This is Autoline Daily reporting on the global automotive industry.
TARIFF RELIEF COULD BE SHORT LIVED
European and Asian automakers heaved a sigh of relief yesterday when the Trump Administration said it will delay putting import tariffs on passenger cars for six months. Auto stocks bounced up on the news but Bloomberg reports the relief could be short lived. President Trump wants the EU and Japan to agree to a deal that would limit or restrict imports of automobiles and parts. The World Trade Organization rules prohibit voluntary export restraints but some countries like Germany, which relies heavily on the U.S. for car sales, would rather agree to voluntary restraints instead of tariffs.
HONDA & VW USED BATTERY SOLUTIONS
Automakers will soon introduce dozens of new electric vehicles. But what do you do with all the batteries at the end of their automotive life? Honda announced it’s working with the utility company American Electric Power to develop a network of used batteries that could be integrated into AEP’s electrical system. Volkswagen recently announced plans to make portable chargers with batteries that are no longer good for vehicles but still has life for other uses. It’s also opening a battery recycling center in Germany to recycle 1,200 tons of batteries a year. VW says it can currently recycle a little over half of the battery but in the future it expects to increase that to 72%. We’d say that’s a good step in the right direction, but still not good enough. If we start dumping toxic battery material into landfills, EVs will quickly lose their green image.
NISSAN PROPILOT GOES HANDS-FREE
Nissan is expanding its ProPilot driver assist technology to include hands-free driving on the highway. First you have to set a route with the navigation. Then, once the car gets on the highway you can take your hands off the wheel, just like the Cadillac Super Cruise system. Propilot will keep the vehicle in a single lane, but will also help with passing, lane diversions and lane exiting. A camera will monitor the driver to make sure they’re paying attention and are ready to take over if needed. The Japanese market Skyline, which is the Infiniti Q50 in other parts of the world, will be the first vehicle to get it in the fall of this year.
HYUNDAI/KIA AIR PURIFICATION SYSTEM
Taking a breath of fresh air will always be possible in future Hyundai and Kia vehicles. The Group developed what it calls the Smart Air Purification system that uses a laser to monitor the air quality inside the car and automatically filters it if the quality sinks below a specific level. This could include closing the windows to help the process. Sounds perfect for countries with high levels of pollution like China.
DELPHI RAMPS UP GDI PRESSURE
Gasoline Direct Injection or GDi systems help reduce particulates by lowering engine-out emissions before the exhaust catalyst reaches optimum temperature. Delphi Technologies says it’s reducing particulate emissions even further by developing higher pressure Direct Injection systems. In 2016 it came out with a 350 bar or nearly 5,100 psi GDi system that reduced exhaust particulates by up to 70% compared with the 200 bar systems that are currently used. Now it’s ratcheting that up to 500+ bar or 7,250 psi, which reduces particulates 50% compared to the 350 bar system. The good news is that, in most cases, no engine modifications are needed. Delphi says the 500+ bar system could be used in production by 2022.
CONTI DEVELOPS SEE THROUGH MATERIALS
Continental is developing translucent surface materials for vehicle interiors which allow for a range of digital functions to be integrated into the vehicle and provide more personalization. The basic lighting adapts to circadian rhythms, weather conditions, and ambient light, while accent lighting can create different moods, with different colors and intensity. Gosh, sounds like all we need now are lava lamps and incense burning. Continental also developed a thin film for doors, consoles and other components, that’s a cost-effective alternative to coated injection molded parts in interiors. Combined with the translucent material it allows for things like warning lights to be integrated into consoles.
Don’t forget to join us for Autoline After Hours this afternoon. Our special guest is Jody Hall from the Steel Market Development Institute. Drew Winter from Wards will also be joining me an Gary for the show that starts at 3PM eastern time on our website, Autoline.tv and YouTube channel.
But that wraps up today’s show, thanks for watching and we’ll see you again tomorrow.
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Comments (23)
May 16th, 2019 at 12:01 pm
John, I heard you mention the Skyline moniker as the Japanese variant to the Infiniti Q50. I always wished Nissan had kept that name on what is now the GT-R.
May 16th, 2019 at 12:02 pm
Hey John,
I heard you mention Skyline as being the Japanese variant to the Infiniti Q50. I always wished Nissan had kept the name Skyline on what is now known as the GT-R.
May 16th, 2019 at 12:12 pm
slow news day today. None of the stories interesting enough to comment on.
May 16th, 2019 at 12:18 pm
2 I doubt that AAH would be very interesting this afternoon either. No info on what the Guest from Steel Marketing or whatever would pitch, but I can’t imagine it would be central to our discussions. Increased steel costs due to (not imposed yet!) tariffs? They should be a PITTANCE compared to the total cost of a car.
May 16th, 2019 at 12:21 pm
Checked the NYT Business page, markets were up quite a bit, then went to CNBC to see why, and saw this article:
“Trump’s tariffs are equivalent to one of the largest tax increases in decades
A CNBC analysis of Treasury data ranks the combined $72 billion in revenue from all the tariffs as one of the biggest tax increases since 1993.”
Trump looks more and more like a traditional Dem, doesn’t he. (not the socialist crazies who run in 2020, but the old fashioned Union-$ funded pro-tariff, tax and spend (on infrastructure or some other holy cause) Dems.
But wait, until recently, Trump WAS a Dem.
May 16th, 2019 at 1:08 pm
“VW says it can currently recycle a little over half of the battery but in the future it expects to increase that to 72%”.
The percentage isn’t as important as the parts that they recycle or don’t recycle.
If the battery is 1000 lbs and they recycle 80% but the remaining 20% is toxic waste you still end up with 200lbs of toxic material to get rid of.
May 16th, 2019 at 1:09 pm
I would like to see how the see through material holds up after 15-20 years. Once people have scraped and scratched at it. Also after UV aging has taken its death toll on it. I see a lot of cracked materials in the future if it was to be utilized.
May 16th, 2019 at 1:11 pm
” Acura slaps $20,000 discount on 2019 NSX in an effort to sell more supercars
It’ll bring your base price down to $139,300 before options”
In case any of you gave a rodent’s posterior. And following our discussion of the unconvincing and way overpriced NSX 2.0 and LFA (respectively) ‘supercars’ the other day.
May 16th, 2019 at 1:12 pm
7 I bet this $20,000 price cut will do wonders to the prices of the 3 used NSXs 2.0 in the market.
May 16th, 2019 at 1:27 pm
AD reported a while back that many manufacturers didn’t have any new engine designs in the works.
Glad to hear Bosch is still working to improve on the current ICE. Reducing particulates by an additional 85% at start up just by upping the fuel pressure. Does anyone else feel at least a little uneasy about their fuel being at 7,250 PSI? Heck push it up to 20,000 psi and you can use your fuel pump for waterjet cutting.
May 16th, 2019 at 1:51 pm
I am not worried about lithium ion batteries being recycled. They will develop the technology when there is a need. As John keeps telling us, hybrids and EVs sell in very small numbers. So why sweat the end of life recycling now?
May 16th, 2019 at 2:16 pm
10 You’d worry about it now if you own an EV and its totaled. When your insurance only covers the market value or if your lucky the replacement value of the vehicle, after they subtract a toxic disposal fee of $1500 from your check.
Similarly if they don’t find a way to recycle and provide an incentive to return old batteries they will become the old used tires of tomorrow. Instead of finding old tires in the ditches and woods it will be old used batteries.
May 16th, 2019 at 2:17 pm
12 Comment was for 11 not 10
May 16th, 2019 at 6:59 pm
Air purification is not only desirable in countries where pollution is a major issue. I worry about breathing exhaust fumes every time I commute, the air is dirty in any stop and go situation.
The translucent materials is right out of sci-fi, really cool.
May 16th, 2019 at 7:00 pm
re high pressure fuel injection: Starting to wonder how clear ICE engines can be, maybe they will remain relevant for quite a long time still.
May 16th, 2019 at 7:29 pm
5 “Trump looks more and more like a traditional Dem, doesn’t he. ”
It seems pretty Republican to me, enacting taxes that will mostly affect middle- and lower-income people, to partly counteract the deficit and debt ballooning Ryan/Trump tax cuts for the rich.
May 16th, 2019 at 7:32 pm
11,12 With 100+ years of experience, we are pretty good at recycling lead acid batteries. It won’t be as easy with lithium batteries, but hopefully, people will figure out how to recycle them efficiently by the time a lot of them reach their end of life.
May 16th, 2019 at 8:53 pm
16 not true at all. Trump cunningly stole the Dem’s issues and was elected exactly because of that in the three crucial Dem states he upset.
MI, PA, WI.
Reps were ALWAYS for Free Trade and against Tariffs, while Dems, beholden to the unions, were protectionist.
May 16th, 2019 at 8:57 pm
16 the “tax cuts for the Rich” is utter, total BS. After all, the poor not only do not pay ANY taxes, they get welfare and food stamps. This is exactly why I was 100% against the $7,500 tax credit, which does NOT benefit at all low income people who pay much less than $7,500 in taxes.
As for the “rich”, my colleagues I guess qualify as ‘rich’, with salaries of $200k-$300k per year PER PERSON in a family, and we got CLOBBERED by the Alleged “tax cut” because we cannot any more deduct employee business expenses, in my case I had to found an LLC company to still be able to make some deductions, AND we have the very LOW cap of $10,000 for ALL taxes deducted, both local taxes (some colleagues pay $24,000 and $28,000 just for their HOMES PER YEAR) AND the State Taxes.
So your fairy tales should be told to the appropriate audience, naive 5 year olds, not us here. OK?
May 17th, 2019 at 6:32 am
Is the Hyun/Kia purification system anything more than an activated charcoal air filter. Other than monitoring the air and closing the windows I couldn’t glean anything special that just running a high performance filter would do. If it’s just automatically closing a window, I’d have to chalk that one up to “operator error”.
May 17th, 2019 at 7:10 am
19 “Larry D.” said “After all, the poor not only do not pay ANY taxes”
There are taxes other than income tax. Almost half of Americans do not pay federal income tax, but they certainly pay other taxes. The Trump/Ryan tax cuts went overwhelmingly to the rich, and you well know it.
It sounds like you are not rich enough to have benefitted. Well, your circumstances are not such that the tax cuts benefitted you. Neither did mine.
May 17th, 2019 at 8:17 am
20 Yeah sometimes automation isn’t the best answer and I could see getting very irritated about the time I was at a drive thru window being handed a hot cup of coffee when my car decides the air is dirty and decides to roll it up. (guess it should be put it up as no one rolls a window up anymore)
Worse having a dog in the car with the window down and his head out as dogs do, Well you can imagine how that could end badly. Just monitor the air and let the driver know. If they know the car has a air filter and cant figure out that closing the windows will help with the pollution then let natural selection takes it course.
May 19th, 2019 at 6:16 pm
What % of an ice propulsion is recycled. Consider fluids, cooling pipes, replacement intervals for ice service parts. I suspect apart from the pure metal in an ice engine, everything else is landfill or scrap for fuel. Car makers are guaranteeing battery life till it falls to 70%. So old batteries have plenty of life left over for fixed location storage at home or commercial. Imagine every wind turbine or solar roof install with a cheap storage to have some power for peak time use. Public charging points could have built in storage to recharge at cheap times of power availability. Remember EV batteries are not one battery but thousands of AA type batteries so you could have repair shops replacing those individual batteries that have failed or degraded. Power utilities would be interested in cheap used battery banks to fill with cheap power and resell back to the grid at higher prices. It’s a simple deal price between battery recharge capacity and cost if weight is not an issue. Nobody buys a used ice engine tthats lost 30-40%of it’s original power but nobody cares if the price is right for batteries if the price vs degradation is acceptable.