This past week, Fisker announced that its upcoming Ocean electric SUV would be built by none other than Magna — a move that offers Fisker access to Magna’s global supply chain and gives the latest iteration of the Danish-born designer’s eponymous car brand real, instant street cred.
There are a few names that routinely come up when it comes to self-driving vehicles and driver-assist suites — Waymo, Tesla, Mobileye/Intel, and Nvidia pop to mind for me.
As self-driving cars move closer and closer to reality, one particular market stands to benefit — autonomous taxis (aka robotaxis). Tasha Keeny from Ark Invest recently evaluated the players who’d likely benefit from this massive market opportunity. Keeney writes, “Autonomous vehicles will transform personal mobility … reap[ing] the benefits of a new market which promises to ramp from essentially $0 now to $10 trillion in global gross annual revenues by 2030.”
Welcome to the next issue of China x Cleantech, our July 2019 edition.
Chinese automotive manufacturer BAIC announced that its EV subsidiary, BJEV, is working on six new fully electric models based on three new BEV platforms by 2021. The new vehicles are expected to be primarily sedans, SUVs, and vans, but the firm is playing this one very close to the chest, with little additional detail beyond that.
Waymo and Magna have announced they will open a factory to manufacture self-driving cars somewhere in southeastern Michigan and expect the first cars to come off the assembly line this year.
Michigan-based low-speed autonomous shuttle service operator May Mobility continues its rapid expansion with the addition of 2 new routes in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The news was broken in conjunction with the unveiling of the Grand Rapids Autonomous Mobility Initiative (GRAMI), which provides a formal structure and team to integrate autonomous vehicles into the fabric of the city.
The second half of Q2 2018 has been notable and the flood of news from around the world continues. In China, the flood of developments is so massive that we can only show you a keyhole insight into what is happening.
BMW is a top electric vehicle producer. Indeed, it isn’t yet shipping 1 million EVs a year and it only has the i3 in its fully electric stable, but it already has plug-in versions of four of its popular models, to supplement the “born electric” i3 and i8. Overall, BMW’s plug-in vehicle sales have been growing significantly and they now represent 5% of BMW’s sales globally (7% in the US and 9% in the UK). BMW’s plug-in vehicle sales have increased 73% in the US, 25% in the UK, and 646% in China this year.
In another sign of the way that the auto industry is now shifting away from auto manufacturer dominance and towards parts suppliers, battery suppliers, and on-demand taxi service operators, the auto parts supplier Magna has now reportedly invested $200 million into Lyft.
