AD #3569 - Henrik Fisker Disses Gigacastings; Tesla Roadster Delayed Again; Mercedes Reveals New Van EV Architecture

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

Tesla held its annual shareholders meeting yesterday, and here are some of the bullet point highlights from Elon Musk. He said Tesla will eventually make two hundred

and fifty thousand cybertrucks a year and that the truck goes on sale this year, but he also hinted that the price will not start at forty thousand dollars like originally promised. Tesla is working on two all new models that could collectively

sell five million units a year. Presumably at least one of those models is

the twenty five thousand dollar model that will slot him below the Model three.

The roadster is getting delayed again, with production quote hopefully starting sometime next year.

Tesla will experiment with advertising. Must did not say when or where,

but we wouldn't be surprised to see ads appear on Twitter, which of course he owns. He said the global economy will be difficult over the next year

and that Tesla will be affected by that, and he said he will not be stepping down as CEO of Tesla. Meanwhile, Henrik Fisker, the CEO

of Fisker Inc. Is throwing shade at giga castings. He told the Reuter's

Automotive Conference yesterday that his company won't use large castings because cars using them could get scrapped after an accident since they're expensive to repair. Instead, he said

Fisker will combine multiple steel stampings into a single stamping. The CEO also said

he's looking for additional business partners to boost scale and market share faster. He

said he's interested in talking to automakers, suppliers, or tech companies to get on board. The US and Canada are going to build an EV charging corridor

between the two countries that will stretch nearly nine hundred miles. Called the Binational

EV Corridor, It will run between Quebec City in Kalamazoo, Michigan. EV

chargers will be placed every fifty miles or eighty kilometers along the route. Transportation

Secretary Bootagage and government officials from Michigan and Canada made the announcement, but they did not say when they'll start building the corridor or how much it will cost.

And we have just one question, why does it stop at Kalamazoo, Michigan and not run all the way to Chicago. General Motors just got some

good news. It got the go ahead for a lithium mining project at Thacker

Pass Mine in Nevada. A big concern in the US is getting through regulatory

red tape to open new mines to get the raw materials needed for EV batteries.

Lithium Americas, which is GM's partner on the project, says there's enough lithium in that mine to make a million visa year. There's plenty of people

who are skeptical that autonomous vehicles will really become a reality, but Weymoux and Crews recently expanded their services in the US and now lists new CEO, David Rischer, says self driving cars aren't that far off. Rischer says LIFT doesn't

have plans to introduce autonomous vehicles to its right hailing fleet in the near term, but it is preparing for the technology. In an interview with CNBC,

Rischer said, quote, it's not going to be tomorrow, but you might be surprised that it comes over the next couple of years a little faster than you think. God Schiffler we pioneer motion, electrifying mobility, manufacturing smarter reducing

CO two emissions, making energy production clean Scheffler Pioneer's motion to advance how the world moves. Mercedes revealed an all new, dedicated electronic architecture for future midsize

and large vans, and not only that, it's going to launch proper Mercedes passenger vans, meaning they'll come with the same kind of luxury appointments you've come to expect from its cars and SUVs. The new van EA platform features three

modules. The front module is consistent across all variants. It features an electric

powertrain and front axle. The center section will house the battery packs, which

come in different sizes and provide up to five hundred kilometers or three hundred and ten miles of range, and the rear module has two versions, one without a motor for front wheel drive models and one with a motor for all wheel drive. Van EA also supports OTA's and autonomous driving of level two to level

four, depending on the segment that the van is launching into. By using

a common platform, Mercedes says it will be able to cut the number of variants in its van portfolio in half. Van EA models start launching in twenty

twenty six and by the end of the decade, Mercedes wants to have a fifty percent share of the EV van segment. To do that, it's expanding

in the US and China, which will each get one of those personal luxury vans. Mercedes says. Other plants will follow behind Poland, Germany and Spain,

where it currently makes vans, and we wouldn't be surprised if that expansion includes the US and China. Tesla dominates sales of evs in the US market,

But how is everyone l doing? While we combine the first quarter registrations

from experience that we're reported by Automotive News and dug into the company sales numbers and came up with this chart. And the real surprise for US is that

the VW and Hyundai groups are out selling Ford. Another surprise is that the

Volvo group including Pollstar, is out selling Nissan, and at the current sales rate, evs are on track to top one million units in the US by the end of the year. Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, and Yamaha are

all coming together to research the development of hydrogen powered IC engines and as you can probably guess, these would be used in small vehicles like motorcycles and k cars. They hope to tackle issues like unstable combustion and a refueling system.

There's no indication of how long they planned to study hydrogen powered ices, but once they're done, Toyota will take all the research results and apply it to developing engines. Speaking of Toyota, it's also working with Suzuki and Daihatsu to

come out with all electric mini commercial vans for the Japanese market. Daihatsu will

produce the vehicles, which go on sale before the end of Q one next year. Each company will get their own version, and the vans feature Toyota's

ev tech, which provides up to two hundred kilometers or one hundred and twenty four miles of range. That's about all the details we have for now,

but the vans make their global debut sometime between tomorrow and Sunday. That brings

us to the end of today's show. Thanks for making autoline a part of

your day. Autoline Daily is brought to you by Bridgestone Solutions for your journey,

Intrepid Control Systems over the year, Engineer Boost your Game, and by Scheffler We pioneer motion. We want to know what drives your 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.

AD #3569 - Henrik Fisker Disses Gigacastings; Tesla Roadster Delayed Again; Mercedes Reveals New Van EV Architecture

Bristol Bullet

Tesla Cybertruck

About this episode

Original notes