Automakers are rapidly adopting Tesla's giga casting technology to streamline vehicle manufacturing, with companies like Geely, Volvo, Cadillac, and Toyota exploring or implementing large castings. Honda partners with TSMC to secure chip supply and accelerate automotive-grade chip design. Rolls-Royce expands bespoke customization instead of increasing production. Porsche focuses on rare earth recycling for EV motors amid rising demand. Shelby introduces a Europe-only performance package for the Mustang Mach-E with an active sound system. Smart debuts the larger Number 3 EV in China, blending Mercedes design with Geely platforms. Mercedes offers paid performance upgrades for EV owners, while Aurora and Continental collaborate on autonomous trucking solutions. The episode closes with a preview of a discussion on sustainable mobility shifts.
Topics:giga casting technologychip supply and automotive chipsbespoke customizationrare earth recyclingshelby mach-e performance packagesmart number 3 evpaid ev performance upgradesautonomous truckingsustainable mobility
- OEMs Racing to Copy Tesla Gigacastings - Honda Lines Up TSMC Chip Supplies - Rolls-Royce Expands Bespoke Ops - Porsche Wants Recycled Rare Earths - Shelby Mach-E Not Sold in U.S. - Smart Comes Out with Bigger Car - Mercedes Offer Performance Via Subscription - Aurora and Continental Have AV Tech for Trucks
"... cars. Now that's coming to the US. Owners of the EQE and EQS both of sedan and suv, can pay a monthly,..."
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Tesla shocked the auto industry when it started using giga castings on the Model three and y. Because it's such a new and novel way to make the
structure of a car, at least with castings that big, Several automakers have rushed in to copy the idea, including Geelie, which is using them for the rear end structure on the Zeker Double nine luxury van. Volvo, which
is also part of Gelie, is going to use them on a future EV platform. X Pun will use them on its upcoming G six SUV. Cadillac
is using them on the handbuilt Celastic, and Reuter's reports that Toyota is exploring them. GM and Toyota are looking at using somewhat smaller castings to make it
easier to repair cars after an accident, but no doubt every automaker is studying large casts. Tesla says its front and rear giga castings eliminate one hundred and
forty stampings, while Zeeker says they eliminate eight hundred spot welds and that kind of manufacturing efficiency. Is way too big to ignore. Automakers don't want to
go through another chip shortage ever again, and that's why Honda is forming a strategic alliance with the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company or TSMC, which is the largest chip manufacturer in the world. TSMC also introduced new software that will speed up
chip production for automakers. Automotive chips take longer to make than chips for consumer
products because they need to be more rugged. It's what you typically here referred
to as automotive grade. TSMC says the software allows automakers to design chips two
years faster and let them You stated the art chip making technology, but it won't be available until twenty twenty five. How do you grow your business if
your Rolls Royce Not by making a bunch of more cars, you would lose your exclusivity. So instead, Rolls is going to expand its bespoken coach build
operations at its assembly plant in Goodwood, England. But by offering customers more
opportunity to customize their cars, it's going to more than recoup that money.
Customers pay a lot more for bespoke cars and custom coach work. At Schiffler,
we pioneer motion electrifying mobility, manufacturing smarter, reducing CO two emissions, making energy production clean. Schiffler Pioneer's motion to advance how the world moves.
Porsche is on the hunt for more rare earth minerals for EVIE motors and thinks that recycling is the answer. While there are alternative ways of making motors that
don't use as much rare earth or none at all, Porsche wants rare earth to make the most powerful and efficient motors for its sports car customers. By
twenty forty, demand for EVIE motors is estimated to be twenty times what it was in twenty eighteen, and the materials are also used in other products like wind turbines, So Porsche is conducting quote intensive research in new recycling methods.
I'd bet that many people associate the Shelby name with performance Mustangs, and now Shelby is going electric. It's coming out with a performance package for the must
staying mock EGT, but oddly it's only available for Europe and will be limited to one hundred examples. Shelby says this is because sales of evs and public
charging are growing more rapidly in Europe compared to the US, but anyway.
Upgrades include a carbon fiber hood grill, front splitter, mirror covers and lower door trim, lighter aluminum wheels, striped graphics, and a handling package that it says lowers the mock e ride height by over an inch, but it doesn't provide any details on that. Oh and one other thing, it's not
going to sound like an EV at all. It's going to feature Borla's Active
performance sound system, which, in this video from Borla makes a mocky sound like it's got a massive V eight under the hood. The system uses data
like speed and throttle position to match the sound with what the vehicle is doing.
In the demo vehicle, as speaker is mounted under the car, but we're not sure if that's how it will be on the Shelby Mochi, which costs nearly twenty five thousand euro on top of the original purchase. Smart used
to only build dinky little cars that never really sold very well, but that's changing. Meet the Smart Number three, which is a larger four door model
and it just debuted in China, but the name is a little confusing.
It's the second car in its lineup, and that first car is called the Number one. Anyway, The standard model comes with a two hundred kilowatt or
two hundred and sixty eight horsepower electric motor that's mounted on the rear. The
performance Brabus version is four wheel drive and has a combined three hundred and fifteen kilowatts or four hundred and twenty two horsepower. It can move from zero to
one hundred kilometers an hour in three point six seconds. It has a change
between five hundred and five hundred and forty kilometers or three hundred and ten to three hundred and thirty five miles based on the Chinese light duty test cycle.
As you may remember, Smart is now a joint venture between Mercedes and Gelie.
Mercedes handled all the design, while the car is based on Geelie's Sea platform that's also used for the Lotus Electra, the Volvo Ex ninety and the Zeker Double one, among other vehicles. The Number three launches in China in
June with a starting price of thirty thousand, three hundred dollars, and it goes on sale in Europe early next year. We want to know what drives
you're testing. Ota Connected Car Diagnostics Remote Testing Intrepid Control Systems is here to
help you work from anywhere. Intrepid Control Systems driven by your data. Mercedes
is making EV owners pay for performance. You may remember us reporting that Mercedes
was going to start charging EV owners in Europe if they wanted to unlock more performance from their cars. Now that's coming to the US. Owners of the
EQE and EQS both of sedan and suv, can pay a monthly, yearly, or lifetime fee to unlock as much as eighty horsepower and reduce the zero to sixty time as much as a second. Here's a chart that shows what
owners get and how much they have to pay. Monthly subscription is sixty or
ninety dollars, depending on the model, while the lifetime unlock fee is two thousand or three thousand dollars. But would you do this? Pay a fee
to unlock more performance from your car? Speaking of subscription services, Aurora,
the autonomous technology company, is joining forces with Continental to deliver fully autonomous driving systems for long haul commercial trucks in the United States. Aurora will develop the
software, while Continental will supply the hardware, and they expect to bring their system to the market in twenty twenty seven. They say that on long haul
trips like from LA to Dallas, their system will improve fuel economy ten percent and that delivery time will be three times faster compared to using a human driver.
Interestingly, they're going to offer this as a service where customers will pay for the system based on how many miles they drive. And speaking of autonomy
and mobility, where is this all taking us? Are we on the verge
of seeing the greatest change in how we move around since the first horseless carriages showed up over one hundred and twenty years ago? And do you really need
a four thousand pound vehicle to get where you're going? And do you even
need a car at all? That's going to be the topic on Autoline After
Hours later today we'll have Dan Sturgis, the author of Near to Far, a book on sustainable mobility. Mike Austin from Guide House Insights will also be
on the show. So join John and Gary when we go live at three
pm Eastern Time right here at Autoline And that brings us to the end of today's show. Thanks for tuning in. Autoline Daily is brought to you by
Bridgetone Solutions for your Journey intrepid control systems over the year engineering, Who's Your Game? And by Scheffler, we pioneer motion
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