On today’s show… Tesla gives the Model S a facelift as sales start to tank, Bentley unveils its vision of future interiors and Lexus teaches factory workers to build better cars with their fingertips. All that and more coming right up on Autoline Daily.
This is Autoline Daily for April 13th, 2016.
TESLA’S FIRST FACELIFT
Every automaker knows it has to freshen up the design of its cars every now and then, and that goes for Tesla, too. It just updated the front-end styling of the Model S to match that of the Model X. Tesla had to do it. According to Ward’s sales of the Model S are down 41% in the American market this year. Elon Musk hinted that the front-end styling of the Model 3 is not final and we would not be surprised if it adopted the same look.
PHAETON OF THE OPERA
As we reported last week, VW is ending production of the Phaeton at its plant in Dresden. That facility, also known as the Glass or Transparent Factory, is being retooled to enable flexible assembly of different vehicles, including fully electric cars in the future. In the meantime, the company is showcasing its electric and digital technology at that plant with 50 interactive exhibits and vehicles for visitors to explore. The price of admission also includes a half-hour test drive with electric and plug-in vehicles.
HOME, JEEVES
The interiors of autonomous cars will be radically different than what we see today and Bentley believes that future involves holograms. Called the “Future of Luxury,” the concept includes a table, two large loungers that face one another and display screens on the side panels. But the main attraction is a hologram that pops out of the table and acts as the interface and looks like a butler. So even in the future the rich will be waited on hand and foot at all times.
Still to come… sales of “green” cars are dropping dramatically.
THE SHRINKING GREEN CAR SEGMENT
Even though automakers must sell a higher mix of hybrids and plug-ins to meet fuel efficiency and emissions regulations, fewer car buyers are interested in buying them. Sales of those vehicles are down nearly 12% for the first quarter in the American market. Hybrid sales fell 13%, mainly due to a 30% drop of the Toyota Prius. EV sales fell 36% mainly caused by declines at Tesla, and big drops with the BMW i3, Nissan Leaf and VW Golf electric. And yet, sales of plug-in hybrids posted a big 56% increase. That was mainly due to more models coming into the segment, including the Mercedes S-Class and C-Class, the Hyundai Sonata, Audi A3, BMW X5 and Volvo XC90. Even so, sales of “green cars” only account for a little more than 2% of the overall market which has to worry automakers because they continue to lose market share.
| U.S. Green Car Sales Q1, 2016 |
| Segment |
2015 |
2016 |
Change |
| Hybrid |
84,993 |
73,713 |
-13% |
| EV |
16,214 |
10,366 |
-36% |
| Plug-In |
7,727 |
12,104 |
+56% |
THIS OLD HOUSE
Now that Ford is reporting record profits in North America, it’s plowing some of that money into spiffing up its technical campus in Dearborn, Michigan. That campus includes 70 buildings, some of which date back to the 1950’s. The plan is to move the 30,000 employees that work in those facilities into two primary locations, a product campus and a world headquarters campus. The product campus will feature walkable pathways and trails, a new design center, on-demand shuttles and more. Construction begins this month and concludes in 2023. Updates to its World Headquarters start in 2021 and are scheduled to be completed in 2026. While the upgrades will help improve vehicle development, a big reason the company is doing this is to help accelerate mobility solutions.
Coming up next, Lexus gets all touchy-feely on the factory floor.
LEXUS STILL WANTS THAT HUMAN TOUCH
Automakers are using more and more sophisticated technology and robots to build vehicles. But Lexus doesn’t want to take human judgement out of the equation. Here’s a video the company put together that details how it’s training its line workers in Kentucky to use sight and feel while assembling vehicles.
(Lexus assembly video can only be viewed in the video version of today’s show.)
Be sure to join us for Autoline After Hours this week. Joining John and Gary is Jackie Birdsall, the Fuel Cell Engineer for the all-new Toyota Mirai. So if you have any questions send them to [email protected]. And then join us Thursday afternoon for the best insider discussions in the business.
But that brings us to the end of today’s Autoline Daily, thanks for watching and please join us again tomorrow.
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Comments (19)
April 13th, 2016 at 11:55 am
Note to Bentley: Pick a different butler to show in your hologram. That guy’s the spitting image of Lurch from The Adams Family.
April 13th, 2016 at 11:57 am
Isn’t part of the uptick in plug-in hybrid sales due to the new Volt coming to market?
April 13th, 2016 at 12:10 pm
LEXUS: Its amazing to me how auto marketing groups regurgitate common industry practices as something only they do and present it as innovative and new.
As for training an operator to sense gaps and how many bolts they pull from a bin. (obviously created by an engineer that has never worked on a floor), Do the same job for an 8 hour shift and the you’ll quickly learns exactly how many bolts your pulling from a bin.
April 13th, 2016 at 12:15 pm
Green car sales slipping? The term “green car” is ever changing. Compared to 20 years ago today’s average car is greener. Compare today’s cars to those built in the ’60s or early ’70s and everything built today is a “green car”. In my observation green is never going to be green enough. It appears to me that “green car” is nothing more than a sales tool used by some to force the US away from imported oil. Nobel goal to be sure. It has always been a cost to move our society. We either have used hay, coal/wood, electricity, or oil. Pick your poison, but there are always going to be emissions of some kind.
April 13th, 2016 at 12:38 pm
As long as gas stays around $2/gallon, hybrid sales will languish. There are always people, myself incuded, who just “like” to get good gas mileage, but expensive gas is bigger driving force in hybrid sales.
The Prius has its own virtues, in addition to high mpg. The hatchback utility, and generally good space efficiency are appealing, along with the smooth, unobtrusive power train. The utility, along with moderate pricing, help Prius to dominate the hybrid market.
April 13th, 2016 at 2:25 pm
The lose of the nose cone on all three Tesla models is a big mistake.
April 13th, 2016 at 2:27 pm
I saw the new Prius out on the road last week. It left an impression – that Toyota’s CAD/CAM computers went berserk and the design team lacked the guts to abort the resultant design. IMHO, it is Aztek ugly.
April 13th, 2016 at 2:51 pm
The new Prius will look mainstream, like the 2004-2015, after there are a few hundred thousand on the road. Yeah, it looks a little strange, but so did the ’04, when it hit the market.
April 13th, 2016 at 3:21 pm
Kudos for including numbers in the Green Car table as percentages can be misleading. So my Web page link is to a table with all the raw numbers for the past four months. However, a lump of coal for “. . . mainly due to a 30% drop of the Toyota Prius.”
The reason is the RAV4 hybrid came out this past quarter and has seen sales skyrocket:
1430 – Dec 2015
1973 – Jan 2016
2462 – Feb 2016
3073 – Mar 2016 (now third highest in list)
We think the RAV4 cannibalized Prius v (the big one) sales.
Two other observations, this past quarter saw the end of the Gen-3 Prius and initial sales of the Gen-4. So we’re seeing a transition between models with the sales numbers:
10153 – Dec 2015
6333 – Jan 2016
7169 – Feb 2016
8130 – Mar 2016
There was the steel plant explosion in Japan that halted Prius production for a week.
The 2016 Prius in North America is not perfect. Some of the six bundles did not include desirable options (i.e., 110 VAC inverter, e-rear wheel drive, automatic braking for any of them.) Best of all, the small sun visors and styling ensures we don’t have to worry about the lead-footed taking our Prius away and driving up the cost.
Bob Wilson, Huntsville, AL
April 13th, 2016 at 4:39 pm
To me, the downer of the gen 4 Prius, is that the under-floor storage tray in the back is gone, at least in the one I saw.
April 13th, 2016 at 6:40 pm
I think it is pretty funny that they tout the number of nerve endings in the human hand and then have the workers wear gloves, I’m sure that doesn’t mute any feeling at all.
April 13th, 2016 at 6:54 pm
@4 Well said, couldn’t agree more.
April 13th, 2016 at 7:38 pm
Speaking of “green-ness” of cars, I’ve wondered about the environmental impact of manufactuing cars like my Prius, both the batteries and motors. Apparently the energy needed is not too great, or a base Prius would cost more than a fairly basic Camry, etc. As far as other environmental impact, real information seems hard to come by.
April 13th, 2016 at 7:51 pm
No one I know likes the look of the new Prius. I’m guessing it is hurting sales. I hope the Tesla rethinks their front end design. Maybe not a faux grill, but the cars need something to replace the blandness.
April 13th, 2016 at 8:10 pm
I think Toyota may have been paying too much attention to non-Prius owners when styling the new car. Non-owners say people buy Priuses to “make a statement,” but actual buyers, including myself and a few friends, bought them because they get great gas mileage, and have great utility. We didn’t buy them for they way they look. If they could have kept the same utility, improved the mpg, made it drive better, and made it more “generic” looking, maybe they should have done that with the new Prius.
April 13th, 2016 at 10:09 pm
I agree with you John #14. The nose cone on the Model S is a signature component of the front end. It should be place on all three models. It is the perfect place to hang a front license plate from it’s lowest section.
April 13th, 2016 at 10:56 pm
#13 – The false ‘green-ness’ challenges trace back to a discredited and withdrawn, Sunday Mail article. It used 1970s photos to claim the Prius traction batteries caused the Sudbury nickel mine to look like the moon, 30 years earlier. It also neglected that 1% of the nickel went into Prius batteries with the vast majority going into high temperature metals. After the Sudbury lawyers contacted the Sunday Mail, the lie was withdrawn to be replaced by rumors used to fool the unwary. (FYI, I still have my shovel looking for landfills full of Prius batteries because they have so much recycle value!)
#15 – exactly, MPG is another car feature like paint color, seat covers, or the audio system … car ‘bling’. Wanting better fuel efficiency is different from buying it. So when someone criticizes the ‘styling’, it is cover like saying,’I don’t like you and you’re ugly.’
We are seeing early 2016 Prius buyers whose styling skepticism evaporates when filling the tank saves the cost of dinner … stimulus–response.
Bob Wilson, Huntsville AL
April 14th, 2016 at 8:21 am
#17 For many people their car is nothing more than a mode of transportation.
There will always be people who care about getting a few more MPG over driving a good looking car. Honorable? Maybe. For me a vehicle is like wearing a nice suit. The Prius would make me feel like I left the house with plaid shorts a striped sweater flip-flops and a fanny pack.
April 14th, 2016 at 10:00 am
#17 – Thanks for the info.
#18 – Driving a Prius, or Corvette, or MINI make me feel like I’m driving a car that I like, each for different reasons.