Over the last few weeks, Motoring Weekly has been publishing articles about the companies behind the scenes of autonomous vehicle development. Most are unknown to the general public, however this article covers a name that everyone knows about: BMW. Firstly though, it is important to define what “autonomous” means and the levels of autonomy that the industry has agreed on - … [Read more...]
FCA Settles Incorrect Sales Numbers Lawsuit
FIAT Chrysler (FCA), who have been in the news quite a lot recently, has recently settled an anti-trust lawsuit that was filed in January 2016. The lawsuit consisted of several parts: racketeering, anti-trust and breach of contract. Initially the racketeering charges were dismissed in October 2016 and then dismissed again in July 2017 when they were rewritten and recharged. … [Read more...]
FCA Buys Credits from Tesla
This is an interesting bending of the rules - similar to the Volkswagen Group developing software to detect when a car is being tested such that the correct test results are delivered. FIAT Chrysler (FCA) is working with Tesla to lower the fleet emissions such that they won't get fined by the EU. FCA has already had to pay $800M a couple of years ago to settle a US lawsuit … [Read more...]
Extreme Weather Shuts Factories
This is something that most people don’t consider when they think about car production: how the weather can affect the volume of vehicles coming down the lines. In January, with the very bad weather that swept across the northern States of the US, one of the energy utilities put out a message to conserve gas because they were worried about supplies. General Motors was asked … [Read more...]
FIAT Chrysler Pays Economy Penalties
In mid February, FIAT Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) released a statement that they had paid $77m in penalties for 2016 model vehicles that did not meet the CAFE requirements for that year. Apparently they were not the only manufacturer to pay a penalty, however they took up the biggest portion of the penalties incurred in the US. Despite agreeing to the gradual increase in fuel … [Read more...]