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Hyundai Plant in St Petersburg To Reduce Production by 15%
Hyundai plans to reduce annual production by 15% at its St Petersburg plant, according to plant director A. Kossack. As he notes, production volume at the plant has dropped significantly this year: in H1 2020, the plant produced only 73,000 cars, 25% of its production capacity.
Taking into consideration September’s output of 24,000 cars, total production volume through the end of the year should reach about 200,000 vehicles, almost 15% below the 2019 results. The plant has just returned to a three-shift…
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Production of First Russian EV Passenger Car Postponed
Zetta company has had to shift mass production of its Russian car “City Modul 1” until after 2020 because the Fund of Industry Development refused to provide credit of 99.9 million Rubles (about € 1.1 million).

Maxim Sakov According to the Fund opinion, the company has insufficient budget to start the production, even with the requested credit. “The company needs an investor, who will believe in market potential of the product, and will co-finance the project together with the fund. The fund is ready to consider application one more time as soon as such investor will be found,” the Fund said
“City Modul 1” would become first serial Russian electric car. Zetta plans to make the car on its own production site in Tolyatti; production capacity is 15,000 units per year.
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Tesla Poised To Start the Engine…as Competitors Close In
Even though Tesla’s “Battery Day” was held Sept. 22, 2020, it didn’t produce the wildly exciting results that Elon Musk had promised would “blow your mind.”

Tyler Wiegert During its event, Tesla unveiled plans to develop a “million mile” battery that could last an electric car’s entire lifetime on the road. It also outlined plans to dramatically reduce the cost of its battery cells and packs to $100 per kilowatt-hour, at which point experts believe electric cars will become comparable in price to combustion engine vehicles.
Bill Gates-backed QuantumScape, the first US battery company to go public in a decade, announced that it has overcome two major hurdles to create an all-metal lithium battery, which, if true, would allow electric vehicles to go up to 50% further on a single charge. Those hurdles were metallic lithium’s propensity to explode when it comes into contact with liquid and its needle structure that has historically punctured plastic separators between electrodes and caused shorts.
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BMW Production Plant Scheduled for Kaliningrad

Maxim Sakov The launch of new plant with full production capabilities for BMW SUVs is planned for July 2021. According to Kaliningrad officials, the new plant is one of the most important investment projects in the regional processing industry. Autotor holding makes up a significant part of the regional production.
Officials said the enterprise is one of the largest employers and taxpayers in Kaliningrad region. Construction of the plant building is underway, and machinery installation will be started in January 2021. The first car is expected to be produced in July 2021.
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How Does Market Brace for Low Speed EV Impact?
By August 12, after 20 days of product launch, SGMW’s MINI EV will hit a sales record of 15,000 vehicles, making it the world’s fastest car model reaching the threshold of 10,000 units.
Source: D1 EV Read The Article

Qin Fen PSR Analysis: Consider BYD’s electric bus, SGMW’s MINI EV, as well as premium car brands like Tesla: These traditional and emerging automotive OEMs are reformulating rules of the auto game, with their own proprietary technology.
As a matter of…
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Hyundai Exports Fuel Cell Trucks To Europe
South Korea’s Hyundai Motor announced on July 6 that it has begun exporting commercial hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) to Europe. The company shipped 10 trucks to Switzerland, and it plans to export 1,600 units by 2025 using a long-term lease contract system.

Akihiro Komuro Hyundai has set up a joint venture company to build a hydrogen infrastructure in Switzerland; it also plans to develop hydrogen stations and other infrastructure in cooperation with a local company. They plan to use Switzerland as a base for expanding their exports throughout Europe.
The South Korean government is also focusing on the spread of the hydrogen-based society and will appeal to the governments of other countries. The trucks exported this time will be used by the food distribution industry. The route for these trucks is fixed, making it easy to set up the infrastructure for refueling.
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Autotor Plant To Suspend Assembly of BMW Cars
Autotor’s Kaliningrad plant plans to suspend assembly of BMW cars from the middle of June to the beginning of July because of a components shortage. This is told by CEO of the plant Ruslan Sadykov.
Stephen Teichert, head of BMW Russia, claims Autotor production capacity has been reduced by about 70%; however, in July the OEM plans to increase production to pre-COVID-19 level. Read The Article
PSR Analysis: The Autotor plant in Russia assembles passenger cars kits for BMW, Hyundai…
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Russia New Car Sales Drop 70% in April
New car sales plummeted by 102,000 vehicles in April, the largest monthly car sales decline in history in Russian, according to the Association of European Business.

Maxim Sakov During April, Russia introduced strict quarantine measures because of the coronavirus, causing car sales to fall by 102,089 units, or 72.4%.
After strong sales in March, dealers have had to suspend or restrict their activity.
“Black April” has dealt a strong blow to dealer cash liquidity, and seriously affected stability during middle-term period. The dealers are preparing to restart their business in May; however, they don’t expect significant sales growth.
AutoVAZ , the largest Russian car manufacturer, reported sales declined by three times in April over March.
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A New Class of Hybrids
The word “hybrid” in the power generation universe has generally been understood to mean a fossil-fuel engine supplemented by another power source, usually a renewable.

Tyler Wiegert Then, the word grew to include vehicles and equipment that ran primarily on battery power but could be switched to a smaller engine that would recharge the battery while it ran.
Now, we are entering a time when “hybrid” includes drive systems that are primarily renewable-based and supplemented by an additional renewable system.
In this sphere, alternative power has primarily meant batteries and hydrogen fuel cells; one of the major impediments to wide adoption has always been range.
