Automotive News - July 1, 2019 - 31

JULY 1, 2019 * 31

Cruisin' along?

GM: Safety will guide
robotaxi fleet launch
continued from Page 3

to rolling out this technology because we do
believe it will save lives."
The vision GM laid out in November 2017
called for launching a public ride-hailing service using self-driving vehicles in "dense urban environments" and with no backup driver aboard.
But given the obstacles that still remain, it's
more likely any service GM starts this year
would be much more limited in scope, perhaps only in San Francisco with human safety
drivers behind the wheel.
It would still be a major milestone but not
the aggressively timed breakthrough GM
promised.
"Everybody in the industry underestimated
how hard a problem this was going to be, and
I think GM probably was a little overambitious," said Sam Abuelsamid, a principal research analyst at Navigant Research. "It's a
mix of ... a harder problem to solve and
they're just not making the progress they had
hoped for."
Whether GM accomplishes the goal is arguably irrelevant in the automaker's long-term
plans to capitalize on what it believes to be a
trillion-dollar industry, but it's the latest evidence of the complexity and difficulty in revolutionizing an industry and taking the driver
out of the driving.
GM executives have been steadfast in saying
safety would be its deciding factor regarding
the launch of the fleet, but none has given a

MITSUBISHI
Manufacturing
by Nissan unclear
continued from Page 3

Mitsubishi's move accelerates the
integration of the two companies after the 2016 bailout of Mitsubishi by
Nissan under former CEO Carlos
Ghosn, whose ouster on financial
misconduct allegations has shaken
up the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi
alliance.
"I think what's most important
coming out of this is that Mitsubishi
is just so happy to be part of the alliance, and I think they are trying to do
everything they can to get the most
out of it," said Stephanie Brinley,
principal automotive analyst at IHS
Markit. "There will be opportunities
that haven't even been really
mapped right now to have communications go a little bit faster, to find
some shared programs they're not
even really thinking about right
now."
Renault does not hold a stake in

BMW

Plug-ins' new tech
adds to viability

continued from Page 8

toward 2025, Krüger said, with sales
of EVs increasing by an average of 30
percent every year.
Last year, BMW Group increased
sales of electrified vehicles 38 percent to a combined 142,617 BMWs
and Minis.
The company expects to reach an
overall total of half a million sales of
electrified cars by the end of this
year.
Since the launch of the i3 in 2013,

March 2016: GM buys Cruise
Automation for $1 billion.
November 2017: GM says it will
launch Level 4 autonomous vehicles at
scale in 2019 and double Cruise's
work force to roughly 2,100 people in
2018.
January 2018: The 4th-generation
Cruise AV without manual controls is
unveiled as the company asks for a
federal waiver.
May 2018: SoftBank Vision Fund
agrees to invest $2.25 billion in Cruise
for a 19.6% stake, valuing the
company at $11.5 billion.
October 2018: Honda agrees to
invest $2.75 billion in Cruise for a
5.7% stake, valuing it at $14.6
billion.
January 2019: GM President Dan
Ammann becomes CEO of Cruise.
May 2019: Cruise gets $1.15 billion
from a group of institutional investors,
valuing it at $19 billion.

meaningful update on the plans in some time.
Cruise spokesman Ray Wert last week declined to comment directly on the company's
progress, saying only that the company
would be guided by safety.

Missed milestones
If GM does not launch the ride-hailing service at scale this year, it will add to a growing
list of missed goals for Cruise that also includes testing in New York City, doubling the
size of the Cruise work force last year to more
than 2,000 people and increasing vehicle

Mitsubishi and does not sell vehicles
in the U.S., making closer ties between the two Japanese automakers
the next logical step ahead of shared
product platforms. Mitsubishi dealers have said joint products such as
the next-generation Outlander on a
Nissan Rogue platform are critical to
attracting new buyers to the Mitsubishi brand.

Separate identity
Still, Brinley said it's important for
Mitsubishi to maintain its own identity, and the automaker said in last
week's statement that it would set up
shop separately from Nissan - initially in temporary office space as it
looks for a permanent location.
"Right now, Mitsubishi insists
they're going to find their own building, so it's not necessarily a matter of,
'Uh, I'll take the east wing at Nissan
North America,' " she said.
Since most product decisions are
made in Japan, or at Mitsubishi's r&d
center in Ann Arbor, Mich., which is
staying put, the benefits of geographical proximity of the two
brands will be concentrated on adBMW has sold more than 150,000
units of the so-called "born electric"
compact.

Full-electric models
This year, the automaker will start
production of the electric Mini at its
plant in Oxford, England. This will be
followed in 2020 by the electric BMW
iX3 midsize crossover, to be built in
Shenyang, China, for global markets.
Following in 2021 will be the iNEXT
crossover, which will be made in
Dingolfing, Germany, and the i4
midsize sedan, set to be assembled
in Munich.
BMW currently offers plug-in hybrid
versions of the 3- and 7-series sedans
and X3 and X5 crossovers. This sum-

testing to a pace of 1 million miles a month by
October, Reuters reported that Cruise vehicles
early 2018.
were struggling to identify pedestrians and deAbuelsamid says that, although missing
termine whether objects on the road were
goals can reflect negatively on Cruise, waiting
moving or stationary, among other issues.
to ensure the vehicles are safe remains the
GM's petition to launch a ride-hailing fleet
best option.
without manual controls sat stagnant for more
"From a business perspective, it hurts bethan a year until March, when NHTSA said it
would solicit public comments and conduct a
cause that puts off the time when you start to
review. That process concluded in May.
generate revenues," he said. "But from a pubNHTSA, in an emailed statement last week,
lic standpoint, from a safety standpoint, it's
said it is assessing the merits of the petition
better to wait and get it right than rush it out
and considering the comments submitted.
there and have technology that isn't ready yet
If granted, the waiver
- especially in an urban
would allow GM to launch
environment."
"Everybody in the
as many as 2,500 vehicles a
Waymo, Google's self- industry underestimated
year as driverless taxis that
driving vehicle unit, is the
how hard a problem this
could be summoned via a
most prominent company
smartphone app and comcurrently offering a limited was going to be, and I
autonomous ride-hailing think GM probably was
manded using touch
service to the public. Way- a little overambitious."
screens inside the vehicles.
mo One, which started in
GM is testing self-driving
Sam Abuelsamid,
the Phoenix area in Decars with manual controls
Navigant Research
cember, uses human safety
and safety drivers in Arizodrivers and offered 400
na, California and Michipeople who participated in a pilot program
gan, including as part of a pilot ride-hailing
first crack at using the service.
program for employees in San Francisco.
Abuelsamid said he thinks GM might follow
Cruise founder Kyle Vogt, who is now the
a cadence similar to Waymo's in launching its
unit's president and chief technology officer,
fleet.
has previously said the third-generation vehicles being produced now are the first that
meet the redundancy and safety requireTech, regulatory hurdles
ments to operate without a driver.
Since GM detailed its plans to deploy the
The company, if it wanted, could launch
autonomous ride-hailing fleet, the company
these vehicles without an exemption from
has petitioned the U.S. government to let it
NHTSA.
use vehicles without manual controls such as
Cruise also faces hurdles from state and loa steering wheel and pedals.
cal regulations. San Francisco, where Cruise
Meanwhile, several reports have surfaced
is expected to launch its robotaxis, has been
that GM's vehicles have had unexpected probplacing stricter limitations on ride-hailing
lems and software glitches, including shutservices. a
downs of the autonomous control system. In

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growing titan in the auto
industry. Go to autonews.
com/tennessee for a look
at a timeline of the state's
mercurial growth.
ministrative and back-office areas,
where Mitsubishi can take advantage of Nissan's much larger scale in
the U.S.
"One of the examples that Mitsubishi has used from the beginning of
the partnership is having the ability
of stronger media buys by working
with Nissan and Nissan's partners,
and you can see that their advertising is deeper and stronger," Brinley
said. "As things go forward, depending on what products are developed
together and when, being physically
mer, the company will release plug-in
hybrid versions of the 5 series and
2-series Active Tourer with next-generation technology and a longer electric
range. These will be followed next year
by the X1 and 3-series Touring plug-in
hybrids.

Zone detection
BMW also revealed last week that it
has enhanced the technology of its
plug-in hybrids to make them more
viable in many markets.
Starting next year, all BMW plug-in
hybrid models will come standard
with a function that automatically
switches the vehicle to full-electric
mode when it enters an area designated for emissions-free driving on-

CRUISE

closer can facilitate some of those
discussions," she added. "But at the
same time, a lot of the Mitsubishi vehicle decisions - as I understand it
- are still made it Japan."
It's also unclear whether Nissan
would manufacture any vehicles for
Mitsubishi in the U.S. The Rogue is
assembled at the company's Smyrna, Tenn., plant near its Franklin
headquarters. Mitsubishi no longer
has a vehicle assembly plant in the
U.S.
More immediate concerns for Mitsubishi might be keeping valued employees during the move.
Mitsubishi said nearly 200 people
work at its Cypress headquarters but
that some of them would stay behind
to represent its western region and
parts operations. After Nissan announced in 2005 that it was moving
its U.S. offices from Los Angeles to
Franklin, more than half of its employees chose to leave the company.
Brinley noted that Nissan was going through a deeper reorganization
at the time, and Mitsubishi has al-

ready done most of that. Mitsubishi
said in the statement last week that
80 percent of its leadership team is
new to the company or newly promoted.
Mitsubishi's decision to follow Nissan to Tennessee is yet another loss
for Southern California, referred to
in 2000 as Motown West for the concentration of automotive brands that
based their U.S. operations there.
Since then, the brands under Ford's
former Premier Automotive Group
- Lincoln, Jaguar, Land Rover and
Volvo - moved back east, Suzuki
stopped selling cars in the U.S., and
Toyota moved to a huge campus in
Plano, Texas.
Left in California are Honda, Mazda, Hyundai and Kia. However,
fledgling Chinese brands such as
GAC, Karma and Zotye have set up
shop in the region.
Mitsubishi's U.S. revival is accelerating, with sales gains for the last six
years straight, topping 100,000 vehicles in both 2017 and 2018. Sales
through the first five months of this
year are up 4.6 percent compared
with the same period last year. a

ly, the company said.
That issue is a growing concern to
drivers in some large cities that are
barring vehicle emissions in certain
neighborhoods.
The function, called eDrive Zones,
will use geofencing detection to recognize "green zones" established by cities for emissions-free driving, and automatically change the driving mode
to electric only, the automaker said.
BMW hopes eDrive Zones will allow plug-in hybrids to receive the
same access to green zones as full EVs
because they will behave the same
way in these areas, the company said.
The automated operating strategy
significantly boosts the attraction of
plug-in hybrid vehicles to reduce

emissions, BMW said.
The automaker has been running a
test of the technology in the Netherlands. Increasing the use of electric
driving not only optimizes efficiency
but also helps reduce operating costs
for customers, especially in city traffic, BMW said.
Automakers worldwide are facing
increasing pressure to reduce tailpipe pollution. But that's especially
true in Europe, where manufacturers
must reduce fleet emissions to comply with new European Union rules
next year. Every car in Europe is expected to require some level of electrification to meet the EU's goal of
reducing average carbon dioxide
emissions. m

Retaining employees

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Automotive News - July 1, 2019

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