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GM’s 2 Lansing assembly plants are scheduled to be up and running next week. GM will be idling their Blazer production at one of their Mexico plants stating continued chip shortages as the culprit.
GM’s CEO Mary Barra is named chair of the Business Roundtable non-profit organization. She replaced Doug McMillon, the President and CEO of Walmart. This group is basically a way for the rich and powerful to join forces to become even more rich and powerful. This group includes leaders of many of the world’s largest companies like JP Morgan Chase, Apple, Dow, Johnson and Johnson, and Cisco Systems just to name a few.
Most auto manufacturers will be releasing their third quarter numbers today or over the next few days. US vehicle sales are expected to drop around 25% in September and global automotive sales are expected to drop 10%-15% for the month. I am still trying to figure out how the US is almost double the loss of the world average and the CEO’s and upper management just can’t stop patting themselves on the back with raises and powerful board positions. At the same time telling customers lead times for vehicles that used to be 6-8 weeks are now 32+ weeks out.
US Automakers are also using their big bucks and powerful friends to try and lobby the federal government to give even larger EV tax credits than the ones they already receive. This seems like blatant crony capitalism in using the government to subsidize the purchase of products giant mega corporations produce to make a profit. Keep in mind that these companies are some of the wealthiest companies in the world more than capable of manufacturing and selling a product without the help of your Federal tax dollars.
Nissan has added a new safety lab to their Michigan engineering center. This $40 million 116,000 sq ft addition will provide Nissan state of the art photography systems as well as more advanced data capture of simulated crashes.
ABB claims it has made the world’s fastest EV charger. This charger claims it can charge 4 vehicles simultaneously, fully charge one vehicle in 15 minutes, and provide 62 miles of range in under 3 minutes. ABB will be releasing this charger in Europe at the end of the year and it is scheduled to be in the US in 2022.
Ford is recalling over 200,000 Ford Explorers, Lincoln Corsair and Lincoln Aviators equipt with 360 degree cameras. This is due to the fact that back up cameras may not correctly display images. So far no injuries have been reported but if you have one of these vehicles make sure you get it in the shop as soon as possible.
GM will be following the cell phone industry by introducing Utilifi, a software platform for their vehicles. Think of it as the vehicles’ operating system, like Android or IOS but for cars. GM is stating their goals are to make your vehicle smarter and more personalized. They plan on doing this with over the air updates and making new features available for download later. I don’t know about you but my favorite part of dealing with operating systems are those great forced updates that break some of your apps and make you have to relearn where your bookmarks have moved to. I can imagine all sorts of issues with this process, like you grab your pregnant wife and rush her to the new GM vehicle because her water just broke. You run to get in the driver seat, pull out your keys and try to start the engine only to be met with a message on the touchscreen, “please wait until to start your vehicle until it has finished downloading the new software update”. Sounds like a nightmare to me.
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