Happy Thursday! It’s January 18, 2024, and that is The Morning Shift — your each day roundup of the highest automotive headlines from around the globe, multi function place. Here are the necessary tales it’s good to know.
1st Gear: BMW Wants To Compete With Tesla’s Robot, For Some Reason
Remember when Elon Musk promised to construct robotic catgirls that will fill the opening Grimes left in his coronary heart exchange human staff in Tesla factories? Well, for some motive, BMW checked out that plan and determined it was simply too good to not strive — so now BMW is engaged on it too, with a bit of out of doors robotics assist. From Reuters:
Jan 18 (Reuters) – Robotics startup Figure mentioned it has signed a partnership with BMW Manufacturing to deploy its humanoid robots within the automobile maker’s facility within the U.S., as extra corporations flip to human-like robots to tackle sure bodily duties.
This marks the primary industrial deal Figure has signed because it was based in 2022. While the corporate didn’t disclose what number of robots BMW shall be utilizing, the partnership will begin with small portions and broaden if efficiency targets have been met, in keeping with Brett Adcock, chief government at Figure.
Figure’s humanoids shall be deployed in BMW’s (BMWG.DE), opens new tab manufacturing facility in Spartanburg, South Carolina, the biggest automotive exporter within the U.S., which presently workers 11,000 folks. They shall be built-in into the manufacturing processes together with the physique store, sheet steel and warehouse within the subsequent 12-24 months, after being skilled to carry out particular duties.
It stays to be seen whether or not BMW’s robots shall be as submissive and breedable as Tesla’s, however one factor’s for certain: The firm needs these bots to switch human staff. Get thee a union, Spartanburg.
2nd Gear: GM Is Recalling 66 BrightDrop Vans After Fires
Rivian’s Amazon vans are a well-liked sight on New York streets, however there’s one other all-electric supply choice in direct competitors: GM’s BrightDrop Zevo line. After a collection of fires, nevertheless, it appears that evidently latter choice might have a bit of labor earlier than returning to the streets. From the Detroit Free Press:
General Motors is recalling a number of dozen BrightDrop all-electric supply vans after the entrance drive models, referred to as the powertrain, on not less than two of them caught hearth late final 12 months.
In paperwork filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) dated Jan. 11, GM mentioned it’s recalling 66 of the 2022 mannequin 12 months EV600 (which GM now calls the Zevo 600) BrightDrop supply vehicles.
GM mentioned within the NHTSA submitting it’s nonetheless investigating the foundation reason for the issue, which it believes was restricted to its giant EV600 automobiles constructed between Nov. 24, 2021 and May 24, 2022. BrightDrop additionally presents a smaller Zevo 400 supply van.
GM appears to have narrowed the problem all the way down to an oil leak underneath the hood, for which the corporate blames a producing defect in a small variety of vans. So lengthy because it’s not a design flaw, we’ll seemingly see these vans again on the highway quickly sufficient.
third Gear: Automakers Might Have To Keep Spending Money On Their Own Business Expenses :’(
Did you understand that working a enterprise prices cash? Turns on the market are all kinds of prices related to being an organization, from salaries to gear to restocking the Chobani yogurts within the workplace kitchen. Businesses, after all, hate this — they’ll go to any possible size to avoid wasting a number of cents. Automakers are not any exception, and so they’re now lobbying Congress to permit deductions for his or her total analysis and improvement budgets. From Automotive News:
WASHINGTON — Industry teams representing automakers and suppliers are urging Congress to revive a federal tax break that will enable for the “full and immediate” expensing of home R&D investments.
In a letter despatched Wednesday to House and Senate management, 5 commerce associations — the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, American Automotive Policy Council, Autos Drive America, MEMA and the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association — argue it’s vital for Congress to “act as soon as possible” to revive full R&D expensing, which expired in 2021.
Since 2022, corporations have needed to deduct U.S-based R&D prices over a five-year interval, as required underneath a provision within the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which was handed throughout the Trump administration.
The business teams argue the five-year requirement has made R&D “exponentially more costly to conduct in the U.S.” and are urging Congress to go laws that would come with a repair, in keeping with the letter.
OpenAI not too long ago tried an identical protection, that the corporate’s enterprise mannequin would simply be too pricey to succeed if it needed to really pay for all of the copyrighted materials it used. What occurred to the entire “invisible hand of the market,” the place companies whose prices outstrip their income merely flounder and die? Isn’t that what capitalism is all about?
4th Gear: VinFast, Incredibly, Didn’t Meet 2023 Delivery Goals
If you may imagine it, VinFast’s 2023 didn’t go fairly as deliberate. With choices just like the VF8, with its flip alerts that work most of the time, I actually thought the corporate can be an enormous disruptor to the extremely aggressive North American passenger automobile market. Well, there’s all the time subsequent 12 months. From Reuters:
HANOI, Jan 18 (Reuters) – Vietnamese electrical car (EV) maker VinFast on Thursday mentioned it delivered almost 35,000 vehicles in 2023, beneath its goal of not less than 40,000 models, blaming gradual EV adoption in some areas, robust competitors and unsure financial system.
The deliveries within the final three months of 2023, nevertheless, elevated 35% towards the third quarter to 13,513 models, the corporate mentioned.
VinFast, which began to ship its sport utility car (SUV) VF 8 in California final March, earlier this month flagged a plan to arrange manufacturing and battery amenities in India. It additionally goals to broaden in additional markets within the Middle East, Latin America and Asia, together with Indonesia.
To hear that VinFast bought fewer vehicles in 2023 than Toyota bought Rav4s in December alone is an actual shock. You’re telling me customers don’t need dangerous merchandise, when good alternate options exist? I’m shocked. I gotta lie down.
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On The Radio: The Wombats – ‘Moving To New York’
Source: jalopnik.com