??????? MOBILITY BRIEF - December 29th

This week, most of the news are coming from China where a few noteworthy news came up this week on the automotive side:

• ?????Nio unveils 2 new models and an evolution for its battery swap stations, but reduces its deliveries goals for 2022 last quarter and transfers manufacturing assets
• ?????Baidu now authorized to operate its robotaxis by night, AV teleoperation is under the spotlights and Magna acquires Veoneer's Active Safety division.
• ?????An energized end of the year: BMW strenghtening its ties with Solid Power, and Stellantis entering in Symbio's capital
• And all the other news of the week, from?Tesla now mentioning competitor's charging networks onboard, to Ford and Waze both deploying new connected-safety features.

?????? ?????? ???????????? ??????????????????: ??????'?? ???????? ?????? ???????????? ?????????????? ???????? ???????Bitume, le podcast qui s’intéresse à l’avenir de nos mobilités!

Ne manquez pas le dernier épisode de notre podcast Bitume, qui prend le temps ce mois-ci de faire le bilan de cette année écoulée, pour mieux se projeter sur l'année suivante : micromobilité, véhicules électriques, nouvelle concurrence asiatique, véhicule autonome, etc...

Disponible dès maintenant sur toutes les plateformes d'écoute !?Ecouter.

???? Christmas Eve is overrated. Every December 24th during the NIO Day's keynote, Santa Claus is called William Li and comes with some fancy electric sleighs loaded with presents: this year, brand new EC7 and ES8 embedding updated design and electronic hardware were unveiled during the event, alongside a third update for their battery swap station which is now capable of delivering 408 battery swaps per day instead of 312 swaps for the 2nd gen. NIO shows it is still hungry for more after impressive sales growth in China: they now target Lexus, hoping to overtake them in 2023 in China, and even hint at a NIO Phone, proving the move from tech to cars isn't a one-way street. But NIO is not immune to COVID, and had to reduce its delivery targets for the last quarter as a consequence of the impact from the outbreak on production and logistics. Speaking of production, NIO lately officialised it would let JAC, its manufacturing partner, acquires NIO's new production site currently being built. A surprising move, that illustrates the willingness from JAC to incarnate the best manufacturing partner for the EV start-up plans.

???? Wuhan by night. We sometimes focus so much on Waymo and Cruise deployment pace in the US that we tend to forget that Chinese AV actors doesn't have to blush against them. Last proof in the register: Baidu's Apollo now being able to drive by night, without any safety driver on board in the city of Wuhan. This extends the current commercial operations of Baidu, which started last August. Baidu already detected a year-over-year growth by more than 300% of its driverless rides during Q3. Meanwhile, it's a whole different thing in Europe, as the Old Continent remains a laggard regarding robotaxis. This may change thanks to German start-up Vay, which obtained authorization to test rides without safety driver in Hamburg, Germany. Its approach is quite different from Baidu though: here, cars are mainly teleoperated by a remote operator, easing the management of the fleet while gathering valuable data from their teledrives to develop and then incorporate true autonomous technologies in their vehicles. Teleoperation is also a field of interest for Hyundai, which is already cooperating with Ottopia, an Israeli start-up, on the matter, for the needs of Motional (AV joint-venture with OES Aptiv). Now, it's Hyundai Mobis, OES-subsidiary of Hyundai, which partners with the same start-up, in order to develop an automotive-grade platform for teleoperation, from hardware to software. An end-to-end approach familiar to another OES, Magna, which, 3 years after losing against SSW Partners and Qualcomm for the acquisition of the whole Veoneer company, just bought the Active Safety division in order to complete its ADAS-offer.

Stay tuned tomorrow on The Fast Lane LinkedIn page as we'll retrace Veoneer dismantlement through a quick animation.

???? A solid partnership. BMW trust in solid-state batteries and consolidate its collaboration with Solid Power, which will licence its manufacturing processes and cell designs to the Bavarian brand in order to allow them to achieve parallel R&D and manufacturing tasks, hence speeding up the development of the technology. A reminder, solid-state batteries advantage lies in the use of a solid electrolyte instead of a liquid one: theorically, it's safer, denser, faster to charge and potentially faster (so, cheaper) to build. If BMW partners with Stellantis on Level 3 ADAS, that's not the case for hydrogen, as the latter partnered with Faurecia and Michelin to acquire a stake in their hydrogen joint-venture called Symbio. A move consistent with Stellantis strategy to deploy hydrogen in its LCV range, and in the continuity of the work done by PSA before the merger, already anticipating FCEV in 2002 with its Peugeot H20 concept.

Also in the news this week:

• Tesla will now show other fast-charging networks in its in-car navigation systems, starting in Europe and Israel.
• Volvo won't let your seats cold because you forgot to renew your "heating seats" monthly subscription: it's a no-no regarding feature subscriptions in your car (and a diss to BMW and Mercedes-Benz).
• When Ford continues to deploy its proprietary C-V2X in new cities in China, Waze has another approach for bringing connected safety in our cars: notifying you of the roads with a "history of crashes" in their app.

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