Runtime: 7:36
0:29 Continental Considers Major Overhaul
1:12 Alabama Wins Toyota-Mazda Plant
1:57 Toyota Adds Amazon Alexa
2:33 Ford’s Autonomous & Mobility Strategy
4:00 Wild Electric Scooter
5:37 Will Car Sales Improve In 2018?
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On today’s show…Continental is considering a major overhaul of its business…Ford outlines its autonomous and mobility strategy…and after a small drop, will U.S. car sales improve this year? All that and more coming right up on Autoline Daily.
This is Autoline Daily the show for enthusiasts of the automotive industry.
CONTINENTAL CONSIDERS MAJOR OVERHAUL
Over the past year, we’ve seen suppliers like Delphi and Autoliv, separate their EV and autonomous business from their more conventional parts business, to try and unlock shareholder value. And now the giant German supplier Continental is looking to do the same. Bloomberg reports the company is in the early stages of studying a reorganization or a possible breakup of its businesses. One scenario being considered is creating a holding company for its divisions and then selling shares of its profitable units. Nothing is official yet but with investors approving of Delphi’s and Autoliv’s spin-offs, it won’t be surprising to see Continental do the same.
ALABAMA WINS AGAIN
Last summer, Toyota and Mazda announced plans to build a $1.6 billion assembly plant in the U.S. that will produce 300,000 vehicles a year. And now we know where it will be located. Reuters reports that the new facility will be in Huntsville, Alabama, where Toyota already has an engine plant. It’s not known how much in incentives Alabama ponied up but it was earlier reported that the automakers were seeking $1 billion in incentives for the factory. And as we said at the time of that report, with car sales slowing down, the only way a new plant makes financial sense for the companies is to get someone else to pay for it. The new assembly plant should be up and running around 2021.
TOYOTA ADDS AMAZON ALEXA
And in other Toyota news, the company announced it will make Amazon Alexa available in select Toyota and Lexus models for U.S. customers starting this year, with more vehicles to follow next year.
Still to come…a look at more new technology from CES.
FORD’S AUTONOMOUS & MOBILITY STRATEGY
Ford’s motto at CES this year is “Taking Back the Streets” and it’s providing some outlook on how it plans to do that. Starting this year, Ford will expand development and testing of its autonomous technology and do more research into the customer experience. Ford will use the knowledge gained to help it design an all-new, purpose-built self-driving vehicle. As part of its expansion, the automaker will team with new companies, like Postmates to test different business models. Postmates is a company that offers on-demand delivery of anything from anywhere right to you and now Ford will add autonomous cars to its delivery fleet. Through a series of pilot programs the two will study what the experience needs to be like at the point of delivery for both the merchant and the customer. But Ford is also thinking of the big picture. It’s developing an open, cloud-based platform, called the Transportation Mobility Cloud that will help synchronize all the different kinds of mobility services. But this will require the entire transportation ecosystem to be able to communicate with each other. And that’s why Ford is teaming with Qualcomm to develop cellular vehicle-to-everything or C-V2X. This would allow cities to share fast, safe, and secure communications and help everything from unclogging streets, to opening up curb space.
WILD ELECTRIC SCOOTER
Speaking of mobility solutions, check out the eye-catching design of this new electric scooter from a company called Ujet. The foldable 2-wheeler features an asymmetrical frame, orbital wheels, a pop-up display screen and the removable battery pack/seat even has built-in wireless speakers. Two battery sizes are available. The smaller provides 43-miles of range and the larger tops out at 93-miles. A smartphone app allows users to connect to the Ujet, which gives the ability to remotely unlock or shut down the scooter, check battery life and provides guides if the parking spot is forgotten. Ujet will hit Europe first, followed by the U.S. and Asia in the second half of 2018 and will cost $9,000 for the small battery pack and $10,000 for the larger.
And for more from CES, be sure to check out our coverage of the show. John is talking to suppliers and automakers about their latest developments in technology. Look for those interviews on our website, Autoline.tv.
Car sales in the American market slowed down in 2017. Will the trend continue this year? We’ll take a look into that, right after this.
WILL CAR SALES IMPROVE IN 2018?
As we reported last week, car sales dipped slightly in 2017 compared to the year before. So is this a trend that will continue into 2018? On the most recent Autoline This Week, the chief economists from Ford and the Original Equipment Suppliers Association, share their sales forecast for the year.
(The ATW preview is only available in the video version of today’s show.)
You can watch that entire discussion right now on our website, Autoline.tv or you can find it on our YouTube channel.
But that’s it for today, thanks for watching and making Autoline Daily a part of your day.
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John McElroy is an influential thought leader in the automotive industry. He is a journalist, lecturer, commentator and entrepreneur. He created “Autoline Daily,” the first industry webcast of industry news and analysis.