Category: Brands

The Electrified GV70’s U.S. production launch marks a milestone for Hyundai Motor Group, which has committed to building EVs in the U.S. as part of a push to sell 3.2 million EVs a year globally by 2030. Genesis has pledged to have an all-electric lineup in the same time frame.

While the Electrified GV70 is the first, its volume is unlikely to match that of the Hyundai- and Kia-branded imported EVs that are already on sale and remain ineligible for the tax credit.

The group captured early EV market share with its Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Kia EV6 crossovers. Both brands topped 20,000 sales in their first year and, unlike Tesla and other luxury EV makers, targeted mainstream buyers.

The brands got an additional boost from electric variants of the Hyundai Kona and Kia Niro. Those compact crossovers share a platform and just entered their second generation. Last year, they logged combined sales of 12,740, according to data from Motor Intelligence.

Hyundai and Kia also have forthcoming EVs — the Ioniq 6 sedan and the three-row EV9 — that will bring affordable EVs options to other high-volume segments.Those models are not eligible for any federal incentives.

Additionally, months before changes to the tax credit eligibility were announced last summer, HMG committed $5.5 billion to construct an EV and battery factory outside Savannah, Ga., for its Hyundai, Genesis and Kia brands. The plant’s capacity will start at 300,000 EVs with the potential to increase to 500,000 as demand increases.

The plant is under construction, but officials say production will not begin until the third quarter of 2024 at the earliest and the batteries will not be ready until 2026. HMG’s battery partner for that EV complex is unknown.

HMG has said it will partner with South Korean battery maker SK On to make power packs for EVs at another location that has yet to be announced.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of its performance M division, BMW will produce 50 examples of the 3.0 CSL. The coupe is a modern interpretation of the original 3.0 CSL from the early 1970s, which was the first BMW M standalone model. Production of its spiritual successor will begin this spring at the company’s plant in Dingolfing.

This is the place where BMW produces some of its most exclusive vehicles, including the M4 Coupe and Convertible, M5 and M8 Coupe, Convertible, and Gran Coupe. Last year, that factory assembled around 50,000 BMW M machines but the target regarding the 3.0 CSL is 1,000 times smaller. The automaker will implement some unique production processes, despite the fact that the anniversary model is based on a standard-production M4 CSL body.

A dedicated new work area at the Dingolfing plant – the same shop where the M4 GT4 is also assembled – is where those special processes will be executed. The distinctive wheel arches, for example, are being widened using special beading and welding processes and are prepared for assembly.

The body is then transferred to the paint shop’s standard production process, but at a dedicated workstation. The 3.0 CSL’s special paintwork is applied by specialists. At the same time, other exterior components such as front side panels and bumpers are being finished at BMW’s neighboring plant in Landshut.

The final assembly is performed at a craft workshop set up specifically for the 3.0 CLS and located in Moosthenning, an external site also operated by BMW. A team of 30 experienced experts puts together the interior and marries the body with the chassis. From A to Z, the production process of a 3.0 CSL takes almost two weeks.

“We are proud to be entrusted with building such an iconic car. It underlines the wide range of models and technologies we have here on-site – from fully-electric BMW i models all the way to our M high-performance models. And it shows that, in addition to highly automated large-scale production, we also excel at hand-crafting cars,” Christoph Schrder, director of the plant in Dingilfing, comments.

HANOI — Vietnam’s VinFast said North Carolina regulators had given the automaker one of the environmental permits it needs to begin construction on a planned $4 billion EV assembly plant in the state.

The company, a subsidiary of conglomerate Vingroup, has been moving to expand in the U.S., where it hopes to compete with existing automakers.

VinFast was awarded an “Air Permit,” the company said, adding it was still seeking other permits for the Chatham Country factory, but would start a tender for construction.

“The Air Permit allows us to start construction on phase 1 of the factory. We will start construction soon,” VinFast said, without specifying any time frame.

The company completed the application for the Air Permit in December last year and received approval on Feb. 9, according to the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality website.

It has also applied for a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers designed to minimize damage to water quality and wetlands.

Spy shots have revealed Volkswagen is putting the finishing touches on a next-generation Tiguan with combustion engines and likely a plug-in hybrid setup. However, the compact crossover will also spawn a fully electric version as German newspaper Handelsblatt has learned from a company spokesperson an EV likely to be called ID. Tiguan is coming. The two models will only share the name and not much else since they’ll utilize different platforms.

While the third-gen Tiguan will use an evolution of the omnipresent MQB platform, its fully electric counterpart will ride on the VW Group’s upcoming MEB-Plus architecture. The model is scheduled to go into production in 2026 and is going to be assembled at home in Wolfsburg. It’ll have roughly the same size as the ICE-powered Tiguan but likely a more spacious interior thanks to the dedicated EV underpinnings that maximize wheelbase and shorten overhangs.

One question arises – where will the ID. Tiguan fit in the lineup? After all, VW is already selling the ID.4 and ID.5, with an ID.3-like crossover also on the way. Regardless of its positioning in the lineup, the electric compact crossover is a necessity for the Wolfsburg plant since the demand for the Golf keeps dropping. After being number one in the European sales charts for 14 years in a row, it dropped to fifth in 2022 when the Peugeot 208, Dacia Sandero, T-Roc, and the Fiat/Abarth 500 were ahead.

Speaking of the once-popular hatchback, an ID. Golf or something to that effect is also in the works. It could be previewed as early as next month and go into production around 2025 on the same MEB-Plus platform. There are even mumblings of an electric Golf GTI since VW has allegedly already decided to drop the GTX suffix.

VW CEO Oliver Blume has confirmed the Golf and Tiguan nameplates will live on in the electric era, which is coming sooner than you might think. Earlier this week, the European Union voted in favor of banning sales of new gasoline and diesel cars from 2035. You’ll still be able to drive your ICE car or buy a used one. The EU ruling technically refers to vehicles that have emissions, but unless synthetic fuels and/or hydrogen combustion engines gain traction, it’s the end of the line for new vehicles running on gasoline or diesel.

Sales of top-end cars including the S-Class and EQS all-electric sedan saw particularly strong growth in 2022 and helped the carmaker overcome rising costs.

Global sales of Mercedes-Benz Cars were 2.05 million last year, including 149,227 sales of Mercedes and Smart full-electric vehicles.

The company’s fourth-quarter earnings were 5.4 billion euros.

Mercedes, which committed on Thursday to buy back up to 4 billion euros in shares by 2025, reported an adjusted free cash flow in its industrial business of 9.29 billion euros, down 8 percent from last year.

Mercedes said it will propose a dividend of 5.20 euros per share, up from 5 euros last year, amounting to a total payout of 5.6 billion euros.

A primary driver of Visteon’s growth was its digital clusters segment, which increased 40 percent year over year with key launches in North America. The segment is anchored by increasingly sophisticated infotainment and dashboard displays.

Of the 45 new product launches, 17 were digital clusters, including in the Stellantis NV cross car line, as well as Ford Super Duty trucks, transit commercial vehicles and SUVs. Ford remains Visteon’s largest customer, making up 22 percent of sales.

“Since 2015, we have positioned our product portfolio from primarily analog clusters and AM/FM radios to industry leading digital clusters, centralized domain controllers, advanced displays and smart battery management systems,” CFO Jerome Rouquet said on a call with investors. “These initiatives have enabled us to benefit from the cockpit trends while outperforming in a challenging environment.”

Visteon’s growth, however, has been stunted by a lingering microchip shortage. While the supply bottleneck has improved significantly, the company is experiencing another semiconductor headache — a shortage of microcontrollers, which control everything from air conditioners to headlights in new cars.

“They cut across all products. Every product that we do requires these power chips to drive the rest of the circuitry,” CEO Sachin Lawande told investors. “As we start here in 2023, we see our situation with respect to analog chips improve, but there are emerging shortages in the areas of microcontrollers that is more driven by the lack of wafer supply from foundries to semiconductor suppliers.”

Automotive suppliers from Lear Corp. to Aptiv plc have pointed to the same problem as upcoming headwinds.

Visteon (NASDAQ: VC), whose stock price ticked up 5 percent to $167.11 per share as of Thursday afternoon, anticipates sales of $4.05 billion, working on the assumption that global car production will be virtually flat at 84 million units.

On the microchips problem, rather than wait for the supply chain to catch up, Visteon is implementing workarounds for the shortage by re-engineering some products.

“We are continuing to redesign some of our products to give us more flexibility so that we would be in a position to address more demand as we anticipate,” Lawande said.

Visteon ranks No. 66 on Automotive News‘ 2022 list of the top 100 global suppliers with worldwide sales to automakers of $2.73 billion in 2021.

ECD Automotive Design – one of the world’s largest companies focused on Land Rover and Jaguar restoration – announces it is expanding its production facility with two new production lines that are dedicated to restoring Jaguar E-Types. The first three examples of the vintage sports car that are going to be restomoded are already at the company’s Rover Dome facility just outside Orlando. These cars were sourced and imported in the United States from Belgium, Germany, and the UK.

Just like with the classic Land Rover models, the process of restoring the F-Types will be highly customized according to the specifications required by the customers. Once the desired body style is selected and the restoration work is done, the clients choose the braking system and exhaust system, and pick one of three available drivetrain options.

“An international icon in terms of power, style, and luxury, famous names like George Harrison, Steve McQueen, Frank Sinatra, and Sir Elton John all chose the E-Type as their preferred set of wheels,” Tom Humble, co-founder of ECD, comments. “Owning this gem today is like owning a piece of history.”

If you are looking to combine the retro look with pure modern performance, ECD offers an LT1 engine for the F-Type. Alternatively, if you want electric power, a Tesla dual-motor powertrain is also available. Last but not least, if you want to match the vintage styling with a historic Jaguar engine, there’s a 4.2-line inline mill offered for the F-Type Series 2 and a V12 for the F-Type Series 3.

Then come the aesthetics. You can go for vintage Jaguar colors such as Carmine Red and Perl Grey. You can also customize the interior with a wide selection of leathers, stitching and carpets, dash upgrades, and more. Once the design is finalized, the company creates a video with the exact specification selected by the customer.

ECD expects to have the first restored F-Type – a Tesla-powered example – completed later this year. The company already has 9 E-Types on order already and plans to build between 10 and 12 restomods per year.

The week hasn’t been great for Ford so far. Just two days ago, the company had to pause production at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center and it also idled its Louisville Assembly Plant the next day. This is where the Escape crossover is currently produced and according to the information available at this point, it won’t return to the production lines until February 19.

While the F-150 Lightning showed some problems with its battery pack, the issue with the Escape is from a different nature. The crossover, which was refreshed just recently, has software problems with its instrument cluster. It’s not something huge but Ford wanted to prevent affected cars from reaching dealers and being recalled in the future.

“We’re on a day-by-day basis right now and I know that’s frustrating,” the plant’s building chairman, Brandon Reisinger, told Automotive News. “The issue we’ve got, the cluster, is a software issue. It’s not a hardware issue. If it were to get out, it would not be something that would endanger anybody … but it would have the vehicles coming back to the dealership.”

The automaker gave the Escape a mid-cycle refresh in October last year, which brought a new ST-Line trim and tech improvements for the 2023 model year. The engine range currently includes 1.5- and 2.0-liter gas engines, as well as hybrid and plug-in hybrid powertrains. The 2023 Escape is expected to return to the assembly lines next Monday and the plant intends to make up the lost units when production resumes.

Earlier this week, Ford also suspended production of the F-150 Lightning after “one vehicle displayed a battery issue” during the pre-delivery quality inspection. The automaker believes it has “identified the root of the cause for this issue,” but a remedy isn’t expected until the end of next week. If your vehicle has already been produced but not delivered yet, it will remain on hold as further inspection will be needed. Ford also said it doesn’t believe “F-150 Lightnings already in customers’ hands are affected by thie issue.”

The Ford F-150 Lightning assembly line at Ford’s historic Rouge factory in Dearborn is sitting still at the moment. Production of the electric pickup is paused while the automaker investigates a potential problem with the truck’s battery pack. There is no stop sale of trucks already at dealer lots.

A Ford spokesperson confirmed the pause in production to Motor1.com, explaining that a potential battery issue was displayed during the automaker’s pre-delivery quality inspections. Motor Authority reported on the production pause, stating that shipments of Lightnings to dealerships are also temporarily paused. For trucks already on lots, Ford confirmed there is no stop-sale, so vehicles in inventory are still available. An investigation into the possible problem is underway, but there is no timeframe for when production may resume.

The news comes less than 24 hours after Ford announced a massive $3.5 billion investment for a new battery manufacturing plant in Marshall, Michigan. Located in rural south-central Michigan about 100 miles west of Detroit, the sprawling facility will be called BlueOval Battery Park and is expected to begin battery production in 2026. Once up and running, workers will build nickel cobalt manganese (NCM) batteries as well as lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries.

Ford says LFP batteries should lower EV costs, as they don’t require as much in the way of high-value materials for production. The downside of that is a battery pack that generally contains less power, and doesn’t perform as well in the cold. As such, LFP batteries are expected to be used as base-level packs for customers where cold weather and long-range performance aren’t necessities.

The new battery plant won’t begin production until 2026, but Ford is planning to use LFP batteries in the Mustang Mach-E starting this year. LFP batteries will be offered in the F-150 Lightning starting in 2024.