Mercedes new eActros, GM uServices API, NIO ready for France & Micromobility.com investment in Hopium - MOBILITY BRIEF_ 🗞️🚲🚗 - October 13th

Good Friday everybody, it's time for your weekly Mobility Brief (and not just any one: the 50th)! 🍽️

On the menu this week

💡 This Week In The Mobility World

🇺🇸 UAW Strike Update

• UAW went on strike at Ford's biggest plant on Wednesday (8.7k workers), halting production of pickup trucks. This is a significant escalation of the four-week strike against the D3 automakers.
• Layoffs continue: Stellantis announced 570 (640 in total) and Ford 70 on Monday, GM 200, totalling 2.3k workers.
• In the meantime, Ford EV battery venture, BlueOval SK, said that it’ll raise wages in Kentucky and Tennessee.
• As a reminder, the UAW is demanding a 40% increase over the four years of the new agreement, while Ford has only gone as far as 23%, with GM and Stellantis stopping at 20%.
• Meanwhile in Germany, Tesla’s Berlin Gigafactory workers are unionizing following high rates of work incidents on the site. This time, Tesla won’t be able to scare them off with layoffs, we’re in Europe.

🤝 Appointments

• Nio to launch in France soon, opens local office near the National Assembly and hires Nicolas Vincelot as GM.

🚲 Micromobility News

• Google partners up with Transport for London (TfL) to offer its cycling users traffic conditions and infrastructure availability directly into Google Maps.

🏭 Factories Updates

• Ford Saarlouis factory’s destiny is still unknown: the American manufacturer announced that the discussions with a potential investor for a take-over have failed. BYD was rumoured amongst the potential interested parties in an acquisition, but it’s been reported later that the Chinese manufacturer was preferring the option of building its own plant from scratch. Back to square one for Ford, who is assessing other options for the site.
• Idra, Italian manufacturer of aluminum casting machines and supplier to Tesla for its Giga Press, will now be working for Ford, Hyundai as more and more automakers explore this manufacturing technique to reduce production time and improve profitability. Volvo has also installed its own gigapresses in its Gothenburg factory.

🤖 Tech Updates

• GM is launching "uServices", a set of APIs, for the software developer community, that allows to build apps that can work across multiple GM vehicles. GM will also submit uServices to the Connected Vehicle Systems Alliance (COVESA). The automaker empire strikes back at Big Tech.
• Waymo’s robotaxis is expanding to 47 square miles of San Francisco, now becoming available to tens of thousands of people.

• The CJEU judged that Stellantis have to provide 3rd-party repairers with an unrestricted access to its OBD-diagnostic data, after a complaint from Carglass. Paving the way for automotive specific regulations into the incoming EU’s Digital Act? Read more on the topic here, from Taylor Wessing.

🔋 EV Updates

• Chinese EV startup WM Motor, backed by Baidu and Tencent, goes bankrupt after raising over $5.3B in funding. WM Motor explained that in recent years it had had to face "a difficult operating context", citing the Covid-19 pandemic, the contraction of the capital market, the cost of raw materials and a general lack of funds.

• Toyota and Idemitsu partner to develop and mass-produce solid-state batteries for EVs. They aim to bring those batteries to market in 2027-28, followed by large-scale mass production.
• Stockholm is going to be the first capital city in the world to ban petrol and diesel cars from city center from 2025 in bid to improve air quality and reduce noise.
• LG Energy Solution and Toyota sign lithium-ion battery modules supply deal for US-made EV starting in 2025.

🧙 New Car Reveals

• Mercedes-Benz makes a stunning entry into the heavy-duty BEV trucks market, revealing the series version of its eActros 600. 500-kms range (with a 40t towing weight) delivered by a 600-kWh bundle of battery packs, up to 22t of payload with standard trailers, 20-80% charging in 30 minutes (with Megawatt Charging Stations, so we’ll have to wait a bit more for this performance), Level-2 ADAS system, connected services and an overall 80% reduction in CO2 emissions over its lifespan. Visually, Daimler Trucks is bringing a modern touch to its trucks, while keeping the lineage of its predecessors. It’s indeed less radical than the Tesla Semi. Anyway, it’s a huge milestone for Daimler Trucks and more widely for the heavy-duty trucks industry. Orders will open later this year with deliveries planned for the end of 2024.

• Bem-vindo ao Renault Kardian. The model, dedicated to the South American market, will be unveiled in Rio, on October 25, but Renault has released a few images of its interior

• Citroën will unveil the fourth generation of the C3 next Tuesday, including a 100% electric version priced at less than €25k (excluding bonuses). We can only hope that it succeeds in turning around the brand's sales.

💰 Investment/Financial Updates

• What’s the link between hydrogen and micromobility? There were none until this week as Micromobility.com announced that it will invest up to $15M in Hopium. Hopium's situation hasn't improved since our last articles so what's the strategy behind this move? A mystery.
• Northleaf Capital Partners invests $200M in EVPassport, an open API-driven EV charging platform that aims to build a better charging UX.
• Didi Autonomous Driving, a subsidiary of Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi, will receive up to $149M in funding from GAC Capital, a wholly owned subsidiary of GAC Group, and Guangzhou Development District Investment Group.
• Tesla has sold wireless charging technology company Wiferion less than 3 months after acquiring it.

📖 Bookmark Of The Week

Elon Musk’s worst nightmare - Business Insider

Link

Is Missy Cummings Elon Musk's worst nightmare? You probably don't know Missy, so let us introduce her to you.

Missy Cummings, a Duke University professor and engineer, conducted research on self-driving car safety that led her to criticize Tesla's driver-assistance technology in 2021. She warned that the cars had "variable and often unsafe behaviors" and needed more testing before being allowed to operate without humans in direct control. Cummings' research led to her appointment to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration NHTSA , where she will help regulate self-driving cars.

Now that you've got the background, we invite you to read this great Insider article and make up your own mind.

See you next week and don't forget to share and subscribe to the newsletter!