AD #3039 – Where Are Pickups Most Popular?; All-New Peugeot 308 Revealed; Why Hyundai is Marking Wheels & Tires

This is Autoline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry.

VW STOCK JUMP MAKES IT MOST VALUABLE GERMAN COMPANY
Investors really loved what Volkswagen had to say during its Power Day earlier this week, where it laid out its electric vehicle strategy. Yesterday, the automaker passed software maker SAP as the most valuable company on Germany’s blue-chip DAX index. VW now has a market valuation of 136 billion euros or about $162 billion. But the company still has room to grow according to CEO Herbert Diess, who believes the automaker is worth 200 billion euros. But it still has a ways to go to catch Tesla, which has a market cap of over $670 billion.

MORE PRODUCTION CUTS DUE TO CHIP SHORTAGE
The global semiconductor shortage continues to wreak havoc on auto production. Honda said its halting production at most of its plants in the U.S. and Canada for a week and all of its plants in Mexico. In addition to the chip shortage, severe winter weather over the last several weeks, the impact of COVID and congestion at ports, is forcing Honda to cut production. Toyota also announced its cutting production at four of its plants in North America for similar reasons. But it did not say for how long or how many vehicles will be impacted. And Volvo announced it will cut production at some of its plants in China and the U.S. this month because of the chip shortage.

NISSAN USING 3D PRINTING TO MAKE OLD PARTS
If you own an old Nissan vehicle and are having a hard time with finding replacement parts, you’re in luck. The automaker has partnered with HP and digital manufacturer SOLIZE, to make 3D printed discontinued parts for the NISMO Heritage Parts program. The first component that will be available is a plastic harness protector for the R32 Skyline GT-R. Automakers must continue to make replacement parts for vehicles ten years after it goes out of production. But building those parts can be expensive because they need to keep the molds for the parts and store those components. But with 3D printing, automakers can produce the parts on-demand, which helps cut costs.

 

WHERE ARE PICKUPS MOST POPULAR?
Where in the world are pickup trucks the most popular? Most Americans would say the United States. And by sales volume that’s true. But if you look at how much market share they have in every country, the US is not even in the Top Ten. They account for over half the market in Kenya and almost as much in Thailand. They’re more popular in the Middle East and Africa, and even New Zealand and Canada.

Do legacy automakers stand a chance of surviving the transition to electric cars? That’s the topic on Autoline After Hours this afternoon. We’ve got Rob Mantinan, the program engineer, for the Chevrolet Bolt EUV coming on. If you’ve got a question for him send an email to viewermail@autoline.tv or tweet it to @Autoline. Jeff Gilbert from WWJ will also be joining John and Gary when they get going at 3 pm eastern time.

PEUGEOT REVEALS NEW 308
Peugeot revealed the all-new 308, which is one of the first vehicles to wear its new lion’s head logo. Like the Kia EV6, it has a long cascading hood, which flows into a new trapezoidal grille. And it gets those Sabertooth Tiger DRLs that so many other Peugeots wear. The rear end is almost wavey and features a gloss black bar that connects the taillamps together. There will be a range of powertrain choices when the new 308 launches, everything from gas and diesel to plug-in hybrid. While the exterior is somewhat shapely, the interior seems to pick up on the angular cues of the headlamps, taillamps and exhaust and take that to the extreme. Tack on that bright green color and this is a vehicle that should be popular with young professionals.

 

 

NASCAR TURNS TO DOGS TO DETECT COVID
NASCAR is going to the dogs, and that’s actually a good thing for the sport. Last year NASCAR was the first sports organization to develop COVID protocols and get back to running live races. In fact, it did such a good job that other sports organizations like the NFL and MLB studied what NASCAR was doing and started copying it. Well NASCAR just took COVID screening to a new level. This Sunday its going to use trained dogs to sniff out people who might have COVID. They’re not going to sniff out fans, just the team crews that go into the garage area. The dogs can sniff out COVID within 30 seconds. And if they flag someone, that person will undergo another test with medical personnel at the track. It’s all about getting really fast results. And it’s just another reason why we call our doggies man’s best friend.

WHY HYUNDAI IS MARKING ITS WHEELS & TIRES
Here’s a great example of why Hyundai customers keep giving it high marks, maybe without even realizing it. Yesterday a Sonata showed up at the office for us to test drive. While giving it a quick once-over, I noticed that there were little red stickers on a single spoke of each wheel that matched up with a red dot on each tire. There’s only a couple of reasons I know why anyone would do this. The first is for racers who want to check if their tires are spinning on the wheels under hard braking and accelerating. But Hyundai confirmed with us it’s the other reason. The marks are the high spot on the tire and the low spot on the wheel. When matched up it gives you the lowest amount of vibration. That means even as the tire wears over time the whole assembly will stay more balanced. So, as customers put miles on their vehicles it still feels liked it just rolled off the assembly line. I’m not sure if any or how many automakers do this, but it’s the first time I’ve ever seen them marked before.

COULD FORD MAKE CANOO-LIKE PICKUP?
Ford might be looking into a unique electric vehicle. Someone from the company posted on LinkedIn, “Wouldn’t it be cool if someone made a modern BEV version of this 1961 Ford Econoline pickup truck?” Normally we might not get too excited about things like this but it comes from Hau Thai-Tang, Ford’s Chief Product Platform and Operations Officer, which makes it a little more credible. It would be awesome to have an EV like this and we’d point out the Canoo pickup would probably fit that bill perfectly.

But that’s it for today, thanks for watching.