Car News-Global and Domestic

[bobins]

Is the deployment and usage of EPOS equipment in a slow decline due to the onward march of the closures of 'bricks and mortar' high street shops and the slow demise of the high street bank ?

[NewcastleFalcon]

Elon Musk has been flying a drone over Gigafactory Berlin



REgards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

If you follow Zel's blog you will have seen some of the excellent results of his delve into the world of 3D printing.

Well Porsche have also been having a bit of delve....

ELECTREK:Porsche is 3D printing electric drive housings that are lighter and stronger than conventional ones

In December, Porsche announced that it had been 3D printing prototype housings for electric drives that were stronger, lighter, and much quicker to manufacture. The engine-gearbox units produced using this method were even able to pass all of the company’s quality and stress tests without issue.

Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

I have given GM's Superbowl advert its own billing here,

The USA's most significant Car advert

Significant move for GM, and even if their ambitions expressed in recent press releases have been a bit conservative, the advert is a very powerful statement of intent to be aired at the USA's premier event.

This was one of the more wishy-washy comments from the CEO a week ago

"Writing on LinkedIn, (GM) chief executive Mary Barra said: “It is understood that we will need to reduce the net impact of carbon emissions from all human activities to zero by 2050. “As one of the world’s largest automakers, General Motors seeks to lead our industry and our world toward those goals.” At this stage, the goal is described as an “aspiration”, and does not include medium and heavy trucks.

Yes you aren't quite there yet Mary, with your aspirational target. By then I am guessing the USA medium and heavy trucks business will be dominated by Tesla and Nikola, Arrival, maybe Rivian or any number of new players.....best have a peep at what the competition is doing right now!

Well here's what Rivian are doing now, and pretty quickly, and with a useful partner in Amazon.



Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

With GM making the right noises, what are their traditional rivals Ford doing

Tough talk from the CEO Jim Farley Ford are

“all in and will not cede ground to anyone”

Electrek: Ford doubles electric vehicle investment to $22 billion through 2025

We are accelerating all our plans – breaking constraints, increasing battery capacity, improving costs, and getting more electric vehicles into our product cycle plan. People are responding to what Ford is doing today, not someday. The Mustang Mach-E, he said, is receiving great customer and critical reviews, and will be followed by the first E-Transit commercial van (late 2021) and an all-electric F-150 pickup (mid 2022).

Always like to have a scan of the reaction to the article in the "wisdom of internet" comments section.

This was nice and cynical

"The CEO claimed that Ford is “all in and will not cede ground to anyone” in the electrification race." More accurately: We will attempt not to cede anymore ground than we have already ceded, unless a new administration comes in and we can get back to business as usual.

REgards Neil

[Gibbo2286]

Ford have their fingers in so many pies it's easy to see that they'll do their best to stay near the top.

[NewcastleFalcon]

Citroen hit "the Electric Press" with this little story about the London Congestion Charge. They actually bothered to submit a "Freedom of Information" request to Transport for London about the London Congestion Charge and turned it into a marketing tool.

https://uk-media.citroen.com/en-gb/node ... 45dbbb3881

Citroen finds UK Motorists have been fined up to £130 Million for failing to pay the London Congestion Charge

Fear of loss is one of those planks of selling. Buy a £30,000 Citroen, and forget about those unexpected horrible London Congestion Charge fines landing on your doormat.

Only for the extremely curious this little psychological experiment may be of interest.

Spoiler: show

An Interesting Experiment

There is a now-famous experiment done by two researchers, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, that examines how people make decisions involving risk. The work was done in an area of research known as behavioural finance and the results can be extrapolated to any purchase that involves a risk.

Prior to the experiment, the assumption was that individuals were rational and tended to act in their own economic interest. Tversky and Kahneman found that investors often ignore logic and generally put more emphasis on risk than benefits.

In their experiment they gave a group of subjects the following scenario: Suppose you have been given $1,000 and must choose between a sure gain of another $500 or, alternately, a 50% chance to gain $1,000 and a 50% chance to gain nothing. Another group of subjects were given a different scenario: You are given $2,000 and must choose between a sure loss of $500 or, alternately, a 50% chance to lose $1,000 and a 50% chance to lose nothing.

Interestingly enough, both situations are identical in terms of the net financial benefit to the individuals.

The researchers found that most members of the first group chose the sure gain of $500. A majority of the second group, however, opted for the gamble between a loss of $1,000 and loss of nothing. The phrasing of the question – the fact that one is presented in terms of gain and the other in terms of loss – is what causes them to be interpreted differently.

The conclusion was that people are willing to run greater risks to avoid losses than they are to make gains.

In other words, telling a prospect how much money you can save them isn’t as effective as telling them how much they might be losing.

Fear Sells so Sell Fear

[NewcastleFalcon]

JLR to make Jaguar brand electric-only by 2025

Getting to the stage now, where car companies not making similar announcements are the exception.

REgards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Just 12 Months ago Aston Martin, made an announcement entirely in the opposite direction. They were to pull the plug on on EV development until at least 2025 as part of their "Turnaround" plan.

I wonder if they have changed?

Another old traditional British company Aston Martin or should I say Kuwait/Italian with a tiny bit of German has recently received a large dose of Canadian, in the shape of a 16.7% shareholding from a consortium led by Canadian Billionaire Lawrence Stroll.

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a3072 ... announced/

They inherit a Formula 1 team to be subsequently known as Aston Martin F1 from 2021 and

They have pulled the plug on EV development until after 2025.

Well, personally it is hardly likely that I will "trouble the scorers" with a purchase of any of their products but those two things to me read like a failure to adapt with the times. Yes I am sure that billionaires like a bit of a play with the tradition and "glamour" of Formula 1, and no doubt the tradition and glamour of Aston Martin but...

... by 2025 when Aston wonder whether to resume EV development or not, will they find that the world has moved on, and they are 5 years behind the curve, have head in the sanded themselves out of business, with the name the only thing likely to survive.

But what do I know about Aston Martin.....they hardly ever turn my head, with the singular exception of this probably the least Aston Martiny of Aston Martins ever made


Aston Martin Lagonda West London
Charles01 [CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]

regards Neil

[myglaren]

I like the Lagonda but it always makes me think of Lady Penelope's pink Rolls.

Just has our local propaganda rag delivered (Washington Way) with a load of blurb about the Nissan factory's dive into battery manufacture.

[Hell Razor5543]

I recall James May did an article on the Lagonda. The bonnet is very low; so low that when he crouched down the bonnet was STILL lower than him!

[myglaren]

It is also the way it is squared off like a Rolls.

[NewcastleFalcon]

Ford have their fingers in so many pies it's easy to see that they'll do their best to stay near the top.

With GM making the right noises, what are their traditional rivals Ford doing
Tough talk from the CEO Jim Farley Ford are

“all in and will not cede ground to anyone”

Electrek: Ford doubles electric vehicle investment to $22 billion through 2025

Competing Noises amongst the good and the great of the Car Industry and slowly all falling into line.

So Ford What are you doing in Europe

Ford invests $1 billion in building electric vehicle factory in Germany
Spearheading Ford’s advance into an all-electric future is a new $1 billion investment to modernize its vehicle assembly facility in Cologne, Germany, one of its largest manufacturing centers in Europe and the home of Ford of Europe. The investment will transform the existing vehicle assembly operations into the Ford Cologne Electrification Center for the manufacture of electric vehicles, Ford’s first such facility in Europe.

and
Accepted 2030 to sell only all-electric passenger vehicles in Europe.

How long before all European manufacturers accept this including Stellantis, give up complaining that it is too soon and just get on with it.

Regards Neil

[white exec]

Likely that the long-underfunded U.S. Postal Service (USPS), who are apparently still running thousands of 25+ year old delivery vans, largely fitted out for letters, could well be earmarked for an all-electric update (including their own charging infrastructure) now, to cope with the ever-growing parcels business. Rivian must be watching the space with interest...

[NewcastleFalcon]

Rivian have some heavyweight backers in Amazon and Ford, and according to Bloomberg about to have a stock market offering later this year, which is conservatively reported as likely to raise in excess of $50 Billion, and set to expand into Europe. If it does it will have a higher market capitalisation than Ford, Stellantis, Hyundai and a whole host of familiar names including Renault and Nissan.

Currently investors are backing the "Ev bubble" in a big way.

The List
https://companiesmarketcap.com/automake ... arket-cap/

REgards Neil