AD #3842 - VW Partners With Another Chinese Automaker; Renault Reveals Geely-Based Hybrid SUV; Mercedes Spends More on ICEs Than Planned

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

Volkswagen is teaming up with another automaker. It just signed that multi billion

dollars software deal with Rivian and you may know about its partnership with Chapung and now it's going to work with Saic. I'm jointly developing BEVs and PHEVs that

are going to hit the Chinese market in twenty twenty six. While GM's joint

venture with SAIC might be the more well known one, VW and SAIC formed one of the earliest jvs in China. Audi also announced a partnership with the

Chinese automaker last month, which we'll see its first vehicle launch next year in China. But VW has been steadily losing market share in China and was overtaken

by byd as the best selling car brand in the country for the first time in fifteen years. Its vehicles developed in Germany, especially electrics, have not

been as popular with Chinese customers, so it hopes to come out with more attractive products that were developed in China with local partners. Speaking of partnerships,

Renault is seeing some of the first benefits from its tie up with Gili to develop IC powertrains. That includes a new model that just debuted at the Bussan

Auto Show called the Grand Colios. It's based on the CMA platform, which

is used by many GILI brands, and it looks very similar to a model that the Chinese automaker already has on sale called the Manjero. The Grand Colios

wears a badge that says Etech Hybrid, and currently all of Renault's Etech hybrids are full hybrids, so no forty eight volt stuff and no charging plugs, and presumably it will use a powertrain from its ICJV with Gili called Horse And in their IC news, Mercedes is spending more money on combustion engines than it planned to, including fifteen billion dollars this year on its passenger cars. CEO

Ola Calenius said that if Mercedes didn't keep its engines at quote the very highest technological level, then its IC sales would start to stall around twenty twenty seven or twenty twenty eight, and Mercedes still expects fifty percent of its sales by twenty thirty to come from combustion engine vehicles. Alex Partners doesn't see much growth

for non Chinese automakers in China. By twenty thirty, AT forecast that China

brand nevs will have seventy two percent of the EV market, so foreign brands only get the remaining twenty eight percent. It also says foreign automakers will have

to compete directly with Chinese automakers in every market of the world, except for the US and possibly Canada, which are trying to block them through tariffs, But Chinese automakers are building assembly plans in many different countries, which could protect them against those tariffs. The EV segment is growing in the US despite Tesla's

falling sales. According to S and P Global Mobility, New EV registrations were

up fourteen percent in April, while Tesla's were down seventeen percent. If you

exclude Tesla, EV registrations shot up sixty nine percent. Ford was number two

in April with more than eight thousand, three hundred EV registrations, up a whopping one hundred and sixty nine percent compared to a year ago. Hyundai was

number three with six thousand, three hundred and fifty five registrations, and Kia was about one thousand behind in fourth place. B EV market share in the

US reached seven point four percent in April, up slightly from seven percent a year ago, and while the traditional automakers had a great month in April, they had to rely heavily on incentives to booth sales. They were nearly eleven

thousand dollars for the Toyota Bez four x nine grand for the Ford Mochie, and a whopping nearly seventeen thousand dollars in incentives for the Nissan Aria. Knowing

that when it's time to unplug, your tires were built to get you to the place you recharge. That's what really matters, reached down tornza Evy tires

with a fifty thousand mile limited warranty. Mate Ribak, the guy who founded

super high end sports car company Rimak, and two of his colleagues have launched a new autonomous ride hailing company called Vern. The Level four autonomous vehicle gets

its sensing package for Mobile Eye and is based on a new platform that it says is free from the compromises and disadvantages of a legacy platform built for human driving. Despite only having two seats, it claims the vehicle will have more

interior space and comfort than the best limousines today, and services that can be tailored to each user, like interior sense and temperature. Vern will first launch

its right hailing app in twenty twenty six in Croatia, the home of Rimac.

Well, just as we suspected, Volvo's EX thirty will not hit the American market until probably next year. The EX thirty is made in China,

so it's included in President Biden's one hundred percent tariff on any electric car made in China. What's more, the European Union is looking at boosting tariffs on

Chinese evs, so Volvo will start building the EX thirty at its planting Ghent, Belgium, for both the US and EU markets. The delay will hurt

Volvo because the little crossover would have been priced at thirty six thousand dollars in the US market, not including any incentives, and was facing very little competition.

But a year's delayer more will likely see a higher price and a lot more competitors. Car payments in the US have increased so much in the last

two years that more owners can't afford them. According to TransUnion, monthly car

payments in the first quarter of twenty twenty two were five hundred and twelve dollars on average, but that rose to five hundred and eighty one dollars in Q one of this year, a gain of nearly twenty percent, and payments are about eight hundred and thirty dollars more a year on average, and because of that, delinquencies on loans have reached great recession levels. Loan delinquencies of sixty

days past due were one point one nine percent in the first quarter of twenty twenty three. In Q one of this year, it increased to one point

three to three percent. TransUnion says delinquencies are up because savings fell and car

payments outpaced inflation and income growth. Earlier this month, Hunday teased a new

compact EV called the Inster, and now it made its world debut at the Bussan Auto Show in South Korea. It comes standard with a seventy one kilowat

electric motor and a forty two kilowat hour battery, which provides a range of more than three hundred kilometers or one hundred and eighty six miles based on the WLTP test cycle. It's also available with a more powerful eighty four point five

kilowat motor and a larger forty nine kilowat hour battery, and it has a projected range of three hundred and fifty five kilometers or two hundred and twenty miles.

The model is an evolution of Hyundai's gas powered Casper that's sold in Korea, but the Innster's body and wheelbase were extended that gives it a little more interior space and was probably done to make more room for the battery pack.

Inside. It features dual ten and a quarter inch digital screens. The Inster

will first launching Korea this summer, followed by Europe, the Middle East in Asia, and Hyundai is promising to keep its price below twenty five thousand euros.

We've got a great autoline after hours coming up later today that will be especially interesting for all you engineers to do chassis in powertrain calibration. ZF,

a sponsor of the show, has a tool called Cubics for Smart Cars that allows you to tune the suspension, steering, brakes, traction and other features while sitting in the passenger seat with the laptop. No more crates full of

springs, shocks and bushings that you got to spend weeks or months sorting through to find the best combination. It's a real eye opener if you haven't seen

it yet. Journalist Lindsey Brooke will also be on the show, So join

John and Gary when it all goes live at three pm Eastern Time today on the Autoline website and YouTube channel and a programming note here. We'll be taking

a Midsummer break next week, so there won't be any new Autoline dailies or in after hours, but keep an eye out. We'll be posting some videos

that we think you might be interested in, including care safts, insights into Tesla's forty eight volt architecture on the cyber truck, and a battery breakthrough from a company called Natreon that can convert any battery into a solid state one with no factory changes. It's literally a drop in solution. Anyway, keep an

eye out for those and we'll see you back here again tomorrow. Autoline Daily

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AD #3842 - VW Partners With Another Chinese Automaker; Renault Reveals Geely-Based Hybrid SUV; Mercedes Spends More on ICEs Than Planned

Nissan Aria

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