Macron, who personally met with ProLogium CEO Vincent Yang at the start of the vetting process, was due on Friday to officially announce in Dunkirk the 5.2-billion-euro ($5.7 billion) investment. Gilles Normand, ProLogium executive vice-president, said that after Macron, a former investment banker, pitched Yang more than a year ago Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire…
Tag: automotive articles
Transport technology startup funding plunged 43 percent in March
Globally, deal activity in the mobility technology sector for the fourth quarter of 2022 was going flat into 2023, Jonathan Geurkink, a senior analyst at PitchBook, told Automotive News. “We are seeing investment shift away from the activity in and around autonomous driving and the ride-hailing and last mile stuff seems to be tailing off…
VW’s Cariad, ThunderSoft partner on connectivity, infotainment
BERLIN — Volkswagen Group’s software unit Cariad will establish a joint venture with Chinese technologies provider ThunderSoft for connectivity and infotainment systems in China, with ThunderSoft holding a 51 percent stake. The partnership will develop software products for car cockpits, infotainment systems and cloud development. These are consumer-facing areas where automakers are competing to set…
Used-car seller Canada Drives granted creditor protection
Canada Drives obtained creditor protection March 20 under an order from the Supreme Court of British Columbia, according to a notice from court-appointed monitor PricewaterhouseCoopers Inc. While the company has focused mainly on ecommerce since 2020, Canada Drives was founded in 2010 as a lead-generating business, matching consumers looking for financing with local dealerships. Under…
These Automakers Can’t Quite Hold Onto Their First-Time Buyers
The back of a Ram truck is seen on a sales lot on May 23, 2017 in Miami, Florida. Some automakers are struggling to convince first-time buyers to return to the showroom, Elon Musk tested that he really believed he’d be able to take Tesla private in 2018 with some help and Audi took Nio…
Rivian commits to more in-person customer contact in Canada
Rivian, which makes high-end electric SUVs and pickups, is opening its first Canadian showroom in the Vancouver suburb of Burnaby. The move by the California EV maker marks a course change from a strategy that favored largely online contact with customers, Denise Cherry, senior director of design and retail development, said. The purchase process still…
Lithium iron phosphate curbs the battery gap with nickel, cobalt
Battery expert Lukasz Bednarski, author of the 2021 book “Lithium: The Global Race for Battery Dominance and the New Energy Revolution,” believes automakers’ interest in building lower-priced EVs could be one of the drivers behind LFP’s rising popularity. “LFP provides good enough performance at a lower cost, which makes it an attractive proposition for EVs…