MUNICH — Buyers of Renault’s new Scenic E-Tech electric SUV won’t be able to order a sliding sunroof. But they can get what Renault says is a better option: The Solarbay sunroof, which automatically dims different segments using electrical impulses to excite particles embedded in the glass.

The technology is available on the Scenic E-Tech, which had its public debut at the IAA Mobility auto show here. It is also an option on the just-launched Renault Rafale midsize SUV. 

It is ideally suited for EVs, said Brigitte Savariault, a Renault engineer who worked on the Solarbay roof.

Benefits for electric vehicles over a sliding roof include lighter weight because there are no motors or metal rails, Savariault said at demonstration of the technology at the show. 

There is also a gain of 30 mm of headroom compared with a conventional sunroof, Renault says, and the dimming feature helps keep the cabin cool or warm, depending on the outside temperature. Wind noise, which is more noticeable in EVs because they have fewer moving mechanical parts, is also reduced.

Renault worked with Saint-Gobain Sekurit on the Solarbay roof, Savariault said. The supplier calls the technology AmpliSky, which it launched (and trademarked) in 2019.

On the Scenic E-Tech, the roof’s opacity can be controlled by a button or by using Google Voice assistant in Renault’s OpenR Link infotainment system. When the car is shut off, the roof automatically darkens; when it is started again, the roof returns to the previous setting.

The technology, called polymer-dispersed liquid crystal or opacifying glass, works by using electrical impulses to align tiny particles in a thin film within the glass roof.

Opacifying glass, from several suppliers, has been available on a number of high-end models from Mercedes-Benz, McLaren and Porsche, but Renault says the Rafale and Scenic are the first mainstream models to have it, particularly with the ability to dim certain segments individually.

Porsche says the “intelligent” sunroof available the Taycan GTS allows only 15 percent of outside heat to enter the interior, compared with 30 percent for a conventional sliding sunroof.

It will also appear on the 2024 Volkswagen ID7 midsize EV, although without a segmentation option.

The coming Cadillac Celestiq luxury EV will use opacifying glass from SPD-SmartGlass that allows each of the four occupants to control their own roof quadrant, GM says.

Office buildings and airliners are also seen as big markets for the technology, to save money on heating and cooling and to avoid glare for employees or passengers.

Other suppliers that have the technology in their portfolios include Webasto, which calls it switchable glazing, and has integrated lighting into a sunroof with the features. Gentex has shown dimmable visors for drivers and front passengers, as well as opacifying sunroofs.

Maximilian Hofbeck, Webasto’s director of product management, told Automotive News Europe recently that his company forecasts that 80 to 90 percent of future vehicles will have roofs with ambient lighting and segmented switchable glazing. Webasto will start series production of roofs with both features in 2025.

LONDON — Nissan has unveiled a European-focused small sporty electric hatchback concept ahead of the launch of the new Micra EV, which is expected in 2025.

The Concept 20-23 was designed at Nissan’s European studio in Paddington, London, and commemorates the studio’s 20th anniversary.

The new, battery-electric Micra is being engineered by Renault as a sister car to the Renault 5 electric small hatchback and Renault 4 electric small SUV. The two cars will be built at Renault Group’s factory in Douai, northern France.

At an event here Monday, Nissan declined to say whether the concept explicitly previewed the Micra, although the round headlights are a signature of the third generation of the small car and perhaps its most well-known styling feature.

Nissan also announced at the event that it would launch only electric cars in Europe ahead of plans to be EV-only  by 2030.

The look of the 20-23 was inspired by Nissan’s Formula E electric single-seater racing car, as well as digital online racing, the company said. Sporty styling cues includes a large rear spoiler, upward-opening scissor doors, muscular wheel arches and extended side skirts.

Nissan global head of design Alfonso Albaisa said the brief to the Nissan Design Europe (NDE) creators was to “design a fun electric city car that you’d like to drive every day in London.” The car “expresses the brutality that is possible from the driving experience of an EV,” he said at the event.

Nissan said the 20-23 name refers to the design studio’s anniversary as well as the brand’s traditional number 2 (“ni”) 3 (“san”) and the current year.

A strong focus on creating a sporty car would allow Nissan to sell the electric Micra at higher prices than a more conventional styled model. Electric vehicles still cost more to build than combustion-engine alternatives, making it hard to create a business at the lower end of the market. 

Nissan’s alliance partner Renault has worked hard to elevate pricing on the Micra’s sister models. The Renault 5 and Renault 4 SUV reference popular models in the brand’s past, while a planned Alpine “hot hatch” version of the Renault 5, previewed by the A290 Beta show car, will command premium pricing.

The sporty strategy has also been used by Volkswagen Group brand Cupra for its version of the “affordable” electric small car planned by Volkswagen for launch in 2025. The small Cupra was first revealed as the hyper sporty Urban Rebel, before it provided a clearer look with the more conventional but still performance-oriented Raval.

Despite the strong focus on performance, Nissan said the 20-23 concept is not all about aggressive design. The front headlights with split semi-circle elements present a “friendly appearance,” Nissan said in a statement, while the rear design incorporates a “soft smile” in the outline. 

China’s biggest and most ambitious automakers were some of the most visible stars of the IAA Mobility auto show in Munich but HiPhi, a startup that is already shaking up the premium EV segment in its home market, took a very different approach.

HiPhi showed just one model, the Z four-door grand touring fastback, available in the test drive area, and the company did not have a stand of its own, even though sales are already under way in Germany and Norway.

That cautious stance is deliberate, said Mark Stanton, a former engineer at Jaguar Land Rover and Ford who is HiPhi’s chief technical officer and head of its Europe operations.

“We are dipping our toe in the water in Europe to see the reaction,” he said. “So far it’s been incredibly positive,” Stanton said in an interview at the show earlier this month.

HiPhi, the automotive brand of Human Horizons, whose founders include Stanton and former General Motors executives, has already taken the fight to Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz in China, where Stanton says it has a leading position among EVs selling for more than 500,000 renminbi (64,000 euros).

Two models have been launched so far, the X, a four- or six-seat large SUV with dual-action rear doors – a rear-hinged lower section with a gull wing upper body – from 109,000-123,000 euros; and the four- or five-seat Z, at 105,000-107,000 euros. The first deliveries have just started, Stanton said.

The X was launched in China in May 2021, and the Z in the middle of 2023. Stanton said HiPhi already has 20 to 25 percent of the premium EV market.

“In China we compete with Mercedes, BMW, Audi and Porsche because of our pricing,” Stanton said. “Since we launched those cars we have outsold those brands, not every month, but most months.”

HiPhi declined to give sales figures, but other media outlets have reported that HiPhi had sold about 10,000 cars through May of this year.

“Our sales are not huge, but we are playing in an area where the margins are much higher,” Stanton said.

HiPhi’s cars, which have bold styling and an abundance of technology, especially in the interior and user experience, appeal to young, wealthy Chinese buyers who don’t want to be seen in a traditional German premium car, he said. 

“Their parents may have bought a Mercedes but they want a different, more modern interpretation of luxury,” Stanton said. “We believe there’s a group of people like that in Europe.”

HiPhi has opened its first stores in Oslo and in Germany, at the Munich airport, where prospective buyers can see the X, the Z and the Y, a midsize “LuxTech” SUV also with gullwing doors that is expected to sell for about 65,000 euros, with orders opening by the end of the year.

Sales in Europe will be direct to consumer, Stanton said, with a network of “third party” service providers, Stanton said. HiPhi hopes to expand to other major European markets, including the U.K., he said.

HiPhi’s rivals for the X and Z are models from German premiums including the Porsche Taycan; Audi E-Tron GT, Q8 E-Tron and Q8 E-Tron Sportback; BMW i7 and iX; and the Mercedes EQE and EQS sedans and SUVs. Other competitors include the Tesla Model S, and higher-priced models, some not yet on the market, from Chinese brands BYD, Nio and Zeekr.

In the luxury sedan segment, in which the HiPhi Z competes, the Taycan is the leader through August, with 12,115 sales, according to figures from Dataforce – about 6,000 units ahead of its nearest rival, the combustion-engine Mercedes S-Class. The EQS is third at 4,989 sales. 

Chinese brands have yet to make a significant impact on the premium and luxury segments, but sales are growing. Nio, for example, doubled its sales through August to 1,438 compared with the same period in 2022.

Stanton said HiPhi will set itself apart from the competition by offering a combination of futuristic design, a nontraditional interpretation of luxury – “it’s not wood and leather,” he said – novel technologies and excellent handling and ride. “There’s not a single brand that stands out in all areas,” he said. 

HiPhi is not focused on sales volume or market share in Europe, he said, explaining that the brand is introducing itself in a step-by-step approach, starting by offering press test drives, then social media outreach. A key exposure was at July’s Goodwood Festival of Speed, where a HiPhi Z took a run among other new launches and concept cars. “It showed that we weren’t scared to chuck the car up the hill,” Stanton said.

As a startup, HiPhi is aiming to keep its capital expenditures low at this stage, he said. It leases a factory from a Dongfeng-Kia joint venture that has excess capacity; batteries come from CATL and motors from Bosch. It is now developing its own software, infotainment and ADAS systems, Stanton said, especially for the Y, but in the past relied more on suppliers.

“We’re not being too bold in our claims of what we’re going to do and when we’re going to do it,” Stanton said. “We try to be nimble and quick on our feet. We don’t have a 10-year master plan because we know we wouldn’t follow it.”

BRUSSELS — The European Union is set to demand that cars running on e-fuels must be 100 percent carbon neutral if they are to be sold beyond 2035, a draft document showed, after Germany demanded e-fuel cars be exempted from the phase-out of new polluting vehicles.

All new cars sold in the EU from 2035 must have zero CO2 emissions, under the EU’s main climate policy for cars, which countries agreed earlier this year.

However, the European Commission is developing a legal route for sales of new cars that only run on e-fuels to continue after 2035, after Germany demanded this exemption.

A draft EU legal proposal, seen by Reuters, showed Brussels plans to set strict conditions for e-fuel cars – requiring them to run on fully CO2 neutral fuels.

E-fuels are considered carbon neutral when they are made using captured CO2 emissions that balance out the CO2 released when the fuel is combusted in an engine.

The draft rules would be stricter than the low-carbon fuel rules in some other EU climate policies. For example, countries can use certain fuels to meet EU renewable energy targets if they achieve a 70 percent emissions saving, rather than 100 percent.

Neither the commission nor Germany’s transport ministry immediately responded to requests for comment.

“Especially when it comes to reducing CO2 emissions of the existing fleet — which already comprises around 250 million vehicles in Europe today — climate-neutral fuels can play an important role in decarbonising transport,” BMW said in a statement.

“This is why all BMW engines are already approved for e-fuels, provided they comply with the current fuel standard.”

The eFuel Alliance industry group said the draft proposal would effectively ban new combustion engines from 2035, if it counted emissions along the value chain as well as those from producing an e-fuel.

“A 100 percent reduction in emissions is therefore nearly impossible,” Ralf Diemer, the group’s managing director, said in a statement on Friday.

Amer Amer, an engineer at Aramco, which is working with Stellantis and Renault, as well as other engery companies, to commercialize e-fuels, said recently that his company could achieve “north of 70 percent” CO2 reduction in their production.

The remaining 30 percent includes the manufacturing footprint of wind turbines and solar panels, and the electrolyzers used to create the fuels, as well as transport of the fuels and “last mile” deliveries, Amer said.

The draft rules would form a legal basis for carmakers to register a new type of vehicle – a combustion engine car that runs exclusively on carbon neutral fuels.

Such vehicles must be designed so that the engine would not start if the vehicle is fuelled with CO2-emitting petrol, under the draft rules, which could change before they are due to be published later this year.

Manufacturers would need to enforce this using technologies such as devices that track the chemical properties of the fuel. They would also need to develop rules to make sure these technologies cannot be tampered with, the document said.

German supplier ZF Group has been able to keep up production of axles at its Tuscaloosa, Alabama, factory in the two days since UAW workers began striking there, allowing nearby production of key Mercedes-Benz models to continue.

“We are still running and in fact stable,” ZF spokesperson Tony Sapienza wrote in an email on Friday, adding that there have been “no interruptions” to Mercedes production.

It was not immediately clear how the plant is operating despite the strike. Sapienza declined to comment when asked if the company was relying on salaried or temporary workers to keep up production.

About 190 UAW members walked off the job on Wednesday at ZF’s chassis systems plant in Tuscaloosa after they voted down a contract offer from ZF. The strike raised the possibility of new-vehicle production being slowed down or stopped at Mercedes’ Vance, Ala., assembly plant, which receives front and rear axles from ZF.

In Vance, Mercedes builds the GLS SUV, GLE midsize crossover and GLE Coupe, in addition to the EQE electric crossover and EQS electric SUV, according to the Automotive News Data Center. The GLE was Mercedes’ second-highest-selling model in the U.S. during the first half of the year, trailing only the Sprinter van.

Requests for comment from Mercedes spokespeople were not immediately returned. Previously, the company said it was “monitoring the situation” at ZF.

Like the UAW’s larger strike against the Detroit 3, workers at ZF are striking over issues pertaining to wages and health care coverage. A top priority for the union with both actions is ending the tiered-wage system — a longtime point of contention between the UAW and auto companies.

Sapienza said on Friday that ZF “submitted an offer to the union that we believe is both fair and competitive and will continue to negotiate in good faith.”

Representatives for UAW Local 2083, which represents unionized ZF workers in Tuscaloosa, could not be reached for comment.

ZF, based in Friedrichshafen, Germany, ranks No. 3 on the Automotive News list of the top 100 global suppliers with worldwide sales to automakers of $42.1 billion in 2022.