AD #2532 – GM’s Board Transformation, Big Truck Sales Keep Climbing, Cruise Shows Impressive AV Capabilities

This is Autoline Daily reporting on the global automotive industry.

Hi I’m John McElroy. It’s February 14th, 2019. Now the news.

GM’S BOARD TRANSFORMATION
There’s a fascinating transformation going on with the board of directors at General Motors. It’s now well populated with people from the intelligence and military communities. They include Mike Mullen, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Jami Miscik, former deputy director of the CIA; Linda Gooden, formerly the head of information systems at Lockheed Martin; and Wes Bush, former CEO of Northrup Grumman. In a world full of cyber attacks and geopolitical flare-ups, General Motors is making sure it has the kind of corporate guidance that knows how to deal with these problems. Another point worth repeating. Almost half of GM’s board are women, the highest percentage in the auto industry by a wide margin, and that is going to give it perspectives that other automakers do not have.

BUSCH BEER TURNS NASCAR INTO BEER CANS
To promote this weekend’s Daytona 500, Busch Beer decided to make beer cans out of a race car. Because why not? It cut up Kevin Harvick’s 2018 NASCAR Ford and turned it into 40 collector-edition beer cans. The top half of the cans are made from the car’s sheet metal and the bottom half is from it’s carbon fiber. The biggest challenge while cutting the metal was not ruining the vinyl wraps that cover the panels. The cans are numbered and signed by Kevin Harvick. While you won’t be able to buy them at a store, you can win one. Busch will have more details on how to do so during the race this Sunday.

Would you like to learn a lot more about the newest crossover from Cadillac? Well, we have the chief engineer on the XT6 coming on Autoline After Hours this afternoon. We’ll even have an XT6 in the studio. If you want to get in on the conversation, shoot an email to viewermail@ autoline.tv. Then tune in with me and Gary and Jeff Gilbert from WWJ Newsradio 950 when we go live at 3 pm eastern time.

NISSAN INVESTS IN NEW PLANT IN AFRICA
You may remember on a recent Autoline This Week, we wondered if Africa could become the next automotive powerhouse? We’ve seen a number of automakers and suppliers announce new projects on the continent since that show aired and now Nissan says it will spend $160 million to build a new plant in Algeria. It will have the capacity to make 63,500 passenger and light commercial vehicles a year. Nissan will also set up a new joint venture in Algeria in the coming weeks.

BIG TRUCK SALES KEEP CLIMBING
Light vehicle sales in the U.S. are starting to soften. But medium and heavy truck sales continue to soar. According to Wards Intelligence data, big trucks were up nearly 25% in January. And large semis really drove the growth. With sales of over 20,000 units, heavy-duty trucks jumped nearly 40%. Sales of medium-duty trucks, which is class 4 to 7, were up about 12%. EVeryone’s been predicting that these sales would start to nose down, but in fact, they could be a leading indicator that shows the economy continues to run at a roar.

NEW SILK ROAD COULD SLASH SHIPPING TIME
The Silk Road that ran between China and Europe during the Roman Empire was used as a way to transfer goods. Now China wants to resurrect that route. It’s pouring $900 billion into the plan for a New Silk Road to transfer goods. And it could have a massive impact on logistics. A German logistics company says using trains on the New Silk Road could cut the time in half to transport cars from Germany to China, compared to sending them by ship. That would drastically cut shipping costs, and this German logistics company says it is, “in intensive talks with various car companies.”

CRUISE SHOWS IMPRESSIVE AV CAPABILITIES
Cruise Automation, the General Motors subsidiary working on autonomous cars, just put out a video showing its car’s capabilities. Driving on the streets of San Francisco, it shows a remarkable ability to deal with all kinds of crazy traffic situations. In one case it encounters blocked traffic and crosses a double yellow line to get around it. That shows how much it drives with human intuition and doesn’t necessarily follow the letter of the law. Later it comes across some unexpected construction that blocks the road, but manages to get around it. It also deals with busses and delivery trucks that are blocking the street and waits until a bicycle comes whizzing out of nowhere before it proceeds around traffic. If you want to watch the full video click on the headline to this story in the transcript that we have on our website. GM Cruise says it’s going to launch an autonomous ride hailing service later this year, and while it has not officially announced where it will launch, it’s pretty obvious that it’s going to be in San Francisco.

But that wraps up today’s show, thanks for watching and please join us again tomorrow.