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The morningAll your daily news on the car in a convenient place. Is your time not more important? An independent Nissan, absurd evaluations, and your favorite car in the world – the Apple car !!!!!!! – is back. All this and more in the Morning Shift of Thursday, April 18, 2019.
1st gear: Maybe Nissan will soon be Nissan again?
Rumors and allusions to greater concerns about the case of Nissan's former president, Carlos Ghosn, are still topical, but the plot of the palace has always hinted that the traditionalists of Nissan, Japan, had an aversion to what we will do. just call Nissan's big defanification.
You, frequent reader of the local car magazine Jalopnik, surely know what we are talking about. The conspiracy theory, as it is, goes a little like this:
- Carlos Ghosn, Renault-Nissan President, wants his company to be the world's largest car company
- To do this, under his command, Nissan is trying to do much with the general public, sacrificing the tradition of Nissan's Z, Xterras and GT-R cars, to the benefit of Sentras' vast and endless rental fleet.
- Nissan is getting closer and closer to Renault, the last plan being to ensure that it is finally fully absorbed by Nissan, so that Nissan is fully under the control of its French sovereigns
- Renault is Nissan! Nissan is Renault!
- Nissan's traditionalists do not like that and end up being pushed to the point where they beat Ghosn.
The story gets even stranger today. A new Bloomberg report says largely that the traditionalist faction of Nissan is getting desperate and is finally resorting to the Japanese government to try to prevent Renault (and therefore the French government, which holds much of Renault) taking over the Japanese automaker :
While the then president, Carlos Ghosn, insisted on strengthening the ties of Nissan Motor Co. with his partner Renault SA last year, officials of the Japanese company were working behind the scenes with government officials to defend Nissan's independence, according to e-mails seen by Bloomberg.
Efforts by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry to counter changes in the alliance of two decades show that concern was growing in the higher echelons of the Japanese government – months before Ghosn's arrest on accusations of wrongdoing financial – the alliance, would strengthen Renault and its main shareholder, the French state, to the detriment of Nissan.
The story goes on, implying that Nissan's Japanese officials were trying to walk a tightrope and a tightrope trying to maintain Nissan's independence, but trying not to arouse the suspicions of Ghosn and prevent the Japanese government from pushing Nissan around.
Everything is super weird. Read it here.
2nd gear: a possible explanation of why GM's deal with Rivian failed
Some time ago, in February, there were strong rumors that Amazon and GM were about to invest in the startup of Rivian, an electric pickup and SUV. Then the news was announced: Amazon paid a huge amount of money to Rivian.
Where was GM?
It turns out that GM made almost invest in Rivian, but the deal failed. While not providing total catharsis to people at home who are desperately waiting for GM to put money in Rivian (?), Bloomberg still has some on what's wrong:
[Rivian founder R.J.] Scaringe's big plan helps to explain why the discussions that would have allowed GM to lose its stake have fallen apart. With interests from both consumers and businesses, Rivian is pushing back an agreement that might have required a level of exclusivity that would have prevented it from building vehicles for others.
"In general, my reason for starting Rivian was to do great things without hindering us from doing it," said Scaringe, while refusing to discuss discussions with GM in particular.
GM and Rivian reached an agreement that could have benefited both companies. GM could have contributed its expertise in engineering and manufacturing. In return, Rivian may have helped the largest US manufacturer to market an electric pickup sooner.
At the base, Rivian would have made a lot of money, but it was a bit of a pact with the devil, making the start-up's fate match that of the automaton. And even if it goes well here and there, I'm not sure anyone, except GM, wants to be exclusively linked to GM.
3rd gear: Lol Sure Okay
Uber's self-driving unit could be assessed at obscene amounts, according to the Financial Times:
Uber is in the process of concluding an investment contract with the SoftBank Vision Fund and other investors who are evaluating its standalone unit at $ 7.25 billion, according to two people close to the case.
The current shareholders of Uber, SoftBank and Toyota, as well as Japanese auto parts supplier Denso, plan to invest $ 1 billion in Uber's advanced technology group in exchange for a minority stake in the company. 'unit. The agreement was still being negotiated and could collapse, said the people.
A Uber motorist remains the only autonomous car to kill anyone, Uber 's self – driving program was stopped and restarted last year alone and, according to my own calculations, Uber must either completely change his business model, fully tie his wagon to autonomous cars so that he can stay in business for the next few decades.
Cool Business Model you got there, Uber
After following Lyft very quickly, Uber filed an initial public offering, kicking …
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But every day, it looks more like autonomous cars that will not work.
What if autonomous cars never arrived?
More and more semi-autonomous cars sail every day on the road, and yet I spend more time …
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It seems doomed.
4th gear: the Apple car is back? May be?
The Apple Car was on and then it was canceled and then it was canceled and … you got the idea.
But a new report from Reuters indicates that, if the Apple Car is not fully relighted, Apple does Something with autonomous cars:
Apple is looking for smaller, cheaper and easier to mass-produce LIDAR units than the current technology, said the three people. The iPhone maker is setting the bar high to require a "revolutionary design," said one of the regulars of the talks. People have refused to name the companies that Apple has approached.
The sensor effort means that Apple wants to develop the entire hardware chain to guide autonomous vehicles and has joined automakers and investors in the race for winning technologies.
Current lidar systems, including Velodyne Inc. units mounted on Apple's fleet of self-piloted test vehicles, use pulses of laser light to provide accurate images of the environment around the car. But systems can cost $ 100,000 and use mechanical parts to scan laser scanners on the road.
Hey, as I said, autonomous cars will not work very long. But if my choices were Uber or Apple, I will use the infinite resources of Apple.
5th gear: New York Auto Show!
The New York International Auto Show is taking place this week! Check out our current coverage here.
Anthony Denis Davidson, a British racing driver, was born that day in 1979. Davidson's career began in the karting competition, where he enjoyed great success.
Neutral: What is your favorite NYIAS car?
And why is a Kia Stinger equipped with Drift mode?
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