What did you miss? #WDYM Week 4 2024

?? Apple is planning to launch its electric vehicle, dubbed “Apple Car”, in 2028 with limited autonomous driving capabilities.

The company has been working on the project, known as “Project Titan”, for years, but has faced several challenges and delays. Apple has hired hundreds of engineers and acquired several startups, such as Drive.ai, to develop its self-driving technology and car design. However, the company has also scaled back its ambitions and scrapped some features, such as full autonomy and a steering wheel-less cabin, due to regulatory and technical hurdles.

Apple Car is expected to compete with Tesla and other EV makers, as well as tech giants such as Google and Amazon, who are also investing in the automotive sector. The Car will likely leverage Apple’s expertise in hardware, software, and services, and offer a unique user experience and ecosystem integration. It could also feature AI-specific features, such as Siri, and cost less than $100,000, according to some analysts.

?? Tesla has told suppliers it wants to start production of a new mass market compact crossover EV codenamed "Redwood" in mid-2025.

?? Tesla releases FSD beta v12.12 of its Full Self Driving software update to the general public: “FSD Beta v12 upgrades the city-streets driving stack to a single end-to-end neural network trained on millions of video clips, replacing over 300k lines of explicit C++ code.”

?? Tesla has talked with a few companies about FSD licensing: “We’ve had some tentative conversations, but I think they don’t believe it’s real quite yet. I think that that will become obvious probably this year.“

??????♂? Tesla is investing in a new damage workshop and ten new charging stations in Sweden despite IF Metall’s ongoing strike, which started in October 2023. The all-electric automaker is already hiring for its new workshop in Huddinge, Stockholm.

Tesla Sweden plans to hire seven employees at the workshop, including painters, claims adjusters, and sheet metal workers. IF Metall plans to stand outside Tesla’s new workshop and picket. The Swedish union also plans on recruiting the new employees Tesla hires for the workshop.

???? Tesla appoints Teresa Gutiérrez as Country Manager for Mexico. Teresa previously served as Country Manager for Rappi México. With an outstanding career of more than 20 years in transnational companies such as Nestlé, Mattel, Procter & Gamble , Teresa will direct the expansion of the brand in the Latin American region.

?? Lotus Emeya enters the Chinese market with four trim levels and a wide price range of 668,000 – 1,180,000 yuan (93,750 – 165,600 USD). This super sedan has up to 675 kW, a 650 km range, and a luxurious four-seat interior. The Lotus Emeya will hit the European markets in H2 2024.

?? Cadillac's Celestiq production has officially begun. Cadillac is planning to produce between 100 and 150 units annually.

?? Ford scales back its 2024 F-150 Lighting production, delaying around $12 billion in planned investments.

The move involves downsizing its production output at the future BlueOval Battery Park Michigan and BlueOvalSK Battery Park plants, as well as cutting its planned 2024 Ford F-150 Lightning production at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in half.

?? Maserati halts development of the Quattroporte Folgore electric saloon scheduled for 2025. This step was taken due to “the need to avoid any risk with regard to the performance of the new car”.

???? Major car suppliers in Germany say they are struggling with the high upfront costs of shifting to EVs and “slow demand,” with companies looking to lay off thousands of workers, as much as 20% of total staff in some cases, in the coming years.

?? BYD plans to end production of the pouch-type batteries used in its best-selling hybrids as the automaker seeks to address durability concerns and the risk that they could leak, said three people familiar with the matter.

? Lithium miners are cutting costs and scaling back plans to expand production after slowing demand in China for electric vehicles crushed the price of the battery metal.

?? Alphabet's Waymo had applied to the California Public Utilities Commission to expand its driverless service in Los Angeles. A license would allow Waymo, which operates extensively in San Francisco, to fully operate its fleet in Los Angeles, California's largest city, where it is now testing rides, allowing new rides only by invitation.

?? Developer and operator Strata Clean Energy has started construction on its 255MW/1,020MWh Scatter Wash BESS project in Arizona, US.

The project in Phoenix is expected to become operational in 2025 and will provide energy to utility Arizona Public Service (APS) under a 20-year tolling agreement signed in May 2023. The project resulted from an All-Source request for proposals (RFP) issued shortly before.

Engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) firm Mortensen will deliver the project using Tesla Megapack 2XLs, the EV giant’s grid-scale battery energy storage system (BESS) product.

?? Shell installs 45 charging points for electric vans at the DHL Express site in Nieuw-Vennep near Amsterdam. Around 90 of the 450 DHL Express delivery vans in the Netherlands are already fully electric.

?? SIXT plans to buy as many as 250,000 Stellantis vehicles — a month after informing customers that it was dropping Teslas from its EV fleet.

SIXT said this week that it came to a “multi-billion euro agreement” with Stellantis, with plans to add an array of the automaker’s cars — including Jeeps, Chryslers, Dodges, Alfa Romeos and Maseratis, among others — to its rental fleet across Europe and North America by 2026.

?? USPS has unveiled the first of thousands of chargers that will power its new fleet of electric postal delivery vehicles.

The initial charging stations were introduced at the USPS’ South Atlanta Sorting and Delivery Center on the Georgia city’s far northwest side. The stations, built by German industrial giant Siemens, will charge vehicles overnight for the following day’s deliveries. USPS plans to add similar stations at other “S&DC” locations throughout the country this year.

?? Canoo to supply USPS with six LDV 190 EVs by the end of March. The electric vans will be provided in a right-hand drive configuration for ease of deliveries.

?? After three years of service, NASA's Ingenuity Helicopter has flown on Mars for the last time. At least one of Ingenuity's carbon fiber rotor blades was damaged during a landing on January 18th. The helicopter is upright and is still in contact with ground controllers, but it's no longer capable of flight.

?? NASA has exercised options in Human Landing System (HLS) awards made to Blue Origin and SpaceX to begin initial design and development work of versions of their landers that can carry large amounts of cargo to the lunar surface.