AD #3463 – Alfa Romeo Kisses the ICE Goodbye; BorgWarner Spins Off ICE Business; VW Modifies MEB Platform

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

ALFA ROMEO KISSES THE ICE GOODBYE
Alfa Romeo is going to kiss the internal combustion engine goodbye. At an event in Detroit yesterday, Vincent Noirbent, the Vice President of production, planning and marketing for Alfa Romeo, confirmed that the Tonale will be the last vehicle it develops with an IC engine. From 2025 forward the company is going all electric. In the U.S., the Tonale will be offered only as a PHEV, including a 1.3-liter turbo, a 90-kilowatt electric motor on the rear axle and a 15.5 kilowatt-hour battery that provides 30 miles of driving range. The Tonale is a C-class sized crossover that will fit in below the D-Class Alfa Stelvio. It debuts in Europe in the first quarter of next year, and will reach the North American market in the second quarter.

GM TO INSTALL 40,000 L2 CHARGERS
General Motors wil install 40,000 Level II EV public charging stations in the U.S. and Canada, together with its dealers. Each dealer will get up to 10 chargers to install around the communities where they’re located. Dealers will work with their local communities to figure out the best place to install the chargers. And the chargers will be available for any EV, not just those from GM, and GM will pay for the installation. The idea is to make EV chargers available in rural areas where there aren’t any public chargers and in urban areas where people who live in apartments can’t charge at home. These are 19.2 kilowatt chargers, which is nearly three times faster than the 7.3 kilowatt Level II chargers you typically see in place today.   

EUROPE SEES STRONG NEW CAR SALES
Energy shortages, raging inflation, the war in Ukraine…all you hear out of Europe these days is bad news. So we’re happy to report some good news for a change. It looks like new car sales turned the corner last month. LMC Automotive reports that sales jumped 19% in November, and showed broad gains in all the major markets, including Germany, the UK, France, Italy and Spain. And LMC expects sales to grow more than 9% next year. Even so, the market has a long way to go for a complete recovery. Sales should hit nearly 11 million vehicles next year, but that’s still 3 million short of what was sold in 2019.

VW MODIFIES MEB PLATFORM FOR BIGGER BATTERIES
Volkswagen is working to bridge the gap between its current MEB-based EVs and its future electric vehicles. As we recently reported, VW is delaying Project Trinity from 2026 to at least 2028. This was supposed to completely transform the way it manufactures EVs, the time it takes to build them and would spawn a new architecture, called Scalable Systems Platform or SSP. All that is still in the pipeline, but VW will also invest 460 million euro into its Wolfsburg plant, which will start making the refreshed ID.3 next year. That ramp up will be completed in 2025, which will pave the way for an all-electric SUV being added to the plant in 2026. That SUV will be built on a modified version of the MEB platform, what VW is calling MEB+. It says it tried to free up as much space for the battery as it could. Current MEB vehicles have up to a 77-kWh battery and get up to 550 kilometers or about 340 miles of range. It doesn’t give a capacity for MEB+, but says they’ll have up to 700 kilometers of range or about 430 miles. They’ll also get a boost in charging speed, going from 125 kW up to 175-200 kW. As well as upgrades to the digital infrastructure and automated driving functions. VW plans to launch 10 new EVs by 2026, including an entry-level model that will be priced around 25,000 euro.

APPLE SCALES BACK AV CAR
When it comes to autonomous cars, Ford and Volkswagen pretty much threw in the towel. Bloomberg reports Apple is scaling back the autonomous capability of its all-electric AV. It was supposed to be a pod-vehicle with a lounge interior where passengers face each other. Now, it will reportedly be a more traditional vehicle with a steering wheel and pedals. It was also supposed to have Level 5 self-driving capability but now that will only be on highways. That’s because Apple doesn’t believe it’s possible to develop a full AV with current technology. The vehicle will launch in 2026, a year later than expected. Apple was going to charge $120,000 for the vehicle but now it’s targeting a price below $100,000.

UBER LAUNCHES ROBOTAXIS IN LAS VEGAS
But while others are giving up or scaling back their AV efforts, GM Cruise and Google’s Waymo are forging ahead, and Uber along with an AV company called Motional are launching a robotaxi service in Las Vegas. Uber customers can now hail an AV, a modified version of the Hyundai IONIQ 5, with their Uber app. Initially there will be vehicle operators on board the vehicle but the companies plan on offering a fully driverless service next year. After they get established in Vegas, Los Angeles will be next.

BYD TO BUILD EVs IN EUROPE
BYD currently sells EVs in several markets in Europe and it plans to enter a couple more by the end of the year. And now the Executive Vice President of the company says the automaker plans to build EVs in the region but she did not provide any details, like where or when it will happen. But by opening a factory in Europe, BYD should be able to avoid any political backlash instead of importing cars from China.

CADILLAC CELESTIQ CHIEF ENGINEER ON AUTOLINE
Tomorrow at 3PM EST we’re going to learn a lot more about Cadillac’s $300,000+ hand-built Celestiq. And you’re invited to come along with us. Tony Roma, the chief engineer of the Celestiq, is going to be our special guest on Autoline After Hours. So what’s the difference between engineering a car for mass production, versus one that gets built by hand? That’s one thing we want to know. And if you’ve got any questions either post them in the comments section or send an email to viewermail@autoline.tv.

POLESTAR OTA ADDS 68 HORSEPOWER
Much like Mercedes, Polestar is offering its North American customers an over-the-air update for the Long Range Dual motor Polestar 2. For $1,195 they can add another 68 horsepower and 15 pound-feet of torque to bring the total output of the EV to 476 horses and 502 pound-feet. That shaves about half a second of its 0-60 time to 4.2 seconds, but Polestar says it’s especially noticeable when accelerating from 50 to 75 miles an hour. For that price that means you’ll pay about $17.57 per horsepower. So what do you think? Is that kind of OTA worth it?

BORGWARNER SPINS OFF ICE BUSINESS
Here’s a development that we’re going to see a lot more of. BorgWarner, a legacy supplier that’s been around for 94 years, is spinning off a chunk of its ICE business to concentrate on BEVs. Borg is spinning off its aftermarket business and its fuel delivery business, which makes fuel injectors, starters and alternators and other engine related parts. All told, the spin-off does about $3.3 billion a year in revenue with strong double-digit operating margins. For now the spin-off is called NewCo and will probably go public by the end of next year. The move frees up Borg to pour its resources into making parts for electric vehicles, including electric motors, inverters, gear reduction units and battery packs. It expects EV components to account for 25% of its business by 2025 and 45% by 2030 and this is a sign that the supplier community believes the future is all electric.

And that brings us to the end of today’s show. Thanks for joining us.