AD #3303 – Honda & Sony’s EVs Won’t Be Hondas; Mercedes Concept Doubles EV Efficiency; VinFast Reveals U.S. Pricing

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

ELON MUSK MAKES OFFER TO BUY TWITTER
Well it’s official. Elon Musk wants to buy Twitter. And what Elon wants, Elon gets. Tesla’s CEO made an offer of $41 billion in cash to buy the social media giant. Speculation grew that he wanted to take over Twitter after disclosing he bought more than a 9% stake in the company last week and subsequently rejected an offer to join Twitter’s board because it would limit his stake to nearly 15%. Elon wants to take the company private and says it needs to be transformed in order to survive.

HONDA COMPLETELY CHANGING ITS STRUCTURE
Honda is completely changing the way it’s structured. Up to now Honda was organized into business units focused on specific products, like cars, motorcycles, and power products that included lawn mowers and wave runners. Now, Honda is going to organize the company around specific technologies. That includes electrified products and services, batteries, energy, Mobile Power Packs, hydrogen and software/connected technologies. The Mobile Power Pack, by the way, is a portable battery for home use designed to be charged with renewable energy. Honda is changing its corporate structure to quickly spread these technologies across all of its product lines and to get them to the market faster.

HONDA & SONY’S EVs WON’T BE CALLED HONDAS
Speaking of Honda, when it announced its EV onslaught and sales goals that we reported on earlier this week, we were surprised that, even though it mentioned its EV partnership with General Motors several times, it never mentioned Sony. As you may remember, earlier this year Honda announced it was going to form a joint venture with Sony to make electric cars. So we reached out to Honda to get some clarification. Honda told us that its plans with Sony are still in place. And it dropped this little nugget. And I quote: “Importantly, the EV model we are planning to introduce from the JV with Sony will be sold under a different brand name, not Honda.” Close quote. Remember, those EVs with Sony will be made in Honda’s assembly plants, so it’s nothing short of astounding that they will not be sold as Hondas.

 

Be sure to join us for Autoline After Hours later today when GM’s president Mark Reuss will be on the show to talk all about GM’s EV strategy. A ton of you have submitted questions you’d like us to ask him, and while we can’t promise that we can ask all of them, we’ll try to get to the best. So join John and Gary for what promises to be a very insightful show on GM’s plans for an electric future.

CHRYSLER AIRFLOW CONCEPT GETS A NEW LOOK
Chrysler is giving its Airflow concept a new look. It debuted at CES in January wearing this bright white paint job, but it pulled the wraps off this black little number at the New York auto show yesterday. Called the Graphite, it features a deep black paint color with copper accents throughout the car, including on the 22-inch wheels and interior trim. The concept comes with AWD thanks to two 150 kW electric motors, but Chrysler says it’s designed to accommodate larger motors, and a battery developed to provide up to 400 miles of range. It will also be fully connected and have Level 3 autonomous capability, which can be upgraded over time with OTAs. This concept hints strongly at a production model that’s scheduled to launch by 2025.

GENESIS CONCEPT REVEALS FUTURE OF ITS EVs
Speaking of BEV concepts, check out this cool one from Genesis, called the X Speedium Coupe. It’s a look that’s been done in the past, but the fact that it’s a two-door with a long rear end and a roof line that slopes all the way to the back of the trunk, it really grabs your eye. You’ll notice a tie in to its other cars with two thin, separated bars that are picked up on the front and rear lighting, but it also uses lighting to help form its signature grille. I’m not a big fan of the execution on the Genesis here, but I think it’s a trend we’ll see more of as we transition to electric since EVs don’t need big grilles. Genesis says the X Speedium Coupe looks ahead to the next wave of EVs, so we’re likely to see some elements from it show up in future vehicles.

MERCEDES CONCEPT DOUBLES EV EFFICIENCY
Mercedes is showing off its EV efficiency in the new EQXX concept. It just traveled 1,000 kilometers or 621 miles on a single charge on public roads in Europe. And the battery’s state of charge was still at 15% at the end of the journey, which means it still had 140 kilometers or 87 miles of range left over. Its average consumption was 8.7 kWh per 100 kilometers or 7.1 kWh per 62 miles, which is more than double the best EVs on the road today. While this is impressive, we have to point out these aren’t WLTP or EPA numbers, it’s easy to hypermile out on the road, not on those tests.

HYUNDAI & KIA UPDATE THEIR LARGE SUVs
Hyundai and Kia are giving their biggest SUVs styling refreshes. As for the Hyundai Palisade, it gets a new front fascia with restyled lighting and grille area. Changes to the rear are a little more subtle, but you’ll notice some differences to the lower fascia. As for the interior, it features a new instrument panel, gauge cluster and interface design. The Kia Telluride also gets a new front end with a new grille, bumper, fog lamps and headlamp design. The rear features a new fascia, trim and taillamps as well. The big change to the interior is that the instrument and infotainment screens have combined into one unit, which also led to some changes to the air vents. Last but not least, Kia will offer a new X-Line trim for the Telluride that adds a little off-road flair.

 

NEW PROCESS TO MAKE NEW TIRES FROM OLD TIRES
Here’s a staggering statistic. Every year 1 billion tires reach their end of life. A lot of them get burned for fuel in cement factories. The rest pretty much end up in landfills. So Bridgestone Americas is partnering with a startup called LanzaTech to recycle them. LanzaTech developed a carbon capture and gas fermentation process that can turn tires into the chemicals needed to make ethanol, polyethylene, polyester yarn, and materials used in products like laundry detergent. LanzaTech already uses municipal waste carbon to make fuels, fabrics and packaging. It’s goal is to create a completely circular economy for carbon. And in this case, the goal is to use tires to make tires. Bridgestone’s goal is to make tires 100% recyclable by 2050. LanzaTech was founded in New Zealand, but is now headquartered in Illinois, and is about to do a SPAC.

NEW BILL WOULD REQUIRE GOVERNMENT EV RECYCLING
Speaking of recycling, a bipartisan bill introduced in the U.S. Senate would require the government to recycle the batteries used in government EVs. Automakers and automotive associations like MEMA, said they strongly support the legislation. The bill would require federal agencies to see that the batteries from EVs are reused or recycled. It says 95% of the materials in batteries can be recycled and that this would reduce the US’s dependence on foreign sources. In a time of hyper political partisanship it’s amazing to see that the bill is being introduced by three Republicans and a Democrat. Republican senators Mitt Romney, from Utah, Richard Burr from North Carolina, Bill Hagerty from Tennessee, and Democrat Gary Peters from Michigan are the authors of the bill.

VINFAST REVEALS U.S. PRICING
Vietnam’s VinFast announced pricing in the U.S. for its VF8 and VF9 electric vehicles. There’s two versions of each vehicle and the high-mileage VF8 with 292 miles of range starts at $47,700 and the high-mileage VF9 with 360 miles of range starts at $60,500. But the most interesting aspect is VinFast is offering battery subscriptions, on top of the purchase price, for the models in two different packages. The first is for customers who don’t drive much, it costs $35 a month for the VF8 and $44 for the VF9, which covers 310 miles of travel. After that, drivers are charged 11 cents per mile for the VF8 and 15 cents for the VF9. The other package, which allows unlimited range, costs $110 a month for the VF8 and $160 for the VF9. But the offer to subscribe 100% of the battery is only good until the end of 2023. After that, VinFast will offer to rent 50% of the battery and sell the other half when purchasing a vehicle. The first models go on sale in the second half of this year.

But that’s it for today’s show. Thanks for making Autoline a part of your day.