AD #3835 - Tesla Roadster Delayed Again; Porsche Creating Battery Digital Twin; Magna Gets Order for Swivel Seats

This is out aligned daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry. In a move that surprised absolutely no one, EV startup Fisker filed

for bankruptcy yesterday. It simply ran out of cash. Founder Henry Fisker warned

months ago that the company did not have enough money to get through the year, and it only delivered about half of the ten thousand Ocean SUVs that it built last year. The model was also plagued with hardware and software issues,

and the company was plagued with poor bookkeeping and lax financial controls. Stilantis isn't

wasting any time getting Chinese evs into its lineup. Its partner leep Motor recently

kicked off production of its TO three model at a Stalantis plant in Poland, and now a second model is on the way. Code named the A twelve,

it's a compact suv that will have both a BV and EREV powertrain.

It will reportedly come equipped with lidar and advanced intelligent driving technology, but even with that high end tech, the price is expected to be around only fourteen thousand dollars. It's expected to go into production next year. Have you ordered

your new Tesla Roadster yet. If so, you're probably gonna have to wait

longer for it than you expected. Though the concept officially debuted in twenty seventeen

and a production version has been promised for years, it's still years away.

In February, Elon must said production would start this year and deliveries would start next year. But Auto Forecast Solution says the Roadster will not start production at

Fremont until January of twenty twenty seven. And we think Auto Forecast has a

better track record at predicting these things than Elon does. It costs fifty thousand

dollars to reserve a roadster, so that's a lot of money to plunk down and let sit there for the next two and a half years. But Elon

is not the only one who's off on his timeline. A couple of years

ago, GM CEO Mary Baris said production of the Cruise Origin Robotaxi would start in twenty twenty three. Then things went a Ryot Cruz and production was pushed

back to this year. But it looks like that's not going to happen either.

Auto Forourcast Solution says the Origin will not start production at GM's Factory zero plant in Detroit until June to twenty twenty seven. GM is already making test

mules, but full production looks like it's still three years away. Auto Forecast

also says that production of the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra electric pickups will not move over to the Orient plant in Michigan until January of twenty twenty seven.

Those trucks are currently being made at GM's Factory zero in Michigan, and maybe that's why these trucks are moving to Orion, because the crew's origin is moving into Factory zero. But the Orient plant was making the Chevy Bolt EV,

but it was moved out to make room for the electric pickups. So if

Auto Forecast has got this right, that plant will have been sitting idle for three years since GM pushed back its EV plans because there's not enough market demand to justify it. Michigan is leading the charge in mobility and innovation, and

I can't think of a better state to be in. Dashia, which is

Renault's affordable brand, does pretty well selling its smaller B segment vehicles, but it first floated the idea of moving up to the C segment in twenty twenty one with the big Ster concept. Well, it's finally getting around to that.

Next year it will come out with the production version of the big Ster that will then be followed by two more C segment vehicles, and Dashia really expects those new models to increase its sales and profits by twenty thirty. It's

forecasting to sell about a million units by the end of the decade, which is a pretty big jump from last year's total of just under six hundred and sixty thousand vehicles. Dashia thinks that jump will double its revenue from twenty twenty

two to twenty thirty and boost its operating margin to an impressive fifteen percent by the end of the decade as well. The company clearly thinks it's going to

capitalize on all this talk of consumers wanting more affordable cars, and we'll get to watch and see if it's right. Porsche is doing something we haven't heard

of anyone else doing. It's creating a digital twin of its high voltage battery

to learn how EV batteries will perform over the long term. A digital twin

is a virtual representation of a product that allows engineers to test and design it virtually before it's used in the real world. Porsha began working on the digital

twin last year and says it's developed prototypes of the electrochemical and thermal models of the battery. It says its long term goal is to not only create a

battery digital twin, but also a digital representation of individual vehicle batteries. Porscha

says this could allow it to run simulations in the cloud and provide customers with details on how to extend the life of the battery without impacting the vehicle's performance.

A few years ago, Magna developed a vehicle interior with reconfigurable seating.

The seats can swivel to point any direction, they move on tracks to provide different seating arrangements, or they can be stacked up at one end of the vehicle to make room for cargo space. The different arrangements can even be controlled

with a smartphone and app. One idea was to use the vehicle for ride

hailing services during the day and for moving packages at night. And while Magna

just got an order from a Chinese automaker that will use part of the system.

It will have swivel front seats that can turn around to face rear words.

The front rear row slide on two meters or about six and a half feet of powered rails to provide plenty of leg room. No word yet on

which automaker is using it, but it goes into mass production in the fourth quarter of this year. If you haven't heard of China's rankings for charging rates,

you're probably going to start hearing a lot more about them, as battery makers are really ramping up their fast charging capabilities. China uses a number and

the letter C to refer to how fast the battery can be charged relative to its capacity. For example, three seat and four sea charging rates are pretty

common, which means a battery could be charged at three and four times its capacity, or in other words, a one kill awhile battery could be charged at three and four kilowatts, or to simplify it even more, you could say a three seed battery can charge three times in one hour. But now

battery makers are hitting five S charging rates, and Car News China reports even BYD and CTL will have six C rates before the end of the year.

That means a battery could fully charge six times in an hour or once in just ten minutes. But good luck finding a charger capable of pumping out that

much. Current five S capable chargers are rare, and most are made and

installed by the battery and carmakers themselves. Automated guided vehicles or AGVs are nothing

new. They've been around for decades, just like these orange units that are

following the path of green tape on the floor at Honda's plant in Marysville, Ohio. But now meet what I would call these robots. BIL. My

brother BMW is implementing what it calls a one of a kind autonomous transport vehicle at one of its plants in Germany. But this one doesn't need any green

tape or wires in the floor. Instead, it uses light, our cameras

and sensors like an autonomous car to allow it to move anywhere in a plant.

And this thing is not moving small objects. Here we see it moving

the two sides of a die for a giant stamping press, and it's capable of moving up to fifty five metric tons. Sony is ramping up the marketing

of its project with Honda, called a FELA. It's all about turbocharging the

digital experience both inside and outside the car. The grill features a media bar

to display customizable greetings, messages, and even videos. Inside. Pillar to

pillar screens dominate the dashboard. A yoke steering wheel is used to provide better

visibility of the screens, which can run an impressive amount of multimedia content, even content that you create yourself. Augmented reality will enhance the navigation. The

car can connect to your PlayStation four or five at home, so you can game on the road. You just need to bring your own controller. There's

an on board karaoke and the car will be soundproof so that no matter how loud it gets inside, no one will hear it outside. The car will

also have LDAR for level three autonomy. No word yet on whether that includes

eyes off driving, but if it does, then even the driver will be able to watch everything that's going on. And that brings us to the end

of today's show. Thanks for making autoline a part of your day. Outoline

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Tesla Roadster

Chevrolet Silverado

Gmc Sierra

Ford Orion

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