Tag: Mobility

Tesla investor: There couldn’t be a better time for Apple to invest in Tesla

Bull and bear debate the trade in Apple
7 Hours Ago | 04:25

Apple should buy a stake in Tesla now for the sake of both companies, Tesla investor Ross Gerber told CNBC on Monday.

“This is [Apple CEO] Tim Cook's gift of all gifts,” Gerber said on CNBC's “Squawk Alley.”

Gerber, co-founder & CEO of Gerber Kawasaki, said a potential investment from Apple in Tesla could be hugely beneficial to both companies.

Tesla has faced extensive scrutiny in the past year for a wide array of issues, including a push to meet Model 3 production goals. CEO Elon Musk, who on Friday admitted the past year has been “excruciating” and “the most difficult and painful” of his career, has come under fire for erratic behavior. Most recently, Musk rattled markets after tweeting he was planning to take Tesla public when the stock reached $420 per share and that he had “funding secured.” The tweet hasinvited scrutiny from the Securities and Exchange Commission.

“If you look at actually what Elon's problems are every day, they are operational, which is why Tim Cook was hired by Steve Jobs back in the day. Cook is perfect for this role,” Gerber said. “In the past Apple and Tesla probably wouldn't have gotten along because Musk didn't need Apple, but it is clear he needs help [now].”

And what Tesla lacks in scaling and operations, it makes up for in innovation — which Gerber says is what Apple desperately needs long-term.

With a giant cash hoard and deep-running consumer loyalty, Apple became the first publicly traded U.S. company to hit a valuation of $1 trillion in early August. It has since continued its trajectory, hitting a fresh all-time high in intraday trading on Monday. Despite Apple's recent success, however, it has its own share of pressures. Some investors worry stagnating iPhone sales could spell trouble for the company in the future.

“My biggest fear with Apple is that they have fallen so far behind in the innovation curve, I don't see where they will be five years from now,” Gerber said. “I don't think phones are going to be the primary device in a decade,” he added.

Ivan Feinseth, chief investment officer at Tigress Financial Partners, agreed Tesla could present a decent investment opportunity for Apple but said the investment wouldn't make or break the tech giant.

“I don't think Apple is on the decline. It is still on the ascent,” Feinseth said.

He said wearables and Apple's voice assistant, Siri, still present big areas for growth and innovation.

But an investment in Tesla could present a unique opportunity for Apple to “get a foothold in the development” of Tesla technology, which it usually keeps in-house.

“Apple does have enough cash, with the $240 billion they now have. With that they could buy Tesla, Ford, Fiat, Ferrari, Harley Davidson — they could buy everything,” Feinseth said.

“Why would they want to tie themselves down with owning an automobile manufacturer? If they want to be involved with the manufacturing, especially the integration of technology, taking a financial interest in Tesla would make sense,” he added.

Gerber agreed mobility could be a huge opportunity for Apple in the future. And he said the iPhone maker's secretive self-driving car project, “Project Titan,” is “going nowhere,” so Tesla would be a surer bet. If Apple were to strike a deal with Tesla that put its operating system and app store in Tesla cars, that would open up a whole new avenue for Apple to market its services and applications to customers, he said.

“Apple should buy 5, 10 percent of Tesla just to get the iOS onto that Tesla screen. Part of the Tesla story is that screen in the middle of the car, and not having Apple on that screen is going to be a huge problem for them,” he said.

Whether or not Tesla ends up private, Apple should act now, while Musk is actively searching for partners, Gerber said.

Shares of Tesla closed up 0.96 percent at $308.44. Shares of Apple closed down 0.97 percent at $215.46, after briefly touching an all-time high of $219.18 in intraday trading on Monday.

Apple and Tesla did not immediately respond to CNBC's requests for comment.

US carmakers must win in China, but it's going to get more difficult

US carmakers must win in China, but it's going to get more difficultThe fortunes of Detroit automakers increasingly lie some 7,000 miles to the east — in China.
China is already the world's largest car market, selling 29 million light vehicles a year. By 2025, China's new car sales will be double those of the United States, analysts said. To put that in perspective, about 17.2 million new light vehicles were sold last year in the U.S., according to Kelley Blue Book data.
And while new car sales are ballooning in China, they have leveled in the U.S.
This puts Detroit's car companies at a critical juncture. They must focus on growing their sales in China if they want to sustain total profits enough to succeed elsewhere in the world.
Yet Ford and Fiat Chrysler struggled in China in the second quarter, and it isn't getting any easier in the future for them and General Motors.
“It's going to get more and more difficult to compete in China,” said John Bonnell, senior adviser of ZoZo Go, an investment advisory firm specializing in China's electric and autonomous vehicle industries. “With the heavy competition, demand for more electric vehicles, trade wars … it's not an easy business there.”
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Detroit's reality checkThe Chinese car market is intensely competitive given the rising success of some Chinese car companies in the last few years. Then there is the looming threat of President Donald Trump's proposed 25 percent tariffs on imported cars and parts, which could inflate prices across the board.
But carmakers that succeed in China will gain a big advantage in other markets, said Bonnell.
“It will impact their performance here, eventually,” said Bonnell. “If you just have the U.S., you wouldn't have those million-dollar sales to spread to your tooling costs” and to cover other research and development expenses.
In fact, said Bonnell, looking at Volkswagen's success in China, “Its market share in Europe, since they have succeeded in China, has gone straight up.”
But the Chinese consumer has distinct needs and requires products tailored to them, said Jeremy Acevedo, manager of data strategy with Edmunds. Therefore, product becomes king if Detroit carmakers are to attract new buyers there. “They can't rely on shopper loyalty in the booming Chinese auto market,” said Acevedo.
As for Trump's proposed tariff hike and retaliation by the Chinese, Detroit Three exports to China are not a factor because they account for less than 5 percent of sales, Michael Dunne, CEO of ZoZo Go, wrote in a newsletter.
“But if tensions escalate, Chinese leaders could steer consumers away from American-brand cars,” wrote Dunne.
He noted Chinese leaders did just that in the past with Korean and Japanese cars to “great effect” when political relations soured.
“So, a reality check is in order,” said Dunne. “Intensifying competition from Chinese automakers, plus a dose of acute consumer nationalism, could spell the beginning of the end of Detroit in China.”
China salesBesides fierce competition in China — about 110 car brands are sold in China, 60 of which are Chinese — the Chinese government is also pushing automakers for more electric vehicle production by 2020, said Bonnell. It has set strict regulations around EVs, he said.
As Ford and FCA try to compete, they are already behind the curve. Through June, Ford had sold 313,000 vehicles, down 38 percent from the same period a year ago giving it a 2 percent market share in China, said Bonnell, who references data from LMC Automotive.
In that same period, FCA's Jeep brand was down 34 percent to 115,000 units. It sells such a small number of vehicles, though, that FCA's market share is negligible, said Bonnell.
For GM, through June, sales of its Buick, Chevrolet, Cadillac brands were 960,000, up 10 percent from the same period a year ago. Including GM's minority share in SAIC GM Wuling, GM's sales through June totaled 2 million, up 7 percent from the same year ago period, said Bonnell.
GM President Dan Ammann told Wall Street analysts Thursday that GM is successful in China because it has invested in the product and the dealer network there for many years.
But the market in China has been intensely competitive, Ammann said. GM continues to invest in its business there and, “Make sure we’re prepared for the next phase of the market there” as it pushes for more electric vehicles and strict emissions.
The strongest non-Chinese automaker is Volkswagen, which has seen consistent growth in China.
“They were the first one to set up in the mid-'80s and they have strong partners and worked hard to get their brand established and dealer network established,” said Bonnell. “Being the first mover offered a big advantage for them.”
Volkswagen had sold 2.1 million cars through June in China, up 7 percent from the year-ago period, he said.
Ford's problemsFord China has struggled with an aging product portfolio and a thin, unprofitable dealer network. In the second quarter, it lost $483 million, a decline of $506 million from last year, Ford's CFO Bob Shanks said in a call with analysts.
Current products in the showroom are dated. Five new models, arriving this autumn, should help, but there is a lot of lost ground to make up. Ford China sales this year could fall 25 percent below their 2016 peak of 1.2 million. That's a 300,000-vehicle hole to dig out of, Shanks said.
Shanks blamed unfavorable market factors for Ford and Lincoln imports into China, and lower net pricing, some of which is related to tariff changes.
But Ford's Jim Farley said the deterioration of Ford's business in China has been swift.
“I can assure you, we understand the importance of getting our China business back on track,” Farley, Ford's executive vice president and president of Global Markets, told analysts.
Ford will launch a new, low-priced, midsize sport utility vehicle called Territory in China early next year, Farley said. The SUV will be built in China and was developed strictly for that market. It will give Ford a better chance to compete against lower priced vehicles than it had in the past there, said Farley.
Ford combats China struggles with low-cost SUV
Ford has serious shortfalls in its go-to-market capabilities, “including inadequate dealer profitability, excess stock including our high-volume (compact) cars,” Farley said. “We haven't maintained a fresh enough product lineup for this rapidly changing and dynamic China market.”
Those missteps along with an uncompetitive cost structure hurt Ford China, and Farley said Ford is taking “urgent action.”
By the end of next year, 60 percent of Ford China's vehicle lineup will be refreshed or new, said Farley. He said Ford is improving its competitiveness with aggressive cost cuts and more localized product such as the Explorer.
“We're close to hiring a new CEO for Ford China and we have already onboarded a number of local Chinese talent in key management positions such as marketing and sales leads for both Ford and Lincoln to drive not only our strategy but they're already reinvigorating our sales,” said Farley.
But until all of Ford's SUVs are launched in China, he warned, “We'll continue to face this mix deficit.”
GM's successFord's new products will be competing against several new products from GM China, which already has a strong foothold in the market.
In the second half of the year, GM China will introduce 10 new models including the Cadillac XT4 small SUV.
“The focus is on high-demand segments including SUVs and multipurpose vehicles and luxury vehicles,” GM CEO Mary Barra said in an analyst call.
GM China reported record results in the second quarter with equity income of $600 million, up $100 million year-over-year. The bulk of those sales are from Baojun, Cadillac and Chevrolet, and GM said it had a “continued focus on cost efficiencies” there.
GM will incur higher costs in the second half because of the cost to launch new vehicles. With competitors launching new vehicles, pricing will come under pressure too, she said.
“But we remain confident in our 20 years of market strength in China,” said Barra. “Due to established local and U.S. brands and our strong Chinese partner, our current outlook does not assume any comprehensive impact in China beyond existing trade flows.”
Still, GM's growth is driven by the affordable Baojun (pronounced bow joon) brand and the surging Cadillac brand. Buick and Chevrolet are “crimped at the edges and stalling,” wrote Dunne.
Baojun is GM's ultrasubcompact that costs less than $15,000. It will account for one in every four GM China sales this year, said Dunne.
But Dunne wrote that the “squeeze on Chevy and Buick reveals a larger, deeper threat to the Detroit Three in China.” Consumers there are much less attracted to mass market global brands than they were a few years ago. Instead, they are switching to Chinese brands such as Great Wall, BYD and Geely, wrote Dunne.
Geely is China's largest private automaker. It will sell almost twice as many cars in China as FCA and Ford combined this year, said Dunne.
FCA's futureIn Fiat Chrysler's second-quarter earnings call, CEO Mike Manley acknowledged that “the biggest challenges we face, and frankly we're going to continue to face to some extent for the balance of the year, are all focused in China.”
Changes in the tariff drove down sales of Maserati cars and shipments to dealers, Manley said. But he was quick to add, “With all of these duty changes behind us, I'm clearly expecting improved sales performance,” Manley said.
That's provided that FCA manages inventory to meet demand ahead of the transition to China's tougher emission regulations, he said. FCA has lowered its expected..

Self-driving car is actually a tiny hotel suite on wheels

The future of travel may be in outer space, or it could be in a self-driving car. That’s the hope of the Autonomous Travel Suite, a driverless mobile hotel room that provides door to door transportation. Recently named one of three finalists in this year’s Radical Innovation Awards, the Autonomous Travel Suite was developed by… Continue reading Self-driving car is actually a tiny hotel suite on wheels

After fatal accident, Uber’s vision of self-driving cars begins to blur

Getty Images
An Uber self-driving car drives down 5th Street on March 28, 2017 in San Francisco, California.

SAN FRANCISCO — After Dara Khosrowshahi took over as Uber's chief executive last August, he considered shutting the company's money-losing autonomous vehicle division. A visit to Pittsburgh this spring changed that.

In town for a leadership summit, Mr. Khosrowshahi and other Uber executives were briefed on the state of the company's self-driving vehicle research, which is based in Pittsburgh. The group was impressed by the progress its autonomous division had made in testing driverless cars in Pittsburgh and in Arizona, according to three people familiar with the ride-hailing company, who were not authorized to speak publicly. They left the meeting energized, convinced that Uber needed to forge ahead with self-driving cars, the people said.

But days after the summit, one of Uber's autonomous cars struck and killed a woman who was pushing a bicycle across a street in Tempe, Ariz. Video from the March 18 collision showed a distracted safety driver failing to react in time as the vehicle barreled into the pedestrian, Elaine Herzberg.

The accident threw Uber's autonomous vehicle efforts into flux, immediately forcing the suspension of its self-driving car tests in cities including Tempe, Pittsburgh and Toronto. Months later, Uber's executives are divided over what to do with the autonomous business, according to the people familiar with the company. While one camp is pushing Mr. Khosrowshahi to seek partnerships or even a potential sale of the unit, known as the Advanced Technologies Group, a rival contingent is arguing that developing self-driving technology is crucial to Uber's future, the people said.

Mr. Khosrowshahi remains undecided, the people said, though he has expressed a desire to partner with other companies on autonomous technologies. In recent months, Uber has started talking with a few auto manufacturers about potential partnerships, including supplying Uber's autonomous driving technology for use in Toyota's minivans, according to one person familiar with the talks. Toyota declined to comment.

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The internal debates are unfolding at a time when many companies can ill afford to pause on autonomous technology given stiff competition from carmakers and other tech companies. In recent months, top engineers have left Uber's self-driving project for lucrative opportunities elsewhere. Uber's self-driving cars recently returned to the road in Pittsburgh but with human drivers at the wheel, meaning employees are driving around like any other motorist — except their vehicles are carrying hundreds of thousands of dollars in technology.

The issue of whether to retain or sell A.T.G. is complicated by Uber's stated intention to go public by the end of 2019. The company, valued at $62 billion, has racked up billions of dollars in losses since it was founded in 2009 and needs to persuade investors that it can eventually create a sustainably profitable business. The self-driving efforts, which have been losing $100 million to $200 million a quarter, do little to help that case. And Mr. Khosrowshahi has been shedding money-losing businesses since he joined Uber.

At a meeting in Pittsburgh on Aug. 8, according to a person briefed on the event, Mr. Khosrowshahi did not address what he would do with the self-driving efforts but told employees there that it ''is a big-time hardware manufacturing, software problem at scale. Lots of tech companies out there are going after this problem, but I think there are very few companies who are taking this on end-to-end at scale the way we are.''

In a statement, Uber said: ''Right now the entire team is focused on safely and responsibly returning to the road in autonomous mode. That's our No. 1 objective, and we have every confidence in the work they are doing to get us there.''

Uber first made its interest in self-driving cars public when it hired about 40 researchers and scientists from the National Robotics Engineering Center at Carnegie Mellon University in 2015. At the time, the company's chief executive was one of the founders of Uber, Travis Kalanick, who had decided to bet big on self-driving vehicles. He wanted to prepare Uber for a future when fleets of driverless cars could move passengers efficiently and safely around the clock.

In 2016, Uber acquired Otto, a self-driving truck start-up whose founders had decamped from Google. The deal later spurred a trade-secrets-theft lawsuit from Google's onetime self-driving car unit, Waymo. The case briefly went to trial this year, generating headlines and embarrassing revelations, before Uber settled with Waymo in February.

In its rush to get on the road with driverless cars, Uber also ran afoul of regulators. The company started testing its autonomous vehicles in San Francisco in 2016, without a permit from California's Division of Motor Vehicles. The state agency ordered Uber to apply for a permit, but the company refused, saying permits were not necessary since safety drivers were monitoring the cars. The D.M.V. ultimately revoked the registrations for the 16 self-driving cars that Uber was testing in the city.

By early this year, Uber's self-driving division was preparing to ramp up development, pushing its testing cars in Arizona to tally more miles. The goal, according to internal documents reviewed by The New York Times, was for Uber to win regulatory approval to start testing a self-driving car service in Arizona before the end of this year.

But the crash in March — the first known fatality involving a pedestrian and an autonomous car — altered everything. Since then, Uber has steadily narrowed the scope of its autonomous vehicle operations.

In May, Uber announced that it was shutting its driverless testing hub in Arizona and laying off 300 employees. A day later, preliminary findings from federal regulators investigating the crash confirmed what many self-driving car experts suspected: Uber's self-driving car should have detected a pedestrian with enough time to stop, but it failed to do so. Uber has begun a safety review and plans to publish its assessment in the coming months.

Mr. Khosrowshahi has started to subtly de-emphasize the company's role in developing driverless technology.

At a conference last year, he said it was a ''huge advantage'' for Uber to have its own autonomous technology while operating a global ride-sharing network. But this May, Mr. Khosrowshahi said that while Uber needed to have access to autonomous technology, it aimed to be ''neutral.'' He said Uber would be open to licensing its own technology or building around alternatives from other companies — a stark contrast to the company's previous approach of owning and operating the entire self-driving ''stack'' of technology and hardware.

And in July, Uber announced that it was closing its autonomous trucking business. The company instead said it would focus exclusively on building self-driving cars.

''For now, we need the focus of one team, with one clear objective,'' Eric Meyhofer, who leads Uber's driverless car efforts, wrote in an email to employees.

In the preceding months, some senior engineers and executives with expertise in self-driving vehicles had already left. One of those was Don Burnette, one of Otto's founders, who became the chief executive of a new self-driving company called Kodiak, which focuses on long-haul trucking.

''I really wanted to focus on the trucking problem, and there was not as much focus on that at Uber,'' Mr. Burnette said.

He added that Uber would most likely continue to pursue its vision of driverless cars because it and other companies ''have been working on it for so long, promising this for so long, and they have a tremendous amount of money behind them.''

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Bird and Lime are protesting Santa Monica’s electric scooter recommendations

Lime and Bird are protesting recommendations in Santa Monica, Calif. that would prevent the electric scooter companies from operating in the Southern California city. We first saw the news over on Curbed LA, which reported both Lime and Bird are temporarily halting their services in Santa Monica. Last week, Santa Monica’s shared mobility device selection committee… Continue reading Bird and Lime are protesting Santa Monica’s electric scooter recommendations

Statement by Mahindra & Mahindra about FCA court case

Statement by Mahindra & Mahindra

AUBURN HILLS, Mich., Aug. 3, 2018 – “We understand that a complaint has been filed by FCA with the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) against Mahindra. Mahindra has not yet been served with the complaint and we prefer not to comment at length on the dispute at this time. However, we have reviewed FCA’s core filing and find it to be without merit. Mahindra has a historic relationship and agreements with FCA and its predecessors that go back seventy years.

The relationship began in the 1940’s with the original agreement with Willys and continues to this day, with the most recent agreement executed with FCA (then Chrysler Group LLC) in 2009. Our actions, products, and product distribution (including ROXOR) both honor the legacy of the relationship and the terms of our agreements with FCA. Mahindra has been co-existing with FCA (and the Jeep brand) for over 25 years in India and in many other countries.

The ROXOR is a derivative of Mahindra vehicles distributed in those markets. Based on these agreements and our history, we believe that FCA’s claims are baseless and Mahindra is well within its rights to both manufacture and distribute the ROXOR off-road vehicle.”

About Mahindra Automotive North America

Mahindra Automotive North America (MANA) is the North American headquarters of the Mahindra Group’s automotive division. Established in 2013, MANA now employs over 400 people, and became the first automotive OEM to launch a manufacturing operation in SE Michigan in over 25 years when it began producing the ROXOR off-road vehicle earlier this year in Auburn Hills, MI. Working with affiliate Mahindra teams in India, Italy and Korea, MANA also continues to fulfill its mission as a center of automotive engineering excellence, which includes automotive design, engineering and vehicle development, and is led by a team of veteran industry executives, engineers and designers. For more information, visit mahindraautomotivena.com and roxoroffroad.com.

About Mahindra

The Mahindra Group is a $20.7 billion (USD) federation of companies that enables people to rise through innovative mobility solutions, driving rural prosperity, enhancing urban living, nurturing new businesses and fostering communities. It has a leadership position in utility vehicles, information technology, financial services and vacation ownership in India and is the world’s largest tractor company, by volume. It also enjoys a strong presence in agribusiness, components, commercial vehicles, consulting services, energy, industrial equipment, logistics, real estate, steel, aerospace, defense and two-wheelers. Headquartered in India, Mahindra employs over 200,000 people across 100 countries. Learn more at mahindra.com.

Media contact information:

Varsha Chainani
Mobile – + 91 99873 40055
Office Email Address – chainani.varsha@mahindra.com

Tesla loses two more chip architects ahead of Autopilot 3.0 hardware launch

Earlier this month, Tesla claimed to have the ‘world’s most advanced computer for autonomous driving’ with its Autopilot 3.0 hardware update coming next year. Now we’ve learned that the automaker is losing two of the chip architects behind the project. Back in 2016, we first exclusively reported on Tesla quietly hiring legendary chip architect Jim Keller from AMD… Continue reading Tesla loses two more chip architects ahead of Autopilot 3.0 hardware launch

Carmakers struggle to hire hackers, the hottest job in the industry

Carmakers struggle to hire hackers, the hottest job in the industryMcConnell Trapp has a special set of skills.
He can hack into cars and control aspects of them from his computer.
Trapp, 39, who has a law degree and speaks Japanese fluently, started hacking cars about 16 years ago. He used a computer, some various vehicle spare parts, a turbocharger and the help of few good friends to increase the 120 horsepower normally found in a 1995 Honda Civic sedan to almost 300 hp.
“It was a lot of trial and error,” said Trapp, who admitted he “blew up a lot of engines.”
Today, Trapp is director of Speed Trapp Consulting in Troy. He works as a legal “techno” consultant. He is one of the good guys who uses his ability to infiltrate car computer systems and uncover potentially dangerous flaws that would make them vulnerable to someone with malicious intentions. But if he were a bad guy, he knows how he could compromise several cars at once. Cars in operation today.
“I'd walk into a dealership. I would see if they have a WiFi router designated for customers and gain access into that first,” he said.
Then, if the dealership's service department server is hooked into the main system, he'd infiltrate the service department's storage database that the technicians use for vehicle diagnostics. From there it's as easy as inserting a “fake” update resembling other files for vehicles and infecting multiple cars there for service.
“Hypothetically, I could make a running engine turn off, or render other aspects of the car either useless, or just make it appear as though the vehicle constantly needs service or recalls when it actually doesn't,” he said. “That's the danger, that's the scary part.”
It's that threat associated with vehicle technology that is driving many auto companies and other industries to increasingly look to hire hackers with ethics like Trapp, called “white hat” researchers. Those hackers can identify cybersecurity flaws and thwart nefarious actions of “black hat” hackers.
But finding white hat hackers to hire is incredibly hard, personnel experts said. First, few people have those skills. Then, they must be vetted to make sure they have both the technological acumen and the moral compass for the job. The need for them is outpacing the thin supply.
Hackers for hireTypically, computer hacking is associated with a person or a group with malevolent intentions. The hacker gains unauthorized access to a computer and a technology dependent system to do harm.
In the 2017 movie, “The Fate of the Furious,” for example, actress Charlize Theron's character hacks into every self-driving car in New York City, takes remote control of them and causes mass chaos and destruction.
Depending on which hacker you talk to, some, such as Trapp, say such a movie scenario is unlikely in real life, especially if a human is still needed to turn on a car. Others say, though, that we are almost to a point where that could happen.
General Motors is leading the way in developing autonomous cars. It has promised to bring them to market in urban areas in a taxi-like platform next year. But the fear of scenarios such as the one in the movie, as well as a desire to keep customers' information protected in regular cars, is ratcheting up the need for the company to hire white hat researchers.
GM launched a new program this summer called Bug Bounty. It took GM years of forming relationships with white hat hackers. GM will now bring those hackers to Detroit and pay them a hefty bounty or cash payment for each “bug” they uncover in any of GM vehicles' computer systems.
Read more:
GM is hiring hackers: Here's why
Car hacking remains a very real threat
Famous car hackers head to GM's self-driving unit
Fiat Chrysler has had a Bug Bounty program in place since 2016. It pays white hat hackers up to $1,500 each time they discover a previously unknown vulnerability in vehicle software.
Last year, GM's self-driving unit, Cruise, hired famous car hackers Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek. The two, dubbed the “Cherokee Brothers” by Trapp and others in the hacking community, gained fame in 2015 when they proved they could remotely stop a Jeep Cherokee.
GM approachGM conducts its cybersecurity using a three-prong approach: It hires third-party companies that employ white hat hackers, it has its own hackers on staff and it has the Bug Bounty program.
GM and Cruise employ 25 to 30 white hat hackers on staff today compared with five to 10 in 2013, said Jeff Massimilla, GM's vice president of Global Cybersecurity. GM has about 450 people dedicated to all other aspects of cybersecurity across the company, he said.
“As we continue to get more connected and into AV, we will want to increase that number of white hat researchers,” said Massimilla.
Massimilla declined to say how much GM is investing to hire cybersecurity personnel, but he said, “It’s an extremely high priority, we’re well funded and well resourced.”
GM relies on its three-prong approach because of the shortage of white hat hackers, he said. Plus, many don't want to work for one company.
“Hacking a Camaro is pretty darn exciting, hacking an autonomous vehicle is pretty darn exciting — but it's tough to attract that talent because they’re just not there or they want to do it through bounty programs where they can work from home and have flexibility,” said Massimilla.
High priceMore than half of employer demand related to connected and self-driving cars is for workers in data management, cybersecurity and information technology, said the 2017 Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAV) Skills Gap Analysis by the Workforce Intelligence Network.
In 2015-16, there were 10,344 total job ads placed for CAV-related employment, and 5,400 of those ads were for jobs in data management and cybersecurity, the report said.
And, as demand rises for such skilled workers, the supply remains flat, thus inflating salaries. The average salary for CAV jobs in 2014-15 was $89,616. In 2015-16 that rose to $94,733, the WIN report said, citing data from Burning Glass Technologies.
There's a gap in demand for cybersecurity personnel, especially white hat hackers, versus the supply cuts across many industries. There also is in health care and insurance, said Bob Zhang, CIO of Strategic Staffing Solutions in Detroit, which works to find contract workers to fill such roles for its clients.
“The supply is really low right now. By 2020, the job gap will be 2 million jobs. That means 2 million unfilled openings in cybersecurity,” Zhang said. “You can’t just teach hacking. It requires a whole lot of knowledge from IT and computer science … you have to be the jack of all trades with a deep interest in systems networking.”
Some organizations offer training courses to verify a hacker as a “certified ethical hacker,” he said.
But most large corporations find it beneficial to hire third parties staffed with white hat hackers for specific projects.
“If I'm an IT manager, do I really want to hand-pick somebody and say, 'I’m going to put all of this multibillion-dollar company in the hands of the people I hire?' Or outsource it to a company that focuses on this type of service? Many do both.”
The gap in cybersecurity job demand versus supply is probably the largest gap in the IT industry's history, Zhang said.
“Once the security world matures and the amount of security providers increase, the demand will even out,” he said.
Creating the next generationSome colleges and universities offer courses in cybersecurity, but expanding that curriculum and recruiting younger people into vocational hacking courses to grow the talent pool can't happen fast enough to meet the soaring demand, said Jennifer Tisdale, director of connected mobility and infrastructure for Grimm.
Grimm is a technology consulting company with a new “car hacking lab” in Sparta, Michigan. It uses white hat researchers for automotive clients as well as other industries.
“We need to hire 20-plus researchers in the next two years,” said Tisdale. “I don't have time to wait for a college to structure a program for cybersecurity.”
College programs might not be the full answer anyway, said Brian Demuth, Grimm's CEO.
“There’s not a degree that should be created to do all of this, but there are things like extended learning that can help,” he said.
Grimm, which has 46 employees scattered across the country, looks for people who have a “fundamental view of computer science” and then trains, teaches and grows them from there, said Demuth.
Demuth, 38, is a hacker himself with a computer science background and a passion for tinkering with cars.
“I was always interested in how things worked. I grew up the son of a Marine, and he was in the intelligence field, so there were always computers and amateur radios around,” said Demuth. “My father was into mechanics and working on vehicles and making them start faster or stop faster. That’s what drove my passion into this.”
The hacker stigmaPart of the difficulty in recruiting hackers lies in the stigma surrounding the pursuit.
Matt Carpenter, 44, is Grimm’s lead researcher dedicated to automotive, aerospace and energy businesses. Carpenter works with four other white hat researchers in Grimm's car hacking lab.
“What I do and my team does is everything that can be done by an attacker,” Carpenter said. “We do this so that we can benefit the community and identify problems before someone with bad motives can do it.”
When asked if he calls himself a hacker, he said, “I like to be called a good guy, but there’s no way to be considered a good guy by everybody and do what I do. There’s a great stigma around being a hacker.”
Many people misunderstand the work white hat hackers do, which Carpenter said is “vital” to secure every car on the road.
“It takes a lot of deep knowledge and deep work,” said Carpenter. “You can’t pull me ..

Wed 11 Apr 2018

Shell to further power progress on the Global Vehicle Trust OX: the inventive flatpack truck
Shell is collaborating with Gordon Murray Design to make this mission happen

Shell has announced that it will commission a pre-production prototype of the world’s first flat-pack truck and it will take this truck to India, which is home to almost 18% of the world’s population1. The ‘OX to India’ mission will showcase the capabilities of the vehicle for bringing low-cost all-terrain mobility to rural communities in developing countries.

The ‘OX to India’ mission is a partnership between Shell and Gordon Murray Design (GMD), working in close alignment with the Global Vehicle Trust (GVT). This represents a crucial development stage of the vehicle, which was officially launched in 2016.

Shell will fund a bespoke prototype OX to take to India and will set up an outreach programme once the vehicle is in India. The vehicle will be re-engineered and built by GMD, and flat-packed for shipment to India in the later part of 2018.

The OX, based on GMD’s flexible iStream® technology, will run exclusively on Shell fluids including Shell Rimula, a hard-working and high-performing diesel engine oil designed to help heavy duty and light duty engines to run efficiently in demanding conditions.

“Shell is eager to play a role alongside others in developing and promoting mobility solutions in developing regions. The OX to India demonstration will see the concept validated and discussed on the ground in a real world setting. We know limited mobility in hard-to-reach communities in developing economies can restrict access to basic services, and can limit the effectiveness of efforts to improve the quality of life. The OX has the potential to broaden access to transport possibilities and all the resulting benefits that come with this,” said Huibert Vigeveno, Executive Vice President, Shell Global Commercial.

The OX is designed to carry a payload of 1,900kg (approximately twice the capacity of most current pickups), which could include everyday necessities, medical supplies, building and agriculture materials. It can seat up to 13 people. The vehicle was envisioned by entrepreneur and philanthropist Sir Torquil Norman and designed by renowned automotive engineer Professor Gordon Murray.

Other innovative features of the OX include:

Lightweight, rugged and durable design to maximise payload for goods and people

Low cost, simple maintenance through accessible components and fewer parts

Designed for self-assembly, supplied fully assembled or flat-packed for easy shipping and local assembly

Sir Torquil Norman, founder of GVT said: “I’m so pleased to welcome Shell aboard the OX project and for sharing GVT's vision that this remarkable and versatile vehicle will provide a transformation in affordable mobility for so many people where the need is most acute. With Shell taking the OX to India we can demonstrate its capability in a key market, which will help attract long-term production partners.”

Professor Gordan Murray, Executive Chairman, GMD said: “After our highly successful co-engineering Shell Concept Car programme with Shell, it is exciting to be once again working with Shell on the next phase of this extremely important and ground-breaking project.The OX is one of our most important engineering designs and it is certainly the vehicle of which I am most proud of, as its disruptive design has the potential to change the current mobility model and with Shell’s vision this vehicle could go on to improve so many people’s lives.”

Recognising the need for sustainable, cleaner and more energy efficient transportation solutions, Shell is collaborating and co-engineering a number of projects. In 2016, Shell partnered with Gordon Murray to coengineer the Shell Concept Car – an ultra-efficient city vehicle that, compared to a typical city car, uses 34% less primary energy over its entire lifetime. Shell is also partnering with AirFlow Truck Company to develop a new hyper-fuel mileage Class 8 truck known as the Starship. Its aerodynamic design will seek to demonstrate improvements in fuel economy for while lowering CO2 emissions.

-End-

ENQUIRIES:
Shell Lubricants Global:
Mary B. Walsh, +32478402938, mary.walsh@shell.com
Yashidha Kumari, +65 6390 7345, y.sevakumar@shell.com

Gordon Murray Design Limited:
Sarah Smith, +44 (0) 1483 484700, sarah.smith@gordonmurraydesign.com

Global Vehicle Trust:
Ed Callow, PFPR Communications, +44 (0)1622 766520, ed.callow@pfpr.com

Notes to Editors:

1Source: United Nations, World Population Prospects: The 2017 Revision

Link to images of OX: https://www.flickr.com/photos/royaldutchshell/albums/72157671223809135

The OX’s revolutionary nature extends beyond the vehicle design because, uniquely, it is capable of being flat-packed within itself, enabling it to be transported more efficiently around the world. It takes three people less than six hours to create the flat pack in the UK prior to shipping, and six of these flat packs can be shipped within a 40ft high-cube container. Assembly labour is transferred to the importing country, where local professional companies will be employed to assemble and maintain the finished vehicles. Three skilled people can put an OX together in approximately 12 hours.

The overall vehicle length is far shorter than a large SUV, and yet it can carry a payload of 1900kg (approximately twice the capacity of most current pick-ups) with a load volume of 9.0 m3. Based on EU size guidelines, it can seat up to 13 people or carry eight 44-gallon drums or three Euro-pallets.Figures are based upon production targets.

For more information visit: http://oxgvt.com/

Royal Dutch Shell plc
Royal Dutch Shell plcis incorporated in England and Wales, has its headquarters in The Hague and is listed on the London, Amsterdam, and New York stock exchanges.Shell companies have operations in more than 70 countries and territories with businesses including oil and gas exploration and production; production and marketing of liquefied natural gas and gas to liquids; manufacturing, marketing and shipping of oil products and chemicals and renewable energy projects. For further information, visit www.shell.com.

About Gordon Murray Design Limited
Gordon Murray Design Limitedis a British company operating from Shalford, Surrey. The Company is recognised as a world leader in automotive design and reverses the current industry trend for sub-contracting by having a complete in-house capability for design, engineering, prototyping and development. The Company is compact and focused and undertakes automotive and other engineering programmes in an efficient and innovative way. For more information please visit www.gordonmurraydesign.com.

The iStream® technology is a complete rethink and redesign of the traditional automotive manufacturing process and could potentially be the biggest revolution in high volume manufacture since the Model T. Development. The process began over 15 years ago and it has already won the prestigious ‘Idea of the Year’ award from Autocar who were given privileged access in order to make their assessment. The simplified assembly process means that the manufacturing plant can be designed to be 20% of the size of a conventional factory. This could reduce capital investment in the assembly plant by approximately 80%. Yet the flexibility of this assembly process means that the same factory could be used to manufacture different variants. The iStream® design process is a complete re-think on high volume materials, as well as the manufacturing process and will lead to a significant reduction in full lifecycle CO2. For more information please visit www.istreamtechnology.co.uk

About the Global Vehicle Trust
In 2010, Sir Torquil Norman founded the Global Vehicle Trust (GVT) to pursue his ambition to help people in the developing world by providing cost-effective mobility for all. The GVT subsequently briefed renowned automotive designer Professor Gordon Murray on a unique humanitarian programme to create a revolutionary lightweight truck. As part of an aid programme, the Global Vehicle Trust OX could provide an essential element of infrastructure to enable the local population to raise the community’s standard of living, and to assert its independence by gaining control of its transportation needs and costs.

Sir Torquil Norman is a former pilot, banker, company executive and toy manufacturing entrepreneur. He is a passionate philanthropist, and is chiefly responsible for the rescue and renovation of The Roundhouse in Camden, north London.

Cautionary note
The companies in which Royal Dutch Shell plc directly and indirectly owns investments are separate legal entities. In this press release “Shell”, “Shell group” and “Royal Dutch Shell” are sometimes used for convenience where references are made to Royal Dutch Shell plc and its subsidiaries in general. Likewise, the words “we”, “us” and “our” are also used to refer to Royal Dutch Shell plc and subsidiaries in general or to those who work for them. These terms are also used where no useful purpose is served by identifying the particular entity or entities. ‘‘Subsidiaries’’, “Shell subsidiaries” and “Shell companies” as used in this press release refer to entities over which Royal Dutch Shell plc either directly or indirectly has control. Entities and unincorporated arrangements over which Shell has joint control are generally referred to as “joint ventures” and “joint operations”, respectively.Entities over which Shell has significant influence but neither control nor joint control are referred to as “associates”. The term “Shell interest” is used for convenience to indicate the direct and/or indirect ownership interest held by Shell in an entity or unincorporated joint arrangement, after exclusion of all third-party interest.

This press release contains forward-looking ..

Wed 18 Jul 2018

SUCCESSFUL BIDDERS IN THE 14TH INTEGRATED DELIVERY PROGRAMME: PROJECT ‘PARADIGM_SHIFT’: ACCELERATING THE TRANSITION TO ZERO EMISSION VEHICLES

Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV) and Innovate UK via the Faraday Battery Challenge (part of the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund) invest a total of £20 million to successful competition winners of the 14th Integrated Delivery Programme. The winning projects will develop low-cost, highly integrated systems to enable zero emission capable journeys for cars, vans and heavy goods vehicles.

Paradigm_Shift is a 16 month project led by Gordon Murray Design (GMD) – an iconic automotive design and engineering company, Delta Motorsport – electrification, hybridisation, and vehicle dynamics specialists, and aiPod – the company that designs city-integrated autonomous mobility systems. The vehicle platform will deliver dramatically lower mass (450 kg), high levels of safety, lower energy, and drive-by-wire capabilities in a small footprint, making zero-emission transport options available more rapidly to the entire population.

Responding to the urgent need for a low-cost, ultra-lightweight vehicle platform, using GMD's iStream superlight® technology suitable for mass-production, the consortium will incorporate a breakthrough level of integrated design and safety performance and ensure the platform is ready for the new era of autonomous driving.

The consortium will design and engineer a ground up small footprint demonstrator vehicle to demonstrate the integrated technology approach that will be available at the end of 2019. The project aim is to deliver a sub 450 kg vehicle to meet M1 levels of safety performance whilst reducing cost and investment to enable development of flexible and affordable electric vehicles. The platform will address traditional driven vehicle requirements alongside the rapidly growing requirement for MAAS autonomous transportation and last mile logistics. The combination of affordable EV in a small footprint offers a solution to the growing emissions, congestion and parking crisis currently experienced in urban environments globally.

Editors Notes

Gordon Murray Design Limited is a British company operating from Shalford, Surrey. The Company is recognised as a world leader in automotive design and reverses the current industry trend for sub-contracting by having a complete in-house capability for design, prototyping and development. The Company is compact and focused and undertakes automotive and other engineering programmes in an efficient and innovative way. For more information please visit www.gordonmurraydesign.com.
Gordon Murray Design’s patented iStream® technology process is a complete rethink and redesign of the traditional automotive manufacturing process and could potentially be the biggest revolution in high volume manufacture since the Model T. Development. The process began over 15 years ago and it has already won the prestigious ‘Idea of the Year’ award from Autocar who were given privileged access in order to make their assessment. The simplified assembly process means that the manufacturing plant can be designed to be 20% of the size of a conventional factory. This could reduce capital investment in the assembly plant by approximately 80%. Yet the flexibility of this assembly process means that the same factory could be used to manufacture different variants. The iStream® design process is a complete re-think on high volume materials, as well as the manufacturing process and will lead to a significant reduction in full lifecycle CO2. For more information please visit www.istreamtechnology.co.uk.

Silverstone-based Delta Motorsport Limited is engineering for the future (www.delta-motorsport.com). Its background is deeply rooted in high-performance engineering, and it has over 10 years of experience developing technologies through innovation and continuous improvement that enable electrification; for passenger cars and beyond. Delta now has three main business streams.
Powertrain integration and development of a novel microturbine range extender, “MiTRE”, that delivers freedom from range anxiety in a small and light-weight package whilst also achieving extremely low emissions (particularly NOx and particulate).
Delta’s battery systems experience spans 48V to 800V, and it has developed a highly flexible, modular approach to battery system manufacture. These systems can be liquid cooled (using Delta’s patented low cost and light-weight approach), air cooled or uncooled, depending on the application.
Delta launched its in-house EV – the Delta E-4 Coupe – in 2011, and since this time it has been developing strategies to control any actuators fitted to the vehicle that deliver the longitudinal and lateral dynamics requirements, such as traction motors, brakes and steering. In PARADIGM_SHIFT, this control will be completely “by wire”, with no input from the occupant.

aiPod designs and builds systems that enable smart cities to manage the impact of rapidly approaching waves of innovation in sensors and computational technologies and their interaction with rapidly evolving mobility-focused business models. aiPod's vision is to build urban mobility traffic control systems for autonomous vehicles that will help cities transition from individually-owned automobiles to Integrated Mobility-as-a-Service enabled by AVs. To learn more about aiPod, please visit www.aipod.com.

For more information please contact:
Sarah Smith, Communications Officer at Gordon Murray Design on +44 (0)1483 484700 or via email at sarah.smith@gordonmurraydesign.com.

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