March 29, 2018
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Brand collaboration Ford has big plans with Mahindra, Daimler with BYD and Jaguar Land Rover with Waymo ALWYN VILJOEN IT used to be “go west, young man” for the entrepreneur hoping to strike it big, but in the motor trade, east seems to be where it’s at for any company looking to grow these days. Which is why Ford and Mahindra last week announced a joint development to build sport utilities and a small electric vehicle; and Daimler and BYD Automotive Industry on Monday launched the new Denza 500 battery electric vehicle from their joint venture, Shenzhen Denza New Energy Automotive company. The one exception is Jaguar Land Rover, which company on Tuesday announced a strategic partnership with to develop the world’s first premium, selfdriving, electric vehicle with Waymo in Phoenix, Arizona, which is about as far west as one can get in the U.S. In India Ford and Mahindra signed five new memoranda of understanding (MoUs) that further strengthen their strategic alliance and accelerate the development of key products for consumers in India and emerging markets. The MoUs are non-binding, but mark the progress made by the two companies since announcing their alliance in September 2017. Under the initiatives, Mahindra and Ford will leverage their strengths in the utility vehicle space to co-develop a midsize sports utility vehicle (C-SUV). Built on the Mahindra platform, the new SUV will drive engineering and commercial efficiencies and will be sold independently by both companies as separate brands. Mahindra and Ford also agreed to evaluate co-development of a compact SUV and electric vehicle, along with sharing powertrain portfolios, including the supply of Mahindra powertrains to extend Ford’s product range. Building on the collaboration, Mahindra and Ford also announced plans to co-develop a suite of connected car solutions for consumers. Teams from both companies will work together for a period of up to three years to develop further avenues of strategic co-operation, including support
FORD EXPANDS AT STRUANDALE
The TY-E electric trial bike PHOTO: YAMAHA
YAMAHA launched the TY-E electric trail bike and Japan’s champion, Kenichi Kuroyama, will compete on the bike in the 2018 FIM Trail-E Cup in France in mid-July and in Belgium at the end of July. Kuroyama currently competes in the IA Super class of the All Japan Trail Championship. To meet the precise power demands of trail riding, the TY-E features a hydraulic, wet, multi-plate clutch that makes the most of the electric motor’s instantaneous torque, and an optimised flywheel realises “excellent traction performance”, according to Yamaha.
Yamaha did not share power output or battery capacity, apart from stating power for the sub-70 kg bike comes from a highoutput Lithium-ion battery pack that drives an AC synchronous electric motor. At the FIM-sanctioned Trial-E Cup, Kuroyama will look to dethrone Spain’s Marc Colomer, who won the inaugural Trail-E cup against 11 riders at Lourdes in France last year. He will get two chances, first at Auron in France on July 14 and 15, and then at the Comblain au Pont in Belgium on July 21 and 22. — Wheels Reporter.
Maritzburg’s Maddy Malan. PHOTOS: DANIEL COETZEE
Cape Town’s Caleb Tennant.
Malan ready for motocross champs at Thunder Valley Daimler and its Chinese partner BYD have introduced the facelifted Denza 500 all-electric car to Chinese drivers, aiming to maintain the stellar growth the Denza 400 saw in sales last year. PHOTO: DENZA for Mahindra in global emerging markets using Ford’s manufacturing and distribution network and addressing future mobility needs. Mahindra owns a majority stake in Ssangyong Motor Company in Korea, has forayed into the shared mobility space with investments in ridesharing platforms in the U.S., and is developing products like the GenZe – the world’s first electric connected scooter. Ford was among the first global automakers to enter India in 1995 and now employs some 14 000 people in New Delhi, Chennai, and Coimbatore. In China In 2017, Denza achieved its best sales in China yet, with retail sales volume increasing by 85% year-on-year, outpacing the industry average, thanks to the strong customer reception of the
Denza 400 model. The brand also expanded its reach through selected Mercedes-Benz dealer partners, which now offer sales and after-sales service for Denza vehicles. The new Denza 500 featuring “tiger eye” LED headlights and rippling LED taillights, while inside sees a nine-inch touchscreen. Upgraded connectivity services include charging solutions and the Denza smartphone app. Via the Denza application, WeChat account, or car navigation system, Denza owners can quickly locate over 112 000 charging piles across China. A new battery and additional weight reductions allow increased energy efficiency, providing an extended range of around 500 km. The new Denza 500 was tested in a wide range of harsh conditions, including severe winter testing at tempera-
tures as low as –40°Celsius. In Arizona, U.S. Jaguar Land Rover and Waymo (formerly Google self-driving car project) will work together to design and engineer self-driving Jaguar I-PACE vehicles. In a statement the companies said this long-term strategic collaboration will further Waymo and Jaguar Land Rover’s shared goals: “to make cars safer, free up people’s valuable time and improve mobility for everyone”. Waymo is building the world’s most experienced driver. Waymo’s vehicles have self-driven over five million miles on public roads across 25 U.S. cities, and five billion miles in simulation. Today, Waymo is the only company in the world with a fleet of fully selfdriving cars — with no one in the driv-
er’s seat — on public roads. Waymo will launch the world’s first driverless transportation service in 2018, starting in Phoenix, Arizona. With this service, members of the public will be able to use Waymo’s fully self-driving cars every day to go to work or to go play. Waymo Jaguar I-PACEs, equipped with Waymo’s self-driving technology, will start testing later this year. On-road testing and capturing realworld data will allow Waymo and Jaguar Land Rover engineers to refine technology and deliver optimum safety and reliability. Up to 20 000 I-PACEs will be built in the first two years of production and be available for riders of Waymo’s driverless service, serving a potential one million trips per day. • alwyn.viljoen@witness.co.za
New Corolla not pining for the fjords, or for grandma ALWYN VIJOEN
PORT ELIZABETH — Ford Motor Company of Southern Africa (FMCSA) is expanding its operations at the Struandale Engine Plant in Port Elizabeth as part of a wide-ranging investment in its two SA plants announced late last year. Jacques Brent, president of Ford Middle East and Africa, said as part of the R3-billion investment announced in November 2017, a new assembly line has been built for an all-new diesel engine that will, most notably, power the exciting new Ford Ranger Raptor, due to be launched next year. The new assembly line has an installed capacity of 120 000 engines per annum. with 22 new derivatives of the four-cylinder the Duratorq TDCi engine exported to European markets, including three significant new customers in Italy, Turkey and Russia. Brent said the Struandale Engine Plant will become the home of all Duratorq TDCi engine component machining for the Ranger, Everest and Transit, along with expanded engine assembly in conjunction with current operations at Ford plants in Thailand and Argentina. The plan is for the plant to assemble 56 variants of the award-winning Duratorq TDCi engine. — Wheels Reporter.
Yamaha launches electric trail bike
TOYOTA this week launched a new Corolla in the U.S., and its nothing like the Corolla grandma is still driving back home. Calling this one a “haute hatch”, Toyota’s engineers can rightfully boast to have achieved truly impressive efficiencies from the lighter, stiffer body and the all new, lighter, two-litre engine. Torsional rigidity is improved a massive 60% compared to its predecessor. Translated into something grandma will understand, if you load her and two friends for a few quick turns around a race track and then ask her how they found the ride, she’ll answer “some speed, some’s pood and some’s passed out!” The front suspension has the usual MacPherson struts but the rear — for so long the space where the bean counters saved money with ye olde torsion beam — now features multi-link suspension with stabiliser bar. The end result, according to a Toyota statement, is “a Corolla hatchback that possesses an uncanny blend of balance, composure, and feel that’ll have its driver pining for windy roads”. This will make a welcome change from any old Corolla on the road today, in which the driver only seems to be “pining for the fjords”, as in Monty Python’s dead parrot skit. The heart of all this fun-to-driveness, says Toyota, is the new two-litre
Looking like a bit of a lively bird painted in Norwegian Blue, the new Toyota Corolla promises not to be as sedating a ride as the many neversay-die models that came before it, but it may yet turn out to be even more of a legend. PHOTO: TOYOTA Dynamic-Force direct-injection in-line four-cylinder engine, burdened with the name M20A-FKS. Toyota’s latest D-4S fuel-injection uses high-pressure direct-injection and low-pressure port fuel injection (PFI) to force just enough drops of fuel into each cylinder. The engine also features dual variable valve timing-intelligence (VVT-i) on the exhaust, with variable valve timing-intelligence by electric motor (VVT-iE) on the intake side. Another notable improvements to this engine is the longer stroke, which does for torque what Archimedes said he could do with a long enough lever — it moves the earth. Translated for grandma, this means you can shove the Corolla into fifth and
leave it there while the clever valve systems use that torque uphill and reduce the fuel downhill, cutting emissions as well as the fuel bill. The really impressive number from this petrol engine, however, is its diesel compression ratio of 13:1. Higher compression means the petrol engine, which throws away some 80% of the energy in each litre of fuel, wastes less of our heavily taxed petrol. Engine that runs on sugar With SA Toyota’s biggest market in Africa, we are sure to get the new Corolla sooner rather than later, but there is another Toyota that will work even better in KwaZulu-Natal. It is basically a Prius with a robust little petrol engine, but it comes with
the fancy title “Hybrid FFV” — for Flexible-Fuel Vehicle. The little petrol engine runs smooth on petrol or methanol made from sugar cane — what we call Cane Mainstay in SA — and Toyota hopes the citizens of Sao Paulo in Brazil will buy all this flexibility in droves. The pilot project involves government, universities, and Brazil’s sugarcane association. As more people in SA discover sugar is extremely addictive and very harmful to their health, as is now shown by diabetes being the second biggest killer in SA after TB, our sugar cane farmers may want to start growing biomass to distill into fuel, rather than refine the cane into a habitforming white powder that kills us. • alwyn.viljoen@witness.co.za
PIETERMARTIZBURG-BASED motocross rider Maddy Malan looks forward to get his championship hunt back on track when SA’s top riders converge on Thunder Valley in Cato Ridge on April 7 for the next round of the 2018 TRP Distributors SA National Motocross Championships. After a lengthy time off due to injury, Malan last month made a solid return to the motocross scene during the start to the 2018 TRP Distributors South African National Motocross championship in Port Elizabeth, riding for the Q4 Fuel Husqvarna Racing. The Maritzburg rider overcame a slow start to finish the first MX2 moto in fifth place before another great start in the second, although he tired as the race progressed to end up fifth in the moto and sixth for the day. Malan was quick in practice, but suffered a tough start in MX1 following a collision with another rider — he kept it together though, fighting back to 11th in the first race and then 8th in the second to end up ninth overall for the day. Malan ended up sixth in MX1 and ninth in MX2 and junior rider Neil van der Vyver took sixth in the 65cc class. “It’s been tough getting back into things,” Malan admitted. “The rough track took its toll in the second moto, but I’m happy to walk away only 10 points behind the leader
and I’m looking forward to the rest of the season. “Next national is my home race and that’s where we get our championship hunt back on track — I can’t thank my Q4 Fuel Husqvarna Racing team enough — special thanks to Fred Fensham, Morné Visser and my mechanics Willie and Anthony — we gonna get it the next one!” Tenacious Tennant Malan’s team-mate, Cape Town rider Caleb Tennant, put in a star performance at PE. Tennant won both the opening heats of both the MX1 and MX2 races en route to second in both classes for the day. He took the lead in the first heat of MX1 race and rode off to a two-second win to open Q4 Fuel Husqvarna Racing’s season in fine style. Tennant then starred in an epic headto-head battle for victory en route to second in the second moto to see him leave the Rover races tied for the lead in the SA championships. Tennant made it a first moto double when he blasted to a four-second gateto-flag opening MX2 race win before leading the way until slowed by a tumble with four laps to go in the second moto. He picked it up to come back to 7th in the heat and second overall. — Wheels Reporter.
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Special price on Triton Athlete with Mitsubishi’s 4WD system MITSUBISHI launched the limitededition Triton Athlete with the brand’s Super Select 4WD-II 4WD system. The Athlete is rated to tow 3.1 tons, enough for most heavy trailers, and horseboxes, but for owners who just want to use the load bed, tonneau or armadillo load box covers as well as a range of manufacturer’s approved accessories are available. Inside, the Athlete sports seven airbags while the drivetrain bristles with all the active electronic driving assistance Mitsubishi’s stable can offer, from hill-start assist to hill-descend. Orange stickers and black
mouldings on the front grille, bumper and wheel arches, denote the limited edition Athlete. Black powder-coated diamond-cut 17” alloy wheels rounding off the sporty design The Athlete sells for R559 995, which is the same as the listed retail price of the standard Triton 4x4 Double-Cab A/T. The Triton Athlete is available from all Mitsubishi dealers in southern Africa and comes standard with a three-year or 100 000 km warranty and a five-year or 90 000 km service plan. Service intervals are every 10 000km. — WR.
The limited-edition Triton Athlete with the brand’s Super Select 4WD-II 4WD system. PHOTO: QUICKPIC
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