Intel Report: The Weekly Mobility News That Matters

BY AUTOMOTIVE VENTURES | July 8 2024 | VIEW ONLINE ➡️

What We're Reading

🚗 Automotive

Ferrari is one of the world’s most desired brands, but this has a downside – attempts to create counterfeits. | Ferrari

The decisive, bitter end of a counterfeit Ferrari 360. | FerrariPart of the reason Ferrari’s wealthy customers are happy to fork out almost half a million pounds for a supercar is they expect these stunning vehicles to retain their value, or even appreciate, making ownership almost free. However, at least one of the prancing horse’s most iconic models — the plug-in hybrid SF90 Stradale — is depreciating rapidly, in some cases losing around 30% after just three years on the road. | Bloomberg ($)

Goodyear launched a tires-as-a-service offering that combines the company’s premium tires, proven predictive insights and industry-leading service footprint in one, subscription-based solution. Goodyear will manage end-to-end tire service on behalf of its customers. Available for commercial and last-mile delivery fleets in the U.S. and Europe, Goodyear’s tires-as-a-service offering can help save time and improve total cost of ownership through outsourced tire management from this subscription-based solution. | GoodyearWatch the Koenigsegg Jesko hypercar achieve a 0-250-0 mph run in just 28.27 seconds. | Road & Track

⚡️ Electric Vehicles (EVs)

Volvo Cars looks like it is backing away from its struggling former sub-brand Polestar, reporting intentions to dump most of its stake in the company. Following Fisker’s struggle to avoid liquidation, many in the automotive industry fear Polestar could be next of the western BEV makers to hit the skids as U.S.-listed shares of the company fell 3.1% to $0.80. The stock has slumped more than 63% this year. | Wards Auto

Ferrari sees an opportunity in the industry’s inevitable march toward electrification to reach a new consumer: the wealthy environmentalist. It intends to unveil its first fully electric model in the fourth quarter of next year. There is plenty of mystery shrouding the yet-to-be-named car, including its battery life and what it will sound like. The company has not disclosed its look, production run or price tag. But it could be one of the most expensive electric vehicles on the market. | The New York Times ($)As part of its new Warranty Extension Hybrid and Power Hybrid programs Ferrari will replace the high-voltage battery packs (HVB) of the cars covered in their eighth and 16th year of life. The move aims to help owners preserve the resale value of their Ferraris as batteries, which tend to lose efficiency over time, become central to the value of electrified cars. Ferrari already offers a five-year warranty on their plug-in hybrid powertrain parts. The two programs, which will transfer to any subsequent owner, are aimed to "preserve the performance and excellence" of plug-in hybrid Ferraris over time. | Automotive News ($)

Ferrari plans to offer an extended warranty service for its next generation of hybrid and electric supercars to soothe customer concerns over aging battery packs. The Italian manufacturer is set to offer an annual subscription costing around €7,000 ($7,500) for batteries. The service will entitle drivers to a battery replacement in hybrid models, such as the €418,000 plug-in hybrid SF90 Stradale, after eight years and covers related defects. | Bloomberg ($)

🇨🇳 China

The two largest golf cart producers in the U.S. are asking for relief from an existential hazard: a flood of Chinese imports. Club Car and Textron Specialized Vehicles, both based near Augusta, Georgia, asked the Biden administration this week to slap a 100% tariff on golf carts and other low-speed, often battery-powered personal vehicles made in China — putting them on par with the U.S. tariff on regular Chinese electric automobiles. US imports of Chinese golf carts and other recreational buggies have increased sixfold since 2020. | Bloomberg ($)

Chinese battery makers are the giants of the industry. In the first four months of this year, just two companies from the country—CATL and BYD—already have more than half of the global EV battery market between them. More crucially, Chinese manufacturers also dominate the supply chain for battery materials. For countries such as the U.S. that wish to break China’s dominance in the automotive and power technology of the future, the only hope would be a scientific breakthrough that could rejig the battery supply chain with different materials and components. The technological Holy Grail has to be solid-state batteries—seemingly always a few years away. | The Wall Street Journal ($)

🤖 Autonomy & Robotics

Matthew Yglesias argues that large-scale commercialization is the best way to realize the promise of autonomous vehicles: "And if we take the competitive challenge seriously, that means adopting a regulatory posture that errs on the side of innovation and tries to encourage stable and competitive flows of investment as a national priority, not a series of city-by-city special interest fights." | Bloomberg ($)Many Ukrainian companies are working on a major leap forward in the weaponization of consumer technology, driven by the war with Russia. The pressure to outthink the enemy, along with huge flows of investment, donations and government contracts, has turned Ukraine into a Silicon Valley for autonomous drones and other weaponry. What the companies are creating is technology that makes human judgment about targeting and firing increasingly tangential. The widespread availability of off-the-shelf devices, easy-to-design software, powerful automation algorithms and specialized artificial intelligence microchips has pushed a deadly innovation race into uncharted territory, fueling a potential new era of killer robots. | The New York Times ($)

⚓️ Marine

Maersk has published their whitepaper on Maritime Decarbonization. | Zero Carbon Shipping

🌡️ Climate

There's a nasty fight brewing over who will be the next leader of the International Seabed Authority, a United Nations-affiliated agency, that controls mining in international waters worldwide. The agency is preparing to consider applications for industrial-scale mining, conducted by bulldozer-like machines dropped to the ocean floor miles below the surface. While some countries are eager to move ahead, at least 25 have proposed a moratorium or “precautionary pause,” arguing that there is not enough data to ensure mining will not cause harm. Some countries are fiercely opposed to the idea of mining the world’s deepest waters while others see it as a badly needed economic opportunity. | The New York Times ($)

🚂 Rail

From western Europe to the Middle East to east Asia, diverse countries are investing in “rapid regional rail” systems that allow residents to commute across metro areas at high speeds. So far, the US has been slow to get on board the trend. For supporters of rapid regional rail, one of the biggest challenges has been explaining these projects to an American public with a siloed view of urban mass transit. | Bloomberg ($)

✈️ Aviation

Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited (CATL) expects its batteries to power electric aircraft with up to 3,000 km (1,875 mile) range. The company has successfully test-flown a 4-ton civil electric aircraft and expects to release an 8-ton civil electric aircraft in 2027 to 2028. | CNEV Post

American Airlines has agreed to a provisional deal for 100 hydrogen-electric engines from aviation startup ZeroAvia to power aircraft used in its regional routes. The airline also increased its investment in ZeroAvia as part of its Series C financing round, but did not disclose the details. ZeroAvia's hydrogen-electric engines has the potential for close to zero inflight emissions and use hydrogen in fuel cells to power electric motors to turn an aircraft's propellers. | Reuters ($)

The amount of money consumers charge to Delta Air Lines’s co-branded line of American Express credit cards is close to 1% of U.S. GDP. | Fast Company

🚘 Car of the Week

We have a new "Car of the Week": a

1964 Porsche 904 Carrera GTS. | Broad Arrow AuctionsHave a great week,Steve Greenfield

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Notable & New

📢

On this week's "Future of Automotive" segment on CBT News, we discuss the growing concern in the U.S. and Europe about the threat of Chinese-made vehicles on the legacy automakers, despite the recent announcement from the White House that EV tariffs are increasing from 25% to 100%. | CBT News ($)

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