Image: Rivian
Rivian has time, cars no longer legally require a steering wheel or pedals, and BMW just made an acquisition that I personally thought was made years ago. All this and more in The Morning Shift Friday, March 11, 2022.
1st gear: so much goodwill wasted
March hasn’t been kind to the fledgling truck and SUV manufacturer everyone was rooting for. First, Rivian announced a massive price increase on pre-ordered cars of up to 20 percent, forcing customers to pay a lot more if they want to get an R1T or R1S on the promised schedule. The company won back these ups, but this did not save it from a lawsuit by a shareholder, alleging that the company deliberately lowered the price of its products.
Rivian is also doing no better. On Thursday, the company reported a “net loss of $2.46 billion in the fourth quarter, compared to a loss of $354 million a year earlier,” Reuters reported via Automotive News. And on Friday morning, its shares traded 10% cheaper. Again, from Reuters:
Shares of Rivian Automotive Inc tumbled 10% in pre-market trading on Friday after the electric car maker halved its production forecast, pointing to a struggle with rising commodity prices and supply chain restrictions.
The prices of lithium and nickel, the main materials used in electric vehicle batteries, have skyrocketed due to Western sanctions against Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.
This, in turn, exacerbated the supply chain disruptions that have plagued the industry since the pandemic began.
As much as Rivian has suffered, it’s somewhat disingenuous to attribute all of its problems to the supply chain. Everyone deals with it, and at the moment it’s more a question of how to deal with these blows in a way that is fair and transparent to customers. A five-figure price hike for reservation holders is pretty much the opposite of that, and it’s reflected in the company’s share price. Rivian is now trading for less than half the price of its initial public offering in November, Reuters notes. It fell to an all-time low of $36.30 on Friday.
2nd Gear: Cuts Continue for Toyota
Toyota plans to produce a record 11 million vehicles worldwide in 2022 if it can stick to its schedule. It’s been three months of the year and the world’s largest automaker has already had to cut back on that plan somewhat. On Friday, the company announced a number of domestic production cuts in April, May and June. From Reuters:
Toyota plans to cut domestic production by about 20% in April, about 10% in May and about 5% in June, compared to an earlier production plan, according to a spokesperson. Production will continue to be high, the spokesman said, as the previous plan took into account the need to make up for lost production.
The automaker’s suppliers have been forced to make a number of changes to production plans due to woodchip shortages, and the production cuts should take some of the burden off them, a spokesman said, declining to comment on the number of vehicles involved or the financial impact.
Toyota President Akio Toyoda told union members this week that without a well-thought-out production plan, suppliers risk “exhaustion” and that there will be a “deliberate chill” period from April to June.
Of course, you can guess why this is happening, but of course there is now a new complicating factor to consider: the ongoing crisis in Ukraine. In addition, in February, Toyota was forced to abandon the production of 13,000 vehicles in Japan due to a cyberattack on one of its suppliers. Wonder what will happen next week.
3rd gear: cars without control
The GM Cruise division is currently testing self-driving taxis on city streets. These cars don’t have drivers, so they don’t need human-operated controls like a steering wheel and pedals. This is the reason the automaker recently asked the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for an exemption for automated vehicles, so they are not required to have this data. Via Reuters:
Automakers and tech companies have faced significant hurdles in deploying automated driving system (ADS) vehicles without human oversight due to safety standards written decades ago that assume humans are in control.
Last month, General Motors Co and its autonomous driving technology arm Cruise applied to the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) for permission to build and deploy a self-driving car without human control, such as a steering wheel or brake pedals.
The rules are revising rules that suggest that cars “will always have a driver’s seat, steering wheel and associated steering column, or only one front outboard passenger seat.”
“For vehicles designed to drive exclusively ADS, manual driving control is logically unnecessary,” the agency said in a statement.
Depending on how you look at it, this is an important milestone. It is now legally mandated that some vehicles do not need conventional controls. You could see this as a big step towards the future of self-driving that we’ve been promised for so long, or you could just see it as just getting GM’s approval to lower the production costs of its robot taxis. I’d lean more towards a second reading, but nonetheless: it’s still an important moment in automotive history.
4th Gear: BMW buys a company you probably thought it already owns
This company is none other than Alpina – or better to say ALPINA, given the way it is framed in all of the company’s marketing materials. Alpina has been tuning the German luxury car manufacturer’s products for decades, but not in the track-focused, performance-obsessed tradition that so many do. Sometimes BMW Alpina’s are less powerful than their source material, which is odd. The company is also obsessed with replacing the paddle shifters with nipples behind the steering wheel.
Personally, I never understood the love, but BMW clearly thought the Alpina was worth blocking for an undisclosed amount. From the press release:
The company, owned by the Bovensiepen family, will continue to use its engineering expertise in the development, production and sale of BMW ALPINA vehicles through the existing cooperation until the end of 2025. engine and transmission, as well as chassis, aerodynamics and interior equipment. BMW ALPINA vehicles are pre-assembled on BMW production lines and the final assembly of the vehicles takes place in the workshops in Bukhloe, including individual interiors made to customer specifications.
After 2025 things will really start to change for Alpina. It will stop assembly at its current headquarters in Buchloe, near Munich, and move production to BMW.
The sale of BMW trademark rights and the subsequent termination of the current ALPINA vehicle program at the end of 2025 will impact existing jobs at the Bukhlo plant. BMW will support ALPINA with the necessary workforce adjustments at the Bukhloi plant in the coming years. Until the end of 2025, BMW will work with ALPINA to offer those employees who will not be able to continue working at the Bukhloi plant a new position in the BMW Group, as well as help them find new jobs with suppliers and development partners.
And here are many more weird fast BMWs in the coming years.
5th Gear: Panda is safe – for now
There are few cars more expensive than the humble, honest Fiat Panda. Its immediate future has been secured until 2026, according to another Reuters report that confirms it will be produced alongside the Alfa Romeo Toena – sorry, Tonale.
Stellantis will produce its best-selling Fiat Panda subcompact car at its Pomigliano plant in southern Italy until 2026, metalworkers’ unions said Thursday after the automaker met with workers’ representatives.
The Panda production in Pomigliano, for which the group has never given an end date, will add to the production of the new Alfa Romeo Tonale SUV, which is about to begin production at the plant.
Subcompact electric cars are very difficult to make affordable, so I hope the Panda lasts as long as it can. Because once the Stellantis becomes a full electric vehicle, the Panda could be something very different – and very expensive – from the efficient and practical multifunctional vehicle it has been for decades. That is, if he lives at all.
Reverse: This is “Wagon Time”.
The Renault Avantime, a B-pillar-less minivan with futuristic styling and arguably the most French car produced by the French automaker in the past 20 years, is said to have made its first appearance at the Geneva Motor Show on this day in 1999. — Late colleague Jason Torchinsky rode one not too long ago and recorded this cool experience for your enjoyment.
Neutral: twitch
Jalopnik now has Twitch in case you didn’t already know, and yesterday Steve DaSilva and I chatted a lot while he played Gran Turismo 7. It was a fun time and we plan to do it every Thursday at 4pm ET . . I love racing and so I would like to ask the players in the chat what would you like us to play. And let me be very clear about this: nothing is being discussed. I want to become weird and esoteric. Serviceable Sega Saturn racers like the F1 Challenge. Driving emotion type S. This abomination. Of course, we will play new things too, but I want to stream games that no one else streams. Let me know if you have any suggestions in the comments.