I read two interesting reports recently about the future of the industry with two new factories being proposed: one in Asia and one in Africa with a US company building in Asia and an Asian company building in Africa! BYD, the Chinese electric car and battery maker has signed a deal to build a factory in Morocco to assemble new vehicles and other equipment. Morocco is … [Read more...]
Faraday Future Gets Investment
I read a report a month or so ago that stated that Faraday Future - one of the Tesla Rivals I wrote about several years ago, has finally got hold of a new round of financing that (in theory) should get them to full production status. Faraday Future is a California based company yet the founder and initial investors are Chinese - this is interesting in its own right because … [Read more...]
Ford Has The Holy Grail
So says Jack Bakaj, the head of engineering at Ford Europe. He is talking about a new architecture that the company will use for some of its smaller models. Earlier this year, Ford announced that it would stop production of most of its car models in the US and would concentrate on SUVs and trucks with factories in other countries producing the models that would be imported in … [Read more...]
Honda Launches Everus Brand
Many of the marque articles published on Motoring Weekly discuss “companion brands” - a marque that was created to fill a gap in the market - Pontiac was one that outgrew its parent. In recent decades we have seen a resurgence in major manufacturers creating brands typically to fill the luxury end of the market, for example, Honda and Acura, Toyota and Lexus and even Mazda with … [Read more...]
A Better Place Far Away
What happened to Better Place, the company that was going to build the charging network across the world that would supercharge the sales of electric cars? When I was producing Motoring Weekly podcasts back in 2008 to 2010, this company was in the news almost weekly. Better Place was founded by Shai Agassi, an Israeli tech developer who like many technology people was in the … [Read more...]
