AD #2539 – Peugeot Shows Off New 208, BMW Makes Vehicle Interaction Easier, Lexus Hits Big Milestone

This is Autoline Daily reporting on the global automotive industry.

BMW AND DAIMLER PARTNER ON MOBILITY
BMW and Daimler are teaming up on mobility services to offer around the world. The two companies are investing one billion euros in a partnership that will create five new joint ventures: for multimodal services, charging, taxi ride hailing, parking and car sharing. Customers will be able to use the services through an app. Over time, the automakers say the hope is to form a single mobility service portfolio with an all-electric, self-driving fleet of vehicles that charge and park autonomously and interconnect with other modes of transport. While mobility services are growing in popularity, it still isn’t known how the market will shake out. So by teaming up like this, BMW and Daimler will be able to share costs while experimenting in new services.

GM TO CONTINUE MAKING IMPALA AND CT6
Workers at GM’s Detroit-Hamtramck plant got a bit of good news. The company announced it will remain open for another seven months. Last November, the automaker announced it planned to idle the plant and four other facilities as part of a restructuring move. The Detroit-Hamtramck plant was scheduled to stop producing vehicles in June but now will continue to build the Chevy Impala and Cadillac CT6 until January 2020. The Chevy Volt and Buick LaCrosse were also built at that plant but production of those models ended on February 15th.

LEXUS HITS BIG MILESTONE
Lexus hit a big milestone. Toyota’s luxury brand just sold its 10 millionth vehicle globally since its debut. About a million and a half of those are hybrid vehicles. The automaker also set a sales record in 2018. Last year the company sold just under 700,000 units globally, an increase of 4.5%.

PEUGEOT SHOWS OFF NEW 208
Peugeot is baring the teeth of the new 208. Check out the fang-like Daytime Running Lights on the B segment car, which is now longer, wider and lower than the outgoing model. And the three vertical lines you see in the headlights are also carried over into the rear taillights. Under the hood will be a range of 3- and 4-cylinder gasoline and diesel engines as well as an all-electric option. A 100-kW electric motor is paired to a 50-kWh battery pack, which helps return up to 340-kilometers or 211-miles of range. And that’s based on the new WLTP fuel economy test. When the new 208 goes on sale later this year it will also feature Peugeot’s latest i-Cockpit infotainment system, including a 3D head-up display and a host of driver assist technologies.

BMW MAKES VEHICLE INTERACTION EASIER
BMW is combining voice command technology with gesture control and gaze recognition to revolutionize how customers can interact with their vehicles. For example, someone could point at a window or swipe past the moon roof and say “open” to open a window. Or point at something inside the vehicle and ask “what’s that?” to get an explanation of a system and/or how it works. But it’s not just limited to in-vehicle. You can also point at buildings, like restaurants and movie theaters to learn more about them or book reservations or buy tickets. The i-NEXT, which is scheduled to come out in 2021, will be the first BMW with some of these features.

HOW TO MAKE AN ELECTRIC HOT ROD
On last week’s Autoline After Hours we were joined by Dave Fulton, an EV Powertrain expert from the supplier BorgWarner. And during the show, he talked about what it would take to engineer an electric hot rod and what would need to happen to make it work.

(The AAH preview is only available in the video version of today’s show.)

To learn more about EV powertrains, you can watch that entire discussion right now on our website, or you can find it on our YouTube channel.

But that’s it for today, thanks for watching and please join us again tomorrow.