Tag Archives: Green

Porsche Asks For Suppliers to Go Green

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Porsche

Porsche is asking its 1,300 suppliers to only use renewable energy as they manufacture Porsche parts, starting this month.

The German automaker is doing so in order to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

This change applies to any supplier awarded a contract for providing production material for new-vehicle projects. Suppliers who can’t or won’t comply will no longer be considered for Porsche contracts over the long term.

“Our battery cell suppliers have already had to use green energy since 2020. And now we are taking the next important step: we stipulate that our series suppliers also use only renewable energy to produce our components, to help reduce CO2-emissions even further. We recognise that we have a responsibility to ensure that supply chains are transparent and sustainable,” Uwe-Karsten Städter, member of the executive board for procurement at Porsche AG said in a statement.

It’s all part of a larger goal the company has set to be carbon dioxide neutral across the entire supply chain by 2030. As it stands now, the company’s supply chain is responsible for about 20 percent of the company’s total greenhouse-gas emissions, with it projected to rise to 40 percent as electrification becomes more prevalent.

“By using only renewable energy sources, our suppliers are following our example in our efforts to reach CO2-neutrality. We plan to have even more intensive talks with our partners in order to drive forward improvements in our sustainability. It is only by working together that we will be able to combat ongoing climate change,” said Städter.

Porsche is also trying to reduce emissions from its own plants — the company claims that production of the Taycan is carbon-neutral since 2019, for example, and that the same holds true for the 911 and 718 since 2020 and the plant that produces the Macan and Panamera since 2021.

It’s not as ambitious as having an EV Day, but Porsche, like everyone these days, is making claims about its ability to be green.

[Image: Porsche]

Chinese Smartphone Titan Xiaomi Entering the EV Race

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Xiaomi

Xiaomi, a Chinese smartphone colossus, has announced they are building their own branded electric vehicles (EVs), just like Apple, Huawei, Sony, and Foxconn.

If you’re prepared to lose money, starting a car company is easy. Just ask Tesla. Xiaomi has plenty, enough to sink $10 billion into the venture over the next 10 years.

Xiaomi, the third-largest smartphone maker, is merging automotive, electronics, and information and communication technology with the traditional auto industry model. Xiaomi’s expertise is in manufacturing, hardware-based Internet service, software, and hardware integration. Their appeal in China, brand recognition, and presence in other countries will no doubt help at launch.

Xiaomi

Xiaomi’s smartphone brand, POCO, has made its way into 35 markets in the past three years. Xiaomi shipped over 9 million phones worldwide in 2020. The POCO F1 was their first release in 2018, adopted early on by techies and later by the media, achieving over 2.2 million shipments.

XiaomiYesterday, Xiaomi released the Mi Mix Fold, a new foldable smartphone. Xiaomi’s entrance in this segment is notable beyond the foldable display. Xiaomi’s new flagship, it has 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. The first camera phone to use their Surge C1 chipset, it’s also the first to use liquid lens technology.

Xiaomi

Besides the new smartphone, the company unveiled its new Xiaomi logo, designed by Japanese graphic designer Kenya Hara. Look for Xiaomi’s entrance into the EV segment to intensify the competition within China, as well as elsewhere in the world.

[Images: Xiaomi]

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Teutonic Tesla: Volkswagen Now Building ‘Gigafactories’

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VW Group

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As much as we’ve criticized American luxury brands for emulating the Germans, we’ve failed to do the same for Volkswagen Group’s pathetic attempts at copying Tesla. That changes with Monday’s announcement that VW will assemble six “gigafactories” in Europe by 2030. Shared on “Power Day” — the company’s bastardized version of Tesla’s Battery Day — the plan is supposed to result in a production capacity of 240 GWh annually when completed and help VW reduce battery costs while also securing access.

It’s not a half-bad plan for a company entirely devoted to electrification, which is probably why Tesla follows a similar model using nearly identical terminology. Though, considering the absolute mess Volkswagen seems to have made of its EV transmission thus far, some might find it difficult to blame the automaker for looking at the competition and breaking out the notepad.

Others will be less sympathetic while acknowledging this is probably VW’s best play if it’s serious about EVs. 

Volkswagen is only in this mess for getting caught circumventing emissions by illegal means, specifically software that flubbed the test results of diesel models. While we’re happy to suggest the brand was placed in a difficult situation by being the first automaker to get majorly busted for skirting the nearly impossible to adhere to rules regarding modern diesel emissions, it was still being exposed to the same scrutiny as other manufacturers. But it went the coverup route before confessing and has responded by transmogrifying itself into a beacon of greenness as penance for its eco-crimes. Volkswagen became a “mobility company” overnight in 2016 — born again, so to speak — despite its product lineup showing its status as a relatively traditional automaker, often forcing us to take it at its word.

VW has endeavored to keep up appearances while sprinting full tilt toward widespread electrification. But the fruit of its labor haven’t always panned out. The company has had a terrible time with battery suppliers and most of the EVs delivered thus far aren’t offering the kind of ranges that would make them compelling choices. Digitizing its products has also resulted in software issues that helped stymie the launches of numerous vehicles. In some cases, it even resulted in incomplete vehicles coming to market.

These are issues most automakers are confronting as they collectively attempt to redefine the purpose of the automotive industry, and we’re now way past the point where the adage “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” would be useful. By now, most manufacturers are totally committed to a future where vehicles are electric, connected, and monetizing your data as often as possible. Volkswagen just seems to have dove in the quickest, suffered the worst for it, and is now in a situation where it absolutely has to make things work.

Hence the new “gigafactories” — which don’t seem a bad solution, if you can ignore the Tesla comparisons.

From Volkswagen:

The Group is pushing ahead at full speed with the development of production capacities in Europe in order to meet the increasing demand for battery cells. “Together with partners, we want to have a total of six cell factories up and running in Europe by 2030 thus guaranteeing security of supply”, explains [Chairman of the Board of Management of Volkswagen Group Technology] Thomas Schmall. The new factories are expected to produce cells with a total energy value of 240 GWh per year by the time they are finally completed. Volkswagen is therefore actively contributing to meet the targets of the European Union’s Green Deal. The first two factories will operate in the Swedish city of Skellefteå and in Salzgitter. In response to increased demand, Volkswagen has decided to refocus the previous plan in relation to cell production and concentrate production of its premium cells in the Swedish gigafactory “Northvolt Ett” in Skellefteå in collaboration with Northvolt. The production of these cells is set to commence in 2023 and will be expanded gradually to an annual capacity of up to 40 GWh.

Those capacities are annual and are supposed to cut battery costs by up to 50 percent once all synergies are accounted for. But we think the big get here is VW having a direct line on an essential component it’s had serious problems procuring in even modest quantities. These also help bring the automaker closer to its goal of making energy management a viable source of revenue. This again harkens back to Tesla. In 2019, Tesla CEO Elon Musk claimed that energy storage would gradually become a larger aspect of the business. The following year, he said that Tesla Energy would likely grow to be at least as big as its automotive aspirations.

Meanwhile, Volkswagen has repeatedly announced its role in the planned expansion of the public fast-charging network. Its latest release also said cooperation has been agreed to in Europe with some of the regions the energy companies, including BP, Iberdrola, and Enel. VW is plotting a course of staggered investments. As we’re not fortune tellers, we cannot predict how successful this strategy will be. But it does show that the company isn’t interested in taking half measures. And emulating the parts of Tesla that appear to be working makes it derivate and cringe-inducing, not stupid.

[Image: Volkswagen Group]