on the Mission E Concept, will be revealed in full early next year. Prototypes of the Taycan electric saloon have been undergoing development testing for several months and Porsche has revealed it has built over 100 test mules, which are undergoing assesment across the globe. Although the Taycan shares a similar silhouette to the Panamera saloon, the Tesla Model S rival will be more compact; entry-level versions priced between 90,000 and 105,000 euro in The Netherlands mean it will carry only a small premium over its main rival. The Taycan will bear a close resemblance to the concept in shape and style, but the rear-hinged back doors and matrix LED headlamps will be adapted for production. Features such as the flared haunches, LED tail-light strip and coupe-like rear end will remain to echo the looks of the 911 sports car. The Taycan will develop 600 hp via a lithium-ion battery pack denser than anything Tesla currently offers, rated at 270 watt-hours per kilogram. 2 permanently excited synchronous electric motors (PSM), one on each axle, will provide drive. The PSM motors are derived from Porsche’s Le Mans winning 919 LMP1 car, the marque claiming that the key advantage offered by PSM is compact packaging and weight saving. Porsche claims this powertrain will allow the Taycan production car to cover 0-100 km/h in under 3.5 seconds before hitting a top speed of 250 km/h. Crucially, I’m told the performance will be repeatable with the electric car able to accelerate hard “over and over again without losing performance”. In terms of range, the target is for the Porsche Taycan cover 500 kilometres on a single charge and Porsche says the 800-volt system can take on 100 kilometres of charge in just 4 minutes, or almost 400 kilometres in 15 minutes. Of course, these figures are entirely dependent on the availability of 350 kW CCS chargers compatible with Porsche’s 800 volt system. At present, the Ionity network is expanding across Europe and building chargers capable of delivering such voltages, and Porsche has plans to deploy 500 of its own chargers across the United States in the coming years. This version of the Taycan is expected to be the flagship model but Porsche has invested a further 500 million Euros to develop additional versions of the car. The variants, of which there is likely to be three, will vary from around 400 hp up to 600 hp. Porsche CEO Oliver Blume told: “We will think of different options and there will be more than one, with different levels of power”. All-wheel drive is expected to be standard on all versions initially, but there is the possibility of Porsche launching a more affordable rear-wheel-drive edition in the future. It also plans a crossover version of the car, as previewed by the Cross Turismo concept that made its debut at March’s Geneva Motor Show. Over-the-air updates will be possible on the Taycan, upgrading on-board infotainment systems and safety tech, but also offering to boost power if the customer wishes. The new architecture the car introduces will be used as a base for a fully electric model from Bentley. Porsche’s commitment to Taycan variants comes as part of a wider investment in the brand’s electrification strategy. The firm will double total investment up to €6 billion by 2022, spending on everything from a rapid charging infrastructure to hybrid and electric versions of its existing range. +++
+++ Ford chief executive Jim Hackett has made a bold claim that the Trump Administration’s metal TARIFFS have already knocked $1 billion off the company’s profits this year. “The metals tariffs took about $1 billion in profit from us, and the irony is we source most of that in the US today anyway”, he told. “If it goes on longer, there will be more damage”. Trump rolled out tariffs on steel and aluminum earlier this year. Automakers represent some of the biggest buyers of both metals and the most vocal industrial group opposing the administration’s strategy. In response to Trump’s proposed tariffs on imported vehicles, Ford recently said it had killed plans to import the Focus Active crossover from factories in China. Hackett is urging the president to establish agreements with Europe and China to eliminate the tariffs. +++
+++ TESLA boss Elon Musk has announced that the company has built its own car transporter trailers amid its difficulty in delivering the Model 3. Musk previously tweeted that the brand is in “delivery logistics hell” amid complaints of delayed deliveries from customers awaiting their Model 3s, and took to the social media site again to explain that the company was “running into an extreme shortage of car carrier trailers”. To quell the problem as the end of the third quarter approaches, the company is upgrading its logistics system, including the construction of its own carrier trailers. The Tesla CEO has also in the past tweeted that the company was in “production hell” when it encountered bottlenecks in the production process of the Model 3, although these problems have been quelled, with Tesla reporting targets for Model 3 production being hit.Musk previously alerted customers on Twitter to the risk of delayed deliveries with the increased volumes requiring delivery in the US; he seemed to upgrade this to “delivery logistics hell” when responding to a customer’s concerns. Unlike the production problems, however, Musk claims that the delivery issues “should be solved shortly”, and that the company is “making rapid progress” in overcoming the problem, but hasn’t put this latter claim into numbers. The brand delivered 18.449 Model 3s during the second quarter of the year, up from 8.182 across the first 3 months of 2018. A target of 5.000 cars per week was reached at the end of the second quarter, with a temporary production line in place and increased pressure on the Fremont factory workers. Musk also decided to streamline the production process recently with tweaks to the paint availability of the Model 3, with black and silver now only available at a premium, to push customers towards a narrower selection of paint shades. Responding to a customer query, Musk clarified that this would not affect availability in the brand’s repair centres. +++
+++ VOLKSWAGEN has announced plans to begin using computer simulations to speed up development of driver assistance systems. Traditionally, the company has focused on a hardware-based validation model that requires components to be physically connected to a test rig via data interfaces. The approach has become more complicated and drawn out as the number of interconnected systems and complexity increases. The company is now using virtual simulations to test driving scenarios that might be encountered in the real world. Running parallel simulations in a scalable virtual environment is expected to quickly provide the equivalent of millions of test miles in the real world. Engineers will be able to review performance, tweak control algorithms and watch how assistance systems behave in a 3D graphic environment. The tests will create a virtual library of driving situations that can be used for further development work. The German automaker’s first trials involve an application that simulates thousands of individual parking lots with freely definable parameters, such as traffic and architecture. The pilot program is already being used to develop assistance systems that will be used on the ID family of electric vehicles. The announcement suggests established automakers are learning a lesson from Waymo’s clear lead in the race to develop fully self-driving vehicles. The Alphabet subsidiary employed simulation to scale tests far beyond what would have been viable in a fleet of physical test cars during the same period. As of July, Waymo’s physical fleet of vehicles had reached 8 million miles as virtual simulation surpassed 5 billion miles. Together, the knowledge gained from both avenues has launched the company to the head of the pack. Volkswagen may be one of the few established automakers talking about following Waymo into the virtual test world, but many others are likely exploring similar paths. Nvidia hopes to open the door to all, launching a new server-based computing platform, known as Constellation, to support virtual testing for its Drive autonomous platform. +++