Today in the revamped newsletter to bring you the best automotive engineering news to your inbox every week with insights into technology, business and macro trends.

In today’s letter:

In 5 Minutes or Less...

• Technology News

• Business News

• The Drive Digest’s Take

• On This Day

Technology News

Connected car links strengthen:

John Deere partners with Starlink: As a first commercial deployment, connectivity and automation are rolled out through the Starlink network in agriculture to reduce labour, increase accuracy and subsequent crop yields to ensure connectivity in rural areas where traditional antenna based signal may be tempramental; a low volume, potentially high value customer for the technology will be a strong test bed before deployment across larger sectors of the market. As more software and Features-Over-The-Air functionality in the passenger car market become dependant on constant connectivity, this technology could provide the foundation for wider adoption.

Developing battery technology:

New sodium ion batteries revealed: In today’s electric vehicles, the majority of batteries are either based on LFP (Lithium Iron Phosphate) or NMC (Nickel Manganese Cobalt) and researchers are trialling new chemistries to reduce costs, weight, supply chain sensitivity or improve durability; the recent announcements highlight that batteries can be created from a relatively abdundant material, sodium (a.k.a. salt).

With sodium being over 3x denser than lithium there have been concerns over overall increase in battery pack mass increase, however with either material only forming a small percentage of the overall pack mass, only a small overall increase in mass would result; a potentially minor trade off to help develop a supply chain free from conflict materials.

Business News

Supply chain disruption:

Factory output and deliveries impacted with the continued volatility in the Red Sea for both Volvo and Tesla who have both halted production on key models due to component availability

VW pre-empted the potential hold ups and began re-routing around South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope as an alternative to the Suez Canal adding an extra 7-10 days of shipping time and adjusted manufacturing schedules accordingly

China continued growth through vertical integration:

Aside from taking the quarterly EV sales title from Tesla, BYD continues with vertical integration on key functions with a roll out of their own container ships for overseas vehicle deliveries

This move is obviously CAPEX intensive but ultimately gives them reduced shipping rates and dedicated capacity in contended shipping lanes to each region; each ship has capacity for 7,000 vehicles

The Drive Digest’s Take

With a general background of increasing uncertainty of intercontinental relations and memories of sensitive supply chain shocks from 2023 with semi-conductors still fresh in the memories of auto-executives, 2024 should be a year of supply chains firming with such practices of tri-fector agreements or acquisitions to ensure OEMs can continue to provide vehicles at volume. BYD, Geely and Tesla to make big industry moves and shake up the incumbent volume supplierse based in Europe. How do you think the overall picture will look of the global automotive industry look at the end of 2024? Let me know!

On This Day

First Appearance of the Jeep (17th January 1929)

On this day, the prototype for the first Jeep was delivered to the U.S. Army. This versatile vehicle went on to become an iconic part of military and civilian automotive history.

Thanks for the read and catch up with you again this weekend for more automotive technology news.

If you liked this email, please subscribe for more insights and personal takes on the developments of the automotive industry. I’m also open to deep diving specific areas if you let me know anything you would like more information on; just get in touch.

Cheers,
Jamie.