The highly-anticipated Tesla Cybertruck will initially be produced in a four-motor variant.
The Cybertruck represents Tesla’s expansion into the pickup truck market. Its futuristic design looks like something from a sci-fi movie, and CEO Elon Musk has touted it’s performance, even pitting it against a Ford F-150.
In a tweet Friday, Musk said the Cybertruck will initially be produced in a four-motor variant that will provide independent control of each wheel.
Nissan is investing more than $17 billion in an effort to improve battery designs and production costs.
Automakers are racing to transition to electric vehicles (EV). Many jurisdictions are passing strict legislation in an effort to help phase out gasoline-powered vehicles. Unfortunately, “range anxiety” is the largest impediment to wide-scale EV adoption, with consumers worried about how far they will be able to travel, whether they will be able to find a charging station and how long it will take to recharge.
Nissan hopes to address some of those issues with a massive investment in developing more powerful and affordable batteries, according to the Associated Press.
CEO Makoto Uchida, said the company is aiming for 50% “electrification” by 2030, with 15 new EV models available by then.
Tesla is recalling 11,704 vehicles over its Full Self-Driving (FSD) software, adding to the company’s ongoing problems rolling out autonomous vehicles.
Tesla has been struggling to make FSD live up to the hype. There have been a number of accidents, and lawmakers are calling on the FTC to investigate Tesla’s FSD claims. The company recently had to roll backa recent beta due to issues with the collision system registering fall positives and slamming on the brakes.
Tesla has now issued a full recall on 11,704 vehicles, describing the issue as “a software communication disconnect between the two on-board chips.”
A software communication error may, under a certain sequence of events, result in false forward-collision warnings (FCW) and/or automatic emergency brake (AEB) events.
The issue can result in the type of collision system false positives people have been reporting.
If the AEB system unexpectedly activates while driving, the risk of a rear-end collision from a following vehicle may increase. We are not aware of any crashes or injuries related to this condition.
The recall is certain to deal a blow to Tesla’s FSD efforts and will likely lead to additional calls for investigation.
Automakers are killing deals and focusing production on high-demand models as a result of the semiconductor shortage.
The automotive industry has been hit with by a shortage of semiconductors. The shortage began during the early days of the pandemic, when production was hit by lockdowns and COVID-19 outbreaks. Most recently, the shortage was exacerbated by an outbreak in Malaysia, impacting a region that supplies automotive semiconductors.
Virtually every major automaker has been impacted, with companies pausing production or shipping vehicles without their full compliment of chips. Despite the challenges, some companies are seeing upsides, namely the ability to kill deal-making as a result of the high demand caused by decreased production.
According to Bloomberg, Mark Wakefield, a consultant at AlixPartners, said automakers are making $3,000 more per car, and as much as $10,000 on pickups, SUVS and other lucrative models. Analysts see this as a positive change, a healthy departure from the days of overproducing and selling inventory for barely a profit.
“It’s a fantastic opportunity,” Wakefield said. “Everyone’s been forced into the cooperation box because of the supply situation.’’
Another major company is moving its headquarters out of California, as Tesla is moving its headquarters to Texas.
California has been losing companies at a record pace. Oracle, HPE and a slew of smaller companies have been leaving, or moving their headquarters out of the state. In fact, 2021 is set to double the rate of defections over 2020.
Tesla is now poised to follow suit, with CEO Elon Musk announcing the company would move headquarters to Texas at its shareholder meeting.
“I’m excited to announce we are moving our headquarters to Austin, Texas,” Musk said, according to The Washington Post. “Just to be clear, though, we will be continuing to expand our activities in California. This is not a matter of Tesla leaving California.”
Cost of housing was a major factor for the move.
“It’s tough for people to afford houses and a lot of people have to come in from far away,” Musk said. “There’s a limit to how big you can scale in the Bay Area.”
General Motors plans to double its annual revenue by 2030, a far cry from the semiconductor woes the auto industry is currently dealing with.
The semiconductor crisis has been taking a major toll on the auto industry. GM recently had to shut down the majority of its US plants, as a result of the shortage, and many other automakers have taken similar measures.
Despite the current challenges, GM sees a rosy future ahead, with plans to double its annual revenue by 2030. Much of those plans revolve around the transition to electric vehicles and autonomous driving.
GM’s plan to reach leadership in EV market share in the U.S. while growing its profits from internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. GM’s growth will be driven by the Ultium modular EV platform the company developed to launch a broad portfolio of highly desirable EVs using common, scalable components. The array of Ultium-powered EVs will include high-volume entries, including a Chevrolet crossover priced around $30,000, Buick crossovers, trucks from Chevrolet, GMC and HUMMER EV, as well as exquisitely crafted Cadillac EVs such as the upcoming LYRIQ and CELESTIQ.
The company began meeting with investors on Wednesday, and is continuing Thursday, to discuss its plans in more detail.
“GM’s vision of a world with zero crashes, zero emissions and zero congestion has placed us ahead of much of the competition in electrification, software-enabled services and autonomy,” said GM Chair and CEO Mary Barra. “Our early investments in these growth trends have transformed GM from automaker to platform innovator, with customers at the center. GM will use its hardware and software platforms to innovate and improve their daily experience, leading everybody on the journey to an all-electric future.”
GM has announced its next generation autonomous driving software, Ultra Cruise, covering 95% of driving scenarios.
Automakers the world over are racing to develop and deploy autonomous driving software. While Tesla gets the lion’s share of press, GM has quietly been making major improvements to its software.
The company has announced Ultra Cruise, its next generation system that will cover 2 million miles of roads in the US and Canada at lunch, and has the ability to grow to 3.4 million miles. GM says the software provides a true hands-free experience for 95% of driving scenarios.
“Ultra Cruise is not just a game changer in terms of what it enables − a door-to-door hands-free driving experience − but a technological one as well,” said Doug Parks, GM executive vice president of Global Product Development, Purchasing and Supply Chain. “It’s been developed completely in-house.”
Rather than rely on a single type of sensing technology, GM opted to use cameras, radar and LiDAR, as well as integrated LiDAR behind the windshield.
“We believe that the combination of different sensors, or sensor fusion, leads to the most robust hands-free driver-assist system for our customers,” said Parks.
Ultra Cruise will start rolling out in 2023 on select models, with Cadillac leading the way.
Tesla has delivered a record number of vehicles in the third quarter, beating Wall Street estimates.
The semiconductor crisis has been impacting the entire auto industry, with many manufacturers shutting factories down or operating at reduced output. Tesla doesn’t seem to be having as much of a problem, however, as Reuters is reporting the company has shipped a record number of vehicles in the third quarter.
Tesla shipped 241,300 vehicles in the quarter, after CEO Elon Musk called on the company’s employees to “go super hardcore” to finish out the quarter. In contrast, analysts had expected the company to ship 229,242 vehicles.
Automaker Opel is closing its Eisenach plant in Germany for the rest of the year as a result of the semiconductor shortage.
The semiconductor industry is struggling to meet demand, impacting a range of industries. The automotive industry has been hit especially hard, with multiple manufacturers slowing or pausing production.
Opel is the latest to be impacted, saying it will close Eisenach, with production not slated to resume until at least early next year, according to Reuters. Unfortunately, that means the 1,300 employees will be laid off temporarily.
“Uber built a very anti-fragile business in regards to having the Eats business and having the Rides business,” says early Uber investor Jason Calacanis. “When the Ride’s business went down that kind of indicates people are staying home. When they stay home they use Uber Eats and increasingly Drizly, Cornershop, and Postmates. Watching the Uber team take on this challenge of the pandemic year has been really impressive.”
Early Uber investor Jason Calacanis says that unlike Lyft, Uber built a very anti-fragile business with the combination of Eats and Rides and has become relentlessly focused:
What we’re really going to see here is that Uber built a very anti-fragile business in regards to having the Eats business and having the Rides business. When the Ride’s business went down that kind of indicates people are staying home. When they stay home they use Uber Eats and increasingly Drizly, Cornershop, and Postmates. People are ordering groceries. Watching the Uber team take on this challenge of the pandemic year has been really impressive.
It reminds me a lot of Disney and how they got focused around Disney+ as the center of the organization. They looked at what was happening in the pandemic and said parks are great, merch is great, movies are great, let’s just put everything into Disney+ and accelerate that. Look what happened to that company. I’ve got to give Dara Khosrowshahi a lot of credit. He got rid of a lot of the noise like self-driving cars which are a multi-decade kind of vision. He sold off the places where they weren’t going to be in first, second, or even third place. He did JVs and sold off those businesses like Russia and China, etc. That’s well documented.
They found a new really inspiring footing which is if Amazon is two-day delivery going to one-day, Uber’s is one-hour delivery going to 10-minute delivery. That is Travis Kalanick’s original vision for Uber. When I met with him when he was building the company and I was the third or fourth investor his vision was this is a logistic company. We took atoms in the world made them bits on the internet. Now we’re going to take bits on your phone, an app, and we’re going to move atoms in the real world. That was his original pitch. Here we are in decade two where I’m still own the same shares I’ve had since I bought them for a penny or whatever back in 2008 or 2009. I remain super bullish. I have a huge position in Uber and I’m going to hold it for the next decade.
It’s fairly obvious that there are acquisitions and consolidation that need to happen in the space in order for it to be profitable. The space can’t have 50 players losing money. We’ve watched Lyft, Postmates, Doordash, and everybody, say that we’re going to have to charge what this product is worth. We’re going to have to stop burning money. There’s no free VC money. The public markets are not down with lose money forever and grow. I think we found a happy medium here between what public market investors want, profits, and what private market investors want, growth.
I think Dara has done an exceptional job. Some things will come from acquisitions but most of it has to be just relentless execution and focus. That is the inspiring part of what happened here. Uber has become relentlessly focused. Things that were coming in 10 or 20 years like self-driving in all likelihood will be a commodity business. In 10 or 20 years there’ll be five companies who have that technology. VTOLs are very fascinating and very interesting, but again that’s probably seven, eight, nine, or ten years off as a very niche product.
Sir Jony Ive is one of the most successful product designers in the world, and will now be working with Ferrari, one of the most iconic auto makers.
Ive worked at Apple for years, designing some of the company’s most iconic and successful designs. He worked closely with CEO Steve Jobs, and the pair seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of ideas and inspiration.
Following his departure from Apple, Ive founded his own design firm, LoveFrom. The company has entered a multi-year collaboration with Ferrari, as well as the Agnelli family’s Exor N.V. holding company.
The first expression of this new partnership will bring together Ferrari’s legendary performance and excellence with LoveFrom’s unrivalled experience and creativity that has defined extraordinary world changing products. Beyond the collaboration with Ferrari, LoveFrom will explore a range of creative projects with Exor in the business of luxury.
As part of the deal, Ive will join Exor’s Partners Council, aimed at sharing ideas and exploring possible business opportunities.
“In building great companies, we also believe in building great partnerships,” said John Elkann, Chairman and Chief Executive of Exor and Chairman of Ferrari. “Soon after LoveFrom was founded we began to talk with Jony and Marc about opportunities to combine their world-renowned creativity with ours, in complementary and incremental ways. Ferrari represents a first, exciting chance to do great things together as we build our future. I’m also delighted that Jony is joining our Partners Council where we look forward to benefitting from his uniquely valuable perspectives.”
“We have been friends with John for many years and are great admirers of his insight and vision,” LoveFrom’s Ive and Marc Newson said in a statement. “We are thrilled to be embarking on such an important, long term collaboration with Ferrari and more broadly Exor. As Ferrari owners and collectors, we could not be more excited about collaborating with this extraordinary company and in particular with the design team expertly led by Flavio Manzoni. We see some uniquely exciting opportunities working together which we believe will yield important and valuable work.”
The White House is discussing the ongoing semiconductor crisis with companies as the auto industry is poised to lose $210 billion in revenue.
The semiconductor crisis has taken a major toll on the auto industry, with manufacturers around the world being impacted. For example, GM recently announced it would shut down most of its American plants as a result of the shortage, and had previously said it would ship some 2021 trucks without their full complement of chips, leading to 1 MPG less than previous models.
Companies are taking various measures to ease the shortage. Intel has said it will start producing chips for the auto industry, but warned it would take months before its first chips were produced.
In the meantime, a report from AlixPartners is warning the crisis will cost auto makers $210 billion in revenue in 2021, exacerbated by a COVID-19 outbreak in Malaysia, a main hub for automotive semiconductor manufacturing.
“Of course, everyone had hoped that the chip crisis would have abated more by now, but unfortunate events such as the COVID-19 lockdowns in Malaysia and continued problems elsewhere have exacerbated things,” said Mark Wakefield, global co-leader of the automotive and industrial practice at AlixPartners. “Also, chips are just one of a multitude of extraordinary disruptions the industry is facing—including everything from resin and steel shortages to labor shortages. There’s no room for error for automakers and suppliers right now; they need to calculate every alternative and make sure they’re undertaking only the best options.”
At the same time, the White House is engaging with companies in an effort to determine what measures can be taken to ease the crisis. According to TheStreet, executives from Apple, Ford, General Motors, Intel, Microsoft and Samsung were expected to attend a meeting at the White House Thursday to discuss the issues.
Unfortunately, in the short term, there appears to be no quick fixes or easy answers to the problem.
Volkswagen’s truck unit, Traton Group, is taking chips from unfinished vehicles to finish others, a new indication of the impact of the semiconductor shortage.
The semiconductor industry has been reeling as a result of the global pandemic. Early shutdowns and lockdowns interrupted production, while demand for laptops, tablets and gaming rigs skyrocketed. The auto industry has been particularly hard-hit, with multiple manufacturers slowing or halting production, or shipping vehicles without their full complement of fuel economy chips.
In the case of the Traton Group, a Volkswagen subsidiary, the company is pulling semiconductors from unsold finished vehicles and putting them in unfinished vehicles that have been sold, according to Insider.
The company blamed a recent COVID-19 outbreak in Malaysia, a hub for automotive semiconductor manufacturing.
GM is shutting down production at almost all of its North American plants as a result of the global chip shortage.
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a global semiconductor shortage. Initially, it started as a result of production delays from lockdowns and quarantine, and was exacerbated by increased demand for computers, tablets and consoles, as well as GPUs for crypto mining.
The auto industry has been particularly hard hit, with almost every major manufacturer slowing or halting production as a result of the shortage. GM had previously announced it would ship some 2021 trucks without their full complement of fuel economy chips, leading the vehicles to get 1 MPG less than previous models.
Now GM is halting production altogether at most of its North American plants. According to Detroit Free Press, production will continue in Arlington Assembly, Flint Assembly, Bowling Green Assembly and part of Lansing Grand River Assembly. All other plants, however, will halt production.
Chipmakers are working hard to increase production, with even Intel pivoting to making automotive chips in an effort to help ease the strain. Unfortunately, it will still be some time before supply catches up to demand.
Ford is joining the growing list of companies pushing back their return to the office date, telling employees they will not be back till next year.
A growing number of companies are pushing back their return to the office amid the surge in COVID cases. The Delta variant has pushed cases and hospitalizations to their highest point in months, and have resulted in “breakthrough” cases among vaccinated individuals. As a result, many companies are concerned about bringing people back into enclosed office spaces.
Ford had already embraced hybrid work for its employees whose jobs are not location-dependent. The company has now told employees they will not have to come back to the office at all until at least early next year, according to Bloomberg.
“We didn’t feel comfortable bringing them back based on the Covid data we see today,” Kiersten Robinson, Ford’s human resources chief, told Bloomberg in an interview.
The company is also considering a wider vaccine mandate, beyond just those employees that travel internationally, and is engaging with employees to help inform its decision.
“We’re collecting feedback from employees around why they would or would not get vaccinated,” Robinson said.
Electric vehicle startup Rivian is preparing for an initial public offering (IPO) as the electric vehicle market heats up.
Rivian is one of the main up-and-coming competitors to Tesla, and has the investment backers to match. Amazon and Ford are both heavy investors in the company, as is Cox Automotive. When comparing upcoming vehicles, Tesla, Ford and Rivian’s vehicles are often compared head-to-head.
Rivian has now announced its intentions to go public, as it prepares for its IPO.
Rivian today announced that it has confidentially submitted a draft registration statement on Form S-1 to the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) relating to the proposed public offering of its common stock. The size and price range for the proposed offering have yet to be determined. The initial public offering is expected to take place after the SEC completes its review process, subject to market and other conditions.
Waymo is expanding its autonomous testing in San Francisco, accepting passengers, provided they’re willing to meet the terms.
Waymo has been working toward autonomous vehicles for years, and is one of the leaders in the field. The company has been allowing employees to ride in its vehicles, but is now allowing the general public to, according to The Verge.
Interested parties can apply via the Waymo One app and its “Trusted Tester” program. Individuals will have to sign an NDA, and they won’t be completely alone in the vehicle. A safety driver will be present to take over, should anything go wrong.
Even with its restrictions, Waymo’s new program is a significant step forward on the path toward fully autonomous driving.
The US has cleared the way for Huawei to purchase chips for its auto component business, giving the company a bit of a reprieve.
Huawei has been reeling from sanctions and bans imposed by the US government and its allies over the last couple of years. The company is widely seen by intelligence agencies around the world as a threat to national security, thanks in large part to its close ties to Beijing. While the company’s woes began during the Trump administration, the Biden administration has continued applying pressure to the beleaguered company.
With its core business in jeopardy, Huawei has been looking to pivot to new markets, such as software and the automotive industry, in the hopes of better insulating itself from US actions.
According to Reuters, the US has approved supplier licenses that would allow Huawei to purchase the chips it needs for the auto industry. While the US went to great lengths to cut the company off from semiconductors for its smartphones and networking equipment, automotive chips are much simpler and aren’t seen as representing the same threat to national security as the general purpose, high-tech chips used in electronics.
It remains to be seen if Huawei will be able to capitalize on this reprieve, but it’s certainly some of the best news — and biggest opportunity — the company has had in years.
Elon Musk has admitted that Tesla’s current Full Self-Driving (FSD) software leaves much to be desired, and offered an explanation why.
Tesla’s FSD is the company’s attempt to build autonomous vehicles. Unfortunately, the reality hasn’t always lived up to the hype. In fact, Consumer Reports demonstrated that FSD is “easily tricked.” Even US Senators are calling for the Federal Trade Commission to launch an investigation into the company’s claims.
Elon Musk has acknowledged the current version of FSD not very good, and indicated the reason has to do with using the same stack for both highway and city driving, as opposed to using a different stack for each type.
Hopefully Musk’s optimism is well-deserved and Tesla’s engineers will be able to make significant improvements to FSD.
Lyft co-founderJohn Zimmer is extremely confident the court ruling that found California Proposition 22 unconstitutional will be overturned on appeal.
“If you look at California Constitution we feel very confident in the way the ballot initiative was written,” says Lyft co-founder and President, John Zimmer. “The Attorney General in California agrees with us and was on our side in this lawsuit. As this goes through higher courts, the appeals court in California, we are extremely confident that the proposition will be upheld.”
“There is no change coming (to Lyft) out of that ruling,” adds Zimmer. “It will go on appeal and we’ll continue to work within the system of law and we are confident of the final outcome.”
“It’s hard to predict the legal process fully but we’re optimistic that within that (6 months) timeframe we’ll get a more final resolution.”
GM is voluntarily recalling an additional 73,000 Chevrolet Bolt and Bolt EUVs over a fire risk.
GM initially issued a recall for the Bolt in November 2020 due to a charging issue that could cause the high-voltage battery pack to catch fire. GM then issued a warning a month ago over reports that at least two Bolts caught on fire despite being fixed in the initial recall.
The company is now expanding its recall to cover all 2019-2022 Bolts, including the Bolt EUV.
In rare circumstances, the batteries supplied to GM for these vehicles may have two manufacturing defects – a torn anode tab and folded separator – present in the same battery cell, which increases the risk of fire. Out of an abundance of caution, GM will replace defective battery modules in Chevrolet Bolt EVs and EUVs with new modules, with an expected additional cost of approximately $1 billion.
The issue appears to be a manufacturing defect in the batteries LG supplied to GM, and the two companies are working together to rectify the problem and replace the batteries.
The recall impacts 9,335 2019 Bolts (6,989 in the US and 1,212 in Canada) and 63,683 2020-2022 Bolt and Bolt EUVs (52,403 in the US and 9,019 in Canada).
“Our focus on safety and doing the right thing for our customers guides every decision we make at GM,” said Doug Parks, GM executive vice president, Global Product Development, Purchasing and Supply Chain. “As leaders in the transition to an all-electric future, we know that building and maintaining trust is critical. GM customers can be confident in our commitment to taking the steps to ensure the safety of these vehicles.”