Technology in Vehicles News - Page 1

Palmer Luckey has well and truly moved back into reality after almost single-handedly creating the VR market as we know it as the founder of Oculus, which was sold to Facebook for $2 billion. Now he heads up Anduril Industries, which just unveiled their first AI-powered Ghost 4 drone.

Anduril's new Ghost 4 drone are (very importantly) made in the USA. The new AI-powered drones are the first generation that can perform reconnaissance missions, according to Luckey, where the drones will fly out and search areas of land for objects of interest. This would include weapons, people, hardware (spy equipment), and more.

The new AI-powered drones are the first generation that can perform reconnaissance missions, according to Luckey, where the drones will fly out and search areas of land for objects of interest. This would include weapons, people, hardware (spy equipment), and more.

Amazon is officially allowed to begin its first commercial delivery trials in the US, where the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) granting Amazon with an "air carrier" designation. Welcome to Amazon Prime Air.

This means the company is open to kick starting its drone delivery trials in the United States, but Amazon hasn't detailed when and where they will be. Bloomberg does report that Amazon has test sites for possibly drone delivery trials in the Northwest, and in the Vancouver area.

Amazon vice president, David Carbon, said: "This certification is an important step forward for Prime Air and indicates the FAA's confidence in Amazon's operating and safety procedures for an autonomous drone delivery service that will one day deliver packages to our customers around the world".

Tesla Motors continues to go from strength to strength, with the Elon Musk run company now looking to expand its Full Self Driving technology.

The company is reporting teaming with Broadcom to make a new 7nm processor, something known as HW 4.0 -- which will power its next-gen Full Self Driving (FSD) computer. The new 7nm HPC chip will be made on TSMC's 7nm node and will be made later this year -- and put into cars in 2022 and beyond.

Mass production on the new Tesla Motors FSD chip will begin in late 2021, which is mostly because TSMC is absolutely flooded with orders for its 7nm node. AMD is building its entire Ryzen CPU and Radeon GPU families of products on the 7nm node by TSMC, the next-gen Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 consoles and their semi-custom APUs are being made by TSMC, and so much more on 7nm.

Bugatti has just released something I'm sure you didn't expect: the Baby II, which is a 75% scale electric replica of its Type 35 car. Check out the video:

The company will have a 1.3HP Novice mode and 1.4kWh battery, which should provide enough juice to let children or an adult to drive around in for a while. There are higher-end versions of the Baby II if you have more money, want more status, or just don't care.

Bugatti's base version of the car is made with a composite body, while the Vitesse models receive a nicer carbon fiber battery and 2.8kWh battery upgrade -- as well as a special "Speed Key" liek the higher-end Chiron. There's also the Pur Sang edition which has been crafted for collectors.

If you remember, Tesla revealed the Tesla Semi back in November, 2017, and since then we haven't really heard much about it being in production, until now.

A leaked internal email from Tesla revealed that the Tesla Semi is about to enter large scale production, and while 'leaked' emails can sometimes be faked, who better to ask if it's real than the CEO Elon Musk. So, that's exactly what a fan did, and Musk replied with a simple "yes". The email stated that "It's time to go all out and bring the Tesla Semi to volume production. It's been in limited production so far, which has allowed us to improve many aspects of the design".

Originally, the planned release for the Tesla Semi was 2019, but now a revised date has been set for 2021. The email also stated that battery and powertrain production would take place at the Tesla Gigafactory in Nevada, with other part work likely being handled by other factories in other states.

The Matrix 4 is currently in production, with a current release date of May 21, 2021 -- which coincidentally is the same day John Wick 4 opens, with Keanu Reeves the star of both movies.

Well, during an interview with Empire for their Heroes Issue, The Matrix star Carrie-Anne Moss said: "I never thought that it would happen. It was never on my radar at all. When it was brought to me in the way that it was brought to me, with incredible depth and all of the integrity and artistry that you could imagine, I was like, 'This is a gift.' It was just very exciting".

As for Keanu, he added: "Lana Wachowski wrote a beautiful script and a wonderful story that resonated with me. That's the only reason to do it. To work with her again is just amazing. It's been really special, and the story has, I think, some meaningful things to say, and that we can take some nourishment from".

The future of Tesla Motors is near unlimited at this point, with the electric car company rolling out its new feature to Tesla EV owners called "Car Access".

Car Access is a new feature for Tesla owners that lets them grant permission for another driver to access their car, letting the owner of the vehicle add an additional person to the vehicle and all Tesla app features. The only thing they'll be locked out of is being able to request roadside assistance, or (of course) purchase upgrades.

While this might seem like a nifty short-term feature, the long-term implications of Car Access are unlimited. Rewinding the clock back to April 2019, where Tesla CEO and founder Elon Musk, said he saw a future of Tesla where they would be competing against Uber and Lyft, letting people use their car to make money through sending their Tesla vehicles into a robo-fleet.

The coronavirus pandemic around the world has hit automakers extremely hard. Automakers, such as GM, Ford, and others have been forced to shut down production around the world. Demand for new vehicles has also plummeted, leaving many automakers losing vast sums of money. Lincoln parent company Ford invested heavily into electric auto firm Rivian, and the investment landed it the right to use the skateboard platform for a future electric vehicle.

Lincoln announced only a couple of months ago that it would build an electric vehicle using the Rivian skateboard platform. That announcement was before the coronavirus pandemic, and Lincoln has now reportedly told dealers that it had canceled that electric vehicle. Lincoln blamed the "current environment" for the cancellation of the vehicle, insisting that its commitment to electrification and Rivian will continue.

The Lincoln electric vehicle on the Rivian platform was scheduled to launch in 2022. The skateboard platform will be used by Rivian with its R1S and R1T electric vehicles. The coronavirus pandemic has stopped construction on the assembly plant where those vehicles will be built in Illinois. While Lincoln won't be making a vehicle on the skateboard platform now, it says it still plans to build an electric vehicle.

Tesla has patented a new type of electrode to be used inside of the battery cells that builds in house. The goal of the new battery electrodes is to be longer-lasting and cheaper to produce. The new NCA electrode in the patent is expected to be used in those battery cells.

Tesla previously patented an electrode using a new generation "single-crystal" NMC 532 cathode and a new advanced electrolyte. The team was able to show over 4000 cycles in battery cells made using the novel cathode. Tesla believes that the battery cells could last for over a million miles when used in electric vehicles.

Tesla's new patent is titled "Method for Synthesizing Nickel-Cobalt-Aluminum Electrodes." The inventors have devised a two-step synthesis process pairing single-crystal nickel-cobalt-aluminum (NCA) electrodes. The patent says that in certain embodiments, the two-step synthesis process includes two lithiation steps. As with most patents, much of it is heady science that doesn't make a lot of sense to those outside of the industry.

Ford has a very cool, one-of-a-kind drag racing car that needs nothing but electricity to make it down the dragstrip. The vehicle is called the Mustang Cobra Jet 1400 and is the first factory fully electric dragster from Ford. The automaker says that the Mustang Cobra Jet 1400 is capable of running the quarter-mile in the low 8-second range at over 170 mph.

The electric motors used in the drag racing car deliver over 1400 horsepower and 1100 pound-feet of torque. "Ford has always used motorsport to demonstrate innovation," said Dave Pericak, Global Director, Ford Icons. "Electric powertrains give us a completely new kind of performance and the all-electric Cobra Jet 1400 is one example of pushing new technology to the absolute limit. We're excited to showcase what's possible in an exciting year when we also have the all-electric Mustang Mach-E joining the Mustang family."

Ford sees the Cobra Jet 1400 project as an opportunity to begin the development of electric powertrains in a racecar package. Ford already has lots of experience with that racing car package, it produces Cobra Jet race cars with supercharged V-8's for drag racing and has for several years.