According to foreign media reports, Honda said that due to transportation delays, the company may face a shortage of parts, which will cause its British factory to temporarily suspend production. Honda's British factory is responsible for producing Civic models.

(Source: Honda)

The company said in a statement: "Although the company is taking some measures to ease the supply interruption, it may still temporarily stop production and wait for the supply problem to be solved. The company is currently monitoring the situation with a view to resuming production as soon as possible. "

At present, the company is studying other possibilities, such as air transportation of parts, but the production of its British factory may come to a standstill as early as 65438+February 9. Honda has informed its employees that there are ship delays and congestion in British ports.

In recent weeks, the congestion in British container ports has been increasing, initially in Felixstowe, but recently in Southampton and London? Gateway) has also had this situation.

A Honda spokesman did not immediately say whether the problem was related to Britain's withdrawal from the European Union. Up to now, the negotiations between Britain and the European Union aimed at reaching a free trade agreement before the end of the year have not been successful. Many companies have warned that if Britain leaves the European Union without reaching an agreement, they will face serious business interruption risks. In addition, even if an agreement is reached before the end of the transition period at the end of this year, transportation between Britain and continental Europe may still face interference.

Honda's British factory is located in Swindon, about 80 miles east of London (about 128 km). Last year, this factory produced less than 1 10000 cars. As part of its global restructuring plan, Honda will permanently close the factory next year. (Source: Geshi Automobile? Nebula)

2. Guangzhou Automobile Group signed a cooperation agreement with Baidu? Force automatic driving field

Recently, Guangzhou Automobile Group signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement with Baidu. According to the agreement, the two sides will jointly develop related technologies and industries such as intelligent driving, intelligent car association and digital marketing through effective cooperation methods such as complementary resources and technologies, and provide comprehensive, systematic and reliable solutions for the fields of automatic driving and mobile travel, intelligent network connection and intelligent transportation.

In fact, Guangzhou Automobile Group has been laying out the field of autonomous driving in recent years. As early as 20 14, the Engineering Research Institute of Guangzhou Automobile Group signed a contract with the Institute of Advanced Manufacturing Technology of Hefei Institute of Material Science of China Academy of Sciences for the development of autonomous driving technology for new energy vehicles, and the two sides cooperated in autonomous driving technology; On 20 18, Guangzhou Automobile Group signed cooperation with Ma Xiao Zhixing to cooperate in autonomous driving, capital and mobile travel. Previously, Guangzhou Automobile Group also indicated that it would launch L3-class advanced assisted driving cars in mass production to the market in 20 19.

Not long ago, Bosch established a partnership with Guangzhou Automobile Group to develop an automatic parking service system for the China market. According to the cooperation agreement, Bosch will build an automatic parking service system and supporting software and hardware infrastructure for Guangzhou Automobile Research Institute to conduct pilot tests in the parking lot of Guangzhou Automobile Research Institute.

Feng Xingya, general manager of Guangzhou Automobile Group, said at the 3rd Global Smart Car Frontier Summit that Guangzhou Automobile Group will dig deep into software, optimize the core technology route planning of smart cars, and strive to realize the demonstration operation of L4 autonomous driving area in 2023.

Image source: Guangzhou Automobile Group official website

In addition, Guangzhou Automobile Group previously announced the implementation of its own brand "Gemini" plan. According to the plan, Guangzhou Automobile Group's own brand will be fully electrified in 2025, and L3 autopilot will be widely used in 2023. In 2024, a brand-new electronic and electrical architecture will be launched, and L4 will be mass-produced. In 2025, L4 intelligent driving will be commercialized in specific scenarios. (Source: Geshi Automobile? Fu Kui)

3. Toyota released a new generation of fuel cell vehicles? Mirai's cruising range increased by 30%

Gaishi Automobile 65438+On February 9th, the Mirai hydrogen fuel cell vehicle modified by Toyota Motor Corporation was officially put on the market, and the current cruising range increased by about 30%. At a time when the demand for electric vehicles, including Toyota, is growing, Toyota's move is the latest measure to promote zero-emission vehicle technology.

Toyota said in a statement, "The new Mirai will be a new starting point for creating a future hydrogen fuel society." After deducting subsidies, the price of Mirai is about 5 million yen (US$ 48,000), which is roughly the same as that of the previous generation.

(Source: Toyota Motor)

So far, Toyota has failed to win the favor of consumers for fuel cell vehicles. Despite the support of the Japanese government, fuel cell vehicles are still a niche technology, because people are worried about the lack of infrastructure of hydrogen refueling stations, the depreciation of resale value and the risk of hydrogen explosion.

By the end of September, Toyota's first-generation Mirai only sold 1 1, 100, and this model has been launched for nearly six years. Most other automobile manufacturers avoid using fuel cell vehicles and develop electric vehicles instead. According to the data of the International Energy Agency, in 20 19, automobile manufacturers sold about 265,438+million electric vehicles, an increase of 40% over the previous year.

Toyota had planned to display its fuel cell technology on the platform of the postponed 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, and used 65,438+000 buses to send tourists indirectly in the venue. Toyota has also set its sights on China, the world's largest auto market. At present, there are more than 4 million electric vehicles in China, but there are only 7,000 fuel cell vehicles.

The new measures announced by the Japanese government in September to support fuel cell vehicles include increasing the number of hydrogen refueling stations through the use of government subsidies and efforts to reduce fuel prices. June 5438+this year 10, Japanese Prime Minister Jane? Suga Yoshihide announced that it plans to achieve zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. (Source: Geshi Automobile? Zhan yazhen)

4. BMW and Amazon cooperate to build a data center? 5000 software engineers will be trained.

Gaishi Automobile 65438+On February 8th, BMW Group announced that it would cooperate with Amazon's cloud computing department to build a data center, which indicates that more and more enterprises use "big data" to improve efficiency.

(Source: BMW)

Kay, vice president of data conversion of BMW Group? Demtroder said: "We want to change from intuition-driven decision-making to data-driven decision-making."

Alexander, Chief Information Officer and Senior Vice President of BMW Group? Buresch said: "BMW Group is promoting digitalization and innovation in the automotive industry. We take data as the center of our work. We look forward to working with AWS to pool our talents, continue to improve the innovation standards of automakers, and provide exciting new experiences for customers around the world. "

BMW and AWS have been working together since 20 15 and have been developing BMW data center for the past year and a half. As part of extensive cooperation, BMW Group will hand over the data of business and operation departments in hundreds of countries to AWS. This move will cover BMW's core IT system and various functional databases (such as sales, production and maintenance), which will help improve the flexibility of the Group, realize new understanding from data analysis and innovate the user experience faster.

BMW 5 Series (Source: BMW)

The data center will use artificial intelligence and machine learning technology to predict consumers' demand for BMW cars, so the company can order the correct parts from suppliers, meet the requirements of different markets, and automatically verify the corresponding requirements to design new cars. In addition, the group will train 5,000 software engineers to learn to use the most advanced AWS technology and give full play to the role of data.

Demtroder said that when the epidemic affected car production in spring, BMW's "cloud data center" proved its value. At that time, the data of Amazon Web Service System (AWS) enabled BMW to know which supplier factory had problems. "This is a typical case," he said. "We have all the data and can use them to respond to the crisis immediately."

MarketsandMarkets, a market research company, said that by 2025, the global cloud storage service market is expected to rise from the current $5 billion/kloc-0 billion to $0.373 billion.

Last week, Canadian technical experts Blackberry and AWS said that they had jointly developed a software platform based on cloud services to help automakers and suppliers standardize automobile data. (Source: Geshi Automobile? Gu Jiaojiao)

5. Does Apple's self-driving car department change coaches? The head of AI took over.

According to foreign media reports, Apple has handed over the leadership of the self-driving car department to JohnGiannandrea, the head of artificial intelligence, who will be responsible for leading Apple to continue to develop an autonomous driving system, which may eventually be used in Apple's own cars.

(Source: Apple)

Apple's autopilot development project is called Titan, and the daily manager is Doug? According to informed sources, hundreds of engineers in Field have moved to Giannandrea's artificial intelligence and machine learning group. An Apple spokesperson declined to comment.

Giannandrea joined Apple on 20 18 as vice president of artificial intelligence strategy and machine learning. Later that year, he was promoted to senior vice president. Before joining Apple, he was responsible for leading Google's machine learning and search team. At Apple, in addition to automotive projects, he is also responsible for Siri and machine learning technology in Apple products.

Previously, Field reported to Bob, Apple's former senior vice president of hardware engineering. Mansfield. At present, Mansfield has completely retired from Apple, so Giannandrea will take over the job. Mansfield retired from Apple in 20 12, but less than a year later, he returned as a senior vice president in charge of chip technology. In 20 13, Mansfield resigned from this position, but continued to serve as a part-time consultant for Apple.

In 20 14, apple began to develop self-driving cars to counter Tesla and other manufacturers, but the company changed its goal in 20 16. Bloomberg reported that the project encountered challenges in direction, leadership and technology at that time, so Apple invited Mansfield to lead the project. Under Mansfield's leadership, Apple changed its direction, from vehicle development to the development of the underlying autopilot system.

20 17 years, Apple CEO Tim Cook (Tim? Cook) said that the autonomous driving system is "the mother of all artificial intelligence projects" and "is a very important core technology in our eyes". He also described it as "probably one of the most difficult artificial intelligence projects".

After that, Apple laid off employees in the project, but the development work continued. According to sources, Apple has considered a variety of possibilities before, including building its own car, building an automatic driving system for automobile manufacturing partners, or designing an after-sales kit that can be used with a variety of models. (Source: Geshi Automobile? Nebula)

6. The public will discuss many appointments to the management committee.

According to foreign media reports,1February 8, two sources revealed that the Volkswagen Supervisory Board will discuss the reorganization of the Group Management Committee on February 81February. The group is seeking to quell a leadership crisis.

(Source: Volkswagen)

This month, HerbertDiess, CEO of audi ag, called for a vote of confidence in its reform efforts, and asked shareholders to support the company's contract renewal and his proposal to appoint a management committee.

People familiar with the matter said that members of the board of supervisors wanted to avoid discussing the renewal of Diss' contract in advance, but the main directors had agreed to discuss Diss' management appointment proposal. The source said: "We have a blueprint for personnel appointment, and the company's board of supervisors will hold consultations on this." Volkswagen declined to comment.

According to sources, Diss tried to appoint Arnold? Antlitz is the chief financial officer, replacing Frank who will retire in June. Wit; ThomasSchmall was hired as a member of the management committee to take charge of spare parts to replace Stefan? Summer.

The second source said that in the latest meeting, the directors will discuss splitting Sommer's procurement and parts responsibilities and handing over the procurement business to Murat? Axel. Separating the responsibilities of purchasing and parts business may make senior executives support the decision of restructuring the management committee at the meeting of 12+08. The Volkswagen Group may also set up a new board position in the fields of information technology and software. He said: "We are cautiously optimistic that we will discuss a wide range of proposals."

These appointments have been postponed in the past because labor leaders, who occupy half of the seats on Volkswagen's board of directors, insist on adopting a "package solution." (Source: Geshi Automobile? Gu Jiaojiao)

7. Has Ineos completed the acquisition of Daimler's factory? Land Rover Defender will be produced in France.

18 On February 8th, Daimler announced that it had signed an agreement with British petrochemical giant Ineos to sell its factory in Hambach, which will produce a four-wheel drive off-road vehicle Grenadier by the end of 200218.

Hambach Factory (Source: Daimler)

The two companies haven't announced the specific terms, but Daimler will finalize the contract with Ineos, and by 2024, the electric mini-car Smart will be produced in the Hambach factory. Parts of ForTwo and Mercedes-Benz models. According to the agreement, the factory will only retain more than 65,438+0,300 jobs. At present, about 800 employees are engaged in automobile production, and another 800 employees work for suppliers or in other auxiliary positions.

In a statement, Ineos said: "The production of the Hambach factory ensures that Ineos will complete the plan of delivering grenadiers to consumers in early 2022 as scheduled." Ineos plans to produce about 25,000 grenadiers every year. This is a large SUV, similar to the body structure of Land Rover Defender 16, which was discontinued in 20 16. On February 8, 65438+,Smart and trade union representatives told the French media Usine? Nouvelle said that Ineos plans to start production in Hambach factory on June 20 10.

Ineos was criticized for abandoning its plan to produce cars in Britain and turning to France. On February 8th, 65438, the company explained on Twitter that it had planned to produce this car in Britain, but the French factory in Hambach was relatively more commercial. While European emission standards continue to be tightened, the Hambach factory union agreed to the sale plan a few weeks ago, although it was worried about the sustainability of producing large internal combustion engines.

1997, the construction of Hambach factory was completed, and then French President Jacques? Chirac and German Chancellor Helmut? Cole attended the opening ceremony. In 2008, the annual output of this factory reached a record of about 654.38+04 million vehicles, and in 2065.438+09, it produced 70,000 vehicles. Daimler has invested about 500 million euros to transform the factory in order to produce electric vehicles larger than smart mini-cars for Mercedes-Benz, such as the crossover EQB. Most of the renovation work has been completed, including a new car body manufacturing workshop and painting workshop.

Ineos may turn to hydrogen energy in the future. Recently, the company signed an agreement with Hyundai to "explore the application of modern fuel cell technology in Grenadier models".

Marcus, member of Daimler Management Committee and Chief Operating Officer of Mercedes-Benz? Schaefer said in a statement on February 8, 65438 that the sale of the Hambach factory was an "important step" for Daimler to improve efficiency and increase investment in new technologies. He pointed out: "We are investing heavily in electrical technology and comprehensive digitalization. At the same time, we should improve the efficiency of the company. In this regard, our global production network is a decisive leverage factor. "

Daimler said last year that it would produce the next generation of smart cars through a joint venture with Geely in China. Smart brands face an uncertain future in Europe. Smart? ForFour is currently produced in the Slovenian factory of Renault Group. (Source: Geshi Automobile? Gu Jiaojiao)

8. New version of Ford F- 150 pickup truck.

According to foreign media reports, Ford Motor Company has added a new version to its F- 150 pickup truck series. The latest off-road model is called "Tremor", which will help Ford to enrich its high-profit truck product line.

F- 150？ Tremor (Source: Ford)

65438+On February 8th, Ford released 202 1 F- 150? Tremor, after the redesign, the new model not only adds some new functions, but also upgrades all-terrain equipment. Ford dealers all over the United States will sell this new car. Ford said Tremor is expected to go on sale next summer.

F- 150？ Tremor has special nameplate and design elements on the car body, and improves off-road ability, including upgraded suspension and shock absorber, and fender to protect the chassis of the vehicle. In addition, the vehicle is equipped with 33-inch all-terrain tires and 18-inch wheels. F- 150？ The trembling body has been widened by 65,438+0 inches, and the whole system comes standard with four-wheel drive. The vehicle is equipped with Ford's 3.5-liter V6 engine and 10 speed automatic transmission.

Ford hasn't announced F- 150 yet? The specific price of Tremor, but its price may be between the off-road kit model with the same configuration (about 45,000 USD) and the Ford 2020 F- 150 Raptor high-performance truck (about 53,455 USD).

This brand-new F- 150 is Ford's latest attempt. At present, the company is developing more and more popular off-road models to expand its loyal truck consumer groups and try to improve profit margins. Prior to this, Ford worked for its large super? Both the duty pickup truck and the Ranger medium pickup truck have launched the tremor version.

A study commissioned by Ford to Boston Consulting Group shows that Ford's F-series trucks are one of the company's important sources of income, with an annual income of about $42 billion, which brings most of the profits to the automobile manufacturer. In 20 19, Ford's revenue was143.6 billion USD. (Source: Geshi Automobile? Nebula)

9. Ford self-driving cars deliver fresh food in Miami.

According to foreign media reports, Ford has been testing self-driving cars in Miami for a long time, and the company's test may play an important role during the epidemic. Ford and Argo? AI and education fund (The? Education? Fund) is carrying out an 8-week pilot project to transport fresh food to Miami-Dade students studying at home by using Fusion hybrid vehicles equipped with autonomous driving system. Members of the education fund will put fruits and vegetables into test cars, and self-driving cars will deliver these foods to about 50 families, thus promoting a healthier diet.

(Source: Argo? AI)

Strictly speaking, this is not a complete driverless test. Two Argos? AI experts will sit in the vehicle to monitor, take over the control of the vehicle if necessary, and complete the final distribution (no contact). Argo said that it is working with city and state officials to plan to force safety officials to keep social distance, clean vehicles regularly, provide personal protective equipment, HEPA high-efficiency filters, air circulation devices for safety officials, and install physical barriers in the cab of vehicles.

Ford said that if the test in Miami is successful, it is possible for the company to establish a "similar" pilot in other places on 202 1. This is the first time that Ford has taken Argo's autonomous driving technology as part of a public-oriented cooperation project. In addition to helping the community, the project can also help Ford understand how to provide services to customers and how to operate efficiently. Ideally, the company will be able to eliminate all obvious mistakes and eventually launch a "trustworthy" self-driving delivery business service.

Argo currently has more than 65,438+0,000 employees with a valuation of $7.25 billion. Besides Ford, Argo has close contact with the public and has been tested in many cities in the United States, including Washington, D.C., Pittsburgh and Austin. (Source: Geshi Automobile? Nebula)

10, Musk moved to Texas? Signs of Tesla moving?

According to foreign media reports, on February 8, 65438, Silicon Valley billionaire Elon Musk (Elon? Musk) said that he has moved from California to Texas because he wants to pay more attention to Tesla's new car factory in Texas and the rocket company Space Exploration Technology Company.

Elon Musk (Source: Youtube account Axel? Springer? SE)

Musk is accepting Matt, editor-in-chief of The Wall Street Journal? Murray confirmed the move in an interview. He said, "Yes, I have moved to Texas. The two most important things for me now are the development of the Texas starship and the new Tesla factory. My time in California is unnecessary and not fully utilized. "

Texas may provide some tax breaks for Musk, who has become the second richest man in the world. Texas does not accept personal income tax, and some tax rates in California are the highest in the United States.

Musk discussed many topics, including government intervention, technology companies and corporate policies. Among them, he criticized the CEOs of other American companies for not paying enough attention to their products: "If you find yourself spending a lot of time making speeches and reviewing spreadsheets, you are actually wasting your time. For example, in the war, do you want the general to hide in the safest place or rush to the front? If the soldiers see the general at the front, they will work harder. "

Tesla California Factory (Source: Tesla)

Musk hinted that this move is also related to California. He explained that California has become a bit complacent, and may even be bullying. For many years, Silicon Valley in California has been the center of technology companies. So there is no need to win over companies like Tesla, and other States have made a lot of efforts. For example, Texas and Oklahoma once had fierce competition for the location of Tesla factory.

Musk expounded a series of facts before confirming the rumors of moving: "First of all, Tesla and Space Exploration Technology Company obviously carried out large-scale operations in California. In fact, it is worth mentioning that Tesla is the last car company that still produces cars in California, and Space Exploration Technology is also the last aerospace company to study aerospace manufacturing in California. " ? Once upon a time, there were many automobile factories in California, which was once the center of aviation manufacturing. Therefore, Musk believes that technology companies in Silicon Valley have great influence on the world, but it is expected that their influence will be reduced in the future.

At present, Musk seems to have no intention of completely moving the manufacturing work of Tesla and Space Exploration Technology out of California. However, it is still possible. The final result depends on California's reaction to Musk's move. Will California remain complacent? Or, will the heads of other technology companies follow in the footsteps of Musk and leave California? (Source: Geshi Automobile? Gu Jiaojiao)

This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.