Automotive Ventures Weekly Intel Report | Mar 4 2024
Intel Report: The Weekly Mobility News That Matters
BY AUTOMOTIVE VENTURES | MAR 4 2024 | VIEW ONLINE
We are excited to announce our latest investment in Citian, delivering innovative transportation technology to improve life through safe and accessible infrastructure. The company provides the world's only Software as a Service (SaaS) tools that combine engineering expertise and artificial intelligence to furnish the real-time data and critical insights that infrastructure owners need in an interactive digital twin environment. | Why We Invested
What We're Reading
Watch the world's fastest camera drone chase Max Verstappen around Silverstone. | Red Bull
What began with Dietrich Mateschitz popularizing an energy drink called Red Bull in the 1980s, turned into a marketing revolution in the 1990s, and finally a disruptive Formula One team in the 2000s that would make the Red Bull name synonymous with F1 greatness. | The Wall Street Journal ($)
Americans are having a harder time getting approved for auto loans, as banks worry over the risk of defaults at a time when high interest rates and elevated car prices are squeezing budgets. | Bloomberg ($)
Joe Biden has ordered an investigation into whether Chinese “connected” vehicles, including electric cars, pose a security risk to Americans, as he tries to prevent China from flooding the US market. “China imposes restrictions on American autos and other foreign autos operating in China,” Biden added. “Why should connected vehicles from China be allowed to operate in our country without safeguards?” | Financial Times ($)
BYD’s growth is astounding: It sold three million electrified vehicles last year, more than any other company, and it now has enough production capacity in China to manufacture four million cars a year. But that isn’t enough: It’s building new factories in Brazil, Thailand, Hungary and Uzbekistan, which will produce even more cars, and it may soon add Indonesia and Mexico to that list. A deluge of electric vehicles is coming. | The New York Times ($)
Chinese electric vehicle maker BYD, looking for an assembly plant location in Mexico, is not planning to use the operation to export vehicles to the U.S., a company executive said. | Automotive News ($)
The price war in the Chinese auto market that began in late 2022 shows no signs of stopping. BYD, which overtook Tesla in EV sales last quarter, dropped another bomb last week—cutting prices of some models by more than 10%. | The Wall Street Journal ($)
JLR has informed its U.K. dealer partners that they will no longer be transitioning to the agency model later this year but instead continue with a revamped version of their current wholesale arrangement. The change to an agency model would have had JLR taking full control of the car-buying process, be it online or in the showroom, and giving dealers – or rather agents – a fixed fee for each sale. | AUTOCAR
Jaguar's entire existing range of vehicles is to be replaced by much more expensive EVs. In the year ending last March, Jaguar sold just under 43,000 cars globally, while the combined Land Rover brands managed nearly 280,000. In the U.S. the gap is even greater in percentage terms, selling only 8,000 Jaguars compared to 66,000 Land Rovers. The number of Jaguar dealers in the States has already started to fall: more than 40 have already voluntarily surrendered their franchises. Future plans are that all will be integrated with the Land Rover franchises. | Road & Track
Motor vehicle insurance rose 1.4% on a monthly basis in January alone and has risen 20.6% over the past year, the largest jump since 1976. The average annual premium for full-coverage car insurance in 2024 is $2,543, compared with $2,014 in 2023 and $1,771 in 2022. | The New York Times ($)
Apple is canceling a decadelong effort to build an electric car, abandoning one of the most ambitious projects in the history of the company. | Bloomberg ($)
A timeline of Apple's self-driving car project, code-named "Project Titan." | TechCrunch
Volkswagen and Chinese EV partner XPENG said the first car they plan to develop together will be an SUV for which they will jointly source parts. The announcement marks a step forward in a partnership forged in July when Volkswagen said it would buy 4.99% of Xpeng for around $700 million with plans to jointly launch two EV models by 2026. The purchase was completed in December. | Reuters ($)
Electric vehicle startup Fisker said there is "substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern" and that the company is negotiating with an unnamed "large automaker" for a strategic partnership. | Automotive News ($)
Nissan is in advanced talks to invest in electric vehicle maker Fisker in a deal that could provide the Japanese automaker with access to an electric pickup truck while giving the struggling startup a financial lifeline. Terms being discussed include Nissan investing more than $400 million in Fisker's truck platform and building Fisker's planned Alaska pickup starting in 2026 at one of its U.S. assembly plants. | Reuters ($)
GM's Cruise saw its internal share price cut by more than half from a quarter ago as the fallout from an October accident continues to weigh on the self-driving car company. | Automotive News ($)
The CEO of Toyota North America believes that battery electric vehicles will make up about 30% of the U.S. new-vehicle market in 2030, half the target the EPA sought last year — a goal the agency is reportedly reconsidering. Because of that, Toyota will choose to follow natural customer demand and buy credits to close any gap, rather than "waste" money investing in EVs without consumers ready to buy them. | Automotive News ($)
If you hurry, you can get $40,000 off a 2023 Toyota Mirai, a fuel-cell vehicle that retails for $52,000. When you factor in the $15,000 in free hydrogen over six years and the available 0% interest loan, Toyota is essentially paying people $3,000 to take the car off its hands. | Tech Crunch
The “greenest” car in America may not be fully electric. The Toyota Prius Prime SE, a plug-in hybrid that can go 44 miles on electricity before switching to hybrid, won the honors. Its weight, battery size and overall efficiency matter. | The Washington Post ($)
Toyota, the originator of the hybrid car craze in the early 2000s, is poised to reclaim its crown as the king of green cars. After years of being labeled an EV laggard among its peers in the industry, customers don't appear to care that Toyota has so far released only one pretty unpopular electric car in the US. | Business Insider
After spending the past decade as the car industry’s loudest champions of hybrid vehicles, Toyota executives could be forgiven for feeling some measure of vindication. | Financial Times ($)
A U.S. House panel said more research and data are needed to assess the risks of electric vehicle fires and the challenges they pose to first responders. | Automotive News ($)
According to the "2019 Traffic Signal Benchmarking and State of the Practice Report," sitting at red lights and the associated traffic caused by them costs society almost $23 billion a year. | The Drive
Less than a year ago, every automaker and EV charging company operating in the U.S. used the Combined Charging System (CCS) standard. Tesla shared its EV charging connector design and encouraged network operators and automakers to adopt the technology and help make it the new standard in North America. Within nine months every major automaker selling vehicles in the U.S. has agreed to the Tesla charging standard, with many committing to integrate the technology within their next-generation vehicles. | Tech Crunch
PartsTech has published "The State of General Automotive Repair Shops In The U.S." report. Very helpful data on the U.S. automotive repair shop landscape. | PartsTech
University of Delaware professor Willett Kempton is a pioneer of vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology, calling the technology a “practical, low-cost and implementable” way to turn every EV into a roaming grid battery. If the technology takes off, it could help millions of EV owners use their spare battery power to earn extra money — and provide what experts say would be a significant boost to an increasingly stressed power grid. | Canary Media
A barely used Tesla Cybertruck sold for $244,000 after a brief bidding war, more than double the new price for the Foundation Series models that the automaker is trickling out to a massive backlog of reservation holders. | Automotive News ($)
S&P Global Ratings said higher exposure to EVs could increase residual value risk in U.S. auto lease asset-backed securities. “Studies also show that EVs currently have higher depreciation levels than internal combustion engine vehicles, which could result in lower recoveries and thus lower residual values in our analysis.” | Auto Remarketing
Elon Musk says the new Tesla Roadster will be capable of hitting 60 miles per hour in under one second. That's a crazy number. The quickest accelerating production vehicle in the world is the Rimac Nevera, which can hit 60 mph in 1.74 seconds. To beat the Nevera's zero to 60 time by almost a full second, the Tesla Roadster will need to generate much more wheel torque and be significantly lighter. | The Drive
Elon Musk claims that the new Tesla Roadster can reach 60 mph in under a second. If you are wondering how that is possible on street tires, it probably is not. | Road & Track ($)
With GPS data from as little as 6% of vehicles on the road, researchers can recalibrate traffic signals to significantly realize a 20% to 30% decrease in the number of stops at signalized intersections. | Center for Connected and Automated Transportation
The software-defined vehicle is easy to envisage but, as car companies are finding out, very difficult to execute. In 2021, just 2.4% of vehicles on the road could be described as software-defined (mainly Teslas), according to Deloitte data. By 2030, "90% or more" will fit that definition. | Automotive News ($)
Stable Auto provides electric vehicle (EV) DC fast-charging rates by state. | Stable Auto
Should you give scooters a second chance? From a climate perspective, today’s ultra-efficient durable models are among the cleanest vehicles you can ride, and new technology in scooters may make them safer than their forebears. | The Washington Post ($)
Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) in warfare is no longer theoretical. Navigating AI’s transition from the laboratory into combat is one of the thorniest issues facing military leaders. Some in Congress and hawkish think tanks are pushing the Pentagon to move faster, alarmed that the US could be falling behind China, which has a national strategy to become “the world’s primary AI innovation center” by 2030. | Bloomberg ($)
Pilotless jet fighters that can fly 30 feet above the ground to their targets or straight toward a barrage of enemy missiles are being developed by the US Air Force to help deter China. The drones, known as Collaborative Combat Aircraft, or CCAs, are part of a $6 billion program. | The Wall Street Journal ($)
According to Air Canada, tires fitted to the main landing gear last between 300 and 450 landings on average. Once a tire reaches the end of its lifespan, it is returned to the supplier and retreaded to be used for another lifespan by an airline. Michelin states that it can retread an aircraft tire up to seven times before it can no longer be used. | Quartz
We have a new "Car of the Week": a 1966 Porsche 906 Carrera 6. | RM Sotheby's
Have a great week,
Steve Greenfield
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Notable & New
On this week's "Future of Automotive" segment on CBT News, we're excited to announce our latest investment: Citian. | CBT News ($)
Steve caught up with Stephanie Wedgeworth from Automotive Ventures portfolio company RockED to discuss the importance of having both mentors and executive sponsors in your life. | RockED
Steve had a chance to present at the IAA Leadership Summit. | IAA
Steve will debate Scott Case from Recurrent on the challenges facing electric vehicles (EVs) at the Conference of Automotive Remarketing. The one and only Charlie Vogelheim will be our moderator. | Conference of Automotive Remarketing
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Companies to Watch
BOXOLOGIC's boxes are custom, robotic made, with right-size packaging which minimizes the use of filler and cargo space, enabling e-commerce businesses to reduce the cost of logistics and wastage. | BOXOLOGIC
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