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Will Lucid construct an EV plant in Saudi Arabia? |
Information US electrical car start-up Lucid Motors was in talks with Saudi Arabia’s Public Funding Fund about constructing an electrical car plant within the kingdom was the most-read story on just-auto this week. The information had been reported by the UK’s Monetary Occasions earlier this week, with the newspaper citing an interview with the pinnacle of the sovereign fund, Al-Rumayyan. Bloomberg subsequently reported the 2 events had mentioned establishing a plant within the Saudi metropolis of Jeddah, on the Purple Beach. The Saudi authorities has been investing closely lately to diversify the economic system away from the oil sector and is looking for to draw worldwide corporations to arrange operations within the kingdom. Lucid Motors final month introduced it had accomplished development of its first electrical car plant in Arizona. The AMP-1 (Superior Manufacturing Plant) is scheduled to start business manufacturing of the Air passenger automotive early this yr with a second mannequin – the Gravity – to be added later within the yr.
Fashionable automobiles are as reliant on laptop chips as they’re on their engines and chassis. Most come fitted with quite a few chipsets to deal with on-board features, energy infotainment programs, and to watch and carry out driving features together with superior driver help programs (ADAS) and semi-autonomous operation in restricted circumstances. Proper now, there is a provide drawback as different industries – shopper electronics specifically – compete for restricted provide. On the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, when automotive manufacturing was shut down, chip suppliers pivoted to prioritise the availability of shopper electronics the place demand remained steady, or elevated, as a consequence of lockdowns and the requirement to earn a living from home. Now, with the automotive sector trying to ramp up manufacturing, it has discovered itself in the back of the queue for chips.
The redesigned 2021 Nissan Rogue (X-Path outdoors North America) is the corporate’s first world mannequin constructed utilizing a “closed-loop” recycling system for aluminium elements. The system helps scale back CO2 emissions in contrast with utilizing elements made with main alloys from uncooked supplies. It additionally promotes the usage of supplies that do not depend on newly mined assets, in addition to the discount of waste from factories. The bonnet (hood) and doorways of the 2021 Rogue are stamped from aluminium alloy, a cloth that reduces car weight and helps enhance gasoline effectivity and energy efficiency. The mannequin is inbuilt Kyushu, Japan, and Smyrna, Tennessee.
When the Tesla Mannequin S electrical car launched in 2012, one in all its stand-out options was the big central touchscreen within the dashboard that changed practically all bodily on-board controls. It shortly grew to become a promoting level of the automotive with a easy, elegant person interface, intuitive controls, and even hidden ‘easter eggs’. Though many rivals had used touchscreens for a very long time, none have been remotely as massive as Tesla’s unit. Nevertheless, earlier in January, the US’s Nationwide Freeway Site visitors Security Administration (NHTSA) lastly issued a proper letter to Tesla, informing the automaker that it had decided the screens in 2018 and earlier Mannequin S and Mannequin X automobiles posed a security danger. The danger was centred across the reality the motive force would lose some essential security performance if the display screen or the software program driving it failed. You will discover analyst Mike Vousden’s examination of how Tesla ended up utilizing such a big display screen very attention-grabbing.
Preliminary monetary outcomes for 2020 issued by Volkswagen Group confirmed a robust restoration throughout the course of the yr, underpinned by stronger gross sales in China. In a press release, the corporate mentioned that group deliveries “continued to get well strongly within the fourth quarter and even exceeded the deliveries of the third quarter 2020, resulting in sturdy group turnover”.
The ultimate mild car gross sales figures for the yr at the moment are in and December’s outcomes, with world gross sales falling by a marginal 0.2% year-on-year, have been a mirrored image of the exceptional resilience the auto market has demonstrated in essentially the most attempting of years. The December outcomes imply that – in a market that registered SAARs beneath 60m for 3 consecutive months starting in March – the general market fell by simply over 15.6% to complete on 75.1m for the yr. That’s some story amid all of the ache the world has endured prior to now 12 months. GlobalData analyst Calum MacRae appears forward to full yr 2021.
Earlier this month, the previous KMC (Kia Motors Company) revealed a brand new brand and tagline, modified its identify to Kia Company and up to date us on the variety of EVs it’s planning to launch. However Kia’s not completed but. Quickly, we’ll see the manufacturing model of the CV electrical automotive venture; GL3, a successor for the K7; then NQ5, the following Sportage. It may be a busy 2021 for the corporate.
Throughout his tenure, the now-disgraced ex-Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn commonly threatened the way forward for the UK plant in Sunderland over the euro and Brexit regardless of it being one of many firm’s highest high quality and best factories, worldwide. Now, with Ghosn lengthy gone, rather more constructive remarks by new Nissan COO Ashwani Gupta counsel Nissan stays extremely dedicated to its UK plant and can enhance funding in electrified know-how manufacturing within the UK to satisfy post-Brexit EU commerce guidelines of origin necessities. Extra battery manufacturing will likely be added to the Envision plant subsequent to Nissan’s Sunderland car manufacturing plant that makes the Leaf EV. Nissan makes about 30,000 Leaf electrical automobiles at its Sunderland manufacturing unit, most with a locally-sourced 40 kilowatt-hour battery. They continue to be tariff-free when exported to the EU. Nevertheless, a higher-range battery is at the moment imported from Japan.
Sturdy demand for EVs resulted in two electrical fashions securing locations within the prime three European best-selling automobiles gross sales chart final month. Behind the favored Golf, Volkswagen’s ID.3, launched within the fourth quarter, registered nearly 28,000 models and have become the second hottest automotive in Europe, throughout December, in keeping with JATO Dynamics evaluation. The BEV topped gross sales charts within the Netherlands, Sweden and Austria and was Germany’s third best-selling automotive, the fourth finest vendor within the UK, and second in Denmark, Norway and Luxembourg. The EV was forward of a earlier UK gross sales chart topper, the Tesla Mannequin 3, in total rankings for Europe in December. JATO mentioned: “Europe is preparing for an EV revolution and final month’s outcomes are a transparent indicator that when these automobiles have the fitting value hooked up to them, they will lure shopper demand away from fashionable gasoline and diesel fashions.” EVs are on the up, then, however you knew that. On a stroll right down to city just lately, two I.D.3s handed me by inside half-hour. It took at the very least two years after the launch of the Leaf in 2010 earlier than the ‘on the street’ spot charge was like that. VW’s huge footprint (like an enormous native seller) might be serving to right here.
Have a pleasant weekend.
Graeme Roberts, Deputy Editor, just-auto.com
