AD #3859 – 2-Cycle Engine Eyed as Perfect Range Extender; Gen AI Deepfake Almost Scams Ferrari; Akio Toyoda Worried About Losing His Job

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

GEN AI DEEPFAKE ALMOST SCAMS FERRARI
This next story is pretty scary. Ferrari just missed being scammed by a Generative AI deepfake that impersonated the voice of CEO Benedetto Vigna. Bloomberg reports that a top Ferrari executive got a bunch of messages from Vigna on Whatsapp, telling them to get ready for a big business deal. Then came a phone conversation where the voice at the other end of line sounded a lot like Vigna, right down to his southern Italian accent. The fake voice asked the Ferrari exec to sign a non-disclosure agreement for a currency hedge transaction. But the call came in on a different phone number than Vigna uses, and the picture of Vigna was not the same photo that he actually uses on his phone. Also, the voice sounded kind of mechanical at times, which raised the suspicion of the exec. So, they asked the voice on the other end of the line to name the book that Vigna had recently recommended to them. With that, the fake voice abruptly hung up, because it had no idea what the book was. Ferrari has not identified who that exec was. We think it was likely someone like the CFO of the company, Antonio Piccon. But whoever it was deserves a gold medal for smoking out the scammers.     

AKIO TOYODA WORRIED ABOUT LOSING HIS JOB
Akio Toyoda is worried that he may lose his job. At the company’s annual meeting last month, only 72% of shareholders voted to retain him as chairman, versus 85% last year. Amongst foreign institutional investors, only 34% voted in favor of him. Amongst Japanese institutional investors, only 55% voted for him versus 70% last year. Retail investors gave Akio a 99% approval rating, but with his support plummeting with institutional investors, he’s worried about his job security. Despite massive profits and a $304 billion market cap, second only to Tesla, he’s come under a lot of criticism because Toyota got caught falsifying emissions data. Just to give you some comparison to Akio’s 72% approval rating, Bill Ford got an 84% approval this year, while Mary Barra at GM got a whopping 94% approval from shareholders.

HONDA, NISSAN, MITSUBISHI BAND TOGETHER AGAINST TOYOTA JUGGERNAUT
Speaking of Toyota, it dominates the Japanese market. Not only is it the largest Japanese automaker, it owns a controlling interest in heavy truck maker Hino, small car maker Daihatsu, and it owns parts of Subaru, Mazda, Suzuki and Isuzu. So the other Japanese automakers are banding together. Honda and Nissan have already agreed to work together on software, and now Mitsubishi is going to join them. But we think their collaboration will go well beyond software. 

NISSAN CUTS PRODUCTION ON SOFT SALES
And Nissan definitely needs help. It just cut production at its main plant in Japan by a third due to slumping demand in the U.S. and China. Worse, its global inventory is at 640,000 vehicles, the highest level in four years. Last week, it revealed its operating profit in the second quarter plummeted 99% to only $6.4 million.

  

GEELY ADDS YET ANOTHER BRAND
Geely is like the Stellantis of China in terms of how many brands they back. With the addition of LeapMotor, Stellantis is up to 15 car brands, but Geely is hot on its heels with 12. It now has another Chinese partner, DreamSmart that it plans to launch a new model with by the end of the year. So, Geely’s list now includes its own-branded models, Volvo, Polestar, Zeekr, Lotus, smart, Radar, Lynk & Co, Proton, Ji Yue and The London EV Company. 

TESLA ADDS GIANT DATA CENTER IN AUSTIN
Tesla released its Q2 results last week, which revealed that the company’s operating expenses shot up 39%. Well, we have a better understanding where that 39% is going to. Expansion. It showed the progress on a new data center, now nearly completely cladded in glass windows, that’s being added to the south side of its Gigafactory in Texas. About 200 miles to the south of that factory, it’s working on a lithium refinery that’s supposed to start production sometime next year. And in Nevada, Tesla is building a plant to make Semis next to its existing Gigafactory there. A couple of months ago it was just a bare patch of land, but the head of the semi program revealed on social media it’s now pouring the foundation and shared a rendering of what the finished plant will look like. 

CYBERTRUCK RANGE EXTENDER NEEDS TECH TO INSTALL
And sticking with Tesla, the Cybertruck’s range extender battery pack is not a quick-change item. When asked if the battery would be easily removable or could be offered as a rental, the truck’s lead engineer said no because the range extender is structurally mounted so it’s safe in a crash. That shouldn’t be too surprising if you caught some of our Cybertruck teardowns with Caresoft. You can see those videos that the range extender has to plug into the main battery which is mounted under the vehicle, while the range extender itself goes into the bed.  

2-CYCLE ENGINE EYED AS PERFECT RANGE EXTENDER 
Speaking of range extenders, they offer a future path to ICE powertrains that might otherwise have been killed off. As you likely know, Mazda is working to keep the rotary engine around as a range extender and now a company called the Obrist Group has developed a two-stroke range extender. Two-stroke engines are compact and cheap and easy to build and maintain. But they vibrate a lot, so Obrist came up with a twin counter-rotating crankshaft design that smooths it out so much that you can actually balance a glass of champagne on top of it while it revs to its peak of 4,500 RPM. Obrist says the 1.0L unit weighs 242 pounds or 110 kilograms and produces 60 horsepower in its optimum rev range, which generates electricity to send to the battery. We think this setup is probably best for passenger cars. Ram will likely show that EREV trucks that tow need a bigger engine like its Ramcharger, which uses a 3.6L V6. 

CHINA CAR SALES DOWN IN JULY
China’s economy is kind of sputtering and we’re seeing that reflected in new car sales. The China Passenger Car Association is forecasting that automakers will sell 1.7 million cars in July, down 2% compared to a year ago. But New energy vehicle sales, which includes BEVs and PHEVs, are expected to hit 860,000 units this month, accounting for just slightly under 50% of all sales.

XIAOMI ON PACE TO BUILD 100K+ EVs THIS YEAR
While the overall car market is down, some companies in China are growing. EV maker Xiaomi announced that it is on track to build as many as 120,000 vehicles this year. It originally planned to produce 60,000 vehicles but it boosted that due to strong demand for its SU7 model. And Xiaomi’s growth is impressive. The smartphone maker launched its automotive operations only three years ago and the SU7 didn’t go on sale until May of this year. So, it’s on track to sell 100,000 vehicles in 7 months. And it also plans to more than double the number of stores it has in China from 93 to 220 by the end of the year.

But that brings us to the end of today’s show. Thanks for tuning in.