VW – Page 3428 – I wish I had more to offer

Waymo takes its self-driving car ambitions global in partnership with Renault-Nissan

Waymo has locked in an exclusive partnership with Renault and Nissan to research how commercial autonomous vehicles might work for passengers and packages in France and Japan. This exclusive partnership has a deadline — the public announcement says it will last for “an initial period.” Waymo nor the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance provided details on when it… Continue reading Waymo takes its self-driving car ambitions global in partnership with Renault-Nissan

Czech owners of Skoda, Volkswagen cars qualify for $23 million compensation, court says

PRAGUE (Reuters) – A Prague district court has ruled that a number of Czech owners of Skoda and Volkswagen cars qualify for 533 million crowns ($23.30 million) in compensation linked to VW’s diesel emissions scandal, the ruling seen by Reuters said. FILE PHOTO: A Volkswagen logo in Wolfsburg, Germany March 1, 2019. REUTERS/Fabian Bimmer The… Continue reading Czech owners of Skoda, Volkswagen cars qualify for $23 million compensation, court says

Herbert Diess: The VW boss knows no fear of the television cameras

Herbert Diess on ZDF The Volkswagen CEO sees more opportunities in electrotransforming than risks. (Photo: ZDF) DüsseldorfSo many a German CEO is having a hard time with publicity appearances in the watch TV, Too big is the risk of making an unforgivable mistake in front of running TV cameras. What your own legal department has… Continue reading Herbert Diess: The VW boss knows no fear of the television cameras

Audi Denkwerkstatt Distinguished as Top Innovation Unit

Denkwerkstatt comes first in the “Innovation Discovery” category and second in the “Innovation Development” category: Audi Denkwerkstatt from Berlin receives two awards in this year’s study on the digital innovation units of companies. Audi Denkwerkstatt started in September 2016 in Berlin. 23 Audi employees on permanent or temporary assignments currently work there in a co-working space.… Continue reading Audi Denkwerkstatt Distinguished as Top Innovation Unit

Indonesia Digest: East Ventures backs Feedloop; Automo nabs seed funding

Indonesian early-stage VC East Ventures has invested in the seed round of marketing SaaS company Feedloop while online automobile marketplace Automo has closed a seed funding round of $145,000 from angel investors. Saas startup Feedloop secures seed funding from East Ventures Marketing SaaS company Feedloop has secured an unspecified amount of seed funding round from… Continue reading Indonesia Digest: East Ventures backs Feedloop; Automo nabs seed funding

Porsche CEO: EVs are the future, but they won’t completely replace combustion engines

The Volkswagen Group has made one of the largest investments in electric-car building, infrastructure, and development for any automaker on the planet. In the next decade, Volkswagen and its subsidiaries including Audi, Porsche, and others, plan on building millions of EVs and will invest billions more into charging infrastructure.

In an Op-Ed published Monday in USA Today, Porsche Cars North America CEO Klaus Zellmer says the future for any automaker will be electrified, but he stopped short of saying that all cars will be electrified. That's a surprising pivot for a Porsche CEO whose future Taycan promises to be one of the most highly anticipated EVs to arrive next year.

DON'T MISS: An electric car can't fully replace a gas-powered car in my world

“Let’s be clear: We believe EVs will quickly become commonplace in the U.S. new car fleet, not that they will fully displace internal combustion engines,” Zellmer wrote. Instead, he says that offering EVs, PHEVs, and ICE will be commonplace and offer consumers the right fit for the right circumstances.

That's not to say that Zellmer sounds bearish about the prospect of performance EVs in his commentary. In fact, the CEO lays down the groundwork for converting enthusiasts from flat-6s— found in the iconic 911 sports car—to EV powertrains in future cars thanks to the immediate response and nearly unlimited power.

“Frankly, EVs are fun to drive,” he wrote. “Electric motors provide instant torque for quick acceleration, and the lower center of gravity from battery packs will reinforce the sporty feeling. So don’t be surprised when all of this truly catches on in the near future.”

READ NEXT: Fully electric Porsche Macan due by 2022 will replace gasoline model entirely

The column contains a nuanced position—that EVs represent a future for performance vehicles, and that internal combustion will live alongside electric performance. It's a pragmatic take, but a surprising one ahead of the Taycan's launch.

Overall, Zellmer lays out a comprehensive argument for Porsche—and Volkswagen's—push into EVs and infrastructure, and he enumerates his logic for demand, adoption, and support of those future vehicles. It's a compelling argument, and worth the read.

To hear the CEO of a major North American sports car maker publicly embrace electrified powertrains is not only encouraging, but perhaps also a harbinger of a larger sea change of attitudes among mainstream automakers—but it's hardly an all-or-nothing “attitude.”

Nissan Leaf batteries are lasting a very long time

Since even before the first market deliveries of its Leaf electric car in late 2010, Nissan has made frequent mention about the need to create second-use demand for the Leaf's battery packs.

It turns out, they may need to see many of those ideas put into place. According to comments made last month by a Nissan-Renault executive, citing charging and battery degradation data from Nissan on the 400,000+ Leafs sold globally, the battery packs are going to easily outlast the life of the vehicles—not just the ones that are in accidents.

“We are going to have to recover those batteries,” said Francisco Carranza, the managing director of Renault-Nissan Energy Services, at the Automotive News Europe Congress.

Nissan Energy Solar

In the UK, the company is currently offering Nissan Energy Solar solutions, combining solar panels with battery storage and an app-based control system. In some other places within Europe the Leaf is allowed to be grid-connected, and globally the 4R Energy Corporation, a company founded by Nissan and Sumitomo, is testing a scheme that would use second-use EV batteries to take street lights completely off the grid. And there have been some novel solutions along the way, such as using them for pop-up travel trailers.

Nissan x Opus camper with reused Leaf batteries in Britain with Nissan Qashqai

Other larger-scale uses include megawatt energy-storage systems good for smoothing peak demand at commercial venues, industrial plants, or smaller buffers used for electric-vehicle charging stations. But some big-picture fundamental questions remain: Like whether recycling existing less-efficient batteries for their raw materials might be better.

Some months ago Nissan in the U.S. said that it’s examining a wide range of uses but hasn’t committed to any on a larger scale. We’ve reached out to Nissan once again for comment to see if that remains a fair characterization—and to see if the company’s experience with degradation and projected life mirrors that in Europe.

Volkswagen last month said that it expects the battery packs in upcoming ID models, built on its mainstream modular electric platform (MEB) to last “the life of the cars.”

VW MEB platform

Specifically, VW says that its batteries will keep 70 percent of their original capacity for 8 years or 100,000 miles.

That’s close to Nissan’s goal at the original rollout of the Leaf—that they then expected its battery to keep 70 percent or more of its original capacity after 10 years—although its original warranty was also for 8 years or 100,000 miles.

But even when their capacity degrades far lower than that, they'll be fine for second uses. Nissan R&D staff, for example, projected that at 20 years the typical cells might store less than 40 percent of their original energy capacity. That would still make them a productive piece of larger-scale energy storage.

With VW planning 22 million electric vehicles in 10 years, all with active thermal conditioning that could give those battery packs an even longer life, let’s hope more companies get together on solutions that can truly scale up.

Volkswagen ID 3 confirmed the fastest charging EV hatchback

Automotive Design: Tesla & Other Carmakers Plan For “ACES” In The Future

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Published on June 18th, 2019 |

by Guest Contributor

Automotive Design: Tesla & Other Carmakers Plan For “ACES” In The Future

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June 18th, 2019 by Guest Contributor

Originally posted on EVANNEX.
By Charles Morris

The automobile has always been a very dynamic product. Since cars came into widespread use in the early 20the century, almost everything about them has been constantly (albeit slowly) changing. Over the decades, vehicles have become more reliable, more powerful, and more efficient; and a continuous stream of new features has made them more comfortable (AC, adjustable seats), more convenient (keyless entry, cruise control, GPS), and safer (from seat belts to airbags to collision-avoidance systems).

Image credit: JRR

Meanwhile, the appearance of our cars has gone through many phases, driven less by technical requirements than by shifting fashions. Most of us can guess which decade a movie was set in by looking at the cars, from the big boxy tourers of the 1920s to the rounded contours of the 1940s to the tail fins of the 1950s to the sleek sedans of the 1980s to today’s SUVs (which arguably are beginning to look a lot like those boxy tourers).

Much more change is coming, and it’s going to unfold much more quickly than ever before, thanks to a quartet of technological trends that some are now referring to as ACES (autonomous, connected, electric, shared). Tesla has been at the forefront of the first three of these developments, and intends to be a major player in the fourth as well.

In a recent article in The Conversation, entitled “Cars will change more in the next decade than they have in the past century,” Dan Lewis, Claude C. Chibelushi and Debi Roberts take a look at some of the innovations that are coming down the road.

Some changes will be cosmetic. The air intakes and grills that have long defined some brands’ signature looks will disappear, as electric powertrains don’t need them (Teslas never had them). Side rearview mirrors (wing mirrors across the pond) are also slated for extinction, thanks to improved camera technology and the need for better aerodynamics. (Tesla wanted to eliminate side mirrors on the Model X, but regulators wouldn’t allow it. Some European versions of the new Audi e-tron are spiegellos.)

Other changes will be much more fundamental — the advent of autonomy and new ownership models will gradually change the basic concept of what an automobile is. The article in The Conversation predicts that, once humans don’t need to drive, windows could be adjustable in size — larger for better views (a la Tesla’s glass roofs), non-existent for naps. Cars could even have flexible layouts, able to be configured as a mobile office, a bedroom, or a cargo carrier. Volvo’s 360c concept car presents one vision of this future.

The way we control our cars is evolving quickly, and the end result could be that they become like extensions of our human bodies. Augmented-reality systems will provide more and more information about a vehicle’s surroundings, and voice commands could someday develop into direct brain-to-computer interfaces, allowing occupants to control vehicles with pure thought. Cars will also communicate with various smart city features, from traffic signals to charging facilities to multimodal public transport.

Volvo’s 360c concept car could tease a few features we might see in future cars. (YouTube: The Tech Chap)

Alongside the technological trends of ACES, business and political shifts are changing the makeup of the auto industry. Tomorrow’s configurable, self-driving electric cars may very well be designed in China or Germany, not Michigan (that is, unless the legacy US automakers start raising their games very soon). The Conversation speculates that tomorrow’s drivers (riders?) might not be riding in a Ford, a Chevy, or a Beemer; but in a Tesla, a Dyson, an Apple iCar, or a Google.

About the Author

Guest Contributor is many, many people. We publish a number of guest posts from experts in a large variety of fields. This is our contributor account for those special people. 😀

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VW Steps Up Software Push With Own ‘vw.os’ Operating System

Volkswagen AG is stepping up the pace of its digital transformation with a plan to pool some 5,000 digital experts into a single unit that will develop “vw.os,” a uniform software operating system across all new models.