This is Autoline Daily reporting on the global automotive industry.
FORD INVESTS IN RIVIAN
And we start out with a big announcement from Ford today. It’s investing $500 million in electric startup Rivian and the two will develop an all-new BEV for Ford using Rivian’s skateboard platform. This is in addition to Ford’s existing plans to develop a portfolio of battery electric vehicles, including an all-electric Mustang-like crossover and an electric F-150. Remember GM and Rivian failed to ink a deal because GM wanted exclusive use of the platform. Rivian on the other hand said it wanted to license its technology to multiple automakers and it looks like it’s doing just that.
NHTSA INVESTIGATES EVEN MORE AIRBAGS
We have another investigation involving airbags but this time it doesn’t involve Takata. NHTSA announced that it’s looking into a possible defect in 12.3 million airbags made by ZF-TRW that could prevent them from deploying in a crash. NHTSA began a preliminary investigation last year involving Hyundai and Kia vehicles but it’s now expanded the probe to include vehicles made by FCA, Toyota, Honda and Mitsubishi from 2010 to 2019.
LUCID MOTORS NAMES NEW CEO
Electric car startup Lucid Motors has a new leader. The company announced that it named its Chief Technology Officer, Peter Rawlinson, as its new CEO. He replaces Sam Weng, a co-founder of the company. Before joining Lucid in 2013, Rawlinson was the Chief Engineer of the Tesla Model S and also an engineer at Lotus and Jaguar.
HYUNDAI NAMES LOASBY HEAD OF STYLING GROUP
And speaking of management changes, Hyundai announced that its director of design in China, Simon Loasby, has been promoted to Head of Hyundai Styling Group at its design center in Korea. He will be responsible for the design strategy and direction of Hyundai models worldwide and will report to SangYup Lee, the head of Hyundai’s Design Center and Luc Donckerwolke, the Chief Design Officer of the Hyundai Group.
CSP TO SUPPLY JIANGLING WITH COMPOSITE TRUCK BEDS
At the Detroit auto show we learned that Continental Structural Plastics or CSP is the supplier making the new carbon fiber composite bed for the GMC Sierra. And now the technology is making its way to China. CSP is supplying Jiangling Motors a composite box for the Yuhu 3 and Yuhu 5 pickup trucks. It’s said to be 30% lighter than a steel bed. And if you’re wondering about pickup trucks in China. The country is now the second biggest pickup truck market in the world.
WAYMO PICKS FACILITY IN DETROIT
Earlier this year, Waymo announced plans to open a facility in the Detroit area to assemble its autonomous vehicles. And now we know where it will be located. Google’s self-driving unit will repurpose an old American Axle plant in the city of Detroit to install its self-driving hardware and software into Chrysler Pacifica’s and Jaguar I-Pace’s. It’s investing $14 million to retool the plant and will hire between 100 and 400 workers. And it’s working with the supplier Magna to run the facility. Waymo also received an $8 million grant from the state of Michigan. It will be the first factory that’s 100% dedicated to assembling Level 4 autonomous vehicles.
FAA APPROVES 1ST AIR CARRIER CERTIFICATION
And speaking of Google, its sister unit, Wing Aviation, just won approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to start delivering packages in Virginia later this year with drones. It’s the first company to get U.S. air carrier certification.
Don’t forget about Autoline After Hours tomorrow. We’ve got Robert Bollinger, CEO of Bollinger Motors coming in the studio at 3PM eastern time to talk all about his electric off-road machine.
TESLA UPGRADES MODEL S AND X
Thanks to a new, more efficient motor design, Tesla’s are faster than ever with even more range. The automaker switched to a permanent magnet reluctance motor at the front of both the Model S and X, similar to the standard Model 3. Depending on the model, they get anywhere from 16- to 35-miles more of range. That puts the Model S Long Range up to an impressive 370-miles on a charge. Several versions of the vehicles are also nearly half a second faster 0 to 60 MPH. Tesla is bringing back the Standard Range Model S and X as well. The S starts at $78,000 with 285-miles of range and the X does 250-miles and starts at $83,000.
LED HEADLAMPS INCREASING CO2
When LED headlamps first came out automakers were thrilled. LEDs consume far less energy than halogen lamps and last longer. The first LED headlamps only used 16 watts each for the low beam and high beam, compared to halogen lamps that use 60 to 65 watts. Automakers figured they could save 2 to 3 grams per kilometer of CO2, which is critically important in Europe with its tight CO2 regulations. But then designers on luxury cars decided to go with complex matrix LED lamps, and all the savings went out the window. One lighting expert, Rainer Neumann, writing in Driving Vision News, points out that these complex LED headlamps use 100 watts each and weigh 10 kilograms. Instead of reducing CO2 they are actually increasing it.
But that wraps up today’s report, thanks for watching and please join us again tomorrow.
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Comments (35)
April 24th, 2019 at 12:12 pm
Ford made the right move buying into Rivian GM should have jumped on this when the offer was available to them I believe they will regret this big time !
April 24th, 2019 at 12:13 pm
Ford wastes $500 mill on the ugly Rivian. A secret clause of the agreement allows Lincoln to market a Rivian Clone, distinghished from the Ford version by a trademark Edsel Grille, and to be named the “Edsel Mark II” (or should it be “III”?)
April 24th, 2019 at 12:15 pm
1 100% Wrong. The Rivian is an ugly Joke. Who will buy this silly toy which has a face only its mother would love? GM made the RIGHT move, and Ford just went deeper down the drain under the clueless, Auto-illiterate so-called “leadership” of Humpty Dumpty, Hackett of UM Athletics and Steelcase infamy…
April 24th, 2019 at 12:17 pm
3 cont’d The Bollinger atrocity will not get any beauty contest 5th runner-ups either…
April 24th, 2019 at 12:24 pm
So maybe in Europe to save on co2 output just drive without lights and get everybody USSR surplus night vision goggles
How stupid is this shit I only hope the lunatics in our country don’t win anymore power than they have or dumb shot like this is on the way
April 24th, 2019 at 12:29 pm
5 My thoughts exactly. Pity. Europe is going down the drain and the fools are rearranging the deck chairs of their Titanic. And probably they got an orchestra to play on, as the Brexit disaster develops, Italy, which is too big to rescue AND too big to fail, goes bankrupt, and France quickly follows.
The EV never had a chance. Look at Airbus, after $40 billion in subsidies, they built that white elephant the A 380 (of course without asking the Customer what they wanted) and now they have to shut it down after 10 disastrous, billion-$ losing years.
April 24th, 2019 at 12:30 pm
6 I meant the EU, not the… EV. The EV is alive and well, and Tesla seems to still be far ahead of any current or future rival, just read today’s piece here.
April 24th, 2019 at 12:48 pm
6 A320 neos are flying, but 737 Max 8s are not. Airbus must be doing something right, but yeah, the A380 was certainly a mistake.
It’s hard to figure what Ford is getting for their half billion dollars. It isn’t the styling. Ford can do better than that in-house, and probably will before actually selling any electric trucks. EV powertrain electronics has been pretty much mature technology for about 20 years, with the EV1, except for cost reduction. Everyone gets essentially equal batteries. Tesla probably has a slight edge in motor efficiency, but all EV motors are close enough, that it doesn’t matter much.
I guess that means Ford is buying battery packaging, and a “skate board” for their $500M. We shall see.
April 24th, 2019 at 12:49 pm
Interesting news about another airbag manufacturer, I’ve been to many collisions where we all thought the air bag should have gone off but didn’t, like the F150 that centre punched a tree destroying the truck- no air bag.
April 24th, 2019 at 12:49 pm
Notice the decline in the number of people responding to the forum because of the tone of some of the comments.
April 24th, 2019 at 12:56 pm
8 not with $ 40 billion subsidies, there is nothing right about that.
10 You work for Hackett? Obviously you do.
April 24th, 2019 at 12:59 pm
8 calling Tesla dominance “a slight edge” takes the gold medal for understatement and is 100% contrary to the opinions of the experts on this program and on AAH, who actually spent years taking down the cars and studying them far beyond a test drive or even a long-term test. Whether the established automakers hate it or have fits about it, Tesla has made them look like total fools, AND truly, by a factor of 10 in sales, and in its cars’ performance, dominates the EV field on its MERITS.
I had to set the record straight.
April 24th, 2019 at 1:00 pm
9 When I worked for GM’s electronic division, it was a very high priority to not have air bags deploy when there was no crash, higher than having them deploy when there was a crash. Still, the expected, and “allowed” non-deployment was very low, but I don’t remember the numbers at the time, which was 20-some years ago.
April 24th, 2019 at 1:06 pm
11 Boeing get a lot of subsidies too, in the form of inflated military contracts, and getting paid much more than SpaceX for the same services.
8 I said slight edge in MOTOR EFFICIENCY, nothing more, and nothing less.
April 24th, 2019 at 1:08 pm
8, 12, I said slight edge in MOTOR EFFICIENCY, nothing more, and nothing less. Did you even read my post?
April 24th, 2019 at 1:08 pm
1. Didn’t Ford drop $1.2 billion into remodeling the Taurus so it looked like a trout? $500 million is chump change if it buys them the right to use a well-sorted platform.
2. GM wanted exclusive rights to something that is so worthless that Ford was a fool to invest $500 million in? So, who’s the genius and who’s the fool? Is the technology so valuable to insist on exclusive rights as GM did or worthless? You can’t have it both ways.
3. In the words of Amarillo Slim, “Winners talk. Losers walk.”
April 24th, 2019 at 1:13 pm
16
1. More like a catfish, but you’re close. It was an unbelievable show of incompetence, after the excellent first gen Taurus which made Ford untold billions and allowed it to waste them buying and fixing (and then selling again) Jag and VOlvo and Aston and who remembers what other loser maker.
2. I was 100% clear. GM did the RIGHT thing by moving out of the BUTT-UGLY Rivian Edsel, and Ford learned NOTHING from its past mistakes and wasted $500 MILL down the drain, as I clearly said. You were around when it all happened, Edsel and all that, and should know.
April 24th, 2019 at 1:15 pm
16
3. And exactly who are the “winners” here????? Hackett and the Ford Stock? The fool who canceled all Ford Cars in the US market? Ask the man who owns one (worthless share of Ford stock) before you opine.
lol
April 24th, 2019 at 1:16 pm
To sum up: Car and Truck buying is an EMOTIONAL Purchase. Even if the Rivian was as compelling an EV as any Tesla, it STILL would die in the market, with a face that only its mother would love. One word, again, with feeling: EDSEL.
April 24th, 2019 at 1:26 pm
16 From the linked article:
“Rivian already has developed two clean-sheet vehicles with adventurers at the core of every design and engineering decision. The company’s launch products – the five-passenger R1T pickup and seven-passenger R1S SUV – will deliver up to 400-plus miles of range and provide an unmatched combination of performance, off-road capability and utility, starting in late 2020.”
We’ll know a lot more when we see if these vehicles do, in fact, go on sale in late 2020, how well they work, and how well they sell. Maybe there will be re-badged Ford or Lincoln versions, with different front end styling. That would appeal more to a lot of us.
April 24th, 2019 at 1:33 pm
I would think casting any opinion on whether GM was smart or not to pass on Rivian is the definition of a unqualified opinion unless you are an engineer at GM or have similar knowledge of what the whole story is.
April 24th, 2019 at 2:20 pm
My point was, if Rivian sucks, why did GM want exclusive access to it and walked when they couldn’t have it? They didn’t walk because it sucked and they’re geniuses. They walked because they couldn’t have it all for themselves.
Why is Ford a fool for buying into something GM wanted exclusively?
April 24th, 2019 at 3:20 pm
I don’t see what the big deal is anyways. We are all gonna die in 12 years as told to us by a 20 something yr old sage…
April 24th, 2019 at 3:44 pm
I SEE A LOT OF MONDAY MORING QUARTER BACKING ON THIS NOW. GETTING TIRED OF IT!
April 24th, 2019 at 4:05 pm
I am sure Ford will create a vehicle that uses the Rivian skateboard platform and sports classic Ford styling. What would be the point of using Rivian’s styling? I am sure their agreement with Rivian prohibits that. I imagine Larry would call Ford management brilliant if they had made this same deal with Tesla. I think there is room for more than one successful EV startup. Time will tell for Tesla and Rivian. In the mean time, Ford will continue to be a profitable company with an enviable stock dividend (something Tesla may never achieve).
April 24th, 2019 at 4:15 pm
My fellow audience members here are completely disregarding how expensive and cumbersome it is for a big company like ford to get things done. I see the $500M bet as a way to leverage a startup agility of translating ideas into reality, fast. I think this idea is a real winner, if Ford helps out with engineering guidance and does traditional testing.
I don’t think GM was stupid in pulling out either. The risk Ford is taking is that they are equipping Rivian to do this right and they are commoditizing their know how, although some may say it already is commoditized. GM perhaps values their internal know how more than Ford does.
April 24th, 2019 at 4:16 pm
Additionally, there might be big lessons for Ford on this process – learn how to focus on the task at hand rather than bureaucracy, reassess status quo.
April 24th, 2019 at 5:25 pm
Tesla:
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/24/tesla-earnings-q1-2019.html
April 24th, 2019 at 5:59 pm
https://twitter.com/business/status/1121169695481184258?s=19
April 25th, 2019 at 6:33 am
29 The caption in this article that allegedly Musk broke his “profitability vow” is a lie, or at best very incompetent reporting.
Musk had said many months ago, and I had cited him in the archives of this show, that every quarter in the future would have a profit EXCEPT those where Tesla has major loan repayments, which happens to be the last quarter, when Tesla repaid $920 mill in Cash. Compared to this payment, the loss is almost half that amount, so if this was a quarter with no loan repayment, Tesla would have a new quarterly profit RECORD at more than $400 mill, crushing its previous record profit of $312 mill.
I still have no plans to buy Tesla Stock, or any of its cars, especially in Tesla-hostile MI where sales are not even allowed!
But I would like to know what happened with the 500,000 deposits for the Model 3, how many were fulfilled, how many returned/canceled, how many are left?
April 25th, 2019 at 8:39 am
26 “GM perhaps values their internal know how more than Ford does.”
Considering that the Rivian is a pickup, the above sounds strange, as Ford has a clear advantage in this segment, while GM is better in SUVs, sold more than a million of them in 2018.
April 25th, 2019 at 10:25 am
30 I’ve wondered about the deposits too. I’d think those who had waited years for the base car would have ordered when it became available. I suspect a few thousand of the deposits will end up being donations to Elon.
April 25th, 2019 at 11:49 am
Weren’t they returnable deposit; just putting one’s self on the list. I thought that that was the way it way supposed to work. Returnable deposit.
April 25th, 2019 at 11:58 am
33 Yes, I believe the deposits were refundable, but some details may apply, maybe they have to ask them back in a timely fashion or whatever.
April 25th, 2019 at 4:48 pm
On GM wanting exclusivity with it’s investment. This is more common than not. On most of these deals, the cash up front is only part of the investment with the investor often providing follow-up expertise and other in-kind contributions. If you don’t have exclusivity, all your done is allowed the other company to turn around and re-sell part of the IP the initial investor put in. Also on wanting exclusivity, say GM put in $500 million, only to have Rivian six month from now sell the same IP to Ford for $300 million, and six months later sell the same IP to FCA for $100 million. Who looks foolish then?