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Runtime: 9:22
0:07 GM’s EV & AV Production Plans
0:42 Origin, Canoo Or Futurliner?
1:17 Israeli Startups Improve AV Testing
2:48 Rivian Production Details
4:19 Kia Boosts Telluride Production
4:56 Corvette C8 Fuel Economy
5:37 Thrilling 24 Hours of Daytona
6:37 FCA Shows Off New Uconnect System
7:26 Mike O’Brien Leaves Hyundai
7:48 Have Sedans Bottomed Out?
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GM’S EV & AV PRODUCTION PLANS
General Motors made big EV and AV news today. It’s investing $3 billion in its Hamtramck assembly plant in Detroit to make electric vehicles, as well as the Cruise Automation autonomous vehicle. The EVs will be built on a common architecture and will likely include sedans, SUVs, pickup trucks and the autonomous vehicle they’ve named Origin. The plant, which had been making Cadillac CT6s and Chevrolet Impalas, will reopen at the end of 2021.
ORIGIN, CANOO OR FUTURLINER?
Speaking of Origin, long-time Autoline viewer GM Veteran wrote in to say the Origin is interesting but he found the styling of the AV from Canoo to be more to his taste. In fact, he went on to say that the Canoo looks like a downsized version of the GM Futurliner from the 1950’s. Those were the vehicles that GM built to take around the country for its Parade of Progress presentations. So what do think, Origin, Canoo…or Futurliner?
ISRAELI STARTUPS IMPROVE AV TESTING
When it comes to Level 5 AVs, the ones with no steering wheel or pedals, the thing that’s been holding them back is all the testing that’s needed to teach their artificial intelligence systems how to recognize every possible situation. Waymo has racked up over 20 million miles of real world testing, but that’s not enough. Some say that it will take 500 years to accumulate enough test miles to ensure that AVs have 99.999% accuracy. But two Israeli startups may be able to supercharge those efforts. Cortica is a company that claims it can teach AI systems with a 90% reduction in computing power. For example, it can show the system a picture of one bottle of beer, and it will learn to distinguish any kind of beer bottle from any other kind of container. Another startup, Foretellix, can automatically generate “edge” cases or “corner” cases in simulation. In other words, you feed it a driving situation, and it can generate all the scenarios where things can go wrong. This allows AV companies to generate 100 times more meaningful tests than they can do today, and has 10 times the verification efficiency. So who knows? Foretellix says we could see Level 4 AVs in the next 3 to 5 years.
RIVIAN PRODUCTION DETAILS
Interesting new details about Rivian’s production plans are coming out. Test runs down the assembly line at the company’s plant in Normal, Illinois will start in the third quarter of this year, with full production of the R1T pickup starting in December. Rivian’s R1S utility vehicle will roll off the same line about 3 months later. Ford will also make a luxury SUV built on Rivian’s electric skateboard, but Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe says “it’s a very different product from our own SUV.” It’s not known if the SUV will be branded a Ford or a Lincoln. Rivian will also make 100,000 electric vans for Amazon, the last of which should be completed by 2024. All the vehicles use the same skateboard, but since there will be three battery options and each has their own different body, the plant will have a number of assembly lines. One will be dedicated to building the skateboard, another will make the batteries, which will feed to the skateboard line and then there will be two final trim assembly lines. One for Ford and Rivian vehicles, the other for Amazon vans.
KIA BOOSTS TELLURIDE PRODUCTION
Kia’s new SUV the Telluride is so popular it’s going to increase production. A Korean news site reports that the automaker will ramp up production to 100,000 units a year. Since it went on sale in March more than 58,600 Telludrides, which is made at Kia’s plant in Georgia, were sold in the U.S. market alone. The SUV also won the 2020 North American Utility of the Year award. And you can listen to what our panels of jurors on Autoline This Week (Part 1; Part 2) had to say about the Telluride here.
CORVETTE C8 FUEL ECONOMY
Most Corvette customers buy the car for its thrilling performance, but they are more than willing to brag about the car’s surprising fuel economy if you give them the chance. And the new C8 will be no different. Autoblog reports that Corvette’s chief engineer, Ed Piatek, says the new car will get 15 miles-to-the-gallon in the city and 27 on the highway. That’s pretty impressive from a car that has a nearly 500 horsepower 6.2L V8 and can do 0-60 in 2.9 seconds. By comparison, a Ferrari 488 gets 15 mpg city and 20 on the highway.
THRILLING 24 HOURS OF DAYTONA
Motor racing fans were treated to a break in the mid-winter doldrums with the 24 Hours of Daytona. The race ran at a blistering pace, with the winners going 25 more laps more than the last record. Cadillac pulled out another overall win in the prototype class, coming ahead of Mazda and Acura. BMW fought off a determined charge from a couple of Porsche 911s in the GTLM class, with the new C8 Corvette finishing 4th in its first race. In the GTD class, a Lamborghini Huracan took the win. That GTD class is hyper competitive. In qualifying, the top 8 positions were taken by 8 different manufacturers, making this one of the healthiest racing series in the world.
FCA SHOWS OFF NEW UCONNECT SYSTEM
FCA revealed its new Uconnect infotainment system. The fifth-gen version is five times faster, can support up to eight connected devices and is now scalable across all of FCA’s brands. It’s powered by the Android Auto operating system and includes an Alexa in-vehicle assistant. But Apple CarPlay is still available. The fully customizable interface can store preferences for five user profiles and the system can be used on a screen up to 12.3 inches. TomTom is built into the Navigation system and SiriusXM 360L as well as personalized stations from Pandora are also available. The Uconnect 5 system will start being equipped in vehicles later this year.
MIKE O’BRIEN LEAVES HYUNDAI
Hyundai’s vice president of product planning, Mike O’Brien is leaving the company. He was a repeat guest on Autoline After Hours and we always enjoyed his candid conversation and wide scope of knowledge of Hyundai’s Vehicles. Mr. O’Brien is going to pursue other interests and we can’t wait to learn what those interests are.
HAVE SEDANS BOTTOMED OUT?
Automakers once again struggled to sell sedans in the U.S. last year. According to Wards Intelligence, sales dropped nearly 11% in 2019. So has the segment finally bottomed out? On last week’s Autoline After Hours we were joined by auto analyst Jeff Schuster from LMC Automotive, and in the following clip he discusses if we will see sedans bounce back this year.
Jeff Schuster, LMC Automotive
“So, we don’t think so. We think sedans and cars in general, we’re expecting them around a quarter of the market. If you look at ‘car’ as a broad term including sporty and a couple of wagons and so forth that are there. So falling and not quite the bottom yet, it’s still got a few more years but we’re starting to see it bottom out over the next couple of years. Kind of in that low 20% range. And at the same time, to kind of go to the opposite of that, we expect, and we got really close in 2019, 2020 we’ll see SUVs at 50% plus for the market this year.”
You can watch that entire discussion right now on our website, Autoline.tv or just look for it on our YouTube channel.
But that’s it for today, thanks for watching and we’ll see you right back here again tomorrow.
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John McElroy is an influential thought leader in the automotive industry. He is a journalist, lecturer, commentator and entrepreneur. He created “Autoline Daily,” the first industry webcast of industry news and analysis.