AD #2805 – FCA Cuts Employee Pay; GM Tells Suppliers to Delay Refreshes; Hyundai Accent Impressions

This is Autoline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry.

FCA CUTS EMPLOYEE PAY
First it was Ford, then GM and now FCA is making pay cuts. CEO Mike Manley will have his pay cut 50% for three months starting tomorrow. The board of directors won’t get paid the remainder of their 2020 salaries and most salaried employees will be asked to take a temporary 20% pay cut. As I said when GM and Ford started this last week, automakers are in a rush to cut costs and pile up cash, but they’re still worried about running out of cash, even though they have tens of billions of dollars in the bank. It tells me they expect that the economic downturn caused by the virus will last a long time.

PARIS AUTO SHOW MOSTLY CANCELLED
And speaking of cuts, another auto show bites the dust. This time it’s the Paris auto show, which was scheduled to take place at the beginning of October. The main portion of the show has been cancelled, but organizers of some of the other events are trying to come up with ways to keep them going.

TOYOTA PROVIDES SHUTTLES FOR HOSPITALS IN THAILAND
Over in Thailand, Toyota is providing 10 shuttles for hospitals treating virus patients. The shuttles are free for doctors, nurses and other staff to use. The shuttles are connected, which will allow commuters to book seats and choose pick-up and drop off locations. And to ensure the shuttles are clean, they’ll be sanitized and they’ll also have air purification devices as well as seat covers that can be changed.

JLR DEPLOYS VEHICLES FOR EMERGENCY RESPONSE
And in a similar move, Jaguar Land Rover has deployed more than 160 vehicles globally to emergency response organizations. It gave nearly 60 vehicles from its press fleet to the British Red Cross to deliver food and medicine. It’s also lending its development and manufacturing knowhow to the UK government to help build medical equipment.

FORD KEEPS DEVELOPMENT OF THE MACH-E GOING AMID SHUTDOWN
Despite the shutdown there’s still work to do. And the Detroit News reports on how Ford is keeping the Mustang Mach-E program moving forward. The automaker is in its final stages of development on the EV and it plans to meet its fall launch deadline. But with development members no longer working alongside one another, they’ve had to find a way to make things work. There’s lots of video chats and emails, but some workers got to take prototypes home. While it’s hard to test something like the suspension, the developers are able to test the vehicle’s electronic architecture and software. That means they’re able to jump in the vehicle, flash a new calibration into the computer, drive around the block and see how systems reacted. They can then send that data to other team members. They also send lots of pictures and videos. A lot of the work the developers are doing now is going towards the base model’s final evaluations.

FORD NOT SURE WHEN IT WILL NOT RE-OPEN N.A. PLANTS
Ford had planned to re-open its North American plants in mid-April, but those plans have gone out the window. Those plants will not reopen now and Ford is not setting any date for when they will.

FORD CHARGES AHEAD WITH VENTILATOR PRODUCTION
Ford is also charging ahead to make ventilators together with GE. Ford says it will manufacture 50,000 ventilators in the next 100 days at its Rawsonville plant in Michigan with 500 paid UAW workers who are volunteering to make them. At full production they will make 7,200 a week. As you can see, the ramp up in production is impressive. And it underlines the critically important role that the automotive industry is playing in this crisis.

GM TELLS SUPPLIERS TO STOP WORK, BUT DON’T THROW THINGS OUT
Meanwhile GM told its suppliers that it is delaying all mid-cycle refreshes for trucks, SUVs and even the Corvette. Specifically, GM is telling it’s suppliers to:

1. Please STOP WORK on all pre-production tooling and pre-production part manufacturing
2. Please DO NOT SCRAP TOOLING: do not scrap pre-production tooling nor production tooling
3. Please DO NOT SCRAP MATERIAL for pre-production nor production components previously ordered
4. Expect to see updated pre-production purchase orders for these programs cancelling outstanding order requirements

This what we’ve learned about GM’s plans. No doubt every other automaker is doing the same thing. And no doubt the Tier 1’s are telling this to the Tier 2’s and so on down the line.

MAGNA EXPLAINS ITS ADVANCED LIGHTING DRIVING BEAM TECHNOLOGY
When it comes to advanced headlight technology, the U.S. is behind what’s allowed in Europe and China. One of those system’s is Magna’s Advanced Driving Beam technology, which is a glare-free high-beam. On Autoline After Hours, Cole Cunnien, the Global Director of Lighting at Magna Lighting explained how the technology works.

Cole Cunnien, Global Director of Lighting, Magna Lighting
“So in this demo we’re looking at a matrix array of LEDs, that are represented by the green, yellow and red, along the bottom. And the camera capturing the scenery on the top. So, green means the lamp is on, red means the LED is off and yellow is kind of a combination in between. So at most speeds they’re all off, your high beams are off. But as your speed increases, boom they come on automatically. The camera detects there’s nothing you’re going to glare, ‘oh wait, there’s a car ahead,’ so now selectively the LEDs are turned off and ramped down in a non-distracting manner. So, as to not provide any glare to the oncoming traffic. The idea here is to put as much lighting as you can in front of the driver, to allow that driver to see unforeseen obstacles, roadside hazards, pedestrians for example. Now one of the concerns that NHTSA, the regulatory bodies have is uncontrolled glare. And that’s a valid concern, we don’t want to cause anybody undue glare. But I would counter the argument that glare is not a safety concern, more of a comfort concern. We don’t have any statistical data on glare caused accidents. There’s no question that glare is discomfort. I hear a lot of people, friends in the public, the first thing they say is ‘oh, you’re one of those lighting guys. Well you tell those people to turn your LED headlights down. They’re just too dang bright!’ I say just don’t look at them and wait a little bit, it will pass.”

You can watch that show right now on our website or on our YouTube channel.

We’ve got a fascinating Autoline After Hours coming up Thursday with a guy who goes by the handle Montana Skeptic. We got howls of protest from all the Tesla fans who can’t stand anyone who criticizes Tesla. And there’s no doubt that Montana is very skeptical about Tesla. Some of you said we should be getting an analyst who is very pro Tesla, which is a good suggestion. We can do that, and we will. Our mission is to bring you all points of view on any automotive topic. And with that in mind, we hope you join Gary and me and David Welch from Bloomberg for some of the best insights into the automotive industry this Thursday at 3pm eastern time.

BYD DEVELOPING NEW BATTERY
Chinese automaker BYD is developing an interesting new battery, called Blade Battery. It’s a lithium iron phosphate pack that is said to have 50% more energy density than a conventional battery. And because it’s chemical structure is very stable it helps prevent thermal runaway. Blade Battery is also part of the crash structure of the vehicle. Not only is the pack fixed to the frame, each battery cell acts as its own support beam and aluminum honeycomb panels are bolted to the top and bottom of the pack. BYD says it has heated the battery to 572-degrees fahrenheit, shot a nail into it, overcharged it, crushed and bent it, without any fires or explosions. Blad Battery will first be used in the Han EV, which launches this June with a 375 mile range and 3.9 second 0 to 60 time.

HYUNDAI ACCENT IMPRESSIONS
This week I’ve had the chance to test drive the Hyundai Accent, though thanks to everything being shut down due to the coronavirus, I have to admit I did not put on as many miles as I normally would. The model I drove was the Accent Limited, which costs just over $20,000, making it one of the least expensive cars in the U.S. market. And yet, it comes well equipped, with features like Sirius XM radio with a 90 day trial, dual USB charging ports, an aux jack, automatic dimming headlamps, heated front seats, well, you get the picture. This is not some stripped down econobox. And that got me thinking. What is the main difference between a car like this and one that costs $40,000 more? There are a number of differences by the main one is road noise and wind noise in the passenger cabin. The Accent is not bad, but there is noticeable body boom. And if someone figures out how to make cheap cars as quiet as expensive ones, they’re going to get two tickets to paradise.

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