Electric Vehicles & Cars - Page 17

Autonomous delivery vehicles seem to be all the rage these days, with customers even more likely to one day receive a food or goods delivery from a small, lightweight, electric delivery mechanism. The autonomous vehicles are being developed by a growing number of companies seeking partners before projects are made live on our sidewalks and roads.

Locations where restaurants and tech providers already had running pilots, the Covid-19 pandemic was a major test ground to see what their products could do. However, any locations that didn't have the infrastructure in place undoubtedly missed out, so now must scramble to try to catch up.

Here is what Cosimo Leipold, head of partnerships at Nuro, said in a statement: "We expect to see increased demand for on-road autonomous delivery across all types of industries and businesses and we're working to address that demand with our new vehicles designed to scale to millions of consumers across the US."

South Korea has ambitious plans related to autonomous vehicle development, aiming for up to 50% of domestic vehicles to be fully autonomous by 2035. The country recently released a Mobility Innovation Roadmap which laid out plans to keep up with semi-autonomous testing that is currently underway in the United States, Europe, and Japan already - but has clear benchmarks outlined for the future.

The first hurdle is to develop Level 3 autonomous vehicles that can self-drive under select conditions, but still relies on a human driver to be able to take control of the system when needed. The automated driving system can carry out many driving tasks but give the driver ability to disengage back to regular driving mode.

Korean automaker Hyundai plans to add level 3 autonomous capability to its Genesis G90 EV by the end of this year.

The Elia Group's re.alto and Volkswagen subsidiary Elli recently signed a partnership to integrate electric vehicles into the electricity power grid across Europe.

The companies will focus on price signals and incentives, market design, trusted data within the power system, and safe connectivity with proper data security. Elli has experience with mobility services, charging infrastructure, and serving as a flexible energy provider - and re.alto brings experience related to energy data connections and APIs.

Electricity demand is expected to increase almost 70% by 2050, and operators must work now to ensure they're able to keep up with demand as best as they can moving forward. Hopefully, relying on electric vehicle battery as a mobile power bank helps move forward towards climate neutrality - the renewable energy is stored and used more efficiently, and the power grid can be easily stabilized.

Over half of automotive sales in the United States will be electric vehicles in 2030, according to a recent Bloomberg New Energy Finance report. In the current timeframe, EV sales in 2022 are reaching new levels this year, as there is a continued effort to move away from internal combustion engines that rely on fossil fuels.

During 2021, EV sales doubled throughout the year, and should reach more than 13 percent of total auto sales by the end of the year, according to the International Energy Agency. Consumer incentives to purchase EVs, including a point-of-sale tax credit up to $7,500, has boosted the 2030 market share estimate from 43% up to 52%. Of note, the credit is only applicable to vehicles assembled in North America, along with batteries that are also assembled within North America.

Throughout all of 2021, almost 7 million EVs were sold - but 2 million were sold in just Q1 of 2022, a whopping 75 percent year-over-year increase. This growth is expected to continue, but the tax credit will also certainly help drive up adoption moving forward - as long as automakers are able to maintain inventory of car models. Tesla, General Motors, and Ford will likely be the companies able to support domestic battery production the most, though they must also adapt to mineral importation and battery manufacturing rules.

The Ford Mustang Mach-E electric vehicle will be added to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) automotive fleet, making the organization the first federal agency to adopt an EV for law enforcement use.

DHS currently has over 50,000 vehicles and is one of the largest motor vehicle fleets among any US federal agency. Officials aim to have 60 percent of the current vehicles replaced with EVs in the coming years, while the Biden administration continues to push towards net-zero by 2050.

Earlier in the year, the Mustang Mach-E underwent an upfit by DHS to equip the vehicles with lights and sirens, following Federal Protective Service standards. Before the vehicles rollout on a widescale, now they are undergoing high-threshold testing. The FPS ensures all DHS vehicles can withstand high speeds, on- and off-road maneuverability, durability, endurance, and custom technical specifications.

The automotive industry is still working through a semiconductor shortage that has caused major headaches for carmakers. Strong demand persists despite the chip shortage starting in 2020 and will likely continue throughout the rest of this year and into 2023, analysts predict.

It's a mixed bag of results for different manufacturers, with Hyundai, Volkswagen, Nissan, Mercedes-Benz, BW, and Volvo all in significant recovery or fully recovered - but Toyota, General Motors, and Ford are still suffering shortages. Honda still has an uncertain outlook related to the shortage, with production expected to remain lower than pre-pandemic levels for at least the next year.

Even if chip supply logistics are getting better, a temporary shift from custom made chips towards general purpose semiconductors should continue, with Infineon Technologies and Renesas Electronics recovering through shortages in 2022. STMicroelectronics is sold out through next year, while NXP Semiconductors and Texas Instruments still seeing inventories below desired levels.

The CLEVON 1 autonomous delivery vehicle will find its way to the roads in North America, after Clevon announced a new headquarters in the Dallas-Fort Worth region.

The company hopes its vehicle can help retailers reduce time constraints for on-demand, same day or next day delivery, while demand continues to increase. The modularly designed vehicle is electric so it's environmentally friendly and sustainable for owners to use over a long duration.

A single charge provides a 50-mile driving range or 5 hours of use, with a top speed up to 31 mph. CLEVON 1 supports up to 225 pounds of cargo weight and is designed to operate on open public roads, not sidewalks or bike paths.

There will be a time in the future when drivers will share the road with autonomous semi-trucks without a driver behind the wheel. In a recent announcement, Torc Robotics, a Daimler Truck independent subsidiary, has partnered with the Schneider National logistics company while they actively test an autonomous semitruck fleet on the road.

Torc relied on Schneider to provide freight loads for the pilot program, offering live truckload freight expertise. Both companies aim for the heavily customized 18-wheelers to be an industry standard and realistic solution with commercial pilots beginning in 2023.

Even though autonomous consumer cars receive most of the attention, plenty of research continues to be dedicated towards autonomous trucks.

Automakers are working to develop new vehicles and the industry is under pressure to meet changing consumer demands - and the release of new convertibles cannot keep up. Car features such as glass tops and panoramic sunroofs are becoming more popular, while the practicality and cost increases in convertibles are leading to a drastic decline.

Traditional convertible sales have dropped to less than 100,000 units per year, despite once-popular models such as the Ford Mustang, Mazda Miata, and Chevrolet Camaro once racking up strong sales, according to the S&P Global Mobility. Despite 320,000 vehicles sold in 2006, a noticeable 2% of all US sales in 2006, which continued to slide to less than 150,000 (0.8%) in 2015 - and that figure is expected to get worse before better.

The only positive note for convertibles is in "super premiums," with 28% of the niche market share, including models from Lamborghini, Ferrari, and other high-end automakers.

Electric vehicle owners often find themselves recharging their vehicles overnight, when utility rates are cheaper and power demand is lower. This behavior might have catastrophic results causing overwhelmed power grids in the future if changes aren't made, according to a recent study from Stanford University.

Rapid adoption of EV ownership could increase power demands up to 25 percent in a decade if owners are charging their vehicles at home overnight. Researchers used computer models to analyze how home and public charging station infrastructure impacted electricity demand.

To alleviate these problems, more charging should take place midday, using public or work stations, if possible. During this time period, solar and wind energy are both producing at maximum, and it's possible some of that energy is wasted - so cheap power would be utilized instead of wasted by EV owners.

General Motors will sell up to 175,000 electric vehicles to rental car company Hertz over the next five years, the two companies recently announced.

Customers renting cars from Hertz will be able to select the Chevrolet Bolt EV and Bolt EUV starting in the first half of 2023, with the Blazer, Equinox, and other models to follow later. Once fully rolled out, GM aims to provide a variety in vehicles for Hertz, including compact cars and midsize SUVs to pickup trucks and luxury vehicles.

As noted by GM Chair and CEO Mary Barra:

Mercedes-Benz continues its foray into electric vehicles with the AMG C63 S E Performance, dropping the 4.0-liter V8 previous model with a 2.0-liter four-cylinder gas-electric model.

The in-line turbocharged four-cylinder engine features an electric motor on the rear axle, to provide additional peak power to all four wheels through the fully variable all-wheel drive system.

Sporting a turbocharged engine, a massive 671 horsepower from the hybrid propulsion system far surpasses the 469 or 503 horsepower from the previous generation. Drivers with a need for speed will be able to accelerate 0 to 60 miles per hour in 3.3 seconds, with a vehicle top speed of 174 mph.

Tesla's highly anticipated Cybertruck has been spotted on a public street looking pretty worse for wear, with onlookers witnessing a towing.

From the image, we can see that the unreleased Cybertruck has been put through some tests, possibly off-road, considering the amount of dust that is seen all over its side panels. The vehicle also doesn't have any windows on at least one of its sides, and it may possibly have a cracked windshield, or the windshield is reflecting the branches of the tree behind it. Most noticeably, the vehicle is equipped with apparatuses on its sides, roof, and front. This equipment was likely necessary for any performance testing that was being conducted.

Reports indicate that the equipment seen on the Cybertruck is likely some form of cameras and sensors used to calibrate or monitor the vehicle throughout testing. Tesla fans that examined the image closely discovered that the Cybertruck still uses its large windscreen wiper, which seems to not be popular with at least some fans. Tesla's Cybertruck will be Elon Musk's most durable car yet, with Tesla even writing on its website that its "exoskeleton" is made for "ultimate durability and passenger protection".

The California Air Resources Board voted to pass the new mandates on August 25th, 2022.

The new official state policy mandates that any cars and light trucks sold from 2035 onwards must be zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs), meaning they are either electric or hydrogen-powered, with no options for gasoline or diesel. The board was created in 1967 to reduce the toxic smog that hung over Los Angeles at the time, and it has since set emissions and fuel efficiency mandates that many other states have followed.

Lauren Sanchez, the climate advisor for Governor Gavin Newsom, marked that occasion as "a huge day not only for California but the entire world," with the founding director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California Davis (UC Davis), Dan Sperling, saying it the mandate "is the most important and transformative action that [the air resources board] has ever taken."

CNBC has reported that a viral video posted to the Whole Mars Blog YouTube channel was recently removed by YouTube.

A Tesla fan has put his vehicle to the test by placing mannequins in the middle of the road to test Tesla's Full Self-Driving feature. The video was in response to a viral video that depicted Tesla vehicles failing to stop for child mannequins when traveling at high speeds, which sparked Tesla fans to perform the test for themselves and, in Whole Mars Blog's case, on live children. The test was conducted with Tad Park, the CEO of EV investment company Volt Equity, and his children.

The video of the test seemingly debunking the original viral video of the Tesla's traveling at high speeds was removed by YouTube, with BusinessInsider reporting that a YouTube spokesperson informed that the video violated YouTube's guidelines as the content was related to endangering minors. Park spoke to Insider and said that CNBC's report on the video put pressure on YouTube, which caused them to remove it.

DeLorean has released images of its latest concept vehicles, the Omega 2040 and the Alpha5 Plasmatail.

The design of the Omega 2040, featured in the above image, was inspired by vehicles used in the annual off-road Baja 1000 race in Mexico, one of the most iconic off-road races in the world. As such, it features an elevated ride height, though it also lacks side windows. For DeLorean, the Omega 2040 "represents the next generation of DeLorean's design philosophy" and is "a complete departure from traditional automotive design."

The company rolled out a physical iteration of the concept art at the Concours D'elegance event in Pebble Beach, California. However, it doesn't seem the Omega will make it to the stage of being mass produced. Although the other concept revealed at the event, the Alpha5 Plasmatail, will enter production.

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has taken to Twitter to reveal a price hike in Tesla's Full Self-Driving beta.

According to Musk, who took to Twitter over the weekend, Tesla will be increasing the price of its Full Self-Driving (FSD) feature next month. The current price of Tesla's FSD is $12,000, and according to Musk, anyone that purchases FSD between now and September 5, when the price changes to the new price, will pay $12,000. The new price will be raised from $12,000 to $15,000 on September 5.

Musk didn't comment on whether the price of Tesla's subscription plan, which costs $199 per month depending on the capabilities of the Tesla vehicle. Notably, this isn't the first time that Tesla has increased its price for FSD, with the first price being $5,000 to add the software and then $7,000 post-delivery. At the beginning of 2022, Musk announced Tesla would be increasing the total from $12,000, saying that the price of the software was "ridiculously cheap."

A new suite of tests by Swedish car magazine Vi Bilägare has pitted an older car with physical controls across its dashboard with more modern cars that utilize touchscreens to assess safety and usability.

The Swedish magazine put the HMI (Human-Machine Interface) systems of twelve cars to the test, attempting to complete four simple tasks as quickly as possible. This included: turning on the driver's heated seat and increasing its temperature by two degrees and starting the defroster, turning on the radio and adjusting to a pre-determined station, resetting the trip computer, and lowering instrument lighting to its lowest level and turning off the center display.

The older car with solely buttons and switches for operating such features was a 2005 Volvo V70, while the remaining eleven cars were all modern, including the Tesla Model 3 and the Chinese electric vehicle, the MG Marvel R. In the Volvo V70, a driver was able to complete all tasks within 10 seconds flat, while at the other end of the scale, the same tasks took 44.9 seconds in the MG Marvel R.

Electric vehicle owners have drawn a line in the sand online after a video posted to Twitter last week sparked outrage.

The video posted by Taylor Ogan shows a Tesla Model Y put alongside a Lexus RX SUV, both cars speed off from the start line and are driving directly at a mannequin child placed further down the road. The test was to see which vehicle's safety features were better, and from the results seen in the above video, its pretty safe to say the Tesla won. This is where the outrage began as Tesla fans rushed to find holes in the testing method, with some fans even going as far as to put a live child in front of a moving Tesla.

Whole Mars Blog conducted this very experiment with Tad Park, the CEO of EV investment company Volt Equity, and his children. First, the Tesla fans performed the same test as seen in the viral video, which was originally inspired by a demo conducted by Dan O'Dowd, the CEO of automated driving system company Green Hills Software, and what they found was that the vehicle was more than capable of detecting the mannequins at various distances and speeds.

Franky Zapata has created yet another airborne vehicle, this time known as the JetRacer.

The JetRacer is a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft, resembling a racing seat with ten micro-turbojet engines surrounding it. Zapata's website claims it has high speed and maneuverability but sacrifices range to achieve these characteristics. It will reach an altitude of 3,000 meters (9,842 feet) and speeds of 250 kilometers (155.3 miles) per hour, though these numbers are asterisked with the footnote "performances envisaged."

The JetRacer uses the same jet engines as Zapata equipped a former invention of his with, the Flyboard Air, which he had an unfortunate accident with in May 2022 after crashing into the water with one from a reasonable height. The JetRacer builds in eight additional engines by comparison, and two of its ten total engines can stop functioning before the JetRacer's flight capabilities are impacted.