Busy times at Uber this August. The ride-hail firm has been in the automotive news again this week. The previous week, a deal was done with GM’s Cruise to deploy Cruise AVs on the platform from next year. This week, it was announced it is partnering with tech firm Wayve to get that firm’s AI-based autonomous/ADAS tech into vehicles that it wants to eventually put on the Uber platform.
Autonomous drive tech news has definitely picked up lately and there’s a sense that after being on the backburner for a while (electrification a big priority for R&D and new product budgets), automated drive tech is now getting some greater industry/market momentum.
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Over in China, Inceptio Technology has announced it has completed a delivery of 400 Inceptio-powered autonomous heavy-duty trucks to ZTO Express Inc, an express delivery company. The firm claims this milestone marks the largest single delivery of intelligent heavy-duty trucks globally. The trucks, jointly developed with Dongfeng Commercial Vehicle Co., Ltd. are pre-loaded with Inceptio’s Autonomous Driving System.
When it comes to brands and where they reside after M&A activity, the auto industry has quite a bit of form in moving brands around, the creation of new corporate parents and also some hiving off and divesting. It’s a long and fascinating history. Which brings us to one of the more recently created corporate behemoths: Stellantis.
Tip for a (kinda) fun game: name the brands for different OEM groups. Stellantis is one of the more challenging ones. There are no fewer than fourteen: Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Citroën, Dodge, DS, Fiat, Jeep, Lancia, Maserati, Opel, Peugeot, Ram Trucks and Vauxhall.
We have just completed a series of three articles looking at Stellantis future product across the group’s brands – with a couple of very close relations added in.
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By GlobalDataStellantis future models 2024-34: Part 1 Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Citroën, Dodge, DS, Ferrari (technically now not Stellantis, but we’ve added it in).
Stellantis future models 2024-34: Part 2 Fiat, Jeep, Lancia, Leapmotor – a China JV – and Maserati
Stellantis future models 2024-34: Part 3 Opel-Vauxhall, Peugeot and Ram
The big OEMs – such as Stellantis – are frequently courted by national and regional governments eager to attract future investment. After witnessing what many see as the gradual decline of national champion Fiat in Italy – at least in terms of simple industrial metrics such as vehicle production – Rome seems to have finally lost patience with Stellantis over its industrial strategy.
This week also saw Canada follow the US lead with 100% tariffs on China BEVs. Ongoing tensions between the US and China over trade and tech are never far from making the news. Some lawmakers in the US want Chinese battery giant CATL to be put on a restricted list.
In Europe, XPeng is considering a manufacturing plant in order to avoid EU import tariffs. In China, it has just launched its first budget mass-market model, the M03, under its new Mona brand name (perhaps not the best brand name if it eventually makes its way to English-speaking markets). Another Chinese OEM with a new sub-brand is Chery. OMODA (sounds a bit like armada) has just launched in London with the OMODA 5. One thing about the UK car market is that it is not dominated by a few players who effectively call the shots (like some other big markets in Europe); it is highly fragmented and ‘free’ which makes it potentially a very good place for new entrants to build sales if they can present the right product proposition. OMODA seems to have got its retail network ducks in a row without too much difficulty.
General Motors has had a brainwave with its BrightDrop electric vans in the US. Why not roll them in to Chevrolet to extend the sales reach? It will be interesting to see what the dealer reaction is though. BrightDrop certainly hasn’t set the US commercial vehicle market alight with sales thus far.
In other news this week, there’s a new Smart car and UK car production looks set to languish well under its 2019 high water mark of 1.3m units. It was down 14.4% in July. The UK Gov ‘Zero Emissions Mandate’ – which sets EV share targets at 22% for this year – is going to get a few OEM execs hot under the collar over the coming months as they realise sales are falling well short. My guess is that it will have to be tweaked to avoid some very heavy fines.
Back to Stellantis. An announcement from Citroën caught my eye this week. For all the talk of AI and how it is impacting things, this description – with some great illustrative examples – of how ChatGPT enhances the onboard digital assistant is one of the best I have seen. Potentially (if the voice recognition is as good as claimed), there could be plenty of fun to be had on long journeys.
Citroën offers ChatGPT on range of models
Have a nice weekend.
Dave Leggett, Editor, Just Auto
