Cars & Automobiles

Volkswagen (VW) has issued a statement saying "Volkswagen of America will not be changing its name to Voltswagen" after announcing the rebranding on March 30.

"The renaming was designed to be an announcement in the spirit of April Fool's Day, highlighting the launch of the all-electric ID.4 SUV and signaling our commitment to bringing electric mobility to all," a spokesperson of the company told NPR.

The stunt had not been taken well by both consumers and investors.

“Volkswagen of America developed and implemented a marketing campaign to draw attention — with a wink — to Volkswagen’s e-offensive and the market launch of ID.4 in the USA,” the company further said in a statement. “The intention was to generate awareness of an important corporate and industry issue in the country. We regret that the announcement rollout may have upset some people.”

Automotive manufacturing Volkswagen has announced Tuesday that it is rebranding its US branch to Voltswagen.

"We know, 66 is an unusual age to change your name, but we’ve always been young at heart. Introducing Voltswagen. Similar to Volkswagen, but with a renewed focus on electric driving. Starting with our all-new, all-electric SUV the ID.4 - available today. #Voltswagen #ID4," the company wrote on Twitter.

The automotive company has since announced that they won't rebrand Volkswagen to Voltswagen.

On Tuesday, the Swedish company Volvo said joining a growing number of carmakers planning to phase out fossil-fuel engines by the end of this decade.

The transition to selling only electric cars will allow Volvo "to meet the expectations of our customers and be a part of the solution when it comes to fighting climate change," he added. Europe has imposed aggressive targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles, and carmakers face huge potential fines if they do not comply.

The carmaker said 50% of its global sales should be fully-electric cars by 2025 and the other half hybrid models.

The car manufacturer Jaguar has announced its intention to become an all-electric car brand by 2025.

Under the motto "Reimagine", the company has announced a fundamental change in strategy. The future is to be contested with e-mobility and fuel cell drives. This will cost the company a lot, with annual costs of around 2.8 billion euros for the changeover.

Shortly before the deadline, US electric car manufacturer Tesla has deposited a security deposit required by Brandenburg for the construction of the factory in Grünheide near Berlin. Tesla management late Friday night confirmed the agreement between Tesla Brandenburg and the State Office for the Environment for securing any dismantling obligations, the Environment Ministry announced Saturday.

Norway has become the first country in the world to sell more electric cars than those powered by petrol, diesel or hybrid engines. Battery Electric vehicles made up a record 54.3% of all new cars sold in 2020. Fully electric vehicles are exempt from tax in Norway.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has asked Tesla to recall 158,000 Model S and Model X vehicles that could suffer from failing display consoles. The "media control units" allow owners to access their vehicle’s backup camera, climate controls, and Tesla’s Autopilot driver assistance system. Failure would increase the risk of a crash, the safety agency says.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk wrote in a tweet that "during the darkest days of the Model 3, I approached Tim Cook to discuss with him possibility of Apple acquiring Tesla - for one-tenth of our current value. He refused to attend the meeting".

Reuters reports that Apple is aiming to produce self-driving passenger vehicles, known as "Project Titan", by 2024. The cars are rumoured to include a breakthrough battery technology, sources told Reuters. Apple has declined to comment on the matter.

According to SPIEGEL information, the law firm Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein filed a lawsuit on behalf of Porsche drivers a few days ago. Porsche has alleged sold vehicles that use more petrol on the road and emit CO2 into the air than on the test bench. In order to manipulate the values, the group allegedly installed transmission parts and software in test vehicles, which reduced emissions in the laboratory.

In 2021 the Austrian government will provide 40 million euros in funding for electric cars. This was announced by Environment and Transport Minister Leonore Gewessler on Sunday.

In the years 2019 and 2020, a total of 93 million euros - together with the automobile importers - were available. As the APA (Austrian Press Agency) stated, these funds have now been almost completely exhausted. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the ministry had increased the subsidy per e-car from 3000 to 5000 euros.

In September 9,560 new electric cars have been registered in Norway making it 61.5% of the total number of car registrations in that month.

Since the beginning of the year, 48,175 electric cars have been registered in the country. Volkswagen is leading in newly registered cars with 1,989 VW ID.3 in September followed by 1,116 registrations of the Tesla Model 3.

The Californian Governor Gavin Newsom has announced that by executive order new cars and light trucks that are powered by gasoline will be prohibited to be sold starting in 2035. This does not include cars that are already on the road at that time. Those will continue to be legal and can be resold.

Newsom stated that "this is the most impactful step our state can take to fight climate change".

The electric car manufacturer Tesla has sued the United States government and wants to legally enforce an exemption from US punitive tariffs on imports from China.

With Tesla being one of several hundreds of companies starting such proceedings on the import tariffs, the company is seeking to avert existing import tariffs as well as compensation for tariffs that have already been paid.

A last-minute decision by the California First District Court of Appeal avoided the suspension of ridesharing operations by Lyft and Uber. Both companies were planning to suspend their California operations at Thursday 23:59 (Pacific Time) due to the requirement of reclassifying all Lyft drivers as employees.
Before the appeal was accepted, in a blog post, Lyft stated: "We don’t want to suspend operations. We are going to keep up the fight for a benefits model that works for all drivers and our riders."
"We are glad that the Court of Appeals recognised the important questions raised in this case, and that access to these critical services won’t be cut off while we continue to advocate for drivers’ ability to work with the freedom they want," Uber said in a statement.

The San Francisco Superior Court granted California’s request for a preliminary injunction saying that Uber and rival Lyft must make drivers employees rather than independent contractors. Judge Ethan Schulman delayed that order for ten days, giving the companies time to appeal, as both have said they will.

Dana Khosrowshahi, Uber CEO, stated: "If the court doesn’t reconsider, then in California, it’s hard to believe we’ll be able to switch our model to full-time employment quickly."

Uber and Lyft are pushing Proposition 22, a November ballot initiative that would keep drivers as freelancers entitled to some benefits and earnings guarantees.

Ford Motor Company announced its current CEO, Jim Hackett, will retire on October 1, ending a three-year run in which the automaker has tried to streamline its operations. Hackett will be succeeded by Jim Farley, currently COO of the company.

Ford’s executive chairman William Clay Ford Jr., said: "I am very grateful to Jim Hackett for all he has done to modernize Ford and prepare us to compete and win in the future,".

Under the name "Car.Software.Org" VW aims to develop its own operating system for all VW car models and increase the team to around 10,000 employees. On July 1, Christian Senger officially became head of "Car.Software.Org".

Among other things, he is on the board of directors of the core Volkswagen brand and has headed the development of the electric vehicles series "ID". Since March 2019 he has been working on the "Car.Software.Org" project. Now he was released after only 14 days, due to discrepancies with other VW managers. Audi boss Markus Duesmann will develop the VW software now. Volkswagen did not comment on the conflict.

During the WAIC (World Artificial Intelligence Conference) in Shanghai Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, announced by video message that the automobile manufacturer could probably update their partly autonomous self-driving vehicles from Level 2 to Level 5 by end of the year.

Autonomous self-driving is divided into 5 levels. Currently, the most autonomous self-driving vehicles are shipped with Level 2 - 3.

Level 1 - Driver Assistance: for example using cruise control.

Level 2 - Partly Automated Driving: for example, the car can keep track, brake and accelerate on the freeway at the same time.

Level 3 - Highly Automated Driving: The vehicles can handle certain driving tasks independently and without human intervention, but only for a limited period and under suitable conditions.

Level 4 - Fully Automated Driving: The vehicles can drive independently, for example, the driver could take a nap but generally only in select conditions and on certain roads.

Level 5 - Full Automation/completely autonomous: no human driver is required. The people in the car become passengers.

Amazon is expanding its portfolio yet again. The company acquired Zoox, a self-driving car startup located in California with almost 1,000 employees for a rumoured $1 billion deal. Zoox has been working on developing a self-driving electric car that doesn't have a steering wheel so that it can drive in either direction. Zoox CEO Aicha Evans will continue leading the company and said that "this acquisition solidifies Zoox's impact on the autonomous driving industry."

"Zoox is working to imagine, invent, and design a world-class autonomous ride-hailing experience," said Jeff Wilke, Amazon’s CEO, Worldwide Consumer in a statement on Amazon's blog. "Like Amazon, Zoox is passionate about innovation and about its customers, and we're excited to help the talented Zoox team to bring their vision to reality in the years ahead."

Reuters reports that German carmaker Volkswagen approached French car rental firm Europcar, that struggles to cope with the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. The deal, if completed, would signal a reversal of strategy for Volkswagen, that sold Europcar in 2006 for €3.32 billion.

In May, Europcar's competitor Hertz filed for bankruptcy protection.

The ride-sharing provider Lyft has announced that it plans on transitioning to electric or zero-emission vehicles by 2030. They stated that "100 percent" are the goal and according to the co-founder and president, John Zimmer "Now more than ever, we need to work together to create cleaner, healthier, and more equitable communities". Lyft did not close how much the project will cost.

CATL, Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd, the world's largest manufacturer of car batteries for electric vehicles has announced production readiness of a breakthrough battery.

The chairman of the company that supplies Tesla and Volkswagen has announced that it has created a battery that lasts over 1.2 million miles and can run for 16 years.

For the third time, Ford will recall cars, SUVs and vans to fix a defect with their doors, that could open while the vehicle is moving. The recall will cover 2.1 million vehicles in the US and Canada.

The company said Wednesday the previous door latch recalls were done because of defective pawl spring tabs that could crack and fail in high temperatures. The previously recalled vehicles may not have had the latches replaced, or repairs may not have been done correctly, the company said in a statement.

Japanese manufacturer Honda has said in a statement it is dealing with a cyber-attack that is impacting its operations around the world.

"Honda can confirm that a cyberattack has taken place on the Honda network," a spokesperson said. "We can also confirm that there is no information breach at this point in time".

Volkswagen announced Ralf Brandstätter as the new CEO of the VW brand, to lead cost-cutting efforts at the company’s largest plants in Germany.

Brandstaetter, current COO of VW, replaces Herbert Diess who will retain his title of CEO of Volkswagen Group.

As part of the countries economic recovery plan from the Covid-19 pandemic, Germany has announced that it aims to boost the usage and sales of electric cars. One planned measure will require all petrol stations to offer charging options for electric vehicles.

BBC reports that luxury carmaker Bentley is to cut 1,000 jobs in the UK. The company, owned by German car-maker Volkswagen, declined to comment but is expected to make a formal announcement on Friday.

Due to a technical defect, the security measures of a money transporter became a trap for a security employee. The fire brigade had to move with heavy equipment and free the employee from the unventilated vehicle. The trapped security guard remained unharmed.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk entered an performance-based payout plan back in early 2018. In this payout plan, Tesla shareholders determined 12 market capitalization milestones and revenue milestones for which the CEO will be awarded each trench of his multi-billion dollar package.

By keeping the company market capitalization at $100 billion for roughly around a month and a trailing average of six months, Musk earned his first chunk of stock options, measuring roughly 1.7 million Tesla shares or an estimated $775 million after Thursday's Tesla share value closed at $805.81.

In a lawsuit against Elon Musk and members of the Tesla board, shareholder Richard Tornetta is accusing the board of awarding the CEO excessive compensation trough the payout plan, despite the CEO having given up his salary and only being awarded as part of the performance-based compensation package.

The next market capitalization target is set at $150 billion which together with other revenue based milestones will award the ceo his next tranche of his compensation package.