+++ BMW has revealed its latest range of plug-in hybrids at the 2019 Geneva Motor Show, premiering 5 new models and 2 revised versions of the 530e. The new range features the German brand’s most up-to-date battery technology and a range of economy and efficiency improvements. The 530e plug-in hybrid gets a new lithium/ion battery, which provides an all-electric range around 65 kilometres; 15 kilometres more than the previous model. The revised 5 Series plug-in has claimed CO2 emissions of 38 g/km. BMW also plans to introduce an all-wheel-drive version of the 530e from July 2019. Full specifications for the drivetrain are yet to be announced, but the German firm claims an all-electric range of 55 kilometres. The new X3 xDrive30e has also made its debut at Geneva. Powered by a turbocharged 4-cylinder petrol engine supported by an electric motor, it produces a combined power output of 252 hp. BMW claims that this figure can be temporarily increased by 40bhp through use a ‘boost’ function built into the the electric motor. Power is put to the road via an 8-speed automatic gearbox and xDrive four-wheel drive, allowing a claimed 0–100 km/h sprint of 6.5 seconds. The X3 xDrive30e also offers an all-electric driving mode, good for a claimed 50 kilometres. Emissions stand at 56 g/km of CO2. Revised editions of the BMW X5 xDrive45e, 330e, 225xe and 7 Series hybrid were also shown on BMW’s stand at the Geneva show. All 5 models are fitted with BMW’s latest lithium/ion battery technology, as well as a range of drivetrain updates. Updates for the range include a revised 394 hp 6-cylinder hybrid powertrain for the latest X5 xDrive45e, a longer all-electric range for the hybrid 7 Series and better fuel consumption and emissions for the 330e. Also, all models now feature a battery charge indicator on their digital instrument binnacles when charging. +++
+++ CITROEN is unlikely to stay in the World Rally Championship beyond 2020 unless the sport’s rule makers introduce some form of electrification into the sport’s top category, the company boss has warned. The French manufacturer has a long history in the WRC, including nine world championships with Sebastien Loeb, and it won the opening round of this year’s series after signing the reigning champion, Sebastien Ogier, for this year and 2020. However, Citroen boss Linda Jackson said the company would have to reconsider its participation in the sport if the current rules (based on 1.6-litre turbocharged cars and four-wheel drive) don’t evolve to include at least hybrid power. When asked if the firm would reconsider its participation beyond the end of Ogier’s deal, if electrified cars aren’t introduced by then, Jackson told: “I think the answer to that question is yes. Because everything is changing and I don’t see how as a manufacturer I can continue to support something that is without any reflection of what’s going on in society. If we’re talking 2021 or 2022, we’re working hard to comply with CO2 regulations on our road cars, and making sure our road cars have electrified versions. I know there are discussions on what the WRC could become (hybrid, electric or a mix) and for me that’s very important. It is hard for me to consider something that doesn’t pay any attention to what’s going on in the wider society. With the C3, I can make the link; I don’t have a sporty version of that to support the WRC campaign, true, but I can get awareness and impact, and that’s great. But the more you widen the gap between the types of cars in WRC and what’s going on in our range, with electrification, the more it’s simply a marketing tool. And then you’re using something not necessarily right with your brand”. Motorsport’s governing body, the FIA, is currently consulting on a move to electrified cars when the existing rules are set to expire, at the end of 2021. That timeframe could mean that as in 2016, Citroen might take at least a year out of the series before rejoining when hybrids or electric cars take over. +++
+++ DAIMLER and BMW are teaming up to develop autonomous driving technology to cut costs and set an industry standard that can help to shape future regulation for self-driving cars, senior executives said. “It is a chicken and egg situation. Somebody has to standardize the technology and regulation will follow”, Klaus Fröhlich, BMW’s board member responsible for development, said. Spiraling development costs for self-driving cars have forced BMW and Daimler to team up to share the financial and engineering burden, executives explained at a press conference in Geneva. With fully autonomous cars that lack drivers, manufacturers take on potential liability risks arising from accidents, pressuring the industry to clarify technological standards so that regulators can draw up rules. “It is to push technology forward and to set standards already in generation 2 vehicles, and not just in generation 4. We do not want to waste resources”, Fröhlich said to explain the collaboration between the German automakers. “We should not invent this complicated wheel twice. On the path to setting these standards, it makes sense to share some of these investments”, Daimler board member Ola Kaellenius said. BMW and Daimler will form committees to pick potential suppliers of advanced driver assistance systems and autonomous driving technology in the coming four months, executives said. “Daimler started earlier working on autonomous driving; they have invested in fields of computer vision where the cooperation will benefit from this experience”, BMW’s Fröhlich said. Kaellenius said BMW and Daimler would develop next generation advanced driver assistance systems for compact and larger cars. The collaboration is designed to set standards and at a later stage other partners will be invited to join, the executives said. “Fiat Chrysler is already a partner with BMW. We want this partner in the future”, Fröhlich said. Fiat Chrysler chief executive Mike Manley said he would welcome an opportunity to continue collaborating with BMW on its next generation autonomous driving technology. +++
+++ FORD is considering closing 2 plants in Russia as part of its global plan to restructure operations in unprofitable regions. If the closures go ahead, Ford would probably produce only light commercial vehicles in Russia. After running up 4th quarter losses in all regions outside North America, Ford is making cuts in Europe, closing down vehicle lines in South America and laying off thousands of workers in China. In Russia, where Ford has the capacity to produce 360,000 vehicles a year, the U.S. carmaker could close its site in the northern Leningrad region and one of its plants in the central region of Tatarstan. The Focus and Mondeo passenger car models produced at the Leningrad region plant, and the EcoSport and Fiesta models produced in Tatarstan would no longer be made in Russia and production of the Kuga and Explorer models may also be discontinued in Russia. Ford’s business in Russia is operated via a joint venture with Russian automaker Sollers. A spokeswoman for Ford in Russia said discussions were ongoing about reorganizing the Russian business as part of Ford’s new global strategy. “A final decision will be made in the second quarter of 2019”, the spokeswoman said. Currently, “all plants are working as normal”, she said, but declined to comment on whether the plants in the Leningrad region and Tatarstan would close. But sources said Ford is considering closing the Tatarstan plant. Ford is incurring heavy losses from its operations in Russia. It sold 53,234 vehicles in Russia last year, up 5.7 % from 2017 but well behind 12.8 % growth in Russia’s overall car market, and its share of the Russian market has fallen to 3 % from 3.8 % in 2013. Its key competitors in Russia (Avtovaz, Volkswagen, Kia, Hyundai and Toyota) are seeing their share increase, and their sales outpace the market. The Kuga and Explorer models are produced at a different Ford plant, also in Tatarstan. This plant will remain open, but it will continue producing only the Transit. Ford was the first international carmaker to launch vehicle assembly in Russia, opening a plant in St Petersburg in 2002. In 2011, it set up a joint venture with Sollers, and the venture took out a 39 billion rouble ($593 million) loan from Russian bank Vnesheconombank (VEB). VEB representatives told Reuters that Ford and Sollers were considering different options to restructure their joint business, and restructuring of the loan was also under discussion. “VEB’s relations with Ford Sollers are of a long-term, sustainable nature”, the bank said. “There are no violations of any mutual obligations”. Ford and Sollers each hold a 50 % stake, but Ford has controlled the business since buying up preferred shares. Sollers now has an “effective” stake of just 0.33 %, its Chief Executive Vadim Shvetsov was quoted last month as saying by Interfax news agency. He was also quoted as saying that in his view Ford’s business in Russia would have to reorganized. “It’s already clear now that Ford is not competitive in some segments”, Interfax quoted Shvetsov as saying last month about Ford’s passenger vehicle production in Russia. “The last stress analyses are now being tallied”. +++
+++ Volkswagen cannot buy a stake in Russian automaker GAZ because the company is under U.S. sanctions and talks on a deal have been suspended, the RIA news agency cited the head of the Russian office of Volkswagen as saying. GAZ was placed under U.S. sanctions last year. In December, the U.S. Treasury extended a deadline for investors to divest from GAZ to March 7. +++
+++ Ousted Nissan boss Carlos GHOSN walked out of a Tokyo prison on a $9 million bail, slipping past reporters in a face mask and moving closer to mounting a defense against financial misconduct charges that he has called “meritless”. Ghosn, among the world’s most prominent auto executives whose dramatic rescue of Nissan 2 decades ago made him a celebrity in the industry and in Japan, was barely recognizable as he left Tokyo Detention House where he had been detained for more than 100 days in a small cell with no heating. Surrounded by security guards and dressed in a workman’s uniform and a blue cap, Ghosn’s face was obscured by thick glasses and the surgical-type mask, a far cry from his usual tailored suits. He managed to avoid many of the reporters camped at the site before being whisked away in a small Suzuki. Ghosn paid the 1 billion yen ($9 million) bail, among the highest ever in Japan, after the Tokyo District Court rejected a last-ditch appeal by prosecutors to keep him in jail. Ghosn, also the former chairman of Renault and Mitsubishi Motors, has agreed to strict bail conditions and given assurances he will remain in Tokyo, surrender his passport to his lawyer and submit to extensive surveillance. He has agreed to set up cameras at the entrances and exits to his residence, and is prohibited from using the internet or sending and receiving text messages. Ghosn is also banned from communicating with parties involved in his case, and permitted computer access only at his lawyer’s office. He faces charges of aggravated breach of trust and under-reporting his salary by about $82 million at Nissan for nearly a decade. If convicted on all charges, he faces a maximum jail sentence of 15 years, prosecutors have said. “I am innocent and totally committed to vigorously defending myself in a fair trial against these meritless and unsubstantiated accusations”, he said in a statement. The finance minister of France welcomed Ghosn’s release, saying the executive would now be able to defend himself “with greater ease”. Ghosn holds a French citizenship. The release will allow Ghosn (the architect of Nissan’s automaking partnership with Renault and Mitsubishi) to meet his new legal team more frequently and build a defense ahead of trial, which could be several months away. Last month, Ghosn hired lawyer Junichiro Hironaka, nicknamed “the Razor” for his success at winning acquittals in several high-profile cases, to replace Motonari Otsuru who once ran the prosecutor’s office investigating him. Hironaka’s appointment suggests a shift to a more aggressive defense strategy. He has already said that the charges against Ghosn should have been dealt as an internal company matter and that Japan was out of step with international norms by keeping his client in jail. The case has cast a harsh light on Japan’s criminal justice system, which allows suspects to be detained for long periods and prohibits defense lawyers from being present during interrogations that can last 8 hours a day. While the bail is a significant step, Ghosn still faces a criminal justice system with a conviction rate of 99.9 %. Credited with reviving Nissan in the early 2000s, Ghosn was one of the auto industry’s most powerful figures as head of the Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi alliance, whose combined sales rank it as one of the world’s biggest automakers. At the time of his arrest, he had been seeking a full merger of the companies, an idea opposed by many Nissan executives. However, his arrest has since muddied the outlook for the alliance, which is based on a web of cross-shareholding and operational integration. +++
+++ As well as revealing its all-electric e Prototype at the Geneva Motor Show, HONDA has also announced plans to electrify its entire European product range by 2025. The Japanese company is accelerating its electrification plans, as it has previously announced that twothirds of sales would be electrified by 2025. The new target is part of Honda’s plans to have a global electric range by the year 2030. Honda Motor Europe senior vice president Tom Gardner explained the change in target. “Since we made that first pledge in March 2017, the shift towards electrification has gathered pace considerably”, he said. “Environmental challenges continue to drive demand for cleaner mobility. Technology marches on unrelenting and people are starting to shift their view of the car itself”. Honda has a 2-pronged approach to electrification. As well as new EVs such as the production version of the e Prototype, Honda is using hybrid tech, such as the i-MMD system found in the latest CR-V, to introduce buyers to electrification in its conventional cars. As well as updating its cars with hybrid and EV power, Honda is teaming up with new partners to provide new charging and infrastructure solutions for EV users. The first of these is Moxia, a company that specialises in energy management, which will allow EV drivers to distribute electrical energy from their vehicles to and from the energy grid. Honda is also joining forces with Ubitricity, a company that develops innovative charging solutions, such as public EV charging from lampposts and other existing street power sources designed to make recharging easier. Gardner added: “This is a significant move for Honda, our intention is to deliver industry-leading innovation by launching energy services… to create additional value for power system operators and EV customers alike”. The next steps for Honda in its 2025 all-EV target is to launch the production version of e Prototype later this year, while also working with its new partners on testing its new energy systems in London and in Honda’s R&D home in Offenback, Germany. +++
+++ HYUNDAI is considering plans to suspend production at its oldest plant in China, the South Korean carmaker said, as it reels from tumbling sales and massive overcapacity in its biggest market. The move by Hyundai, which together with affiliate Kia, was the No.3 automaker in China until 2016, highlights the reversal of fortunes of China’s auto industry. “Hyundai is reviewing production to enhance competitiveness and profitability”, it said in a statement, adding that the plan includes “suspension, not closure of Plant 1 in Beijing”. The company, which has 3 manufacturing plants in the city, said that it has yet to decide when a suspension would start. However, suspension could start as early as next month. All of Hyundai’s 5 factories in China are operated by its Chinese joint venture with BAIC Motor, at which about 2,000 employees have taken voluntary retirement or transferred to other factories, the statement said. A BAIC spokesperson was not immediately available to comment. China’s auto industry has been slowing after a period of strong growth, hit by a weakening economy and the fallout of trade frictions with the United States. China’s car sales contracted for the first time since the 1990s last year and Hyundai’s sales in China amounted to only half its total production capacity in the country. For Hyundai, troubles have been exacerbated by a diplomatic row between Seoul and Beijing that hit demand for South Korean products in China. A lack of attractive models and strong branding also makes Hyundai vulnerable to competition from both Chinese and global carmakers, analysts and dealers have said. Hyundai will start to produce its new ix25 SUV at its latest plant in Chongqing from September. The current ix25 is made at the Plant 1 factory built in 2002. The model is Hyundai’s second-biggest selling SUV, with sales reaching more than 75,000 last year, company data showed. +++
+++ Doubt has been cast on the future of MINI production in Oxford and BMW engine production in Warwickshire, following comments from a senior member of BMW staff. BMW board member Peter Schwarzenbauer told that the firm may “need to consider” moving Mini production out of the UK after Brexit, as a result of costs incurred from being outside the EU. Schwarzenbauer also told that a no deal Brexit could result in BMW engine production being moved from the brand’s plant at Hams Hall to Magna Steyr in Austria. BMW is to close its Mini factory near Oxford the day after the UK leaves the EU. The move is said to be part of the company’s “planned annual maintenance”, but is being timed to coincide with Brexit to minimise short-term delays related to parts supply issues. The company explained that “planned annual maintenance periods at BMW Group production sites allow essential updating and equipment replacement to be completed over several weeks, while there is no production taking place” but added that, “we have scheduled next year’s annual maintenance period at Mini Plant Oxford to start on 1 April, when the UK exits the EU, to minimise the risk of any possible short-term parts-supply disruption in the event of a no-deal Brexit”. The spokesperson explained that “while we believe this worst case scenario is an unlikely outcome, we have to plan for it”. BMW also said it remains “committed to our operations in Britain, which is the only country in the world where we manufacture for all 3 of our automotive brands”. BMW recently confirmed it had developed a task force to plan for a no-deal Brexit, while Jaguar Land Rover confirmed only this week it was putting staff at its Castle Bromwich plant on a three-day week due to “headwinds impacting the car industry”. +++
+++ NISSAN is evaluating plans to cut back production line shifts at its Sunderland plant, which could threaten 400 jobs. The Japanese car maker is considering cutting the number of shifts on the production line that makes the Qashqai and X-Trail from 3 to 2. Nissan recently reversed plans to build the next-generation X-Trail at Sunderland, citing the decline in demand for diesel as the key factor, while acknowledging uncertainty over Brexit raised questions over long-term investment in the plant. It is still planning to make the next-generation Juke and Qashqai there. +++
+++ PSA Group CEO Carlos Tavares is seeking a deal that will expand the automaker’s footprint outside of Europe, according to people familiar with the matter. Tavares has met with advisers to consider potential collaborations or mergers, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the matter is private. The deliberations are very preliminary and potential targets have not recently been approached, the people said. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is attractive to PSA for its exposure to the U.S. and its premium Jeep brand, but Tavares also sees General Motors as a good fit and Jaguar Land Rover as a possibility, the people said, while cautioning that such deals would be difficult to reach. Fiat Chrysler’s new CEO Mike Manley gave the clearest response to PSA’s overtures, saying FCA would look at “any deal that would make Fiat stronger”. The offer was welcomed by Tavares. “We love to discuss with people who are looking for deals”, he said in response to Manley’s comments. Tavares said PSA is immediately focused on strategic initiatives such as bringing the Peugeot brand to North America and expanding Opel to Russia, but he added: “We want to be open and try to look for the best opportunities for our company”. Tavares’ approach echoes the consolidation once championed by the late Sergio Marchionne, architect of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. Gaining scale would help PSA spread surging development costs for electric and self-driving cars and brace for new competition from tech companies like Uber Technologies and Alphabet’s Waymo muscling their way into the industry. JLR owner Tata Motors declined to comment. A GM spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for PSA declined to comment on any specific plans. He referred Tavares’ comments at earnings press conference last week, when Tavares, asked about plans for about 9 billion euros in net cash, said that strategic opportunities were “open for discussion” while cautioning the money would also help in a downturn. “We think we are in a good position both in terms of running the operations and also in terms of strategic vision” with regard to electrification, autonomous driving and mobility, Tavares said on Feb. 26. “We have done our homework, and we think we are on the right path”. Automakers are under intense pressure to combine efforts on the slowing market for combustion-driven vehicles, to save cash for expensive new technologies like electrification, autonomous driving and app-based services. With more signs that sales volume has peaked, Ford and Volkswagen Group are working toward a broad partnership that would include commercial vehicles and autonomous driving, while BMW and Daimler are collaborating on a range of shared- and self-driving efforts. Tavares, who in 5 years at the helm has turned around the flagship Peugeot brand and GM castoff Opel, still relies on Europe for more than 80 % of PSA’s unit sales. A U.S. partner would potentially further Tavares’s plan, announced last week, to bring the Peugeot brand back to North America. The company plans to ship vehicles in from Europe or China from 2026. An alliance could pave the way for local production without a prohibitive investment. A deal would also help PSA build scale. The French company sold 3.9 million cars last year, enough to qualify as a volume producer but nowhere near the 10 million-plus that VW, Toyota and the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance churned out, giving them added leverage to squeeze out costs. Fiat Chrysler is focused on steadying the management team and operations since former CEO Sergio Marchionne passed away in July, the people said. It has not held any recent discussions with PSA regarding a combination, they said. Fiat and Peugeot extended their van cooperation to include vehicles under the French company’s Opel and Vauxhall brands in February. GM has little interest in the European market. Under CEO Mary Barra, the U.S. automaker has been shedding low-margin businesses and investing in self-drive technology and mobility services instead. Merging with or acquiring PSA would be a complete reversal, and is something GM could have pursued when it sold Opel to the French company 2 years ago. Despite the obstacles, analysts have started to speculate on options for PSA. At J.P. Morgan Securities, analysts including Jose Asumendi suggest a European passenger-car partnership with Ford or a cooperation deal with JLR as potential solutions. Jefferies International analyst Philippe Houchois, in a note on Monday, also suggested JLR as a possibility. Bloomberg News reported last week that Tata is exploring options for JLR, including the sale of a minority stake in the struggling British automaker. The U.S. is its biggest market, while China, which has slumped recently, is still among its largest. Both the Jaguar sports car and luxury Land Rover nameplates would bring PSA the cachet it’s seeking to layer over its efficient production platform, where Tavares has lowered costs, and has made plans for electric cars. Tata said last week that there was “no truth to rumors that Tata Motors is looking to divest its stake in JLR”, while declining to elaborate. +++
+++ The new Cupra Formentor concept will rapidly transition from prototype into production reality in 2020, but a less sporty version with more economical powertrains and wearing SEAT badges will follow it into showrooms just “several months” after the new Cupra flagship goes on sale. That’s according to Seat vice-president for sales and marketing Wayne Griffiths, who is also CEO of the Cupra brand. Griffiths said: “The segment that the Formentor is in, the C-SUV segment, is going to be so important that we will not be able to limit it to just a Cupra model. Demand for cars in the C-SUV segment will continue to increase”. The overwhelming majority of buyers in the C-segment SUV category are families looking for space, practicality, fuel economy and value for money, something that the Seat version of the Formentor will be toned down to address. “Not only is it high-power it’s high end in terms of design, spec, interior, it’s right at the top of everything we will do, so I think there is room below that for our customers”, said Griffiths of the forthcoming plug-in hybrid performance SUV; the second performance crossover Cupra will launch. The Cupra Formentor concept uses a plug-in hybrid powertrain linking a battery and electric motor to a 1.4-litre turbocharged four-cylinder petrol engine. However, when the production car launches next year, it’ll be offered with the Cupra Ateca’s 300 hp 2.0-litre turbocharged petrol engine too. +++
+++ Automakers and technology companies racing to develop SELF DRIVING VEHICLES are running into a problem: cars that can think are no good without affordable and reliable technology that allows cars to see. With the notable exception of Elon Musk’s Tesla, most automakers have said their self-driving cars will rely on a detection system known as lidar. The state of the art sensors use laser light pulses to render precise images of the environment around the car. Pressure to launch self-driving cars is already pushing many players to place bets on the technology. General Motors, Ford and BMW are expected to deploy sensors from well-funded lidar startups Velodyne and Innoviz on their initial self-driving cars over the next 2 years. More than $1 billion in corporate and private investment has been plowed into some 50 lidar startups over the past 3 years, including a record $420 million in 2018. Velodyne and Swedish supplier Veoneer will provide lidar for Ford’s first automated vehicle in mid-2021, according to a source familiar with the project. Velodyne President Marta Hall describes the program as “a billion-dollar-plus deal” for the privately held lidar pioneer, whose $75,000 HDL-64E can be seen on the roofs of many self-driving prototypes in Silicon Valley. But automakers and large suppliers have yet to settle on a winning technology, meaning there are no real sector standards for the sensors to date that would encourage mass production and lower the cost. The initial payoff for investors and startups looks thin. Automotive lidar is expected to generate only $2.5 billion in revenue by 2025, according to industry researcher IHS Markit. “You can overcome certain things with additional capital, but you can’t overcome physics” in trying to rapidly develop, package and implement the latest lidar technology, said Austin Russell, chief executive and co-founder of lidar startup Luminar, which has funding from Volvo and development deals with Toyota and Audi. “That’s the fundamental barrier that’s holding the vast majority of the industry behind”. Interviews with 2 dozen executives at startups, automakers, suppliers, investment and research firms underscored that there is plenty of chatter, but little consensus on lidar. Toyota has partnered with several lidar startups, including Blackmore and Luminar, but the Japanese automaker continues to evaluate new sensing technologies and is not keen for a shakeout to start yet, said Ryan Eustice, senior vice president of automated driving at Toyota Research Institute. “We want to see an ecosystem happen. There’s a diversity of technology that we’d like to gauge and different strengths and weaknesses in how you approach the technology. It’s also good to have competitive market pressure”, Eustice said. Eventually, the lidar sector could be squeezed down to just 5 or 6 key players, as happened with the far more mature radar sensor technology. But that is not likely to unfold until after 2025 and perhaps not until 2030, executives and researchers told. “It’s going to be a long runway”, IHS Senior Analyst Jeremy Carlson said. That presents a big risk: investing in technology that may be obsolete by the time large numbers of those vehicles start rolling off assembly lines after 2025. If a vehicle assembler gets “too wrapped up in a technology, you might be at a disadvantage” because a newer, less expensive system could come along, said Chris Heiser, CEO of automated vehicle software company Renovo. Even experts do not seem to agree on the etymology of the name lidar, which is either a mashup of light and radar, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, or an acronym for light detection and ranging (or, in some references, laser detection and ranging). Nor is there full agreement on whether lidar is really necessary to make self-driving cars work. Tesla CEO Musk insists the electric carmaker’s Autopilot system does not need it, relying instead on a combination of radar, cameras and software. Lidar remains a relatively young technology that is still in flux, with bulky electromechanical devices such as Velodyne’s popular rooftop unit rapidly transitioning to newer, more compact and more capable solid-state devices designed to sell for less than $10,000 in limited quantities, and eventually as little as $200 in mass production. “This requires quantum leaps in innovation in lidar technology”, Thomas Sedran, in charge of evaluating Volkswagen’s autonomous strategy in commercial vehicles, told. Aptiv PLC has been among the most active suppliers in developing automated driving systems, investing in 3 lidar startups: Innoviz, Quanergy and LeddarTech. It is also a key supplier of automotive radar, a sensing technology often paired with lidar. Glen De Vos, Aptiv’s chief technology officer, said lidar could follow radar’s extended maturation process, with technology, size, cost and reliability optimized over time as demand and production volume ramp up. “It takes a few generations and iterations for that cost curve to come down”, he said. “It could be a 5 to 10 year process”. +++
+++ TOYOTA aims to sell an electric vehicle in Europe by 2021 and has identified SUVs and vans as the sectors that it believes will be most responsive to the technology, Toyota Europe CEO Johan van Zyl said. The company has so far resisted selling an EV in the region citing the lack of profitability compared with its strong-selling lineup of hybrids. Toyota predicts hybrid will account for half of its sales in Europe in 2019, a year ahead of schedule, rising to 60 % by 2021. “The price point for an EV will be high, therefore, you will see them in SUVs. They will also be much appreciated in a van-type vehicle in cities if they expand their zero-emissions zones”, van Zyl told. “We would like to have something in place by 2021”, he added. Toyota will sell its first EV next year when it launches a battery-powered version of the C-HR in China. The vehicle could possibly be sold in Europe as well. “It’s something that can be looked at”, van Zyl said. The company has said it plans to sell 10 EVs globally by the early 2020s. An electric van is likely to come from Toyota’s partnership with PSA Group. PSA already supplies the Japanese firm with midsize vans and Toyota announced last November that it would also take a compact van from the French group. PSA is rolling out electric versions of its midsize vans, starting next year with the Opel/Vauxhall Vivaro. Toyota remains unconvinced that EVs can directly replace vehicles with a combustion engine without forcing customers to pay more. “It will be many years before the price is anywhere near as competitive as conventional products net of incentives”, Matt Harrison, Toyota Europe’s head of sales and marketing, said. Until then, manufacturers will have to cut prices to ensure EVs appeal to customers in the quantity needed for manufacturers hit their CO2 targets. “In the next 2 to 3 years, if look at the CO2 compliance targets, it’s quite clear the level of electric vehicles from our competitors will be ahead of the demand level”, Harrison said. “What our customers want and what they are prepared to pay for determines the speed at which we need to roll out that type of solution. That’s why we think hybrids are a better solution in the short term for the majority of customers”. +++
+++ Fully autonomous vehicles will take at least another 5 years to perfect, with the cost and complexity of rolling out the technology globally undermining the business case, said VOLKSWAGEN ’s head of commercial vehicles, Thomas Sedran. Autonomous cars require high-tech infrastructure, hugely expensive lidar and radar systems, as well as pricey deals with cloud computing and mapping providers, Sedran said. “It will take another 5 years to develop the technology to achieve higher levels of autonomy. Can you see a business case which justifies these overheads for this period of time? It’s just too expensive”, Sedran said. Sedran is in charge of evaluating Volkswagen’s autonomous strategy in commercial vehicles, where last-mile delivery services could benefit from driverless vans. The auto industry and technology companies such as Google and Uber have spent billions developing vehicles that do not need drivers, seeking to lower the cost of ride-hailing and delivery services. “The complexity of solving this problem is like a manned mission to Mars”, Sedran said of the development of completely driverless vehicles, a level of technological sophistication known as Level 5 automation. “Level 5 will never happen globally. You need latest-generation mobile infrastructure everywhere, as well as high-definition digital maps that are constantly updated. And you still need near-perfect road markings”, he said. “This will only be the case in very few cities. And even then, the technology will only work in ideal weather conditions. If there are large puddles on the road in heavy rain, that’s already a factor forcing a driver to intervene”. Volkswagen and Ford are in talks about a potential collaboration in autonomous vehicles, but the 2 automakers have so far failed to agree on whether or how much the German company will invest in Ford’s self-driving car operations, people familiar with the negotiations said. Last week BMW and Daimler pooled their resources on autonomous cars development in an effort to spread the cost. Because you need back-up drivers, this is an additional cost on top of the technology, where sensors, processors and software for Level 3 autonomous cars already cost about 50,000 euros, Sedran said. “We need the technology cost of the sensors to come down to around 6,000 to 7,000 euros”, Sedran said. “This requires quantum leaps in innovation in lidar technology, for example”. Even if this were achieved, the cost of high-definition maps and cloud computing add hundreds of millions of euros in annual costs for fleets of robotaxis or delivery vans, Sedran added. “Who is going to keep up that kind of spending for 5 years without a clear business case”, he said. +++
+++ VOLVO will not sell its all-electric Polestar models in the United States if the company faces tariffs on exports from China. “The business case for bringing the car to the U.S. is highly dependent on the type of tariffs we have”, Polestar Chief Executive Officer Thomas Ingenlath told. Volvo’s luxury performance brand Polestar unveiled its first fully electric sedan in February, opening up online pre-orders for the 5-seater fastback at a price and with a driving range to rival Tesla’s mass market Model 3. +++