AD #3588 - Renault Reveals Connected Car Concept; Buick Envision Adopts New Design; Toyota Revives the Land Cruiser

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

Yesterday we took a dive into Toyota's future efforts with its new dedicated EV division called b ev Factory. Today we're getting into its other technology development,

and like all automakers, Toyota is working on so called smart vehicles that run on connected vehicle platforms. Toyota calls its operating system RINE, which is spelled

a r n E. Vehicles will have Ota capabilities, including updates to safety

systems and multimedia. It also says you'll be able to customize quote ride feel

and gives categories including run, turn, and stop, which we take to mean performance, handling and braking. Toyota will continue to refine its aid as

technology and development of its electric mobility show called e Palette is ongoing. It's

working on both driver and driverless versions of the E Pallette, and while the majority of its focus is on electrification, Toyota is also looking into the future with Hydrogen Factory, it's new dedicated hydrogen division. It's establishing three main production

hubs, one each in the US, China, and the EU. Toyota's

joint venture operations in China will start making fuel cells in April of next year, and it says it's going to open a production based in Europe very soon.

By twenty thirty, it hopes to be making one hundred thousand fuel cell units a year. That includes both the ones it uses and the ones it

sells to other partners, and those fuel cells will mostly be used in commercial vehicles. If Toyota can reach the one hundred thousand unit a year threshold and

make the necessary improvements to the system, it believes it can cut the host of its fuel cell by thirty seven percent. If it sold two hundred thousand

units a year, it says it could cut the costs in half. But

as we all know, for hydrogen powered vehicles to take off, the refueling infrastructure has to expand, and right now it's lacking. Toyota is currently producing

hydrogen through electrolysis at a plant in Japan and also has a joint project in Thailand to make hydrogen from biogas. And like we said, all automakers are

working on smart vehicles. Renault showed off its first connected car concept called h

First. This car is also a good example of something we've been talking about

recently that even though there's a lot of talk about automakers bringing more work in house, suppliers are still providing a lot of vehicle content. And Renault partnered

with five suppliers to showcase twenty different innovations, which were all developed using digital twins. Those innovations include Vehicle to Everything or VITA X communication, which uses

cloud connectivity to send and receive information inside the car. It also allowed the

six companies to work together in real time from different locations around the world.

Vita X could be used to send alerts to the driver about a potential crash, hazard or the car also has the ability to monitor the health of different vehicle systems and say there's a need to replace the tires, you could get an automatic notification to set up an appointment. Without highlighting all twenty innovations,

one last cool bit of tech is a biometric authentification system. Basically, users

create a digital ID including their name, height, a photo of their face, and a video of them walking, which is stored inside the car, and then it uses that information to make sure you're you when you're walking up to the vehicle, and then it greets you and asks you if you want to come in. Tractor trailers are required to have under ride guards on their

rears in the US. Those are those big, fixed steel bumper looking things,

but the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, or the IHS, wants them mandated for their sides as well. NITZA recently released a cost benefit analysis of

requiring side under ride guards on all new trailers and semis to prevent passenger vehicles from going underneath in a crash, and it says it would cost between nine hundred and seventy three million and one point two billion dollars and save seventeen lives and prevent sixty nine injuries a year. But the IIHS says nitz's analysis is

significantly under estimating how many lives could be saved because it excludes many types of crashes. By factoring those in, the IIHS says side under ride guards could

prevent between one hundred and fifty nine and two hundred and seventeen passenger vehicle fatalities a year. In twenty twenty one, four hundred and eighty eight passenger vehicle

occupants were killed in crashes involving the side of a tractor trailer. We're getting

more details about General Motors fourth US battery plant that will be located in Indiana.

GM originally planned to open that plant with LG Energy, but that partnership fell apart in January, and now the automaker will jointly operate it with Samsung SDI. The companies will invest three billion dollars to open the facility in New

Carlisle, Indiana, which is near South Bend. They'll begin construction within the

next year, and it's expected to start producing batteries in twenty twenty six and will have the capacity to produce thirty gigawatt hours a year. GM is currently

producing batteries in Ohio with LG, and it's also building two more battery plants in Tennessee and Michigan, also with LG. The Buick Envision is getting a

new look for the twenty twenty four model year and is adopting the brand's new global design language that was inspired by its Wildcat EV concept and also the Electra AX. It will also be the first Buick to be equipped with GM Supercru's

hands free driver assistance system. That's all the companies sharing for now, but

more details will be revealed later this year. And Buick is having a great

year so far in the US. Its sales are up seventy six percent through

May, and the Envision is on track to have its best year ever in the US. Earlier this week, we reported that the Volkswagen Group wants to

cut three billion euros and costs across its brands, and that's because profit margins are stagnating and it wants to cut cost to get those profit margins back up.

And in a LinkedIn post earlier today, the company's chief financial officer set it's aiming to increase earnings at the VW brand by ten billion euros by twenty twenty six through those cost cuts. VW is targeting a return on sales of

six and a half percent by then. Currently it's at just three percent.

The CFO also added that optimizing production efficiency is key for it to produce its planned twenty five thousand euro electric vehicle. But we'll learn more about VW's financial

goals and strategy at a Capital Markets Day event it's holding next week. The

Toyota land Cruiser is coming back to the US. Really, it hasn't been

gone that long. It was last available in the States in twenty twenty one,

but Toyota posted a video on social media that says, quote, did you really think we'd be gone for long? The legend returns and it shows

a number of land Cruiser badges from over the years. Toyota didn't provide any

other details, but early speculators are guessing it will be based on the new Lexus GX that was just revealed. And that wraps up today's show. Thanks

for watching and for making Autoline a part of your day. Autoline Daily is

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AD #3588 - Renault Reveals Connected Car Concept; Buick Envision Adopts New Design; Toyota Revives the Land Cruiser

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