🚗 Car Talk - Issue #46 (Porsche, NHTSA, GM)
Hi friends
Hope you had an amazing long weekend! Were you paid a visit by the Heineken Beer Bot? Its the sort of autonomous driving we all can get behind!
A number of readers noted I’ve missed a couple issues (again). I’m aware, and I apologize! Raising an infant (+ a preschooler) is hard work. Rewarding in a million ways, exhausting nonetheless. Layer on a hectic end-of-quarter at work and the last thing I wanted to do was to sit in front of more screens. I know circumstances will force me to be irregular in the future too, although I’ll aim to be less so. Writing CarTalk brings me so much joy every week.
Much to cover! Buckle up!
Porsche
Perhaps it is the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, but I’m seeing Porsche pop up everywhere these days. I figured I’d do a mini write-up on them.
First off: Porsche seems to be going the route of in-housing their battery development. To me, any EV company that plans to manufacture at scale should absolutely be thinking about making their own batteries. From Porsche’s weirdly worded press release:
Porsche is investing a high double-digit million amount in the new company Cellforce Group GmbH.
Just come out and say a number, Porsche. It helps us gauge how serious you are.
Is this move of DIY batteries surprising? Not really, not to me. See this chart:
"I see a little silhouette of cannibalization" - Freddie Mercury, 1975
The Taycan gets rave reviews. Bill Gates loves his Taycan. Porsche sees that vehicle being the future of the company. In a world where everyone is buying from CATL and LG Chem, how will Porsche differentiate itself, especially as it relates to driving performance? By designing critical components of their powertrain itself! Will it succeed? Going by the recent news of the over-the-air update debacle, I’m skeptical. Which brings me to…
Secondly: Recently, some Porsche Taycans were losing power mid-drive and switching to “emergency mode” (The NHTSA called the problem a “loss of motive power while in motion at any speed”. Looks like someone at NHTSA gets paid by the word). This is supposedly a software issue and to fix it, Porsche is recalling all Taycans. It’s 2021, so one would think this is a simple over-the-air update? No - per users on Twitter and Reddit.
You’d have to bring your vehicle into a service center for the software update. To me, this highlights the challenges Porsche will have to overcome they start producing vehicles supposedly on the bleeding edge of technology.
Self-inflicted Taycan accident in Germany
The driver's cabin of this Taycan collapsed in an accident - driver and passenger severely injured. Emergency doctor had to be called
A Taycan is not safe!
€186,000 gone https://t.co/GJlGJb7uu5
Lastly: What else is the uber-luxurious Porsche up to? Oh not much, just creating another hyper-exclusive, ultra-luxury brand in a joint venture with Croatian company Rimac called the Bugatti-Rimac. Volkswagen (current owner of the Bugatti brand) will relinquish direct control of Bugatti and Porsche will hold a direct 45% stake in the JV, while Rimac takes the other 55%. Here’s how the JV is being pitched:
“We are combining Bugatti’s strong expertise in the hypercar business with Rimac’s tremendous innovative strength in the highly promising field of electric mobility,”
What this tactically means is that two cars - a 2000-hp hybrid hypercar with a combustion engine (🤮), and Bugatti’s first full EV - will be launched around 2030.
2030. No rush guys. Take your time!
In summary - Porsche will be tweaking the car’s powertrain. Porsche will figure out a way to improve their software and how to update said software. And Porsche will aim to launch a hyper-exclusive brand while they’re at it.
Are they stretching themselves too thin?
You tell me!
Mobility In The US
Why electric motorcycles are failing: I will start this section by posting a video. I know, I know - no one wants to watch a video in the era of gif’s. Trust me though, if you click on just one link in this newsletter, make it this one! So informative, so well made, very funny. Makes me want to start making videos too, but I happen to have a face fit only for newslettering. Link
GM and Shell: A match that even Indian Matchmaking would’ve found hard to pitch. What’s going on? GM and Shell are joining forces to expand EV charging networks in the US, that’s what. Two old-guard companies readying themselves for the 21st century.
Why GM? Well, they’ve been saying they want to go carbon neutral by 2040 - so this tracks. I’ve written a lot about GM’s electrification efforts in the past. GM owners will get free overnight charging at these stations, it is being reported
Why Shell? They’ve been ordered to cut their emissions by almost half by 2030. They already have the real estate advantage in the form of gas stations.
I’m quite…pumped.. about this one, no joke. Any partnerships that further the electric mobility agenda are good in my book! Link
While on GM, they’re taking wild swings: ..including investing in Hydrogen!
GM began working on fuel cells more than 50 years with little to no commercial success. But it aims to change that in coming years with its Hydrotec fuel-cell system, which could be a dark horse business to grow GM’s operations outside of automotive.
The applications will be military, commercial vehicles and other forms of transportation, such as rail and maritime. A quick reminder - GM got super excited about partnering with Nikola on hydrogen fuel-cell trucks before Nikola was shown to be, well, making things up.
GM’s business strategy can be summarized as “lets throw everything at the wall and see what sticks”. Link Link2
Meanwhile Honda will discontinue their Hydrogen fuel cell vehicle: In a move displaying unusual clarity of thought, Honda will end production of the Clarity fuel-cell vehicle by the end of this year. Only about 2000 Clarities have been sold this year and speaking from first-hand experience, fuelling these cars was more trouble than its worth. Link
NHTSA wants crash reports within 24 hours: NHTSA came out with a rule earlier this week that had Twitter buzzing. The mandate is - if a vehicle equipped with an autonomous driving system (ADS - e.g. Tesla’s Autopilot or GM’s Super Cruise) is involved in a crash, the agency wants to be notified by the manufacturer within 24 hours.
Does the ADS have to be engaged to trigger reporting? Yes! Up to 30 seconds prior to the crash, if an ADS was in play, a car manufacturer would have to file a report within 24 hours.
These crash reports must also detail if there was a hospital-treated injury, fatality, airbag deployment or if the crashed vehicle required a tow.
I’m all for this type of transparency, but I’m unclear on what a 24-hour turnaround time unlocks for the agency that a 48-hour, or a 72-hour turnaround time wouldn’t. I am not an expert in this space and I speak for only myself, but there is a lot of vehicular and telemetry data to parse as a car is driving. Expedited timelines might put an unnecessary burden on vehicle manufacturers to comply. Again, love the transparency. Unclear on the reason behind 24 hours, vs 48, or even a week. Link
Biden’s proposed infrastructure plan: Not becoming a law anytime soon, but here’s what’s being proposed:
$109 billion for roads and bridges, $15 billion for electric-vehicle infrastructure and electric buses, $66 billion to improve the railroads, and $49 billion for mass transit.
If I were you, I’d take a look at the details and formulate some investment strategies. Government dollars are nice coattails to ride on, I’ve said in the past too. Link
Rental car shortages: ..are throwing a wrench in travel plans all across the US, including my own. This isn’t strictly new mobility or CarTalk material, but funny/sad nonetheless since a lot of rental car companies had to offload fleet vehicles to stay afloat. Business has seemingly been booming for rental car companies post-pandemic in a heavy demand & low supply scenario - Hertz even got out of bankruptcy recently. Link
Department of Justice is probing Lordstown Motors: Yes!! Probe away, probe them good, my lovelies. Link
Peak internal combustion engine years are behind us: Headline says it all. Link
Mobility Around The World
CATL’s battery dominance: I’ve known about CATL’s dominance in the EV space for a while now but its mind-boggling when its put in the perspective of its competition.
The company could have capacity to produce more than 480 gigawatt hours of lithium-ion batteries by the end of 2025, BloombergNEF estimates. That’ll be more than its three largest rivals combined.
They have a plan to be more than just a battery company for EV OEMs. Specifically, they want to supply batteries to:
Electric scooters, electric boats
Stationary energy storage
Electrify heavy-duty sectors like mining
If CATL is not on your radar, it should be! Link
Canada to ban ICE car and trucks starting 2035: This timeline matches California’s phase-out of fossil fuel vehicles in 2035 too.
Trudeau, 49, has pledged to put Canada, the second-largest country by land mass in the world, on a path to net-zero emissions by 2050. Shifting transportation away from fossil fuels is key to meeting that goal.
Very good call, Mr. Trudeau! Link
India explores a Lithium alternative: Because India has as much Lithium as they do soccer world cups, Indian companies are investigating using Aluminum in lieu of Lithium for battery production. Aluminum is plentiful in India! The article was a good read till I got to this part:
..These cells can’t be recharged. Instead, Phinergy’s plan is for users to be able to quickly swap in a new battery and send the used one to a recycling facility.
Whoa! How can you breeze by a detail so crucial? The article doesn’t bring up the fact again that these batteries are one-and-done, much like an AA-cell in your alarm clock. I continued to read to find that the funding for trialing this Aluminum-based chemistry is coming from Indian Oil.
A more cynical person than me would have suspected that Indian Oil wants to check a box that says “Investigate greener transportation alternatives” only to conclude that batteries are inefficient and oil is the real future! Link
Stats
8:1 - The ratio of the number of parking spaces to the number of cars in America. I’m not an urban planner, but seems like we’re going about using our land the wrong way? Link
2033: The year when EV sales beat out non-EV. Link
1%: the share of manual transmission vehicles sold in the US this year Link
Terrific Tweets
A new section to paste gems from Twitter that I learned a lot from!
Things not in the light-duty electric vehicle maintenance schedule:
*Transmission
*Sparkplug
*O2 sensor
*Timing belt
*Fuel filter
*Engine air filter
*Oil filter
*Engine coolant
*Engine oil
*Accessory drive belt
https://t.co/VsqIUh15QC h/t @EmilDimanchev https://t.co/HFHskFtD7H
New battery recycling announcements in Europe
- 10K tpa pre-processing plant in Sweden
- 50K tpa EV dissasembly/pre-processing plant in Hungary
- 10K M2 LIB consolidation and future recycling plant in Netherlands
- Demo plant in France
And that's only the last 5 days...
Battery Megafactory Number 215:
@northvolt and @VolvoGroup plan new 50GWh cell plant in Europe in 50/50 JV.
Volvo will also source 15GWh/year from Northvolt’s Skellefteå plant starting in 2024.
Northvolt giving LG Chem a run for its money with aggressive moves on expanding EV battery market in Europe.
Building a lithium ion economy means building a heavy industry from scratch.
In Europe & USA, Big Auto-Big Battery JV model to expand cell capacity is heavily favoured
That’s all from me folks! Have a good week!
By Sachin Seth
This weekly newsletter on new mobility is curated by me as a passion project. Yes, the name is an homage to the NPR show of the same name! If you like it, please forward it to whoever is interested in this space. Cheers!
I have worked for many years on automotive products and currently work @ Tesla. All opinions are my own.
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