This week's snippets of automotive news cover the entire industry, from electric car range figures to Jaguar's CX75, from personal data concerns in cars to the lack of a hot Kia Stonic model.
Range lies
The automotive industry is at risk of making promises that it can’t keep on cars’ range in the way it has previously done with economy or emission figures, according to Volkswagen boss Herbert Diess. He said that while many cars are promising 370 miles of range, “the reality is less”. To address that issue, he commented: “We should look at how we calculate our range."
Jaguar CX75 should have gone into production
The Jaguar CX75 two-seat sports car concept, revealed in 2010 at the Geneva motor show, should have gone into production, according to Jaguar design director Ian Callum. “The CX75 came so close. It was very sad that it fell over at the final hurdle. I think history will show that we should have done it,” he said. It was canned due to other business priorities.
Personal data concerns
With concerns increasing around personal data in a new generation of connected cars, Volvo digital boss Atif Rafiq said that the brand will record the “least amount of personal data possible to do the job”. He added that all data is deleted when a car is sold and that Volvo does “as much as possible on an anonymised level” – for example, for studying traffic patterns.
No hot Kia Stonic to come
The Kia Stonic will not get a hot GT variant, despite a move in the class to more sporting SUVs. Such a Stonic, which would rival the Nissan Juke Nismo, is not in the current product plan, according to Kia product boss Monica Forno. Depending on demand, though, one could be added if needed.
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“We should look at how we calculate our range."
it's perfectly simple! the car(s) were in design and development for years, during this time they have been driven a lot, tested a lot, by many different people, over many different days and weathers etc. During these periods, simply write down how far the thing went on it's fuel, take an average whilst also noting the best and worst figures, and just tell us those? Does anyone else find it weird how there's all this fuss over how to test them, how to be laboratory repeatable, and yet out here in the real world there's thousands of different people, all driving in their slightly different ways, on different roads and journeys, and yet all saying they get roughly the same range? nobody is ever driving them under the conditions found in the lab tests. it's all nonsense.
Battery range doesn't matter too much
Hydrogen fuel
When you say growth do you mean a few hundred PRIVATE sales in 2016 to a few hundred and 10 sales in 2017?
Thank you Mr Diess!
Finally someone calls a spade a spade while Elon Musk is busy laying off hundreds of staff. I wsh it wasn't so but pure electric vehicles are an inferior technology in every way except emissions. Bit like air travel in the '30s. Everyone got way ahead of themselves. It took the jet engine and a World War before mass air transportation became a reality.
Actually
They were sacked. Oh and after talks between unions and VW plan Deiss plan to lay off 30,000 staff before 2025*
And commercial air travel took a bit of hit in 30's due to certain war.
*source InvestorPlace
inferior in every way +
You conveniently forgot EV's are also quieter, smoother, more space efficient, instant torque, at least 6 times cheaper in fuel costs, electric motors are more efficient than an ICE (97%v 35%), don’t need clutch, gearbox, have fewer parts, more reliable, you have control of where emissions are produced, get power from wind turbines.