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Opel, the German carmaker now owned by France’s PSA Group (PEUP.PA), said a new version of its Corsa city car would be built exclusively in Zaragoza, Spain, from 2019.
This includes a fully electric version that will start rolling off the production line in 2020, Opel said on Wednesday.
The Opel Corsa has been made in Spain since 1982.
Porsche and Audi, Volkswagen’s main luxury car divisions, plan to develop a joint platform for electric vehicles that will enable them significantly cut down on costs, German newspapers quoted their chief executives as saying.
“By 2025, we’re facing a low single-digit billion euro sum to develop the architecture,” Audi CEO Rupert Stadler told both the Stuttgarter Zeitung and Stuttgarter Nachrichten.
“If both would act on their own, costs would be 30 percent higher,” Porsche CEO Oliver Blume said, adding Audi was hiring 550 developers for the project and Porsche 300.
From 2021 onwards, both businesses want to bring several models to the streets based on the joint platform, with Stadler saying that would build two sedan cars in Neckarsulm and two sports utility models at its Ingolstadt base.
Porsche’s Blume said the sportscar maker could build its first model based on the joint architecture in Leipzig, where it is already assembling its Macan sport-utility model. “I currently see good chances for Leipzig,” Blume said.
The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) has asked the Ministry of Finance to remove the special consumption tax for locally-manufactured auto parts.
This is part of a recommendation document that MoIT sent to the finance ministry in order to revitalise domestic automobile industry in the future and reduce the import of autos.
The MoIT said that it is needed to have more measures to help local automakers cut production cost and accelerate the product’s competition capacity as well as revising policies on tax and fees.
The ministry wanted the finance ministry to exempt the import tax on materials for part and components manufacturers who invest in Việt Nam, which should be in association with their commitment on long-term investment, volume of products, technology transfer and use of local labour force.
The MoIT also recommends the application of a tax payment guarantee for a period of eight months instead of the current 30 days.
The MoIT expected the finance ministry to study to amend and supplement a number of the above contents, which were proposed by Thành Công Group, with regard to laws on value-added tax, special consumption tax, and corporate income tax, in addition to personal income tax and natural resources protection tax.
Earlier, at the review conference of the industry and trade sector held in Hà Nội on January 15, General Director of Hyundai Thành Công Lê Ngọc Đức proposed that the MoIT, in co-ordination with the finance ministry, consider several recommendations as those mentioned above.
According to Đức, in order to achieve the goal of developing the automobile industry in Việt Nam, the Government has issued decrees such as Decree 116 on conditions for production, assembly, import and business of warranty service, car maintenance, and Decree 125 that regulates the roadmap for import duty exemptions of parts and components for manufacturers who meet conditions such as emission standards, engine displacement capacity for the car with nine seats and less, passenger car and truck.
However, he said such privileges were not strong enough to be of significant priority for locally-assembled autos to help them compete with complete built-up units imported from ASEAN.
Under the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (AFTA) commitments, a zero per cent tax has been applied on cars imported from the bloc with a localisation rate of 40 per cent or more in the country of origin from January 1.
A MoIT report showed that the price of an automobile in Việt Nam is currently high in the region but its quality is lower than an imported one.
“Locally-assembled autos in Việt Nam have a similar price doubling as those seen in regional countries and much higher than other countries which have a stable automobile industry such as Japan and the United States,” said the report.
“The domestic automobile industry has not yet reached the standards of the real automobile industry because most are at the level of simple assembly; the production line mainly consists of four key stages including welding, painting, assembly and inspection. There is no co-operation, linkage and specialisation between automakers and assemblers and part suppliers. There is no such system used by material suppliers and large-scale parts and components makers.
“The localisation rate of new autos is only between 7 per cent and 10 per cent on average (compared to the target of 40 per cent in 2005 and 60 per cent in 2010). Currently, locally-produced products with very low technological content are tubes, tires, chairs, mirrors, cables, plastic products and batteries,” the report pointed out.
MoIT has on numerous occasions warned that if such privileges and incentives were not approved, the domestic automobile industry would find it difficult to compete with imported cars.
Bandung’s city Indonesia administration has said work will start soon on the city’s first light rail transit (LRT) network, which will be called the “Metro Kapsul.” The administration claimed the network will be considerably cheaper to build than similar ones in Jakarta and Palembang.
To cut costs, the contractor will use locally made materials and employ local talents to do most of the work, everything from research to test and eventually running the system.
Bandung Mayor Ridwan Kamil said the project will not use any money from the state budget, but will be 100 percent privately funded.
“It will be 100-percent funded by PP [state-owned construction company Pembangunan Perumahan]. It will not use moeny from the APBD [regional budget] or APBN [state budget],” Ridwan said at the project’s launch in Bandung on Monday (12/02).
The mayor did not say when actual construction on the project will start as the city administration is still waiting for the building license (IMB) for the track to be approved.
“[Theoretically] we can start doing the foundation [without the IMB],” Ridwan said.
Ridwan claimed 98 percent of the Metro Kapsul network will be made of locally made materials. The rest, including its digital technology, will come from Slovenia.
Construction will start from the network’s Corridor 3, an 8.3-kilometer track which will loop from the city center through the city’s busiest and most densely populated areas.
“Metro Kapsul will be three times cheaper than the Jakarta LRT or Palembang LRT. Corridor 3 will only cost Rp 1.4 trillion [$98 million] to build, or Rp 150 billion per kilometer,” Ridwan said as reported by local newspaper Pikiran Rakyat.
According to information uploaded on the website of the Committee for Acceleration of Priority Infrastructure (KPPIP), the 23 km-long Palembang LRT will cost a total of Rp 12.5 trillion, or Rp 520 billion per kilometer.
PP has signed a build, operate, transfer (BOT) contract with the Bandung administration. The company will retain the rights to operate the network for 30 years.
According to Ridwan, it may take up to one and a half years to complete construction on Corridor 3.
“So, maybe, the next mayor of Bandung will have to open it,” he said.
Ridwan’s tenure as Bandung mayor will officially end in September. The 46-year-old has declared he will run for the governorship of West Java in June’s simultaneous regional elections.
He said the Metro Kapsul project is proof that Indonesia is not short of great engineering talents.
“The network’s technology is designed by local engineers in Gedebage and Setrasari in Bandung, then tested in Subang and will be run for the first time in this city,” Ridwan said.
Nissan Motor Co plans to invest 60 billion yuan ($9.5 billion) in China over the next five years with its joint-venture partner as it seeks to become a top three automaker in the world’s biggest market.
Long stuck as a second-tier player in China, Nissan and Dongfeng Group said on Monday they plan to boost their volume to 2.6 million vehicles a year by 2022, up from 1.5 million vehicles last year.
Nissan plans to achieve the objective, dubbed its “Triple One” strategy, by focusing on electric cars and Venucia, a no-frills local brand Nissan operates in China – two market segments expected to see a surge in demand. It also aims to boost sales of light commercial vans and trucks.
China’s auto market has been dominated by General Motors Co and Volkswagen AG for nearly two decades, with each of them selling 4 million vehicles last year. Nissan, along with Toyota Motor Corp , Ford Motor Co, and Honda Motor Co, lag far behind, each selling 1 million-plus vehicles a year.
“We aim to break away from this second-tier group and become a top-3 China automaker,” Nissan’s China chief Jun Seki said in an interview with Reuters.
“We need to go full-throttle aggressive,” Seki said. “If we didn’t do that, we would fall behind and fail to grab market share otherwise we could take.”
ELECTRIC STRATEGY
Part of the strategy is to keep growing the Nissan brand and the company’s premium Infiniti brand, Seki said.
Nissan and Dongfeng plan to increase the Nissan brand’s annual sales by 500,000 vehicles to 1.6 million vehicles a year by 2022. It also plans to boost Infiniti’s annual sales by 100,000 vehicles to about 150,000 vehicles a year over the same time frame.
Still, more critical a strategy is Nissan’s electrification plan.
Seki said the joint venture will launch as many as 20 electrified vehicle models across all brands in an effort to sell roughly 700,000 such cars a year by 2022 excluding electric light commercial vehicles, using a combination of all-electric battery vehicles and so-called “e-Power” hybrids.
Automakers are scrambling to launch an array of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles over the coming years, in part to comply with China’s production quotas for such cars. Nissan’s joint venture with Dongfeng sold about 22,000 electric vehicles last year, but they were mostly light commercial e-vans.
In order to generate large enough EV volume, Nissan plans to come up with lower-cost electric cars by locally sourcing electric motors and other key EV components from suppliers in China.
In 2019, Nissan for example plans to launch three such lower-cost EVs under the Venucia name. “We expect EV and e-power hybrid business to become profitable,” Seki said, without elaborating.
NO-FRILLS
Venucia, which Nissan established jointly with Dongfeng, is another key focus. The brand began selling cars in 2012, competing with China’s low-cost, no-frills indigenous brands such as those run by Geely and Great Wall Motor.
Seki said shoring up Venucia is a must because indigenous Chinese brands will likely collectively sell as many cars as global brands sell in China. Last year indigenous Chinese brands sold a total of 10.3 million vehicles, compared with global brands’ 13.9 million vehicles.
Venucia, which uses retired Nissan technologies such as platforms and transmissions, last year sold 143,000 vehicles, up 22.7 percent from 2016.
Seki said Nissan wants to boost Venucia’s annual volume by more than 400,000 vehicles to be able to sell as many as 600,000 vehicles a year by 2022.
The effort is likely to face tough competition, however, from established local players such as Baojun, which GM operates jointly with its local China partners.
“No global automakers have a brand that competes with low-cost local brands except for us and GM,” Seki said. In addition to Baojun, GM operates the Wuling brand in a joint venture with Chinese partner SAIC Motor Corp and Guangxi Automobile Group.
“Venucia is our clear advantage and we are going to milk it to grow rapidly,” Seki said.
One in three people in Southeast Asia admit they consider making the switch to electric cars, a study by Frost & Sullivan has revealed.
The research, sponsored by Japanese carmaker Nissan, revealed 37 percent of prospective car buyers in the region may end up buying an electric one.
Survey respondents from the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia are the most interested in electric motor-powered cars.
According to the study, with the right incentives and policies, electric cars could be the next big thing in the region.
“Two-thirds of customers in Asean countries say they’re still worried about safety and finding charging stations for their electric cars,” Nissan revealed the results of the study in a statement on Tuesday (06/02).
“But they don’t see price as an obstacle. They’re prepared to pay more for electric cars,” the study said.
The research also recommends policies to be taken by governments wanting to promote the use of electric cars.
“75 percent of respondents say they will buy electric cars if they don’t have to pay tax, 70 percent say they will be even more enthusiastic about the prospect if charging stations are made available in their apartment complexes and 56 percent say they will abandon conventional cars altogether if there’s a priority lane for electric cars on the streets of their city,” the study said.
However, the study also revealed a few factors that make Southeast Asian customers reluctant to switch to electric cars.
“They’re worried the cars will run out of charge before they reach their destination. That’s their main concern. The government and carmakers need to work together to ease it,” the study said.
“Southeast Asians consider the government plays a very important role in promoting electric vehicles,” Nissan’s senior vice president Yutaka Sanada said in the company’s statement.
The Japanese carmaker says it has sold more than 300,000 of its Nissan LEAF electric cars all over the world and not a single one of them has experienced safety issues.
“In reality the demand for electric cars today is very high. Figures sometimes don’t tell the whole story. If governments and carmakers can assure customers that electric cars are safe and won’t run out of power mid-journey, the market can grow very large indeed,” Frost & Sullivan’s senior vice president Vivek Vaidya said.
Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) aims to sell 1.4 million vehicles in China in 2018, nearly 9 percent more than it sold last year, but two insiders at the Japanese automaker said production constraints and other hurdles make it a tough target to meet.
The sales goal announced by Japan’s biggest automaker on Friday comes at a time when the world’s biggest auto market is experiencing a slowdown in overall vehicle sales growth.
The two people said the target is more a “stretch goal.” It is a target that is not the baseline sales forecast and one that executives acknowledge will be difficult to achieve, they said.
A big factor that makes selling 1.4 million vehicles this year more of a challenge is Toyota’s manufacturing capacity which the two individuals said remains strained.
“If we could resolve this capacity issue, it would be easy to make the 1.4 million target. With sufficient capacity, we can possibly sell 1.5 million vehicles,” one of the two people said.
Toyota’s forecast for 2018 is relatively more upbeat than the previous few years in part because it expects to launch a couple of potentially high-volume subcompact sport-utility vehicles (SUVs) later this year, the people said.
They said Toyota plans to launch two China-market versions of the subcompact Toyota CH-R crossover SUV in a June-July time frame. The CH-R hit showrooms in the United States in April last year.
Those two CH-R variants are smallish crossover SUVs that others, most notably Japan’s Honda Motor Co (7267.T), have leveraged to grow sales significantly in China.
A Toyota spokesman said that though the 2018 sales target was not one that can be easily achieved due to the highly competitive market environment, the recent launch of a redesigned Camry sedan and the planned introduction of two subcompact SUVs later this year would enable Toyota to challenge the previous year’s numbers.
China’s overall vehicle market growth was the weakest last year in at least two decades, increasing just 3 percent year-on-year to 28.88 million vehicles, pegged back chiefly by a phasing out of tax breaks on smaller-engine cars that begun in 2017.
According to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM), 2018 will another weak year. It predicts the country’s vehicle market will grow 3.5 percent in 2018.
On Friday, Toyota said its sales in China in January rose 24.5 percent from a year earlier to 127,500 vehicles. Smaller rival Honda’s sales in China, meanwhile, rose 10.9 percent in January to 126,174 vehicles.
Honda, which last year sold a total of 1.44 million vehicles in China, did not provide a forecast for volumes for this year.
Some 1,000 cars worth US$94 million were imported to the Vietnamese market in January, reports the General Statistics Office.
This marks a record drop of 86.2 per cent in volume and 38 per cent in value compared to the previous month.
The drop comes after auto businesses, including Toyota Motors Vietnam and Honda, stopped importing autos due to the government’s Decree 116, which tightens control over quality, technical safety and environment protection of imported autos.
Speaking at the government’s monthly press conference on February 2, minister and chairman of the Government Office Mai Tiến Dũng, said a number of embassies and organisations had sent letters to the Prime Minister proposing him to direct relevant ministries and sectors to reconsider the decree.
Dũng said the Vietnam Automobile Manufacturers’ Association had submitted four letters of recommendation to the government to remove difficulties, saying that the provisions in the decree were inappropriate.
Meanwhile, several associations, such as Japan Business Association in Việt Nam, and foreign direct investment joint ventures have repeatedly proposed the government to delay the implementation of Decree 116 by at least six months.
Dũng said there were three major issues arising out of the decree troubling auto businesses and organisations.
The first is that the importers must obtain a Vehicle Type Approval (VTA) certificate issued by authorities in the exporting country. Dũng explained that VTA was not a certificate of the State body but of authorised agencies or associations of the exporting countries, which aimed to ensure the origin, quality and value of the vehicle.
Such authorised agencies and associations will also be responsible for recalling the vehicles if they have faults during the production process. This is to ensure the rights and interests of automakers and consumers alike, Dũng said.
As for the second issue, Dũng said the decree states that the inspection agency will randomly select one unit of each batch to check. The check will be conducted on every batch of imported autos. This regulation will prove to be more costly and time-consuming in testing vehicles. And it is the customer who will have to incur the cost as businesses will ensure their profit.
Dũng said the government was considering the issue.
The third problem posed by Decree 116 is that it requires automakers to have a testing route of 800m, with minimum 400m straight, before rolling out the vehicles in the market. According to automakers, this condition will require them to pay more, including registration fee, cost of land and cost of building testing routes.
Dũng said Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc had assigned the Government Office and relevant ministries and sectors to consider the above-mentioned problems. The recommendations would not only ensure the government’s demand on domestic auto production but also the country’s implementation of international standards that Việt Nam was committed to, Dũng said.
Decree 116’s regulations are being evaluated as a technical barrier for auto importers to overcome. Dũng, however, said all countries were applying necessary measures to ensure the quality of imported products as well as the rights and interests of consumers.
Further explaining the issue, Dũng said a batch of BMW autos previously imported to Việt Nam was found with a lot of problems related to procedure and origin of the vehicles, in addition to the fact that they were used cars. “If we do not check them carefully, the consumers will be the most vulnerable,” he said.
Hyundai Motor unveiled on Tuesday a re-designed Santa Fe, hoping the first makeover of the sport utility vehicle (SUV) in six years will help rectify a sales slowdown at the South Korean automaker, especially in the key U.S. market.
The revamped version of its top-selling SUV in the United States and South Korea features a longer, more voluminous body than its predecessor while boasting advanced safety features such as warnings on approaching objects from the rear when a car stops.
The two-row, five-seater SUV was unveiled to South Korean media at a “preview” event, before its official launch in February in the home market.
While Hyundai did not disclose other details, a source said the model comes with a 2.0-liter and a 2.2-liter diesel engine, a more fuel-efficient eight-speed transmission and semi-autonomous driving features used in its Genesis premium sedans.
“The new Santa Fe will be a bread and butter model for us this year,” the Hyundai insider said on condition of anonymity since he is not authorized to speak to the media.
“We have high hopes for the model,” he said. Hyundai Motor declined to comment.
Hyundai Motor reported last week its worst annual earnings in seven years, battered by its delayed response to the burgeoning SUV market and a diplomatic row with China.
A firmer local currency also adds to the woes of the automaker, as it is eating into its profits repatriated from overseas and hurts the price competitiveness of its exports in the United States and other markets.
“The mission of the Santa Fe is to recover Hyundai’s U.S. market share. It carries a big burden on its shoulder,” said Ko Tae-bong, a senior auto analyst at Hi Investment & Securities. The U.S. sales of the aging Santa Fe slumped 25 percent last year even as U.S. industry SUV and truck sales rose 4 percent.
The model, expected in the U.S. market in the third quarter of this year, will be also “key to recovering the utilization rate of Hyundai’s factory in Alabama”, Ko said.
Hyundai’s U.S. sales fell 12 percent last year, making it the worst performer among automakers in that market, hit by the conservative design of the Sonata and the Elantra sedans and an absence of a broadbased SUV line-up.
Hyundai, which has three SUV models – Kona, Tucson and Santa Fe – has said it would diversify its SUV line-up by launching a mini-SUV and a large SUV.
The Malaysian Automotive Association (MAA) is hoping that the review of the National Automotive Policy (NAP), which will be announced by the government in mid-2018, will improve the automotive industry and help boost vehicle sales.
MAA president Datuk Aishah Ahmad said the government has not engaged with MAA on the review of the NAP and that the details of the NAP 2018 have not been discussed with the industry.
“It’s just preliminary announcement that there are some changes in the NAP and we hope whatever announcements they make will be good for the industry and will boost industry sales and assist the industry for us to expand sales and make more money,” she told a press conference on the automotive market review for 2017 and outlook for 2018 today.
Last week, International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed said NAP 2018 is still a work-in-progress, with consultations to continue for another four to five months. NAP 2018 will focus on mobility, next-generation vehicles, big data, lifestyle and connectivity.
With NAP 2018 also focusing on parts and components, Aishah concurred that this is a growth area based on industry figures.
She said NAP 2014 has helped reduce the prices of energy-efficient vehicles (EEV) slightly as EEV producers enjoyed incentives on local components.
Meanwhile she said the strengthening ringgit will help industry players, especially those who trade in US dollars and Japanese yen, as they will have better margins.
MAA is projecting a total industry volume (TIV) of 590,000 units in 2018, a 2.3% growth from 2017. This takes into account of factors like economic growth, rising cost of doing business, rising cost of living, continuation of the strict lending guidelines and ride-hailing services.
The TIV of new motor vehicles registered in 2017 declined marginally by 0.6% to 576,635 units in 2017 from 580,085 units in 2016.
Aishah said the local automotive market was subdued for much of last year.
For the second consecutive year, the TIV contracted, reflecting perhaps a down-cycle of the market that started in 2016.
“Despite our country’s economic recovery and the aggressive promotional campaigns undertaken by MAA members, sales remained essentially flat in 2017. This can be attributed to the inflationary pressures affecting consumers’ disposable income, which consequently resulted in cautious consumer spending,” said Aishah.
Honda Malaysia retained its number one spot for non-national brands for the third consecutive year, managing to sell 19% more cars or 109,511 units in 2017, the highest in its history.
Honda Malaysia also sold the second largest number of cars in total industry volume in 2017, for the second consecutive year, it said in a statement today.
Since 2003 and in the span of 14 years, Honda Malaysia has sold more than 730,000 units of vehicles.
The company managed to capture a 19% market share, the highest ever achieved in Honda Malaysia history, with six new model launches, namely BR-V, City, Jazz and Jazz Hybrid, City Hybrid, CR-V and All-New Civic Type R.
The City emerged as Honda’s best-selling model in 2017, contributing 27% of total sales, followed by HR-V at 17%, BR-V at 16% and Civic at 14% respectively.
In the Hybrid segment, the Jazz Hybrid and City Hybrid contributed 2% to the total sales of Honda Malaysia despite being on sale for only 4 months. The two models are leading the overall Hybrid segment.
Throughout 2017, Honda Malaysia expanded its presence and penetration in Sabah and Sarawak, which contributed more than 7,500 units to the total sales achieved. Sales for East Malaysia in 2017 increased by 33% compared to 2016. BR-V was the best-selling model in Sabah and Sarawak.
Not losing sight of its after sales service segment, Honda Malaysia introduced Honda Pride with 12 specially designed benefits such as five years warranty with unlimited mileage, genuine parts and comfortable dealer showroom.
In terms of service intake, Honda Malaysia recorded more than 1.15 million vehicles serviced in 2017, up 13% from the 1.0 million vehicles serviced in 2016.
Managing director and CEO Toichi Ishiyama said, “Reflectively, we are pleased to note that with the maturing Malaysian market, customers responded well to the various Next Generation Advanced Technologies we introduced such as Honda SENSING, Turbo and Sport Hybrid i-DCD. The Sport Hybrid i-DCD made history during their introductions, as Malaysia is the only country outside of Japan to introduce the technology. It was also the most affordable Hybrid to be introduced in the market. Honda was also the first brand to introduce the SENSING technology into mass models such as the CR-V and New Accord.”
Daimler Trucks has increased its worldwide deliveries in the first 11 months of 2017 by 12 percent year on year to 422,500 units, despite the continuation of disparate market conditions. Until the end of November, more trucks were delivered than in the whole of last year. In full-year 2016, the Daimler truck division sold approximately 415,100 vehicles of the Mercedes-Benz, Fuso, Freightliner, Western Star, Thomas Built Buses and BharatBenz brands worldwide.
On the basis of initial December data, Daimler Trucks assumes that it will end the full year with unit sales in the magnitude of 465,000 vehicles (2016: 415,100). The final sales figures will be available at Daimler’s annual press conference on February 1, 2018.
“For full-year 2017, we at Daimler Trucks anticipate unit sales in the magnitude of 465,000 trucks – significantly more than in the previous year and significantly more than we expected at the beginning of the year. This is only possible with leading products and an excellent international team – especially with an ongoing situation of weak tailwinds from our markets. I thank all our employees for their outstanding efforts,” stated Martin Daum, Member of the Board of Management of Daimler AG, responsible for Trucks & Buses. “In everything that we do, our focus is on our customers. In order to offer them the best products and solutions, we work continuously on innovations. We used the year 2017 to work hard on efficient, electric, automated and connected trucks.”
North America key growth driver
The significant growth in unit sales achieved by Daimler Trucks was driven by the positive sales development in the NAFTA region, especially in the second half of the year. Sales rose by 12 percent to 150,600 units (2016: 134,200).
With a market share of 39.2 percent in weight classes 6 to 8 (2016: 40.0 percent), Daimler Trucks says it continued to be the undisputed market leader for medium- and heavy-duty trucks in North America by a clear margin. A key growth driver in the North American market is the new Freightliner Cascadia, which has been produced since early 2017 with an integrated Detroit powertrain and sets standards in terms of fuel efficiency, safety and connectivity. Also in the fourth quarter, Daimler Trucks recorded a significantly higher number of orders received in the NAFTA region than in the prior-year period.
Uptick in Europe and Latin America – growth in Brazil again
Daimler Trucks increased its sales also in the EU30 region (European Union, Switzerland and Norway) by three percent to 73,600 units in the months of January through November (2016: 71,100). Mercedes-Benz maintained its market leadership in the segment of medium- and heavy-duty trucks with 21.0 percent (2016: 20.7 percent). Mercedes-Benz is the best-selling brand also in Germany, with a market share of 36.6 percent (2016: 37.2 percent) and deliveries of 28,000 vehicles (2016: 27,600).
Since March 2017, Mercedes-Benz trucks feature the new Truck Data Center. This standardised connectivity module is fitted across the Daimler Trucks brands: in the Mercedes-Benz Actros, Arocs, Antos and Atego as well as in the new Freightliner Cascadia and the new Fuso SuperGreat. The Truck Data Center forms the basis for existing connectivity solutions from Daimler Trucks such as the telematics systems of Fleetboard, Truckonnect and Detroit Connect. However, it also allows new digital services such as the Mercedes-Benz Uptime service product. This intelligent linking up of trucks, Mercedes-Benz Service and customers can reduce off-road times.
South Korea’s discount store E-Mart, a unit of retail conglomerate Shinsegae Group, has started selling electric mini-vehicles.
E-Mart says it has expanded its M Lounge network to seven shops across Korea to sell electric bicycles and EVs.
Introduced at its Yeongdeungpo store last March to introduce its e-mobility lineup, M Lounge now sells E-Mart’s private-brand e-bike Pedelec and other brands such as Mando Footloose and Maskali, as well as Air Wheel (electric wheel) and iBoat (electric kickboard). It has also started taking orders for the Zhi Dou two-seater electric car from China, which can run up to 150㎞ on a single charge.
Cleared by regulatory authorities last month, the vehicle is expected to be priced at KW13 to 14 million (US$13,000).
E-Mart aims to install M Lounge at up to 20 key stores across the country.
Startled by enthusiastic consumer demand for ePower in Japan last year, Nissan Motor Co. now plans to introduce the electric motor-powered technology to its vehicles in the U.S.
But unlike its Japanese application in the humble subcompact Note, Nissan will more likely use ePower here as an option on higher-end vehicles, said Philippe Klein, the automaker’s chief planning officer said last week.
Klein did not say which Nissan brand products might receive ePower but suggested it will begin with higher-priced nameplates that can absorb the added cost of the powertrain.
Meanwhile, Klein’s boss, Nissan CEO Hiroto Saikawa said that Infiniti will begin offering ePower in the near future. Saikawa said ePower will play a key role in Infiniti’s move to almost completely electrify its lineup starting in 2021.
Saikawa said that every Infiniti that appears in or after 2021 will either be a full electric vehicle or have an ePower powertrain.
The technology reached the market in Japan as a powertrain option on the Note in late 2016. But in 2017, its first full year of availability, it had a 65 percent take rate on the car, Klein said.
“Our strategy is to expand to other vehicles and to other markets,” Klein said. “It’s not only for small vehicles. We’re going to go to bigger vehicles.”
The system is essentially a range extender in which an electric motor propels the vehicle at all times. A battery provides the power for the motor. A gasoline engine is used to charge the battery when necessary.
The system delivers a fuel economy rating of about 77 mpg under Japan’s testing protocol, which is not comparable to U.S. testing methods.
But Klein said fuel economy is only half the attraction to consumers. A second appeal is the powertrain’s exhilarating acceleration, he said, which is something that will appeal to buyers of any vehicle.
“One part of it is the rational — lower gas costs. The other issue is emotional,” he said. “The driving experience is very close to that of an electric vehicle. Contrary to a conventional hybrid, you have the smooth acceleration of an electric vehicle.”
Klein said that ePower has helped Nissan increase the revenue generated by the Note, and also has allowed Nissan to reposition the Note in Japan as a more upscale model.
He added that Nissan believes the technology also provides an alternative to diesel powertrains in Europe.
The company is considering offering ePower there as regulations make it harder to sell diesel vehicles.
Its immediate benefit as a new source of fuel economy is not so clear for the U.S. market, he said. “But the benefits of being emotional and fun to drive might apply in the U.S. for some categories of vehicles,” he said. “So it’s part of the strategy.”
Perusahaan Otomobil Kedua Sdn Bhd (Perodua) is targeting for the sale of 209,000 vehicles this year, which is a 2% jump from the 204,900 units sold in 2017.
Speaking to reporters at the 2017 full year review briefing, Perodua’s president and CEO Datuk Dr Aminar Rashid Salleh said, this year the car maker is focusing on maximising the sales potential of all its models to meet its target.
Production of vehicles is also expected to be ramped up to 215,334 units compared to the 200,146 vehicles produced last year.
Aminar said that due to unfavourable foreign exchange conditions the company may focus more on the exports of parts and accessories instead of complete built-ups.
Perodua currently exports to countries such as Indonesia, Mauritius, Sri Lanka and Fiji.