Recap: Tesla to the rescue of the world - MobilityBRIEF ??????? - March 3rd

In the news this week

• The Recap:?Tesla to the rescue of the world
• ???MWC 2023 : CARIAD unveils its new app store, Qualcomm its 5G automotive chip and Xiaomi a new electric scooter
• ???Aramco joining Renault Group and Geely in "Horse Project" ICE powertrain OES
• ???Ford almost resurrecting Argo.AI
• ...and all the other news of the week!

Tesla to the rescue of the world

It was THE main event of the week: Tesla updated its "Master Plan" on Wednesday from its Texas Gigafactory. An event broadcasted online, and watched by more than 2.1M and 1.2M views (!) on Twitter and YouTube, and rebroadcasted by dozens of Twitch commented live streams. Let's not be unpleasant and not compare with other manufacturers live streams please.

Amateurs of big announcements, you'll be disappointed. Some may say that Elon Musk may have realized the biggest synergies within his ventures, as Tesla, in this event, was definitely the boring company. Okay, joke aside, it was quite long (approx. 4 hours), but fulfilled its role of "Investor" day, providing insightful details on the path of the American start-up and the maturity gained along the way, despite the contrary winds and the difficulty of the industry itself.

First and foremost, Tesla wanted to resituate its mission, placing itself on the frontline of the battle for a sustainable earth, and lecturing us with a tutorial on how to eliminate 100% of fossil fuel use. How humble.

But let's face it: Tesla positioning does make sense. Extraction, storage (I'm not saying batteries here), energy supply, vehicle manufacturing and operation, Tesla is well placed in this energy transition era, and wrapped its event around this reality, disseminating small announces into a global demonstration of its overall progress.

The key informations in a nutshell:

• The (horrendous) CyberTruck is still planned for launch in 2023 (as told in Engineering HQ unveiling), even though we don't see it being able to roll on our European roads (at least) any time soon (fortunately).
• A next-gen vehicle has been teased all along the event, and probably to be announced this year: will it be the long awaited 25k$ vehicle? Indeed: multiple cost reductions are promised with this new gen, from manufacturing processes, to E/E architecture and powertrain.
• Tesla will become an energy provider in the US for its Powerwall customers, relying on its storage capacities and its virtual plants to provide the best offer to its customers. First round: a 1$/day unlimited car charging at home offer for its Texas users.
• Next Gigafactory will be in Mexico and is planned to produce this next gen vehicle: another clue for the 25k$ car?
• A new permanent magnet motor requiring no rare earths (Renault made a similar announcement with its partner Valeo last year, planned for mass production in 2027. Who'll be the first?)
• An event as an ode to Tesla's in-house capabilites... : showing how its massive data collection is used for improving its products (and not looked for its selling value), how its own hardware and software developments are enabling to go further and faster than its competitors relying on too many OES, how its own construction team enables them to build a new factory in 9-months, etc...
• ...and its working methods: a single team to create both new cars and new factory lines/processes, brand manufacturing methods that fasten the process and decrease the footprint while increasing the automation, etc...
• And a new laughable video for its in-development Tesla Optimus humanoid robot alongside a Musk-signature thought: "I think we might exceed the one-to-one ratio of humanoid robots to humans". Okay Elon, maybe first put those 1-million robotaxis on the road and we'll see then.

News of the week

???Micromobility & Transit

MWC 2023 : Xiaomi unveiled a new iteration of its best-selling e-scooter, the Mi Electric Scooter 4 Ultra, with a 70+ km range, a powerful 940W motor moving you at 25km/h and up to 25% inclined climb. Novelty has a price: 999$, 200$ more than the previous Pro version.

4 weeks remaining before the Paris vote for e-scooter sharing. Last week-end, Le Parisien revealed that Paris municipality didn't disclosed to the public a study it ordered in May 2022 regarding the impact of micromobility. This study painted a brighter portray of e-scooter sharing: less accidents than Velib users, less serious injuries than bike, a third of regular users being students and not rich tourists, less white collar users than bikes and mopeds, and women "are twice as many to consider e-scooters as a way to get back safe at night than men".

While Ducati still believes motorbike is not ready for switching to electric (of course, not because of them, because of the tech duh.), carmakers are going full speed into adding e-bikes into their offer alongside their electric cars. If some bet on in-house development, like Porsche or Rivian, many are still relying on external suppliers. Audi signed with italian brand Fantic for an e-tron mountain bike, while BMW Group chose the French start-up Angell to provide a bike alongside the Mini range. Will it just be sticking operations or new dedicated bikes tailor made for the carmakers?

The EU is revamping the European Driving Licence and aligned it with its policy to develop cycle use on the continent, by "preparing drivers for today's micromobility". A move taking place in the broader aim of decreasing fatalities and serious injuries involving motor vehicles by 50% by 2030.

???Automotive & Manufacturing

MWC 2023 : Qualcomm announced its new 5G modem-to-antenna automotive solution, as part of its Snapdragon Digital Chassis, including support for stallite communications. Meanwhile, CARIAD followed Mercedes-Benz path and unveiled its future open applicative store for the One.Infotainment ecosystem in all Volkswagen's brands. Starting with Audi this summer, drivers will have a access to an appstore based on Harman Ignite technology. No breakthrough though in terms of apps, with bestsellers like TikTok, Spotify, Vivaldi or Cisco WebEx, and the same categories represented: audio streaming, games, audioconferencing, navigation, web browser, or home automation. It's all there, but it also looks like the beginning of the fragmentation for automotive apps.

A day before Tesla, Luminar organized its Luminar Day. Not that much annoucements (like Tesla), but another show of strength: their products are now planned in 20+ production models (eg. Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Polestar), new Iris+ sensor with better performances, and new factory in Mexico (oh it would be ironic for it to be the neighbour of Tesla's Gigafactory).

Saudi-oil company Aramco confirmed it would join Geely and Renault Group in the creation of the ICE-powertrain supplier "Horse Project", confirming also the company would work on synthetic fuels-powered engines, a week after Geely unveiled a promising and world-record efficient new ICE-motor.

New automotive world problems: Ford EV transition is under attack on several fronts, with one model targeted: its EV-pickup F150 Lightning. First one: its production was halted after an occurrence of battery fire. Second one: the aluminium used for its manufacturing is coming from an Amazon (the forest, not the company) mine accused of contaminating thousands of people. Last but not least: the NYTimes portray the F150 Lightning as emitting more CO2 per mile from craddle to grave than smaller gas cars.

???AV

Ford almost resurrected Argo.AI by creating its wholly owned subsidiary focused on "hands-off eyes-free" driving, Latitude AI, which will hire 25% of Argo.AI staff and base its HQ in Pittsburgh, just like Argo.AI. Certainly a testimony of a growing misalignment between Ford and Volkswagen regarding the future of Argo.AI, as both preferred shutting it down instead of simply reorganizing it.

AV-shuttle start-up EasyMile's CEO Gilbert Gagnaire says in La Tribune that "all AV shuttles players were wrong", claiming that ther's "technical reasons to believe that the AV shuttle transportation market won't be scalable until 2026", date at which they plan to launch a new 6-meter shuttle, teasing a partnership with a major OEM. Until then? Focus is on B2B industrial usecases, such as in airports or factories.

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