China Automobile Industry, Technology (NEV, Driverless, etc): News & Images

[cirr]

Material from China's largest salt lake to make greener autos

2017-06-13 14:29

Xinhua Editor: Gu Liping

Magnesium alloy manufactured at Qairhan, China's largest salt flat, is expected to make autos lighter and greener, according to material researchers and manufacturers.

As the international auto industry eyes energy efficiency and emission reduction, the magnesium alloy business of the salt flat, in northwest China's Qinghai Province, may provide a new solution, according to Woods Glen with Hatch Engineering (Shenyang) at a forum last week.

The event, centering on lightweight automobiles and green energy, was held in Golmud, Qinghai, ahead of National Low-Carbon Day which falls on Tuesday.

If a car is 10 percent lighter, its energy consumption can drop by 6 to 8 percent, according to Lin Yi with China Auto Lightweight Technology Innovation Strategic Alliance.

"As the lightest usable metal material, magnesium can effectively shield electromagnetism and be easily recycled," Lin said. "Magnesium alloy will be a key to making cars lighter."

The wide application of the material in car manufacturing in China has long been hamstrung by a lack of a magnesium supply. However, the scarcity is likely to be relieved after a production project started at Qairhan Salt Lake at the end of 2016.

Located in the southern part of Qaidam Basin, the lake has more than 4 billion tonnes of magnesium.

"The project currently can yield 100,000 tonnes of magnesium a year, and the capacity will climb to 1 million tonnes in the future," said Xie Kangmin, president of Qinghai Salt Lake Industry Company. "That will be a sustainable and stable supply."

Traditionally, magnesium is extracted from mines, but the output is unstable and it is a high-carbon process.

"Obtaining one kilogram of magnesium using the traditional method generates 26 kilograms of carbon dioxide, while extracting 1 kilogram of the substance from salt lake water generates only 6.5 kilograms", said Yu Guoli with the Qinghai Magnesium Corporation, a branch of Qinghai Salt Lake Industry Company.

Rapid development of new energy vehicles (NEV) in China has also expanded opportunities for magnesium alloy in auto manufacturing.

Industry insiders estimated that NEV would account for about 40 percent of autos produced and sold in the country in 2030.

"If a vehicle is lighter, its battery can be used longer," Lin said. "I believe more NEV makers will choose parts made from magnesium alloy in the future."

"We are using magnesium alloy components in steering wheels and seats, and will promote their use in other parts of the car," said Guo Qiang, a R&D manager at auto maker BYD.

Currently, a Chinese-made auto uses less than 4.5 kilograms of magnesium on average, but the number is expected to reach 15 kilograms in 2020 and 45 kilograms in 2030, according to Zhen Zisheng with Magontec Xi' an Company.

"It means China's demand for magnesium alloy may reach 350,000 tonnes in 2020 and exceed one million tonnes in 2030," Zhen said.

"The magnesium alloy business at the salt flat is a unique advantage for China's automakers. It may fuel a green revolution of the industry," said Yang Jie, deputy secretary general of the China Auto Lightweight Technology Innovation Strategic Alliance.

http://www.ecns.cn/2017/06-13/261297.shtml

 

[JSCh]

Material from China's largest salt lake to make greener autos

2017-06-13 14:29

Xinhua Editor: Gu Liping

Magnesium alloy manufactured at Qairhan, China's largest salt flat, is expected to make autos lighter and greener, according to material researchers and manufacturers.

 

[TaiShang]

Nation to formulate hi-tech car standards
China Daily, June 14, 2017

Visitors examine an autonomous driving car at an auto show in Beijing. [Photo/China Daily]

China is planning to draw up standards on smart, internet-connected vehicles as well as autonomous driving, one of the nation's latest efforts to take the lead in the fast-evolving sector.

By 2020, the country is expected to formulate at least 30 sets of standards which will basically be capable of supporting driving assistance and low-level autonomous driving, said the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in a document released on Tuesday.

The standards will cover aspects including function safety, information safety, human to machine interfaces, information recognition and interaction, and auxiliary controls.

More than 100 sets of standards will be formulated by 2025 so that they can support high-level autonomous driving.

China is working to build a globally competitive automotive industry, with smart cars as one of its priorities, according to an industry guideline released earlier this year.

Among other targets, 80 percent of new cars in China will feature some driving assistance and low-level autonomous driving functions by 2025.

Li Jun, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said, "Countries worldwide are exploring smart, internet-connected cars' technical standards and business models, so if China makes them part of its national strategy in a timely way, its car industry will see unprecedented opportunities."

Li, also a deputy chief engineer of FAW Group, made the remarks on Monday when the China Industry Innovation Alliance for the Intelligent and Connected Vehicles was established in Beijing.

The alliance, composed of both the country's major automakers and technology giants, will serve as a think tank for the sector's development, and facilitate the application of technologies to production.

Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, a member of the alliance, said it will focus on information communication technology and advocate intensive cooperation with automotive manufacturers.

http://www.china.org.cn/business/2017-06/14/content_41023770.htm

 

[onebyone]

The electric car market continues to heat up with new entrants looking to take on the likes of Tesla and traditional automakers in the space.


(TSLA) and traditional automakers in the space." data-reactid="22" style="margin-bottom: 1em;">The electric car market continues to heat up with new entrants looking to take on the likes of Tesla (TSLA) and traditional automakers in the space.

Chinese start-up CHJ Automotive is the latest player looking to come to market. The company is currently developing two vehicles – an "ultra-compact" electric car, and a hybrid SUV.

Co-Founder Kevin Shen did not reveal the names of the vehicles, hoping to keep them a surprise until later, but did reveal to CNBC that the company is aiming for a launch in March 2018 for the compact car.

CHJ Automotive have not released official images yet of the car, but showed CNBC some of the initial designs of the ultra-compact vehicle. The car is 2.5 meters long and 1 meter wide. It runs on two batteries which are swappable, meaning that the car won't need to stop for too long at a charging station to re-juice. Google's in-car operating system called Android Auto is equipped in the vehicle

It will be priced at between 7,000 euros ($7,824) and 8,000 euros.


" data-reactid="27" style="margin-bottom: 1em;">


While it may seem like a small vehicle, Shen explained the target market the company is after in China.

"In China, there are 340 million people (who) daily commute with e-scooters, but there is a strong demand for them to upgrade to something," Shen told CNBC in a TV interview on Friday.

"But we cannot imagine all of them driving cars, so we want to give them something else, which is an ultra-compact car."

It's not just the Chinese market CHJ is after. Shen said the company will launch the product in Europe too, but not as a consumer offering, meaning people will not be able to buy a vehicle. Instead, the company is trailing ride sharing projects.

" data-reactid="32" style="margin-bottom: 1em;">

On Friday, CHJ created a joint venture with French firm Clem, which creates a car-sharing platform for users. CHJ and Clem are trialing a car-sharing service in Paris, where Shen said the ultra-compact car could help ease traffic.

CHJ is the latest entrant into the electric car space. Competitors include the likes of Faraday Future, Nio, and even Swedish firm NEVS, which CNBC reported on last week. CHJ also competes with traditional car makers developing electric cars, and Tesla. However, Tesla cars do start at a higher price point, with the cheapest vehicle – the Model 3 – beginning at around $30,000.

Even as CHJ expands globally, Tesla is creeping in on the start-ups home turf. In 2016, Tesla sold $1 billion worth of vehicles. But Shen is not worried saying that China sells in excess of 25 million cars each year with just a small fraction being electric vehicles.

"There is a very big market for everybody," Shen told CNBC.

 

[onebyone]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/chinese-tesla-rival-planning-launch-114500705.html

 

[JSCh]

Ford Chooses China, Not Mexico, to Build Its New Focus
By BILL VLASIC
JUNE 20, 2017

DETROIT — In a move that highlights the shifting landscape of global auto production, Ford Motor said Tuesday that it would build its next-generation small car in China rather than in the United States or Mexico.

The decision underscores the potential for China to export more vehicles for sale to American buyers, and the reluctance of domestic automakers to invest in additional production in Mexico.

Ford currently builds its Focus compact car in Michigan, as well as in China and Europe.

Last year, the company said it planned to shift Focus production to a plant under construction in Mexico, primarily because of lower labor costs. But Ford canceled the project in January after it met stiff opposition from President Trump, who had repeatedly criticized the company for investing in Mexican jobs at the expense of American ones.

Now Ford, the nation’s second-largest automaker, after General Motors, is centralizing much of its small-car production in China, where it has available capacity.

Ford’s head of global operations, Joe Hinrichs, said the company would save $1 billion by building the Focus in China instead of Mexico — including $500 million in savings announced at the time the Mexico plant was canceled — and would be able to spend more money expanding American plants that make high-profit trucks and S.U.V.s.


--> Ford Chooses China, Not Mexico, to Build Its New Focus - The New York Times

 

[onebyone]

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak shakes hand with Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Chairman Li Shufu, right, after a signing ceremony for Proton and Geely in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Friday, June 23, 2017. Geely, the Chinese owner of Sweden’s Volvo Cars, will inject 170.3 million ringgit $40 million) into Malaysia’s Proton as part of its purchase of a stake in the automaker and is paying 51 million pounds


The Chinese owner of Sweden's Volvo Cars will inject $40 million into Malaysia's Proton as part of its purchase of a key stake in the automaker, an executive of the Malaysian company said Friday.

Geely Holding Group is also paying $65 million for 51 percent of Proton-owned British sports car maker Lotus.

Geely and Proton earlier signed the final agreement to acquire 49.9 percent of Proton, in a deal announced in March that gives the Chinese company a platform to expand in Southeast Asia, where non-Japanese brands have struggled.

Geely will bring its Boyue SUV platform, estimated to cost 290 million ringgit ($67.6 million) to Malaysia as part of its acquisition, DRB-HICOM group managing director Syed Faisal Albar told a news conference. Proton will also assemble Volvo cars for Geely, he said.

Proton Holdings Berhad was founded in 1983 by the Malaysian government to create a domestic auto brand and has a distribution network in key Southeast Asian markets. Its sales have suffered due to growing competition and a reputation for poor quality and bland models. Proton was privatized in 2012 but its new owner, conglomerate DRB-HICOM Berhad, was unable to revive the carmaker.


DRB-HICOM will retain 50.1 percent stake in Proton.

Geely chairman Li Shufu said the company's priority will be to turn around both Proton and Lotus and put them on a sustainable growth path. But he warned their revival will be difficult in a highly competitive market.

"We will work together for the resurrection of Proton in Southeast Asia ... we believe it won't be long before we achieve profitability," he said.

Li also said Geely will make Malaysia a manufacturing hub for right-hand drive vehicles for its global sales.

Geely is one of China's biggest independent auto brands. Founded in 1986 as a refrigerator manufacturer, it started producing motorcycles in the 1990s and launched its first car in 2002. It bought Volvo from Ford Motor Co. in 2010.

The Chinese automaker said earlier the Proton deal would strengthen its global footprint and develop a beachhead in Southeast Asia.

The deal also marked a turning point in Malaysia's auto policy. The government has long resisted efforts to sell off any key stake in Proton, seen as a national icon.

Prime Minister Najib Razak said Proton has been "hobbled by an out-of-date, inward looking and commercially unworkable idea of what constitutes success for a national carmaker." Last year, Proton sold only 72,000 units, giving it barely 12 percent share of the domestic market, he said. The government also had to give a 1.5 billion ringgit loan ($350 million) to help sustain Proton, he said.

"This is the beginning of a new era for Proton... we want to expand its footprint in the region," he added.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak stands on stage waiting for a signing ceremony between Proton and Geely in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Friday, June 23, 2017. Geely, the Chinese owner of Sweden’s Volvo Cars, will inject 170.3 million ringgit $40 million) into Malaysia’s Proton as part of its purchase of a stake in the automaker and is paying 51 million pounds

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/article157760129.html

 

[TaiShang]

China's Geely acquires 49.9-pct stake in Malaysia's carmaker Proton
(Xinhua) 20:05, June 23, 2017

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak (C) applauds during the signing ceremony in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on June 23, 2017. China's Zhejiang Geely Holding Group on Friday signed an agreement to acquire a 49.9-percent stake in Malaysia's carmaker Proton, 30 days after an initial deal was reached between Geely and DRB-Hicom, the Malaysian conglomerate that owns 100 percent of Proton. (Xinhua/Chong Voon Chung)

KUALA LUMPUR, June 23 (Xinhua) -- China's Zhejiang Geely Holding Group on Friday signed an agreement to acquire a 49.9-percent stake in Malaysia's carmaker Proton, 30 days after an initial deal was reached between Geely and DRB-Hicom, the Malaysian conglomerate that owns 100 percent of Proton.

The deal was valued at 460.3 million ringgit (108 million U.S. dollars), including a cash injection of 170.3 million ringgit into Proton by Geely, and a sports utility vehicle platform that is worth 290 million ringgit, DRB-Hicom Managing Director Syed Faisal Albar told a press conference following the signing ceremony.

Syed Faisal said their immediate focus is to re-claim their position as Malaysia's best-selling car.

"Proton will now focus their efforts with Geely to gain market share domestically. With the joint capabilities of both companies, I am positive that we will be able to impact the market positively, by coming out with products that meet market preferences in terms of design and quality," he added.

Under the agreement, Geely will also buy a 51-percent stake in Proton's British carmaker Lotus.

Geely's Chairman Li Shufu also highlighted that his priority is to turn Proton and Lotus into a profitable entities.

He also said Proton and Lotus will create synergies for Geely to position themselves as a major player in the Southeast Asian market, which in turn will enhance the group's global position and help them to achieve sales target of 3 million units by 2020.

"We have solid plans, which will be put in place soon. We believe it will not be a long time (to turn around Proton) as we have confidence on Malaysian automotive market," he added.

When asked about the branding coordination between Geely and Proton, Li said Proton will be targeting the Southeast Asian market.

But he did not rule out the possibility that the production of Lotus will be brought to China, now the world's largest auto market.

Yet Geely still has a long way to go on Proton, even if it has successfully managed to revive Volvo, the Swedish car brand it acquired in 2010.

When attending the signing ceremony, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razk said Proton only sold 72,000 units in 2016, giving it barely 12 percent of the Malaysian market.

Underlining the need to find a foreign partner for Proton, Najib said Proton today competes in a totally new marketplace -- one in which there is much less protection to give its models the price advantage they enjoyed in its heyday.

A binding condition for the Malaysian government to grant credit to Proton is to seek a foreign strategic partner (FSP). DRB-Hicom said in a statement in February that it hopes an FSP can immediately increase the production capacity of Proton's manufacturing plant in Tanjung Malim, which now has a low utilization rate.

"The Malaysian automotive market is not big enough, and with a small market, it becomes more challenging to put in a lot of money to fund R&D without proper volume in return," said Johari Abdul Ghani, Malaysia's second finance minister.

Mohd Shanaz Noor Azam, an analyst with Malaysia's CIMB Bank, estimated that Proton may need an annual production of between 150,000 to 200,000 units to break even.

http://en.people.cn/n3/2017/0623/c90000-9232610.html

 

[Shotgunner51]

Takata's New Chinese Owner Emerges as Big Auto-Safety Player
By Jie Ma, June 26, 2017, 9:00 PM GMT+8 June 27, 2017, 9:32 AM GMT+8

• Ningbo Joyson wins big with Takata deal, avoiding recall costs
• Wang has built auto parts empire on decade-long takeover run

Wang Jianfeng has been on an epic acquisition tear over the past decade, assembling a formidable auto parts empire in China with $4 billion in revenue.

Now, the 46-year-old Wang, founder and chairman of Ningbo Joyson Electronic Corp., is about to pull off his biggest deal yet: a $1.59 billion takeover of Takata Corp., the troubled air-bag maker that filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday and is in the midst of the largest auto recall in history.

Ningbo Joyson is acquiring Takata’s assets through its wholly owned U.S. air-bag maker Key Safety Systems Inc, which it acquired last year for $920 million. The deal is structured to shield Key Safety from shouldering the cost of Takata’s projected 100-million unit recall of faulty air-bag inflators linked to at least 17 deaths. The inflator business will stay with Takata as will the financial responsibility for the recall, which will cost an estimated 1 trillion yen ($9 billion), according to Takaki Nakanishi, an analyst at Jefferies Group LLC.

The Takata acquisition could make Wang the owner of the world’s second-biggest safety parts supplier, trailing only Sweden’s Autoliv Inc. “Takata is a good company with strong factories and technologies, but it has made mistakes,” Wang told Bloomberg in April in Shanghai. “There’s potential for us to become one of the top two players in auto safety.”​

Wang studied art in college (he’s an amateur landscape photographer) and later earned an executive MBA degree at Peking University. He worked briefly at a local export and import company in early 1990s in Ningbo City on China’s east coast before running a family-owned partsmaker for five years and doing a stint with TRW Automotive Inc.’s China operation.

The Chinese executive founded Ningbo Joyson in 2004 to supply parts including control, air-intake and windscreen-washer systems, and counts Volkswagen AG, Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co. among its customers.

Wang bought the shell of a loss-making state-owned textile company in China’s rust-belt northeast in 2011 and went public, injecting its auto parts business into the listed company. Wang’s family owns the NB Joyson Invest Holding Co., the largest shareholder of Shanghai-traded Ningbo Joyson.

This decade Wang has spent 11 billion yuan ($1.6 billion), acquiring companies such as Preh GmbH, IMA Automation Amberg GmbH and Quin GmbH in Germany, and Evana Automation in the U.S. Along with announcing the acquisition of Key Safety in February 2016, Joyson also took over the automotive division of Germany’s TechniSat Digital GmbH to develop car connectivity, infotainment and navigation systems.

Under Wang, the revenue of Preh GmbH, a German supplier of products including electronic control units, has more than tripled to 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion) last year from 2010. The company is hiring more than 100 employees annually in Germany and has built a unit with 800 employees in China from scratch since 2012, said Preh President Christoph Hummel.

In the U.S., Wang has kept Key Safety’s strategy and management in place and, ironically, has benefited from Takata’s air bag troubles. Key Safety, whose revenue has been growing at an above-industry-average 20 percent even before Takata’s crisis, has received orders of more than $4 billion last year alone, some of which were from Takata’s former clients, said Ningbo Joyson CEO Tang Yuxin.

The Takata recalls may eventually cover more than 120 million inflators worldwide, Scott Caudill, chief operating officer for Takata’s U.S. unit TK Holdings Inc., said in a U.S. court document filed Monday.

Ningbo Joyson’s headquarters in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province. Source: Ningbo Joyson Electronic Corp.

Decisive Entrepreneur

Wang, who goes by Jeff among English-speaking employees, wins praise for his decisiveness and keeping existing management teams in place after acquisitions. “Jeff is easy to talk to and quick to make decisions, a typical entrepreneur,” said Hummel in an interview. “What’s important is that he kept the management teams. So you have this very interesting combination of independence and joint strategy with the right balance.”​

Wang is betting big on autonomous driving, auto safety and electric cars. He plans to integrate Preh’s connectivity, telematics and human machine interface technologies with Key Safety’s active and passive safety products.

By 2021, it aims to raise revenue to $10 billion from an estimated $4 billion to $5 billion this year, and boost net profit margin to 6 percent from 4.9 percent in 2015. The company also plans to expand in Southeast Asia and South America markets and enter the Japanese market, said Tang in April.

Read the full article at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...se-owner-emerges-as-big-player-in-auto-safety

 

[TaiShang]

Takata's New Chinese Owner Emerges as Big Auto-Safety Player
By Jie Ma, June 26, 2017, 9:00 PM GMT+8 June 27, 2017, 9:32 AM GMT+8

• Ningbo Joyson wins big with Takata deal, avoiding recall costs
• Wang has built auto parts empire on decade-long takeover run

View attachment 406838

Wang Jianfeng has been on an epic acquisition tear over the past decade, assembling a formidable auto parts empire in China with $4 billion in revenue.

Now, the 46-year-old Wang, founder and chairman of Ningbo Joyson Electronic Corp., is about to pull off his biggest deal yet: a $1.59 billion takeover of Takata Corp., the troubled air-bag maker that filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday and is in the midst of the largest auto recall in history.

Ningbo Joyson is acquiring Takata’s assets through its wholly owned U.S. air-bag maker Key Safety Systems Inc, which it acquired last year for $920 million. The deal is structured to shield Key Safety from shouldering the cost of Takata’s projected 100-million unit recall of faulty air-bag inflators linked to at least 17 deaths. The inflator business will stay with Takata as will the financial responsibility for the recall, which will cost an estimated 1 trillion yen ($9 billion), according to Takaki Nakanishi, an analyst at Jefferies Group LLC.

The Takata acquisition could make Wang the owner of the world’s second-biggest safety parts supplier, trailing only Sweden’s Autoliv Inc. “Takata is a good company with strong factories and technologies, but it has made mistakes,” Wang told Bloomberg in April in Shanghai. “There’s potential for us to become one of the top two players in auto safety.”​

View attachment 406835

Wang studied art in college (he’s an amateur landscape photographer) and later earned an executive MBA degree at Peking University. He worked briefly at a local export and import company in early 1990s in Ningbo City on China’s east coast before running a family-owned partsmaker for five years and doing a stint with TRW Automotive Inc.’s China operation.

The Chinese executive founded Ningbo Joyson in 2004 to supply parts including control, air-intake and windscreen-washer systems, and counts Volkswagen AG, Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co. among its customers.

Wang bought the shell of a loss-making state-owned textile company in China’s rust-belt northeast in 2011 and went public, injecting its auto parts business into the listed company. Wang’s family owns the NB Joyson Invest Holding Co., the largest shareholder of Shanghai-traded Ningbo Joyson.

This decade Wang has spent 11 billion yuan ($1.6 billion), acquiring companies such as Preh GmbH, IMA Automation Amberg GmbH and Quin GmbH in Germany, and Evana Automation in the U.S. Along with announcing the acquisition of Key Safety in February 2016, Joyson also took over the automotive division of Germany’s TechniSat Digital GmbH to develop car connectivity, infotainment and navigation systems.

Under Wang, the revenue of Preh GmbH, a German supplier of products including electronic control units, has more than tripled to 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion) last year from 2010. The company is hiring more than 100 employees annually in Germany and has built a unit with 800 employees in China from scratch since 2012, said Preh President Christoph Hummel.

In the U.S., Wang has kept Key Safety’s strategy and management in place and, ironically, has benefited from Takata’s air bag troubles. Key Safety, whose revenue has been growing at an above-industry-average 20 percent even before Takata’s crisis, has received orders of more than $4 billion last year alone, some of which were from Takata’s former clients, said Ningbo Joyson CEO Tang Yuxin.

The Takata recalls may eventually cover more than 120 million inflators worldwide, Scott Caudill, chief operating officer for Takata’s U.S. unit TK Holdings Inc., said in a U.S. court document filed Monday.

View attachment 406836
Ningbo Joyson’s headquarters in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province. Source: Ningbo Joyson Electronic Corp.

Decisive Entrepreneur

Wang, who goes by Jeff among English-speaking employees, wins praise for his decisiveness and keeping existing management teams in place after acquisitions. “Jeff is easy to talk to and quick to make decisions, a typical entrepreneur,” said Hummel in an interview. “What’s important is that he kept the management teams. So you have this very interesting combination of independence and joint strategy with the right balance.”​

Wang is betting big on autonomous driving, auto safety and electric cars. He plans to integrate Preh’s connectivity, telematics and human machine interface technologies with Key Safety’s active and passive safety products.

By 2021, it aims to raise revenue to $10 billion from an estimated $4 billion to $5 billion this year, and boost net profit margin to 6 percent from 4.9 percent in 2015. The company also plans to expand in Southeast Asia and South America markets and enter the Japanese market, said Tang in April.

Read the full article at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...se-owner-emerges-as-big-player-in-auto-safety

Did not know Takata is becoming Chinese. If Mr. Wang can turn it around and overcome its negative image, he will end up dominant in this segment.

 

[Shotgunner51]

Did not know Takata is becoming Chinese. If Mr. Wang can turn it around and overcome its negative image, he will end up dominant in this segment.

This decade Wang has spent 11 billion yuan ($1.6 billion), acquiring companies such as Preh GmbH, IMA Automation Amberg GmbH and Quin GmbH in Germany, and Evana Automation in the U.S. Along with announcing the acquisition of Key Safety in February 2016, Joyson also took over the automotive division of Germany’s TechniSat Digital GmbH to develop car connectivity, infotainment and navigation systems.

After gobbling up so many targets in Germany and US, I was thinking he would have turned to Japan, just waiting for the right time, the right prey, this Ningbo man has a track record of being ultra aggressive! Now that he adds Takata to his war chest, his global empire is even more fearsome in auto supply chain.

Wang Jianfeng (王剑峰), chairman of Ningbo Joyson

 

[Tom99]

I hope they don't pollute the salt lake in anyway because that area looks like a great place to develop resorts for China's internal vacationers. A lot of money can be made from that.

 

[TaiShang]

China set to be car makers of tomorrow
Xinhua, June 25, 2017

Feng Jingwei walked to a Roewe e50 parked at the Hongqiao transport hub in Shanghai, after returning from a business trip.

He unplugged the charger from the white-green hatchback and hung it on the charging pile, before driving to his office 12 km away. It was the fourth time Feng had used the car in a month.

The ultra small plug-in car was a rental that Feng booked online, one of 220 EvCard electric vehicles (EVs) lined up at the Hongqiao hub, near a high-speed railway station and two airport terminals.

"I don't have to queue up for a taxi or jam myself into a subway coach," said Feng, 31, who runs a small business in one of China's most expensive cities. "I don't have a car, but it's getting easier to book one on an app and is usually cheaper than hailing a taxi."

GREENER

Five minutes after Feng pulled out with the Roewe e50, a Chery EQ filled its parking slot.

Lu Liuxi got out of the minicar, connected the charger and scanned a sensor on the windshield with his smartphone before hearing a beep. "It's available now," said Lu, an EvCard employee whose job is to move cars between parking stations as instructed by a dispatch center.

"Hongqiao is the busiest place among all EvCard stations in Shanghai, and we send cars here many times a day," said the veteran driver, who has been employed by EvCard for three months.

Launched in 2015 by Shanghai International Auto City (SIAC) Group, EvCard is China's first EV rental service, deploying 3,000 stations and about 6,000 cars in Shanghai. It also serves a further 23 Chinese cities.

The rate is 15 yuan for the first 30 minutes, with each minute a further 0.6 yuan in town, and 0.5 yuan out of town. The daily rent ceiling is 219 yuan for choices such as the Roewe e50 or Chery EQ. A BMW i3, a more upscale vehicle, costs more.

On Wednesday, the State Council announced efforts to develop the sharing economy, amid efforts to boost innovation and entrepreneurship.

Rong Wenwei, chair of the SIAC board, said that when the idea of EV rental first came to China, a number large vehicle rental firms were interested but dragged their feet due to uncertainty over profitability. The state-funded SIAC, however, had no such hesitation.

"In such a metropolis, each step to make the streets less choked and the air less polluted is worth taking," said Zhu Jing, who is in charge of the EvCard business unit.

The effort is paying off. EvCard now leads the world's green car rental service with the most EVs, self-service rental spots and membership clients, and is set to make a profit in Shanghai in 2018. By 2020, it plans to build a fleet of more than 300,000 cars to serve in 100 Chinese cities.

"It isn't impossible that cities like Shanghai will see car numbers drop," Zhu said.

His words were echoed by Zhu Xichan, professor at the School of Automotive Studies at Tongji University in Shanghai.

"The car has turned from a luxury to a household item in China. Limited resources and roads make car sharing the most convenient transport solution," he said.

"The idea of sharing, plus new energy vehicles, may well be an answer to private transportation while the number of cars can also be reduced," he said.

Recent statistics are encouraging. DriveNow, a car sharing service launched in 2011 in Germany, has pulled down private car use in Munich by 25 percent in past years, according to German reports. While Los Angeles is estimated to remove 1,000 private vehicles off the road, a Paris-based firm is partnering with the Los Angeles Department of Transportation to supply 200 EVs and 100 chargers on various streets.

BETTER CONNECTED

"A total of 121,425 EVs have been registered in Shanghai, almost doubling the number 12 months ago," said Ding Xiaohua, deputy director of Shanghai's EV Public Data Collecting, Monitoring and Research Center (EvData), also affiliated to SIAC.

"All those EVs are being monitored here -- the entire EvCard fleet as well as all privately-owned and public ones like electric buses and sanitation vehicles," Ding said in front of a congested e-map of the downtown on a huge screen in an EvData monitoring room in Jiading, a municipal district where the SIAC is headquartered.

When the center was set up in 2012, he recalled, data came from only eight cars, all hand-recorded. Now the platform is the world's biggest in terms of database size, the number of involved automakers, models of cars and total mileage.

A car's location, speed, battery capacity, voltage and temperature can each renewed in just 30 seconds.

While big data can be used for driving behavioral studies and car performance evaluation, accidents can be alerted and prevented when certain parameters of cars go abnormal, Ding said.

China has an "obvious strategic vision" in EVs and clean energy transport, said Professor Roger Raufer of energy, resources and environment at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center.

"Although it is first driven by its own domestic needs for better air quality and fewer oil imports, China's sheer scale and global aspirations make it a tremendously formidable player on the international scene," said Raufer, a former advisor to the UN Division for Sustainable Development in New York.

In 2016, over 507,000 EVs were sold in China, more than the combined sales in the United States, Norway, Britain, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands.

Shanghai now has 10 percent of China's green cars.

As more EVs hit the road, there is a growing need to make them safer, smarter and more linked.

An enclosed test zone for connected and self-driving cars in Jiading is where many Chinese and foreign intelligent cars are tested before being mass manufactured.

Known as the F-Zone, the site is considered the best in China and is one of the most advanced in the world.

Connected cars are put through as many as 50 simulation programs, such as pedestrian and non-motor vehicle crossing alerts, intersection collision avoidance and collaborative highway fleets.

Automated driving tests include collision avoidance, exiting systems under dangerous conditions and response ability.

The zone is blueprinted to reach beyond an enclosed area for real road tests and offer more simulations, such as in different weather conditions, said Gu Leiming, from SIAC management, who supervises the F-Zone.

Experts including Li Keqiang, professor of the Department of Automotive Engineering at Tsinghua University, believe that after new energy cars, intelligent connected vehicles will be the next in the auto industry.

China has been the world's largest auto market for years.

China's home-grown auto makers have gained a one-third share of the domestic market, 28 million vehicles in 2016, turning themselves from imitators to initiators in research and development.

With a huge and robust market, an ever stronger information industry, innovative industrial policies and the self-developed BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, China might have an edge on competitors in developing intelligent connected vehicles, Li said.

MORE INNOVATIVE

In 2015, China announced the "Made in China 2025" initiative, focusing on promoting high-end manufacturing, with energy saving and new energy vehicles being one of the key points.

By 2020, Shanghai is set to work on about 60 major industrial projects, each worth over 1 billion yuan. The development of intelligent connected vehicles is on the list.

Efficient governance, advanced technologies and a large group of consumers eager to enter the connected era may give China "the lead in the worldwide race to build connected cars and future transport system," according to a report by the Swedish trade and investment council in December 2016.

However, China's road to future cars is not without bumps.

Many argue that the soaring number of new energy cars is the result of government subsidies, and quite a number of drivers still prefer going to gas stations after buying plug-in hybrid EVs (PHEVs). "If that is indeed the case complying with our data collection, measures should be taken and the car owner's credit rating should be affected," EvData's Ding said.

Ding appreciates that use of personal data may be a concern to some.

"While using data for future decision making on traffic optimization, we set collecting points on main roads instead of tracing individual vehicle movements too close to specific residential spots," he said. Meanwhile, experts say that car rental can also be more scientific and friendly if it uses a "handshake" feature, allowing a vehicle to be transferred between two customers on the fly, which saves time looking for a parking place.

As for maintenance of shared vehicles, EvCard is introducing an appraisal system in which each clients can grade previous users, resulting in a reference for members' credit ratings.

Most experts remain positive about the future of EVs.

"The world needs a better way for people and goods to get around, and we believe autonomous, connected vehicles are an important component of the solution," Mark Schlissel, president of the University of Michigan, said as he signed with a Chinese firm representative an investment deal in October 2016 to advance autonomous, connected vehicles and robotic technologies.

David Frey, a partner for Markets Strategy at KPMG in China, said that each company recognized the unwavering commitment of the Chinese government to developing advanced new energy automobile manufacturing.

"We can expect that city-based experimentation with the infrastructure and business models required to support expansion of electric vehicles will be robust," Frey wrote in the latest issue of Insight, the journal of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai.

http://www.china.org.cn/business/2017-06/25/content_41093516.htm

 

[Shotgunner51]

The global auto industry is worth $2 trillion, but electric and hybrid cars currently make up less than one percent of that figure. However, experts are predicting an explosion in electric car adoption. Even though they’ll be affordable, and they’ll keep the air cleaner, though, electric cars will still have one major limitation, and that’s…the fact that they’re electric. Electric things run on batteries, and if batteries don’t get recharged every so often, they die.

Researchers at Stanford University just took a step toward solving this problem. In a paper published last week in Nature, the team described a new technique that wirelessly transmits electricity to a moving object within close range.

Wireless power transfer works using magnetic resonance coupling. An alternating magnetic field in a transmitter coil causes electrons in a receiver coil to oscillate, with the best transfer efficiency occurring when both coils are tuned to the same frequency and positioned at a specific angle.

That makes it hard to transfer electricity while an object is moving though. To bypass the need for continuous manual tuning, the Stanford team removed the radio-frequency source in the transmitter and replaced it with a voltage amplifier and a feedback resistor.

The system calibrates itself to the required frequency for different distances. Using this system, the researchers were able to wirelessly transmit a one-milliwatt charge of electricity to a moving LED light bulb three feet away. No manual tuning was needed, and transfer efficiency remained stable.

One milliwatt is a far cry from the tens of kilowatts an electric car needs. But now that they’ve established that an amplifier will do the trick, the team is working on ramping up the amount of electricity that can be transferred using this system.

Switching out the amplifier itself could make a big difference—for this test, they used a general-purpose amplifier with about ten percent efficiency, but custom-made amplifiers could likely boost efficiency to over 90 percent.

It will still be a while before electric cars can get zapped with infusions of charge while cruising down the highway, but that’s the future some energy experts envision.

“In theory, one could drive for an unlimited amount of time without having to stop to recharge,” said Shanhui Fan, professor of electrical engineering and senior author of the study. “The hope is that you’ll be able to charge your electric car while you’re driving down the highway. A coil in the bottom of the vehicle could receive electricity from a series of coils connected to an electric current embedded in the road.”​

Embedding power lines in roads would be a major infrastructure project, and it wouldn’t make sense to undertake it until electric car adoption was widespread—when, for example, electric cars accounted for at least 50 percent of total vehicles on the road, or more. If charging was easier, though, more drivers might choose to go electric.

Despite the significant hurdles left to clear, charging moving cars is the most exciting potential of the Stanford team’s wireless transfer system. But there are also smaller-scale applications like cell phones and personal medical implants, which will likely employ the technology before it’s used on cars. Fan even mentioned that the system “…may untether robotics in manufacturing.”

Read the full article at https://singularityhub.com/2017/06/22/this-tech-could-charge-electric-cars-while-they-drive/

 

[JSCh]

First train ferrying China-made Volvo cars arrives in Belgium
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-01 04:47:25|Editor: Mu Xuequan



BRUSSELS, June 30 (Xinhua) -- A freight train carrying 123 brand new Volvo cars made in northeast China arrived in the Belgian port of Zeebrugge Friday afternoon, marking a milestone in the history of cargo transport between the two countries.

The train was welcomed by government officials, diplomats, business representatives and journalists from both countries after a journey of 9,832 kilometers, which took some 20 days, passing through Russia, Belarus, Poland and Germany.

The shipment carried the S90L, Volvo's flagship model, manufactured in the company's Daqing plant in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province.

A staff member from the car manufacturer at the site told Xinhua that all the cars have been reserved and will soon be distributed across Europe from the port.

"If we ship the cars by sea it will take up to 60 days, now we can save over 40 days. We also managed to find a balance between saving time and controlling shipping costs," said Yuan Xiaolin, senior vice president of Volvo Car Group attending the welcome ceremony.

Following the arrival of the first train, the Volvo rail cargo service will continue to run at least once a week, and eventually reach the goal of four to five weekly round trips.

Every year the trains are expected to bring 30,000 to 40,000 new Volvo vehicles to Zeebrugge, an open seaport handling over 40 million tons of cargo annually, and ferry Belgian products to China on their return journeys.

Belgian deputy Prime Minister Kris Peeters, who visited the Volvo Daqing plant during his visit to China in May, hailed the arrival of the train as an example of "concrete results of the Belt and Road Initiative".

The initiative aims to build a trade, investment and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa along the ancient Silk Road.

Peeters stressed that Belgium is demonstrating strong willingness to participate in the Belt and Road initiative as a partner.

"The 21st Century Silk Road marks a new era for trade and cooperation between Belgium and China. As we see today it provides great opportunities for countries to deepen cooperation," said Peeters.

"We firmly believe that strengthening train connectivity and investing in excellent infrastructural links will be a crucial aspect of Europe's future relations with Asia," he added.

Qu Xing, Chinese ambassador to Belgium, believes that the potential of this new train service is tremendous.

"Belgium has great advantages in carrying out cooperation with China under the framework of the Belt and Road initiative," said the ambassador, underlining that Belgium boasts three of the 10 biggest ports in Europe.

As of early June, over 4,000 cargo train trips have been made between Chinese and European cities since the start of the direct rail freight services six years ago, according to Chinese national operator China Railway Corporation.