AD #3593 - Toyota Using Generative AI For Design; Tesla Scores More NACS Wins; New Super Duty Features Impressive Tech

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Momentum is clearly building towards Tesla's charging system becoming the standard in North America.

After yesterday's show, Ryvian announced its joining Ford and GM in adopting Tesla's North American Charging Standard, or n ACS. Next year, its customers will

have access to twelve thousand superchargers in the US and Canada, and starting in twenty twenty five, Ryvian will equip the charging port as standard in its vehicles.

However, it's still unclear if these vehicles will have both the NACS and CCS. But that wasn't the only victory for n ACS. Texas announced it's

going to mandate that EV charging companies in the state must include both Tesla's charger and the CCS or combine charging system at their local patients if they want to receive EV charger funds. And this isn't too surprising since Texas is the home

of Tesla's headquarters and one of its gigafactories. There's also been a flurry of

other charging providers saying they'll be adding an ACS and Hunde says it's considering it too, so it just seems like a matter of time before Tesla's n ACS becomes the standard in North America. To help boost sales, China is extending

a tax exemption for the purchase of a new energy vehicle or an EV, which includes be evs, plug in hybrids, and fuel cell vehicles. The

seventy two billion dollar package is over a four year period and the largest ever for the autowindustry. In twenty twenty four and twenty twenty five, an EV

purchases will be exempt from a tax that can be as much as about forty one hundred bucks per vehicle, and then it starts to phase out. In

twenty twenty six and twenty twenty seven that exemption is cut in half. The

program is expected to benefit domestic brands that produce cheaper evs rather than foreign automakers that sell more expensive models, and thanks to this extension, EV sales are expected to increase thirty percent next year, which is up from an estimated fifteen percent gain this year. Toyota is using chat GPT like tech to help design

cars. In the example that it provided, a designer or designers will first

come up with an initial sketcher. Sketches then ask the AI tex something like

show me futuristic, sleek variations of my design while minimizing drag. It then

spits out several iterations with varying levels of aerodynamic drag. And to make sure

they're not overwhelmed by an infinite number of designs, team members will add in extra engineering constraints. Toyota recently amped up its pivot to EVS and one of

the ways it sees itself being successful is by speeding up the development and manufacturing of its vehicles and by using AI and design. It's all about designing EVS

faster and more efficiently. Speaking of Toyota, it's coming out with all new

versions of the luxury vans that it sells in Japan, called the vel Fire and all Fared. They're based on the same version of the TNNGA platform as

the CNA minivan, but they come with a radically different styling and much more upscale interiors. And I know we've shown some of the wild grills featured on

these models in the past, and they continue with deep plunging grills, expressive side panels, and stylistic rear tail lights. The driver gets a wrap around

layered dashboard with a wood inlet set high in a large upright digital display, But the real treat is to sit in the second row Captain chairs that are highly adjustable can come with a number of extra creature comforts. The luxury vans

are launching with either a gas or hybrid powertrain, both of which come in two wheel and all wheel drive setups. The gas engine is a two point

four leader turbo, while the hybrid is a two and a half lead four cylinder that combines to make nearly two hundred and fifty horsepower, but Toyota says it will also add a plug in hybrid version in the future. The vel

Fire and Alphard go on sale today, and starting prices range between roughly thirty eight and sixty three thousand dollars. At Schiffler we Pioneer Motion Electrifying Mobility,

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

Motion to Advance How the World Moves JLR is refreshing a couple of models in its lineup that share the same platform, the Discovery Sport and range Rover Evoke.

They both get mild exterior styling updates, which is highlighted by a new treatment around the front air curtains. The interior sees the biggest changes, with

a larger infotainment screen, a new gearshifter design, and the HVAC controls are no longer separated out by themselves, which clears up space below the center screen.

Both the Discovery Sport and the Evoke are powered by a range of gas and diesel mild hybrids, as well as a plugin hybrid that combines a turbocharged one and a half liter three cylinder engine, an electric motor, and a nearly fifteen kilowatt hour battery pack. Thanks to a revised battery chemistry, it

now offers forty seven kilometers or twenty nine miles of real world driving. Both

are also on sale now in the UK. The Evokes starts at just over

forty thousand pounds, while the Discovery Sport starts right around forty five. Cadillac

teas the new electric Escalade that debuts in August, and not surprisingly, it's hard to get a good look at it in the teaser video, but Cadillac did share this image of the front end, which reveals an interesting lighting signature officially called the Escalade IQ. The model will be built at GM's Detroit ham

Trammic plant. But that's all the details that Cadillac is sharing for now.

Ford is launching it's all new Superdue pickups today and we were really impressed by some of its features. There's not enough time for us to cover all of

them, but here's three pieces of tech that we think people that actually use their trucks as trucks will like. The first is what they call hitch assist.

It can be a real hassle backing up a truck exactly to the ball of a trailer. So the Super Duty uses a rear camera, side radars,

parking sensors, and a neural network algorithm to place the hitch right above the ball on the tongue of the trailer. All the driver has to do

is put the truck in reverse, hold down a button on the dashboard, and let the truck do the rest. Saves a bunch of time of getting

in and out of the truck if you don't have a spotter, and it's more accurate. Next up are onboard scales that help you position a load on

a trailer for perfect balance, in this case as a front end loader is positioned. The screen lets the driver know when it's properly centered, and a

vertical array of LEDs in the taillights lets the driver in the front end loader no when they've hit the sweet spot. And the same idea applies to how

much weight can be loaded in the bed of the truck. The driver can

watch the center's screen or hit a button on the center's screen to activate the taillights as weight indicators. And if you try and overload the bed, the

taillights in the center's screen let you know that's all it can take. And

just so you know what the maximum payload is before you start tossing things in the bed. The maximum tonnage is shown in a graphic molded onto the top

side of the bed. In this case, it's two and a half tons.

There's so much about the new Super Duty that will have more in tomorrow show, and you're not gonna want to miss Autoline After Hours coming up on Thursday. Stay. We'll have the CEO of Caresoft on the show. They

tear down vehicles for benchmarking, and we bet you're shocked by some of their insights. But that's the end of this show. Thanks for joining US 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.

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Toyota Alphard

Land Rover Discovery Sport

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