ROYAL OAK – The amazing shift in the American market from passenger cars to the crossover vehicles – today’s station wagon – is explained by auto guru David Cole. He also updates the listening audience on autonomous vehicle development and the five levels – where you can go to sleep in the back seat and let leave the driving to your vehicle. Cole said it remains a lot of hype until some key issues are solved, including who is liable for accidents in autonomous cars? The driver or the manufacturers?

Also under discussion in this episode of M2 TechCast is the advances in power trains. Cole said electrification may be mandated in Asia, Europe and South America. In the United States, not so much. China lately is pushing electric vehicles hard for its cities, but what about the vast rural areas in China, a country as large as the continental United States.

He also touched on Tesla and how it is using prototype tooling for production, a hinderance in getting fit and finish as good as domestic automakers. Also General Motors stock has been on the rise do to the elimination of non profitable entities, such as Opel in Europe. Just this week, GM announced it had lost about $3 billion in the third quarter, primarily because of the Opel write-off. Wall Street reacted by pushing GM’s stock higher.

To listen to all the details, click on https://soundcloud.com/podcastdetroit/m2techcast-episode-100-david-cole-auto-report