On today’s show… VW’s Oliver Schmidt receives a harsh punishment for his role in the diesel scandal… Rinspeed creates a wild autonomous concept… and the Saab 9-3 is given new life. All that and more coming right up on Autoline Daily.

This is Autoline Daily the show for enthusiasts of the automotive industry.

SCHMIDT HITS THE FAN
There’s more punishment being handed out in Volkswagen’s diesel emission cheating scandal. Oliver Schmidt, who was the head of the company’s Engineering and Environmental Office in the U.S., was just sentenced to 7 years in prison and slapped with a $400,000 fine for his role in the scandal. While he didn’t start the scheme, or isn’t the only one involved, prosecutors said he was the “conduit between the senior people in Germany and the regulators.” There are others in management who have been charged but they are still in Germany, which does not extradite its citizens. And that means those execs will never again travel to the U.S. or any other country where they could possibly face international arrest warrants.

FORD SHIFTS ELECTRIC CROSSOVER TO MEXICO
At the beginning of the year, Ford announced it would invest $700 million to retool its Flat Rock, Michigan plant to build electric and autonomous cars. But now it’s making a slight change to those plans. The Detroit News reports that the company will now only make self-driving cars at the plant and move production of its all-electric crossover to Mexico. Ford says this will allow it to build more self-driving vehicles. The company will invest an additional $200 million for plant upgrades and hire around 950 workers. The autonomous car is a hybrid that won’t be based on an existing model and will be used in Ford’s autonomous fleet starting in 2021.

FORD TO DABBLE WITH ONLINE RETAILING IN CHINA
And in other Ford news, the company recently announced bold new plans to launch a number of new and electrified vehicles in China and now the automaker could completely change the way its customers buy cars in the country. Ford signed a 3-year agreement with Alibaba to work on mobility services, connectivity, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, digital marketing and lastly, and most importantly in this case, online retailing. The two will first study how to better reach new customers online, set up test drives, all the way up to leasing options. But the ultimate goal would likely be to sell directly to customers online.

Still to come… the Saab 9-3 lives on!

JUST ANOTHER SAAB STORY
It’s been a number of years since the Saab car brand died off, but its assets were sold to a Chinese-Swedish company and the new owner just unveiled a new version of the 9-3, an EV no less. It’s still based on the 9-3 that came out 2002, but has a 186-mile pure electric range, Wi-Fi and the capability for over-the-air software updates. NEVS, which stands for National Electric Vehicle Sweden and the company that bought Saab says it wants to build up service and infrastructure for ride-sharing and plans to join forces with Chinese ride-sharing giant Didi Chuxing. It also says it plans to launch mobility pilot programs in select European cities in 2020.

MERCEDES TESTS “HYBRID” GARBAGE TRUCK
Mercedes-Benz has an interesting take on a hybrid. Check out this garbage truck the company is using in parts of London and Scandinavia. The entire back half of the truck runs off electric power from a battery pack, which can be recharged overnight. That means the hydraulics no longer have to run off a pump driven by the engine. So, when trash is being collected and compacted, the diesel engine shuts off. Not only does this cut down on smelly emissions, but Mercedes says residents are also happy about the reduction in noise.

And you won’t want to miss Autoline After Hours today. The show will be about the new Mustang and all the updates Ford made to its muscle car. That’s this afternoon on Autoline.tv.

Coming up next, a look at a couple of wild concepts from Rinspeed and PSA.

RINSPEED’S LEGO-LIKE CONCEPT
Last year, Rinspeed, a Swiss company that creates a lot of wild looking concepts, shared its take on an autonomous vehicle with the Oasis. And now its showing off another self-driving concept for ride-sharing called the Snap. As you can see, the electric vehicle can break into two pieces, the “skateboard” and the “pod.” The hardware and software are integrated into the chassis or “skateboard.” And the cabin is the “pod” portion. Since technology can quickly become outdated, the Snap can be updated by switching to a new skateboard. Moving to the inside, riders can interact with displays that can be swiveled into position. And two large screens in the center provide route info or entertainment to watch. And the Snap even comes with a robot to help out passengers. Rinspeed will display the Snap at CES next month as well as the Geneva auto show. But this shows there’s a lot possibilities when it comes to creating autonomous cars.

PSA CREATES WILD URBAN COMMUTER
And speaking of wild concepts, check out this this scissor-wheeled machine from PSA called the EU-LIVE. The plug-in hybrid features two electric in-wheel motors and a single-cylinder gasoline engine. But this isn’t something for a gated-community, the EU-LIVE can be used on all roads and has a top speed of 130 kilometers per hour or about 80 MPH. But it can only travel up to 70 KPH or 43 MPH in pure EV mode, above that the gas engine kicks in. The EU-LIVE has a total range of 300 kilometers or about 186 miles. PSA created the vehicle with 12 other partners, as part of an urban mobility project funded by the European Commission.

But that’s it for today, thanks for watching and please join us again tomorrow.