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Mercedes, Nissan and VW slammed by China's CCTV

Several automakers in China, including joint ventures with Nissan, Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz, are in hot water because their dealers are allegedly overcharging customers for repairs. China Central Television, the country's state broadcaster, leveled the claims during its annual Consumer Day expose. CCTV runs these reports each year on March 15 and often takes aim at foreign companies operating within China. This year the focus fell on automakers, according to the Financial Times, and no domestic car companies were targeted. The network also accused dealers of overselling parts, and it took aim at Jaguar Land Rover specifically for problems surrounding transmission repairs, according to Reuters. The yearly stories are often criticized for focusing on outside businesses. "It panders to a certain type of nationalism as it tends to target foreign companies and rarely touches large state groups or monopolies," Qiao Mu, a journalism professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University, said to the Financial Times. Foreign automakers seem to face tighter scrutiny when doing business in China than their domestic counterparts, in general. The government there investigated several luxury brands, including Audi and BMW, last year for how they supplied spare parts and whether the components were overpriced. Some incurred fines, and Lexus decided to lower its prices. Volkswagen also experienced protests when owners felt the company wasn't handling a recall properly. The CCTV report also comes as many auto dealers in China are feeling a pinch due to high mandated sales targets from automakers. The situation was so dire in early 2015 several brands cut back sales targets and in some cases even paid the sellers to offset poor profits. News Source: Financial Times - sub. req., ReutersImage Credit: Andy Wong / AP Photo Government/Legal Mercedes-Benz Nissan Volkswagen Car Dealers Auto Repair Maintenance jaguar land rover

CES Part 2: Honda/Sony Afeela, BMW i Vision Dee and more | Autoblog Podcast #763

In this episode of the Autoblog Podcast, Editor-in-Chief Greg Migliore is joined by Senior Editor James Riswick and Associate Editor Byron Hurd. This week, they pick up from last week and dig deeper into some of the reveals and news coming from this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) including the Ram 1500 Revolution, the Afeela EV collaboration from Sony and Honda, Peugeot Inception, BMW i Vision Dee and VW ID.7, among other highlights and musings from the show. They also discuss the cars they've been driving, including the BMW iX, Mercedes EQS SUV, two-door Bronco Badlands, Mazda CX-50 Meridian Edition and Toyota RAV4 Wilderness Edition. Send us your questions for the Mailbag and Spend My Money at: Podcast@Autoblog.com. Autoblog Podcast #763 Get The Podcast Apple Podcasts – Subscribe to the Autoblog Podcast in iTunes Spotify – Subscribe to the Autoblog Podcast on Spotify RSS – Add the Autoblog Podcast feed to your RSS aggregator MP3 – Download the MP3 directly Rundown CES 2023 Ram 1500 Revolution Sony Honda Mobility Afeela EV prototype Peugeot Inception BMW i Vision Dee Volkswagen ID.7 Cars we're driving 2023 BMW iX 2023 Mercedes EQS 450 SUV 2022 Ford Bronco Badlands Two-Door 7MT 2023 Mazda CX-50 Meridian Edition 2023 Toyota RAV4 Woodland Edition Feedback Email – Podcast@Autoblog.com Review the show on Apple Podcasts Autoblog is now live on your smart speakers and voice assistants with the audio Autoblog Daily Digest. Say “Hey Google, play the news from Autoblog” or "Alexa, open Autoblog" to get your favorite car website in audio form every day. A narrator will take you through the biggest stories or break down one of our comprehensive test drives. Related video: Green Podcasts CES BMW Ford Honda Mazda Mercedes-Benz RAM Toyota Volkswagen Peugeot Truck Coupe Crossover SUV Concept Cars Electric Luxury Off-Road Vehicles Performance Sedan Afeela

Aurora's Chris Urmson on autonomy — that's one way to avoid speeding tickets

Although this year's CES was full of companies announcing and exhibiting their real and conceivable self-driving car technologies, while actual self-driving cars from Aptiv-Lyft were giving conventioneers 400 rides around town, the biggest news came when Volkswagen Group — and recognize this is the entire group, not just the brand — and Hyundai announced that they'd both partnered with Aurora Innovation. While the VW announcement was vague — "The collaboration brings the two companies together to realize self-driving electric vehicles in cities as Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) fleets" — Hyundai provided a concrete goal: "a strategic partnership to bring self-driving Hyundai vehicles to market by 2021." You may not have heard of Aurora, which has been described in some news accounts as "mysterious." But Aurora Innovation has been in business since December 2016, and it is to autonomous technology what the 1927 Yankees are to baseball. The three leaders of the company are Chris Urmson, co-founder and CEO, who had previously been chief technology officer for Alphabet Self-Driving Cars; Sterling Anderson, co-founder and chief product officer, who had directed the development of Tesla Autopilot; and Drew Bagnell, co-founder and chief technical officer, who had been autonomy architect and perception lead at the Uber Advanced Technology Center. We had the chance to sit down with Chris Urmson after he appeared onstage at a Hyundai press conference. He shared his insights on Aurora's approach to automated driving. Initial deployment of self-driving cars? "We think the first place this technology comes to market in in the transportation services or ride-hailing applications, but that's for our partners to decide." (Ride-sharing is a strategy a lot of players in the field are shooting for, as round-the-clock use is one way for paying for what will initially be a technology too costly for private ownership.) Transporting goods or people? "I personally — and as a company — am more excited initially about moving people around. Urban mobility. That's where you see the largest social impact. And it provides better access to mobility for people." Can you create a car that doesn't crash? "It is a fundamentally hard problem because other operators on the road can behave erratically at any moment. For example, if you are in a two-lane, opposing-traffic road, if you want to be safe, you don't drive there, ever.