Scout is back with a surprICE, Waymo raises $5.6B & China wants to slow down factory plans in EU - Mobility Brief 28/10

?? This Week In The Mobility World

?? Factories/Manufacturing/Recalls

• Xiaomi is expected to complete the expansion of its EV factory by mid-2025, according to recent reports from Chinese media. The second phase of the Xiaomi Intelligent Manufacturing Industrial Base, situated in Beijing's Yizhuang New Town, is scheduled to be finalized by June.
• NextStar Energy, the JV between LG Energy Solution and Stellantis, has launched battery module production in Windsor, Ontario, Canada’s first large-scale EV battery manufacturing facility. The plant aims to lead North American battery technology and will initially assemble modules with supplied cells, transitioning to its own cell production by 2025. Once fully operational, it expects to provide 49.5 gigawatt-hours of energy capacity annually, enough for about 450k vehicles.

• Also, in Europe’s battery landscape, there’s no more money in the bank: one of Northvolt’s shareholder, ABB, is not planning to invest a single additional dollar on the company, while the Chinese battery maker, SVOLT, is pausing its projects for 2 gigafactories in Germany, in response of its own struggles on its home turf.

???Tech

• Ford’s BlueCruise 1.5 brings hands-free driving a step further with its new Automatic Lane Change feature. Now, if you're cruising at 70mph (112kmph) and encounter a slower vehicle, BlueCruise can automatically change lanes to keep you moving without needing your input. Before any lane change, you’ll get a visual and audio prompt, so you're always informed. The 2025 Mustang Mach-E will be one of the first to feature this, and for sure, you can easily switch it off if you’re not a fan of it.

• Tesla’s plans to bring FSD to Europe have hit a major delay, with approval now pushed back possibly until 2028. Marc Van Impe, Tesla’s outgoing head of vehicle automation policy, criticized European regulators, saying the delay is harming the region’s competitiveness and stifling innovation. While Tesla launched FSD in the US in 2020 and is expanding in China, Europe’s regulatory body, the UNECE, has only approved basic driver-assistance rules. More advanced capabilities, like navigating city streets, will have to wait. Tesla may launch a limited version of FSD under current rules, but the delay complicates its goal of rolling out self-driving robotaxis.
• Qualcomm and Google are working together to combine Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Digital Chassis with Google’s in-vehicle technologies, aiming to develop generative AI-enabled digital cockpits and SDV. Qualcomm will focus on scaling and customizing this solution for the broader automotive market, while the partnership aims to help automakers speed up innovation and bring connected services to vehicles using Google Cloud. But in the meanwhile, the legal clash between Qualcomm and the chip design maker ARM is escalating: will it impact its automotive business in any way?
• Still about Qualcomm: the American company signed with the French AI company MistralAI to bring their models on the “edge”, and as you guessed, cars are amongst those “edge” devices.
• Cruise is still facing significant financial losses, reporting $435M in Q3 2024, an improvement from $791M last year, despite most of its autonomous fleet being grounded since a serious incident in October 2023. While it has resumed some operations with test vehicles in Arizona and Texas and plans to introduce manually driven cars in the Bay Area, Cruise remains under pressure. Its financials are more transparent than competitors', showing $26M in net sales against $442M in expenses. Despite $3.48B in losses for 2023, GM CEO Mary Barra remains committed to the autonomous vehicle project, implementing leadership changes and workforce cuts, and aiming to limit losses to $2B in 2025.
• Meanwhile, Waymo is bragging about having closed an “oversubscribed investment round” of $5.6B, led by its own mothership, Alphabet, and a bunch of VCs. A great show of trust from its investors for the current leading AV operator

???New Car Reveals

Scout Motors is back with a bang—specifically, the sound of a combustion engine in its EREV option.

• Two years after announcing the revival of the iconic brand, Volkswagen Group has finally unveiled the two models that will open Scout Motors’ catalog and spearhead its push to recapture the American market: the Traveller SUV and the Terra pickup truck. These models perfectly blend the inspiration of Scout’s classic 60s-80s vehicles (Scout 80, Scout II) with modern touches reminiscent of Rivian, a nod to the tech partnership between Rivian and Scout’s parent company.
• True to their utilitarian spirit, the specs are robust: towing capacities range from 3 to 4.5 tons, with almost a ton of payload capacity. While not reaching the levels of the F150 Lightning or Cybertruck, they are comparable to the Rivian R1T, clearly targeting a similar audience.
• The connection to Rivian extends to the software side as well. Though nothing official has been shared, the Scout Community UX seems to have more in common with Rivian’s OS than Volkswagen’s ID. software. It might be a customized overlay in Scout branding, featuring physical buttons placed under the touchscreen that adapt contextually to the active screen.
• But the biggest surprise lies under the hood. While the switch to electric was announced at the brand’s reboot, the unexpected twist is the inclusion of Extended Range EV (EREV) technology. The models offer up to 560 km of range, a 0-100 km/h time of 3.5 seconds, and standard NACS connectors. Yet, Scout’s EREV, called Harvester (see video above), adds a combustion engine to recharge the battery on the go, extending the range by an additional 250 km—a unique feature aimed at appealing to a conservative segment still challenged by the US’s limited charging infrastructure. Only a legacy brand could bring such an option to the States.
• There’s a catch, though: the wait will be long. Production won’t hit the roads until 2027, even though orders open now with a base price of around $60,000 (before subsidies). Scout Motors won’t use traditional dealerships, instead developing its own showrooms and direct relationships with customers. It’s a bold move, but the clock is ticking—no one will wait around for Scout.

?? EVs

• Bloomberg is confirming that Beijing is asking carmakers to slow down on their European factory projects, with Dongfeng Motors already taking actions through the stopping of its Italian plans. But actually, the request is not only motivating by a will to withhold any “gift” to Europe for the time of the bargaining: Beijing is also reportedly worried for its carmakers to suffer from over-capacity due to EU’s wobbly EV sales, a condition that many Chinese carmakers are already suffering from…in China. It’s actually more a blow for Italy, who was trying to strong-arm Stellantis by attracting as much Chinese carmakers on its soil to counter the effects of the diminishing outputs from the ex-FCA in Italy.

• Apple collaborated with BYD for several years on a car project that was ultimately scrapped, during which they developed long-range batteries based on lithium iron phosphate cells to enhance range and safety compared to typical BEVs! Although Apple doesn't own the technology behind BYD's Blade batteries, the partnership illustrates Apple's ambitions in the automotive sector (previously thought to be abandoned), as it invested around $1B annually over a decade before abandoning the project in February. While BYD claims full rights to the Blade technology, insights from their collaboration influenced its design, with Apple seeking a customized long-range battery. Despite the dissolution of the partnership, the research and development efforts contributed to advancements in other Apple products, including the Vision Pro headset and its AI technology!
• Lynk & Co will distribute its new electric crossover, the 02 (the Zeekr X look-alike), with support from Volvo as it looks to establish a presence in the French market. The brand plans to open its first dealerships by early 2025, starting with seven to ten locations in major urban areas and aiming to expand to around thirty. The 02 will be offered in two trims, Core and More, priced from €35,495.
• Stellantis and Factorial are making strides in advancing EV with the integration of solid-state battery technology into a demonstration fleet of the new Dodge Charger Daytona vehicles, built on the STLA Large platform. Set to hit the roads by 2026, this initiative marks a significant milestone toward the mass production of solid-state batteries.

???Investment/Financial/Legal

• Tesla has released its Q3 results last week, showing strong margins (19.8% from 17.9% in Q3 23) but missing revenues expectations ($25.182B). Amongst the other learnings from the webcast: the Roadster’s design is being finalized (not bad for a model announced in 2017), there’s still hints for a more affordable model in 2025 and some recognition that maybe the HW3 hardware stack may finally not be compatible with true autonomous driving.
• EV motorcycle start-up Zero Motorcycle, is currently closing a $120M funding round, its first in 2 years. Already backed by Polaris and Indian motorcycle company Hero MotoCorp, the company is proving to be one of the sole to be thriving while many are currently failing and going to bankruptcy.

See you next Monday!