Month: May 2023

The 2023 Porsche 911 GT3 RS is probably as close as we’ll get to being able to buy a road-going Porsche race car. It has the power and aerodynamic trickery to carve out blisteringly quick lap times anywhere it goes, and the Nurburgring is no exception.

Sport Auto test driver Christian Gebhardt piloted the new GT3 RS around the famous race track. He completed the lap in an impressive 6 minutes and 54.99 seconds. That’s better than the 911 GT3 the publication tested earlier this year, which returned a 6:59.42 lap time, and that car featured a Manthey performance kit.

Porsche powers the GT3 RS with its naturally aspirated 4.0-liter flat-six engine. It makes 518 horsepower, 16 more than the GT3, and 343 pound-feet of torque, with the automaker routing the power through its seven-speed PDK gearbox to the rear wheels. Porsche engineers squeezed the extra power from the engine with a motorsport-derived single-throttle intake system and new camshafts with modified cam profiles.

The powertrain is just one part of the car’s performance equation. The RS features active aerodynamics and a drag reduction system, the first time Porsche has offered the technology on a production model.

The new aero allows the car to create 901 pounds of downforce at 124 miles per hour, which more than doubles to 1,895 lbs at 177 mph. That’s also twice as much as its 991.2-generation predecessor. Even the double-wishbone front axle increase downforce, their teardrop-shaped profiles adding 88 lbs of downforce at top speed.

Porsche says the car can reach 60 mph in 3.0 seconds and hit a top speed of 186 mph. The automaker corrals all that power with six-position front and four-piston rear brakes. The car weighs just 3,286 lbs, with Porsche using Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic for the doors, front wings, bucket seats, and other bits.

Owning the 911 GT3 RS isn’t cheap. It debuted with a $225,250 price tag (including the $1,450 destination charge). However, Porsche’s consumer site shows that the cost has ticked up, with the car now starting at $244,650, which includes the $1,650 destination charge and the $1,700 gas guzzler tax. And that’s not even the most expensive one you can buy. 

Canadian auto supplier Linamar Corp. plans to break ground “immediately” on a new plant in Welland, Ont., that will house three giga-casting presses capable of producing very large aluminum structural parts for electric vehicles. 

The Guelph, Ont.-based parts supplier announced the new site in the city south of Niagara Falls as it reported its first-quarter earnings on Wednesday.

Company CEO Linda Hasenfratz said the state-of-the-art plant will be a “flagship location” for the company’s structural castings business.

“As the first supplier to invest in this equipment in North America, Linamar will naturally take a market leadership position in this technology,” she told analysts on a conference call Wednesday.

Pioneered by Tesla, giga-presses are used to produce large structural vehicle components, replacing parts that previously required numerous welds with a single aluminum piece.  

Linamar COO Jim Jarrell said the investment is the next step in the company’s high-pressure die casting strategy, and follows an “increasing trend” for cast aluminum in vehicle architecture. 

“The Welland Giga casting facility will have capabilities few companies in the world possess. … Structural aluminum castings offer an alternative to traditional steel stamping and weldments, creating a less complex and more lightweight solution for OEMs.”

Linamar said the new plant will house three 6,100-ton high-pressure die cast machines,

“To date, this size tonnage from a parts supplier only exists in Asia, and shipping from Asia for a part this size is just not going to happen,” Hasenfratz said on the earnings call.

The first of the three giga presses is set to be installed in January 2024.

“Production on our first contract [will be] starting about a year after that,” Hasenfratz added. She did not name the initial customer, but said the company is seeing “significant interest” from automakers.

Linamar did not disclose the precise value of the investment in Welland, but Hasenfratz said the company’s capital expenditures will be “significantly up” from the C$411 million ($305 million USD) it spent across its global operations last year, and that the Welland facility accounts for a “big chunk of it.” The company spent C$162.7 million in capex in the first quarter of 2023.

The new plant will be built at 59 Canal Bank St., according to the City of Welland, a brownfield site that once housed a portion of Union Carbide’s electrode production plant that closed in 1999, and the Page Hersey pipe mill, which later passed through succession of owners, including steelmaker Stelco. It was most recently known as Energex Tube before its closure in 2014. 

“Linamar’s presence in our community signals the next wave of investment in our local economy and is a testament to the progressive steps Welland is taking,” the city’s Mayor Frank Campion said in a release. 

The plant will cover about 300,000 square feet and will employ about 200 workers, the city said.

Construction will start in Welland immediately, and parts production will begin in February 2025, Linamar said. 

In its Q1 earnings report, the supplier said sales increased 29 percent to C$2.29 billion, a new record for a quarter. Linamar said earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization were C$297.1 million, up 41 percent over the C$210.8 million for the same quarter a year ago.

Future work continued to trend toward EVs. Nearly 80 percent of the contracts Linamar secured during the quarter were for EV or propulsion-agnostic components. The company forecasts the segment will make up half its business by 2027.

Tucked away in a press release about Q1 2023 sales results is news about the Huracan effectively being discontinued. Lamborghini says it has enough orders to keep busy until the model’s demise scheduled to take place at some point in 2024. It means the V10 machine is no longer available to order, some nine years since it originally went on sale following its public debut at the 2014 Geneva Auto Show. The online premiere took place in December 2013.

The Huracan’s planned termination should mean there won’t be any other derivatives until the end of its life cycle considering new members would extend the production run. However, the previous statement might not necessarily be true since it wouldn’t surprise us to see an already-sold epilogue. Given how many special editions big-brother Aventador received before being axed earlier this year, anything is possible. A new Sesto Elemento serving as the Huracan’s swan song would be neat, but it’s wishful thinking on our part.

Looking into the future, the new supercar has already been officially confirmed to land near the end of 2024 with a plug-in hybrid powertrain and a downsized combustion engine. When the Revuelto was unveiled in late March, Lamborghini said its new dual-clutch, eight-speed automatic transmission would also be installed in the Huracan’s replacement.

If we were to rely on the rumor mill, Motor Trend speculates the baby Lambo will employ a twin-turbo V8 adapted from the Urus and other high-end Volkswagen Group models. Interestingly, the turbos won’t apparently kick in until 7,000 rpm and remain active until the 10,000 rpm redline. An electric motor positioned between the ICE and DCT will turn the Huracan successor into a PHEV to meet increasingly stringent emissions regulations.

Also coming in 2024 will be a plug-in hybrid Urus, with a fully electric 2+2 grand tourer scheduled to go on sale around 2028. Further down the line, Sant’Agata Bolognese’s second-generation SUV has already been confirmed to morph into an EV by the end of the decade.

SAN FRANCISCO/TOKYO – Panasonic said on Wednesday that it will delay the commercial production of its 4680 battery cells championed by Tesla CEO Elon Musk and begin operations during the April to September period in 2024, later than previously scheduled, as the company aims to improve their performance.

Tesla’s Japanese supplier, Panasonic, previously planned to start volume production for Tesla between April 2023 to March 2024.

“Mass production rescheduled to begin during 1H FY3/25 to introduce performance improvement measures that will further enhance competitiveness,” Panasonic said on its earnings presentation materials, referring to the first half of the fiscal year ending March 2025.

Panasonic is running a pilot 4680 production line at its Wakayama factory in Japan, while Tesla is already producing the 4680 battery cells, which Musk has touted as being key to making cheaper and compelling electric cars. But the carmaker struggled to meet its targets for production and performance of the cells.

Tesla executive Drew Baglino said on a recent conference call that the company plans to steadily ramp production of 4680 battery cells ahead of Cybertruck production next year. Tesla currently uses the cells in a base Model Y.

Tesla, which makes 4680 battery cells at its factories in California and Texas, said they were producing them for more than 1,000 cars per week as of the end of 2022, equivalent to about one-fifth of the annual production capacity at its Texas factory.

Tesla’s South Korean supplier LG Energy Solution 373220.KS said last month that it planned to set up a new 4680 production line at its domestic factory by the end of this year, but did not say when the batteries would start volume production.

LONDON — General Motors will begin sales of full-electric cars in Europe in the autumn, with the first markets expected to be Nordic countries.

GM’s European lineup will be an “all-electric portfolio” that will leverage the automaker’s EVs across more than one brand, GM Europe President Jaclyn McQuaid told Automotive News Europe on the sidelines of The Financial Times’ Future of the Car event on Tuesday.

McQuaid said GM’s EV sales will launch in the autumn but she did not disclose GM target markets in Europe.

A source familiar with the matter told Automotive News Europe that the automaker will target Nordic countries first. EV sales are booming in Norway where the government is chasing a target to have zero-emission cars account for all new vehicle sales by 2025. Other Nordic countries include Sweden, Denmark and Finland.

The Lyriq midsize crossover from GM’s Cadillac luxury brand will be on the launch list, the source said.

GM currently sells limited numbers of high-end models in Europe, including the Chevrolet Corvette sports car. The automaker left Europe’s volume market in 2017 when it sold Opel/Vauxhall to PSA Group, which later merged with Fiat Chrysler to form Stellantis.

GM CEO Mary Barra said last year that she was “looking forward” to the company re-entering the European market as an electric-vehicle focused company.

The automaker has set up an advanced design unit for Europe in the U.K. and expanded its IT innovation hub in Ireland.

The Chevrolet Bolt is unlikely to be part of the launch lineup after GM said in April it would stop making the model at the end of this year. The Bolt used a previous generation battery, which has been replaced by Ultium battery platform used by all new GM electric vehicles.