General Motors says it’s great with LG, no, really. In addition, some new F-150s have problems with seat belts and Daimler has won today “who cuts production?” roulette. All this and more in this Friday’s edition of The morning shift for August 27, 2021.
1st Gear: GM promises not to leave LG
GM tried to fix the Chevrolet Bolt’s battery issues with software, and that didn’t work. It is now remembering them all for battery replacement, a move that will cost himself and / or LG a total of $ 1.8 billion. It’s the kind of thing that it can strain a working relationship, although GM Barra Barra is firm that the two companies remain partners. Partly because GM doesn’t really do that need LG, actually! From Bloomberg:
“With our joint venture with LG, which is a valuable partner, we will be able to combine their experience with our expertise, so I have a lot of confidence in our Ultium platform,” Barra said. At the same time, he stressed that the carmaker is not related to the chemistry or design of a battery in future models.
“We have several avenues with battery technology to make sure we have a leading position,” Barra said. “The flexibility designed on the Ultium platform allows for the introduction of many different chemicals.”
Barra highlighted GM’s work with SES, a start-up of the battery centered on lithium metal cells, and the car’s own internal battery research lab. The company is also building a battery manufacturing lab.
Part of me believes that LG’s manufacturing mistakes could have fallen just as easily at another vendor and that these missteps will become increasingly common in the industry as electric vehicle production increases. Another part of me can’t shake the fact that this is LG, and LG was at the center of a very similar problem regarding Hyundai’s Kona Electric. In this case, the battery supplier according to reports, it would account for 70 percent of the estimated costs of $ 900 million relating to withdrawal.
The Barra mantra that Ultium has been designed to cover LG’s problems seems a bit suspicious. Any LG customer can get the same cells that GM will use for Ultium, Car and driver he pointed out. The suggestion that GM has “multiple paths” to success is also vague; maybe it’s a good way to say the company is thinking a lot about diversifying its suppliers.
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2nd gear: Ford asks F-150 2021 owners to check their seat belts
Ford recalls 16,140 F-150 2021 SuberCabs manufactured between January 2 and May 27 this year due to a possible defect in the front seat belts. The National Administration of Road Traffic Safety report fixes the problem to the strap belt by having it routed “only through the rubber lining sleeve” instead of doing it correctly through the anchor.
The defect can cause inappropriate stresses in the event of a shock or sudden stop. Ford says it is not yet aware of this problem causing injuries and will send instructions to owners on how to determine if their truck is one of the affected vehicles. From Automotive news:
Vehicle owners will be notified from September 27th. The notification will include instructions on how to check that the seat belts are not mounted incorrectly on the side of both the driver and the passenger of the vehicle.
Dealers will also inspect the seat belts to make sure they are properly routed through the metal eye of the anchor and anchored to the pretensioner assembly, NHTSA said. If the inspection fails, the dealer will replace the affected parts.
The belt assembly of the F-150 SuperCab is manufactured by a company called Joyson. It’s not the first time in recent months that Joyson’s belts have been scrutinized. In June discovered falsified test data coming from factories he acquired from Takata. That Takata. He always returns to Takata.
3rd March: GM is wetting vaccine requirements, too
GM has been collecting data on the vaccination status of its employees from people who voluntarily choose to share it. The company will now require its employees to disclose this information, Free Detroit Press reports.
“In an effort to improve our data collection, we took the first step with our U.S. employees to establish a mandatory reporting process,” [GM spokeswoman Maria] Raynal said. “We will maintain the voluntary vaccine status report and encourage our employees every hour to continue reporting to the voluntary system.”
GM sent the “online confidential reporting tool” to employees earlier this month and demanded that they respond by Monday. GM demanded that employees who said they were fully vaccinated submit evidence of their condition. The story was first published in the Wall Street Journal.
GM also still considers a mandatory vaccination requirement, like Ford. However, he cannot force the problem for hourly staff without first negotiating with United Auto Workers.
If GM or another carmaker wanted to require vaccination for the workforce, it would be subject to negotiation with the union, [UAW President Ray] Curry said.
“We haven’t had any employers contact us to have a mandatory vaccination process,” Curry said. “We would be willing to sit down with the respective traders and business people in each place to have this discussion, but we have not committed any mandate … all of our discussions have been around voluntary vaccinations.”
It’s interesting to hear car manufacturers say publicly that they weigh all options and consider the need to vaccinate their employees, just to hear the union president say, “Well, no one has raised it. We“A little makes you wonder how much of this is just a posture.
4th Gear: Daimler, Step Right Up
Every day, another carmaker stops production or extends breaks. Today, this carmaker is Daimler. From Automotive news:
Daimler will stop production next week at its German factories in Bremen and Rastatt and in Kecskemet, Hungary, the German News Agency (dpa) reported on Friday.
Production will be reduced at the car factory in Sindelfingen, Germany.
The Bremen plant has more than 12,000 people, some 6,500 in Rastatt, some 4,700 in Kecskemet and 25,000 in Sindelfingen.
The Class C and SUV GLC are built in Bremen, the Class B in Kecskemet and the Class A in Rastatt. Sindelfingen produces the S-Class sedan, the E-class and the all-electric EQS sedan.
Production at all four locations had been the subject of repeated shutdowns in recent months due to problems with the supply of electronic chips.
This will never end.
5th Gear: Zeeking Alpha
Geely owns many brands. Many of them are young and two of them, Lynk & Co. and Zeekr, have recently emerged just to sell electric vehicles. Their cars look the same, too, but supposedly the Zeekr versions are a little nicer. Anyway, Zeekr has just raised $ 500 million from a group that includes Intel and CATL. From Reuters:
Zeekr said investors would jointly hold a 5.6% stake in the company, valuing it at about $ 9 billion.
The company manufactures the Zeekr 001 model in the eastern city of Ningbo and is expected to start delivering it later this year. Its goal is to sell 650,000 vehicles a year by 2025.
Investors also included Cathy Fortune Corporation, which invests in mining companies, and private equity firm Boyu Capital, which also signed long-term investment partnerships with Zeekr, the manufacturer said in a statement.
The Zeekr 001 went into production last April and is reportedly on its way to debuting in Europe next year. Part of me wonders if several Geely brands offering similar products will confuse consumers. Once again, we all endured the brazen engineering of the Big Three insignia for decades and never touched any eyes.
Reverse: means “aerodynamics” and also “technology”
On August 27, 1987, Ed Welburn was designed Oldsmobile Aerotech set a closed-end speed record of 257,123 MPH. The guy behind the wheel was none other than AJ Foyt. Foyt recorded an even faster race a day earlier at 267.88 MPH, but was in a long-tail chassis in two races in either direction of the flight mile. That was 34 years ago; I would have already expected modern cars to look more like the Aerotech. Sigh.
Neutral: Freaking Out
This week I got a speeding ticket on a long trip around an event. It’s the third one I’ve had in 11 years of driving. Still, getting one today stresses me out, mostly because they’re always more expensive than I expected and can have pretty serious consequences even if (I think) the transgression wasn’t. all so blatant. It sounds ridiculous, but it has legitimately depressed me for the last half of the week. Does anyone else have low quality panic about these things? How can it be dealt with?