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Mitsubishi rolls out SUV and EV strategy for 2020

Honda recalls 137,000 SUVs for sudden air bag deployments

FILE PHOTO: New Honda CR-V’s sit on a dealer’s lot in Silver Spring, Maryland, U.S. June 1, 2016. REUTERS/Gary Cameron/File Photo WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Honda Motor Co said on Wednesday it is recalling 137,000 new sport utility vehicles (SUVs) following reports of three injuries tied to sudden air bag deployments in the United States. The… Continue reading Honda recalls 137,000 SUVs for sudden air bag deployments

Veoneer Announces Upsizing and Pricing of Concurrent Common Stock and Convertible Senior Notes Offerings

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Uber to open third Latin America support center in Bogota

A screen displays the company logo for Uber Technologies Inc. on the day of it’s IPO at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., May 10, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid BOGOTA (Reuters) – Ride-hailing app Uber will spend $40 million over five years to open its third support center in Latin America in… Continue reading Uber to open third Latin America support center in Bogota

Volkswagen ID.3 Launch Plans In Detail

Volkswagen expects to sell all the ID.3 that it’s able to build in Zwickau An interview with Juergen Stackmann, Volkswagen brand Board Member for Sales and Marketing, reveals a couple more details about the Volkswagen ID.3 market launch. After the German manufacturer started the pre-booking of the limited edition 1ST on May 8, the company… Continue reading Volkswagen ID.3 Launch Plans In Detail

Kia Niro EV Tests First IONITY Charging Station In England: Video

First IONITY station in England works fine, but the location could be better in terms of the surrounding infrastructure. The IONITY fast charging network expands to more countries in Europe and recently the first was opened in Maidstone, Kent in England with four chargers (of course CCS-only). Thanks to Andrew Till we can take a… Continue reading Kia Niro EV Tests First IONITY Charging Station In England: Video

Don’t expect Apple or Amazon to buy Tesla, Morgan Stanley analyst warns investors

Elon MuskMike Blake | ReutersIn an invitation-only call with institutional clients of Morgan Stanley on Wednesday, research analyst Adam Jonas — a long-time Tesla bull — expressed skepticism about the electric vehicle maker and said not to count on a buyer like Apple to bail the company out.
“Tesla is not really seen as a growth story,” Jonas said on the call, which CNBC heard in a recording. Today, “It seems like a distressed credit and restructuring story.”
Some details of the call were previously reported by Business Insider.
Jonas spent some time on the call responding to the hope that a big tech company like Apple or Amazon might buy Tesla. in a CNBC interview on Tuesday, analyst Craig Irwin of Roth Capital Partners rekindled the rumor that Apple once made a bid for Tesla.
But Jonas poured cold water on the notion of a big tech acquisition today.
He explained, “For risk mitigation and liability containment, they may not want to expose themselves to the unlimited liability of being involved in owning a business where occasionally a car catches on fire, takes down a building, or accidentally kills a pedestrian or passenger, things that happen. The auto industry has an ugly side to it. The roads are very dangerous. There's a lot of stored energy in a vehicle. And the regulatory environment [around autonomous cars] has not had time to cure yet.”
Jonas acknowledged that Apple has interest in transportation (as do Amazon and other big tech firms). But Morgan Stanley's tech researchers, he said, don't expect Apple to have a service or related hardware devoted entirely to transportation until the 2030s.
He added, “Perhaps those big tech firms don't want to expose themselves to that up front. And moreover they realize the autonomous race is more of a marathon where over a 10- or 20-year period you collect real world miles. There may be other ways to do that besides owning a full-stack, awesome, great auto company.”
SpaceX to the rescue?Apart from shooting down the idea of a white knight, Jonas also expressed skepticism about the company's current state.
“In late 2018, demand was exceeding supply, cash flow was strong, there was a ton of excitement around the Model Y,” Jonas said. “Today — supply exceeds demand, they are burning cash, nobody cares about the Model Y.”
Finally, Jonas told investors that, given the precedent of Tesla's acquisition of SolarCity, there's a possibility Musk could use his 54% stake in SpaceX, a company that has a post-money valuation of $31.5 billion, to eventually collateralize Tesla.
“There's a precedent for Elon Musk to think across his portfolio of companies,” he said.
Jonas said near-term, Wall Street is expecting Tesla to deliver just 70,000 vehicles in the second quarter of 2019. While he and Morgan Stanley have a more optimistic estimate of 82,000 vehicles, that still falls short of Tesla guidance. The company said it would deliver 90,000 cars this quarter, and wrote in a first-quarter shareholder letter:
“Although we are driving towards higher internal goals, we reaffirm our prior guidance of 360,000 to 400,000 vehicle deliveries in 2019, representing an increase of approximately 45% to 65% compared to 2018.”
Tesla and Morgan Stanley did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the call.
Morgan Stanley was a lead underwriter in Tesla's $2.7 billion offering of stock and convertible notes, which closed earlier this month. The week of the offering, Morgan Stanley said it saw the funding as a 12-month bridge to help the company gain a foothold in China.
Tesla's stock is down 15% since last Thursday, and dropped 6% on Wednesday to under $193. The slide began last week after an e-mail surfaced in which Tesla CEO Elon Musk urged employees to cut spending and told them he would personally oversee outgoing expenses.
That news was followed by a bad Consumer Reports review of Tesla's new Autopilot Navigate feature in its Model 3 electric sedans. The stock may also be reacting to ongoing trade tensions between the US and China, as Tesla has staked its future on building and selling its cars there.
WATCH: Morgan Stanley says Tesla could hit $10 if this happens
VIDEO6:1906:19Tesla could hit $10 if this happensFast Money

UPDATE 1-Uber and Lyft to turn the wheels on car ownership -industry experts

TORONTO (Reuters) – Ride-hailing apps like those of Uber Technologies and Lyft Inc are expected to alter the state of car ownership towards subscription-based services and shared ownership, auto industry experts said at a conference on Wednesday. FILE PHOTO: The Logo of taxi company Uber is seen on the roof of a private hire taxi… Continue reading UPDATE 1-Uber and Lyft to turn the wheels on car ownership -industry experts

Honda recalls 118,000 U.S. SUVs for sudden air bag deployments

FILE PHOTO: New Honda CR-V’s sit on a dealer’s lot in Silver Spring, Maryland, U.S. June 1, 2016. REUTERS/Gary Cameron/File Photo WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Honda Motor Co’s U.S. unit said on Wednesday it is recalling 118,000 new U.S. SUVs following reports of three injuries tied to sudden air bag deployments. The Japan-based automaker said it… Continue reading Honda recalls 118,000 U.S. SUVs for sudden air bag deployments

Tesla Successful In Buying Maxwell Technologies

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Published on May 16th, 2019 |

by Maarten Vinkhuyzen

Tesla Successful In Buying Maxwell Technologies

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May 16th, 2019 by Maarten Vinkhuyzen

The news of the day is that Tesla bought around 79% of Maxwell’s shares on May the 15th, 2019, after the acquisition offer was extended twice. The original proposal was from February 4th, 2019, and was discussed well by our authors in “Tesla Inks Deal To Acquire Maxwell Technologies In Stock Deal” and “The Ultracapacitors, Electrodes, & Battery Manufacturing Tech Tesla Gets With Maxwell Technologies.”

To make it clear that this is a 100% merger, the stock not offered is converted to a right to get Tesla shares and cash on the same conditions as the shares offered and accepted in the acquisition. They are not shares any more — they are essentially IOUs.

It is a short but very important announcement. Now let’s look a bit more closely at what Tesla bought.

Maxwell Technologies.
Maxwell Technology was a company specialized in high-quality supercapacitors. A supercapacitor is a kind of electricity storage device that can charge and discharge very fast and many thousands of times without any wear and tear. But the density of energy is very low, making supercapacitors unusable as permanent storage. It has been speculated, though, that use of supercapacitors could enable better storage and reuse of braking energy, making EV’s better track cars.

Perhaps, but that is not what made Maxwell a target for Tesla. Maxwell developed a way to improve battery production. The company’s own estimate was that, in time, Maxwell could grow to a many-billion-dollar company, multiplying their stock value at least tenfold and perhaps a hundredfold. If only they could bring the patents to production. An excellent description of the technology is in an article by Randy Carlson, “Tesla and Maxwell: Assessing the deal.”

To become so valuable, you need customers for your batteries and/or other battery companies willing to use your technology for a fee. Alas, only Tesla was a little bit interested. Tesla and Panasonic can likely realize the billions in saving on battery production that Maxwell predicted. Others?

This would give Tesla, currently having already the lowest cost batteries, an unassailable advantage over the competition for the coming years. The questions are how fast this can be incorporated into the Panasonic processes at GF1, and how big the savings will really be.

For the time being, Maxwell will continue with its business all over the world. Too many employees and customers and contracts to do anything else.

What the future will bring we can only guess. I would not be surprised if the capacitor business gets a management buyout after the battery technology is transferred to Tesla.

About the Author

Maarten Vinkhuyzen Grumpy old man. The best thing I did with my life was raising two kids. Only finished primary education, but when you don’t go to school, you have lots of time to read. I switched from accounting to software development and ended my career as system integrator and architect. My 2007 boss got two electric Lotus Elise cars to show policymakers the future direction of energy and transportation. And I have been looking to replace my diesel cars with electric vehicles ever since.

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