Chinese EV makers face profitability challenges despite rapid cost-cutting and a fierce price war, with only BYD and Liauto currently profitable. Ford's new Capri EV impresses with more range than its VW counterpart, while BMW leads German EV sales. The IIHS highlights that partial automation offers limited crash prevention compared to active safety tech. Generative AI is emerging in automotive manufacturing to predict defects and recalls, enhancing quality control. Meanwhile, OPEC's optimistic oil demand forecasts clash with more conservative global estimates. Plus, BYD's new compact electric SUV aims for Europe amid rising import tariffs.
Topics:chinese ev profitabilityford capri evbmw ev salespartial automation safetygenerative ai in automotiveopec oil demand forecastsbyd compact suvautomotive data monetizationvehicle network technologysubscription services
- Most China EVs Lose Money - Connected Cars Fall Short of Revenue Hopes - IIHS Says Lane Centering Not Safer - Ford Capri Has More Range Than VW Counterpart - BMW Trounces Mercedes, Audi in EVs - OPEC Living in Fantasyland - BYD Preps Premium SUV for European Market - Gen AI Can Catch Defects Early
"...lled the Bow three. It's about the size of a Jeep Cherokee. Two electric motors provide all wheel drive and ..."
Select text to request an explanation
This is Outderline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry.
There are at least one hundred and thirty seven different brands of electric cars in China, but only two of them are profitable right now, BYD and Liauto. Even so, Chinese automakers are making rapid progress and cutting costs.
Despite a price war that slash car prices by thirteen point four percent over the last year, the average profit margin for Chinese automakers actually rose by one and a half percentage points to seven point eight percent. They're cutting costs quickly by
separating software from hardware development, by taking risks, by becoming more vertically integrated, and by working maximum overtime up to one hundred and forty hours of overtime a month. They're also doing it by pressuring suppliers. One supplier to by
detailed Autoline, then BYD sources its components every six months, meaning suppliers have to cut prices every six months or risk losing their business to a competitor.
But the future still doesn't look bright for most of the companies. Alex Partners
predicts that by twenty thirty, only nineteen of those one hundred and thirty seven brands will be profitable. Automakers are counting on connected cars to generate up to
two hundred billion dollars a year in revenue, but so far those cars are only generating about six billion dollars a year according to S and P Global Mobility.
That is still a lot of money, but it's not producing the return on investment that the auto industry expected, and a key reason for that is concerns over data privacy. General motors, for example, got into hot water
when customers discovered that on Star was collecting data on how they drive, and that info was sold to insurance companies. So instead of monetizing data, automakers
are concentrating more on subscription services and paid upgrades. Last year, thirty brands
globally began offering paid updates for the first time. Automakers are keen to make
this all work. If they can convince US car owners to pay for upgrades,
they could open up a significant source of revenue. A new study from
the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety or IIHS found that partial automation systems don't do much to prevent crashes. It's referring to features that work constantly to keep a
vehicle in a desired position on the road, like lane centering. On the
other hand, the IIHS says crash avoidance technology like automatic emergency braking, blind spot warning, and lane departure prevention do help reduce crashes. The Highway Loss
Data instance, which is part of the IIHS, looked at property damage liability claims, which are for damage to other vehicles hit by the insured driver.
It did this for BMW and Nissan vehicles for twenty seventeen to twenty nineteen.
Rogues equipped with AEB and forward collision warning, the claims were eight percent lower.
However, there was no benefit to models equipped with Nissan's Propilot partial automation system, and the findings were similar with BMW. Twenty thirteen to twenty seventeen
BMWs and minis equipped with AEB and forward collision warning reduced collision claim rates by seven percent and property damage liability claims by thirteen percent, but there were no benefits to BMWs with partial automation systems. 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 canefting 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 NEOVIPI 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 divined vehicles. Ford revealed the all new
Capri for Europe. It's second MEB based EV to come from its partnership with
Volkswagen. It's most closely related to the IB five, but the dialing of
the two are quite different. While we will agree that its silhouette looks a
lot like the Pollstar two, we also see design influence from the original Capri in the facia and the treatment around the rear windows. The interior is quite
different from the ID five as well, but things like the motors and batteries are all VW. The rear wheel drive Capri features a roughly two hundred and
eighty horse power electric motor and a seventy seven kilowatt hour battery pack. It
will do zero to one hundred kilometers an hour in six point four seconds and has up to six hundred and twenty seven kilometers or three hundred and eighty nine miles of range on the WLTP test cycle. Somehow, some way, Ford
is doing something different than VW, because the rear wheel drive Capri has seventy one kilometers or forty four miles of range, more than the rear drive ID five with the same motor and battery size. The all wheel drive Capri has
two election motors that combine for nearly three hundred and forty horse power and a seventy nine kilowot hour battery. This setup will do zero to one hundred kilometers
an hour and five point three seconds, and has up to five hundred and ninety two kilometers or three hundred and sixty seven miles of range. No word
on when the new Capri launches, but it should go into production soon.
Alongside the Explorer EV in Germany, BMW is leaving its German rivals in the rearview mirror when it comes to EV sales. In the second quarter of the
year, BMW sold nearly one hundred and eight thousand bvs globally, which is up twenty two percent compared to a year ago. Meanwhile, Mercedes EV sales
dropped twenty five percent in Q two to forty five thousand, eight hundred units, and Audi sold forty one thousand bvs, which was flat from a year ago. OPEK is very bullish about demand for oil, but other x erz
think it's living in fantasy land. OPEK is forecasting that global oil demand will
grow by two point two five million barrels a day this year, but the International Energy Agency reports that actual global demand only increase by seven hundred and ten thousand barrels a day in the second quarter, and it says that global oil demand will grow by less than a million barrels a day this year and next.
That's also in line with the Joint Organization's Data Initiative, which tracks oil demand in fifty three countries. It's also forecasting that global oil demand will grow
by less than a million barrels a day. Now, the question is will
OPEK produce oil based on its forecast, or will it change to the reality of what's happening in the marketplace. Buyd's premium off road brand, feng Cheng
Bao has a new compact electric suv that's worth checking out because it's eventually supposed to enter the European market as a rebadged Denza, which is another brand under the byd umbrella called the Bow three. It's about the size of a Jeep
Cherokee. Two electric motors provide all wheel drive and combine for about four hundred
and forty horse power, which helps it go from zero to one hundred kilometers an hour and four point nine seconds. The battery is a nearly seventy nine
kilowa hour LFP pack that provides up to five hundred and ten kilometers or three hundred and sixteen miles of range on China's CLTC test cycle. The Bow three
is supposed to hit the Chinese market this year with a starting price around thirty thousand dollars. The dens of version for Europe will likely cost more because all
Chinese EVY imports had higher prices in Europe even before the new import tariffs.
But if we do apply the new seventeen point four percent tariff that all byd imports are hit with. It would add about fifty five hundred dollars to the
price. Generative AI is taking the world by storm, and while so much
of the public focus has been on programs like Chat, GPT writing jokes or Dolly coming up with wild pictures and graphics, gen AI is making its way into the auto industry in a variety of areas. One company that really caught
our attention is Viaduct, which uses generative AI to look for patterns and manufacturing to predict where automakers face a potential defector recall. David Halleck, the CEO
of Viaduct, explains how it works. Yeah, I would say there's three
main pillars of data sources that we leverage. There's the manufacturing and assembly data,
there's the telematics data, and then there's the service and warranty data.
And generally, what we use our AI for is to detect patterns and correlations and issues that may be emerging in this data that you do not seem obvious perhaps to the human eye, and you need more advanced tools to uncover.
David says it takes about a month for Viaduct to set up a system at a company, but after that it can start finding problems instantaneously. He says
about a half dozen automakers and a couple of Tier one suppliers are already using their services because it can catch problems in the field and trace them back to the plant, the machine, or the supplier that caused the problem. He
says that generative AI will not replace human beings, but it will replace humans who are not using AI. Want to learn more, click the link in
today's transcript or description box to get the full interview. While that brings us
to the end of this show, don't forget to tune in to Autoline after hours at three pm Eastern Time today, we'll be looking at other ways AI can improve the auto industry as well as vtauls or vertical takeoff in landing aircraft.
I hope to see you there and thanks for tuning in. Auto Line
Daily is brought to you by Bridgestone Solutions for your journey, Intrepid Control Systems over the year, Engineering Boost Your Game, MEDC where Michigan businesses are powering the future of mobility, and by Tagent Automotive Technologies. The formula for Better
Mobility keeping your heart racing in and out of the gym, That's what really matters. Bridgeton't pretends to sport as tires with a fifty thousand mile limited warranty,
Michigan is leading the charge in mobility and innovation, and I can't think of a better state to be in. There's nothing wrong with heavy metal,
Hey lighten up. But with world class composite material taging automotive technologies makes vehicles
lighter, safer, and more eco friendly.
Request an explanation for:
4 cars
4 cars featured
Request an Explanation
Heard something you'd like explained? We'll add it to this episode.
Sign in to request explanations for terms you heard.
Want to learn more?
Browse our glossary for plain-English explanations of automotive terms, jargon, and concepts.
See something that's not quite right? Our annotations are AI-generated and can sometimes miss the mark.
Click the flag icon on any annotation to suggest a correction.
