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The story of GM's self driving car Cruise stemming from its acquisition of a startup in California in 2016. It started with GM perceiving a threat from driverless cars and ride hailing firms. After the acquisition GM's share price rallied. Investments came in from Softbank and other companies. The company planned a robo-taxi service to test its cars in American cities. This story covers the accidents as GM pushed for it too early till California pulled out of the program.

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Dugan and Spector of the WSJ take readers through efforts to push self driving technology to its limits at electric car maker Tesla. Tesla CEO Elon Musk is pushing the technology and plans to get a self driving car go from Los Angeles to New York by the end of 2017. Problems faced by Tesla include a car crash involving a driver who took his hands off the wheel of a Tesla automobile, leading to a crash with an eighteen wheeler truck. This led to an investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Board and a decision by Tesla to make driver's hands on the steering wheel required for autopilot to operate. Earlier in 2015 Tesla engineers confirmed that the Tesla cars were not ready for autonomous driving because of near crashes when the reliance was placed entirely on the technology. Ten engineers and two managers resigned from Tesla according to this report by WSJ, with problems relating to deadlines and marketing decisions. Sterling Anderson, the head of the Autopilot program at Tesla resigned to start his own company with the head of the autonomous driving unit at Google, saying he was going to do it the right way, citing concerns that Musk was going ahead with the technology without making it failure proof. The tricky thing about auto pilot driving is the behavioural factors involved, where drivers may take their hands off the steering wheel and not be prepared to act as a backup should the technology fail or something go wrong. Another aspect of this is the tendency of drivers not to pay attention to the road and rely completely on the auto pilot to do everything, more than its capabilities today. Toyota and other auto companies are including some elements of collision free driving, and reliable aspects of the new technology into cars. For Tesla the driverless technology is part of its marketing appeal, and CEO Musk has moved faster in this respect than his own engineering team, according to this WSJ report. ...

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Honda will invest $750 million in the GM Cruise LLC, followed by $2 billion invested in development of self-driving autonomous cars over 12 years. Honda takes a 5.7% stake in GM Cruise, with Softbank having a 19.6% stake after investment of $2.2 billion in June 2018. Honda's investment with GM Cruise LLC which is a separate entity created by GM to develop autonomous self-driving cars, is a culture change for Honda. In the past Honda prided itself on its tech prowess, now this is changing. Automakers are likely to team up as they face competition from Waymo, a unit of Google's Alphabet, setup in 2016.

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Google parent Alphabet operates Waymo robotaxis venture with $5 billion investment. It is the only operator of robotaxis after General Motors exited the market following an accident. About 300 Waymo robotaxis operate in the city of San Francisco and some suburbs, 400 robotaxis in other cities, a first in the US and are limited to surface streets only. WSJ report looks at the experience of city residents. Other cities where Waymo plans to operate are Phoenix, Atlanta, and Rochester NY.

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Subaru's new marketing campaign "True Love" tries to broaden the car's appeal to customers outside the northeast and Colorado. In the past the car's four wheel drive and performance in snow driving made it popular in states with winter snow conditions. Subaru is now making an effort to sell in southern and western states, appealing to customers who want higher fuel efficiency and improved safety. Subaru has 2.3% of the American market, but its sales are higher in a few states. with a 11% market share in Vermont. Subaru sales have grown rapidly and increased during the recession. Sales increased 41% between 2008-2010 with the popularity of a new version of the Outback wagon. In 2010 Subaru increased sales by 22% to 263,820 cars.

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Tesla's autopilot system was engaged when a fatal crash happened on Highway 101 near Mountain View in California in March 2018. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the second such incident since 2016.

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Tesla suffered from production issues in 2017 and CEO Musk was not his usual upbeat self.  In early 2018 Musk is back to his usual style predicting big things for Tesla. Just after his company Space Exploration Technologies sent a powerful rocket with a Tesla car into space,Musk predicted making one million vehicles a year in 2020. In 3 months he says a Tesla will cross the U.S. He says Tesla will now be able to make 5000 cars a week of the Model 3.

Another of his predictions is that he will revolutionize production systems and leap over existing car companies. Analysts asked Musk if the Toyota Production System had not already achieved that, Musk says "we don't think so." This report points to changing moods of Musk and periods when he feels high and low, and changing according to the unrelenting stress he finds himself in or indulges in.

 

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Interview with Honda CEO Takeo Fukui. In June Honda will rollout a new hydrogenpowered fuel cell vehicle called the FCX Clarity. Its powered with electricity produced by combining hydrogen and oxygen in batterylike fuel cells. Honda will have this vehicle available for lease this summer in California and aims to deliver about 200 of these cars by 2010. Fukui's attitude is refreshing when compared to that of other automakers when answering a question by John Murphy of the WSJ about why try to build a hydrogen car when the stations to power the cars do not exist yet. He tells Murphy if you asked were there any gas stations when Henry Ford came up with the Model T, there weren't any, lets build the cars first and the infrastructure will follow. And Honda is working on the technology that will make it possible to charge hydrogen into fuel-cell vehicles at home . He sees it happening first in California and some other states, and in Japan and Europe. And he sees it taking about 10 years to get some sort of infrastructure in place. Considering the long term nature of the demand side with the gradual inclusion of billions of people in China and India as well as Brazil and Russia into the world economy as well as people in other developing countries this is a solution that takes patient and focused development of technology which Honda is setting out to do. He does not see a safety issue in use of hydrogen vehicles as he is confident Honda can develop the expertise to handle the safety issue for hydrogen. What is his thinking on green vehicles? What happened to the Insight the first hybrid car that Honda introduced? The Insight was never intended to be a mass seller, only to establish Honda's record as having the best record in fuel efficiency. What is Honda doing in this area. Honda does see a problem in this area. Toyota he says developed a green image largely on the back of one car the Prius. Honda will come up in 2009 with a dedicated hybrid vehicle to match the Prius. And Honda is setting the bar high for this Honda hybrid, saying that his feeling that this model will have to overwhelm and overtake the Prius. He goes on to say that this is key for us. Honda he says will take on the challenge and compete with Toyota with its products, its technology, and its racing spirit. This gasoline-electric hybrid will be introduced early next year in the USA, Japan, and Europe, and it will be the first of 4 hybrid models Honda will introduce by 2015. Regarding price the company says it will be "affordable". Honda's goal is to sell 500,000 hybrid vehicles a year. Toyota aims to sell 1 million hybrid vehicles early in the next decade and is working on developing its own hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle. Is Honda developing electric cars? Takeo Fukui thinks the practical feasibility of the electric vehicle is very limited. The two biggest issues in his view being driving distance and recharging time. The FCX Clarity can be recharged in one minute, compared to the several hours for an electric vehicle. In his view the electric vehicles will be uselful only for restricted applications like golf carts. Nissan and General Motors are planning to launch electric vehicles. What is Honda's environmental strategy? Honda being a smaller company has to focus its resources wisely with strategic choices. His focus is on the hybrid as the core product, and after that comes fuel cell and clean diesel as the core products to tackle fuel eficiency and CO2 issues. Takeo has spent more than a decade on Honda's racing teams. He drives a CR-V and enjoys driving up and down the mountains, does not race but does get on Honda's test track once or twice a year. And what has he learned from all the years in racing. When he was fully engaged in the motorcycle racing teams he says the pressure was very high and if they did not do well they got bashed by managers and the media. And actually the results were disappointing for years and the teams kept losing. For hime the series of difficulties and challenges was something that he feels everyone should experience because in some ways he acquired wisdom and creativity to get through these experiences. This is some thing Honda and Fukui will need as they try to develop their own hybrid to take the lead from Toyota and come up with industry leading technology in tackling fuel efficiency and CO2 issues. His own approach to management? Two things he always keeps in mind are take time to keep up good communication with associates at work, and testing Honda's own products with his own hands. What does he think about the auto industry in 2008, is it a turning point? He says it has becom clear in 2008 that a company has to have the technology to deal with carborn dioxide and fuel efficiency issues. And its clear that smaller vehicles are more attractive than larger vehicles. And its possible he says that we may go back from automobiles to motorcycles. In fact in India Honda is promoting motorcycles in a big way, while Tata is developing the Nano for mass market, so Takeo is talking about something that Honda sees happening in some places. ...

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A large increase in fuel efficiency as planned by new EPA rules creates a different environment for electric cars. Current average fuel economy is 26. New rules that raise the average fuel economy to higher than 47 mpg will result in cars that conserve gasoline, reduce emissions, and make these vehicles more attractive to operate than electric cars on a cost basis, without sacrificing too much in conservation and emissions. A new study shows that achieving the increase to 47 mpg with new technologies will cost automakers about $2000 per vehicle. At $4.50 a gallon for gasoline it takes six years for a hybrid to be more cost effective than a 47 mpg car, according to this study. For a plug-in it would take 7 years and a pure electric vehicle 8 years. This suggests gasoline would have to cost more than $4.50 for electric cars to get an economic advantage. Technological breakthroughs and new technologies in electric cars which are a nascent industry at this time are not worked into these calculations. This could result in a different situation and favor the companies doing the pioneering effort to learn these technologies and develop cost effective solutions....