Infineon Technologies announced that Infineon and Honda Motor have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to build a strategic collaboration. Honda selects Infineon as semiconductor partner to align future product and technology roadmaps.
Infineon will support Honda with technologies to enable competitive and advanced vehicles.
Energy prices increased 1.6% in January, led by natural gas U.S. (+25.9%) and oil (+2.6%).
Metal prices inched down 0.3%, led by nickel (-2.2%) and iron ore (-0.9%).
A fully automated high-bay warehouse has officially opened at Continental’s tire production plant in Otrokovice, Czech Republic.
Covering an area of 10,000m2, the new warehouse is 43m high. It has a storage capacity of more than 930,000 tires.
BMW signed a commercial agreement to use general-purpose humanoid robots in the automaker’s manufacturing facilities built by Figure, a Silicon Valley-based autonomous robotics company. BMW and Figure are taking a two-stage approach to deploying humanoid robots. The automaker is testing how general-purpose robots could improve factory productivity as part of a multi-stage deployment deal.
The overall volume for the full year of 2023 surpassed 1.5 million units, reflecting a substantial 37% increase compared to 2022. The battery-electric car market share reached 14.6% in 2023.
In December 2023, the EU car market experienced a 3.3% decline, recording 867,052 units in sales. This drop can be attributed to the high baseline performance in December 2022. December also marked the first month of contraction after 16 consecutive months of growth.
Tesla is on course to take the crown for the world’s best-selling vehicle in 2023, with the Model Y securing the top spot across the majority of global markets.
The second best-selling vehicle in 2023 is set to be the Toyota RAV4, with 1.07 million units currently sold globally – up from 1.02 million units in 2022, when it led the global market.
Iveco announced that BASF would recycle lithium-ion batteries used in the group’s electric vehicles. The move is part of a circular economy strategy which follows the 4R Framework – Repair, Refurbish, Repurpose and Recycling – to increase the lifetime of the batteries while decreasing their overall environmental impact. The agreement includes collection, packaging, transport, and recycling of batteries, in various European countries including France, Germany and UK.