AD #3161 – Cadillac Lyriq Design Highlights; Rivian Builds 1st Customer Pickup; Chery Introduces New Small EV
September 15th, 2021 at 11:59am
Listen to “AD #3161 – Cadillac Lyriq Design Highlights; Rivian Builds 1st Customer Pickup; Lucid Air Rated at Over 500 Miles” on Spreaker.
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Runtime: 11:40
0:08 Rivian Builds First Pickup for A Customer
0:32 Chery Introduces Small EV To Take on Wuling
1:31 Baidu Expands Autonomous Ride Hailing Service
3:12 AEB Could Drastically Reduce Car Crashes
4:06 Ford, Argo AI & Walmart Launch Autonomous Delivery Service
6:43 Cadillac Lyriq Exterior Design Highlights
10:07 GM Won’t Use Ultium Name in China
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RIVIAN BUILDS FIRST PICKUP FOR A CUSTOMER
EV startup Rivian made a bit of history yesterday. CEO RJ Scaringe revealed in a tweet that the first R1T electric pickup for a customer rolled off the assembly line. Rivian plans to start delivering the pickup to customers sometime this month, which will make it the first automaker to put an electric truck in customer hands in the U.S.
CHERY INTRODUCES SMALL EV TO TAKE ON WULING
Despite its tiny size and puny range, the Wuling Hong Guang MINI EV is tearing up the sales charts in China and is the number one EV in the country. That’s mainly due to it costing only a little more than $4,000. But it’s about to get more competition with Chery Automobiles introducing its own tiny electric called the QQ Ice Cream. As you can see, it looks similar and is about the same size as the Wuling model. Its specs are a mirror image, too. The Ice Cream has a top speed of 100 km/h or 62 MPH and its range is 175 kilometers or about 109 miles. It looks like these small, cheap EVs could become a big part of the market. And that would be a headache for automakers selling higher priced electrics, since they need that volume to help bring down costs.
BAIDU EXPANDS AUTONOMOUS RIDE HAILING SERVICE
And in other China news, Baidu continues to gain a lot of experience offering taxi rides with autonomous cars. It’s now operating in 5 cities in China and plans to offer the service in 25 cities over the next three years. The taxis have a safety driver and they operate on fixed routes stopping at specific stations. But Baidu is clearly learning a lot about how to operate large-scale robot taxis. While it did not provide specific figures, it says it has cut the cost of taxi rides by 60% with its latest generation. IHS Markit forecasts that autonomous ride sharing will be a $200 billion business in China by the end of the decade.
AEB COULD DRASTICALLY REDUCE CAR CRASHES
Traffic deaths are on the rise in the U.S. but a good chunk of those could be prevented if vehicles were equipped with Automatic Emergency Braking according to Bosch. The supplier just released new data that shows the technology could mitigate or avoid 649,000 crashes with injuries or fatalities each year in the U.S. if every vehicle was equipped with AEB. That’s a reduction of 35%. Currently, less than 5% of vehicles in the U.S. have the tech. To get more vehicles equipped with it, Bosch wants NHTSA to add crash avoidance to its New Car Assessment Program, which currently rates vehicles based on crashworthiness and other factors. By including crash avoidance in ratings, Bosch says it could boost consumer awareness and adoption of the technology.
FORD, ARGO AI & WALMART LAUNCH AUTONOMOUS DELIVERY SERVICE
Ford and its AV partner Argo AI eventually plan to roll out a large-scale autonomous vehicle service and it’s taking a few more baby steps to reach that goal. The two companies, along with Walmart, are launching an autonomous delivery service in Miami, Florida, Austin, Texas and Washington, D.C. Ford vehicles equipped with Argo tech will be integrated with Walmart’s online ordering platform via Argo’s cloud-based infrastructure that will then route the orders and schedule deliveries to customers. The service starts later this year and at first will be limited to a defined area, but there’s plans to expand in the future. Walmart ran a previous AV delivery test with Ford in Miami that started in 2018 and announced a collaboration with GM’s Cruise unit in Phoenix, Arizona in November of last year.
CADILLAC LYRIQ EXTERIOR DESIGN HIGHLIGHTS
Cadillac’s top designers took Autoline on a comprehensive walk-around of the Lyriq, its first all-electric model that will come out next year.
The designers took advantage of the fact that this is a completely new car with zero carry-over parts. And they took advantage of the design flexibility that BEVs offer.
In today’s report, we’ll concentrate on the exterior design. One of the first things you’ll notice is the stance and proportions. The Lyriq has very short front and rear overhangs, quite a long hood, and rather squat haunches. That gives it classic proportions. The body side has simple, clean, horizontal lines, yet a lot of surface movement.
And notice how the character line below the belt line fades out at the wheel wells, then picks back up again. It’s a design trick that keeps your eyes moving down the body and gives a feeling of motion to the design.
These days car have to be designed to protect pedestrians in front end collisions. There has to be enough crush space under the hood so it will deform if a head hits it. Think of crushing an empty beer can on your forehead. With an engine under the hood there usually isn’t enough crush space, so designers have to raise the cowl at the base of the windshield which in turn raises the trailing edge of the hood, and that provides more crush space.
But with EVs, especially if there’s a frunk, there’s plenty of crush space under the hood, so Cadillac’s designers lowered the cowl. That makes the hood lie horizontal, which makes it look even longer.
And the front end is dominated by the grille, which of course is not a grille, but rather provides a dazzling light display as you approach the vehicle. And it also hides the radar and other sensors.
There is a tremendous amount of detail work in that grille, involving laser etching to get the fine detail work in the lighting. Notice too, the new Cadillac logo which the designers say was inspired by the abstract artist Piet Mondrian. The lines in the logo are picked up time and again in the detail work in the lighting.
The rear tail lamps deserve special notice because they were designed to cleverly hide the cut lines on the liftgate at night. Note how the lights are segmented, which create a black and red pattern.
And there’s a black segment right at the cutline. It’s a simple design trick that works really well.
One other clever feature is the design of the rear roof spoiler. It actually sits above the backlight and directs air across the glass and that allowed the designers to eliminate the rear wiper.
And finally, take a look at the detail work in the wheels. The grooved blades that fit between the spokes are there to improve the aerodynamics. Cadillac says it picked up 8 to 10 aero counts with them, which is a small benefit, but when you’re trying to eke out the most efficiency with an electric vehicle that’s well worth doing.
There is a tremendous design story in the Lyriq and in another episode, we’ll go over the interior styling.
GM WON’T USE ULTIUM NAME IN CHINA
And speaking of the Lyriq, it’s going to be the first Ultium-based vehicle to launch in China, which will happen sometime next year. But GM revealed it’s not going to use the name Ultium in China. Instead the Chinese name for Ultium will be Ao Te Neng. I hope I pronounced that right. And if anybody out there has some insight into the name, why it might be used and its correct pronunciation, we’d love to know. A lot of times names of the same product can differ from one market to another because it has a different meaning or will not resonate with consumers.
Hyundai may have the fastest product cadence in the business. It’s amazing to see how many new products it’s coming out with. So how does it do it? That’s why we invited Olabisi Boyle, the vice president of product planning for Hyundai Motor America, to join us on Autoline After Hours this Thursday. If you’ve got a question you’d like us to ask her, tweet it to us, or send an email to viewermail@autoline.tv
But that’s it for today, thanks for tuning in.
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Comments (23)
September 15th, 2021 at 12:58 pm
Rivian 1st electric truck? Smith trucks Kansas City 2011-2017 then all the electric trucks early 20th century
September 15th, 2021 at 1:03 pm
Last night I was flipping through Discovery channel and found “Celebrity IOU Joyride”. A car show where celebrities give a car away to someone they feel is deserving.
Anyway Episode 2 James Marsden Electrifies a 1963 Buick Electra 225 with Ant and Christy Lee. If I remember right the donor skateboard is from Rimac. They cut a bunch of weight out of the Buick and got it like 300lbs lighter than the Rimac.
Anyway was an interesting build and I believe Rimac was the donor car but couldn’t find anything about it online to confirm.
September 15th, 2021 at 1:05 pm
It may be some time before the reduction of crashes due to the use of AEB is fully realized.
I keep picturing the scenario where the AEB equipped vehicle brakes to avoid a collision, but the driver of the non-AEB vehicle right behind them may not be reactive enough to avoid hitting the rapidly braking AEB vehicle.
September 15th, 2021 at 1:05 pm
Congrats to Rivian and Lucid for their accomplishments, both of which are easier said than done! It’s nice to see the fruits of such strides, especially when it is thought that those type of results happen anywhere but on these shores. Tesla, Lucid and Rivian show that BEV leadership and the US, is not as foreign a concept as some may have been led to believe. I’m not getting nationalistic, but it seems that many were waiting/expecting the next EV innovation to come from a different region of the world. Yet, surprise, look what we have here! My main point is that with good competition, everyone’s favorite brand will we the need to improve their product for those that buy their products and the consumer wins! So, instead of simply taking sides and tearing down the product that currently has taken the pole position, rejoice knowing that soon our favorite we’ll catch up and motivate their competition to do better! Congrats again!
September 15th, 2021 at 1:07 pm
Why is it so hard to make a cheap EV like the Chery and Wuling but attractive? Something small like a Miata with just slightly larger tires under $6k would be a huge hit.
September 15th, 2021 at 1:09 pm
I have not understood why Automatic Emergency Braking is not standard in more cars myself. With distracted driving at an all time high, AEB would solve most of the concerns people have when staring at their phone and not the traffic in front of them. I guess we all just now wait for the governments to mandate good ideas instead of just producing cars with good ideas.
September 15th, 2021 at 1:26 pm
#4 wmb, while the US has Tesla, Rivian and now Lucid as main BEV manufacturers(VW aside) , China has more companies actually,and not just in tiny BEV segment, Nio, XPeng ,LiAuto and more, also Polestar from Geely and also ZEEKR another Geely brand and its Factory is about to come online, go see a an American living in China , his Youtube channel is Walkabout Rojo, he goes to many Auto Shows there and often tours and testdrives their cars,
September 15th, 2021 at 1:32 pm
John and Sean McE , whats your take on the Cadillac and Dealer buyouts now that their Lyriq is about to debut,does GM want to cut down the number of Caddy Dealers with the $300,000 -$500,000 buyouts/opt out? Theres an article today in TTAC about it.
September 15th, 2021 at 1:41 pm
#6 merkur,Maybe the NHTSA / Fed Govt, would rather hafe the foreign govts and the Auto manufacturer decide to make such things like ADAS/AEB their own undertaking, ABS , Airbags and Composite headlights come to mind.How long did those things become standard in the US vs Europe for example,I remember friends importing such European headlights into Canada to replace sealed beams
September 15th, 2021 at 1:49 pm
#3 mjb, in your scenario the person behind would be at fault? Like our HTA laws in Ontaro Canada would say he was following too closely , and charged as such.
September 15th, 2021 at 2:09 pm
Among BEVs Lucid is the most impressive, and that includes even taking Tesla in the group, their problem is getting to scale , but i think they will succeed, but will be a niche player for a few years, the base $60,000 w/ RWD wont be for a year or two,Chinese starups like Nio,XPeng and established Geely/Lynk Co.,& BYD are already in Europe.
September 15th, 2021 at 2:22 pm
5 Those microcars are designed for packaging efficiency in a small footprint, not for style. The Wuling seats 4 people in a car only 115 inches long, 5 inches shorter than the original Mini. I’d think there might be a market for a “sportier looking” two seat micro EV, though. Maybe next year.
September 15th, 2021 at 2:27 pm
9 I put Hella H4 headlights in my 1974 Plymouth Duster. They were much better than the sealed beams, and installed exactly the same way. They were 7 inch round lights.
September 15th, 2021 at 2:33 pm
12 Yeah I don’t know if there would be much of a market in China but here in the states something sporty for a go to work car would be hugely popular in that price range.
Especially if they took a design like Miata removed the trunk and offered a back seat hatchback. I get the size is tiny and helps keep the weight down. Id be willing to give up a back seat to have it look like something other than a box on harbor freight trailer wheels.
September 15th, 2021 at 2:58 pm
9 as a Canadian I did that for many years on many cars.
September 15th, 2021 at 3:38 pm
#13 & 15 The Europeans were always more advanced when it comes to lighting systems I have a 2001 Volvo that has better headlights than my 2009 Honda CRV,and if I’m not wrong ABS was in Mercedes cars way before they were required in the US, I’m Canadian and I also installed H4 Hellas in some of my cars and Hella or Bosch foglights too,made a difference in fog and nite time driving, not sure about the ABS impimentation, but from my memory it was the American Car makers or Justice System afraid of lawsuits, something like the ABS equipped car might be able to stop better and the car driver hitting it will sue for damages for running into it, at least that was one of the arguments back in the day,Also Volvo had 3 point seatbelts in the early 60s ( Invented in 1959), I remember my Uncle having a 72 Dodge Duster that had only lap belts
September 15th, 2021 at 3:41 pm
#14 look for a good used Volvo P1800,
September 15th, 2021 at 3:51 pm
#14 the Volvo P1800 Es is the best looking Volvo of all time IMO ,2dr wagon hatchback ,and fast for its day.
September 15th, 2021 at 9:27 pm
16 My ’74 Duster had shoulder belts, but as I remember, they needed to be fastened separately from the lap belts.
September 15th, 2021 at 9:39 pm
16 That “Dodge” Duster would have had shoulder belts in the outboard front seats if sold new in the US. They were mandatory, starting in 1968. They would have been manual. Yeah, laws may have been different in other countries.
September 16th, 2021 at 2:50 am
4 wmb – Agreed, good to see more American manufacturers. They need to scale rapidly or remain consigned to niches. A compact Rivian would suit global markets.
12 & 14 – An electrified Daihatsu Copen! Total blast.
In the category of space-saving metro conveyances, an Israeli startup introduced a 1+1 (I think in Munich) that can retract the wheels to slot into minute parking spots. It needs a design redo, but the idea is great.
September 16th, 2021 at 12:38 pm
电动马上通用
Diàndòng mǎshàng tōngyòng
according to Google Translate: Electric Universal
September 16th, 2021 at 3:23 pm
Lambo, that show you mentioned was a good one. I’m pretty sure it was a Karma electric skateboard, and they said the old Buick Electra body fit on it with very little modification! They said they lucked out and the dimensions ended up working well. They told the vehicle owner he has the “only ever” electric Buick Electra, but if the swap is as easy as they claimed, I could see that as a great business; building a kit or selling turn-key electric Electras. I know I want one now!