Technology in Vehicles News - Page 1

Twice within the last month, US military vessels have had to fire warning shots at Iranian war vessels for "unsafe and unprofessional" maneuvers.

According to TheGuardian, a US coast guard ship had to fire thirty warning shots at thirteen Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGCN) warships that were fast-approaching US navy vessels. According to John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesperson, the warning shots were fired at the Iranian ships after they came as close as 150 yards to US ships. Kirby said, "It's significant ... and they were acting very aggressively."

Kirby also stated, "After the second round of warning shots, the 13 fast attack craft from the IRGCN broke contact." As previously mentioned, this is the second time within a month that US ships have had to result in firing warning shots at approaching Iranian ships. In April, another US ship had to fire warning shots after three IRGCN vessels came close to an American patrol boat in the Gulf.

On April 29, 2021, the world's largest plane officially completed its flight test over California's Mojave Desert.

Developed by Stratolaunch, the "Roc" plane now holds the crown for the world's largest plane as it has a wingspan of 385-feet, and a length of 250 feet, which is slightly bigger than the world's largest passenger plane, the Airbus A380. The Roc has six engines in total and 28 wheels to stabilize it when it lands on the runway.

On Thursday, April 29, Stratolaunch took the Roc out to Mojave Air and Space Port, which is about 70 miles north of Los Angeles. This test flight marked the first time Roc has flown in two years, and during the flight, the massive plane climbed to an altitude of 14,000 feet. Roc stayed in the air for 3 hours and 14 minutes, and the team behind the craft deemed the entire test flight a success. See the above videos to watch the bird in action!

If you've got a Lamborghini Huracan EVO sitting in the driveway then you might want to check out the latest update the company has to offer, using its partnership with Amazon and infusing Alexa features into the Huracan EVO exotic car.

Amazon Alexa features inside of the Lamborghini Huracan EVO allow you to tweak controls of the vehicle with just your voice, with Lamborghini explaining you can control "climate and comfort settings including air conditioning, heater, fan speed, temperature, seat heaters, defroster and air flow direction, as well as lighting".

You can simply tell your Lamborghini Huracan EVO "Alexa, I am hot" and the car will start the air conditioning and get the car cooler, which is something the company wants you to use more often -- using your voice instead of taking your eyes off the road to see where your hand is moving to tweak the AC knobs and other controls in your car.

Apple was in the headlines for all the right reasons last year when it comes to its Apple Car project, reportedly teaming with Hyundai to make its car happen in 2024 -- and now, Apple has just secured ex-Porsche Vice President of Chassis Development Manfred Harrer.

Harrer comes with a lot of expertise from Porsche where he was for over 10 years, where he worked on the Cayenne series recently and has been leading the chassis division since 2016. The news is coming from Business Insider Deutschland, which said that Apple, Porsche, and Dr. Harrer declined to comment on the news.

Business Insider did report that a former top Volkswagen manager said that Dr. Harrer was a "hidden champion" and the "measure of all things in his field".

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has announced that it will be making automobile processors at a much faster rate, as governments across the wrold struggle getting their hands-on those chips for new cars.

The global shortage of automobile chips is causing enough of an issue economically that governments have requested authorities in Taiwan to push TSMC to increase production of the much-needed automotive processors. Taiwan's Minister of Economic Affairs Ms. Mei-Hua Wang requested a meeting with representatives from Germany, TSMC, dean of Taiwan's Economic Research Institute and other semiconductor companies.

In this meeting they talked about shortage of automotive chips, and how Germany along with other countries in the world could assist Taiwan -- where Taiwan (through TSMC) would make automotive chips at a rate that no other company in the world can do right now -- in exchange for COVID-19 vaccines.

Tesla announced its refreshed 2021 Model S electric vehicle teasing that it had 10 TFLOPs of compute performance, but now we know it is a custom AMD RDNA 2-based Navi 23 GPU and its GPU block diagram. Check it out:

The AMD Navi 23 GPU should be used inside of the 2021 Tesla Model S for its entertainment and navigation systems, with GDDR6 memory (Samsung 16Gb chips) with 8GB in total. The Navi 23 GPU has 10 TFLOPs of performance, which is virtually identical to that of the Sony PlayStation 5 console and its semi-custom AMD chip.

Navi 23 has 32 Compute Units (2048 Stream Processors) with GPU clocks of at least 2.44GHz, while the 8GB of GDDR6 finds itself on a 128-bit memory bus -- making the memory bus of Tesla's new 2021 infotainment system similar to Microsoft's slower Xbox Series S console.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is starting 2021 off well, with news floating around that it will be making chips for Intel in the near future, record products for 2020, an expanded $28 billion spend on advanced chips in 2021 -- and now TSMC will solve global auto chip shortages.

Volkswagen announced last month that it was worried about the low supply of chips coming in from China would disrupt production for the German automaker, while Honda said it would be closing its UK plant temporarily because of global auto chip shortages.

Never fear, TSMC is here!

TSMC CEO CC Wei explained: "The shortage in automotive supply has become more obvious. In TSMC, this is our top priority. The automotive industry needs a lot of semiconductor components... such as mature technology for sensors and power management. We are working with customers to mitigate the shortage impact".

Uh, I don't even know what to say -- no car that I ever drive again will come anywhere close to how amazing this new Digital Cockpit 2021 concept that Samsung has made. Check it out:

The big star of the show there is the huge panoramic 49-inch QLED display that can be used for entertainment, think future 8K content over Netflix or YouTube being blasted to your car over 5G -- all with surround sound speakers that pop out from next to your ears attached to the headrest. Awesome stuff, Samsung.

Samsung co-developed the Digital Cockpit 2021 concept with Harman, with Samsung explaining that it is "transforming vehicles into places where passengers would love to stay" with its main goal of "simplifying communication and delivering fun on-the-go experiences".

Well, it looks like Apple is making its autonomous electric cars with Hyundai -- with Reuters reporting that Apple and Hyundai will "start production around 2024 in the United States" according to local newspaper Korea IT News.

The new Apple Car will either be made at Kia Motors' factory in Georgia, or alternatively a new factory somewhere in the US that will produce 100,000 vehicles around 2024 -- Kia Motors being an affiliate of Hyundai Motor. The full capacity of the plant is expected to eventually reach 400,000 and I'm sure Apple and Hyundai will only build more plants as production (and sales) ramp up.

Interestingly, Reuters reports that Apple and Hyundai have plans to release a "beta version" of the Apple cars next year... a beta version car. Alright. We do know that Apple's new Car is meant to have "next level" battery technology, which will "radically" reduce the cost of the batteries inside of the car and increase the range that it can drive on a single charge.

Chinese electric vehicle startup NIO has just unveiled their new electric car, the new NIO ET7 being a fully autonomous, massive battery beast that can take on Tesla.

NIO has been referred to as "the Tesla of China" where it has been selling electric SUVs in the Chinese market for a while now, but at NIO Day 2020 in Chengdu, China yesterday -- the company unveiled their new NIO ET7 vehicle which has a list of great features, power, and technology.

We're looking at a 480 kW dual motor drivetrain with a battery pack that scales up to 150 kWh, with up to 621 miles (1000km). You'll probably never get close to it, but you should get upwards of that -- so expect around 500 miles of driving on a single charge in the NIO ET7.