Listen to “AD #3065 – Bridgestone Develops Tire for EV Startup; Honda Changes Tune on EVs; Why Auto Plastics End Up in Landfills” on Spreaker.
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Runtime: 10:01
0:08 Geely & Baidu JV To Launch 1st EV in 3 Years
1:07 Tesla Autopilot Needs Driver Monitoring
2:11 Daimler Posts Strong Q1 Earnings
3:20 Bridgestone Develops EV Tire for EV Startup
4:29 Honda Changes Tune on Electric Vehicles
5:37 Renault Hires Siri’s Co-Creator
6:36 Volvo To Increase Use of Remanufactured Parts
7:21 Why Most Auto Plastics End Up in Landfills
8:51 Exhaust Tips That Look Like HDMI Ports
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GEELY & BAIDU JV TO LAUNCH 1ST EV IN 3 YEARS
At the beginning of the year, Geely and Chinese tech company, Baidu, formed a new company to build smart electric cars. And now we’re learning more details about the joint venture. Called Jidu Auto, it will spend $7.7 billion over the next five years to develop and produce the vehicles. It plans to launch the first vehicle in three years and says it will “make you feel like it’s a robot that can communicate with you with emotions.” After it launches that vehicle, it plans to introduce a new model every one to one and a half years and will sell the cars directly to consumers. To help achieve that ambitious goal, Jidu will hire up to 3,000 people over the next two to three years, including four to five hundred software engineers. The cars will be built on Geely’s open-source electric vehicle platform, while Baidu will provide its autonomous and connectivity capabilities.
TESLA AUTOPILOT NEEDS DRIVER MONITORING
A recent fatal crash involving a Tesla is sure generating a lot of headlines because no one was in the driver’s seat at the time of the accident. And the debates have raged on. Was Autopilot engaged or wasn’t it? Elon Musk has claimed that it wasn’t. But now you’ve got a story from Consumer Reports, which states just below the headline “we demonstrated how easy it is to defeat Autopilot’s driver monitoring.” My question is, didn’t we already know this? There’s years’ worth of evidence of people misusing the Autopilot system, some getting away with it, others not so much. I think it’s more likely people are just getting tired of seeing the same stuff over and over again and are now creating a stink about it in hopes of some changes. And this is one area where we agree with CR, Tesla needs to come up with a way that its system knows someone is in the driver’s seat and that they’re paying attention to the road.
DAIMLER POSTS STRONG Q1 EARNINGS
Daimler reported its first quarter financial results and the numbers look good. It sold over 728,000 cars, trucks and vans, which brought in €41 billion in revenue. It posted a €5.7 billion EBIT, and put €4.4 billion on the bottom line. Obviously, these are wild and crazy percentage gains compared to a year ago when so much of the market was shut down due to the pandemic. But Daimler is warning investors that the second quarter may not look as good because of the chip shortage.
| Daimler Q1, 2021 Earnings | ||
|---|---|---|
| Sales | 728,600 | +13% |
| Revenue | €41 B | +10% |
| EBIT | €5.7 B | +819% |
| Net Profit | €4.4 B | +2,488% |
| Source: Daimler | ||
BRIDGESTONE DEVELOPS EV TIRE FOR EV STARTUP
One of the fastest ways to increase the range of electric cars is to reduce rolling resistance with the tires. So Bridgestone developed an EV tire for Lightyear, which is an EV startup based in the Netherlands. It’s got this cool looking EV, the Lightyear One, that claims to have a WLTP driving range of 450 miles, or 725 kilometers. And that’s with only a 60-kilowatt hour battery. One way it gets that much range is with a solar panel roof that can add about 35 miles a day. But another way is with a tire that cuts rolling resistance through innovative tread patterns, a larger diameter, high inflation pressure, and a relatively narrow tread. The tire is a custom-engineered version of Bridgestone’s Turanza Eco. It’s a 175/60/R19. Thanks to the lower rolling resistance and longer range, Lightyear was able to use such a smaller battery, and claims an overall weight savings of 90 kilos, or 200 pounds.
HONDA CHANGES TUNE ON ELECTRIC VEHICLES
If you go back only a couple of years, Honda didn’t seem very interested in electric vehicles, but it’s singing a different tune today. It says that by 2030 it wants 40% of its sales to be a combination of battery electric and fuel cell vehicles. Those figures jump to 80% by 2035 and 100% by 2040. I think we all know about its deal with GM, which will see one Honda and one Acura come off its Ultium platform as 2024 model year vehicles. But Honda says in the second half of the 2020s it will also launch a series of BEVs on a completely new platform led by Honda. And in Japan, an EV Kei Car will hit the market in 2024. But since Honda doesn’t just make cars, it’s electrifying its motorcycle lineup as well. It’s got three new models planned to come out around 2024, including one that looks like an electric sports bike. It’s amazing how quickly things change in just a couple of years.
RENAULT HIRES SIRI’S CO-CREATOR
If you ask Siri what her favorite car brand is, she might just say Renault. That’s because it just hired Siri’s co-creator as its new Chief Scientific Officer. Luc Julia will be in charge of R&D-ing artificial intelligence, man-machine interfaces, connectivity and software technology and oversee their integration into Renault’s vehicles.
VOLVO TO INCREASE USE OF REMANUFACTURED PARTS
To help reduce costs and carbon emissions, Volvo is using remanufactured parts in its vehicles. Last year, it remanufactured 40,000 parts, including transmissions and engines. By 2025, it wants to more than double its remanufactured business. And by 2040, it says that every part in its vehicles should be designed, developed and manufactured to be used and re-used by the company or its suppliers. It also wants to create closed material loops for steel and aluminum. And like many automakers it’s looking into second life applications for its EV batteries. By doing this, Volvo expects to save about $120 million annually.
WHY MOST AUTO PLASTICS END UP IN LANDFILLS
When it comes to recycling cars, 100% of the metal is recycled. But did you know that all of the plastic goes into landfills? One of the problems is that there are 200 different types of plastics used in cars and it’s impractical to try and sort them. Debbie Mielewski was our guest on Autoline After Hours yesterday. She’s a Technical Fellow at Ford, an expert in sustainability, and really knows a lot about recycling. Here’s what she had to say about recycling plastics.
“We’re still in that same situation unfortunately because we have over 200 types of plastic on a typical vehicle. And so how do you sort that? We keep changing the materials that we put in. I think the whole end-of-life has to be reinvented. When I visit some recycling facilities they ask me, ‘What would you like taken off?’ and I look at the car and I go, ‘OK, I need a big part. But then those fascias are painted and I don’t know how to recycle the paint.’ And so I think we need to consider wholistically, do we need to paint? Is mold-in-color better for the planet. Can we reuse materials that are black? Can we consolidate? It’s not impossible. It just hasn’t been top of mind. So when the vehicle comes back ten years later we go, ‘Oh, well we could have recycled it if we had taken this into account.’”
So let’s end the show on a light note. Kevin Hisel posts some of the funniest things on Facebook. A lot of them are automotive related and we liked his take on the exhaust tips on this Chevy Silverado. Thanks Kevin, and thanks to all of you for tuning in. Have a great weekend and we’ll see you on Monday.
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John McElroy is an influential thought leader in the automotive industry. He is a journalist, lecturer, commentator and entrepreneur. He created “Autoline Daily,” the first industry webcast of industry news and analysis.
