The Outing Media Under One Hundred People Focuses on the Evolution of the Automotive Industry Chain.

By Roomy

“Watching him build high buildings, banqueting guests, watching him collapse…”. Diess said, “This is my state of mind, but the high-rise is gradually being taken away layer by layer”.

Some people worry, while others rejoice, such as FCA and PSA, who have been “living together” and have recently launched a counter-attack by investing 30 billion euros to “keep their distance” from Volkswagen. Yes, they want to surpass them.

As for when Stellantis can surpass Volkswagen, there is no specific time. However, Mercedes has already surpassed Tesla by obtaining the world’s first conditional Level 3 autonomous driving system international certification in Germany, while Tesla has not yet been approved.

As the biggest catfish in the electrification era, is Musk in a hurry? However, he said he doesn’t want to work.

Diess’s Power Is Reduced

For Diess, this result will undoubtedly be unacceptable.

Recently, at the Volkswagen Group Supervisory Board held in Wolfsburg, there were two core themes: Diess’s tenure and the further upgrades to the electrification strategy.

Starting next year, Diess will be fully responsible for the software department.

This change was sudden. For Diess, the time he had to prepare was only 20 days in total. How to overcome the psychological pressure has become an important matter for him.

Regarding this change, Volkswagen Group also gave some explanations: this is a restructuring and functional optimization of the management structure. Another new change in the management structure is that the person in charge of the Chinese business will also change.

Ralph Brandstaetter, CEO of Volkswagen Passenger Cars, has joined the company’s management board and will be responsible for the management of Volkswagen cars. At the same time, Ralph will take over Fromhagen’s job and will be responsible for China business from August 1 next year.

As the most important market for Volkswagen, the business development of the Chinese market is particularly important. This change of leadership also indicates that Wolfsburg’s patience with the transformation speed of the Chinese business is wearing thin.

There is no news yet about Fromhagen’s next move. However, with eight months left, it should be enough for him to plan. Judging solely from the time available, the union’s patience with Diess is very limited, and the conflict has become increasingly intense.

In October of this year, Diess had a conflict with the union due to his aggressive downsizing plan. Prior to this, Diess believed that Volkswagen needed to reduce costs to improve its competitiveness with Tesla and needed to reduce 30,000 employees.

Diess has always hoped to lead Volkswagen to catch up with Tesla. Obviously, the union does not want to listen to these efforts. Under the conflict, Diess’s tenure has become the biggest point of interest in Volkswagen’s drama.

The Supervisory Board has been worrying about this matter and hopes to find a compromise solution that can allow Diess to stay while also easing the union’s opposition. This time, Diess was able to stay on with “reduced power” and shifted his focus to the group.

Diess won, but it seems like he hasn’t completely won. The Chinese and sales businesses he was in charge of have been split up, and he has withdrawn from more actual business operations. Diess said in an interview, “I won’t complain about losing some power. I still believe that I am fully responsible for the company.” He also said on LinkedIn, “I believe this is an absolutely correct choice.”

However, Volkswagen’s pursuit of Tesla has not changed.

The Volkswagen Group stated that it will invest 89 billion euros in future technologies such as electric vehicles and digitalization over the next five years, and plans to build a new factory starting in 2024 to produce the ID.3 and Trinity models expected to be launched in 2026.

Volkswagen is urgently hoping to narrow the gap with Tesla and distance itself from competitors such as Toyota and Stellantis.

The Volkswagen software department may become a talent pool for Don Waitt.

Want to distance yourself? Stellantis Group says no.

Perhaps some people are not clear about what kind of company Stellantis Group is. In brief, it is a brand new group formed by the merger of two old car companies, FCA and PSA, with nearly 8 million annual sales and ranks the fourth-largest car company in the world.

Previously, the industry called the merger of FCA and PSA “sharing life together.” After all, Stellantis’ first CEO, Don Waitt, has two well-known titles, “iron-fisted financier” and “cost killer,” and the merger has also hedged certain risks.

Saving money is not the ultimate goal. Since it is already the fourth-largest car company in the world, Stellantis cannot afford to be as slow as before when it comes to the global trend of electrification and intelligent transformation.

Don Waitt publicly stated that Stellantis is committed to becoming a “great” company, boosting cutting-edge technology development, and accelerating electrification. What is being shared externally is either the sharing of a pure electric platform or the development of autonomous driving. There are also the establishment of travel companies, all related to transformation.

It is apparent that Stellantis Group hopes not to fall behind in the way that it did with traditional fuel cars. Although, with the current product layout and technology reserves, it is quite difficult to make breakthroughs in intelligence in the short term.

However, on the other hand, it is currently in the stage of investing money for technology reserves, and Stellantis Group is no exception.# Stellantis Launches Software Strategy to Compete with Volkswagen and Toyota

Stellantis is betting big on software to gain an advantage in the market, which it sees as key to pulling away from competitors like Toyota and Volkswagen. Stellantis recently announced its new software strategy, which will begin deploying three new AI-powered technology platforms – STLA Brain, STLA SmartCockpit, and STLA AutoDrive – beginning in 2024.

Stellantis plans to build a completely new electrical and software architecture and has partnered with Hon Hai Group to develop intelligent cockpits with BMW for L2, L2+, and L3-level autonomous driving technology, and with Waymo to develop self-driving electric trucks. The company also plans to invest €30 billion in software and electrification by 2025.

Stellantis has completed over 6 million over-the-air (OTA) remote vehicle updates and plans to have at least one OTA upgrade performed on every vehicle on a quarterly basis by 2026.

With the deployment of Stellantis’ three new AI-powered technology platforms on its four STLA vehicles in 2024, the company plans to fully utilize the speed and flexibility associated with the decoupling of hardware and software.

Meanwhile, Mercedes-Benz quietly achieved a major milestone in Germany, becoming the world’s first automaker to receive conditional Level 3 autonomous driving certification. This achievement is in compliance with Global Technical Regulation No. 157 and includes the approval of automated lane-keeping systems for use in vehicles.Only Level 3 autonomous driving is capable of conditional self-driving, but Level 3 hasn’t been approved for road use yet. Honda mass-produced the world’s first Level 3 autonomous driving vehicle, the Honda Legend Hybrid EX, which can drive on designated roads in Tokyo, but only 100 were produced.

Global Automotive Regulation No. 157 has paved the way for Mercedes-Benz to achieve autonomous driving in various markets around the world while adhering to national laws and regulations.

This time, Mercedes-Benz has indeed taken a step ahead of Tesla since Tesla is still at Level 2 and hasn’t received the license.

Even the ever-competitive Musk, who sold his last house, has to admit that Mercedes-Benz has been awarded the first international certification for Level 3, which is also a significant step for traditional car companies to compete with Tesla.

“This is a milestone breakthrough that once again proves our innovative ability in autonomous driving, and it will lead a new round of transformation. For the first time in 135 years of automotive history, vehicles can take over driving tasks under specific conditions. At the same time, we are honored that Germany has approved this and will continue to play a leading role in the field of autonomous driving,” said Seung Hwa Park, a member of the Board of Directors and CTO for Research and Purchasing at Mercedes-Benz.

Mercedes-Benz’s Level 3 autonomous driving system integrates multiple radars, sensors, and high-precision positioning systems, equipped with an intelligent navigation system (Drive Pilot), which can activate the autonomous driving mode at speeds up to 60 kilometers per hour.

During the process of conditional autonomous driving, the system can maintain or adjust the speed and distance of the vehicle according to the settings and keep the car stable in the current lane. It can also drive by referring to the planned route, real-time traffic conditions, and traffic signs. The system can also respond promptly to unexpected traffic situations by independently completing operations such as avoiding or braking and turning within the lane.

Mercedes-Benz plans to enable Level 3 autonomous driving on Germany’s 13,191 kilometers of highways during busy traffic conditions. According to the SAE definition of Level 3 autonomous driving, if an accident occurs when Level 3 is activated, the car maker, not the driver, is responsible.

It is reported that the first intelligent navigation system-equipped Mercedes-Benz S-Class sedan will be delivered in the first half of 2022.

So, Musk, are you in a hurry?

Musk says he doesn’t want to work but has 3 big things to do

I don’t know if Musk is in a hurry or not. He just became the world’s richest man after cashing out $70 billion and said on social media on December 10th, “I’m considering resigning from my job and working full-time as an opinion leader. What do you think?”Otherwise, how can we say that Musk is a top player? This tweet received nearly 20,000 replies within an hour of its release. MrBeast, who has 84 million subscribers on YouTube, said he was willing to teach Musk how to get more views.

However, Musk, who is always busy, is not actually interested in being an opinion leader. On the same day that Diess was stripped of power, yes, remember December 7th, Musk also used FANS to hit Diess in the heart.

He said at the Wall Street Journal CEO Council Forum that “CEO” is a false title, and he has changed his title at Tesla to “Technoking”, which has been officially approved. “Technoking” is made up of “Techno” and “King”, which means “King of Electric Music”.

Musk, who already has enough money to last several lifetimes, really no longer cares about the automobile industry? In fact, it is not the case. After he released the tweet that he wants to be a “net celebrity”, he commented on a report about the Shanghai Super Factory just a few minutes later.

The Wall Street Journal asked him how he allocates his time between SpaceX and Tesla.

He said that he roughly splits his time equally between SpaceX and Tesla. “I work very hard, work 7 days a week, and work crazy hours. But time allocation depends on where I am most needed. Basically, I will review these tasks and try to do the most valuable tasks, or the tasks that need me the most.”

Therefore, Musk has set three plans for 2022.

Electric pickup trucks, with the goal of achieving mass production in 2023. Brain-machine interfaces, which have already been tested on monkeys and will conduct the first human experiments next year after FDA approval. And a very difficult project, Starship, the largest rocket ever. “This consumes more of my energy than any other problem, the difficulty is even ridiculous.”

Ambitious Musk has many crazy ideas. However, compared with this ridiculous long-term difficulty, Musk faces a “temporary small difficulty”. That is, Tesla still faces a safety investigation by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration into its advanced driving assistance system accidents.

Musk, do you want to focus on this small matter first?

This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.