AD #3065 – Bridgestone Develops Tire for EV Startup; Honda Changes Tune on EVs; Why Auto Plastics End Up in Landfills
April 23rd, 2021 at 11:57am
Listen to “AD #3065 – Bridgestone Develops Tire for EV Startup; Honda Changes Tune on EVs; Why Auto Plastics End Up in Landfills” on Spreaker.
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Runtime: 10:01
0:08 Geely & Baidu JV To Launch 1st EV in 3 Years
1:07 Tesla Autopilot Needs Driver Monitoring
2:11 Daimler Posts Strong Q1 Earnings
3:20 Bridgestone Develops EV Tire for EV Startup
4:29 Honda Changes Tune on Electric Vehicles
5:37 Renault Hires Siri’s Co-Creator
6:36 Volvo To Increase Use of Remanufactured Parts
7:21 Why Most Auto Plastics End Up in Landfills
8:51 Exhaust Tips That Look Like HDMI Ports
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GEELY & BAIDU JV TO LAUNCH 1ST EV IN 3 YEARS
At the beginning of the year, Geely and Chinese tech company, Baidu, formed a new company to build smart electric cars. And now we’re learning more details about the joint venture. Called Jidu Auto, it will spend $7.7 billion over the next five years to develop and produce the vehicles. It plans to launch the first vehicle in three years and says it will “make you feel like it’s a robot that can communicate with you with emotions.” After it launches that vehicle, it plans to introduce a new model every one to one and a half years and will sell the cars directly to consumers. To help achieve that ambitious goal, Jidu will hire up to 3,000 people over the next two to three years, including four to five hundred software engineers. The cars will be built on Geely’s open-source electric vehicle platform, while Baidu will provide its autonomous and connectivity capabilities.
TESLA AUTOPILOT NEEDS DRIVER MONITORING
A recent fatal crash involving a Tesla is sure generating a lot of headlines because no one was in the driver’s seat at the time of the accident. And the debates have raged on. Was Autopilot engaged or wasn’t it? Elon Musk has claimed that it wasn’t. But now you’ve got a story from Consumer Reports, which states just below the headline “we demonstrated how easy it is to defeat Autopilot’s driver monitoring.” My question is, didn’t we already know this? There’s years’ worth of evidence of people misusing the Autopilot system, some getting away with it, others not so much. I think it’s more likely people are just getting tired of seeing the same stuff over and over again and are now creating a stink about it in hopes of some changes. And this is one area where we agree with CR, Tesla needs to come up with a way that its system knows someone is in the driver’s seat and that they’re paying attention to the road.
DAIMLER POSTS STRONG Q1 EARNINGS
Daimler reported its first quarter financial results and the numbers look good. It sold over 728,000 cars, trucks and vans, which brought in €41 billion in revenue. It posted a €5.7 billion EBIT, and put €4.4 billion on the bottom line. Obviously, these are wild and crazy percentage gains compared to a year ago when so much of the market was shut down due to the pandemic. But Daimler is warning investors that the second quarter may not look as good because of the chip shortage.
| Daimler Q1, 2021 Earnings | ||
|---|---|---|
| Sales | 728,600 | +13% |
| Revenue | €41 B | +10% |
| EBIT | €5.7 B | +819% |
| Net Profit | €4.4 B | +2,488% |
| Source: Daimler | ||
BRIDGESTONE DEVELOPS EV TIRE FOR EV STARTUP
One of the fastest ways to increase the range of electric cars is to reduce rolling resistance with the tires. So Bridgestone developed an EV tire for Lightyear, which is an EV startup based in the Netherlands. It’s got this cool looking EV, the Lightyear One, that claims to have a WLTP driving range of 450 miles, or 725 kilometers. And that’s with only a 60-kilowatt hour battery. One way it gets that much range is with a solar panel roof that can add about 35 miles a day. But another way is with a tire that cuts rolling resistance through innovative tread patterns, a larger diameter, high inflation pressure, and a relatively narrow tread. The tire is a custom-engineered version of Bridgestone’s Turanza Eco. It’s a 175/60/R19. Thanks to the lower rolling resistance and longer range, Lightyear was able to use such a smaller battery, and claims an overall weight savings of 90 kilos, or 200 pounds.
HONDA CHANGES TUNE ON ELECTRIC VEHICLES
If you go back only a couple of years, Honda didn’t seem very interested in electric vehicles, but it’s singing a different tune today. It says that by 2030 it wants 40% of its sales to be a combination of battery electric and fuel cell vehicles. Those figures jump to 80% by 2035 and 100% by 2040. I think we all know about its deal with GM, which will see one Honda and one Acura come off its Ultium platform as 2024 model year vehicles. But Honda says in the second half of the 2020s it will also launch a series of BEVs on a completely new platform led by Honda. And in Japan, an EV Kei Car will hit the market in 2024. But since Honda doesn’t just make cars, it’s electrifying its motorcycle lineup as well. It’s got three new models planned to come out around 2024, including one that looks like an electric sports bike. It’s amazing how quickly things change in just a couple of years.
RENAULT HIRES SIRI’S CO-CREATOR
If you ask Siri what her favorite car brand is, she might just say Renault. That’s because it just hired Siri’s co-creator as its new Chief Scientific Officer. Luc Julia will be in charge of R&D-ing artificial intelligence, man-machine interfaces, connectivity and software technology and oversee their integration into Renault’s vehicles.
VOLVO TO INCREASE USE OF REMANUFACTURED PARTS
To help reduce costs and carbon emissions, Volvo is using remanufactured parts in its vehicles. Last year, it remanufactured 40,000 parts, including transmissions and engines. By 2025, it wants to more than double its remanufactured business. And by 2040, it says that every part in its vehicles should be designed, developed and manufactured to be used and re-used by the company or its suppliers. It also wants to create closed material loops for steel and aluminum. And like many automakers it’s looking into second life applications for its EV batteries. By doing this, Volvo expects to save about $120 million annually.
WHY MOST AUTO PLASTICS END UP IN LANDFILLS
When it comes to recycling cars, 100% of the metal is recycled. But did you know that all of the plastic goes into landfills? One of the problems is that there are 200 different types of plastics used in cars and it’s impractical to try and sort them. Debbie Mielewski was our guest on Autoline After Hours yesterday. She’s a Technical Fellow at Ford, an expert in sustainability, and really knows a lot about recycling. Here’s what she had to say about recycling plastics.
“We’re still in that same situation unfortunately because we have over 200 types of plastic on a typical vehicle. And so how do you sort that? We keep changing the materials that we put in. I think the whole end-of-life has to be reinvented. When I visit some recycling facilities they ask me, ‘What would you like taken off?’ and I look at the car and I go, ‘OK, I need a big part. But then those fascias are painted and I don’t know how to recycle the paint.’ And so I think we need to consider wholistically, do we need to paint? Is mold-in-color better for the planet. Can we reuse materials that are black? Can we consolidate? It’s not impossible. It just hasn’t been top of mind. So when the vehicle comes back ten years later we go, ‘Oh, well we could have recycled it if we had taken this into account.’”
So let’s end the show on a light note. Kevin Hisel posts some of the funniest things on Facebook. A lot of them are automotive related and we liked his take on the exhaust tips on this Chevy Silverado. Thanks Kevin, and thanks to all of you for tuning in. Have a great weekend and we’ll see you on Monday.
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Comments (37)
April 23rd, 2021 at 12:11 pm
“But another way is with a tire that cuts rolling resistance through innovative tread patterns, a larger diameter, high inflation pressure, and a relatively narrow tread.”
Sounds like a handling nightmare. So this is what we have to look forward to? It’s a brave new world!
April 23rd, 2021 at 12:14 pm
Sean, Tesla knows when your seat belt is done up or if someone is in the passenger seat and needs an airbag activated. You would hope it is just a software change to detect the driver.
April 23rd, 2021 at 12:15 pm
Sean, If you have more info on this Chinese electric Beetle clone, I’d like to hear about it. VW should be doing this! https://boingboing.net/2021/04/22/this-wild-vw-beetle-knockoff-is-an-ev-called-the-ora-punk-cat.html?utm_content=buffer872d9&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer&fbclid=IwAR2cZURUw_EWw-dXX-hCHZSQv_FMnnzrKhnBGO1Dex1nRpR_sSqbamsSV5U
April 23rd, 2021 at 12:26 pm
@Kevin A – It may know when the seat belt is buckled or if someone is in the passenger seat, but you shouldn’t be able to trick Autopilot into engaging without someone in the seat. Tesla would likely need more than just a software update. In my opinion, it needs a driver monitoring camera. I don’t know if they all do, but I know some have in-car cameras. Not sure if that could be used for driver monitoring, but if it can, Tesla may not need anymore hardware.
April 23rd, 2021 at 12:29 pm
@Kevin A #4 – I had not seen this. It looks awesome. Thanks for passing this along and I’ll see if I can learn anything else about it.
April 23rd, 2021 at 12:36 pm
All of the old auto manufacturers know that when setting up an assembly line the processes need to robust and not rely on the workers to make sure its assembled correctly. Most items are designed so they only can go together only one way to take that burden from the operators and reduce that chance of making a bad part. Maybe because Tesla is a fairly new company they haven’t learned that lesson yet but the same applies to the end customer. The saying “If it can be done wrong it will”, applies to the end customer too. If your customer can climb into the back seat with the auto pilot on they will. Its sad that so many products need to be have a fail safe for the ridiculously dumb people but they are abundant.
April 23rd, 2021 at 12:46 pm
A large portion of recycling is a farce. Many plastics could be recycled but are painted and have processes that prevent them being used again. So when manufacturers tout they reduced weight and used 20% more recyclable components its unlikely that all can truly be recycled.
Many municipalities instituted recycle programs and issued separate trash cans only to have the trash from both cans end up at the same facility. We can do better but it will likely require some changes consumers may not like. Would people be okay with their red or silver car having a black plastic front and rear bumper cover? Even color impregnated plastic once recycled with others would likely end up being a grey or black.
April 23rd, 2021 at 12:52 pm
Love the HMDI shot.
April 23rd, 2021 at 1:02 pm
With a minimal amount of sorting, All of these mixed plastics coming out of the Auto Industry could be recycling into railroad ties under the tracks of High Speed Railroads!
April 23rd, 2021 at 1:10 pm
With the growing virgin rubber shortage, AAH should do a show on what the Automotive Industry is doing to combat the situation.
I do not believe the entire Automotive Industry will ever convert totally to 100% electric. “Infrastructure Money” first has to be invested into the aging power grid here in North America.
Also Governments need to beef up cyber defenses to prevent hacking of the national power grid by foreign governments, foreign and domestic terrorists.
April 23rd, 2021 at 1:11 pm
3 That Beetle looks cool, and it sounds like it is for real, at least for the Chinese domestic market.
Those narrow tires make a lot of sense, for low aero drag, as well as low rolling resistance. Many vehicles have overly wide tires, solely for appearance. A 3450 pound CR-V has 235/60R18 tires. My 1989 minivan of similar weight came with 195 width tires. Even with the 195s, if you put sticky tires the same size on the vehicle, you could probably roll it on flat pavement, just with steering input.
April 23rd, 2021 at 1:19 pm
The Bridgestone EV tires for the Dutch startup happen to be the same size as the rear tires on a BMW i3. The fronts on the i3 are narrower, 155/70R19.
April 23rd, 2021 at 1:24 pm
Lamba2015 #6 – Tesla has the tech for their cars to watch the road, so that they can self drive, yet now needs a camera to watch the driver too! Crazy! The “if it can be done wrong, it will”, is not just with EV’s. While most understand that vehicles with this big horse more should be driven at race tracks and by responsible individuals, how many times has someone ripped through a neighborhood, or a parent given the keys to someone in their teens and they had crash nearly killed or killed someone. I just don’t get buying a vehicle and then wanting the vehicle to drive itself Without paying attention? Wouldn’t a driving service or public transportation be better?! I do understand wanting to move about when your ready and not wanting to wait AND not liking to drive. I also get traffic jams, slow moving traffic, long commutes and the concern of people driving while they are (extremely) tired. Yet, have any of the crashs involving Tesla’s been during any of these conditions? Traffic jams, slow moving traffic or long commutes? I know there was one were it was suggested that the driver was sleep behind the wheel and another that was watching a movie on an electronic device, but it seems that most were not for what autonomous driving was supposedly being developed for, principally. Even when your using cruise control, one might rest your right foot and leg, but your mind, eyes, hands and arms are still driving. Wasn’t the original intent for AD to give relief to, but not take over driving!
April 23rd, 2021 at 2:07 pm
My question why would you want to defeat the safeties on the autopilot ? Unless you have a death wish. If you don’t want to be bothered driving than take some form of public transit or stay the hell home.
April 23rd, 2021 at 2:34 pm
13 I’m sure the ultimate goal of AD is to make taxi/uber/lyft drivers obsolete, and to allow people to sleep during their commutes in their own cars. For now, and for years, and maybe decades to come, AD is just make driving “easier.”
April 23rd, 2021 at 2:39 pm
An easy solution to cut back on plastics used in vehicles is to look back at the past. Back then, there were metal dashboards, vinyl covered door panels, aluminum seat trim,control knobs, ect.. And many today still think those interiors were beautiful.
April 23rd, 2021 at 2:53 pm
16 I always thought the metal dash in the ’50 Plymouth I drove in high school was attractive. I don’t know how they did the “wood grain,” but except for the chrome parts, the whole dash was wood grain paint. The door panels were wool, or some kind of wool-like grey cloth.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/myoldpostcards/6561575605/
April 23rd, 2021 at 2:53 pm
13 wmb It is sad that Tesla will likely need to add some sort of feature like GM supercruise. Insuring the operator is still prepared to take control. AV can be interpreted a lot of different ways and its just unfortunate that Tesla didn’t take proper precautions.
Everyone is aware of the ridiculous amount of warning labels and the extent of what manufacturers need to go through to protect themselves from the idiots of the world. you wouldn’t think companies would have to tell people to not eat Tide pods or to not use the hair dryer in the shower but they do.
This is why I have said here many times that anything but full autonomy is a lawsuit waiting to happen. These driver assist features and limited self driving have the potential to be very dangerous and their numbers are only low because so few are out there being used.
April 23rd, 2021 at 3:01 pm
another great week of autoline,thanks
April 23rd, 2021 at 3:23 pm
17) Kit, When I had the upholstery biz, I hired a guy who did dashes for Chrysler. The dash was first painted in the lighter wood tone. Then, I believe, he added the grain using like a printers ink which he blended to the desired wood. Various brushes and sponges were used for the grain and knot holes. When dry, the wood grain was clear coated.
It looked very real. What a talent!
April 23rd, 2021 at 4:06 pm
20,22 That would have been expensive to do, if they did it that way at the factory. I think only the top trim Plymouth, Special Deluxe, had the wood grain, and others had a solid color. When you see these cars at shows now, they often have body color dashes, but I don’t think they were sold that way new. Well, often is relative. you don’t see many ’49-’52 Plymouths at shows.
April 23rd, 2021 at 4:07 pm
A camera watching the driver’s attention is not a big or expensive deal. Even Subaru offer it on their top Forester model. No autopilot, just a warning to keep attention while driving. I think it’s just about the only way to monitor driver’s attention.
But what do I know? Elon is infinitely richer so he must be right.
April 23rd, 2021 at 4:24 pm
16) That was my first thought. Make exterior parts out of metal and you don’t have to worry about any painted plastic parts. Sustainability is inherent when using metal and metal is infinitely recyclable, biodegradable and always has been. While they are at it, they can return to glass on the headlights so that they don’t yellow in 5 years and reduce vision. Improve safety and sustainability with glass headlights. Would be nice to have colored glass for the tail lights also.
April 23rd, 2021 at 4:24 pm
Probably no cars have seat sensors to check for presence of a driver, like they do for a front passenger for air bags, or do they?
April 23rd, 2021 at 4:25 pm
I’m sure the only reason that new EV company approached Bridgestone was so that they didn’t have to refer to their tires as Lightyear Goodyears.
Have a great weekend everyone!
April 23rd, 2021 at 4:32 pm
I like plastic for lower body parts, because it doesn’t rust if it gets rock dings, etc. Painting it messes up recyclability, though. Molded in color works with only non-metallic colors, and after a few years in the sun, it won’t match the paint on thr rest of the car.
April 23rd, 2021 at 5:00 pm
@15, 18, 22; The thing us, while I’ve never done it, I’ve read how some auto journalists have turned off the ‘electronic nannies’ so that they experience some of the enjoyment of driving a very powerful vehicle. From what I understand, they are very experienced drivers, doing so for a living and even then a few vehicles have taken them by surprise! The thing is,, they are still operating the vehicle. So, to turn the fail safes off, so that you can be in a vehicle and as you watch it drive, as you do nothing??? Not trying to be flip, coy or belittle the loss of life that has resulted in a number of cases, but those behaviors are a recipe for disaster. AD is or will be a tool to use responsibly, just as actually driving a vehicle. The most troubling thing is, it doesn’t matter how responsible anyone traveling in a vehicle is, if that responsible person is not the driver! Yet, today, if your riding in a Tesla and their is no physical driver, the passengers may be just asking for trouble.
April 23rd, 2021 at 5:34 pm
27 A few years ago, a certain Mark Reuss embarrassed himself and GM fairly badly, when he turned off the “electronic nanny” and crashed the Corvette pace car at an Indy car race.
April 24th, 2021 at 3:30 am
23 MERKUR Driver – arrays of (cut crystal?) glass rear lights would look great on upscale cars. They could be used on the interior too.
April 24th, 2021 at 8:47 am
#28 – At the Indy car race at Belle Isle. & Mark Reuss is an experienced (& good from what I’ve read) driver having taken a number of track driving classes.
April 24th, 2021 at 9:24 am
28, 30, I remember that, but at least he had some control and skill, despite the vehicle being too much for him to handle! But for individual, average people to deactivate the electronic nannies on technology that, even when it is on working properly, some have questioned its safety due to infancy of the tech, and give up ALL CONTROL, is a gamble taken by more individuals then I would have imagined. AD is tech that, done right and successful can do a lot to AID driving, but when not successful demonstrates just how dangerous operating a motor vehicle can be! It’s something to to be taken seriously and not taken for granted.
April 24th, 2021 at 8:34 pm
30 Yeah, everything I’ve heard is that he is a very experienced “high performance” driver. The drive modes, and a button on the console control the traction control and stability control in various ways. I don’t know what mode or button position Mark had the car in, but it turned out that maybe he should have practiced more with those settings.
April 26th, 2021 at 8:19 am
30-32 You can get on YouTube and find a plethora of videos of guys with more money than skill crashing their cars. Sadly for them, many are them leaving car shows with a crowd watching them trying to do a burnout and losing control smashing up beautiful builds or high end sports cars. Anyone who has pushed cars hard knows that feeling when you pushed just a little too hard and the back end comes around on ya. If your lucky if no one was watching and even more lucky if you don’t hit anything..
Participating in many SCCA solo events you get to see a lot of spin outs and cones wiped out.
April 26th, 2021 at 10:39 am
So, we know that manufacturers include defeat switches in performance vehicles that allow loss of control and resulting accidents. And, now we have a Tesla vehicle where CR has verified that a user can defeat 3 different safety systems and ignore warnings to get it to drive on autopilot when not in the driver seat. This paradox is interesting, however my question is this. Mercedes has had lane keeping since 2014 that could be defeated with a weight on the steering wheel. Now we have Toyotas, Fords, Nissans, GMs with there own lane keeping systems. Will misuse of those systems garner a similar media response?
April 26th, 2021 at 10:48 am
Also, it seems a bit irresponsible of CR to publish a how to guide to defeat all of those safety features.
April 26th, 2021 at 11:42 am
35 I thought that too, but I suppose anyone who really wants to defeat the interlocks would figure out how.
April 26th, 2021 at 12:34 pm
For the record, the Tesla M3 and MY have an occupant camera in the mirror assembly area. Someone who has a car told me that it is just not currently used.