AD #3310 – It’s Official: The Electric Corvette!; Lithium Shortage Threat To EV Market; Russia Lies About VW

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

IT’S OFFICIAL: THE ELECTRIC CORVETTE!
GM dropped the bombshell this morning we’ve all been waiting for. An all-electric Corvette based on the Ultium platform is on the way. Even more, it looks like it will be the first all-wheel-drive Vette. Mark Reuss, GM’s president posted on LinkedIn that the Ultium Platform’s energy recovery system, a patented onboard system that takes the heat generated by EV batteries and uses it to warm the cabin, creates more efficient charging conditions, increases vehicle acceleration, and boosts range by about 10%. He says it’s a perfect example of how developing a ground-up EV platform like Ultium enables unique features not easily done with a retrofit.

LITHIUM SHORTAGE THREAT TO EV MARKET
As exciting as an electric Corvette is, the auto industry could be teetering on the brink of an EV crisis. There just is not enough lithium to make EV batteries. Prices jumped 280% last year and then doubled again in the first quarter of this year. Just last week Elon Musk and RJ Scaringe from Rivian warned there could be a shortage of lithium. And Bloomberg quotes lithium expert Joe Lowry as saying that demand is outstripping supply. He points out that while you can build a battery plant in two years, it takes up to a decade to bring new lithium mining and production up to speed. He says just look at the shortage of lithium we have right now with only 10% global EV market share. As automakers try to ramp up EV production, the shortage will only get worse. And while it will not get resolved this decade, he says it will start to look better after that. 

 

APRIL SALES SAG
New car and truck sales in the US market in April are way down from a year ago. Wards Intelligence predicts that automakers will sell 1.2 million vehicles, far below the 1.9 million they sold last April. The SAAR will drop to only 14 million units, down from 18.3 million. And Wards says the biggest drops are coming from Honda, Toyota and Nissan and in that order.

U.S. TRUCKING SLOWS DRAMATICALLY
Even worse, the trucking industry in the US is slowing down dramatically. According to transportation data company FreightWaves, demand in trucking dropped sharply since early March and rates in the spot market, which handles on-demand trucking jobs, are also falling. It’s all because people are buying fewer things online. At the same time, fuel prices are surging. A few years ago, it used to cost 25 to 30 cents per mile to run a truck. Now it costs $1 per mile. The Wall Street Journal reports that trucking can be a leading economic indicator, and a fast drop off like this could be a signal that a recession is around the corner.

AUDI FIGURING OUT HOW TO RECYCLE GLASS
Audi says it wants to use secondary materials or recycled or used materials everywhere it can. And that applies to one area of the vehicle you probably don’t normally think of: the glass. On average about 90% of a vehicle’s content can be profitably recycled, except for most of the plastic and the glass. Glass doesn’t get recycled because of tinting, lamination and defrosting wires. Audi wants to change that. It’s launching a pilot project that will test the feasibility of turning damaged glass back into new windows for vehicles. First, select dealers will send in damaged glass from customer vehicles that’s broken up into small pieces to be processed. Then things like glue, plastic layers and heating wire are removed. Audi says it also might recycle the plastic layers in the future. But smashed glass granulate is finally sent to another location where 30- to 50% is used to make a new pane of automotive glass. That results in a 30% reduction in carbon dioxide compared to making new glass. Audi says the project will last for a year and if it’s successful it will start making windows for the A4 e-tron this way.

NISSAN MAKES AV PROGRESS
Nissan is showing off the progress of its autonomous vehicles. It demonstrated its latest AV performing safety maneuvers at a test facility in Japan. The car features radar, cameras and Lidar supplied by Luminar, which Nissan says it uses to create accurate, real-time information about the vehicle’s environment to enhance collision avoidance. But while it’s showing off the safety aspects of its system and doesn’t share what level it’s capable of, with a sensor array as extensive as the one Nissan is using it would suggest to us that it’s looking at a system that’s at least Level 3+, where the vehicle can do most of the driving. And that would make sense based on its timeline. Nissan doesn’t expect to complete development until the middle of the decade.

RUSSIA LIES ABOUT VW PRODUCTION 
Looks like Russia is making up more lies. It put out reports that Volkswagen is trying to get around sanctions so it can continue making cars in Russia. But Volkswagen denies the Russian reports. VW suspended production in Russia and stopped all imports and exports to and from the country in early March in order to comply with sanctions. A Russian media report said VW could resume production this summer and that it is considering importing components to Russia through Turkey and Georgia. A VW spokesperson said the claims are false and that “there are no plans by Volkswagen Group Russia to import parts through other countries.”

NIO BATTERY COSTS
To give you an idea of what batteries cost, at least at retail, we’ve got some handy information from NIO. As you probably know, you can lease batteries for your NIO EV in China. Instead of paying for the cost of the battery up front, you pay a monthly lease fee. And then NIO cuts the price of the car by taking out the cost of the battery. So if you buy a NIO with a 70 kilowatt hour battery, they knock nearly $10,859 off the price. If you get a car with a 100-kilowatt hour battery they knock $19,840 off the price. In other words, on a kilowatt hour basis, you’re paying $155 per kilowatt hour for the smaller battery and $198 for the bigger one. The monthly fee for the 70-kilowatt hour battery is $150 a month and the 100 kwh one costs $230 a month.  

 

CONTROL YOUR HOUSE FROM YOUR BMW
BMW i4 owners with the latest operating system can now control their Bosch Smart Home devices while driving using Apple CarPlay and the Siri voice assistant. So, no buttons to push. Users just have to say “Hey Siri.” This allows them to adjust the lights or temperature at home as well as make sure doors are locked and open or close windows.

FIAT TOPOLINO COULD MAKE COMEBACK AS EV
The original Fiat 500 is also commonly called the Topolino, which translates from Italian to “little mouse.” But that nickname means so much and had such a big impact that it could be making a comeback. And it would all be thanks to the Citroen Ami. Stellantis is trying to maximize the tiny, all-electric platform of the Ami by stretching it across multiple brands. Opel has one, called the Rocks-e. And it looks like Fiat will get one soon, too. The Ami has 75 kilometers or 47 miles of range and because it can be classified as a quadricycle in some markets it can be driven by people as young as 14.

WILL GEAR HEADS REALLY GO ELECTRIC?
Dodge says the next generation of Charger and Challenger will go all electric. Ferrari and Lamborghini are working on their first electric cars. And other performance brands are undoubtedly doing the same. But will hard-core gearheads really go for whisper quiet performance cars? Will they truly give up the exhilaration of the exhaust note? That’s the topic for this week’s Autoline After Hours, coming this Thursday.

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