On today’s show…we’ll tell you by how much Tesla just raised its prices…and talk about the ethics of programming an autonomous car…and explain why Hyundai has an advantage in running its own steel mills. All that and more coming right up on Autoline Daily.
This is Autoline Daily the voice of the automotive industry.
TESLA RAISES BASE PRICE OF MODEL S AND X
Elon Musk recently said Tesla would simplify the option packages for the Model S and X. Well they did that, and raised the prices. The base Model S and X 75D now cost a thousand dollars more. The S starts at $78,000 while the X starts at $84,000. However, pricing for the 100D models dropped by $500. As for the change in options, the Model S no longer offers its rear facing jump seats and panoramic sunroof. And the Model X no longer has the optional center console in the six-passenger version.
GM EXPANDS MARKETPLACE SERVICE
GM’s Marketplace service is where people are able to purchase things, like food and gas, from the infotainment screen in their car. And it’s about to get a major update. About 3 million GM vehicles already offer the service, which GM says translates to hundreds of thousands of users. Or more importantly for advertisers, 10% of people actually click into the app’s merchants. Thinking it may have an advantage by being one of the first in this space, GM is adding additional services and will come out with a new version of the platform soon.
WEEKEND RACING RESULTS
In racing news over the weekend, Lewis Hamilton powered his Mercedes to victory at the Grand Prix of Brazil. The win fell into his lap when the leader Max Verstappen crashed his Renault-powered Red Bull with a backmarker. Verstappen still managed to finish second. Kyle Busch won the NASCAR cup race at the Texas Motor Speedway in his Toyota Camry. That brings the championship contenders down to the final four drivers: Busch, Harvick, Logano and Truex, which puts two Toyotas against two Fords, to determine who wins the championship at the last race next weekend. And history was made at the NHRA finals in Pomona, California, when the champions in each category–Top Fuel, Funny Car, Pro Stock and Pro Stock Motorcycle–all won their final races of the season.
What are the ethics of how to program an autonomous car? That’s coming up next.
ACC GROWS IN POPULARITY
Jaguar was the first to market with adaptive cruise control in 1999. The radar was so expensive that the joke was, “Buy a radar unit and get a Jaguar for free.” But today it’s so popular that one out of three cars sold in the U.S. has adaptive cruise. But that’s the average. 91% of new Toyota’s already come with ACC. Ward’s Intelligence reports that 83% of all new vehicles will have it by 2025.
ETHICS OF PROGRAMMING AN AUTONOMOUS CAR
What should an autonomous vehicle do when there’s no avoiding an accident? MIT helped conduct a survey that forced more than 2 million online participants from over 200 countries to pick between one of two or more potentially fatal options. It found that people agreed on three things: autonomous cars should spare the lives of humans over animals; they should spare the lives of many humans rather than a few; and they should save young people rather than old ones. The survey also showed that people cared more for the lives of law abiding citizens rather than law breaking pedestrians, like jaywalkers. And researchers say it’s information like this that could be used to inform the way software is written to control autonomous vehicles.
ISUZU STILL ALIVE IN THE U.S.
Most of us would think that NPR stands for National Public Radio. But it’s also the name of the truck that Isuzu sells in the American market. What, you say? Isuzu is still in the American market? Yes it is. And in fact, the NPR is also re-badged as the Chevrolet LCF, which stands for Low Cab Forward. The trucks are made in both Japan and the U.S. Sales are not that big. They’ll sell about 4,300 trucks in the U.S. market this year. And we mention this because Autoline is dedicated to helping you understand all aspects of the automotive industry.
Coming up next, Hyundai explains why it has an advantage over its competitors by owning its own steel operations.
HYUNDAI’S STEEL ADVANTAGE
Hyundai is a huge industrial conglomerate, which gives it an advantage over most of its competition. On last week’s Autoline After Hours, Mike O’Brien, the head of Product Planning at Hyundai Motor America, explained how making steel in-house helps it improve the rigidity of its platforms.
(The AAH preview is only available in the video version of today’s show.)
You can watch that entire show right now on our website or you can find it on our YouTube channel.
But that’s it for today, thanks for watching and please join us again tomorrow.
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Comments (29)
November 12th, 2018 at 12:00 pm
The Tesla price rises are quite modest, 1% or 2, and the price of the most desirable performance S 100D went down, actually. Pity they do not offer the rear facing jump seats any more, it gave it an advantage if used as a family car that could transport 5 adults and 2 small kids comfortably.
By far the most interesting and important segment you have today is the MIT Ethics study on AVs. They asked many good questions, but not the real tough ones, such as, “sparing the lives of many humans rather than a few” is easy to answer if the lives are other people, BUT if we are talking about You, the Owner of the AV, and the passenger/driver of it, would you choose sparing the lives of “many” humans if you had to sacrifice YOUR OWN life? Only a few “heros” or people with terminal cancer or 110 year olds would rather kill themselves. So even a perfect AV could be a horror story that kills its owner, if not programmed properly.
before the MIT survey, BTW, there was an MIT research report, which I have not seen, which pointed out these tougher problems.
November 12th, 2018 at 12:02 pm
I’m surprised that there is even a manufacturer’s cup in NASCAR anymore. Who cares? NASCAR has such a tight set of engine rules that each company is building basically the same engine. And, the engines are built by outside specialty shops, not Toyota or Chevy or Ford engineers. And, the engines have absolutely no relation to the engines we can buy in those maker’s products. So, why would anyone care who wins this contest?
November 12th, 2018 at 12:03 pm
heroes, not heros (!) in 1. above.
ps why is there a Volvo on your video cover picture? I looked for a Volvo story but found none. Maybe it is my impression, but the number of VOlvo articles I see in the news is equal to the few measly units they sell in the US market. They must have a fantastic PR department.
November 12th, 2018 at 12:08 pm
Hyundai’s steal advantage is fairly obvious for pricing, not needing to have a design studio by just using someone else’s (that’s got to be a significant cost advantage; all those pesky designers, computer simulators, etc.) bringing fairly competitive vehicles to the market at low price…………………….OH, steel, not steal; never mind.
To those remembering Roseanna Danna of Saturday Night Live fame (Gilda Radner); sorry for the flashback (just remembering a great performer). Funny how my mind works (sometimes).
November 12th, 2018 at 12:08 pm
Sean, please tell me that was a CG intersection shown at the start of your monologue on the MIT survey about the ethics of programming an autonomous car.
It didn’t look at all CG, but there’s no way on earth I’m gonna believe that scenario really took place in real life. Pedestrians, cars, motorcycles and trucks all seamlessly (and FEARLESSLY) weaving in and out within just inches of one another… That’s just plain bananas!
November 12th, 2018 at 12:10 pm
It looks like Hyundai is emulating what Ford did in the early 20th century with the Rouge Complex, which made steel and glass, as well as cars.
November 12th, 2018 at 12:14 pm
@Larry D – The Volvo picture was used in reference to today’s story about ACC.
November 12th, 2018 at 12:15 pm
Are they going to program the systems to pay attention only half the time so they can get themselves into situation requiring life-or-death morality decisions? How about programming them to get into arguments with other car systems or infrastructure?
I think morality issues for autonomous vehicles is a tempest in a teacup compared to the problems with your average human driver.
November 12th, 2018 at 12:17 pm
6 Maybe, but unlike Ford, Hyundai was a huge conglomerate which made not just steel and cars but also a huge number of ships and other industrial and professional products, in fact before they went into private autos. They still have huge shipyards, despite the ascent of China the last 2 decades as the third or first major shipbuilder, along w S Korea and Japan.
4. I sure remember the great Gilda, but if you remembered it because of using the wrong word, this was the schtick of not Roseanne Rosannadana but of another Gilda Radner character, an elderly and always confused lady named Emily Latella, who would read an editorial always based on hearing the wrong word (usually wrong by one letter, but it changed everything).
Do you also remember Father Guido Sarducci? (played by Frank (?) Novello)? “Arrivederci Ameeerica”!
November 12th, 2018 at 12:20 pm
@MJB – Yes, that’s CG. We used the video a while back, but I don’t remember why or who created it. But I do remember that it was video of an actual intersection and all those vehicles, bicycles and pedestrians did pass through it. But the creator copied some of the vehicles and changed when they passed through the intersection to create the video you saw. It was quite masterfully done.
November 12th, 2018 at 12:20 pm
I’ve driven Isuzu NPR trucks. Very easy to drive and handle. I prefer them over the larger Navistar trucks.
November 12th, 2018 at 12:21 pm
2
I am waiting to here that the France family has sold NASCAR and ISC to some private equity group. I think it’s day has come and gone. They’re ready to cash in their chips and retire to the Virgin Islands.
November 12th, 2018 at 12:22 pm
7 Thanks, Sean.
November 12th, 2018 at 12:22 pm
Sounds to me like Hyuandai is just trying to justify why they are still in the steel business. While vertical integration was great 50 years ago, unless you are really invested in keeping up with modernizing your in-house supply chain, you quickly find you are better off not trying to compete in commodity manufacturing. As Kit indicated, Ford, GM, and others tried to be vertically integrated and that worked against them in many situations being stuck with out-dated and uncompetitive plants and new technologies came along.
November 12th, 2018 at 12:25 pm
@Larry D. Father Guido Sarducci was played by Don Novello.
November 12th, 2018 at 12:25 pm
https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/emilys-editorial-reply/3506031
4 Chuck this is what I remembered based on using the wrong word (here the hard of hearing Gilda/Emily thought it was… Violins and not… Violence on TV!
November 12th, 2018 at 12:26 pm
15 thanks. I remembered the last name but was too lazy to google the first to make sure.
November 12th, 2018 at 12:32 pm
#10 – Thanks Sean.
November 12th, 2018 at 12:36 pm
Larry D., yep your right Emily Latella and I do remember Father Guido Sarducci. Guess I’m showing my age; SNL, the early version and my memory is not quite as good as I remember. “Never Mind”
November 12th, 2018 at 12:54 pm
Not to nit pick because I love the work you do, but why is it “coming” right up, is typically pronounced “comin” right up. Local dialect I guess. Still it seems not right. Oh well.
November 12th, 2018 at 1:01 pm
I have been reading a lot about excessive carbon build up on intake values on many GDI (Gas Direct Injection) or DFI (Direct Fuel Injection) four cylinder small displacement turbo charged engines. My main concerns are engine longevity and another issue with this class of engines is gasoline making it’s way into the crankcase causing oil dilution. This affects 2017 and 2018 Honda CR-Vs. Honda is starting a address this issue with recalls. In my opinion these small turbo charged engines which were build to comply with Obama Era mileage regulations will hurt consumers in several ways. Recalls during ownership and lower residual values. Will you be having a segment on AAH to discuss this topic and it’s effects on future engine engineering?
November 12th, 2018 at 1:37 pm
20 The proliferation of GDI turbo engines was in the works long before Obama was even president, but yeah, there is a lot of complexity there, both with the GDI and the turbocharger.
Gasoline getting in the crank case of the Honda engines sounds like an actual defect, not something that should “go with the territory” with GDI turbos.
I remember BMW and others having problems with carbon buildup on valve stems years ago, I think with GDI engines, both turbo and non-turbo. For what it’s worth, I make it a point to use only “top tier” gas in my GDI engines. Several major car companies, including the makers of my cars, are involved in the consortium, so I figure it makes sense to use “top tier” gas.
November 12th, 2018 at 2:03 pm
Sean – Sunday’s NASCAR race was held in Phoenix, not Texas
November 12th, 2018 at 2:07 pm
Here’s a video about the gas getting in the oil of the Honda GDI turbo. That doesn’t look very good, having gas sprayed on the cylinder wall in a way that it goes past the rings, while washing off the oil that should be lubricating the cylinder wall and rings.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVdKNRgzGT8
November 12th, 2018 at 2:40 pm
Nobody caught what I thought was the most obvious error in your written transcript; Kyle Busch won yesterday in Phoenix, not at Texas Motor Speedway!
November 12th, 2018 at 7:00 pm
#22 Nice that they produced a video to explain it like “Hey no big deal but your oil level might read high and this is why”. Seems like a problem you might have if you took a naturally aspirated engine and added a turbo without changing the rings.
November 12th, 2018 at 7:04 pm
#2 Totally agree! They should change manufacturers cup to the Emblem stickers cup or just call it an IROC race which is really what its become. Spec cars with different stickers.
November 12th, 2018 at 7:14 pm
Here is an ethics question for your autonomous car;
1) Narrow mountain pass, an Empty bus swerves into your lane, Hit bus head on or take out guard rail to a 200 ft drop?
2) Same scenario bus is filled with kids and edge is unknown to the car?
November 12th, 2018 at 7:42 pm
22, 23 I am really surprised that Honda, themselves, would produce that video.