Welcome to the Dec. 13 edition of the Daily 5.
General Motors' long-term strategy to build a significant revenue stream from subscriptions and other services — some $25 billion by 2030 to be exact — faces a big test in coming months.
Hundreds of owners will soon lose introductory free use of Super Cruise on properly equipped GM vehicles and must decide to start paying up for the advanced driver-assistance system or walk away.
Jamie Butters, our executive editor, weighs in on what's likely to happen next.
Former Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares has shared more insights on the developments that led to his exit from the company. He told Portuguese newspaper Espresso his "amicable" departure was prompted by disagreements with the board over strategy.
Tavares told the newspaper the board's main objective was to "protect the company so that a difference in points of view would not create the risk of misaligning the company."
He added "a company that has 250,000 employees, revenues of €190 billion, 15 brands that it sells all over the world, is not a company that can be managed with a lack of alignment, which immediately has an impact on strategic management."
Elsewhere in Europe, Volkswagen Group's Audi brand, unable to come up with a buyer, has decided to close an aging plant in Belgium, forcing the end of Q8 E-tron output. In another blow to light-vehicle output in Europe, where sales have slowed and Chinese automakers have made inroads, Q8 E-tron production is expected to shift to Mexico.
Digital twins are taking over automotive design, product development and production, like a swarm of drones. They save time and money, and identify problems well before a model goes into production, advocates say.
They are now being used to speed creation of the software-defined vehicle.
As software becomes more central to the car, with millions of lines of code, virtual electronic control units, or vECUs, are being used to develop, test and debug software in the cloud — well before the hardware it runs on has been finalized.
Supplier Continental has just launched an vECU Creator tool, allowing the supplier's customers to configure vECUs and run them in their own cloud (as well as Continental's). The technology can bring projects to production-ready status six to 12 months faster than software that needs to be tested on physical ECUs. Our Peter Sigal in Europe has more.
And finally, China's CATL, the world's biggest electric vehicle battery maker, is stepping up to help suppliers accelerate R&D efforts to advance technology. The move, coming amid a brutal EV price war that is further squeezing suppliers, could have broad implications in and beyond China, which already leads the world in EV adoption and advanced battery technology.
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— Dave Phillips, news editor
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