Electric Vehicles & Cars - Page 26

An Apple engineer who was killed in a fatal Tesla car crashed in March, 2018 had previously reported issues with Tesla's Autopilot system.

According to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) documents that were shared just this past Tuesday, Apple engineer Walter Huang had previously reported that his Tesla car steered away from the highway. Reuters reported that Huang's brother said that Huang discussed how the car swerved towards the highway barrier with him. Huang also reportedly complained to Tesla about the issue, but their response was that they couldn't replicate the problem.

Tesla also said that it was Huang's fault and that he ignored several "hands-on warnings" that prompted him to take control of the wheel. Huang's family filed a lawsuit against Tesla, claiming that Huang's vehicle (Model X) was "defective" in its design. Not too long ago, US Senator criticized Tesla's Autopilot feature, calling the title of the feature "misleading", check out that story here. It's not all doom and gloom for Tesla's Autopilot feature, back in August last year a driver had a heart attack while driving, and the Autopilot feature saved his life. More on that here.

Every year, most car manufacturers have a new vehicle model coming out, and now that we are well into 2020, what vehicles are the most anticipated?

According to a new study conducted by Partcatalog, who analyzed Google Trends data between the dates of January 1st and February 1st found that Americans are most excited for Ford's new vehicle -- the Ford Bronco. The above map showcases each state and what they are most excited about in terms of brand and vehicle.

In summary, the following vehicles were the most popular; Ford Bronco - 19 states, Chevy Corvette Stingray - 13 states, Land Rover Defender - 6 states, Porsche Taycan - 5 states, Tesla Model Y - 3 states, Rivian R1T - 2 states, Ford Mustang Mach-E - 2 states. If you are after any more statistics like this, a new info-graph is released every month regarding vehicles. Be sure to check back here soon for more.

Since the announcement of Tesla's Cybertruck, competitors have scrambled to announce their own version of an electric truck. But how will these newly announced affect Tesla's Cybertruck, and what does the public think?

During this year's Super Bowl, we saw GM's Hummer EV advertisement that featured LeBron James. Since that advertisement went live, there has been some talk about how GM's Hummer EV will be a threat to Tesla's Cybertruck that was announced late last year. According to a nationwide survey of 20,264 Americans that was conducted by Piplsay, 35% of those who did the survey believe that the Hummer EV will be a "threat" to Tesla's Cybertruck.

The survey also found that 47% of men think that the Hummer EV will challenge the Cybertruck, as compared to 29% of women. While this survey and these statistics don't predict the exact future of how the sales of each of these vehicles will end up, it does give us some insight on what Americans are thinking about both of these vehicles coming to market. It should also be noted that the sample size for this survey is extremely small, but can still be looked at as somewhat relevant.

The world is well aware of Tesla's all-electric Cybertruck, but now more and more car companies will get on the electric truck hype train with Nikola Motors joining in on the fun with its new electric pick up truck dubbed Badger.

Nikola Motors' new Badger will be offered as both a fully battery-electric vehicle, as well as an electric/fuel-cell hybrid that will have some serious horsepower. The hybrid powertrain of the Nikola Motors Badger will have a maximum range of 600 miles, while the battery-powered model taps out at 300 miles.

The company claims the electric truck will have towing power of up to 8000 pounds, and will go from 0-60 miles per hour in just 2.9 seconds. Nikola Motors will be getting very close to Tesla Cybertruck territory if it can meet these claims, which would not be too bad at all. But when can we expect the Badger? The company will fully detail its new Badger truck at the Nikola World 2020 event in September, where it will then accept limited reservations.

Update: As it turns out on February 10th, 2020 the Sinot Yacht Architecture & Design released a public statement that is in response to the media coverage of this yacht and Bill Gates. They said that the hydrogen concept yacht, Aqua Ship is "not linked to Mr Gates (or his representatives) in any form or matter" and that Sinot has "no business relationship" with Bill Gates. I'd also like to personally apologise for this confusion, the statement was released overnight while I was asleep and at the time of writing the post Sinot had not commented on the matters.

Microsoft co-founder, Bill Gates, has reportedly ordered the world's first hydrogen-powered superyacht, proving his stance towards alternative fuels.

According to The Guardian, Gates has ordered what is called the Aqua Ship, which is a 370 ft superyacht that is completely powered by liquid hydrogen. Originally, the superyacht was showcased at last year's Monaco yacht show by the Dutch design firm Sinot. Sander Sinot, a designer of the Aqua Ship, said, "For the development of Aqua we took inspiration from the lifestyle of a discerning, forward-looking owner, the fluid versatility of water and cutting-edge technology, to combine this in a superyacht with truly innovative features."

Back to the Future is one of my top 10 movies of all time (seriously movie studios: do NOT ever remake or reboot this movie) -- but the insertion of the Tesla Cybertruck is just plain awesome.

Toronto-based visual effects studio Fort York VFX has beautifully inserted the Tesla Cybertruck into Back to the Future, at the point when the DeLorean is first cranked up and goes back in time and flies through Doc and Marty. The entire video is all A-class stuff, looking like it was done by a team of movie professionals.

There were nine Fort York VFX staffers that worked on the project, but it has to be the last few seconds when the number plate is spinning around that was the cherry on top. In the movie Back to the Future the number plate reads 'OUTATIME' but in this Tesla Cybertruck infused version of Back to the Future they troll with 'LOL GAS'.

Tesla has just performed a very sneaky move on a new Tesla Model S electric car owner, where the company remotely disabled the Autopilot function of the vehicle after the new owner purchased the Model S at an auction held by Tesla.

Tesla has said that the new owner "did not pay" for these features, so they are not allowed to use them... unless they pay, of course -- and a hefty $8000, too. The Model S in question was traded into a dealership with Autopilot enabled from its previous owner, sold to the new owner with all of the bells and whistles, but then Tesla remotely disabled the Autopilot feature.

For other hardware-based upgrades like the 4WD and all-wheel drive options, or even the adaptive cruise control, they stay with the vehicle no matter what. But Tesla can remotely disable software-based functions like the self-driving Autopilot feature, where owner 'Alec' is now frustrated. Alex purchased the car with both the Enhanced Autopilot and Full Self Driving Mode features enabled, with Jalopnik reporting that they've reviewed the documents from the car dealership itself.

Tesla is well-known for their out-of-the-box thinking, and while sometimes those kind of ideas can fall flat of their face, sometimes they don't.

More often then not, I think Tesla's unique ideas have worked as the company has forced the hand of other car manufacturers such as Porsche, BMW and now GM to jump into the electric vehicle game. For this reason, it's a great idea to keep an eye on what the company decides to patent as it can give clues towards what it might have planned for future vehicles.

Electrek noticed a new Tesla patent for a steering wheel, and according to the patents description "An interactive user interface for a steering wheel is provided. A user interface is provided on one or more portions of the steering wheel. The user interface recognizes gesture movements made by a user thereon. The user interface allows navigation of a set of controls associated with a menu provided through the user interface based on the recognized gesture movements."

Bill Murray is enjoying another run at Groundhog Day, where during Super Bowl 2020 he starred in a new Jeep commercial where they were showing off their new e-Bike. Check out the clip below:

Jeep partnered with QuietKat on the new e-Bike, which they are touting as the "most powerful" off-road mountain bike. The new e-Bike rocks a pretty monster 750W motor, 4.8-inch tires and "Fire-Link" suspension, with up to 40 miles of range. Inside, the motor is a Bafang M620 with up to 1.6kW of power but could see its beastiness watered down so it doesn't ruin the bike chain and/or throw riders from the bike.

The new e-Bike will be on sale sometime after June 2020, but Jeep has been shy about pricing for now. I wouldn't expect it to be cheap, but it won't be super expensive either. Jeep is hoping to see the new e-Bike sold as a companion vehicle for Jeep owners to go off-roading on, similar to the Cybertruck and its all-electric Cyberquad ATV.

Flying cars have been talked about since Back To The Future, but what about flying taxis? Don't worry, they are on the way, and they are arriving sooner than you would think.

The aircraft manufacturer called Kitty Hawk was formed back in 2016, and luckily the company enjoyed the backing of Google co-founder Larry Page for its design ideas. In 2019, Kitty Hawk split off into a joint venture with Boeing, called Wisk. The goal of Wisk was to develop a flying taxi service that would have the ability to be summoned via an app on consumers' smartphones.

Now, Wisk has announced on its website that a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) has been formed between Wisk and The New Zealand Government. The MOU is basically a green light towards Wisk establishing an autonomous flying taxi service trial in Canterbury, New Zealand. The flying taxi that was birthed out of Google's money, Boeing's manufacturing and Kitty Hawk's designs are called Cora. At the moment, we don't know when trials will begin, but nonetheless, this is a true sign of confidence in Cora from the New Zealand government's perspective.

Flying can be quite stressful for even the best of people, as there is quite a bit to worry about - plane arrival times, luggage, being late, etc.

Luckily, a new analysis has been published detailing which airlines are most likely to make your experience miserable. The team at Upgraded Points decided to gather consumer complaints across multiple commercial airlines to see if a consensus could be made for which airlines give the worst customer experiences.

According to the analysis, the highest average monthly complaints per 10,000 passengers comes from Frontier Airlines and Spirit Airlines. The airline which is most likely to mishandle your baggage is Envoy Air, with an average of 8.7 bags mishandled every month per 1,000 bags. The airline, which has the highest percentage of canceled flights is by far ExpressJet Airlines. If you are interested in reading further into this analysis, check out it out here.

Just a few days ago, GMC announced its new Cybertruck competitor, the Hummer EV. During today's Super Bowl, a new advertisement about the coming electric truck was shown, and NBA superstar LeBron James was spotted in it.

Above, you can watch the 30-second advertisement on the official GMC YouTube Channel, and it really emphasizes the fact that the Hummer EV will be a 'silent' truck. The advertisement starts with the 1,000 horsepower video we saw in the first teaser trailer, then transitions to 11,500 pound-feet of torque being 'silent', then a showcase of 0-60mph in three seconds being 'silent' and finally it's 'dominance' being 'silent'.

LeBron is spotted in the last part of the ad, where we see him dunk on a basketball ring and small the glass in the backboard. GMC says that the "quiet revolution is coming" and that the Hummer EV will be all-electric, have zero emissions, and have zero limits. The ad also shows that Hummer EV will be available in Fall 2021 and that a showcase will be held on the 20th of May, 2020.

GMC has announced a Tesla Cybertruck competitor, and its none other than an all-electric Hummer. The company has teased the reveal of the new truck on their website.

GMC's new project is called the Hummer EV, and according to the companies website/teaser trailer, the vehicle will have up to 1,000 horsepower, be able to go from 0-60 mph in just 3 seconds and have 11,500 lb/ft of torque. This new Hummer variant represents the revival of the brand and will most likely stand as a direct competitor to Tesla's Cybertruck that has recently made waves in the news.

Unfortunately, GMC won't be revealing the new Hummer EV until May 8th, 2021. So, there's going to be quite the wait before we can lay eyes on their new project. Until then, if you want to read up more on the new vehicle, head on over to the official website here.

Just this past Wednesday, Tesla took to their website to announce that they are ahead of schedule in regards to their upcoming Model Y cars.

The company has said that they are running quite far ahead of their original schedule, which was set at a release date of "fall 2020". Instead, shipments for the Model Y SUV will begin rolling out sometime in March 2020. On the website, Tesla explains that the $52,990 all-wheel drive "long-range" variant of the Model Y has had its range capabilities upgraded from 280 miles to 315 miles.

There's also a standard version of the Model Y that is only capable of 230 miles, that version will start at $40,000. According to The Verge, the Model Y is a combination of the Model 3 sedan as it uses 75% of the same parts. It is also said that the Model Y has slightly more headroom and features a similar interior as well as the classic dashboard-mounted touchscreen display from the Model 3.

Tesla might get all of the headlines with its electric vehicles, electric Semi Truck and electric Cybertruck... but that doesn't mean they're the only ones dominating in the field. General Motors has just thrown its hat into the EV ring, and will build EVs in the United States moving forward.

General Motors president Mark Reuss announced on Monday morning that the company will renovate its current Detroit-Hamtramck facility located in Detroit, Michigan. The renovation will cost $2.2 billion and will see GM having a factory solely for battery electric vehicles, with teh first to be a BEV pickup truck that will come off the production line in late 2021.

After that, GM has promised that it will start making electric autonomous taxi pods that will be used by Cruise, while $800 million will be invested into supplier tooling and related startup costs for BEV production. Once the factory is retooled and ready to go, General Motors has said that it will create "more than 2,200 good-paying US manufacturing jobs".

Tesla's exciting new Cybertruck has dominated headlines and social feeds since its announcement, and while Tesla Motors founder and CEO Elon Musk has been spotted driving the Cybertruck on the streets of LA before, he's back again -- and this time, with Jay Leno.

Musk and Leno were spotted driving the streets of LA in Tesla's new Cybertruck, which should be featured in a future episode of Jay Leno's Garage. The two were spotted driving the Cybertruck in LA and were spotted on multiple different videos, with the one embedded above and a closer look on a video on Instagram.

Leno is no stranger to Tesla exclusives, with the former late night host tapping previous Tesla prototypes in the past -- including their next-gen Roadster prototype. We should expect to see much more on Tesla's new Cybertruck in an upcoming episode of Jay Leno's Garage where we'll see the car in much more detail.

Boeing has taken to its website to announce that it has completed its first test of the world's largest twin-engine jet.

In the press release, Boeing has detailed that the new Boeing 777X jetliner has successfully entered the next phase of testing. The jetliner took off from Paine Field in Everett, Washington, at 10:09 a.m and managed to be in the skies for a massive 51-minute flight before landing back down safely at Seattle's Boeing Field.

The 777X is the largest twin-jetliner every created, measuring in at roughly 252 feet in length and 235 feet across. According to Stan Deal, president and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, "Our Boeing team has taken the most successful twin-aisle jet of all time and made it even more efficient, more capable and more comfortable for all. Today's safe first flight of the 777X is a tribute to the years of hard work and dedication from our teammates, our suppliers and our community partners in Washington state and across the globe."

U.S. Congressman has called out Tesla regarding the automotive company's "Autopilot" feature, asking them to "re-brand and re-market."

U.S. Senator Edward Markey said in a statement that the "Autopilot" feature is incorrectly named and is, in fact, a misleading title. Markey also stated that "Tesla promotes confusion about the capabilities and limits of its driver assistance system with an inherently misleading name - 'Autopilot' - that encourages users to over-rely on the technology." Markey also went further and said that the "Autopilot" branding "significantly undermines all of the user manuals and subsequent instructions that Tesla issues to its customers" regarding that the vehicle is, in fact, not fully autonomous.

In the statement from Markey, the Senator suggested that Tesla decides to "re-brand and re-market" the feature so that customers are fully aware of what its capable of. This isn't the first time Markey has recommended Tesla fix some of their safety features, as the Senator asked the company back in November to address some issues. Tesla responded to the Senator back on December 20th, 2019.

Tesla is preparing some of the first updates to its electric vehicles for the year, with a new leak hitting Tesla researcher 'Greentheonly' tweeting out a bunch of changes coming to Tesla EVs.

As you can see we can expect new hardware, an integrated inductive phone charger (Qi wireless) for Tesla Model S and Model X vehicles, 2 new battery types for the Model S/X, new lumbar, new charge port types (USB-C, hopefully), new suspension, and more. Most of this makes sense, and should be news welcomed by Tesla fans and customers.

Tesla's last change to the exterior of the Model S was all the way back in 2016, so we should expect a fresh of the Model S in 2020 with some new internals and 2020 features like Qi wireless charging, new ports, and more.

Elon Musk has taken to his personal Twitter account to ask the public about their thoughts on whether or not he should bring Minecraft, The Witcher, and Kerbal Space Program over to Tesla's.

Musk put out a Twitter poll that currently has five hours left as of writing this post, which asked "Want to play The Witcher game on your Tesla? (you can already watch the show on Tesla Netflix theater)". The poll has two options, "yes [tosses coin]" and "no, I have the plague". Before I tell you what the statistics are looking like, vote first!

At the time of writing this 85.4% of the people that voted clicked yes, and only 14.6% voted no. In the Twitter thread, Musk was asked by some fans if he can bring both Minecraft and a SpaceX version of Kerbal Space Program over to Tesla's as well. Musk responded to the fan that asked about Minecraft, "Agreed, v important" and to a SpaceX version of Kerbal Space Program "It's on the list". Hopefully, in the future, we see all three of these games make their way over to Tesla's.