AD #3835 – Tesla Roadster Delayed Again; Porsche Creating Battery Digital Twin; Magna Gets Order for Swivel Seats

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

FISKER FILES FOR BANKRUPTCY
In a move that surprised absolutely no one, EV startup Fisker filed for bankruptcy yesterday. It simply ran out of cash. Founder Henrik Fisker warned months ago that the company did not have enough money to get through the year. And it only delivered about half of the 10,000 Ocean SUVs it built last year. The model was also plagued with hardware and software issues. And the company was plagued with poor bookkeeping and lax financial controls.

2ND LEAPMOTOR CAR FOR EU WILL HAVE LIDAR
Stellantis isn’t wasting any time getting Chinese EVs into its line-up. Its partner Leapmotor recently kicked off production of its T03 model at a Stellantis plant in Poland, and now a second model is on the way. Codenamed the A12, it’s a compact SUV that will have both BEV and EREV powertrains. It will reportedly come equipped with lidar and advanced intelligent driving technology. But even with that high-end tech, the price is expected to be only around $14,000. It’s expected to go into production next year.\

TESLA ROADSTER DELAYED AGAIN
Have you ordered your new Tesla roadster yet? If so, you’re probably going to have to wait longer for it than you expected. Though the concept officially debuted in 2017 and a production version has been promised for years, it’s still years away. In February, Elon Musk said production would start this year and deliveries would start next year. But Autoforecast Solutions says the roadster will not start production at Fremont until January, 2027. And we think Autoforecast has a better track record at predicting these things than Elon does. It costs $50,000 to reserve a roadster, so that’s a lot of money to plunk down and let sit there for the next two and a half years.

GM PUSHES BACK CRUISE ORIGIN PRODUCTION
Elon is not the only one who’s off on his timeline. A couple of years ago, GM CEO Mary Barra said production of the Cruise Origin robotaxi would start in 2023. Then things went wobbly at Cruise and production was pushed back to this year. But it looks like that’s not going to happen. Autoforecast Solutions says the Origin will not start production at GM’s Factory Zero plant in Detroit until June, 2027. GM is already making test mules, but full production is three years away.

GM’S ORION PLANT COULD SIT IDLE FOR 3 YEARS
Autoforecast also says that production of the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra electric pickups will not move over to the Orion plant in Michigan until January of 2027. Those trucks are currently being made at GM’s Factory Zero in Michigan. The Orion plant was making the Chevy Bolt EV, but it was moved out to make room for the electric pickups. So, if Autoforecast has got this right, that plant will have been sitting idle for three years, since GM pushed back its EV plans because there’s not enough market demand to justify it.

 

DACIA MOVING UP SEGMENT
Dacia, which is Renault’s affordable brand, does pretty well selling its smaller B-segment vehicles, but it first floated the idea of moving up to the C-segment in 2021 with the Bigster concept. Well, it’s finally getting around to that. Next year it will come out with a production version of the Bigster that will then be followed by two more C-segment vehicles. And Dacia really expects those new models to increase its sales and profits by 2030. It’s forecasting to sell about a million units by the end of the decade, which is a pretty big jump from last year’s total of just under 660,000 vehicles. Dacia thinks that jump will double its revenue from 2022 to 2030 and boost its operating margin to an impressive 15% by the end of the decade as well. The company clearly thinks it is going to capitalize on all this talk of consumers wanting more affordable cars and we’ll get to watch and see if it’s right.

PORSCHE CREATES BATTERY DIGITAL TWIN
Porsche is doing something we haven’t heard of anyone else doing. It’s creating a digital twin of a high-voltage battery, to learn how EV batteries will perform over the long-term. A digital twin is a virtual representation of a product that allows engineers to test and design it virtually before it’s used in the real world. Porsche began working on the digital twin last year and says it has developed prototypes of the electrochemical and thermal models of the battery. It says its long-term goal is to not only create a battery digital twin but also a digital representation of individual vehicle batteries. Porsche says this could allow it to run simulations in the cloud and provide customers with details on how to extend the life of the battery without impacting the vehicle’s performance.

MAGNA GETS ORDER FOR SWIVEL SEATS
A few years ago Magna developed a vehicle interior with reconfigurable seating. The seats can swivel to point in any direction, they move on tracks to provide different seating arrangements, or they can be stacked up at one end of the vehicle to make room for cargo space. The different arrangements can even be controlled with a smartphone and an app. One idea was to use the vehicle for ride hailing services during the day, and for moving packages at night. Well, Magna just got an order from a Chinese automaker that will use part of the system. It will have swiveling front seats that can turn around to face rearwards. The front and rear row slide on 2 meters or about of powered rails to provide plenty of legroom. No word yet on which automaker is using it, but it goes into mass production in the fourth quarter of this year.

CHINA’S CHARGING RATES EXPLAINED
If you haven’t heard of China’s rankings for charging rates, you’re probably going to start hearing a lot more about them as battery makers are really ramping up their fast charging capabilities. It uses a number and the letter ‘C’ to refer to how fast the battery can be charged relative to its capacity. For example 3C and 4C charging rates are pretty common, which means a battery could be charged at 3- and 4-times its capacity or in other words a 1 kWh battery could be charged at 3 and 4 kW. Or to simplify it even more, you could say a 3C battery can charge 3 times in one hour. But now battery makers are hitting 5C charging rates and CarNewsChina even reports BYD and CATL will have 6C rates before the end of the year. That means a battery could fully charge 6 times in an hour or once in just 10 minutes. But good luck finding a charger capable of pumping out that much current. 5C capable chargers are rare and most are made and installed by the battery and car makers themselves.

BMW IMPLEMENTS GIANT AUTONOMOUS ROBOT
Automated guided vehicles, or AGVs, are nothing new. They’ve been around for decades, just like these orange units that are following the path of green tape on the floor at Honda’s plant in Marysville, Ohio. Now meet what I would call these robot’s big brother. BMW is implementing what it calls a one-of-a-kind autonomous transport vehicle at one of its plants in Germany. But this one doesn’t need any green tape or wires in the floor. Instead it uses Lidar, cameras and sensors, like an autonomous car, which allows it to move anywhere in a plant. And this thing is not moving small objects. Here we see it moving the two sides of a die for a giant stamping press and it’s capable of moving up to 55 metric tons.

SONY & HONDA GETTING READY TO LAUNCH AFEELA
Sony is ramping up the marketing of its project with Honda, called Afeela. It’s all about turbocharging the digital experience both inside and outside the car. The grille features a media bar to display customizable greetings, messages and even videos. Inside, pillar to pillar screens dominate the dashboard. A yoke steering wheel is used to provide better visibility of the screens, which can run an impressive amount of multimedia content, even content that you create yourself. Augmented reality will enhance the navigation. The car can connect to your Playstation 4 or 5 at home so you can game on the road. Just bring your own controller. There’s an on-board karaoke, and the car will be soundproof, so that no matter how loud it gets inside, no one will hear it outside. The car will also have lidar for Level 3 autonomy. No word yet on whether that includes eyes-off driving, but if it does, then even the driver will be able watch everything that’s going on.

But that brings us to the end of today’s show. Thanks for making Autoline a part of your day.