When Historic Carmakers Adopts Tech From New Automotive World - MOBILITY BRIEF_ ??????? - July 3rd

On the menu this week

You never thought we would abandon you and miss a whole week of mobility news right? ??

An unusual timing for us (or maybe you prefer Monday than Friday?), but let’s start your week the right way with our (already!) 35th edition!

?? Worth Your Attention

???Volvo becomes the first European manufacturer to adopt Tesla's NACS port in North America

The NACS adoption announcements keep piling up. After Ford, GM and Rivian, it's now the Swede's turn! From early 2024, Volvo and Polestar vehicles sold in North America will receive NACS-compatible cables, and upcoming models from 2025 will be directly equipped with the NACS charging connector. By adopting it, Volvo gives its customers access to Tesla's network of over 12k Superchargers in the USA, Canada and Mexico.

Now, American EV-charging network are also keeping the pace, and are obviously following the trend. Popular networks like ChargePoint , EVgo , Blink Charging , and Electrify America (announced on Thursday) have made a commitment to support the NACS connector in their stations. But the biggest deal, and probably the last nail in CCS coffin, is that the SAE International (Society of Automotive Engineers, actively working on standards definition) just announced it will work on standardizing NACS to ensure interoperability for any manufacturer, supplier, network and so on.

Will it also influence EU standards in the end?

A bit lost on the state of this battle? Don’t worry, we’ve summed it up above.

???Aston Martin Ties New Relationships With Geely And Lucid Motors Ahead Of Its EV Push

Aston Martin has been getting through tough periods lastly, but Lawrence Stroll hasn’t bought the British jewel to get a seat in F1 for its son. No, the jewel needs polishing, hence Aston Martin is just preparing itself for the EV era, and is actively leveraging its shareholders assets to get it right.

First with 吉利控股集团 , the Chinese carmaker, which, as we reported many weeks ago, has made its way into Aston Martin capital by acquiring 17% of it to make itself its 3rd shareholder. And well, if you haven’t seen the width of Geely’s web over the automotive industry (check out our article on it) : the group is building itself an ecosystem of partners more or less integrated into their group, that it feeds with its own tech and products to reach economies of scales and shared R&D investments. Aston Martin won’t dodge that opportunity, and will turn to Geely for many components of its next cars, including HVAC & seats. In the end, Geely will approximately replace as much as 30% of all Aston Martin suppliers!

Second shareholder to be leveraged: the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), Aston Martin 2nd largest shareholder. But if the connection seems less obvious, it’s because we have to check into the portfolio of PIF. Lucid Motors , the American EV start-up, is indeed largely funded by the Saudi fund, and quite in a desperate need for cash: despite its cars and tech being praised, Lucid struggled a bit with both undercapacity and overcapacity on its manufacturing lines, and was certainly eager to get the hand on the some cash to finance their more affordable future model launch. So guess who can help them put more of their tech on the roads despite their current hiccups? Meet Aston Martin: the high-end tech designed and developed by Lucid seems tailor-made for the needs of a manufacturer like Aston who doesn’t develop its own powertrains, have high-end requirements, and is late on the EV train. It’s all settled then: Lucid Motors will provide its powertrains, battery tech and charging tech for Aston Martin’s next EV, and get 3.7% of Aston Martin in the process. And Mercedes-Benz then?

Well, Aston Martin isn’t ungrateful: Mercedes-Benz, the ICE powertrains provider of Aston Martin’s previous success is still onboard, and will continue its task. It may even be part of the tech mix for the next EV powertrains, and will continue to provide the whole Electric/Electronic Architecture of Aston Martin’s next models.

In a nutshell, Aston Martin's plan: new partners to get the “industry’s highest performance and most innovative technologies for [their] future”, a ￡2bn target for its revenues by 2024-25 (with a 17k cars a year volume) and a technology investment plan of the same amount. EVs? Expect a PHEV Valhalla next year, then the first BEV of the brand in 2025, and a fully electrified core range by 2030.

But if we take a step back from those two news this week, don’t we see a pattern?

Whether it’s for the NACS or Aston Martin new partners, we can’t help but see that historical carmakers are increasingly adopting technologies coming from new automotive stakeholders, whether its Chinese carmakers turning global, or EV start-ups on the rise with praised automotive-grade technologies.

Oh the times, they are definitely changin’.

?? What Else?

???Micromobility Tales

• LAVOIE , a McLaren subsidiary, launched its Series 1 foldable e-scooter, starting at ￡1890. A model in line with McLaren supercar DNA, with a bold design and aggressive specs (40 kmh top speed).
• After Bosch and Valeo, another automotive OES is joining the list of e-bike OES : Brose Group (Germany) introduced its first 48V-system for e-bikes, a lightweight motor taking advantage of magnesium to gain several grams against its competitors.

???Factories Updates

• A little delay for Tesla’s GigaFactory in Mexico: the Late Post, a Chinese media, reports that Tesla has underestimated the time required to build a factory in Mexico, and will open in early 2025 instead of mid-2024.

???EV Updates

• Zeekr Europe is getting ready for Europe: Geely’s brand has opened its 001 and X order books in Sweden and Netherlands. As planned, its priced as a premium car, with the X starting at €45k and the 001 at €60k. Who’s the next country?
• In China, NIO蔚来 is keeping the pace with its battery-swap stations deployments, with CNEVPost reporting the Chinese brand has opened 29 stations on Friday, a daily record for Nio, keeping them on track for their 1.000 new stations target for 2023.

???AV & Smart Mobility Updates

• NIO蔚来 is starting subscriptions for its NOP+ (Navigate On Pilot) ADAS system. After a free beta phase started on December 27th, which accumulated more than 42M kms of use, Nio will now collect $52 a month (RMB 380) for the service.
• Tesla released its Telemetry framework, which allows 3rd parties to create a server to collect data from Tesla users with their explicit and individual consent. A game changer for insurances, fleet managers and car rental experiences?

???New Car Reveals

• XPENG Motors 小鹏汽车 launched its new G6 model for the Chinese market this week, a new Coupe SUV on the market, priced around €31k (RMB 250k): XPeng NGP ADAS system, 800V powertrain and a 755-km range (CLTC).
• The Japanese brand Toyota has just unveiled the new generation of its small SUV, the C-HR. Two versions will coexist: a HEV and a PHEV, like the new Prius.
• Changan teases a new EV sedan of its Qiyuan sub-brand called A07, a flagship that will inaugurate the brand and target the BYD Han on the Chinese market. Both EV and PHEV models will be available, with an expected range of 710-km (CLTC).

???Investment/Financial Updates

• Renault has revised its financial forecast for 2023 due to the strong performance of its recent releases, specifically the SUV Austral and Dacia Jogger models. The French car maker is now aiming for an operating margin of 7% to 8% by 2023, up from a previous target of more than 6%.
• Laurent Rossi and Luca de Meo presented their international development plan for Alpine to financial analysts and the press this week: launch of 7 new models by 2030, a new platform (APP) and, above all, big ambitions abroad. From 2027, the brand will expand into the United States and Asia. Will Alpine master its EV transition, follow its ambitions and yet keep its DNA?
• Following its drama situation with Foxconn, Lordstown Motors is now filing for bankruptcy and declares it is filing a lawsuit against Foxconn as they accused them of having “failed to honor [their] agreement to invest more money in the company”.
• Another company under the fire in the US is TuSimple: the AV start-up, threatened of delisting by the NASDAQ, is now considering selling its US entity to focus on “more defined geographies”, quoting favorable regulations in Asia and Europe and business applications of its tech for mining in Australia.
• Stellantis takes a 20% stake in Kuniko Limited (Norway, mining) and secures a deal with them for low carbon nickel and sulfate supply. It’s the 6th partnership of the same nature from the Italo-French-American group.
• Planckian (ITA, battery) has raised €2.7M for its quantum batteries technology. What is it about? Ahem, well, designing solid-state battery ruled by quantum mechanics. Understood? Cause I’ve not.
• German start-up COLONIA raised €6M for their B2B vehicle sharing platform that aims to address logistic companies inability to address the fluctuations of their fleet use.
• Tesla acquires German start-up Wiferion ( Wiferion - industrial wireless charging - a PULS brand ) specialized on wireless charging for industrial trucks and industrial AVs. Will Tesla use it for their cars or their factories?

??The Bad News Corner

• After targeting its European offices, Ford is now laying off in North America and targets its Engineering offices in all-3 of its business units (Model e, Ford Blue and Ford Pro). No details on how many layoffs are planned.
• Waze may be deployed at full steam on Android Automotive cars, the company is suffering from the redundancies caused by its merger with Google Maps team into Google Geo division. Layoffs are planned, no numbers yet, but “sales, marketing, operations and analytics” will be concerned as the result of Waze shift to Google ad’s system.

?? Bookmark Of The Week

“Level 3 presents a complicated, 'mushy middle' in automated driving”

Automotive News

Link

"An engineer's dream and a plaintiff attorney's next yacht". MIT’s Research Scientist Bryan Reimer nicely set the tone when asked about Level 3 AV.

When Level 2 is already providing us with plenty of fallacious arguments from Tesla bulls, Level 3 legal debates may give us another run for our money. What can or can’t we do while activating Level 3 automation? What are the underlying legal risks? How are manufacturers handling this?

A look into this tricky topic and the challenges ahead by Automotive News. ( Pete Bigelow ).

See you next week and don't forget to share and subscribe to the newsletter!