Auto File-Tesla’s troubled robotaxi dreams

Exide Industries

09/04/2024 16:00

April 9 - 
  
Joe White
Global Autos Correspondent

Greetings from the Motor City! 
 
I spent roughly six hours yesterday making a drive to Northern
Ohio that should have taken half that time. It made me wonder
about the future of automated driving as envisioned by Elon
Musk. 
 
On the plus side, I saw the total eclipse of the Sun, which
lived up to the hype.  
 
On the less good side, I saw parts of Ohio and Michigan I had
never visited, and ideally never will again. The AI route mapper
in my phone sent me through subdivisions and then out into the
swampy farm country west of Lake Erie as it hunted
(unsuccessfully) for faster paths around the multi-mile traffic
jam on the freeway between Toledo and home.  
 
While traveling at zero miles per hour with my fellow eclipse
hunters, I wondered how would the electric robotaxi Elon Musk
promised to unveil in August have handled this trip?  
 
The 150-mile distance is within the range of a Tesla. Check. But
could my automated car have managed the meandering route –
including stretches well off main highways – forced by the
insane eclipse traffic?  
 
What about the last-minute decision to visit a Lake Erie beach –
not programmed into the trip at the start? How would I have
ordered that up – since I didn’t start out knowing where to go? 
 
Would my robotaxi have understood if my traveling companion
suddenly jumped out of the car to walk a dog next to a line of
traffic? A passenger in the Lexus SUV stuck behind me did that.
(She and the dog had no trouble keeping up with the car.) 
 
If we had seen a coffee shop on the drive, we would have pulled
in – another unprogrammed stop. But I wouldn’t pre-program my
car to stop at Starbucks – the easy robotaxi option. I never
liked their coffee.  
 
Our journey ended safe and sound.  Where the race to automate
road trips of the future will wind up is just one of the
subjects for today’s review of the news from the World of
Cars.  
 
Don’t forget your special glasses! Here we go - 
  
Today -  
 
    *         Tesla settles an automated driving lawsuit 
    * China EV sales shift to a lower gear 
    *         Ferrari’s careful battery play 

 
Tesla’s robotaxis race Chinese rivals  
    Tesla avoided a trial this week that could have exposed more
of the internal debate about its automated driving systems. The
company did not release terms of its settlement with the family
of Apple engineer Walter Huang, who drove his Tesla into a
highway barrier while on Autopilot. 
 
The settlement’s timing is the key. With Tesla sales and share
price declining, Elon Musk is now trying to redirect attention
to an event on Aug. 8 when he promises to reveal a new
generation of Tesla vehicles that will be fully automated, for
real.  
 
Tesla’s current “Full Self Driving” technology is not a fully
automated driving system. It requires drivers to pay attention
and be ready to re-take control. Regulators continue to
investigate whether the system’s design is safe.  
 
Musk’s decision to park an affordable EV project and hit the gas
on robotaxis comes as rivals in China are gearing up to mass
produce automated vehicles by next year.  
 
U.S. robotaxi ventures such as Cruise have been slowed by
safety, regulatory and funding setbacks. In China, would-be
automated vehicle producers are charging ahead, backed by the
government. They are hoovering up powerful chips and software
from Nvidia and Chinese tech giants.  
 
    BYD and other Chinese EV makers are no longer just pursuing
a price war to take electric car market share. They are
challenging Tesla for pre-eminence in a world where a lot of
transport may be delivered as a service, powered by AI.  
 
Essential Reading 
    * China’s coal imports rise along with EV sales 
    * A court says CO2 footdragging violates human rights 
    * Elon Musk says AI will soon be smarter than he is 

 
China’s EV market flirts with single-digit growth 
    Electric vehicle sales in China rose by 10.5% in March,
capping off the slowest quarterly growth in Chinese EV sales in
a year. 
 
The positive take: EV sales are still growing at roughly twice
the pace of the overall Chinese market in a challenging
macro-economic environment. 
 
The bear take: Chinese EV sales are edging toward a single-digit
growth pace despite government stimulus efforts and aggressive
price cutting and sales promotions from the leading names in the
sector – BYD and Tesla. 
 
The lackluster EV sales report coincided with a visit to Europe
by China’s commerce minister, Wang Wentao, whose talking points
included assurances that Western governments had no basis for
fears that Chinese EV makers planned to dump the EVs they cannot
sell at home into overseas markets. 
 
Ferrari wants to be a smart battery buyer 
Ferrari, with sales of 14,000 vehicles a year, has no hope of
getting a volume discount on EV batteries or becoming a viable
battery maker. 
 
But CEO Benedetto Vigna is investing in making Ferrari a better
informed customer for battery producers. A research center
backed by Ferrari and chipmaker NXP at Italy’s Bologna
University is part of that effort. 
 
Other automakers have made similar investments as a defense
against battery producers selling them what Vigna called “black
boxes” – batteries with chemistry and costs the automaker does
not understand. Automakers, like geopolitical adversaries, want
to “trust, but verify.”  
 
Fast Laps 
Lucid outperformed Tesla on Tuesday by reporting Q1 deliveries
that exceeded expectations. The outperformance was off a very
low base. Analysts expected Lucid to deliver 1,745 vehicles
during the quarter. With the help of price cuts, Lucid actually
handed over 1,967 of its premium sedans. Whether that resulted
in a narrower loss will be revealed on May 6.  
 
Toyota is putting its scandal-rocked Daihatsu mini-car affiliate
on a shorter leash, the better to avoid more reputation-denting
revelations from an operation that contributes little to the
overall bottom line. 
 
Hyundai-Kia will work with India’s Exide to produce lithium-iron
EV batteries in India. Hyundai has outlined a $2.4 billion plan
to expand EV sales in the world’s most-populous nation. 
 
Volkswagen’s CEO said the German automaker cannot keep up in the
Chinese EV market, and will avoid setting “utopian goals” for
its share of the world’s largest market. VW, once a leader in
China, has lost roughly 1 million vehicles per year in sales in
China since 2019 and is looking at deep cost cuts in its Chinese
ventures.  
 
U.S. regulators fined South Korean battery maker SK On for
worker safety violations at a U.S. battery plant in Georgia that
supplies Ford and Volkswagen. Worker safety is a top issue for
United Auto Workers organizers trying to convince U.S. battery
plant workers to join the union. 

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 (Editing by Mark Potter)