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Tag: car

  • Renault To Produce New Alpine Model At Dieppe Site

    Renault To Produce New Alpine Model At Dieppe Site

    French carmaker Renault will produce the new electric model of its Alpine brand at its Dieppe site in northern France, Chairman Jean-Dominique Senard said on Friday.

    “There was uncertainty over the future of that plant a few years ago and now thanks to the work of Renault’s teams…we will be able to really secure the future of that plant,” Senard told France Inter radio.

    Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors on Thursday said they planned to deepen co-operation in electric vehicle (EV) production as their two-decade-old alliance positions itself to compete as auto markets switch to EVs.

    Senard also told France Inter radio that Renault hoped to hire a further 2,500 staff for its French factories.

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  • Car imports fall in January

    Car imports fall in January

    Vietnam’s auto imports fell by 70 percent last month to 4,524 units, but the industry dismissed it as a normal January phenomenon after a surge in imports in December.

    The passenger car segment saw a 53 percent decline to 4,008.

    Though down by more than half from December, Thailand remained the largest seller, shipping 2,488 units.

    Indonesia followed with 472 vehicles.

    Truck imports plunged by 93.5 percent to 260, almost all of it from China and Thailand.

    Auto companies said companies usually import large numbers of vehicles in December to prepare for the New Year and Tet shopping season, and so numbers fall in January before recovering again in February and March.

    Imports of car parts and equipment fell by 7.8 percent to $395 million.

    South Korea, China and Thailand were the biggest exporters.

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  • Skoda to build plant in Vietnam

    Skoda to build plant in Vietnam

    Czech automaker Skoda is set to build a plant in the northern province of Quang Ninh and expects to begin production and exports of vehicles by 2023. Leaders of the company have worked with representatives of the Ministry of Industry and Trade on the plan of building the factory.

    Martin Jahn, a director of Skoda Auto, said the Vietnamese car market is relatively small but very promising.

    “The political and trade ties between the two countries represent extensive opportunities for cooperation.”

    There are 44 Czech projects in Vietnam with a total investment of $91 million, according to the Ministry of Planning and Investment. Mercedes-Benz and Peugeot are two European carmakers with plants in Vietnam, while BMW’s factory is expected to be completed this year.

    Skoda manufactured around 900,000 cars last year and sold nearly half in Western Europe.

    Established in 1925, it is a subsidiary of German auto giant Volkswagen.

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  • Nvidia’s CEO Believes Autonomous Vehicles Will Be All Over The World

    Nvidia’s CEO Believes Autonomous Vehicles Will Be All Over The World

    Nvidia’s founder and CEO Jensen Huang have revealed in a wide-ranging interview that autonomous vehicles will be prevalent all over the world. He believes 2022 is the inflection point for the development of autonomous vehicles and their adoption and by 2025, Nvidia will also be deploying its software at scale. By 2025, Nvidia will start monetizing its software by gathering licensing with revenue-sharing agreements with car companies.

    “I am certain that we will have autonomous vehicles all over the world. They all have their operating domains. And some of that is just within the boundaries of a very large warehouse. They call them AMRs, autonomous moving robots. You could have them inside walled factories, and so they could be moving goods and inventory around,” Huang told the Venturebeat.

    The Nvidia CEO’s comments come on the sidelines of its failed attempt to acquire ARM from SoftBank after the proposed deal faced universal negative pushback from regulatory authorities across the world. ARM, which designs chipsets and licenses its designs to countless companies across the world, is perhaps the last fabless and neutral chip design firm in the world. Its importance is so crucial because its designs are used nearly in everything from connected cars, autonomous cars, smartphones, tablets, PCs, IoT products to wearables.

    Huang believed that the failed ARM bid hadn’t impacted Nvidia one bit and from a long-term perspective he believed its autonomous division would be one of its biggest businesses. He added that Nvidia would continue to use ARM’s designs thanks to its 20-year license and it would utilize it across its product portfolio with new CPU designs already in development.

    “This will be a big year for us. And then next year, it’ll be even bigger next year. And in 2025, that’s when we deploy our own software where we do revenue sharing with the car companies. And so if the license was $10,000, we shared 50-50. If it’s a subscription base of $1,000 or $100 a month, we share 50-50. I think I’m pretty certain now that autonomous vehicles will be one of our largest businesses,” he added.

    Recently, Nvidia announced a wide-ranging deal with Jaguar Land Rover where it will be helping the iconic British automakers to develop autonomous cars and unique in-car experiences. The deal also entails Jaguar Land Rover leveraging Nvidia’s server-grade DGX GPUs.

  • Thailand Approves Incentives To Promote EV Shift

    Thailand Approves Incentives To Promote EV Shift

    Thailand’s cabinet on Tuesday approved a package of incentives including tax cuts and subsidies to promote a shift to electric vehicles (EVs) in Southeast Asia’s major auto production base, a government spokesperson said.

    The package for 2022-2025 is in line with a zero-emission vehicle policy plus a goal to ensure 30 per cent of Thailand’s total auto production are EVs by 2030, Thanakorn Wangboonkongchana told a news conference.

    In the first two years, the measures will focus on encouraging widespread domestic use of EVs by providing tax breaks and subsidies for imported models and those made locally, he said.

    In the last years of the package, the support will mainly be on promoting domestically produced EVs, while canceling some benefits for imported models, Thanakorn said.

    “This is to encourage operators to accelerate the production of electric vehicles in the country to meet increasing demand,” he said.

    Thailand last year produced 1.7 million regular vehicles, for firms that include Toyota, Honda, and Mitsubishi.

    Thanakorn did not give further details on the incentives, which he said would need to be worked out with the energy ministry.

    According to earlier media reports, the package will help reduce the price of each EV by between 70,000 baht ($2,165) and 150,000 baht ($4,638).

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  • Czech Car Production Falls 11% In January As Chip Shortage Weighs

    Czech Car Production Falls 11% In January As Chip Shortage Weighs

    Czech passenger car production fell by 11.4% year-on-year to 92,657 vehicles in January, posting its lowest result for that month since 2010 as the chip shortage continued to weigh, the Czech Automotive Industry Association (AutoSAP) said on its website on Thursday.

    AutoSAP said, though, it expected the situation to stabilize in 2022 and show a rebound in full-year figures.

  • Vietnamese customers continue to love Korean cars

    Vietnamese customers continue to love Korean cars

    The market share of Korean auto brands Hyundai and its subsidiary Kia increased from 18 percent in 2017 to over 30 percent last year.

    Hyundai continued to lead the market with sales of 70,518 units, though down 13.3 percent from the previous year.

    Japan’s Toyota followed with 67,339 units, down 4.7 percent, and Kia was third with 45,532 units, up 16.2 percent.

    For a third consecutive year the two Korean brands were among the top three, and they had a combined 30.2 percent share, almost the same as in 2020.

    With sales of 116,110 units, Vietnam was far and away the most important market for Korean automakers in Southeast Asia.

    To put numbers in perspective, their sales in Vietnam was four times higher than the combined sales in five other markets in the region: Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore.

    Competitive pricing compared to Japanese brands and a wide of options have helped Korean become popular in Vietnam.

    Hyundai and Kia cars are assembled by Thaco and TC Motors respectively in the northern province of Ninh Binh and central province of Quang Nam.

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  • Aptiv, Audi Invest $285 Million In Software Company TTTech

    Aptiv, Audi Invest $285 Million In Software Company TTTech

    Auto technology supplier Aptiv PLC and Volkswagen AG’s Audi brand are investing a combined $285 million in vehicle software company TTTech Auto, giving the Austrian firm a valuation of $1 billion, the companies said. TTTech Auto designs software that auto manufacturers can use to manage data flowing from sensors and safety systems used to automate driving. The company’s Motionwise software also helps engineers develop new automated driving and safety software more quickly.

    Aptiv will invest $228 million in TTTech Auto, while Audi is investing $57 million, the companies said in a statement.

    Established auto manufacturers such as Volkswagen are racing to secure more software expertise via acquisitions, hiring drives, and equity investments as they try to catch up with electric vehicle leader Tesla Inc’s ability to rapidly improve vehicles using software upgrades.

    TTTech Auto was formed in 2018 by aerospace firm TTTech Group, South Korean technology company Samsung, Audi, and chipmaker Infineon.

    “We want to provide aerospace safety at automotive cost,” TTTech Auto chief executive Georg Kopetz said in an interview.

    Aptiv, with annual revenue of $15 billion, is working to expand its business by supplying hardware and software for electric vehicles and automated driving systems. Aptiv, Audi, and TTTech Auto collaborated to develop the central driver assistance controller for automated driving used in Audi vehicles.

    With the fresh capital, Kopetz said TTTech Auto plans to expand in Asia, look for potential acquisitions and invest in the development of the Motionwise software, which is currently used in about 2 million vehicles.

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  • Tesla Recalls 817,000 Vehicles In U.S. Over Seat Belt Reminder Alert

    Tesla Recalls 817,000 Vehicles In U.S. Over Seat Belt Reminder Alert

    Tesl is recalling more than 817,000 vehicles in the United States because an audible alert may not activate when a vehicle starts and the driver has not buckled the seat belt, a U.S. auto safety regulator said. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said on Thursday the vehicles, 2021-2022 Model S and Model X, 2017-2022 Model 3, and 2020-2022 Model Y fail to comply with a federal motor vehicle safety standard on “Occupant Crash Protection” because the chime does not activate. Tesla will perform an over-the-air (OTA) software update to address the issue.

    Tesla told NHTSA that as of Jan. 31 it was unaware of any crashes or injuries related to the issue. Tesla said in a document filed with NHTSA, the South Korea Automobile Testing & Research Institute (KATRI) on Jan. 6 brought the condition to Tesla’s attention. Tesla said on the recalled vehicles a software error may prevent the chime from activating upon vehicle start under certain circumstances.

    The automaker said the issue was limited to circumstances where the chime was interrupted in the preceding drive cycle and the seat belt was not buckled after that interruption. Tesla added the issue does not affect the audible seat belt reminder chime from activating when the vehicle exceeds 22 km/h and the driver seat belt is not detected as buckled. The condition does not impact the accuracy of the accompanying visual seat belt reminder. Tesla has come under increasing scrutiny from U.S. regulators and issued several recalls in recent months.

    On Tuesday, Tesla said it was recalling 53,822 U.S. vehicles with the company’s Full Self-Driving (Beta) software that may allow some models to conduct “rolling stops” and not come to a complete stop at intersections posing a safety risk. Tesla will perform an over-the-air software update that disables the “rolling stop” functionality, NHTSA said.

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  • GM Boss Mary Barra Felt Surrel In Cruise Robotaxi

    GM Boss Mary Barra Felt Surrel In Cruise Robotaxi

    GM’s CEO Mary Barra recently took her first ride in a self-driving car which was shown off in a YouTube video on Cruise’s official channel. Of course, Cruise is owned by GM and is its self-driving car service which also operates a robotaxi service in limited parts of the US. “Last week our friends from Detroit took a midnight ride straight over the moon,” said the message on the video.

    Barra was visibly impressed by the flawless nature of the ride which was her first one. The ride took place in San Francisco, not Detroit which is the home of GM as Cruise operates its service right now in California. Barra rode is. Chevrolet Bolt EV named Tostada with Cruise Co-founder, interim CEO, and CTO Kyle Vogt.

    Both rode in the back seat of the car with the vehicle driving itself. Barra noted while she knew this was always going to happen, experiencing it for the first time felt surreal. In another Bolt EV, GM’s President Mark Reuss called the ride mind-blowing as he was a combined by GM’s Vice President of communications Craig Buchholz.

    Cruise is one of the pioneers of autonomous car technology alongside Waymo. It is closely working with GM towards developing a commercial autonomous vehicle for personal use which GM estimates will launch by the end of the decade.

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  • Panasonic To Invest $700 Million To Produce Tesla EV Battery

    Panasonic To Invest $700 Million To Produce Tesla EV Battery

    Japan’s Panasonic will begin producing its new lithium-ion battery for Tesla from as early as 2023, with plans to invest about 80 billion yen ($705 million) in production facilities in Japan, the Nikkei reported on Monday. The powerpack could help make electric vehicles (EVs) more attractive to motorists by extending cruising range by about a fifth, the Nikkei reported, without saying where it obtained the information.

    “We are studying various options for mass production, including a test production line we are establishing this business year. We don’t, however, have anything to announce at this time,” Panasonic said in a statement sent to Reuters.

    Panasonic unveiled the 4680 format (46 millimetres wide and 80 millimetres tall) battery in October. At around five times as big as batteries it currently supplies to Tesla, it is also expected to help the U.S. electric vehicle maker lower production costs.

    Panasonic will make the 4680 batteries at a plant in Wakayama prefecture in Western Japan, with output of less than 10 gigawatt hours a year, equivalent to around 150,000 vehicles, the Nikkei said.

    Panasonic is the sole maker of the more advanced Tesla battery, ensuring it remains a key supplier to the U.S. company, at least for its pricier models, even as the EV maker seeks out battery suppliers in China and elsewhere.

  • Another Apple Car engineer quits, this time, joining Meta

    Another Apple Car engineer quits, this time, joining Meta

    Okay, so far, we’ve had a lot of information about the reported turnover at Apple’s mysterious project for self-driving vehicles. Many engineers have reportedly left the project to join other firms. Now, AppleInsider reports about yet another Apple Car engineer leaving the company, and this time, he will be joining Meta (former Facebook).

    The long-rumored project for a self-driving car from Apple seems to be having a lot of setbacks recently, mainly due to losing engineering managers and other key staff and an overall quite consistent employee turnover.

    It seems this pattern is continuing in 2022. This time, it’s the head of software engineering of Apple Car, Joe Bass, who has reportedly left Cupertino to go join Meta. Joe Bass was the Lead Engineering Program Manager for Autonomous Systems over at Apple since the beginning of 2015. According to his LinkedIn profile, he has now left Apple for a new start.

    His new position is Director of Technical Program Management, Mixed Reality Technologies over at Meta (formerly Facebook). The departure of Bass comes after several other engineers did the same back in December, with a majority of them seemingly going to air-taxi startup Archer Aviation, and another similar company, Joby Aviation.

    Keep in mind that the Apple Car project is still just rumored, and has not had an official announcement. The most recent news about it is the report that the company is looking to announce its key partners for the project sometime this year. This information is coming from South Korean sources: it seems Cupertino has been looking into South Korean carmakers to possibly strike a deal with them for Apple Car components.

    This information seems to indicate Apple has plans to ship an Apple Car by 2025. The possible announcement of the partnerships could give us more information about the time frame in which we expect to see this ever-so-mysterious self-driving car. And from this high level of turnover, one can not help but assume things aren’t going exactly according to plan for the Apple Car.

    This image is a part of the newly-created Apple Car renders that we reported on earlier, coming from British car leasing firm Vanarama, and of course, they are based on patents filed by Apple plus previously released Apple devices.

    It is, indeed, a very early stage to know for sure if the Apple Car will look anything like the image shown above, but it looks cool, don’t you agree?

    There have been many people leaving and joining the supposed Apple Car project in recent months, especially in November and December of last year. Some of its key engineers have been leaving to join air taxi startup companies, while other ex-Tesla engineers have joined to take their place.

    Just to name a few, Eric Rogers, who was Apple’s chief engineer for radar systems for the project for the self-driving vehicle has left to go join Joby Aviation Inc, a flying taxi startup. Alex Clarabut, who was an engineering manager for the team’s battery systems group, has now joined Archer Aviation, another company working on air taxis.

    The third person who recently left Apple is Stephen Spiteri, who was a hardware engineering manager, and he has also gone ahead and joined Archer. The two flying taxis companies have confirmed the appointments.

    All these staff changes serve to show how many challenges the Cupertino tech giant is facing as it is expanding into an entirely new industry. Of course, building and selling a self-driving car represents a massive new sales opportunity, one of its famous “next big thing”. We will see how Apple will face the challenges coming with it.

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  • Qualcomm Inks Car Chip Deals With Volvo, Honda And Renault

    Qualcomm Inks Car Chip Deals With Volvo, Honda And Renault

    Qualcomm Corp on Tuesday announced deals to supply chips to automakers Volvo Group, Honda Motor Co Ltd and Renault SA, accelerating its push to partner with legacy automotive firms digitizing their product lines.

    The San Diego, California, company once known for its mobile phone chips has created a range of automotive offerings, from self-driving car brains to chips that operate digital dashboards and infotainment systems. But the chips are all aimed at the same goal of helping automakers transform their vehicles into rolling computers that can be updated over the air with paid upgrades that generate revenue for carmakers long after a vehicle has left dealer lots, a business model pioneered by Tesla Inc.

    At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Qualcomm said it has reached a deal with Geely Holding-backed brands Volvo and Polestar to use Qualcomm’s “Snapdragon Cockpit” chips and an operating system from Alphabet Inc’s Google in vehicles starting later this year.

    The deal will allow Volvo’s electric SUV to tap into hands-free use of Google Assistant and navigation with Google Maps

    The deal will allow Volvo’s electric SUV, which is to begin production this year, to tap into hands-free use of Google Assistant and navigation with Google Maps. The companies said that future upgrades will be sent out over the air.

    Qualcomm also said that Honda will start using its “cockpit” chips in vehicles that will hit roads in 2023. Qualcomm also said Renault has agreed to use its automotive technology, but did not give specifics of which chips or when vehicles using them would arrive.Qualcomm said on Tuesday that it has created a new chip and system for computer vision, which uses cameras on the car and artificial intelligence to help with safety functions like automatic lane control. The new “Snapdragon Ride Vision System” uses software from Arriver, which was part of Qualcomm’s $4.5 billion purchase of automotive technology firm Veoneer Inc last year.

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  • Baidu’s JiDu Teases Level 4 Self Driving Car

    Baidu’s JiDu Teases Level 4 Self Driving Car

    Self-driving cars were invented by Google and the Google of China, Baidu, isn’t behind its American counterpart. It has created a new brand called JiDU which has announced plans for launching a self-driving car by 2023. They are calling it the robocar which will be fully unveiled at the Beijing auto show in April.

    “JiDU has completed the visual and functional design of the Robocar concept car, which will make its debut in April as planned. Let’s set off towards an infinitely possible future together,” said Yiping Xia, CEO of JiDu.

    In the teaser, one can easily see that the car is riddled with sensors that come out of its hood, almost like small turrets and they are retractable and hidden by flaps. The car also seems to have frameless doors that open outward.

    The robocar maker has also revealed that it has specifically designed a new logo called the Pixel J which it claims is the first logo that has been designed specifically for an autonomous vehicle.

    In China, autonomous cars are taking off as are robotaxi services. Already there is the Xpeng P5 which boasts some serious autonomous capabilities as it has become the world’s first production car with a LiDAR and has some advanced autonomous capabilities.

    Apart from JiDu, Baidu also has the Apollo robotaxis which leverages the QNX operating system.

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  • Renault Relatively Confident For 2022 Despite Some Chip Supply Worries

    Renault Relatively Confident For 2022 Despite Some Chip Supply Worries

    Renault is “relatively confident” about its business year but still sees some problems over chips supplies which it expects to be felt mostly in the first half of 2022, the French carmaker’s Chief Executive Officer said on Thursday.

    “We are relatively confident for 2022 but we know that it’s a volatile and uncertain world,” CEO Luca de Meo told journalists at a company event, adding that the carmaker’s restructuring efforts were running ahead of their schedule.

    Shares in Renault edged up after the publication of the comments midday on Wednesday and traded 3.9 % higher at 1231 GMT, topping France’s bluechip CAC40 index which was down 0.55%.

    Renault’s finance chief at the same event said that the carmaker was hoping to pay back as soon as possible the remainder of a 3 billion euros ($3.44 billion) loan backed by the French state, Renault’s biggest shareholder.

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    The company also said it would step up the ambitions to shift its core Renault brand towards e-mobility, targeting to produce a “100 % electric” fleet by 2030, from 90% previously announced.

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