Car News-Global and Domestic

[Gibbo2286]

Nice to have an Oxford connection, the UK ain't all doom and gloom.

[bobins]

Self-driving Waymo cars clog up dead-end San Francisco street

Quote: 'Residents in a "dead-end" street in San Francisco say they are being plagued by an influx of self-driving vehicles.
Autonomous-driving firm Waymo's cars have been going up and down the cul-de-sac at all hours "for weeks", according to local news station KPIX.
Residents say vehicles sometimes have to queue before making multi-point turns to leave the way they came.
Waymo says the vehicles are just "obeying road rules" designed to limit traffic in certain residential streets. '

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-58928706

[myglaren]

This video appeared on autoshite - a method of reducing traffic in a residential area.



Back to the drawing board.

[NewcastleFalcon]

More "blue oval" news.

Ford has announced that it will manufacture components for its electric cars and electric commercial vehicles in Europe at its British transmission plant in Halewood from mid-2024.

Here it is in plain German

https://www.automobilwoche.de/article/2 ... ch-england

Werk in Köln geht leer aus: Ford bestätigt: E-Komponenten gehen nach England

Or if you prefer in English electrive have the story

https://www.electrive.com/2021/10/18/fo ... in-the-uk/

Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

https://electrek.co/2021/10/19/a-chines ... r-in-2024/

New players who aren't traditional auto makers...

From 2024, a Chinese Company is planning to move from 0 cars produced, to sales of 900,000 in the 3 years from 2024 to 2027.

Note. I didn't say car company and not dewey-eyed dreamers chasing around trying to raise the investments, but a Chinese smartphone giant will launch its first electric car in 2024, with an initial investment of $1.54bn and $10bn over the next decade.

Why?
Xiaomi group chairman Lei Jun made the electric car announcement today, at the company’s investor day event. Lei said that if Xiaomi, which manufactures smartphones, smart home, and smart office products, does not participate in the electric vehicle transition, then it would “be eliminated,” because “electric cars have now transformed from a mechanical industry to an information industry,”

REgards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Meanwhile a further signal of intent within the Net Zero Strategy, has been surprisingly well received. The proposal for a Zero Emmisions Vehicle Mandate from 2024, subject to consultation, to progress the transition to 2030 when New petrol and New diesel cars will no longer be able to be sold. (lost track of which Hybrids if any will escape until 2035)

Fleet news digs up a few quotes from the great and the good, mostly positive.

https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/latest ... -proposals

If we want to get back to manufacturing or at least assembling, rather than importing, getting some players to establish new factories in the UK, and building the type of vehicles that are going to challenge the cosy European too high price points in the lower segments of the market, is a bit of vital development which needs to take place.

Me I would target MG and BYD, as a kick off. MG currently produce the best VFM EV's on the market and BYD are a very impressive company already with ventures in the UK in buses and Taxis,, and get things moving. Shed no tears about "Overseas ownership" the entire UK Car industry as of 2021 has overseas owners, its a global business.

REgards Neil

[white exec]

Realistically, I agree with that, Neil. We need to exercise some serious caution about China, though.

[NewcastleFalcon]

I reckon courting BYD would be a decent punt. As well as their own range of products they bring innovation, and components in demand by the traditional Automakers, blade batteries, sodium ion batteries, and solidly reliable dont catch fire LIFEPO4 Batteries, and semi conductors.

While I can imagine Europe will take ages to make their minds up whether to roll out the welcome mat to a company well capable of disrupting and potentially destroying their cosy crop of automakers, the UK's weak state of automotive manufacturing very much needs the new blood, and the initiative grasped, rather than relying on crumbs from the Stellantis and BMW table. While JLR whinge about semi-conductor shortages halting production BYD manufacture them.

Having already invited China's state owned China General Nuclear Power Group into Hinkley point, I don't think BYD will prove any greater security threat, and indeed our own auto industry will both get a kick up the backside, and be more likely to learn something from industrial espionage on BYD, rather than any fears that BYD are going to learn anything new from them.

Regards Neil

[white exec]

BYD has been a good source of technology and product (including buses) for a while now, and unmatched by anything from UK so far. They also have some good battery technology and deliverable units - one of our neighbours has a bank of their batteries in his garage, for off-grid power.

I'm guessing that what we need to be careful with is anything (anything ) that is internet-connected - which alas is pretty much everything these days. The line has been drawn at nuclear power stations, and presumably now Huawei telecoms - maybe just in time.

[Gibbo2286]

Maybe we could reverse the old system and pinch their technology.

[NewcastleFalcon]

Transformation ahead for the car rental business as it electrifies its fleets.

Hertz orders 100,000 Teslas

REgards Neil

[Gibbo2286]

Transformation ahead for the car rental business as it electrifies its fleets.

Hertz orders 100,000 Teslas

REgards Neil

I would say that the suggestion that Hertz is paying the retail price for them is likely to be shown as nonsense when the real figures come out,

[NewcastleFalcon]

VW having an unseemly spat. CEO Herbert Diess wants to compete with all comers and up VW's game to get nearer and maybe even exceed Tesla's productivity and move faster towards electrification otherwise he sees VW shedding 30.000 jobs as it fails to compete. The FT have done a decent piece on it...probably behind a pay wall though...entitled,
"VW chief’s plan to catch Tesla hit by union pledge to protect jobs."

Inside Ev's coverage is here.

https://insideevs.com/news/545536/volks ... ict-tesla/

Has the "dressing room" been lost. Recently Diess's cosying up to TESLA, culminating in Elon Musk being invited in on a conference call with 200 of VW executives and managers, and constant comparisions with TESLA have ruffled feathers at VW.

Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

So if you have a rival manufacturer in your own back yard, not a kick in the pants from your own spiritual home of Wolfsburg, and the factory is 3 times as efficient and productive than yours currently is, is it time to shake up your own operations, and catch up and compete?

The messenger is more likely to be right than the unwilling recipients of the message.

https://electrek.co/2021/11/05/vw-ceo-e ... facturing/

Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Lifestyle, Lifestyle, Lifestyle

LA Auto Show on right now and out pops the Hyundai Seven. Wonder if the B pillar is on the way out.

The video lasts 30 odd minutes and mind blowingly boring....no one will be able to stand all that, so I have kicked it off at the Seven if just to skip to an image or two of it, and skipped their Hydrogen "vision", which they cling onto along with Toyota and the fossil fuel industry.



Regards Neil