AD #3575 - Sulfur Batteries the Next Big Thing?; 2024 F-150 Has 2,500 Fewer Parts; Great Wall and BYD Fight in Public

This is aut Aligned Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry. Lytton, a Silicon Valley startup that's developing lithium sulfur batteries, scored

a big win. Stilantis is investing in the company and wants to start using

its batteries in the second half of this decade. Lithium sulfur could be that

battery breakthrough that everyone has been waiting for. Lytton says it has twice the

energy density of lithium ion batteries, it has a sixty percent lower carbon footprint, and it doesn't use any nickel, manganese, or cobalt. Sulfur is

a waste product from manufacturing processes such as petroleum refining and food in paper production, so whi's cheap and plentiful. Today, it's largely dumped in landfills.

Sulfur batteries are not a new idea, but they don't last very long.

Lighten's breakthrough idea is to use graphing to get the longevity that it needs, but neither Lighten nor Stilantis will say what kind of life cycle they're getting out of the batteries at this stage of development. Another issue could be recycling.

Since sulfur is so cheap and plentiful, there isn't much value in recycling it.

Even so, these batteries could be made in existing battery plants with only ten to fifteen percent changes on the production line. The battle over stricter vehicle

emissions in the US is getting more intense. Earlier this week, Republicans in

the US House of Representatives urged the EPA to rollback stricter vehicle emission rules that go into effect in twenty twenty seven. On the other side of the fight,

California wants the EPA to approve its proposal to ban sales of new ice only powered vehicles in twenty thirty five. It wants the EPA to approve a

waiver so it can enact emission rules that get tighter every year starting in twenty twenty six. That year, thirty five percent of new car sales must be

PHAs b evs or hydrogen powered cars. That jumps to sixty eight percent in

twenty thirty, and then in twenty thirty five, all new vehicle sales must be zero emission. California says the rules will cost more than two hundred billion

dollars but will result in three hundred billion dollars in total benefits, and seven other states have already adopted California's EV rules. China's autoindustry is brutally competitive,

and now great Wall Motor is publicly attacking BYD, saying that it's best selling phs don't meet emission standards. We've never seen anything like this in the industry

before. Usually, when one automaker thinks another isn't meeting regulated standards, it

quietly approaches the regulatory agency through backdoor channels. But Great Wall is doing this

out in public, and BYD says it could end up suing Great Wall.

It's all about evaporative emissions. Great Wall, says BYD does not use pressurized

gas tanks in its PHEVs, which means it has higher evaporative emissions. BYD

says it welcomes an official review of the Kin, which is its best selling sedan, and the Song, which is its best selling SUV. Both companies

saw their stock prices take a hit on the news. Ford says it has

a seven billion dollar cost gap versus its competitors, and it's searching for all kinds of ways to cut costs as fast as possible. One way is reducing

product complexity. For example, the Explorer now has nineteen hundred different build combinations

that's going to be slashed to only twenty three. The Expedition has eight hundred

build combinations, which will get cut to only thirty two. And once that's

done, it will free up eighty five thousand square feet of assembly plant space, which will allow more work to be insourced. The five hundred different wiring

harnesses the company uses across its entire lineup now will get cut to only fourteen.

That alone will save half a billion dollars a year. Kumarcahultra, the

head of Ford Blue, says, when the new F one fifty comes out later this year, it will have twenty five hundred fewer parts than the outgoing model, simply through better design. God Schiffler we pioneer Emotion electrifying mobility,

manufacturing smart, reducing CO two emissions, making energy production clean. Scheffler Pioneer's

motion to advance how the World Moves. Caterum, which is known for its

lightweight, open top touring cars, is dipping its toes into EV waters.

It's showing off a prototype EV seven that it will use as a development concept.

It features a two hundred and forty horsepower e axle supplied by a company called Swindon Powertrain, and a battery pack with forty kilowatt hours of usable space.

That setup is about seventy kilograms or one hundred and fifty four pounds heavier, but it provides a zero to sixty time of four seconds, which is about the aim as the ICYE version. The company doesn't give a range estimate,

but said the car should be able to drive on a track for twenty minutes, charge for fifteen minutes, and then be able to drive for another twenty minutes. To be able to handle that kind of cycle, it uses

an immersion cooled pack that's capable of charging speeds of one hundred and fifty two kilowatts, and it's not stopping with one. EV Katerum says it will show

off another fully electric sports car concept in quote the coming months. Lordstown Motors

wants to kill two birds with one stone. It's doing a reverse stock split.

For every fifteen shares of stock you own, you now get another one that will boost the price of each share to more than a dollar. The

ev startup was threatened to get delisted on the NASDEC Exchange because it shares foul below the minimum one dollar requirement. If it got delisted, Foxcon, which

builds the Lordstown trucks, said Lordstown would breach it's one hundred and seventy million dollar investment deal and if Foxcon didn't fulfill the rest of that deal, Lordstown would have had to file for bankruptcy. Maybe the stock split will save the

deal, but Foxcon hasn't commented on whether or not it's satisfied. Boo Jan,

which is part of the GM SEIC Wooling joint venture, is launching an updated logo on China and it will first be featured on the all electric YEP, which just went on sale. That's its boxy, little baby suv that

ranges in price from a little over eleven thousand dollars to almost thirteen grand.

The car even comes with a screen on the back tailgate that can display messages and it looks like you can get upgraded versions with unique wheels and whitewall tires.

Yeah, white walls, but does anyone else think those look like Chrysler wheels from the nineties or is that just me? The EV Revolution isn't just

a threat to legacy automakers. Suppliers face an uphill battle too. Automakers want

to become more vertically integrated, meaning they want to bring more work in house, and they want to do most of the coding for their software to find vehicles as well, and that could shut suppliers out of a lot of future business. So what kind of strategy will suppliers need to develop going forward?

While That's going to be the topic on Autoline After Hours later today, Michael Robinette from SMP Global Mobility and Keith Notton from Bloomberg will be on the show, So we invite you to join John and Gary when the show goes live at three pm Eastern Time. And that's the end of today's show. Thank

you for tuning in. Autoline Daily is brought to you by Bridgestone Solutions for

your journey in Trepid Control Systems over the year Engineering 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

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AD #3575 - Sulfur Batteries the Next Big Thing?; 2024 F-150 Has 2,500 Fewer Parts; Great Wall and BYD Fight in Public

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