Automakers gearing up for Europe’s biggest annual car show in Geneva, Switzerland, are celebrating the end of the sector’s crisis as European sales have returned to levels last seen in 2008.
However, a dark cloud has gathered over the outlook because of emissions scandals, especially involving European market leader Volkswagen AG, and the road to recovery would be paved with unprecedented efforts to fight auto pollution, involving equally unprecedented costs.
“Solutions are more and more expensive,” said Marc Charlet at Mov’eo, an automotive and mobility research network. “There is much at stake here, and the competition is fierce.”
Photo: AP
European rules for combustion engines were always going to become more stringent, but Volkswagen’s emissions cheating, the industry’s biggest pollution scandal to date, has turbo-charged regulators’ eagerness to crack down on pollution.
Sales of cars with cleaner alternative technologies are still only marginal, with electric cars accounting for just 1.2 percent of new vehicle sales in the EU in 2015, the European Environmental Agency said.
Automakers are now having to steer toward engines that emit no more than 95g of carbon dioxide per kilometer by 2021 to meet European requirements, compared with 130g in 2015.
However, as diesel cars have been getting a bad rap because of emissions scandals, that target looks harder to meet. That also means gasoline-powered cars have to take up the slack, requiring the industry to squeeze more efficiency out of engines and to reduce vehicles’ weight.
If they do not achieve the goals, the bill would be high.
Automakers failing to meet the carbon dioxide targets — capping petrol consumption to 4.1 liters per 100km and diesel to 3.6 liters per 100km — will have to pay 95 euros (US$100) for every extra gram of carbon dioxide emitted by each car — potentially adding up to tens of millions of euros of fines.
“We will have to look for grams to save in every part of the car, particularly in components,” said Guillaume Devauchelle, head of innovation and research at parts maker Valeo SA.
This includes air conditioning, second only to the engine for energy use, electric compressors, self-starters, right down to light bulbs.
Meanwhile, every weight gain of 12kg translates into 1g of carbon dioxide saved. Better electronics and aerodynamic designs would also help.
Research and development costs “have practically doubled in the past decade,” said Remi Cornubert at consulting firm AT Kearney Inc, adding that half of the increase was forced on automakers by regulators.
“The car of the future will be significantly more expensive to design and to build,” said Guillaume Crunelle, auto expert at the Deloitte consulting group.
Executives needing a break from nagging worries about rules and money can always take time to enjoy the glamor for which the Geneva show is famous.
The legendary Ferrari NV, Lamborghini SpA, Pagani SpA, McLaren and Bentley Motors Ltd have picked Lake Geneva’s shore to present new models.
Renault SA is to showcase the final version of its Alpine A110 sports car.
However, the greatest buzz may come from so-called “crossover” vehicles, which combine features taken from sports utility vehicles with those of passenger cars.
The segment, including fashionable urban four-wheel drive vehicles, makes up about 30 percent of the European car market and features the Volvo XC60, the Citroen C-Aircross, the DS7 Crossback and the Land Rover Velar.
At least 180 companies are to be present at the 10-day show, which opens to the public on Thursday after two press days, during which most major corporate announcements are expected.
Last year’s show attracted 687,000 visitors.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day