Mobility – Page 5632 – I wish I had more to offer

UPDATE 4-Ford more confident of stronger 2019 despite ‘volatile environment’

DETROIT (Reuters) – Ford Motor Co on Thursday posted a better-than-expected first quarter largely due to strong pickup truck sales in its core U.S. market and said it was more confident in its forecast 2019 would bring better results than last year. FILE PHOTO: The Ford logo is seen at the North American International Auto… Continue reading UPDATE 4-Ford more confident of stronger 2019 despite ‘volatile environment’

Ford Motor Company Reports First Quarter 2019 Results

About Ford Motor Company Ford Motor Company is a global company based in Dearborn, Michigan. The company designs, manufactures, markets and services a full line of Ford cars, trucks, SUVs, electrified vehicles and Lincoln luxury vehicles, provides financial services through Ford Motor Credit Company and is pursuing leadership positions in electrification, autonomous vehicles and mobility… Continue reading Ford Motor Company Reports First Quarter 2019 Results

Tesla Autopilot, Full Self Driving, Elon Musk, ARK Invest — CleanTech Talk with Tasha Keeney

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Published on April 20th, 2019 |

by Zachary Shahan

Tesla Autopilot, Full Self Driving, Elon Musk, ARK Invest — CleanTech Talk with Tasha Keeney

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April 20th, 2019 by Zachary Shahan

For our hot new CleanTech Talk podcast interview series, I recently sat down with ARK Invest Analyst Tasha Keeney to discuss various aspects of autonomous vehicles, Tesla, Tesla, and Tesla. Tasha is focused on autonomous cars and 3D printing in her position at ARK Invest. She and ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood recently hosted Tesla CEO Elon Musk in the studio for their new podcast series, so we built off of that chat and I also brought in several key autonomy topics I’m always eager to learn more about.

The conversation was approximately 45 minutes long, so to cut it down into more manageable portions, I’ve split it into two episodes. This is the first episode, and the second will be published tomorrow. Listen to the discussion on your favorite podcast platform (options linked below) or via this embedded player:

You can subscribe and listen to CleanTech Talk is on: Anchor, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Breaker, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket, Podbean, Radio Public, SoundCloud, Spotify, and Stitcher.

To kick off, I asked Tasha about her background and how it fit into ARK Invest. She was previously a management consultant, mostly in the auto industry on the supply chain side of the story. We slid into a short chat about the autonomous vehicle industry as a whole and suppliers in the industry before making our way to Tesla and the large team of experts at the company who are focused on advancing Tesla Autopilot on a daily basis, and who meet with Elon on a weekly basis.

I then brought up my favorite CleanTechnica article on Tesla autonomous driving, one written by Mike Barnard in 2015 and republished last year when Tesla hit 1 billion miles on Autopilot. I highly recommend reading that article before or after listening to the podcast. Tasha took that summary and got more technical, explaining part of why they are bullish about Tesla’s autonomy approach.

I also touched on a Navigant Research report that puts Tesla near the bottom of the list for self-driving vehicle strategy and development. I had found those conclusions to be confusing, but also had a general hunch why they were what they were, so I was curious to hear Tasha’s take on that. She focused on the point that Tesla doesn’t use prototype vehicles, which may confuse analysts, and that there’s perhaps over-reliance on California disengagement reports (which are actually not standardized and are self-reported).

Another top topic of curiosity for me for years has been exactly how and how much Tesla uses “ghost driving” or “shadow mode” to improve Autopilot and eventual Full Self Driving. Clearly, Tesla’s approach involves learning from drivers who have Autopilot on and then disengage for some reason, but I also wonder how much Tesla’s software is learning how to drive simply from monitoring what the human drivers do without Autopilot activated. Tasha’s take on this from talking to Elon is that the Autopilot disengagements are particularly important but that the system must be learning to some degree from the shadow mode testing. (This is really a topic it would be cool to talk about with Elon or one of his Autopilot team members, as there’s still plenty of mystery here.)

Lex Fridman at MIT has been tracking Tesla Autopilot miles and last we heard had the figure just over 1 billion. Tasha has built on that work for ARK Invest to come to the conclusion that Tesla vehicles with “Autopilot hardware 2” have driven 10 billion miles, better capturing or quantifying the miles that are potentially involved in ghost/shadow learning.

Getting to the topic of full self driving, Tasha touches on Elon’s comment on the ARK Invest podcast that he and the crew think Tesla vehicles “will be feature complete — full self-driving — this year,” and could be ready for drivers to go to sleep behind the wheel a year later — but that depends mostly on regulators. Tasha said that is probably an aggressive timeline, but considering it’s coming from Elon, how could it not be? Going back to the ARK Invest interview with Elon, these were his words on that matter: “My guess as to when we would think it is safe for somebody to essentially fall asleep and wake up at their destination? Probably towards the end of next year. That is when I think it would be safe enough for that.” Again, though, it’s up to regulators when that is permitted, so Tasha and I discussed that topic of regulators/regulations for a few minutes.

We then briefly talked flying taxis and electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft — fun topics, but that will be a topic for another analyst and podcast discussion.

We ended the first part of this two-part discussion by chatting about the processing power needed in autonomous vehicles, the importance of that for over-the-air software updates, and Tesla’s overall hardware and software leadership. Highlighting this challenge for conventional, established automakers, Tasha had this to say:

“We call it here at ARK the sort of ‘old DNA’ issue — when innovation happens that you can sort of be caught flatfooted if you’re very stuck in your ways. I think that’s a huge problem for the traditional autos. And same thing with autonomy.

“If they were to do this, they have an even larger fleet than Tesla, right? They could get this data. But Tesla started years ahead of them. So, we think it’s possible they could just totally run away with this opportunity.”

As part of this whole matter, Tasha and I talked about a presentation from George Hotz (aka geohot) and a brief Q&A I had with him in which he emphasized Tesla was so far ahead on software in part because the company was so far ahead on hardware. For more on that, I recommend this CleanTechnica exclusive: Geohot: Tesla Autopilot = Apple iOS, Comma.ai = Android.

The second part of our interview with Tasha Keeney will be published tomorrow here on CleanTechnica, including on the CleanTech Talk portion of our site. In the meantime, I recommend this article and podcast for more on these topics: Elon Musk: Full Self-Driving Teslas This Year, “Unequivocal” Tesla Autopilot Improves Safety.

Interested in buying a Tesla Model 3, Model S, or Model X? Need a referral code to get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging? Use ours: http://ts.la/tomasz7234 (or not).

About the Author

Zachary Shahan Zach is tryin' to help society help itself (and other species). He spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as its director and chief editor. He's also the president of Important Media and the director/founder of EV Obsession and Solar Love. Zach is recognized globally as an electric vehicle, solar energy, and energy storage expert. He has presented about cleantech at conferences in India, the UAE, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, and Canada.

Zach has long-term investments in TSLA, FSLR, SPWR, SEDG, & ABB — after years of covering solar and EVs, he simply has a lot of faith in these particular companies and feels like they are good cleantech companies to invest in. But he offers no professional investment advice and would rather not be responsible for you losing money, so don't jump to conclusions.

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FILE PHOTO: Uber’s logo is displayed on a mobile phone in London, Britain, September 14, 2018. REUTERS/Hannah Mckay (Reuters) – Ride-hailing company Uber Technologies Inc will unveil terms for its initial public offering on Friday, telling investors it will seek to be valued at between $80 billion and $90 billion, according to people familiar with… Continue reading Uber to kick off investor roadshow with IPO terms on Friday

Plant in Hefei for 100,000 cars a year: VW is allowed to build China factory for electric cars

picture alliance / dpa VW plant in Shanghai: Also in the East China Hefei a VW plant is to be created – for the construction of electric cars The carmaker Volkswagen is expanding its capacity for electric cars China out. Together with their Chinese partner JAC, the Wolfsburg have received the green light to build… Continue reading Plant in Hefei for 100,000 cars a year: VW is allowed to build China factory for electric cars

UPDATE 2-Ford Q1 profit beats Wall St view, more confident of stronger ’19

DETROIT (Reuters) – Ford Motor Co on Thursday posted a better-than-expected first-quarter as pickup truck sales remained strong in its core U.S. market and the company expressed greater confidence in its forecast that 2019 would bring better results than last year. FILE PHOTO: The Ford logo is seen at the North American International Auto Show… Continue reading UPDATE 2-Ford Q1 profit beats Wall St view, more confident of stronger ’19

Ford jumps 4% on strong first-quarter earnings

Daniel Acker | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The Ford Motor Co. Mustang Shelby GT500 vehicle is displayed during the 2019 North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit, Michigan,.

Ford's first-quarter earnings beat Wall Street estimates even as the industry grapples with falling sales while investing billions of dollars in new technology to develop autonomous and electric vehicles.

Ford's stock was up more than 3% in extended trading Thursday.

Here's how the company did compared with what Wall Street expected, based on average estimates compiled by Refinitiv:

Adjusted earnings per share: 44 cents vs. a forecast of 27 cents per share

Automotive segment revenue: $37.24 billion vs. a forecast of $37.08 billion

The company's total revenue was $40.34 billion during the quarter, lower than its $41.96 billion in revenue during the same quarter last year.

On an unadjusted basis, Ford's profit slid 34% from the year earlier. It earned $1.15 billion, or 29 cents a share, down from $1.74 billion, or 43 cents a share, during the same quarter last year.

Ford shares are up more than 23% year to date; however, they are down about 15% over the past 12 months.

The Detroit automaker continues to struggle overseas as demand falls across the industry in the U.S. North American profits were $2.2 billion.

The quarterly numbers come amid Ford's $11 billion restructuring plan, with an aim to slash costs by $14 billion over the next five years. The plan involves focusing on Ford's historically strongest segments like trucks, utilities, and muscle cars, while scaling back international operations, investing in new technologies, and featuring more profitable vehicles.

Ford announced Wednesday it has invested $500 million in electric truck maker Rivian to build a battery-powered electric vehicle.

The stock closed at $9.41 a share on Thursday.

The company is holding a conference call with CEO Jim Hackett and other executives at 5:30 p.m. ET to discuss the results.

This story is breaking news. Please check back for updates.

Benedikt Schell to become the new CEO of Mercedes-Benz Bank AG

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April 2019

Stuttgart

Stuttgart. The Supervisory Board of Mercedes-Benz Bank AG has picked the successor for the CEO position. Franz Reiner (51), who will take over as chairman of Daimler Financial Services AG effective June 1, 2019, will be succeeded at the same time by Benedikt Schell (48) as the new CEO of Mercedes-Benz Bank. Up to now, he has been responsible for the worldwide customer and digital strategy as well as for the transformation of the business models in his position as Chief Experience Officer. Daimler Financial Services will provide information about his successor in the near future.
Mercedes-Benz Bank is one of the leading automotive banks in Germany and closed the 2018 business year with record numbers. At year's end, it had more than 950,000 leased and financed vehicles on the books totaling 26.2 billion euro, which represents an increase of 9% over last year. More than one out of every two vehicles sold by Daimler Group is financed or leased through..

Waymo CTO Dmitri Dolgov at TC Sessions: Mobility on July 10

Long before there was an autonomous vehicle industry, there was Project Chauffeur — a secret endeavor staffed by about a dozen engineers and housed under Google’s moonshot factory X. That venture, popularly known as the Google self-driving car project, would eventually graduate from its project status to become a standalone company called Waymo in 2016… Continue reading Waymo CTO Dmitri Dolgov at TC Sessions: Mobility on July 10