Volvo has purchased a portion of Momentum Dynamics, a company building wireless charging stations for battery powered vehicles. Volvo is trying to gain an edge in what has become a worldwide race among the largest car companies to gain an advantage in the electric powered vehicle market. Kate Beioley reports for the FT that Volvo isn't alone in exploring wireless charging technology. She writes: The Volvo Group Venture Capital AB, a subsidiary of the Volvo Group, said it was investing in the Philadelphia-based company which develops high-power wireless charging systems for trucks, buses and … [Read more...]

Tesla has been forced to cut prices on its Model 3 sedans after missing missing expected deliveries on the vehicles. The price cuts also target an expected loss of demand from the end of federal tax credits for Tesla in 2019. The Wall Street Journal's Tim Higgins reports: Chief Executive Elon Musk had promised to increase sales and production of the Model 3 in the fourth quarter from the third quarter. He spent the final weeks of the quarter urging buyers to take advantage of the $7,500 federal tax credit that phases out for the company this year. Deliveries of the Model 3 in the fourth … [Read more...]

Bloomberg's John Bowker reports on an Axios interview Tesla CEO Elon Musk in which he said that Tesla, at one point, had only a few weeks to live. He writes: Elon Musk has revealed how close Tesla Inc. came to collapse during the frantic and costly effort to ramp up production of the Model 3 sedan: Little more than a couple of months. “The company was bleeding money like crazy, and if we didn’t solve these problems in a very short period of time, we would die,” Musk told the news service Axios in an interview aired Sunday on HBO. When asked how close Tesla was to failing, he replied: “I … [Read more...]

Chinese auto sales were down for the third month in a row in September. The slowdown could be a sign of declining consumer confidence in China, or even worse, the beginning of a slowdown in the economy. Trefor Moss writes in The Wall Street Journal: Auto sales in China fell for a third straight month in September, as the country’s auto sector faces what looks to be its first yearly decline in passenger-car sales in almost three decades. Fragile consumer confidence amid a falling stock market and U.S.-China trade tensions led to weak September results for most auto makers, as overall sales … [Read more...]

In the heart of Bibb-County, Alabama, Mercedes-Benz is expanding its production facilities to include a battery factory. Mercedes' plan is to offer fully-electric versions of all its models by 2022, and the Alabama battery plant will be one of eight globally tasked with supplying the batteries for the effort. William Thornton reports at AL.com: Markus Schafer, member of the divisional board of Mercedes-Benz cars, production and supply chain, quoted the lyrics of "Sweet Home Alabama" today, as the German automaker broke ground on its latest addition to the company's growing Bibb County … [Read more...]

After the recently negotiated USMCA trade deal, foreign auto companies are considering bringing more of their parts manufacturing to North America. Chester Dawson and William Boston report in The Wall Street Journal: Foreign car makers are considering moving more manufacturing to North America from their overseas plants following the recent U.S. trade deal with Canada and Mexico. Within days of the U.S. and Canada reaching a pact to replace the roughly 25-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement, executives at several foreign car makers said they are considering changes to their supply … [Read more...]

The SEC announced yesterday that it is suing Elon Musk for misleading statements he made via twitter about taking Tesla private. The SEC is seeking to ban Musk from being an officer or director of a publicly traded company. Without Musk steering the ship, the cult-of-Elon premium is likely to fall out of the shares. Tesla is a startup electric car maker in a fiercely competitive industry with high capital requirements and competitors all over the globe that are viewed as national champions by their political leaders. That’s a tough business to enter. Warren Buffett advised long ago that “When … [Read more...]

Can Google push its software into automobiles the same way it did smart phones? It turns out, offering free software in exchange for customer data and advertising opportunities is as attractive for automobiles as it is for smart phones. An auto-group including Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi has decided to add Android to its vehicles. Will the move tie the automakers to Google forever? Reuters reports: Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi said on Tuesday their cars will use Google’s Android operating system from 2021. The Franco-Japanese alliance, which sold 10.6 million vehicles last year, … [Read more...]

New regulations, tariffs and an emerging market economic slowdown are having a major impact on global auto sales. William Boston, writes at The Wall Street Journal that automakers are entering their first sustained slowdown since the financial crisis. The question is, will it remain just a slowdown, or will auto sales collapse even further? Boston continues: China’s once-booming car market is cooling, in part because of escalating trade tensions with the U.S. American demand for cars and trucks—long a bright spot for the global auto industry—has topped out, following a seven-year growth … [Read more...]

Cobalt is at the center of modern day lithium-ion battery technology. Batteries without cobalt are unstable, but the majority of cobalt is mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The DRC is a country with an unstable government and internal strife. Child labor is said to be used to mine for cobalt. These are not traits that end-users of battery technology want attached to their purchase. In the Financial Times, Henry Sanderson explains the work of Michael Zimmerman to replace cobalt, and just how important it is to do so. He writes: In a laboratory on an industrial park an hour’s drive … [Read more...]