AD #4020 – Nissan Still in Partnership Talks with Honda; Rivian’s Secret Micromobility Project; Waymo Racking Up Parking Tickets

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

NISSAN STILL IN PARTNERSHIP TALKS WITH HONDA
We’re getting an idea of how Nissan will be run under new CEO Ivan Espinosa, who officially takes over the leadership role on April 1st. At an event where the company showcased a number of new products and technologies, Espinosa basically said that Nissan needs to generate more cash and one way of doing that is by building valuable partnerships with other companies. That will include expanded roles with current partners Renault and Mitsubishi. In fact, it revealed that the Micra name will be making a comeback in Europe, going on sale before the end of the year, as an all-electric model that’s based on the Renault 5. But Espinosa also says that the company never stopped talking to Honda about working together. However, instead of Nissan possibly becoming a subsidiary of Honda, Nissan’s Chief Planning Officer says they’re talking about doing individual programs and developing many vehicles off of a single platform. And a new goal for developing future models like these is to slash the amount of time it takes to make them. Right now it takes Nissan about 4.5 years to completely develop a new model, but it wants to slash a year and a half off that to get down to 37 months. It believes this will make it more competitive with other automakers. But until it can start implementing all these changes both Nissan and Infiniti have a slew of models that are getting ready to launch around the world. That includes the all-new LEAF, which now has a much more crossover shape and is based on the same architecture as the Ariya. While we’ll get more details by the middle of this year, we can tell you it will be available in North America first where it will come standard with a NACS charging port and will launch sometime in Nissan’s current fiscal year, which ends in April of 2026. But there will also be new versions of the Rogue and Qashqai, a next-gen Sentra sedan, refreshed Pathfinder and Frontier and Navarra, a new Juke EV, a couple of new unnamed SUVs as well as new and refreshed models for Infiniti. Rounding out all the announcements at Nissan, it’s improving its e-Power tech too, which is the company’s fancy name for an extended range electric or EREV. It says a new 1.5L engine makes the system more efficient, especially at higher speeds.

TESLA DROPS ‘FSD’ & ‘AUTOPILOT’ NAMES IN CHINA
Many people have been critical of Tesla for using ‘Full Self Driving’ and ‘Autopilot’ for the names of its hands-free driving systems. And it looks like regulators in China might feel the same way. As you may know, the EV maker has been ramping up its efforts to launch a version in China similar to Supervised FSD, which it offers in the U.S. But it had to pause the program as it works to comply with Chinese rules around OTA updates sent to vehicles for ADAS functions. And now Tesla has dropped both the ‘FSD’ and ‘Autopilot’ names from its website in China and just calls it ‘Intelligent Assisted Driving.’ The company charges about $8,800 for FSD in China, so it has the potential to generate a lot of revenue for Tesla. And we think the name change probably gets it closer to unlocking the feature for customers.

CANADA BANS TESLA FROM UPCOMING EV REBATES
But while it looks like its ban on FSD in China could be lifted soon, Canada is banning Tesla from its upcoming federal EV rebate programs. We recently ran a story, which we’ll link to if you’d like to learn more about it, but basically Canadian authorities are investigating Tesla-owned stores over a suspicious number of requests for EV rebates right before the rebate program ended. And as part of this new ban, Canada is also freezing the $43 million in rebates that were deemed suspicious while it continues its investigation into the matter.

MORE AUTOMAKERS POOL WITH TESLA IN EUROPE
However, there is one area where Tesla will be making a nice amount of money, emission pooling in Europe. By pooling emissions with Tesla, automakers can meet emission targets and avoid fines. It already signed up Ford, Toyota, Stellantis, Mazda and Subaru, which the UBS Group estimated would net Tesla about 1 billion euros. But that figure could go even higher because Honda and Suzuki also joined the pool. While the EU did propose allowing a three-year window to meet this year’s targets, some see the pooling providing them more flexibility with their vehicle lineups.

RIVIAN SPINS OFF SECRET MICROMOBILITY BUSINSESS
Did you know that Rivian is involved in micromobility? Neither did we but Rivian is so confident in its potential, that it just spun off its micromobility business into a new company called Also. Rivian says it started a stealth program focused on micromobility several years ago to see how it can leverage its technology to offer small, lightweight vehicles. And as its efforts advanced, Rivian realized that it had the potential to “unlock a large opportunity that deserved to be its own company.” While it didn’t reveal the amount, Rivian says it has a substantial minority stake in Also and the spin-off secured a $105 million investment from the venture capital fund Eclipse. Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe will serve as Chairman of Also’s board. And more details about its plans and products will be revealed soon.

BYD WANTS TO DOUBLE OVERSEAS SALES THIS YEAR
BYD is aiming for big growth outside of China this year. Last year, the automaker sold 4.27 million vehicles and just over 417,000 of those sales were overseas. But during an earnings call yesterday, BYD’s chairman said it wants to double its overseas sales this year, aiming to sell more than 800,000 vehicles outside China. BYD sees the UK, Latin America and Southeast Asia as its best opportunities for growth. And to avoid tariffs, the company will assemble vehicles in local markets and is currently building plants in Brazil, Thailand, Hungary and Turkey. At some point, BYD’s chairman expects overseas sales to account for a majority of its profits and he also believes that BYD will pass Toyota in profit per vehicle, once it reaches Toyota’s volume because it has better cost control. But BYD has a way to go to hit that goal. Last year, Toyota sold 10.8 million vehicles globally, more than double BYD.

AURORA DOING AV TESTS IN HARDER CONDITIONS
Autonomous commercial truck startup, Aurora, is making progress with its self-driving tech. The company announced plans to test trucks in poor weather conditions without a safety driver on board. Aurora is scheduled to launch its commercial service in Texas in April and it also has plans to operate on public roads in New Mexico and Arizona this year. They’ll be tested in cities, at day and night and in highway construction zones, where they can hit speeds of up to 75 MPH. And before it launches its service, Aurora will step up testing of its trucks, including virtual simulations. Aurora is backed by Uber and earlier this year it signed a long-term deal with Nvidia and German supplier Continental.

WAYMO RACKING UP EXPENSIVE PARKING TICKETS
And speaking of self-driving vehicles, Waymo racked up thousands of dollars in parking violations last year in San Francisco. The company was issued 589 parking tickets totaling just over $65,000. Among other violations, Waymo’s cars were cited for obstructing traffic lanes, ignoring street cleaning restrictions and occupying no parking zones. Waymo was also issued 75 tickets in Los Angeles where it started operations last November. Waymo says its vehicles are programmed to take the safest action during the time it’s picking up or dropping off riders and that’s when most of the citations occurred.

But that’s a wrap for today’s show. Thanks for making Autoline a part of your day.