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AD #3854 - LG Halts Battery Plant Construction for GM; Not Enough Lithium? No, There’s Too Much; Xiaomi Wants Nurburgring Record for EVs

AD #3854 - LG Halts Battery Plant Construction for GM; Not Enough Lithium? No, There’s Too Much; Xiaomi Wants Nurburgring Record for EVs

Autoline Daily Jul 22, 2024 10 min
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LG Energy Solution delays its Michigan battery plant construction with GM due to slower demand, while Stellantis progresses on its Canadian battery facility. BMW and other German luxury brands are raising prices in China amid declining sales. India’s car market shows potential for massive growth by 2047. Chinese EV startup Jomi aims to break the Nurburgring lap record with a powerful new electric SUV prototype. Tesla uses software options to help buyers qualify for federal EV tax credits, and lithium prices have dropped sharply due to oversupply. Rivian repurposes an old gas station into a solar-powered EV charging hub, and Ford extends the deadline for free Tesla charging adapters.

Topics: battery plant construction ev demand slowdown luxury car pricing in china india car market growth electric vehicle tax credits lithium supply and pricing nurburgring ev record attempt ev charging infrastructure tesla adapter for ford evs automaker fuel economy fines
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This is out Aline Gaily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry. Last week, GM CEO Mary Barra announced that the company is backing
off its goal to sell a million evs in the US by the end of next year because the demand isn't there. And now Bloomberg reports that LG Energy
Solution is slow in construction of its third battery plant with GM. Because of
that slowdown, the plant is being built in Michigan. In Construction of the
two point six billion dollar facility started in twenty twenty two. It was supposed
to begin operations in the first half of next year, but now it's not going to happen by then. Meanwhile, STILLANTIS is celebrating the one year anniversary
of its joint venture with LG called Next Star Energy. They're building a battery
plant in Windsor, Ontario, and it's on pace to begin making modules this fall, followed by cell production in twenty twenty five. Once it's fully up
and running, it will have an annual production capacity of just under fifty gigawatt hours. Speaking of Canada, we have a quick correction here. Last week
I said Ford's plant was in Oak Wood, not Oakville. Thanks to everyone
that pointed that out in the comments. Now back to the news for today,
BMW is ready to sacrifice sales and market share in favor of profits.
In China, the German automaker and its Chinese dealers are raising prices on some models by as much as six dollars or sixty three hundred euros. One reason
BMW is giving up on slashing prices is that it didn't really help that much.
Sales are down more than four percent this year despite having deep discounts, and Bloomberg reports that Mercedes and Audi are considering doing the same thing. China
was once a gold mine for the German luxury brands, but now they're fighting to hold on to what they've got. And Porsha just replaced the CEO of
its China operations after sales fell thirty three percent in the first half of the year. With one point four billion people, India has the largest population in
the world. It has about five million more people than China, and of
course that has automakers dreaming of India becoming a major new car market. And
it looks like that could happen, but not for several decades. Right now,
About four million new cars are sold every year in India, which is about two million more than Germany bought about half a million less than Japan.
The three largest automakers in India are Maruti, Zuzuki, Mahindra and Tata, and Marudi's Zuzuki is in a dominant position with forty percent market share. It
predicts the Indian market for new cars could hit twenty million units a year by twenty forty seven, which would put India ahead of the US in Europe, and that makes India one of the last great growth markets left for the automotive industry. Stalantis had to pay some hefty fines for failing to meet US fuel
economy standards. Knitzer revealed the automaker paid nearly one hundred and ninety one million
dollars in fines for the twenty nineteen and twenty twenty model years, and Reuter's reports that the automaker owes another four hundred and fifty nine million dollars in outstanding penalties. Last year, Stalantis paid a record setting two hundred and thirty five
point five million dollars in fines for missing fuel economy requirements for the twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen model years. It set in a statement that the fines occurred
before it existed when it was Fiat Chrysler, claiming the penalties quote are not indicative of the company's direction. General Motors paid nearly one hundred and thirty million
dollars in fines in twenty twenty two for missing fuel economy targets, and it's the only other automaker that has had to pay fines in the last two years.
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 to Ruanza
ev Tires with a fifty thousand mile limited warranty. A Chinese evy startup wants
to try and break the lap record for an electric car on the Nurburgring, which is currently held by the VWIDR. Phonemaker turned automaker Jomi unveiled a high
performance prototype version of its SU seven Sidan called the Ultra that it will take on the track in October. It features a heavily modified body with many carbon
fiber panels that help lower the overall weight but also help produce more downforce than the car actually weighs. The SU seven Ultra tips the scales at nineteen hundred
kilograms or just under forty two hundred pounds, but it creates two thousand, one hundred and forty five kilograms or over forty seven hundred pounds a downforce.
Power comes from three electric motors that generate nearly fifteen hundred and fifty horse power and provide a top speed of three hundred and fifty kilometers an hour or more than two hundred and seventeen miles an hour. They're fed by catl's CHI LNN
two point zero battery, which is an LFP or lithium iron phosphate pack, and it comes with a set of heavily upgraded brakes that include six piston front rear calipers. No word yet if there will be a production version of the
SU seven Ultra. Currently, Jomie only has the one model in its lineup,
and it only launched the SU seven in late March or early April, so it's interesting to see how fast some Chinese automakers iterate. Tesla is using
a bit of a loophole to allow more customers to qualify for the US federal tax credit for EVS car buyers can't qualify for the credit if the MSRP for an EV is over fifty five thousand dollars for a passenger car or over eighty grand for trucks and SUVs. Right now, hardware options like headlamps or paint
upgrades are included in the MSRP to determine if an EV is eligible, but software options like FSD are not. So Tesla is offering free pain options on
the Model three and X as long as you sign up for FSD. Right
now, FSD on its own costs eight thousand dollars, but pain options can cost up to two grand. So until Tesla made this change, picking out
that perfect pink color might have put the MSRP over the limit. Remember all
those predictions about two years ago that the EV transition would fail because there's not enough lithium in the world to make evy batteries, Well those were way off.
There's actually so much lithium available now that prices have plummeted eighty percent.
That's partly because of a slowdown in the growth rate of electric cars, but it's also because lithium production has grown so much. In fact, there is
so much lithium available that big mining companies are thinking about delaying opening new mines and are shutting down operations at some existing ones. That could force the price
of lithium back up again, but mining experts don't see that happening for at least another year. You know, we've heard of gas stations adopting EV chargers,
but Rivian decided to restore an old, abandoned gas station in California with charging stations and solar panels and then opened it to the public. It has
a lounge, small library, snacks and apparel in the building which is open seventy seven and outside the activities for kids, water, bathrooms, and EV chargers that are always open. Ford is giving its EV customers more time to
order a free Tesla Adapter than NACS or North American Charging Standard. Adapter allows
Ford ev owners to charge at Tesla's supercharger stations. Ford EV's, like all
others, are equipped with CCS plugs. Originally, the deadline to order the
adapter was June thirtieth, but now it's been extended to August thirty first due to supply constraints. After the cutoff date, owners will have to pay two
hundred and thirty dollars to get a Tesla Adapter. But eventually Ford will start
equipting its vehicles with the Tesla Adapter, and that brings us to the end of today's show. Thanks for tuning in Out Online Daily is brought to you
by Bridgestone Solutions for Your Journey, Intrepid Control Systems, Over the Air, Engineering, Boost Your Game, MEDC where Michigan businesses are powering the future of mobility, and by Tajent Automotive Technologies the formula for better Mobility. 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 light enough,
but with world class composite material, Tagent Automotive Technologies makes vehicles lighter, safer, and more eco friendly. Intrepid's neovi Pie 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 canuefting 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

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