IM Motors claims to be the first to mass-produce an ultra-fast charging solid state battery with impressive range, developed in-house. The episode covers battery warranty debates, with experts pushing for 15-year coverage, and CATL's ongoing role as a Tesla supplier. Nissan outlines ambitious sales and cost-cutting plans, while the US faces challenges in expanding domestic lithium mining. Other highlights include Intrepid's Raspberry Pi automotive platform, Chinese flying car progress, Stellantis layoffs, Honda's dealer margin cuts, and McLaren's new ownership by Bahrain aiming to boost EV development. Jeep's rugged Easter Safari concept wraps up the show.
Topics:solid state batterybattery warrantynissan sales strategylithium mining challengesraspberry pi automotive platformflying car developmentstellantis layoffshonda dealer marginsmclaren ownershipjeep concept
- China’s IM Motors Claims First Solid State Battery - CATL To Supply Tesla in Nevada - EV Battery Warranty Should Be 15 Years - Nissan Targets Huge Sales, EV Growth - U.S. Lithium Mining Tied Up in Red Tape - Xpeng Close to VTOL Certification - Stellantis Axes 400 U.S. Employees - Honda To Cut Dealer Profit Margins - McLaren Now Owned by Bahrain - Jeep’s Easter Safari Concepts
"...s a number of unique concepts for the Easter Jeep Safari. I'll show you the one I like the most, but if yo..."
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Did a Chinese automaker just beat everyone to the market with a true solid state battery? Im Motors claims its upcoming sedan, the L six, will
have the world's first mass produced ultra fast charging solid state battery. It says
the one hundred and thirty kiloo hour battery and the L six sedan will deliver one thousand kilometers of range or six hundred and twenty miles, and even adjusting that to an estimated EPA range, it still comes to four hundred and three miles. IM Motors says this will be a fast charging battery thanks to a
nanoscale solid electro like coding on ultra high nickel materials for the positive electrode and the negative electrode gets a new generation of high energy density composite silicon carbon materials.
It will be capable of nearly nine hundred vs bolt, but it did not say how fast the battery can charge. It will release more technical details
on April eighth, and interestingly, it looks like this was developed in house and not with a major battery supplier. Speaking of fast charging batteries. CTL's
chairman Robin Zang tells Bloomberg that they will start supplying cells to Tesla's battery plant in Nevada. Even though Tesla is starting to make batteries on its own,
it's still dependent on its suppliers like CATL, Panasonic, and BYD China.
The US and the EU have a mandate that edy batteries have to last for eight years, but other battery experts say that should be bumped up to fifteen years, and they want those batteries to retain eighty five percent of their original capacity versus the seventy percent in today's mandates. JB. Strabel, who used
to work at Tesla and now runs the battery recycling company Redwood, says the life cycle of the typical battery pack is already close to fifteen years, and CATL is working on extending its warranty to that time. A study by the
company Recurrent, which looks at battery analytics, says the average EVY battery only loses twenty miles of range over eight years, and that outside of big recalls like the one for the Chevrolet Bolt and Hyundai Kona, battery replacements are quite rare, Nissan laid out an ambitious new business planet calls the ARC. In
three years, it wants to sell a million more vehicles than it did last year, and last year it sold a little less than three point four million vehicles around the world, so it wants to increase its sales by nearly thirty percent by the end of its twenty twenty six fiscal year. To reach that
goal, Nissan says it will launch thirty new models in those three years.
Sixteen of them will be electrified and the other fourteen will be IC Mostly these are refreshed versions of current models, but it also includes seven all new models for the US and Canada, some of which will feature plug and hybrid in Nissan's ePower technology, which uses an IC engine as a generator to charge the battery, just like the system powertrain expert Mickey Blid told us RAM would use on last week's Autoline after Hours. Nissan also plans to increase its operating profit
margin to more than six percent by reducing its EV costs. That includes developing
evs and families so they can share parts and components. It says that will
slash development costs in half, reduce part variations by seventy percent, cut development time by four months, and trim production time by twenty percent. In total,
Nissan wants its next gen EVS to cost thirty percent less than the ARIA.
The United States wants to reduce its dependence on China for critical materials needed for EV batteries, like lithium, but that effort is it's getting tied up in red tape. The US is offering generous incentives to expand lithium mining in
the US, but it's going to take longer than expected. Reuter's reports that
there's confusion over who owns the lithium that's underground, how it should be valued by regulators, and who should be allowed to process it. That all has
to be figured out by states and local officials, and right now they're working at a slow pace. Intrepid's NEOVIPI allowing automotive engineers to interface, capture,
and monitor vehicle data using Raspberry Pie. As a matter of fact, it's
the automotive industry's first robust platform for Raspberry Pie, featuring Intrepid cannefting technology and Raspberry Pie compute module. The NEOVIPI is designed for automotive environments allowing use with
relative power ranges and applications. In addition, the neovipi enables you to use
the Raspberry Pie for compute while avoiding additional development to adapt to network environments.
That makes the neo VIPI powerful enough to solve your vehicle network problems, yet small enough to fit in your backpack. One of many intrepid tools used for
developing zonal architecture and software divine vehicles. Chinese evmaker x punk continues to make
progress with vitalls, or vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. The Chinese government just
awarded its land Carrier flying car with an air worthiness certificate. The land Carrier
is a six wheeled vehicle with a small aircraft tucked into the back compartment.
The sides of the vehicle full down to deploy the vitall. The aircraft can
see two people, while the carrier has room for four to five. The
vehicles set of wheels are attached to their own e axle, and the aircraft is fully electric, meant to be flown at low altitudes either manually autonomously.
Stalantis laid off four hundred engineering, technology and software workers in the US on Friday. Stillantis blamed the cuts unquote unprecedented uncertainties and heightened competitive pressures around the
world. The layoffs are effective March thirty first, and Autoline learned that there
was no warning about the cuts and people were shocked. A source also tells
Automotive News that more cuts are coming and that Stalantis will be doing this in waves to quote game the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification or WARN Act. The
law requires a sixty day advanced public disclosure whenever a company lays off at least five hundred workers within a thirty day period. So by firing four hundred people
at a time, it appears that Stillantis is working around the law. Transitioning
to electric cars comes with a massive R and D and capital investment build for legacy auto make and so they're looking for every opportunity they can to cut costs at Honda that includes dealer profit margins. Automotive News reports that Honda is going
to cut its US dealer margins by half a percent, but that's nothing compared to what it wants to do in Canada, where it told dealers it will cut their margins by forty four percent. But the Canadian dealers promise to fight
that in court. Honda is also going to cut free routine maintenance for US
customers from two years down to one, and we wonder if we could see similar actions from other automakers. No doubt New Zealander Bruce McLaren never saw something
like this coming when he formed McLaren Racing in nineteen sixty five. The McLaren
Group is now under full control of Bahrain's Sovereign Wealth Fund. The company says
the reorganization will allow it to form new partnerships to help McLaren gain access to develop electric vehicles. The McLaren Group has struggled since the COVID pandemic. It
lost one hundred and eighty six million in the third quarter of last year, which forced it to raise five hundred and sixty six million dollars from shareholders to help with its finances. McLaren will report its full twenty twenty three results next
month. Every year, Jeep creates a number of unique concepts for the Easter
Jeep Safari. I'll show you the one I like the most, but if
you want to see more, we'll provide the link. This is the vacation
year, or what I think is the off road version. Of the wagon
ear that everyone would want. It has the high output five hundred and ten
horse power version of the Hurricane engine, a suspension lift kit, thirty five inch tires, and a carbon fiber roof mounted tent with solar panels. Designers
gave it a two tone paint job and even a little nod to wood body panels. But that brings us to the end of today's show. Thanks for
making autoline a part of your day. Auto Line Daily is brought to you
by Bridgestone Solutions for your journey and by Intrepid Control Systems over the air engineering boost your game, keeping your heart racing in and out of the gym, That's what really matters. Bridge don't pretends to sport as tires with a fifty
thousand mile limited warranty
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