EuroWire September 2014

Transatlantic cable

† In other news of Ford, the Detroit auto maker said on 11 th June that it will build its next-generation Fiesta exclusively in Cologne, Germany, for European consumers after union workers approved a new exible agreement with the company. The Cologne assembly plant will run on two shifts. A third shift will be added at the engine plant where Ford makes a one-litre, three-cylinder EcoBoost engine. Some work now done by suppliers will be brought in-plant. Ford plans to launch at least 25 new models in Europe over ve years. It closed its plant in Genk, Belgium, and two operations in Britain last year to cut annual costs by $450-500 million. The company said it is on track to return to pro tability in the region next year. † General Motors is recalling more than a half-million Chevrolet Camaros because their keys can suddenly turn o the ignition when bumped, shutting down the engine: a defect similar to that which led the automaker to recall millions of its small cars this year. The recall, one of several announced on 13 th June, covers about 510,000 Camaros worldwide from the 2010 to 2014 model years. GM said that a driver’s knee could bump the key fob, inadvertently causing the ignition lock cylinder to switch out of Run position and possibly e ect a “reduction or loss of power.” The automaker said it was aware of three crashes and four injuries that may be related to the defect in the midsize Camaro. GM said the Camaro switch was of a di erent design from the faulty ignition switch in the older Chevrolet small cars that have been linked to at least 13 deaths and 54 crashes. For more than a decade, the company knew about that problem but failed to recall those cars until this February. As reported by the Boston Globe , the National Highway Tra c Safety Administration said it had received complaints from at least a dozen Camaro owners about stalling. One of these said that the engine of a 2014 Camaro turned o when the car was moving at 60 miles an hour. † James R Healey of USA Today (14 th June) reported some indications that “the cavalcade of auto recalls” in the US this year could be turning the safety warnings into mere background noise ignored by car owners. “If every recall is publicly covered, it is no longer an unusual event,” said George Ho er, transportation economist at the University of Richmond, who has studied the auto industry for more than 40 years. “The public will pay no attention.” Another industry observer who noted that the American consumer may be losing interest in such information is Greg Smith, chief creative o cer at advertising and marketing agency VIA (Portland, Maine). He told USA Today : “With this seemingly never-ending GM recall, perhaps we are all becoming desensitised to one more story of bad news.” Dorothy Fabian USA Editor

The wall display had been removed, Mr Musk said, in the spirit of the open source movement, for the advancement of electric vehicle technology. The Tesla chief said that when he launched his rst car company, Zip2, he tried to amass as many patents as possible. But he has come to believe that, too often, patents now serve only to sti e progress, entrench the positions of giant corporations, and enrich lawyers rather than inventors. Mr Musk wrote: “After Zip2, when I realised that receiving a patent really just meant that you bought a lottery ticket to a lawsuit, I avoided them whenever possible.” Lingering concerns – that big car makers might copy the Tesla proprietary technology and use their resources to overwhelm his company – proved unfounded. At this point, Mr Musk said, electric car programmes account for less than one per cent of the sales of major manufacturers. “It is impossible for Tesla to build electric cars fast enough to address the carbon crisis,” Musk wrote. “We believe that Tesla, other companies making electric cars, and the world would all bene t from a common, rapidly evolving technology platform.” † Mr Musk had signalled his intention to open-source Tesla patents a week earlier, during the British launch of the company’s Model S. The Tesla openness initiative covers the proprietary Supercharger system with its “free for life” charging plan. This allows Model S owners to pull up to any Supercharger station and juice up their batteries without payment. The costs are factored into the purchase price of the vehicle. Stephanie Milot of PCNews (9 th June) pointed out that, in order to achieve the uniform standard Mr Musk wants to see in the industry, he needs other electric vehicle manufacturers to adopt his Supercharger business model. They would also have to contribute a “fair” amount to maintenance and operational costs, although Mr Musk promised these will not be excessive. “After all,” wrote Ms Milot, citing Engadget: “Supercharger locations are given to Tesla rent-free.” † Superchargers have been installed in high-tra c areas across the US – down the West Coast from Vancouver, in Canada, to San Diego, and from Los Angeles to New York. They arrived in Europe and Asia for testing last year. Elsewhere in automotive . . . † Ford Motor Co announced 12 th June that it was lowering the fuel economy ratings on six of its vehicles after discovering an error in its computation method. Fuel-savings estimates were found to be o between one and seven miles per gallon. The company will o er “goodwill payments” to compensate roughly 200,000 US customers a ected by the faulty ratings. A press release from Ford related the error to a factor it calls total road load horsepower, or TRLHP: “a vehicle-speci c resistance level used in vehicle dynamometer testing that determines fuel economy ratings. “TRLHP is established through engineering models that are validated though vehicles testing, including physical track tests (‘coastdown testing’).”

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September 2014