Newsflash

+++ Shares in ASTON MARTIN fell as much as 6.5 % as investors and analysts raised concerns over its ability to deliver an ambitious roll-out of new models. The company, which last year made its first profit since 2010 and has gone bankrupt 7 times, had priced its shares at 19 pounds each, giving it a market capitalization of 4.33 billion pounds ($5.63 billion). The shares fell to as low as 17.75 pounds. Aston Martin has plans to launch a new model every year from 2016 to 2022. “It has very aggressive growth plans. The execution of that growth needs to be flawless; nothing eats cash more than a car company when the cycle turns. There is concern that it’s more cyclical than the commentary has been”, said James Congdon, managing director of cashflow returns specialist Quest. “The banks have done a good job for their client, but there’s no bounce”. Aston Martin expects to produce around 7,100 to 7,300 cars in 2019, and 9,600 to 9,800 cars in 2020. It aims to increase production to 14,000 cars in the medium term, helped by new models and improving its manufacturing process. The company is investing all of its cashflow to try to achieve this, leaving nothing for dividends or paying down debt. “In terms of execution risk, this is what I’ve done for all of my career. I’m an engineer: we mitigate risk”, chief executive Andy Palmer, who has led a turnaround plan at the company since 2014, told. Palmer played down risks to the business from Britain leaving the European Union, even as other car manufacturers step up warnings over a disorderly Brexit. He said Aston Martin was “relatively well insulated” from the effects of Brexit because Europe is not its biggest market and it may actually benefit from exporting with a cheaper pound. However, 60 % of its parts are imported from the EU and will be hit by tariffs if there is no trade deal. “Obviously we’d all prefer no tariffs to be frank, no doubt, but the industry has to learn to adapt and it always has adapted to changes”, Palmer said. In 2017, Aston Martin had adjusted earnings before tax interest, depreciation and amortization of 206.5 million pounds, up from 100.9 million pounds in 2016. Its closest stock market comparable is Ferrari, which listed in 2015 and trades at an enterprise value of 22.2 times Ebitda, according to Refinitiv data. Based on this metric and Aston Martin’s net debt of 538.8 million pounds, the British carmaker was priced at 23.6 times Ebitda on its debut. Its shareholders, which include Italian investment firm Investindustrial and a group of Kuwait-based investors, sold a quarter of the company’s stock in the initial public offering. The company did not raise any money for its own purposes. +++

+++ The gasoline-electric AUDI Q5 e-tron will inaugurate Audi’s next-generation plug-in hybrid technology when it breaks cover in the coming months. The powertrain will quickly spread to other members of the company’s line-up. Siegfried Pint, Audi’s powertrain director, told that the next-generation technology will deliver 20 to 30 % more electric-only range than the current system found in the A3, meaning the Q5 could drive on battery power for up to 70 kilometres. There’s no word yet on the size of the battery used or its placement within the vehicle. The drivetrain will rely primarily on a turbocharged, 2.0-liter 4-cylinder engine rated at 190 hp and 320 Nm. An electric motor integrated in the 7-speed automatic transmission will contribute 109 hp and 300 Nm to the power equation. The turbo-4 will spin the front wheels with the help of the first electric motor. There will be a second electric motor used to zap the rear wheels into motion, a configuration that will create a through-the-road Quattro all-wheel drive system. The drivetrain will make its debut in the Q5 e-tron that I expect to see make its debut at a major auto show in the not-too-distant future. It will later be offered in other members of the Audi family including the A6 and the Q3. +++

+++ Another model has fallen victim to the diesel mayhem in Europe, the BENTLEY Bentayga. Bentley justified their decision of pulling the Bentayga Diesel from Europe by saying: “Over recent months, the political legislative conditions have changed in Europe, and a significant shift in attitude towards diesel-powered cars has been widely documented. These factors, alongside the recent introduction of the new Bentayga V8, and our strategic decision to focus on electrification in the future, have led to us taking the decision to offer only petrol Bentayga derivatives in European markets from September 2018”. The diesel-powered Bentley Bentayga is not entirely gone, however, as it can still be had in other markets, including Russia, Australia and South Africa. +++

+++ BMW chairman Harald Krüger has used the Paris Motor Show to announce the i4 will be launched in 2021. Originally confirmed at the Geneva Motor Show, the i4 will become BMW’s 5th “fully-electric core” vehicle. The other models include the updated i3, the 2019 Mini Electric, the 2020 iX3 and the production version of the iNext concept which will also arrive in 2021. Krüger didn’t say much about the i4, but he has high hopes for the model as the company has already sold more than 100,000 electrified vehicles this year. That means there are now more than 300,000 electric and plug-in hybrids vehicles on the road which were produced by either BMW or Mini. While BMW didn’t say much about the i4, the model was previewed by the i Vision Dynamics concept which debuted at last year’s Frankfurt Motor Show. The concept had an electric powertrain which enabled the car to accelerate from 0-100 km/h in 4 seconds and hit a top speed in excess of 200 km/h. The concept could also travel up to 600 km on a single charge. For comparison, the updated i3 120 Ah has a 42.2 kWh lithium-ion battery and an electric motor that develops 170 hp and 250 Nm. It enables the model to accelerate from 0-100 km/h in 7.3 seconds before topping out at 150 km/h. More importantly, the model can travel approximately 359 km on a single charge in the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC). Details about the i4 remain a mystery, but BMW’s e-mobility roadmap revealed the automaker’s Generation 5 electric vehicles will be offered with modular battery packs that have capacities of 60 kWh, 90 kWh and 120 kWh. +++ 

+++ General Motors said that CADILLAC will switch its headquarters back to Michigan from New York after just 3 years to be closer to engineers and design teams as the luxury brand plans to roll out 2 new vehicles annually through 2020. Cadillac moved to New York under Johan de Nysschen, who ran the brand from 2014 until his abrupt ouster in April. The move to the Big Apple in 2015 accompanied bold plans to reshape Cadillac’s lineup with a $12 billion product program in 2015 and was meant to bring the brand closer to the urban customers who for years had shunned it. GM replaced De Nysschen with Steve Carlisle, who previously served as managing director of GM’s Canadian operations. After betting heavily on sedans models that are increasingly unpopular with U.S. consumers, last summer Cadillac announced a plan to catch up with market shifts by shrinking its lineup of sedans in favor of larger, more popular SUVs. Through the first 6 months of this year, Cadillac’s U.S. sales were up 5.4 %, driven by growth in SUV sales. Next April, Cadillac will move to Warren, Michigan, a stone’s throw from GM’s main design hub. A GM spokesman said Cadillac will remain a separate business unit. The brand employs 110 people in New York, all of whom will be offered jobs in Michigan, the spokesman said. The spokesman said that Cadillac will also play a “big role” in the automaker’s plans for developing self-driving vehicles and that it made sense for the brand to be closer to the rest of GM. Cadillac was founded in Detroit in 1902. Modern Detroit traces its origins back to a man named Cadillac: Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, to be precise, a French adventurer who founded Fort Pontchartrain du Detroit in 1701. When Cadillac moved to New York it was eligible for state investment incentives, which a GM spokesman said the automaker had never used. +++ 

+++ Renault-Nissan and DAIMLER may expand their cooperation to battery and autonomous cars technology and mobility services, the companies said. “The industry being in transformation in the area of connectivity, autonomous cars and connected services, there are plenty of areas of cooperation for our entities”, Renault-Nissan chief executive Carlos Ghosn told.  It could be an advantage for the companies to pursue different avenues of battery research and to pool their findings, as the industry seeks better battery chemistry for electric cars, Daimler Chief Executive Dieter Zetsche said. Ghosn said the auto industry was seeing increased demand for electric vehicles. “The higher price of oil, the more tailwind you will have behind electric cars”, he said, adding that a shortage of battery cells and electric motors means the auto industry is unable to meet demand for zero-emission vehicles, irrespective of short-term oil price moves. +++ 

+++ HONDA will invest $2 billion over 12 years in General Motors’ Cruise autonomous vehicle unit after paying $750 million for a stake in the project, seen as among the leaders in self-driving car development. Honda will work with GM and the unit to fund and develop an autonomous vehicle for Cruise that can be built in high volumes for global deployment, General Motors said. GM Cruise and Waymo are often described as leading the pack of technology and auto companies competing to create self-driving cars and integrate them into ride services fleets. Japan’s SoftBank in May said it would invest $2.25 billion in Cruise, compared to the total $2.75 billion commitment announced by Honda and GM. They said the project was now valued at $14.6 billion. Ford and BMW both plan to deploy self-drving cars in 2021; Tesla has talked about creating a network of self-driving cars and Uber says it is sticking with a development effort despite an accident in which its self-driving car killed a woman in Arizona. “With the backing of General Motors, SoftBank and now Honda, Cruise is deeply resourced to accomplish our mission to safely deploy autonomous technology across the globe”, Cruise chief executive Kyle Vogt said. +++

+++ Britain’s biggest carmaker JAGUAR LAND ROVER has yet to make an imminent decision on whether to build electric cars in its home market partly due to uncertainty over the final Brexit terms, its boss told. The automaker, which builds nearly a third of Britain’s roughly 1.67 millions cars, is also talking to warehousing companies and has plans to stockpile parts in the event unfettered trade with the bloc is lost. The firm could also move its annual summer-time shutdowns to the spring to handle any disruption from a disorderly Brexit after Britain leaves the bloc at the end of March 2019 although no decision has been taken. Carmakers are triggering contingency plans to protect the just-in-time mechanisms which see tens of thousands of cars, parts and engines move between Britain and the continent every day. Jaguar Land Rover is building its first electric car, the I-Pace, in Austria. Asked whether the firm had settled on whether to build electric cars in Britain, Chief Executive Ralf Speth told: “We haven’t made the decision because we don’t know at the end of the day the final conditions and we also see uncertainty resulting out of the Brexit discussions so we don’t know where we can do the investment best. At the very last moment, you can decide about the location so there is a certain flexibility but we have used a lot of this kind of time already so the discussions about this kind of technologies and future locations are imminent”. The automaker has also cited the need for support from government and academia to make sure the right infrastructure is in place in Britain. London and Brussels are racing to reach a Brexit agreement by the end of the year but Prime Minister Theresa May’s proposals face opposition from both the EU and many of her own lawmakers, who want a cleaner break from the bloc. Speth warned that some suppliers were hesitating to invest in Britain and that it would be “impossible” for carmakers to meet rules of origin rules, often set at around 55 % in international trade deals, without the continuing inclusion of EU components. Speth warned that although the firm was looking at holding more components, it would not be a simple process. “It’s not just stockpiling and the warehouse or the piece of land”, he said. “You also need additional pallets, electronics, the racks, the materials, the handling devices. It’s not just I go home one day, and there is a drawer somewhere and I open it and then I close it again”. +++ 

+++ President Donald Trump wants U.S. carmakers to sell more vehicles in JAPAN , but there’s not much he can do to improve the current situation. Only 0.3 % of the 3.2 million cars sold this year in the Asian country were made by American companies, even though Japan doesn’t impose tariffs on auto imports. In comparison, Japanese brands are doing much better in the United States, where they hold a 40 % market share despite America’s import tariffs of 2.5 % on cars and 25 % on trucks. There’s obviously a big trade imbalance between the U.S. and Japan when it comes to automobiles, but the problem can’t be solved through tariffs. The hard truth is Japanese buyers simply don’t want American cars. Consumers there see U.S. vehicles as too big and inefficient in a market dominated by city cars and other frugal models built locally. Imported cars make up only about seven % of Japan’s overall passenger car sales, and German manufacturers get the lion’s share; the biggest 5 importers are from the European country. For example, Mercedes-Benz and BMW together sold more than 70,000 vehicles in Japan in the first 8 months of this year. Jeep, the best-selling U.S. brand in the Asian country, sold just 7,000 units during the same period. However, that was more than all other American marques combined. That’s a reality President Donald Trump appears to ignore (willingly or not) as he strives for better access to Japan for U.S. cars. He announced an agreement with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to start trade negotiations between the 2 countries. Previously, he threatened to slap a 25 % tariff on Japanese car imports in a bid to encourage carmakers to build more vehicles in America instead of shipping them from Japan. +++ 

+++ KIA won’t follow the path blazed by sister company Hyundai with a standalone sub-brand dedicated to performance cars. That doesn’t mean the Stinger will remain its only enthusiast-approved option, however. “For Kia, it is not the decision to enter with high-performance cars. We did it with Hyundai N but there’s a clear decision not to with Kia, and GT needs to be a reasonable package. With the Ceed GT now, the minute you go high-performance, you need to work at a race track, and then the costs go up and the business case gets very challenging. Doing that next step is not easy”, said Albert Biermann, Hyundai-Kia’s high-performance boss, in an interview. Engineers are nonetheless drawing lessons from the Stinger project to make even Kia’s run-of-the-mill models more engaging to drive. The firm also wants to gradually build a small range of GT-badged models with real enhancements, not just bigger wheels and black trim pieces. Biermann revealed the next-generation Optima has already been singled out to receive the GT treatment. “For the next Optima GT, you can expect an interesting powertrain and suspension at the next level. It’ll be the next level of Kia driving performance”, he hinted. Interestingly, he also noted the third-generation Soul will morph into a more dynamic model with “a level of agility not there before”. It’s scheduled to make its debut in the coming months (possibly at the 2018 Los Angeles auto show), so we won’t have to wait long to find out how Biermann and his team tweaked it. +++ 

+++ MAZDA said that all of the vehicles it produces by 2030 will incorporate electrification, while 5 % of its cars will be all-battery electric vehicles (EVs). The Japanese automaker joins a growing number of global automakers who are planning to reduce emissions by producing more gasoline-hybrid vehicles, plug-in hybrids and battery EVs. “By 2030, Mazda expects that internal combustion engines combined with some form of electrification will account for 95 % of the vehicles it produces and battery electric vehicles will account for 5 %”, the automaker said in a statement. Mazda has said that it plans to market an all-battery EV in 2020. It said it would develop 2 battery EVs, one which will be powered solely by battery and another which will pair a battery with a range extender powered by the automaker’s rotary engine. +++

+++ MERCEDES-AMG is stepping up their game with the all-new A 45 that’s currently in the development phase. The super hot hatch will welcome a few major upgrades compared to the outgoing model, including a Drift mode, which was confirmed to journalists present at the 2018 Paris Auto Show by the AMG boss, Tobias Moers. “Okay, you can go sideways with it”, said the Affalterbach-based performance brand’s chief when asked about the then rumored Drift mode. The technology is expected to be controlled by a computer, just like in the larger E 63, which should make drifting easy to anyone sitting behind the wheel. Moers also revealed another novelty for the upcoming Mercedes-AMG A 45: the addition of a dual-clutch 8-speed automatic transmission, unlike the current iteration and its 7-speed auto. “Yes, it’s a dual-clutch 8-speed. The A35 is a 7-speed, the 45 will have an 8-speed”. The 4Matic permanent all-wheel drive will remain standard, and together with the tuned chassis, should make the A 45 a peach around corners. “The chassis compared to today is unbelievable. We have various suspension in the car, and it’s an improvement in every perspective. There’s more comfort, more rigidity in every way, so we put a lot of effort into the body in white. There’s lots of reinforcement and it fits perfectly”, Tobias Moers added. Power wise, the car will remain one of the kings of the segment, with more than 400 hp produced by a new turbocharged 2.0-liter 4-cylinder engine. In a previous statement, the AMG boss said that every component of the powertrain is new and perfectly tuned, admitting that he’s “not a fan of over-powered cars”. One final upgrade that will put more distance between the A 45 and the regular models, in addition to the more aerodynamic exterior and extra work inside, will be the MBUX infotainment system. The feature will benefit from “a dedicated super sport kind of screen”, providing drivers with all the required performance information. The ‘45’ moniker will make its way to the Sedan version of the new A-Class, too. If recent reports turn out to be correct, then a more track-focused version of both cars, presumably named the Mercedes-AMG A 45 S or A 50, will sit at the top of the range. +++ 

+++ BMW sees a 50:50 chance of Britain leaving the European Union without a trade agreement, which would force it to shift more production of MINI vehicles to the Netherlands, Chief Executive Harald Krüger said. “I told UK Prime Minister Theresa May and the European Union that if there is a hard Brexit, both sides are losers. We will no longer fulfill trade agreements and then we are forced to build the car in the Netherlands”, Krüger told journalists. “Hard Brexit is currently not our main scenario but we are preparing for it. We see a 50:50 chance”. BMW currently builds most of its Mini vehicles at a plant in Oxford, southern England, but relies heavily on components imported from BMW’s German plants. Oxford made about 60 % of the 378,486 Minis produced last year. If Britain tumbled out of the EU without a deal on March 29, Oxford’s status as the main global exporting hub for Mini would be put at risk, Krüger said. When asked whether a hard Brexit would make the Netherlands the main exporting hub for supplying customers in the European Union, Krüger said: “Yes”. BMW has quietly built up Netherlands-based contract manufacturer VDL Nedcar as a new export base for its Mini brand. At VDL Nedcar, staffing levels have jumped to about 7,200, from around 4,500 last year and 1,450 in 2014. By contrast, staffing levels at BMW’s British plant have remained relatively stable over the same period, with just over 4,500 people working on building Minis in Oxford. Sales in Britain have already suffered amid the uncertainty over the future, Krüger said. BMW Group as a whole continued to see double-digit sales growth in China in August and September, despite increased geopolitical tensions between China and the United States. Europe remains a difficult market where demand has been distorted by manufacturers flooding showrooms with cars before the onset of stricter emissions standards, known as the WLTP rules. “European sales are not being driven by market demand, but by WLTP distortions. These will last between 6 and 9 months”, Krüger said. +++

+++ Following last month’s enhancements, the NISSAN Qashqai has now gained a new 1.3-liter petrol engine as well. Co-developed by Daimler and Renault-Nissan, the unit replaces the old 1.2 and 1.6 liter mills, which were available with 115 hp and 163 hp, respectively. It’s offered in 2 different outputs, with 140 hp / 240 Nm, and 160 hp / 260 Nm. Both versions are offered with a 6-speed manual gearbox, but from next month, Nissan will launch a dual-clutch 7-speed automatic, for the more powerful variant, which also adds another 10 Nm. “The launch of this all-new 1.3-litre unit is the right response to changing market conditions, meeting customer demand for a highly effective petrol engine that delivers outstanding driving performance and fuel efficiency”, a spokesman said. Compared to the old 1.2 and 1.6 liter engines, the new petrol burner is a bit torquier and emits less CO2. The average fuel consumption is 5.3 l/100 km when running on 17-inch wheels, and 5.7 l/100 km when fitted with the optional 18- or 19-inch wheels. Regardless of their selection, customers opting for the new 1.3-liter engine will have to make do with front-wheel drive only. +++ 

+++ The OPEL and Vauxhall brands will be integrated into PSA furthermore with the successor to the Astra that’s said hit the market in 2023. The Astra L will shift to the EMP2 platform that underpins a variety of PSA products, including the new Grandland X. This will allow it to adopt more powertrains from the French giant. In addition to the petrol units, expected with outputs between 110 hp and 220 hp, the 7th generation Astra will stay true to diesels, too, that are believed to produce from 100 hp to 180 hp. Furthermore, the EMP2 architecture will allow the compact car to adopt electrification. Thus, a plug-in hybrid powertrain is on the cards, probably consisting of a petrol unit with an electric motor that, combined, should generate in excess of 200 hp. Design wise, the 2023 Astra will be more dynamic than the current model, taking some styling cues from the Grandland X, while its footprint will remain roughly the same, with a length of 4.35 meters. Before launching the all-new generation, though, Opel/Vauxhall will roll out a facelifted version of the current Astra that’s already 3 years old. Prototypes have already been spotted testing in the open, with the front end covered in camouflage, which suggests a new bumper, headlights and reworked grille. The facelifted Astra will likely debut before the end of the year at a standalone event. +++ 

+++ French carmaker PSA Group is open to new industry tie-ups and is attracting attention from competitors after its lightning turnaround and swift progress in restructuring recently acquired Opel, Chief Executive Carlos Tavares said. The maker of Peugeot cars, which came close to bankruptcy in 2013-14, has rebounded under Tavares to record levels of profitability. The group posted a 7.8 % first-half operating margin as it returned Opel and its British Vauxhall brand to profit less than a year after acquiring the business from General Motors. “Some of our competitors are looking at us with different eyes”, Tavares told. “If somebody needs a partnership, if we are in good shape, if we have the technology, if we are rigorously managing our company, and somebody is knocking at the door saying ‘we need your support and we would like to have a partnership with you’, we are open for business”. While PSA remains focused on its own operational strategy, Tavares said, deal opportunities may arise as other manufacturers struggle with tightening emissions regulation and increasing investment and technological demands. “If we accumulate wealth and good financial results, we may, at some point in time, be facing an opportunity coming from breakdowns in the industry”, he said. “As we have always said, we will always consider opportunities”. +++

+++ RENAULT will introduce hybrid versions of its top-selling models, the French carmaker said, as the European auto industry races to meet tightening emissions goals. Starting in 2020, the company will roll out a gasoline-electric hybrid Clio and rechargeable plug-in hybrid variants of its Captur and Mégane. “What you’re seeing now is the unfolding of electric cars at a speed that is going to vary from one company to another”, Carlos Ghosn, chief executive of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance, said. Renault also confirmed the 2019 launch of a low-cost K-ZE electric model in China, produced in a Renault-Nissan joint venture unveiled last year with Dongfeng. The French brand’s offering on the new shared electric-vehicle architecture will have a range of 250 kilometers, Renault said, without giving details of pricing. However, Ghosn has previously discussed plans to “change the game” with a low-cost electric car priced below $8,000 after Chinese incentives, and ultimately without them. Ghosn added that Renault had been investing in EVs for over a decade, and that it was the only firm to make profit from EVs so far. While the Zoe remains at the forefront of electric car sales (only the Nissan Leaf sells more globally), the French car maker has remained quiet in recent years about its broader electrification plans. In that time, many of its mainstream rivals, such as Peugeot, Citroën and Ford, have announced their respective strategies. The Twingo-sized K-Ze, which will sit below the Zoe in dimensions and cost, is expected to arrive in Europe by 2021. “Developed markets or developing market can get this car. For me, this is a real revolution. This is car is going to be extremely competitive on all markets in the world”, Ghosn said. The baby EV will be manufactured in China by eGT New Energy Automotive Co, the joint venture with Dongfeng Motor Group and Nissan, created “to develop and produce competitive electric vehicles for the Chinese market”, according to Renault. It is not yet clear where European-sold K-Ze models will be made. “We know the competition is going to be fierce in China”, Ghosn explained, “but we can not do worse than today, because we have zero electric products today”. The K-Ze is based on Renault and Nissan’s joint CMF A platform, currently used on the Renault Kwid, a popular car in India. Renault said the architecture is heavily adapted for this new model, both for EV application and also Chinese and global markets. The whole subframe and the axles are, for instance, specific to this electric car. Ghosn said: “Groupe Renault was a pioneer and is the European leader in electric vehicles. We are introducing K-Ze, an affordable, urban, SUV-inspired electric model combining the best of Groupe Renault: our leadership in EV, our expertise in affordable vehicles and in forging strong partnerships”. Ghosn also announced plans for new services within future cars. Called the Augmented Editorial Experience, the “immersive” product combines content, connectivity services and media, “turning travel time into a learning experience”. +++ 

+++ SKODA needs to increase its capacity in Europe by 400,000 cars annually from the start of the next decade, Chief Executive Bernhard Maier was quoted as saying. The carmaker could boost capacity at its Czech plants as well as at other VW plants.  An outside possibility would be the construction of a new plant. A decision should come by the beginning of next year. +++ 

+++ I last heard rumors of a mid-engined SUBARU sports car in 2016. They haven’t materialized, at this point it looks like Hyundai is closer to launching a mid-engined sports car than Subaru, but a new report coming out of Japan suggests the project isn’t dead yet. The yet-unnamed model has morphed into a plug-in hybrid sports car. It doesn’t list the precise configuration but it notes the drivetrain consists of a turbocharged flat-4 engine and an electric motor. The 2 power sources could spin the rear wheels together, or Subaru could choose to place the electric motor over the front axle to create a through-the-road all-wheel drive system. It sounds like the project hasn’t received the proverbial green light for production yet. It ultimately depends on whether Subaru’s American arm can make a positive business case for the car. The United States is the firm’s biggest market by a long shot so the car needs to sell well here. Other markets like China, Europe, and even Japan certainly won’t contribute anything significant to annual sales volumes. +++

 +++ TOYOTA , it should come as no surprise, has been working on a new Supra. It’s previewed the new sports car as a concept and even as a pre-production prototype, still under wraps. But what we’ve all been waiting for was to see the reborn Supra in its finished form. And according to the latest, we won’t have to wait much longer. The Japanese automaker’s local operation in Germany, where its motorsports department (incidentally) is largely based, revealed that the new Toyota Supra will be unveiled in January at the 2019 North American International Auto Show in Detroit. That’s just a few months away from now. What’s more is Toyota is already taking orders to reserve the first 900 order slots online (from customers in Europe at least), through the Supra 900 Club, revealing a few salient details in the process. According to the German operation, the new Supra will pack a 3.0-liter turbocharged 6-cylinder engine with 340 hp. With perfect 50:50 front/rear weight distribution, an active limited-slip differential, and adaptive variable suspension, it’ll to run to 100 km/h in under 5 seconds. All of which sounds about right, based on everything we’ve seen so far. It’s particularly interesting to see the news emanating from Germany, of all places, where Toyota’s partner in developing the Supra’s new architecture is based. BMW, as you may already be aware, turned its version into the new Z4 which is just now making its public debut at the 2018 Paris Auto Show. +++ 

+++ VOLKSWAGEN is investing billions into electric vehicles such as Audi e-Tron, Porsche Taycan and it’s own ID family. Given this massive investment, it’s a bit surprising that the company has admitted fuel cells have “great potential” for emission-free mobility and offer “significant” advantages over electric vehicles. These advantages can largely been seen when it comes time to recharge / refuel. While electric vehicles can take hours to charge, refueling a fuel cell vehicle can be done in a matter of minutes. Of course, fuel cells also have their downsides and Volkswagen notes they have a “comparatively high cost”. However, the company is working to lower prices thanks to a partnership with Stanford University. The partnership is already paying off as the 2 entities have developed a new process where “platinum atoms are precisely placed on a carbon surface in order to produce extremely thin particles”. That might not sound too exciting to non-scientists, but Volkswagen says the process reduces the amount of platinum required, increases the catalyst’s durability and “increases the efficiency of the catalyst by a factor of 3 compared to current technology”. That’s a bit technical, but fuel cells require platinum to act as a catalyst. However, current processes aren’t very efficient so a large portion of the platinum is wasted. As a result, fuel cell vehicles cost significantly more than their mainstream counterparts. As Stanford University Professor Friedrich Prinz explained, “This technology opens up enormous possibilities for cost reduction, as the amount of precious metal used is minimized. At the same time, service life and catalyst performance are increased”. Despite the breakthrough, Volkswagen cautioned researchers now have to bring the new process to industrial-scale production. However, the company noted the potential cost savings could make fuel cells a “real alternative to battery-powered drives and the classic combustion engine”. +++

+++ The likes of Volkswagen, Porsche, BMW and Mercedes-Benz have halted sales of certain plug-in hybrid models throughout Europe due to the new WLTP emissions regulations. Known as the Worldwide Harmonized Light Vehicles Test Procedure (WLTP), the new standard went into effect in the European Union this month, pushing certain PHEV models over the 50 grams per km CO2 emissions threshold. This means that cars are liable to lose tax benefits offered in many European countries, defeating the purpose of owning a hybrid vehicle. Meanwhile, VW has had to stop sales of their mid-size Passat GTE model, Europe’s second best-selling plug-in hybrid, as well as the Golf GTE, the continent’s 4th best-selling PHEV. A spokesman for the company said that VW plug-in hybrid models were at the back of the line for WLTP testing, behind more conventional cars. “There is a bottleneck with the testing”, he said. “We have to get priority for highest-volume models”, meaning petrol and diesel cars. Porsche have also pulled sales for its plug-in hybrid Panamera and Cayenne models, as their spokesman stated that the Stuttgart brand won’t begin “taking orders again until the cars are being built, the timing of which has not yet been confirmed”. As for BMW and Mercedes, both automakers are working on launching more efficient PHEV models within the next few months, which will emit under 50g/km of CO2. +++