+++ Lexus has recovered its famed customer service mojo to top J.D. Power’s 2022 satisfaction survey for luxury brands, while Mini once again ranks first for mass-market brands. Toyota’s luxury division lost out to Porsche in last year’s Customer Service Index Study (CSI), but the German carmaker had to settle for third place in the 2022 rankings behind Cadillac. Mini repeated last year’s success but Buick was once again snapping at its heels, the pair separated by a single point. The Toyota brand scored a middling 9th spot in the mass market tables, ranking only slightly above average, but that’s still better than what several big names managed. Honda joined Ford in the “below average” section of the results table, while Volkswagen, Hyundai, and Chrysler occupied the bottom three spots in descending order. It’s not all bad news for Stellantis brands, however. Dodge moved up 4 places to 10th, and last year’s biggest loser, Ram, swapped 18th place for 12th. Few will be surprised to see ALFA ROMEO securing the ghetto end of the luxury table, and Land Rover’s position above it is as unlikely to raise any eyebrows. Neither has moved since last year. But Jaguar dragged itself from third bottom to 8th (which is podium stuff for Jaguar), and you just know Mercedes and Genesis dealers across the country will be getting ripped new ones by head office following the revelation that they’ve tanked to fourth- and third-worst, respectively. The CSI study ranks brands according to how satisfied car owners are with the service they receive at franchised dealer or aftermarket service centers for work carried out on 1- to 3-year-old vehicles. The focus is on service quality, service advisor, vehicle pick-up, service facility, and service initiation, but for its 42nd year, the survey was redesigned to include new features including valet service, remote vehicle servicing, and online/smartphone payment app options. J.D. Power says its CSI data and feedback reveals that customers increasingly appreciate receiving text notifications that their car is ready and photo or video evidence of service and that dealers need to work harder to close the satisfaction gap between drivers of combustion cars and EVs. Satisfaction among EV drivers scored 784 points, versus 852 for owners of gas or diesel vehicles. +++
+++ BMW is recalling 917.106 cars to address an ongoing fire hazard that has already prompted 2 previous safety campaigns. These cars are equipped with an emissions-control device(a Positive Crankcase Ventilation (PCV) valve heater) that can short-circuit, leading to malfunctions and potentially even fires. “Affected vehicles are equipped with a PCV valve that incorporates a heating element consisting of a copper tube, continuously supplied by electrical current, and a Positive Temperature Coefficient (PTC) element, known as the PCV valve heater (blow-by-heater)”, BMW said in its defect report. “The electrical contacts at the copper tube, and the tube itself, are coated with a plastic material. Irregularities in the manufacturing process at the supplier could lead to cavities in the area of the electrical contacts, and near the PTC element at the copper tube, which could allow moisture to occur and could lead to a short circuit”. Warning signs of a malfunction include an illuminated maintenance indicator on the dash and the appearance or smell of smoke. While the “check engine” light alone is not cause for immediate alarm, BMW says drivers should immediately find a safe place to pull over and shut off/exit their vehicles if they see or smell smoke. No injuries have been reported to BMW, but there’s no good reason to fool around with fire. This is BMW’s third crack at this campaign, which was originally launched in 2017 to address the issue in cars from model year 2007 to 2010. In 2019, BMW added roughly 185.000 cars from the 2006 model year. Apparently, neither campaign quite got it done, and the repaired or replacement hardware will likely need to be addressed once again. The number of individual models subject to the campaign is difficult to wrangle, but if you own a 2006-2011 model of any of the following, your car may be included: E82 (1 Series Coupe) E88 (1 Series Convertible) E90 (3 Series Sedan) E91 (3 Touring) E92 (3 Series Coupe) E93 (3 Series Convertible) E60 (5 Series Sedan) E61 (5 Series Touring) F10 (5 Series Sedan) E83 (X3) F25 (X3) E70 (X5) E85 (Z4 Roadster) E89 (Z4 Roadster) E86 (Z4 Coupe). +++
+++ HONDA has dreamed the impossible dream to agree to do what established car companies have resisted for years: become a contract manufacturer. The agreement between Honda and Sony to jointly work on a new electric-car brand “aligns the technological assets of both companies”, said Honda, as they work to launch their first car in 2025. In doing so, the 2 Japanese brands have made a bold move to marry the skills of a software company with the manufacturing and engineering knowhow of an automotive brand. The combination is one that is being investigated globally as cars become more defined by their software than hardware, but most notably it’s happening in China. Examples there include Geely’s link-up with technology giant Baidu to create the self-driving Jidu brand, with Geely taking the lead on the engineering and manufacturing sides. Stellantis’s partnership with Apple iPhone-maker Foxconn to develop digital cockpits and connected services via the new Mobile Drive division is another good example, according to Jonathan Davenport, analyst at consultants Gartner. “There’s this coming together of automotive and consumer electronics and software that consumer electronics brands think they can leverage”, he said. Sony first showed its interest in cars back in 2020 at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, when it revealed the Vision-S electric saloon. It was that rare thing in the automotive industry: a genuine surprise. It wasn’t so much the smoothly generic design that wowed showgoers but the completeness of the concept. Sony tried to deflect by saying it was more a showcase of some of its technology, for example cameras, but it was clear the interest was there. Sony then returned to CES this year with the Vision-S O2 SUV, before Honda and Sony made their joint announcement in early March “to establish a joint venture to engage in the joint development and sales of high value-added battery electric vehicles and commercialise them in conjunction with providing mobility services”. Sony’s entry into the new software-defined automotive era makes sense. It may not have much of a share in the mobile phone market, but its experience selling PlayStation video-game consoles will have useful carryover, with shared hardware elements like chipsets and digital services, such as downloads and over-the-air software upgrades. Sony will develop a “mobility platform” for the new car brand. Sony actually makes PlayStations itself, rather than outsourcing them, but designing and building cars is several orders of magnitude harder. “An automotive vehicle with all the associated functional safety and ADAS requirements is complex to create but especially to create at scale”, said Davenport. We often hold Tesla up as an example of the first-mover responsible for many new car-industry trends, and it definitely has been a leader on the software side. But for tech companies and other automotive newcomers, it has also been a clear example of how not to get into the business. “Tesla boss Elon Musk didn’t think he would need to partner with the Fords of this planet with their supply-chain experience”, said Neil Endley, global director for turnaround services at quality consultantcy Trigo. “He said ‘I will go do that myself’ and then suffered like hell with lack of product to the plants”. Tesla’s agonisingly slow production ramp-up is one big mistake made by automotive newbies. Underestimating the cost of engineering is another; one that Dyson suffered just before it abruptly shut down its electric SUV project in 2019. Founder James Dyson said that to sell the EV at a profit, he would have had to charge more than €200.000. Dyson’s costs spiralled in part because it was focusing on redesigning areas that didn’t really need redesigning. It worked in particular on a new HVAC (heating and ventilation system) and improved seats. “Who does that?” an automotive executive said recently, on condition of anonymity. “No wonder the costs got out of hand”. Car companies and their suppliers have already mastered this kind of engineering. Where they’re struggling to catch up is in software, which is why the partnership between Honda and Sony makes such good sense. The new company will pool talent from both sides to design and develop the car, while Honda “is expected to be responsible for manufacturing” the new model, the 2 said in their statement. This is a big deal. Car companies have long feared being relegated to the status of white-label suppliers in the era of mobility. Without the power of the automotive brand to boost pricing, manufacturing and engineering becomes a low-margin exercise. The reason why Apple hasn’t yet announced its ‘Project Titan’ car, analysts believe, is because it hasn’t found a car maker with enough scale prepared to become an Apple supplier. After Hyundai had confirmed in 2020 that it was in talks to build an autonomous car for Apple, local press reported just 2 months later that the Korean giant had backed out on fears of becoming a mere contract manufacturer. Honda’s partnership with Sony, however, is more equal, with both sharing in the success of the new brand. This of course creates the problem of what to name it. Either brand name would carry weight, but using either could be seen to elevate the status of that company over the other. A new brand name, on the other hand, would have zero customer recognition. That’s probably the least of their worries. The important takeaway is that the project represents a win for Sony and a significant shift in thinking for Honda. The company’s star has fallen in Europe, with sales dropping from 313.000 in 2007 to just 68.346 last year, according to figures from European industry association the ACEA. The Sony collaboration could be the perfect next quest to, as the song goes, reach for the unreachable star. What will the first car look like? The launch in 2025 of the electric Sonda (or should that be Hony?) is a long way off, but we have early clues as to what the car will look like. The exterior of the Vision-S 01 saloon and Vision-S 02 SUV concepts are svelte, aerodynamic and unmemorable. The interior of the 02, with its 3 screens running across the width of the dashboard, is probably more central to its appeal and is a grown-up version of what we see today in the Honda E. Honda and Sony said their first car will “be centred around safety, entertainment and adaptability”, all of which point to autonomous capability. Back to top Honda is working on an electric platform dubbed e:Architecture, due in the second half of the decade, that could be made to fit the timescale, but it has also teased a range of e:N-badged EVs for China based on a stretched version of the E platform. The first 2 are conventional electric versions of ICE cars, but the bolder styling of the e:N Coupé, e:N SUV and e:N GT could point to a less conventional look. +++
+++ MINI ’s Cowley factory in Oxfordshire has temporarily closed due to the combination of semiconductor chip ‘bottlenecks’ and the ongoing Ukraine crisis. The closure is expected to last until Friday 18 March and Mini has said it is ‘assessing the situation and defining measures to secure production again as soon as possible’. The brand had previously said the supply situation for semiconductor components will remain difficult and that it can’t rule out the possibility of this impacting sales during the rest of the year. In April 2021 the same semiconductor shortages affected the plant and production was halted for 3 days. The Cowley plant currently employs 3.800 staff who will be affected by this week’s closure but there will be no impact to their pay. The site produces the Mini Hatch, both petrol powered and electric versions, and the Clubman. The semiconductor chip shortage is a global supply chain issue that has been affecting manufacturers around the world. The semiconductor is a key component in most modern car equipment, such as touchscreen infotainment systems, reversing cameras and airbags. The shortage has been created by supply chain disruptions due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Since the pandemic started, manufacturers globally have had to temporarily close production facilities due to lockdown restrictions and a lack of parts, which has created a large backlog for new cars. +++
+++ Porsche has begun testing its third-generation PANAMERA ahead of an expected start to European sales by the end of 2023. The new Mk3 model, which goes by the internal working name 972, looks set to continue the German company’s long tradition for small, evolutionary changes between generations, with an exterior design that subtly progresses the look of the 6-year-old second-generation Porsche Panamera. Underneath the steel and aluminium bodywork, though, Porsche is lining up more significant modifications for its BMW 8 Series Gran Coupé and Mercedes-Benz CLS competitor. With the 2-year-old Taycan saloon leading the firm’s electric vehicle push, the Panamera is due to receive a revised range of petrol powertrains, all with heavily reworked exhaust systems and tweaked software aimed at meeting the upcoming Euro 7 emission regulations. Along with updated versions of today’s twin-turbocharged 2.9-litre V6 and 4.0-litre V8 engines, featuring 48 Volt mild-hybrid properties, the new Panamera looks set to adopt a heavily revised plug-in hybrid powertrain that is also planned for the upcoming Mk4 Cayenne. Details remain scarce, but Autointernationaal has been told that successor models to the 4 E-Hybrid, 4S E-Hybrid and range-topping Turbo S E-Hybrid will receive both revised petrol engines and electric motors in combination with a larger-capacity battery pack and newly developed software that will enable faster charging rates. Although nothing is official yet, the overall power output of each Panamera variant is said to have been increased. In combination with revised driving mode functions, the reworked plug-in hybrid system is expected to offer “significantly more” than the 31 electric-only miles of the current E-Hybrid models. It has yet to be seen which changes Porsche will make to the Panamera’s interior. It will, however, receive a further developed version of the Porsche Communication Management system with 5G data compatibility. Although there have been doubts about whether the newly spied prototype actually previews the third- generation Panamera, the life-cycle history of previous incarnations of the luxury liftback suggests that it is indeed an all-new model rather than just a facelifted version of the existing one. The original 970 Panamera arrived in 2010 and was subsequently facelifted in 2013. The second-generation 971 was introduced in 2016 and received a round of mid-life upgrades in 2020. In each case, Porsche planned the Panamera for a life cycle of between 6 and 7 years, with a facelift 3 to 4 years after its introduction. If Porsche sticks with this strategy, the 972 is likely to be unveiled by the third quarter of 2023, with European sales beginning later that year. +++
+++ PORSCHE will suspend production of its electric Taycan model at the group’s Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen plant until the end of next week, the company said in a statement, citing a lack of components. This means that about 200 Taycan cars cannot be built per day, Porsche said. However, production at Porsche’s Leipzig plant, which has been suspended until the end of this week, will be partially resumed from Monday due to an improved supply situation, the group added. European carmakers are struggling to obtain crucial wire harnesses as suppliers in western Ukraine have been shuttered by Russia’s invasion, forcing them to curtail production. +++
+++ RIVIAN has been sued by a shareholder who claimed the startup failed to tell investors it had underpriced its electric vehicles, leading to unpopular price hikes that it swiftly rolled back. In a complaint filed on Monday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, shareholder Charles Larry Crews said Rivian concealed how its R1S and R1T were so underpriced that it needed to raise prices soon after its November initial public offering. Crews said the increases “would tarnish Rivian’s reputation as a trustworthy and transparent company”, and risk cancellation of a large number of 55.400 preorders dating back to 2018. He called the rollback, including an apology from chief executive R.J. Scaringe, a “futile attempt at damage control”. The proposed class action came after Irvine, California-based Rivian sparked a customer backlash, including on social media, on March 1 by raising the R1S’s price to $84,500 from $70,000, and the R1T’s price to about $79,500 from $67,500. Rivian backtracked two days later, saying customers with existing preorders would not face the higher prices, and customers who had canceled orders could reinstate them. “It was wrong and we broke your trust in Rivian”, Scaringe wrote customers in a letter. Rivian cited inflation pressures for the price increases. The Amazon.com-backed company went public at $78.00 per share on November 10, raising about $12 billion in the world’s largest IPO of 2021. Its shares closed Monday at $42.43, after losing 37 % of their value in the prior 5 trading days. Crews said he bought 35 Rivian shares on its first day of trading at $112.83 each, 45% above the IPO price. In an email, his lawyer Jacob Walker said federal securities laws provide “a very strong remedy” for investors when companies omit key facts from IPO materials. The lawsuit names more than 30 defendants including Scaringe and lead IPO underwriters Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley. +++
+++ More automakers suspend or limit operations in RUSSIA . Companies from around the globe are reacting to the sanctions. Global automakers have suspended some business in Russia following that country’s invasion of Ukraine. Russian forces invaded Ukraine last week, marking the biggest attack by one state against another in Europe since World War II. Many firms have idled operations in Russia following Western sanctions against Russia. Here are the latest updates: Ferrari: Ferrari announced it would donate €1 million to support the Ukrainians in need that, in collaboration with the Red Cross and UNHCR, will fund international humanitarian projects supporting Ukraine as well as local initiatives focusing on the reception of refugees in the Italian region. Additional aid will go to the Association Chernobyl of Maranello, Fiorano, Formigine – Onlus to provide for the needs of the Ukrainians who will be hosted in the area near the company. Ferrari has also suspended the production of vehicles for the Russian market until further notice. “Ferrari stands alongside everyone in Ukraine affected by this ongoing humanitarian crisis”, stated Ferrari CEO, Benedetto Vigna. “While we hope for a rapid return to dialogue and a peaceful solution, we cannot remain indifferent to the suffering of everyone affected. Our thoughts and support go out to them. We are playing our small part alongside the institutions that are bringing immediate relief to this situation”. Hyundai Motor Group: Hyundai will suspend its car assembly plant in Russia’s St Petersburg on March 1-5 due to supply chain interruptions, Interfax newsagency reported on Tuesday, citing a company official for the South Korean company in Russia. Mitsubishi: Mitsubishi said on Tuesday that it may suspend production and sale of its cars in Russia as economic sanctions imposed on Russia could trigger supply chain disruptions. Japanese trading house Mitsubishi owns 141 dealerships in Russia, according to its website. Volvo: The Swedish automaker said it would suspend car shipments to the Russian market until further notice, becoming the first international automaker to do so as sanctions over the invasion continue to bite. In a statement, the company said it had made the decision because of “potential risks associated with trading material with Russia, including the sanctions imposed by the EU and US. Volvo will not deliver any cars to the Russian market until further notice”, it said. A spokesman said the carmaker exports vehicles to Russia from plants in Sweden, China and the United States. This came as Russia warned Sweden and Finland not to join NATO or risk facing “serious military-political consequences”. Volvo sold around 9.000 cars in Russia in 2021, based on industry data. Volkswagen Group: Volkswagen warned of production cuts at some of its plants including the one in Wolfsburg as Ukraine-based suppliers have been facing difficulties delivering after Russia’s invasion. The company said it would likely be unable to produce at its Wolfsburg plant in the week of March 14 as a result, adding the factory would already produce less from the week of March 6. The group also said it had temporarily halted production of Volkswagen brand electric vehicles at its Zwickau and Dresden plants this week and could not rule out further production adjustments. Earlier in the week, Volkswagen temporarily suspended deliveries of cars to dealers until further notice. “Deliveries are to resume as soon as the effects of the sanctions imposed by the European Union and the United States have been clarified”, a VW spokesperson said. VW previously said it would halt production for a few days this week at 2 German factories after a delay in getting parts made in Ukraine. Czech carmaker Skoda Auto, part of Volkswagen, will limit some production at its domestic plants due to supply shortages after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, while it said its Russian operations were still running. “Due to the current situation in Ukraine, Skoda Auto is facing critical supply shortages of parts from several local suppliers that have effect on some of our models”, it said. “This is the reason why we will limit production of the Enyaq iV from this week on”. Skoda said its supply chain consisted of a number of suppliers in western Ukraine. The Czech carmaker said production was still running at its two plants in Russia, which has been hit by Western sanctions for its invasion of Ukraine. Answering a question on any impact on production and operations in the event of further sanctions on Russia, Skoda said: “Impacts can certainly be expected, but the final decision and future direction will be determined by the (Skoda Auto board) and in consultation with the Volkswagen Group”. Russia was Skoda’s second-largest market in 2021, with over 90.000 vehicles delivered. Ukraine has also been a stable market, it said. “The sales strategy in Russia and Ukraine is currently the subject of intensive discussions. Sales in both Ukraine and Russia can be expected to fall in view of recent developments”, Skoda said. Earlier on Monday, RIA news agency reported Volkswagen had temporarily suspended deliveries of cars already in Russia to local dealerships, citing a company statement. VW had no immediate comment when contacted by Reuters. Thursday, Porsche announced it has also ended deliveries of new cars to Russia. The company cited its opposition to the invasion and concern for people’s safety as factors in ending deliveries. The sports car brand has 26 dealers in the country and last year sold a little over 6.000 cars there, a small percentage of the brand’s more than 300.000 sales globally. Mercedes-Benz: The German luxury carmaker said on Wednesday it would suspend the export of passenger cars and vans to Russia as well as local manufacturing in Russia until further notice. Ford: Ford, which has a 50 % stake in 3 Russian plants, announced that it will suspend all of its joint venture operations in Russia, effective immediately, until further notice. General Motors: GM said it would suspend all vehicle exports to Russia until further notice. The Detroit company does not have plants in Russia, only sells about 3.000 vehicles annually there and has limited supply-chain exposure. Our thoughts are with the people of Ukraine at this time”, GM said in a statement. “The loss of life is a tragedy and our overriding concern is for the safety of people in the region”. +++