AD #3397 – GM Fires Up Ohio Battery Plant; Honda Civic Type R Gets 315 HP; VW’s Blume Goes Full Speed on BEVs

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

VW’S BLUME GOES FULL SPEED ON BEVS
We start our coverage today in Germany. As we’ve reported before, Herbert Diess was fired as Volkswagen’s CEO partly because he warned German unions that 30,000 line workers would lose their jobs as the company moved aggressively into electric cars. After hearing that, the labor representatives on the supervisory board made sure that Diess got the heave-ho. So when Oliver Blume was named to replace him, many worried that he would slow down VW’s transition to EVs. But Blume says that’s not going to happen. He told VW’s top management that they’re going to keep to their aggressive EV strategy and even speed it up where they can. Volkswagen’s goal is to surpass Tesla in global electric vehicle sales by 2025.

CAR SALES STRONG IN CHINA
Now let’s move to China, where the economy is slowing due to the country’s lock-down approach to fighting Covid. But the moment the government lifts any restrictions on people, it seems they rush out to buy new cars. For example, when lock-down restrictions in Shanghai were lifted, car sales shot up 40%. Nationwide in July sales shot up 31% as consumers and commercial customers bought 2.4 million vehicles. Not surprisingly, sales of New Energy Vehicles are leading the charge. The best selling BEVs were Wuling’s Mini EV, VW’s Lavida and BYD’s Song. But LMC Automotive warns that extreme weather and power shortages could hurt car production in the coming months.

GM FIRES UP OHIO BATTERY PLANT
Meanwhile, back in the ‘States, General Motors fired up its factory in Ohio to start making Ultium battery cells. The $2.3 billion plant, which it jointly operates with LG Energy Solution, has the capacity to produce more than 40 gigawatt hours of batteries. GM and LG will open three more battery plants in the U.S., one in Michigan, another in Tennessee and a third in Indiana. Some people have criticized GM for not ramping up its EV business faster, but we always pointed out it needed its battery plants up and running before it could ramp up EV production. GM’s goal is to sell 1 million EVs annually in the US by 2025.

TESLA TO MAKE BATTERIES IN FREMONT
And speaking of batteries, Tesla is going to start making them at its plant in Fremont, California. It needs to get the permits, but it wants to add a new manufacturing line which could cost only $1.5 million. It must be a simple assembly line but obviously Tesla is looking for all the capacity it can get.

USE VW’S APP, GET CHEAPER CHARGING
Volkswagen is making public charging cheaper for its EV customers in Europe. It’s partnering with &Charge, a company that provides charging credits for people who perform certain tasks within its app. For example, users get credits for evaluating a charging station, providing information about a particular charging location or shopping at one of &Charge’s 1,500 online partners. Doing this 5 times would earn a user at least 4 euros in charging credit. And now VW EV owners will be able to redeem those credits for charging vouchers on their own VW-branded charging app.

HONDA CIVIC TYPE R GETS 315 ICE HP
We were able to give you a look at the all-new Honda Civic Type R back in July and now we can give you its exact specs. This is the most-powerful Civic Type R ever with 315 horsepower and 310 lb-ft of torque from its 2.0L turbocharged 4 cylinder engine. That’s 9 more horsepower and 15 more lb-ft of torque than the previous generation. It’s also significantly wider, longer and lower than the outgoing Type R and features an updated suspension and braking system. Look for the hot hatch to go on sale this fall, but no word on pricing yet.

ARIEL SHOWS 1,180 HP ELECTRIC CAR
Speaking of sports cars, Ariel, the company that makes the Atom, the car that nearly melted Jeremy Clarkson’s face off, revealed its first EV. Its name looks like HIPERCAR, which stands for High Performance Carbon Reduction, but we think it’s pronounced ‘hypercar.’ It comes in either two- or 4-wheel drive with in-board electric motors powering each wheel or, in the case of the 2-wheel drive model, the two rear wheels. The motors are fed by an 800 volt, 62 kWh battery pack supplied by Cosworth, which provides 150 miles or 240 kilometers of range on the WLTP cycle. A 35 kW turbine range extender, also supplied by Cosworth, will be available as an option. The 2-wheel drive HIPERCAR will have 590 horsepower, while the 4 motor version will have 1,180 horsepower and will do 0-60 in under 2-seconds with full torque vectoring. The Ariel HIPERCAR will be made in limited numbers and is expected to come out sometime in 2024.

  

BMW TAKES FUEL CELLS IN-HOUSE
There’s a lot of naysayers when it comes to fuel cells but automakers continue to invest in and develop the technology. BMW says it kicked off in-house production of fuel cells in Germany for its iX5 Hydrogen SUV. It’s only in small series production and the models will be used for test and demonstration purposes around the world. The individual fuel cells needed for production are supplied by Toyota. And the giant supplier Bosch announced it will invest more than $200 million to produce fuel cells at its plant in South Carolina. It will begin building the stacks in 2026 which will be used to power commercial trucks.

 

TOYOTA TECH PREDICTS HEART ATTACKS
This is not breaking news, but it’s worth updating. Toyota is working with the University of Michigan to develop the technology that can tell if you’re going to have a heart attack 5 minutes before it actually happens. That would give drivers enough warning to at least pull over to the side of the road and call for help. Right now participants in the research have wearable sensors to collect data, but they’re working on embedding sensors in the vehicle, and even using non-contact sensing.

The Cadillac Escalade is probably the most profitable vehicle that GM makes. Yet, there was a battle royale inside GM to just put it in production. Some execs were dead set against it because they didn’t think that Cadillac should sell a truck. Fortunately for Cadillac it did make it into production. And on today’s Autoline After Hours we’re going to go through what it took to win that fight. John Smith, the former head of Cadillac, and author of the book Fin Tales will be on the show. So will analyst Michelle Krebs from Cox Automotive and veteran automotive writer Matt Delorenzo. So join John and Gary for some good lessons on how to fight your way through the bureaucracy of any large organization.

But that’s a wrap for today’s show. Thanks for joining us.