Listen to “AD #3110 – VW To Dump ICEs in EU by 2035; Honda Names Electric SUV; Tesla Builds Own Supercomputer with NVIDIA” on Spreaker.
Follow us on social media:
Runtime: 9:58
0:07 Honda Names Electric SUV Prologue
0:54 VW To Dump All ICEs in EU by 2035
1:18 Renault To Get Big Battery Plant with Envision AESC
2:08 Nissan To Open Battery Plant in UK
3:05 Wards Predicts June Sales Will Fall
3:50 China Sees Sales Drop Because Of Chip Shortage
4:09 Tesla Builds Own Supercomputer with NVIDIA
6:20 Making Cars with Biomaterials
8:29 Don’t Dump Your Car Junk
Visit our sponsors to thank them for their support of Autoline Daily: BorgWarner, Bridgestone, Intrepid Control Systems, Schaeffler and Wacker.
This is Autoline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry.
HONDA NAMES ELECTRIC SUV PROLOGUE
We kick off this Monday with a lot of news about electric cars.
Last week Honda finally admitted that EVs are the future of the auto industry. This week, it’s letting us peek under the tent a bit. We knew that General Motors will build several EVs for Honda and Acura in 2024. Now we know the Honda will be called the Prologue. Both models will be built on GM’s Ultium platform, which is also being used for the new Hummer and the electric Chevrolet pickup. In the second half of the decade, Honda will launch a new series of EVs based on a new e:Architecture of its own. Honda wants to be fully-electric in North America by 2040.
VW TO DUMP ALL ICEs IN EU BY 2035
Speaking of going all-electric, Volkswagen says it will no longer sell internal combustion engine cars in Europe by 2035. It’s aiming to have electrics account for 70% of new car sales in Europe by 2030. And by 2050 at the latest, the automaker’s global fleet will be CO2-neutral.
RENAULT TO GET BIG BATTERY PLANT WITH ENVISION AESC
Renault just landed a deal with a Chinese battery company, Envision AESC, to build a battery factory in France. Envision will spend as much 2 billion euros on the plant, which will have a capacity of 9 GWh in 2024 with the goal of hitting 24 GWh by 2030. Envision AESC started out life as part of Nissan and it now owns the battery plants that Nissan used to make the first-generation Leaf. Renault also formed a partnership with a startup called Verkor to develop high-performance batteries. They’ll open a pilot line next-year and aim to open a plant in 2026 with a capacity of 10 GWh.
NISSAN TO OPEN BATTERY PLANT IN UK
And speaking of battery plants, Renault’s alliance partner, Nissan, is expected to announce it will open a battery plant in the UK sometime this week. That’s all we know for now, so we’ll have to wait for the formal announcement to learn more.
WARDS PREDICTS JUNE SALES WILL FALL
Wards Intelligence is forecasting that new car sales in the US for June will be down. But that’s not because consumer demand is dropping. Just the opposite. Demand is sky high, but automakers just can’t make new cars and trucks fast enough because of the chip shortage. While the seasonally adjusted sale rate hit a strong 18.4 million rate in March and April, the SAAR will drop to only 15.8 million for June. And Ward’s doesn’t see any improvement for months to come. So with demand high and supply low, you know what that means, don’t you? Prices are going through the roof.
CHINA SEES SALES DROP BECAUSE OF CHIP SHORTAGE
New car sales in China are also getting hammered by the chip shortage. They’re probably going to drop nearly 5% compared to a year ago, according to the China Passenger Car Association. It says Chinese consumers will buy just under 1.6 million new vehicles.
TESLA BUILDS OWN SUPERCOMPUTER WITH NVIDIA
To supercharge its development of Artificial Intelligence, Tesla built its own supercomputer. You may have heard that it’s probably the 5th fastest supercomputer in the world. NVIDIA just released some of the details because it’s GPUs, called the A100, are at the heart of the system. And they provide up to 20x higher performance than before. Many of you Tesla fans already know there is a neural network running in “shadow mode” in all Tesla’s cars that captures data and makes predictions while the car is driving, without actually controlling the vehicle. These predictions are recorded, and any mistakes or misidentifications are logged. Tesla engineers then use these events to train the neural network in how to deal with difficult driving situations. The neural network then runs through all these scenarios over and over again until it operates without a mistake. Then it’s sent back to the vehicle and begins the process again. It’s all about developing autonomous vehicles. But that means capturing a ton of data: 1.5 petabytes which is 1.5 million gigabytes. That takes massive computing power, and that’s why Tesla built its own supercomputer.
MAKING CARS WITH BIOMATERIALS
One way to make cars and trucks more sustainable is to make them with biomaterials. Those are materials that are made from fibers from plants. And that’s the topic on the latest episode of Autoline This Week. I asked Doctor Mohini Sain, from the University of Toronto, what are some of the best applications of components that can be made from biomaterials. Take a look.
“This is an engine beauty cover as you can see here. This is actually made from fiberglass in the normal way. But here we did not use any fiberglass. We used microfibers from the forestry process. And it gave us two things. It reduced the weight. It increased the green fiber content inside. And also it allows much more noise and vibration decrease. Normally it will have this foam (on the back). Now with this particular material you can use without having that foaming application in there. So it can give you a property that will allow you to get less vibration and noise when you are using it for an engine cover, an engine beauty cover.”
That engine cover is intriguing. Lighter, less NVH, and because you can get rid of that foam backing, it’s cheaper. There’s more fascinating information about biomaterials and biocomposites that you learn about on that show, and it’s available on our website or YouTube channel.
FORD MAVERICK ON AFTER HOURS
We get a lot of the best insiders in the industry to come on our shows and if you’d like to learn more about the new Ford Maverick pickup truck, then join us this Thursday for Autoline After Hours. We’ve got Trevor Scott, the marketing manager, and Chris Mazur, the chief program engineer, coming on the show. And if you’ve got a question you’d like us to ask them you can Tweet it to us, or drop an email to viewermail@autoline.tv
DON’T DUMP YOUR CAR JUNK
Do you have any automotive memorabilia hanging around the house? Well, don’t dump it! It could be worth something, says H&H Classics, a UK auction house that’s dedicated to collector cars and motorcycles. Recently, it held an auction for automotive collectibles and the pieces brought in more than 156,000 pounds or more than $217,000. Some of the items include this Morgan Pedal Car, which sold for $1,600. This Steve McQueen artwork sold for about $1,500. And this vintage hand-operated gasoline pump fetched $2,700. So the next time you’re cleaning out your attic or basement, think twice about getting rid of that memorabilia.
That wraps up today’s report, thanks for watching.
Thanks to our partner for embedding Autoline Daily on its website: WardsAuto.com
Seamus and Sean McElroy cover the latest news in the automotive industry for Autoline Daily.