AD #2655 – Jaguar Going After Tesla Owners, OEMs Won’t Make EV Motors In-House, SEAT Installs Cobots At Factory

This is Autoline Daily reporting on all aspects of the global automotive industry.

OEMs UNLIKELY TO MAKE EV MOTORS IN-HOUSE
Will car companies make their own electric motors for electric cars? Probably not. Powertrain executives tell us their customers cannot tell the difference from one electric motor to another. That means automakers can’t use electric motors to differentiate their brands from the competition. So why make them in-house? Besides, there are a number of Tier 1 suppliers who make electric motors, and they can sell them to all automakers. That means suppliers will have even greater manufacturing scale than any car company and will be able to make those engines at lower cost. We can’t cite our sources for this information because no one will talk about it publicly. They’re afraid of scaring all their employees who currently work on internal combustion engines.

COST OF BATTERY PACKS EXPECTED TO FALL
There are lies, damn lies and then there are claims about prices for EV batteries. The U.S. Department of Energy says the current cost at the pack level is $197-per-kWh, and it expects that to come down to about $125 per kWh in the next few years. Some companies claim they are paying well below that. Of course, you have to make sure they are talking about the full battery pack and not just the cells. But powertrain experts warn us that some suppliers are selling packs close to $100 per kWh and are losing money on them. They’ve signed contracts with automakers who promised them a lot more sales volume in the future if they’re willing to sell below cost today. Automakers are desperate to sell more electric cars and they’re arm twisting suppliers to get the cost down.

We’ve got a great Autoline After Hours coming up later this afternoon. John Waraniak the VP of Vehicle Technology at SEMA we’ll be joining us and we’ll want to ask him what the aftermarket thinks about all these electric and autonomous cars. We’ll also have Henry Payne from the Detroit News talking about whether we’ll ever see a Corvette SUV. So tune in at 3PM eastern time on our website or YouTube channel.

FORD EXTENDS WARRANTY FOR FIESTA AND FOCUS
Ford is extending the warranty on the Fiesta and Focus equipped with automatic transmissions. Moreover, it will reimburse customers who had their transmissions repaired while they were not under warranty. The new warranty is good for 7 years or 100,000 miles and applies to cars built after July 4, 2013. Ford already extended the warranty for cars built before that. The problems involve DCT or dual clutch transmissions. Ford decided to cut cost by going with a dry clutch design instead of a wet clutch and that seems to be at the heart of this issue.

STUDENTS INTERESTED IN WORKING IN AUTO INDUSTRY
Who says young engineers only want to work for Silicon Valley startups? A survey of engineering students found they’re quite interested in getting jobs with traditional OEMs. The survey involved 450 students from 16 universities across the U.S. and Canada and it found 28% of them want to work for a carmaker, 13% want to work at startups, and 3% want to work for a supplier. The students all participate in the EcoCar program sponsored by the Department of Energy, General Motors and Mathworks. GM gave the universities a new Chevrolet Blazer and students had to improve the fuel efficiency, emissions, safety, utility, while maintaining consumer acceptability. And maybe that’s why they’re open to the idea of working for a traditional automaker. GM also gave them seed money, technical mentoring and operational support.

JAGUAR TRYING TO POACH TESLA OWNERS
Engadget reports that Jaguar is going directly after Tesla owners. Jag is offering them $3,000 off the price an I-Pace EV. The offer even applies to people who live in a household that has a Tesla. When you combine that with a $5,000 dealer discount and a $7,000 factory allowance, the discounts come to $15,000. That means Tesla owners can get an I-Pace for just over $54,000, instead of $70,000. You don’t even have to trade in your Tesla to get the discount, Jaguar is desperate to sell I-Paces since they’re moving off dealer lots at a pretty pokey pace.

TESLA EXECUTIVE TURNOVER RATE WORRISOME
It’s no secret that Tesla churns through a lot of executives but an analyst at Bernstein says the turnover rate is far higher than at other Silicon Valley companies. Tesla changes about 27% of its executives annually. They also looked at Elon Musk’s direct reports and found the turnover rate is 44%. That compares to about 9% on average for other tech companies, including Uber, Amazon and Facebook. At the current rate Tesla is going through executives, it will replace all 150 of them in less than four years. HR experts will tell you a high turnover rate is the sign of an unhealthy work environment.

SEAT INSTALLS COBOTS AT FACTORY
A few years back, we showed you how Ford is using collaborative robots or co-bots at a plant in Germany. And now Spanish automaker SEAT is using co-bots at its factory in Martorell. They attach the names of the Ibiza and Arona to the rear hatches of the vehicles as they make their way down the line. They are equipped with artificial vision to help accurately place the correct letters, apply the necessary pressure and adapt to the speed of the line. Co-bots are the next revolution in factory robots because they can work together with humans instead of being separated by safety cages or light curtains.

But that brings us to the end of today’s show, thanks for watching and we’ll see you here again tomorrow.