AD #3447 – Audi Wants Your Cell Phone Batteries; Huawei EV Peels Open Like a Can of Sardines; Mercedes Smashes Nurburgring Record
November 11th, 2022 at 11:51am
Listen to “AD #3447 – Audi Wants Your Cell Phone Batteries; Huawei EV Peels Open Like a Can of Sardines; Mercedes Smashes Nurburgring Record” on Spreaker.
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Runtime: 9:45
0:08 China Car Exports Booming
0:52 Geely Is Building an ICE Empire
2:02 Euro 7 Tightens Up Emissions Regulations
3:37 GM Super Cruise Doubles Its Mileage
4:14 Mercedes Supercar Smashes Nurburgring Track Record
5:07 Volvo Targets 70% Sales Growth
6:24 Audi Wants Your Cell Phone Batteries
7:06 Huawei EV Peels Open Like a Can of Sardines
8:04 VTOLs To Fly At 2024 Paris Olympics
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This is Autoline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry.
CHINA CAR EXPORTS BOOMING
China’s auto industry has pretty much shaken off Covid lockdowns and chip shortages. Sales and production are nearly back to pre-pandemic levels. Automakers are on track to make about 27 million vehicles this year. Even more impressive, exports are booming. Last month 337,000 vehicles were shipped to other countries, which is an all-time high and is 46% higher than a year ago. Even more impressive, nearly one third of those exports were New Energy Vehicles, meaning plug-in hybrids, battery electrics or fuel cells. Chinese automakers, and there are so many of them, are starting to saturate their home market, so they need to export to grow their sales and profits.
GEELY IS BUILDING AN ICE EMPIRE
Chinese automaker Geely seems to have a plan to dominate production of internal combustion engines. It formed a company called Aurobay that is going to make engines for all of Geely’s brands. Volvo cars, which is part of Geely, already dumped all its ICE operations into Aurobay, and now Renault is going to do the same thing. Renault’s CEO Luca de Meo is chopping the automaker into 5 different business units, and the one that makes piston engines, called Horse, is going to merge with Aurobay. This is a smart strategy and was the main topic on Autoline After Hours yesterday so check that out if you’d like to learn more. As BEV sales go up and ICE sales go down, at some point automakers are going to lose economies of scale in making internal combustion engines. By merging these ICE operations into Aurobay, Geely is going to grow its manufacturing volume with engines and transmissions. And while that business will have to ride into the sunset some day, for now it’s going to have a competitive advantage. We’ve got a link in today’s transcript and description box to that After Hours episode.
EURO 7 TIGHTENS UP EMISSIONS REGULATIONS
Last month, the European Union reached a deal to ban the sale of new ICE vehicles by 2035. And now the EU has issued a proposal for stricter emission rules automakers must follow in the meantime. The new Euro 7 standards would apply to all new passenger vehicles, vans, trucks and buses sold in the EU. And in addition to tailpipe emissions, the new rules also regulate brake and tire particulate emissions. The EU says by 2035, the Euro 7 rules will lower total NOx emissions from cars and vans by 35% and by 56% for trucks and buses compared to Euro 6 standards. The EU wants to implement the new regulations in 2025 for cars and vans and 2027 for trucks and buses. It wants stricter regulations because many of the new ICE vehicles sold before the 2035 ban will still be on roads well after that.
GM SUPERCRUISE DOUBLES ITS MILEAGE
GM SuperCruise is doubling the miles of roads that it can handle in the U.S. and Canada. It’s going from 200,000 miles to 400,000, and the first vehicles with the expanded capability will start reaching customers in the middle of this month. Those vehicles include the higher trim levels of GM’s large SUVs; the Chevy Tahoe and Suburban, Cadillac Escalade and GMC Yukon. Vehicles with GM’s VIP electrical architecture, which allows for over-the-air updates, will get access to the expanded road network in “the coming months” at no additional charge to the customer.
MERCEDES SUPERCAR SMASHES NURBURGRING TRACK RECORD
Mercedes’ wicked AMG ONE supercar, which is basically an F1 car wrapped in body panels, set a new lap record on the Nürburgring-Nordschleife for a road-legal production car. Driver Maro Engel lapped the historic track in just over 6 minutes and 35 seconds. Amazingly that’s a full 8 seconds faster than the previous record. And perhaps more impressive is the record lap was done under less than ideal track conditions. It was still damp and dirty in some sections, so they could go back and do better. But as we alluded to at the beginning of this story, this is no ordinary car. It produces over 1,000 horsepower from its combustion engine and four electric motors, only 275 will be made and each one costs $2.7 million.
VOLVO TARGETS 70% SALES GROWTH
Volvo is doubling down on its ambitious goals for the middle of the decade. By the end of 2025 it wants to sell 1.2 million vehicles globally. That would be a big increase from the nearly 700,000 it sold last year. It says it wants half of those vehicles to be fully electric and sell half of all vehicles through online channels. That will help the company realize an annual EBIT profit of 8-10%, which we don’t think is all that great for a premium vehicle maker. But all those EVs will help it reach its climate goals. It’s on track to lower CO2 life cycle emissions per vehicle by 40% compared to 2018 levels.
AUDI WANTS YOUR CELL PHONE BATTERIES
If you’re looking to recycle any electronic device with a lithium-ion battery, like an old cell phone, you can now take it to an Audi dealer. The automaker has partnered with EV battery recycler Redwood Materials to launch a battery recycling program at select Audi dealers across the U.S. People can bring their old batteries and devices to dealers, which will be recycled by Redwood to use in EV batteries. Less than 5% of devices with lithium-ion batteries get recycled today and with demand for those batteries expected to grow by 500% in the next decade, it’s important to tap any source for those materials to meet that demand.
HUAWEI EV PEELS OPEN LIKE A CAN OF SARDINES
Huawei is that controversial Chinese electronics company that U.S. intelligence agencies have accused of being funded by China’s spy agencies and the Chinese army. Huawei makes 5G communications technology, but it’s also dabbling in electric cars. And while the company makes top notch communications equipment, it looks like it’s back to the drawing board when it comes to cars. China’s Insurance Research Institute just crashed a Huawei crossover, the Aito M7 EREV, and while it did well in most of the barrier tests, the 40 mile an hour, small-offset crash test peeled the car open like a can of sardines. It tore off the left front wheel and fender, bent the A-pillar, buckled the roof and made it impossible to open the driver’s door. These kinds of results were not uncommon 15 years ago, but the rest of China’s automakers have figured out how to pass these crash tests.
VTOLS TO FLY AT 2024 PARIS OLYMPICS
Passenger drones or what are known formally as vertical takeoff and landing aircraft or VTOLs, could soon be transporting people. Aeroports de Paris, which operates the city’s major airports and Skyports and is a UK based company, have just opened a hub at a Paris airfield to test VTOLs. The goal is to start flights in time for the 2024 summer Olympics in Paris. The site features takeoff and landing areas, a passenger terminal, a maintenance hangar and control areas. As part of the launch, VTOL company Volocopter demonstrated a flight that was integrated into conventional air traffic. As part of the project five more vertiports, which are what the VTOL bases are called, will be opened in the Paris region.
That brings us to the end of this week’s worth of reports. And before we go, let’s remember this Veterans Day, which as you know marks the end of World War I, which ended in 1918 on the 11th hour, of the 11th day, on the 11th month of the year.
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Comments (18)
November 11th, 2022 at 12:29 pm
Nice to see the increase in roads for supercruise, almost makes it worth while.
November 11th, 2022 at 12:48 pm
With that profitability range, Volvo needs to pay Sandy Munro a visit
November 11th, 2022 at 1:23 pm
#2. You’re right. GM’s 10% EBIT is better than Volvo’s 8-10%, and GM has to include all those Wuling Mini EVs with paper thin margins.
November 11th, 2022 at 1:47 pm
Here in NJ Plastic bag recycling Bins are gone from stores since the new ban on stores suppling then at check out. Home depot and Lowes removed the Battery recycling bins at the same time.
I never Woke since I never slept. Trying to help recycle with paper, cans, bottles etc. but it gets more difficult every day. Don’t know where the nearest AUDI dealer is located. Went down the rabbit hole trying to find Redwood recycling near me. Woe is me.
November 11th, 2022 at 2:13 pm
First of all: Thanks, Autoline TV for the outstanding coverage of cutting-edge topics this week. I enjoy every show. Top-notch!
@1 I test-drove Supercruise a few years back on a Cadillac CT6 (I believe, if not CT6 then it was a CT5) (so the current system is probably much better than I drove) and was very impressed by it. We drove it on a curvy freeway in West Virgina with a lot of traffic, and it was flawless.
@Yesterday’s episode (I could only watch it this morning). RIVIAN: I test drove it for 90 minutes a few months ago. I am not capable of coming up with arguments why anybody should buy the RIVIAN pick-up truck. It is much more expensive than a Ford F150 Lightning and not better and has no dealership network to support maintenance and repair. I drove the Ford F150 Lightning and could come up with many arguments why somebody should buy that vehicle. That is an amazing product.
November 11th, 2022 at 2:36 pm
2,3 – Perhaps Volvo is being conservative, and including the cost of carrying inventory that will go along with all those new online sales. That is something GM and other OEMs with dealer networks do not have to worry about.
November 11th, 2022 at 2:41 pm
5 I haven’t even seen a Rivian or Lightning yet.
November 11th, 2022 at 2:57 pm
@7 we occasionally see a RIVIAN in the Detroit Metro Area.
I drove the Lightning at a conference recently. I would not know how to discern it from an ICE F150. The Lightning is a very impressive product with a great price point IMHO.
November 11th, 2022 at 4:14 pm
8 I might have seen Lightnings without knowing, unless I saw the front from fairly close.
November 11th, 2022 at 6:08 pm
Something I meant to mention on the story of the new Volvo EX90. While the the EX has a frunk, like Rivian, Volvo missed the opportunity to keep the lift over height lower, as the Model X, Lightning and Silverado and a few otherBEVs.
Huawei peeling open so easily show yet again, how difficult it is to build a save vehicle, let alone a “good” vehicle that stands out from the rest! As customers, there are a lot of things that we take for granted. I know someone who works in quality control, at a plant that makes the adjustable metal pipes that connect stoves to gas lines in a house. Her work is exacting, for if just one little thing is off, it come mean a house fire and the loose of life! With cars having both hare and software, main systems and sub systems, if a manufacturer cuts corners in just one area that, to them seems small, it could have disastrous consequences. That the challenge with BEV upstarts, for if one of them cuts a corner, it can have a ripple effect on their products as well as cause potential buyers to question the safety of others. I know there is a rush to get the newest tech and the newest startup brands on the road and into the hands of customers. Yet, can you imagine if that Huawei was the latest 2.5 second to 60, 500hp, 300 mile, $100K darling, that folks were putting $5K deposits on, but the crash test saw the cabin ‘peel open like a can of sardines’!
November 11th, 2022 at 6:38 pm
10 I find it interesting how some people like low lift over height, and some like high lift over. I know model airplane flyers who have bought Promasters for low, and Transits for high, both for the same purpose of carrying large r/c airplanes. I suspect those who step inside the van like low.
November 12th, 2022 at 10:12 am
#11.) I guest I’m just traumatized by the way the Big/Detroit Three we’re beat on in the ‘80 and ‘90s, for being inferior to import automakers for things engine quality, interior appointments and the materials they used, as well as the high lift over in the trunks, compared to oversea competition! As hard to hear it was, these comparisons were all true and the Detroit Three HAD to adjust, bottom line! So that that’s why when I see and read who luxury automakers are using interior materials that are in many respects, the same interior materials the Big Three used and are applauded for it, it just stinks! ‘It’s not just plastic, it’s recycled plastics’ ! But it’s plastic nonetheless, in an $70K vehicle! If this same material was found in a Cadillac, Lincoln or Chrysler in the ‘00 or 2010’s, it would have been yet another nail in the coffin of those brands! The same is true with the hit lift over. With vehicles receiving ‘points’ for how easy it is to use and store things in vehicles, to miss an opportunity to make the frunk of the R1T, R1S and now the EX90, easier to load, by having a lower lift over in the frunk, IMHO, is a big miss! They had a clean sheet of paper in designing the vehicle (as clean a sheet of paper, for a platform that will provide the bases for a number of different brands and models), so certainly this could’ve been addressed in the planning stages?! Yet, this will not keep anyone from purchasing any of this vehicles, for it is just added space most did not have before in the ICE vehicles. Tesla was the first to demonstrate that this could be a usable space, since there was no engine. Whether it will be used for storage and how easy it is to store things there, I am sure, will not keep them from sell one vehicle!
November 12th, 2022 at 11:48 am
A few days ago, I had a situation where it would have been good to have a small amount of “lift over” between the floor and rear bumper of my Highlander. The floor slopes down a little toward the rear, and is flat to the bumper. I had a bottle of wine start to roll out when I opened the liftgate. I was lucky to catch it before it landed on the pavement. My old van has a plastic piece about an inch tall at the rear of the cargo area, preventing such things from happening. I don’t know if the Highlander is typical of crossovers, in having the rear floor so things can roll out when you open the liftgate.
November 12th, 2022 at 12:49 pm
12 Good Point! They should make these EV frunks lift up with the grille in place like the old Dodge trucks did. Open the front so things can be put in without having to lift it over anything.
To your point about the big domestics getting hammered by the imports in the 80s-90s I really never found it to be about the interiors or trim. The land barges of the 80s-90s where actually really nice like almost a lazy-boy compared to the imports. But that was the problem. The big three here were still stuck making huge unreliable vehicles that got 12 MPG while the imports got 25-30 and were reliable. I remember when my dad got rid of the 76 Impala station wagon woody with doors that were 8 inches thick, and he bought a 1979 Datsun and my dad had to constantly remind us kids to not slam the doors that were maybe 3 inches thick and probably 1/4 the weight. The seats were not as nice, and everything was cheap plastic and light. So, I just don’t really remember the interior being an upgrade. Yes, engine reliability, cost and MPG absolutely.
November 12th, 2022 at 1:45 pm
14 I suspect it is much easier to make vehicles crashworthy if the whole front of the vehicle does not hinge up for a frunk. There would be some serious structure in front of the frunk in a C8 or Cayman, and needs to be for an EV, at least if the frunk is deep.
The problem with the 80s “big three” cars intended to compete with the Japanese cars, is that they weren’t any good. I had a Citation that I still feel guilty about selling to a friend. It was mostly ok for the ~20K miles I had it, but it was mostly downhill after that. I had an ’86 Celebrity wagon with the “iron duke” 2.5, GM’s “good” four cylinder, and the head cracked at about 60K miles. Both it, and the similar engine in my Citation used more oil than they should have from when they were new. My 1989 Dodge Caravan was probably better than the direct competition of the time, but there wasn’t much serious competition yet. Sienna and Odyssey didn’t come along until later.
The somewhat downsized big GM cars introduced in 1977 weren’t bad, for the time, as long as you didn’t get a diesel.
November 12th, 2022 at 2:32 pm
Well, the frunk lid can go down to the top of the bumper, but that looks a lot different in a Lightning, and a Cayman/Boxster.
November 14th, 2022 at 7:19 am
15 Funny the cars you mention. My brothers and I shared a Chevy Citation in High school which was an okay car other than being about as generic design as you could get. I dont even remember what happened to it other than we didnt have it for more than maybe a year. My older brother did own a Olds Delta 88 with the diesel and actually didnt have any problems with it and got great mileage for the size car it was. Plus, that was back when Diesel was cheaper than gas. I also owned a 1989 Grand Caravan. Which I ran the wheels off that. finally got rid of it when it had over 200k miles and the transmission started slipping.
November 14th, 2022 at 10:07 am
17 Back when the GM employee discount was actually worth something, a co-worker bought and sold a car every ~6 months. He was generally good at picking ones that would have good resale when almost new. He got an early Caprice diesel wagon, and sold it before the word was out on them, and he came out very well.
Another friend didn’t come out so well. He bought a GM diesel, and Olds as I remember, and the crankshaft broke shortly after it went off warranty. I think he got some compensation with the repair, but he didn’t save nearly enough on fuel to make up for the blown engine.