Listen to “AD #3271 – Automakers Shutting Down Russian Plants; Turning the Entire Car into A Radar Antenna; Tavares Hits Jackpot” on Spreaker.
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Runtime: 11:14
0:08 Automakers Shutting Down Their Russian Plants
0:55 Stellantis CEO Tavares Hits Payday Jackpot
1:39 Lordstown Will Finally Start Making EV Trucks
3:29 Local Motors Auctions Off Assets
4:04 How VW Updated T-Roc
4:51 Turning the Entire Car into A Radar Antenna
6:00 First Drive: Kia EV6
8:51 Kyle Vogt Named Cruise CEO
9:16 Changan To Mass Produce L4 Cars
9:43 Lucid to Make 150,000 Cars/Year in Saudi Arabia…
10:24 …But Has to Cut Production for Now
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AUTOMAKERS SHUTTING DOWN THEIR RUSSIAN PLANTS
We’ve got more updates on the impact on the auto industry of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Hyundai and Mitsubishi say they’re going to stop building cars in Russia because they can’t get parts. Skoda, which is part of the Volkswagen Group, is still making cars, but warns it faces a critical shortage of parts. General Motors and Harley Davidson are also stopping all shipments to Russia. Meanwhile, Toyota, which had to shut down operations in Japan yesterday after one of its core suppliers was hit by a cyber attack, says it will resume production tomorrow. Large automakers like Toyota have good cyber security measures, but this shows that smaller suppliers that don’t have those kinds of resources are vulnerable targets from hackers.
STELLANTIS CEO TAVARES HITS PAYDAY JACKPOT
Carlos Taveres, the CEO of Stellantis, had a pretty good payday. He made $21.5 million last year. His total direct compensation was nearly $19 million, and the rest was retirement benefits, free use of company cars, and other services. It also includes nearly $2 million in a retention bonus, which means the board wanted to make extra sure he wouldn’t be tempted to leave the company and go somewhere else. No doubt Carlos could earn a lot more in the next few years. His goal is to double the company’s revenue to 300 billion euros by 2030. And if he does that his compensation package is only going to get a whole lot bigger.
LORDSTOWN WILL FINALLY START MAKING EV TRUCKS
Last June, Lordstown Motors was on the brink of going under. It didn’t have enough money to get through 2021 and then its CEO and CFO had to resign, likely due to misleading investors. But by September things started turning around when Foxconn agreed to buy Lordstown’s assembly plant. Now Lordstown says it will start production of its all-electric Endurance pickup in the third quarter, and expects to sell around 500 units this year. It’s also working with Foxconn to develop new vehicles based on Foxconn’s open source software and hardware platform, called MIH. That platform can support anything from an SUV to a large bus. The Fisker Pear is going to be made by Foxconn in the Lordstown plant as well starting in 2024, which suggests it will be based on the MIH platform. You may remember there were reports that Foxconn would build the Fisker Pear at its plant in Wisconsin, but we were told by an industry insider that the cement floor of that plant wasn’t thick enough to support automotive operations. And that may be the reason Foxconn even stepped in to buy the Lordstown plant in the first place.
LOCAL MOTORS AUCTIONS OFF ASSETS
What happens to a startup company when it goes under? In the case of Local Motors, all its stuff goes up for auction. Want one of those 3D printed cars or the autonomous shuttle called Olli? It could be yours. Starting on March 15th and running through the 17th all of Local Motors’ assets will go up for auction. And when we say all its assets, we mean all its assets. Wheels, tires, welding machines and even shop vacs are on the docket. It really does look like a dream sale for gearheads.
HOW VW UPDATED T-ROC
Volkswagen is updating the look of its small crossover, the T-Roc. In terms of styling, the biggest changes to the exterior are found in the front fascia. A chrome accent bar now slices through the middle of the grille and flows into the new adaptive beam headlights. And the area around the lower vents and fog light appears to have been opened up a bit. As for the interior, it now features a floating display screen mounted high on the dash and more modern HVAC controls, similar to what you will see in the Tiguan. It also comes with more standard and available driver assistance technologies. The new T-Roc is on sale now in Germany with a starting price of about 23,500 euros, which is a little more than $26,000.
TURNING THE ENTIRE CAR INTO A RADAR ANTENNA
The size of radar units used for automotive applications continue to shrink. This has been facilitated by the move to higher frequencies and highly integrated chips that free up space for the antenna. And according to market research firm IDTechEX the size is going to keep going down, so much so that the entire vehicle could be a radar antenna in the future. For example, there’s a company that’s working on RadarGlass, which transforms the headlights into radars. And it thinks the process could also be applied to body panels, where the antenna is embedded right into the plastic, creating super powerful radar. It means that radar performance would increase and it could play an even more important role in ADAS and autonomous systems.
FIRST DRIVE: KIA EV6
Hyundai and Kia’s battery electric duo, the Ioniq 5 and EV6, are starting to hit U.S. roads. Both vehicles share the same platform, but Chad Kirchner from our partner EV Pulse.com, says these twins are fraternal. He spent a day behind the wheel of the Kia EV6 and brings us this.
The EV6 is based on Hyundai-Kia’s E-GMP platform, and this is our second taste of a car built on that platform as we’ve already checked out the Hyundai Ioniq 5. That means, underneath, the components are nearly identical. The EV6 comes in either rear-wheel or all-wheel drive with two different battery sizes.
The EV6 Light has 167 horsepower and is rear drive. The Wind and GT-Line rear-drive models make 225 horsepower. The all-wheel drive versions of the Wind and GT-Line trims make 320 horsepower. The EV6 Light has a 58 kilowatt-hour battery pack, which helps keep the cost down but does sacrifice some range. The rest of the lineup has a 77.4 kilowatt-hour battery pack. The EV6 Light is rated for 232 miles of all-electric range. The rear drive Wind and GT-Line trims with the larger battery pack are rated at 310 miles. Opting for all-wheel drive on either of those trims increases power but decreases range. The range on the all-wheel drive models is rated for 274 miles.
I’m currently in an all-wheel drive version. The turn in is just, like, fantastic. It goes exactly where you point it. Compared to the Ioniq 5, this is definitely a drivers-focused vehicle. Still lots of space in the back. I mean, the wheelbase is as long as a Telluride. It’s a lot of space. Visibility is pretty solid. The rear three-quarters is a little hampered by, just, the more “sleeky” nature of this design. It’s actually a little bit easier to see on the back of the Ioniq.
The infotainment is super solid in here, and if you’ve driven a modern Hyundai or Kia product, you’ll be familiar with it. The car I’m driving is equipped with a heads up display, which has that augmented reality satellite navigation. As you approach an intersection, there’s arrows pointing which way you need to turn on the heads up display.
I mean, it’s everything I liked about the Ioniq 5. So it’s the 800-volt architecture, meaning you’re going to be able to charge at over 200 kilowatts, which cuts charge times down dramatically. And right now, if you’re looking at a new car, you should be looking at an 800-volt.
According to Kia, that charging architecture allows the EV6 to gain more than 200 miles in 20 minutes, when plugged into a properly equipped DC fast charger. For a pricing breakdown and deep dive into the Kia’s pros and cons, click the link in the transcript or description box, or look for the EV Pulse channel on YouTube.
KYLE VOGT NAMED CRUISE CEO
GM’s autonomous unit Cruise named Kyle Vogt as its new CEO. He’s been interim CEO since Dan Ammann abruptly left the company in December. But Cruise should be in good hands with Vogt as the leader. He co-founded Cruise in 2013 and served as CEO until 2018 when he was named president and chief technology officer after Ammann was hired to lead Cruise.
CHANGAN TO MASS PRODUCE L4 CARS
And speaking of autonomous vehicles, Gasgoo reports that Chinese automaker Changan Auto is planning to mass produce Level 4 self-driving vehicles starting in 2025. The company invested around $160 million to develop L4 cars and will have the capacity to build 500,000 vehicles with L1 to L4 technology a year by 2025.
LUCID TO MAKE 150,000 CARS/YEAR IN SAUDI ARABIA…
Yesterday, we reported that Lucid Motors is planning to open a second plant in Saudi Arabia. And now we have more details. It will be able to make 150,000 vehicles a year but the cars will be re-assembled at the factory from kits that are pre-manufactured at Lucid’s plant in Arizona. Lucid says locating the plant in Saudi Arabia may result in $3.4 billion of value over 15 years. That’s because it will be able to benefit from the availability of competitively priced commodities and energy as well as an improving domestic supply chain. Construction of the plant starts in the first half of this year.
…BUT HAS TO CUT PRODUCTION FOR NOW
But while the company is looking to expand production in the future, it has to cut it in the present. Lucid says it expects to build 12,000 to 14,000 vehicles this year, which is down from its original target of 20,000 cars. It blames supply chain constraints, logistic challenges and wanting to focus on quality. So far, Lucid has delivered 300 vehicles to date.
But that wraps up today’s, thanks for tuning in.
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Seamus and Sean McElroy cover the latest news in the automotive industry for Autoline Daily.