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Fiat Chrysler, surprise, had to buy a lot of emissions credits

The world of carbon emissions uses some unusual units of measure. Take, for example, 8.2 million megagrams. Who needs to know how much that is? Someone at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, that's who. FCA had to buy that many greenhouse-gas emissions credits from greener automakers, Reuters says, citing a report from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Because its vehicles' collective fuel economy continues to trail the industry average, FCA purchased the emissions credits at of the end of 2014 in order to meet US emissions regulations. About two-thirds of those credits were acquired from Toyota, while the rest were purchased from Tesla and Honda. Daimler and Ferrari, not surprisingly, were among the other automobile companies that had to acquire emissions credits in order to meet US greenhouse gas regulations. Because the price for these credits is set privately by the companies, the EPA didn't disclose how much FCA had to pay to stay on the green side. The reason for the millions FCA likely spent is because the company is making a slow progress building and selling cleaner cars. The company did increase average fuel efficiency by about one mile per gallon to almost 22 mpg for the 2015 model year, but it wasn't enough. Such a performance likely only put the automaker in a last-place tie with General Motors. The emissions credits purchased from Tesla are notable because that California-based maker of electric vehicles has long generated substantial revenue by selling various credits to its less-electrified counterparts. In 2013, Tesla sold more of California's ZEV credits than any other automaker, but Nissan took that title in 2014. While these are not the same as the EPA's GHG credits, they do offer another way to track which automakers are meeting the targets and which need help. Related Video: News Source: ReutersImage Credit: Flickr/Ian YVR Government/Legal Green Chrysler Fiat Fuel Efficiency mpg

Waymo heads to Atlanta to test its self-driving cars

Waymo continues to expand the pool of locations where it's testing its autonomous vehicle tech, and the latest destination is metro Atlanta. The former Google self-driving car company revealed the news on Twitter, noting that it's expanding considerably its geographic testing footprint now that it's got fully driverless test vehicles on the road in Phoenix. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Its test cars in cities outside of Arizona still have safety drivers at the wheel, but the more places it can get its Pacificas with autonomous tech on roads, the better for building an autonomous driving "brain" that can handle anything it encounters. Atlanta has some specific challenges, including bad traffic (commute and traffic issues are ranked among the worst locations in the U.S.) and one of the more dense greater metro areas in the U.S., and temperatures that regularly reach a humid 80+ degrees Fahrenheit. Metro Atlanta marks Waymo's 25th test city in total, including its recent return to San Francisco. Its testing so far has consisted of mapping the city with manually driven Waymo vehicles ahead of launching its testing program in full. A Waymo spokesperson provided the following statement to TechCrunch regarding the expansion: Now that we have the world's first fleet of fully self-driving cars on public roads, we're focused on taking our technology to a wide variety of cities and environments. We're looking forward to our testing in Metro Atlanta, and the opportunity to bring this lifesaving technology to more people in more places. Georgia Governor Nathan Deal also provided the statement below: With our talented workforce and legacy of innovation, Georgia is at the forefront of the most dynamic, cutting edge industries like autonomous vehicles. We are thrilled to welcome Waymo to our state because fully self-driving vehicle technology holds tremendous potential to improve road safety, and we are proud Georgia is paving the way for the future of transportation. Reporting by Darrell Etherington for TechCrunch.Related Video: Image Credit: Waymo Green Chrysler Technology Emerging Technologies Autonomous Vehicles Waymo

EV cost burden pushing automakers to their limits, says Stellantis' CEO Tavares

DETROIT — Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares said external pressure on automakers to quickly shift to electric vehicles potentially threatens jobs and vehicle quality as producers struggle with EVs' higher costs. Governments and investors want car manufacturers to speed up the transition to electric vehicles, but the costs are "beyond the limits" of what the auto industry can sustain, Tavares said in an interview at the Reuters Next conference released Wednesday. "What has been decided is to impose on the automotive industry electrification that brings 50% additional costs against a conventional vehicle," he said. "There is no way we can transfer 50% of additional costs to the final consumer because most parts of the middle class will not be able to pay." Automakers could charge higher prices and sell fewer cars, or accept lower profit margins, Tavares said. Those paths both lead to cutbacks. Union leaders in Europe and North America have warned tens of thousands of jobs could be lost. Automakers need time for testing and ensuring that new technology will work, Tavares said. Pushing to speed that process up "is just going to be counter productive. It will lead to quality problems. It will lead to all sorts of problems," he said. Tavares said Stellantis is aiming to avoid cuts by boosting productivity at a pace far faster than industry norm. "Over the next five years we have to digest 10% productivity a year ... in an industry which is used to delivering 2 to 3% productivity" improvement, he said. "The future will tell us who is going to be able to digest this, and who will fail," Tavares said. "We are putting the industry on the limits." Electric vehicle costs are expected to fall, and analysts project that battery electric vehicles and combustion vehicles could reach cost parity during the second half of this decade. Like other automakers that earn profits from combustion vehicles, Stellantis is under pressure from both establishment automakers such as GM, Ford, VW and Hyundai, as well as start-ups such as Tesla and Rivian. The latter electric vehicle companies are far smaller in terms of vehicle sales and employment. But investors have given Tesla and Rivian higher market valuations than the owner of the highly profitable Jeep and Ram brands. That investor pressure is compounded by government policies aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions. The European Union, California and other jurisdictions have set goals to end sales of combustion vehicles by 2035.