+++ FIAT sold more cars in the first half of 2023 than any other Stellantis brand, notching up a 10% volume increase worldwide from January to June. The Italian brand sold more than 645.000 cars globally over the period, more than its volume-oriented sibling brands Peugeot, Citroën, Opel-Vauxhall, Chrysler and Dodge (though it is the first of these to publish precise figures). Fiat registered 271.800 cars in Europe in the first half of the year and claimed a 12.8% market share in its Italian home market. Italy’s best-selling car so far this year is the 12-year-old Panda, due to be replaced by an electric version in 2024. Stellantis highlights that Fiat is unique for having a particularly expansive retail footprint outside of its home market. As well as being the bestselling brand in its native Italy it also topped the sales charts in Brazil and Turkey, with market shares of 22% and 12.8% respectively. Fiat’s line-up in some markets is almost completely different from what it sells in Western Europe. In Brazil, for example, it sells 3 passenger cars we don’t get here, as well as 2 pick-up trucks and a comprehensive van offering. Fiat is also the best-selling car brand across South America as a whole, claiming a 14.1% market share in the region. Just as significant as Fiat’s overall sales figures is the fact that its 500e is the Stellantis Group’s best-selling EV in Europe. Fiat CEO Olivier François said: “Over the last 2 years, we had a successful run within Stellantis, making Fiat more profitable and more global than ever. This year, Fiat has once again confirmed its global success, contributing substantially to the group’s excellent results”. He added that, off the back of this success, Fiat “will continue to lead the path to electrification with the launch of the Topolino and the new 600e”, both revealed last month. “Thanks to the synergies and opportunities within the group, in the next three years our product plan will get Fiat back to where it belongs: a leader, a benchmark, a love brand”, he pledged. +++
+++ The electric car price war is forcing FORD to adjust its electric vehicle timeline. The Dearborn, Michigan-based car company Thursday extended its self-imposed deadline to hit annual electric vehicle production of 600.000 by a year. Instead of hitting that goal by the end of this year, Ford is now targeting the end of 2024. It’s confirmation of recent signs that Ford’s original EV ambitions outpaced demand. Ford dealers earlier in July told they were beginning to turn away allocations of the electric Mustang Mach-E after customer interest in the vehicle fell off. Dealers cited high prices as one of the main reasons EVs have been a harder sell in recent months. Ford confirmed during its earning report Thursday that EV pricing is one of the biggest hurdles to meeting their original EV production goals. “The pricing pressure has dramatically increased in just the last 60 days”, Ford CEO Jim Farley said on a Thursday conference call with analysts. “While EV adoption is still growing, the paradigm has shifted”. An ongoing price war in the electric vehicle market has closed the gap between gas-powered and EV prices. The upcharge for an EV over an internal-combustion engine dropped nearly $5,000 in the first half of the year, Farley said. “We expect the EV market to remain volatile until the winners and losers shake out”, he said. Ford first slashed Mach-E prices at the end of January, following Tesla’s first round of sweeping price cuts at the start of the year. Farley and other Ford executives have said this was a necessary move to keep up with Tesla, which largely controls the EV market at the moment. Still, Farley recently issued a warning to Musk on this strategy, highlighting the importance of keeping designs and vehicles fresh. “The product gets commoditized and then you lose your pricing premium. That’s a really dangerous thing”, Farley told reporters at a dinner earlier this year. Tesla’s price war has created a headache for the entire industry, forcing car companies to follow suit at the same time they’re trying to get these currently unprofitable vehicles on the road en masse. In addition to extending the deadline for 600,000 annual production of electric vehicles to 2024, Ford tabled its ambitions to hit 2 million in EV production by the end of 2026 and told investors it expects to lose even more money on EVs this year. Ford said it expects to lose $4.5 billion on EVs this year, up from a previous estimate of $3 billion. These changes at Ford are the latest sign that the EV market is hitting a plateau that will impact Ford’s competitors as well. Tesla’s price cuts are a response to bloated inventory as fewer early adopters are snapping up their vehicles. Ford rival General Motors also has very low electric-vehicle sales numbers. EV sales hit a high of nearly 6% in the US last year, nearing a level that analysts predict will usher in a plateau for growth. “There seems to be this natural resistance somewhere between 7% and 10% of market share in a given state”, said analyst Karl Brauer, citing a recent iSeeCars study that found the states with the biggest EV sales were also the slowest growing. “That seems to be the cap, and then it gets much harder to grow it further”. +++
+++ The new 1.000 hp LAMBORGHINI Revuelto, the long-awaited successor to the Aventador, has already sold out until 2026, according to company boss Stephan Winkelmann. The firm’s maiden plug-in hybrid supercar, originally codenamed LB744, is the most potent Lamborghini in the car maker’s history and it delivers some eye-watering numbers from its 6.5-litre V12 powerplant: 2.5 seconds for 0-100 kph acceleration and a top speed of more than 350 kph. This is down to a trio of 150 hp electric motors (one integrated into the gearbox and a pair at the front, one powering each wheel) that supplement the 830 hp V12. While the addition of electric power marks a significant departure for Lamborghini’s flagship model, Winkelmann said the car’s reception proves it was worth the gamble. “Hybridisation has been digested by our customers and the greater public”, he said. “With the Revuelto, we have an order bank which is exceeding all our expectations. We are in the year 2026 with orders. For us, this is a sign that not only is the technology accepted but also that the brand is on the highest level ever”. Winkelmann added that many early buyers were existing Aventador customers who had been given early access to the machine, and that they had been won over by how the Revuelto combined new technology with the brand’s values. “The blend of tradition and innovation is key for the success of Revuelto”, he said. “Everyone was expecting hybridisation, everybody was hoping to get another V12 and the 2 things came together in a perfect way. The design is unmistakably Lamborghini. Everything worked well together and this is what the customers were expecting. It was not easy for us to continue to develop a new V12 because of all the regulations with emissions, but the engineers did a fantastic job”.
Given the Volkswagen Group’s widespread move to downsizing and turbocharging, Lamborghini had to work hard to justify retaining that V12 motor, according to former chief technical officer Maurizio Reggiani, who led the early development of the Revuelto. Yet it was one that Lamborghini was able to win due to both overwhelming support from existing customers and the use of hybridisation to cut emissions. Driving an all-new 8-speed dual-clutch gearbox mounted behind it, the new engine (turned 180 degrees compared with the Aventador’s) is 17 kg lighter than the one in the car it replaces but makes more power, delivering 830 hp at a searing 9.250 rpm, with the limiter not calling time until 250 rpm later. The battery pack sits in what would previously have been considered the transmission tunnel and stores a modest 3.8 kWh of charge; good for an electric-only range of around 10 km. The fact that the charging port is within the front luggage compartment suggests it is not intended to be plugged in very often. However, the V12 can directly recharge the battery pack through the rear motor in a process that’s claimed to take just 6 minutes. The pack is much lighter than most batteries, weighing 70 kg, with the front motors adding another 80 kg of mass. Fuel economy and CO2 figures haven’t been finalised, but Lamborghini says both will be around 30 % better than the Aventador Ultimae’s. The battery’s peak flow rate is the limiting factor on electrical assistance, with a maximum of 140 kW equating to 190 hp. Each of the 3 motors can take up to 150 hp, allowing the battery’s output to be juggled accordingly, and with torque biasing across the front axle. The rear electric motor adds assistance to one shaft in the dual-clutch gearbox, meaning it is possible for the 2 sides of the Revuelto’s powertrain to be driving different gears simultaneously. Like the Lamborghini Sián FKP 37 and Countach LPI 800-4 hyper-hybrids, as well as the Ferrari SF90, the Revuelto will reverse under electrical power only, but has the ability to drive all 4 wheels. The Revuelto will be heavier than the Aventador, despite weight savings throughout the structure. The new car’s carbonfibre tub is both lighter and 40% stiffer than the last generation’s and now features a composite front crash structure; a world first in a road car. But the bulk of the hybrid system means that overall mass is still higher. Lamborghini hasn’t released a formal kerb weight, but the promise of a power-to-weight ratio of 570 hp per tonne puts it at 1.776 kg. Underneath, the Aventador’s pushrod-operated suspension has been replaced by conventional upright springs for the twin wishbones at each corner. Lamborghini CTO Rouven Mohr says the new arrangement has packaging advantages and improvements in damper technology have allowed equal performance from conventional mountings.
The Revuelto will also get standard rear-axle steering plus active aerodynamic elements. There isn’t an official figure for peak downforce but we’re told it will be about the same as the Aventador SVJ made with its adjustable wing in its lowest-drag configuration. The car’s design draws on many familiar Lamborghini themes and keeps the trademark wedgy proportions that stretch back to the Countach. But there is lots of innovation too, from the compact LED headlights that sit beneath the overhang of the bonnet to the deliberately visible radar sensors integrated into the front grille. The side profile is defined by the huge air intakes behind the front-hinged doors, but there is also a new channel above these, under buttress-style wing elements. Lines at the rear are kept clean by a deployable spoiler and the engine is visible through an aperture in the carbonfibre rear bonnet. The interior is more spacious and much more hightech than the Aventador’s. The Revuelto gets a reconfigurable letterbox-shaped 9.1 inch passenger-side display screen to supplement its digital instruments and portrait-orientated 8.4 inch central touchscreen. Most driving controls are integrated into the steering wheel, with separate controls for the dynamic and powertrain modes. The cabin also has far more oddment space than any of its predecessors and this will be the first Lamborghini supercar to come with pop-out Porsche-style cupholders. Pricing hasn’t been publically confirmed yet, but we’re told that even in its launch guise, the Revuelto will cost more than the Aventador SVJ. Lamborghini has also confirmed the same core architecture and electric AWD system will underpin the Lamborghini Huracán’s replacement, but that car is set to trade the outgoing V10 for a twin-turbocharged V8. +++
+++ MASERATI posted a 42% rise in sales in the first half of 2023, driven by the new Grecale, which launched earlier this year. This push for the Porsche Macan-rivalling SUV, which in top-spec Trofeo form packs a 3.0-litre twin-turbo V6, helped total global deliveries to achieve 15.300 cars, up from 10.200 in the same period last year. The new Granturismo, which joined the SUV this year, was another key factor in this growth, the brand said. Pre-tax profits nearly doubled (+95%) to €121 million, which the brand said was helped by higher net pricing. The starting price of the Grecale, for example, rose €4.000 in the first 6 months of the year, but sales did not stall. Net revenue increased by 39% to €1.31 billion. “The Grecale has clearly been a driving force behind our growth, and it will be for the foreseeable future”, said CEO Davide Grasso, who added that the firm was expecting to see continued growth in the second half of the year. “The latest fashion in cars comes and goes, but people still see Maserati as that true luxury brand”, he said. This is key in markets such as the United Kingdom, the United States and China, he added. Asked about exact sales figures, Grasso said the brand “didn’t want to fall into the volume trap” and that it was focused instead on growth from revenue. That growth will be pushed further by the arrival of electric Grecale Folgore and Granturismo Folgore models later this year. “This is a very critical stepping stone for our long-term growth”, he said. “It is something where we have all our hands on deck and all our eyes on the ball because it’s a very critical move”. He added: “When we go electric, there is only one chance you have to make a good impression, and if that first impression is not good, you’re going to be hurting for the long term. It is the first time customers can experience what it means to drive electric cars which are Maserati. This makes me particularly happy”. Also on the brand’s future, Grasso confirmed production of the current-generation Ghibli and Quattroporte will finish by the end of the year. As reported, electric successors to these cars have previously been mooted. He added that track-only and exclusive cars will continue, but those cars “have to be meaningful” and “are not a way to increase revenues and extra margins” because this “actually takes away value”. +++
+++ TESLA ’s vehicles offer some of the most impressive range estimates in the business, but a new report from Reuters outlines how those numbers might have been inflated and customer concerns about them silenced. Reuters’ investigation found that Tesla formed a special internal team to seek out and cancel service appointments related to battery performance and range. Owners reported booking service visits to check battery health, only to receive messages that their vehicles were fine and that Tesla would like their appointments canceled. The automaker formed a “Diversion Team” to handle the thwarting because its service locations couldn’t keep up with requests from disappointed customers whose vehicles failed to deliver the expected range numbers. The report claims that Tesla rigged its vehicles’ range software to project more generous distances than were accurate. The software would show more accurate range estimates when the batteries got down below a 50-percent charge. The vehicles also had a range buffer that enabled around 24 km of driving after the range estimate reached zero. Interestingly, other EVs tested showed more accurate range estimates, and the Hyundai Kona was even found to underestimate its range. Though shocking and potentially damaging to Tesla, it’s important to note that Reuters couldn’t pin down whether or not the automaker is continuing this practice today. The range manipulation allegedly took place in Tesla’s early days, when it offered only the Roadster and Model S. Today’s Tesla vehicles are still among the most generous from a range perspective but were still found to inadequately account for temperature changes by third-party testers. The company has faced legal action in South Korea because its vehicles lost more than a quarter of their range in cold weather. Of course, Tesla isn’t alone in that regard, as temperature extremes impact the ranges of all electric vehicles. Driving style, road conditions, and terrain (hills, etc.) can also reduce range, as can using the vehicle’s climate controls. +++
+++ In the first half of this year, VOLKSWAGEN faced declining sales of its pure electric vehicles (EVs) in the Chinese market. The company sold 48.147 pure EVs, all belonging to its ID. series. This figure represents a decrease of 19% compared to the same period last year. Meanwhile, the overall market for pure electric vehicles in China witnessed a 20% increase during the same period, reaching 2.09 million units. As a result, Volkswagen’s share of the pure electric vehicle market dropped from 3.4% to approximately 2.3%, losing more than 1 percentage point of market share. Volkswagen offers a range of ID. series models in China, including ID.3, ID.4 and ID.6. As Volkswagen operates through two joint ventures, SAIC-VW and FAW-VW, it produces and sells ID.4 and ID.6 under both these entities, resulting in double versions of ID.4 and ID.6. However, sales data reveals that, apart from the ID.3, the sales of Volkswagen’s other ID series models have all experienced a decline during the first half of 2023. Why are the sales of the VW ID. Series declining in China? Several factors contributed to the decrease in Volkswagen’s EV sales in China. Firstly, the competition in the Chinese EV market is intense, with numerous new EVs being launched each month. Volkswagen’s lack of new EV product launches in the past year has affected its competitiveness. Secondly, other companies, such as BYD and Tesla, have engaged in a price war by reducing the prices of their EVs, which has attracted more attention from consumers. Volkswagen, however, has been slower to respond to this price competition. Additionally, to maintain market share amidst the competition, Volkswagen offered discounts on the prices of many internal combustion engine (ICE) products this year. This strategy, however, led some customers who originally planned to purchase Volkswagen’s EVs to opt for discounted ICE models instead. Volkswagen addressed the declining sales of its ID.3 model in the Chinese market. Initially priced at 162.900 RMB ($22.800), the sales volume was unsatisfactory. To boost sales, Volkswagen lowered the price to 142.900 RMB ($20.000), resulting in a slight increase in sales. However, sales began to decline gradually, and by June 2023, the sales volume of ID.3 in China was only 1.819 units. To put this in perspective, the main competitor of ID.3 in China, BYD Dolphin, sold 26.408 units in June, 14.5 times higher than ID.3. To reverse the sales trend, Volkswagen significantly changed in early July. The company further reduced the price of the ID.3 in the Chinese market, setting the starting price at 119.900 RMB ($16.800); a reduction of 16%. Following the price cut, dealers reported a significant increase in sales volume. I will track and report the sales changes of ID.3 in China after the end of July. +++
+++ The cooperation is focused on intelligent technology, and electronic and electric architecture (E/E architecture) in XPENG ’s SUV, G9. XPeng will not be Tier 1 supplier of smart software, but will sell the E/E architecture, smart software and hardware solution packages to Volkswagen. In the following years, XPeng should receive technical service fees and once the production of the 2 models starts in 2026, the Chinese EV maker will receive part of the profit for each unit sold, records of meetings obtained by the Chinese media show. Earlier, it was revealed that the deal with the Chinese electric car maker and Volkswagen was signed by 100% TechCo headquartered in Hefei, which is considered to be the largest R&D center outside Germany. The Hefei center will be responsible for development, engineering design and production chain for the 2 models, the records of the talks that lasted 8 months show. The reason why XPeng sold E/E architecture and software was because without E/E it would take a lot of engineers to help adjust the software. We could not follow Huawei’s mode as in our case the efficiency would not be high, XPeng’s person responsible for finance and investment said to the local media. The words are in line with the rumor that XPeng has abandoned the development of the new SUV model due to lack of resources. The part of the deal, SUV G9, was a flop for XPeng. Since the market entry in September the model sold around 12.000 units and has caused trust issues with suppliers as XPeng promised a bestseller. The car’s powertrain uses China’s first 800 Volt mass-production Silicon Carbide (SiC) platform and incorporates the industry’s first full-scenario ADAS. Featuring 31 lidar sensors, dual Nvidia Drive Orin-X intelligent assisted driving chips, and Gigabit Ethernet communication architecture, the G9 has up to 508 Tops of computing power. +++
