Electric Vehicles & Cars - Page 31

Hyundai and its subsidiary Kia are planning to hit the economically friendly car market hard with plans of bringing a large 38 cars to the market within the next eight years. There are already seven different models planned for the next five years, most of which are electric powered vehicles.

Compared to other companies though Hyundai is falling behind, VW plans to build electric versions of all of it's models by 2020 and GM plans to develop battery-powered versions for 20 of their cars which is also planned for release by 2020.

Hyundai claims that they have been working on green technology for more than a decade now and have already sold 186,000 green vehicles in just the first nine months of the year. What will be interesting is if the technology they have already developed will be ahead of the other companies which plan to release their green cars sooner rather than later.

Since Elon Musk's unveiled the design of his Semi electric trucks many companies have already placed orders since reservations were opened on November 17. Walmart and J.B Hunt were among some of the first companies to place orders and now another company has joined, placing a fleet order of 40 trucks.

Anheuser-Busch, a brewing company based in St. Louis Missouri, has placed an order for 40 Semi trucks, with this large scale order aiming at a reduction of the companies carbon footprint by 30% by 2025.

The $150,000 trucks may not be the only transportation used to move Anheuser-Busch's products, reports of futuristic truck companies such as Otto and Nikola have been mentioned, as well as Otto's self-driving truck having already shipped 2,000 cases of Budweiser.

Japan will see a self-driving car service by 2020, called 'Easy Ride' the service is powered by Nissan and a technology company DeNa. Nissan plan to have this service up and running in Yokohama by at least 2020, hoping for a completion of everything to pick-up and drop-off via mobile payment to having the option of taking the scenic route to your destination.

Nissan is most likely to have all of these problems worked out by 2020, as the Tokyo Olympics is set to be there I can see no reason why Nissan would pass up on the opportunity to promote their self-driving cars throughout this time. The cars that are set to be introduced to the city of Yokohama are Leaf EV's which have already had testing gone underway in the UK.

California being arguably the leading state in allowing for the push of self-driving cars has recently tweaked the rules to get more self-driving cars on roads. The Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) has stopped a loophole from General Motors (GM) that would of allowed autonomous car companies the power to not be liable if the vehicle was to crash due to code malfunction.

Californian regulators have read many comments objectifying to the regarding implication of the new rule, furthermore the DMV decided to dismiss the idea entirely due to the public's initial reaction.

Overall, this is beneficial to the people, having laws in place that make the creator of the self-driving car liable in times of malfunction will provide motivation for the company to perfect their product before releasing it to the public. Shifting the blame from the people causing the accidents to the companies creating the cars will mean that if the product is not perfected there will be very large scale costly mistakes, which I doubt companies are willing to put that up for risk.

The Boring Company owned by Elon Musk plans to use underground pods to create a new way for cars to travel over long distances using underground pods that would avoid traffic congestion.

Musk has already begun the process of getting permission for projects to begin in Maryland and will bid on more projects in Chicago to link downtown Chicago with O'Hare Airport.

The City of Chicago is asking for initial proposals for a high speed rail that will reduce the time it takes travelers to get to the city by 20 minutes, underground or above ground trains are the conventional choice but Musk has other idea's and he plans to carry them out with having proposals due by January 23, 2018.

Apple boss Tim Cook has not given up on autonomous cars quite just yet, even with recent reports of engineers leaving - autonomous driving is still the main objective coming into the new year for Apples car plans.

Tim Cook said earlier this year in June that "We're focusing on autonomous systems, It's a core technology that we view as very important." Cook continued by saying that this is "probably one of the most difficult AI projects to work on."

According to Jalopnik, Apple is ready to put these autonomous driving technologies to the test on roads. Reports from Jalopnik say that Apple is set to hire proving grounds in Arizona for road testing, this would include various driving conditions and an array of different scenarios.

There might be websites tacking onto users' CPUs to mine cryptocurrency, but now we're seeing electric cars mining cryptocurrency - with the latest story seeing a Tesla owner using his Model S to mine cryptocurrency, inside of his trunk.

The electricity to mine cryptocurrency is free for this miner, as he's plugging his Model S up to Tesla's Superchargers. If the owner was using a bunch of GTX 1060s the power consumption wouldn't be too bad (150W x 24), but the trunk is small so the heat would be immense, and the airflow would be subpar. As a miner myself, I can't keep my garage cool enough... let alone the trunk of my car.

I don't know anyone who would spend $100K on a car to mine cryptocurrency in the trunk, from free electricity provided by the Tesla Supercharger network... I never thought I'd see the day, but here we are.

Google's autonomous car division 'Waymo' is gearing up for a release of their service with an announcement of a collective 4 million miles traveled on public roads by their vehicles.

While the distance as a whole is quite an achievement it isn't necessarily in the spotlight, the focus point here is the time it took. It took 18 months for the company to reach one million miles, 14 months to reach two million miles, eight months to reach three million and finally just six months to reach the four million mile checkpoint.

Waymo continues to celebrate its achievements by mentioning in their blog post that their vehicles have gone through rigorous testing, calculating a total of 2.5 billion simulated miles in just the last year. Acquiring this amount of simulated testing has the company boasting that the vehicles are able to unlock 'full autonomy,' which Waymo says the public will 'get to use Waymo's driverless service to go to work, to school, to the grocery store and more.'

Tesla unveiled their exciting new electric Semi truck last week without a price, but now the electric car leader has announced the pricing for all three models of the new electric Semi truck.

Tesla has listed the 300-mile version of Semi for $150,000 while the 500-mile version will sell for $180,000. If you want the fancier Founders Series Semi truck with all of the bells and whistles, you'll be looking at a swift $200,000.

If we compare the $180,000 model against a similar diesel-powered semi truck, Tesla is charging a $60,000 premium. But considering it will cost around 20% less to run (right now, not given diesel price increases in the future) and is much more green-friendly, as well as a bunch of new features and a bigger cabin, it will eventually save you $250,000 over 1 million miles according to Tesla.

Tesla agreed to build a massive 100-megawatt Powerback battery backup system in South Australia, after the state experienced a state-wide blackout last year due to storms and a lackluster power grid. Trust me, I'm actually from South Australia.

Elon Musk promised that he could easily get a lithium ion-based battery backup system installed in SA within 100 days, with a cost of only $50 million (which is nothing for SA, as we have the most expensive electricity prices in the world). This system would power around 30,000 homes in the case of a power outage, with the battery facility being powered by the local Hornsdale Wind Farm.

South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill said at the time: "An enormous amount of work has gone in to delivering this project in such a short time. The world's largest lithium ion battery will be an important part of our energy mix".

Uber has admitted that back in 2016, two hackers stole email address and phone numbers of Uber passengers as well as the license plates from US drivers. The ridesharing giant says that no credit card information, location data, or social security information was stolen.

Uber defended the attack by paying the hackers $100,000 to delete the data and brush it under the rug. Bloomberg reports: "Uber said it believes the information was never used but declined to disclose the identities of the attackers". Dara Khosrowshahi, who took over as chief executive officer in September, said in an emailed statement to Bloomberg: "None of this should have happened, and I will not make excuses for it. We are changing the way we do business".

Travis Kalanick, Uber co-founder and former CEO knew of the attacks last year, he said: "Here's how the hack went down: Two attackers accessed a private GitHub coding site used by Uber software engineers and then used login credentials they obtained there to access data stored on an Amazon Web Services account that handled computing tasks for the company. From there, the hackers discovered an archive of rider and driver information. Later, they emailed Uber asking for money, according to the company".

Uber has just announced a big new deal with Volvo, with the ridesharing giant buying 24,000 self-driving cars to add to its network. The 24,000 cars will be bigger SUVs, with the Volvo's flagship 100 XC90 SUV with the latest in autonomous driving technology.

Volvo's flagship 100 XC90 SUV costs $46,000 and will be delivered to US owners between 2019-2021, which is a move that sees Uber really step up into the self-driving ridesharing game, as well as boosting Volvo's sales and exposure in the world. Volvo engineers have been working with Uber on getting a baseline vehicle with autonomous technology built-in, giving Uber the ability to augment self-driving technology as it needs. Volvo will be able to use these cars in its own fleet in the future, giving both companies a leg-up into the autonomous car market.

The two companies reached a $300 million deal in 2016, which saw the two companies collaborating on car designs, financing, and autonomous car tech. Volvo needed to change quite a bit within the car and the manufacturing of the car itself, as autonomous cars need totally different braking and steering.

Uber has provided a new update to their ridesharing app that will make your Uber experience even better, for both the passenger and the driver. The new update is called Live Location, which will see Uber sharing your exact location with drivers in more detail, alongside the expansion of Beacons.

During busy times it can be hard for Uber drivers to find their passengers, and vica versa - but not with the new Live Location feature. Uber users have to turn on the feature in their app by tapping the gray icon in the bottom right hand side of the app. This will share your location in real-time, but you can disable it if you don't want the Uber driver having your location in real-time.

Uber explains: "When you're at the mall, airports, and other busy locations, it can be challenging for you and your driver to find one another. With live location sharing, your driver can see where you're located in relation to your pickup spot. That way, your driver knows you're right there - or walking around the corner - to meet them. To turn on "live location" tap the grey icon in the bottom right corner of your screen. When your icon is blue, you're sharing your location. You can change this at any time by tapping the icon on your map, or going to your privacy settings in app".

Tesla blew the world away with the announcement and reveal of their new Semi electric truck, with the first customer pre-order coming in from Canadian grocery chain, Loblaws.

Loblaws ordered 25 of Tesla's new Semi electric trucks, with 15 of them coming earlier to test, all without Tesla stating a price of their new Semi truck. Tesla's first sale coming from Canada is big deal for the American company, but it's a big one. These trucks will surely be some of the highest-priced trucks in the industry, but they seem to be worth it.

Especially when you consider that Loblaws has previously committed to a huge 30% reduction in its total carbon footprint by 2030, so the new electric trucks will be a very large party of that. Considering there's $200,000 in promised fuel savings every 1 million miles, Tesla's new Semi electric truck could change companies' carbon footprint in a very big way, all within a decade.

Tesla has officially unveiled its electric semi truck, something that goes by the simple name of Tesla Semi. The new Tesla Semi truck is a super-tall big rig that has Tesla's infamous minimalistic design. The side mirrors are the only thing on the Tesla Semi that protrude from the side of it, alongside the wing-like sensor array on the rear of the truck.

Tesla CEO and real-life Tony Stark, Elon Musk said that Tesla Semi has been "designed like a bullet".

Tesla Semi is capable of a 500-mile range, with a ton of built-in technology like Enhanced Autopilot. There are plenty of the usual big rig-specific features like jackknifing prevention, sensors for blind-spot detection and data logging for fleet management. Tesla has said that its new Semi truck will bne going into production in 2019, which isn't too far away - but with giants like Toyota and others starting in the electric truck business, Tesla needs to nail it quickly.

Uber doesn't know when to stop, so now that the roads have been dominated the ridesharing giant is looking to the skies with its latest partnership with NASA for self-flying transportation. Welcome to uberAIR.

Uber chief product officer Jeff Holden explains: "So far we've been focused on ground-based transportation. For us, the natural next step was flight". Flying vehicles would be better for the environment, with uberAIR not just for the 1% either, the company will be selling its uberAIR service at the same price as UberX at launch.

The new uberAIR service uses vehicles called Electric Vertical Take-Off And Landing Vehicles, or EVTOL for short. Uber Aircraft Systems boss Mark Moore explains: "They'll fundamentally change how are cities function and how we will live in them". Another Uber executive talked about how long it'll be until we get uberAIR into the skies, where he said: "It's very much the early morning on day one of this adventure".

NVIDIA is always my first CES booking, with the company announcing their CES 2018 press conference date in a new "Save the Date" email that will see the company hosting their presser at the MGM Grand Conference Center in Las Vegas, with the reception starting at 7PM and the press conference kicking off between 8PM and 9:30PM.

NVIDIA says "We hope you can attend NVIDIA's 2018 CES press conference, where we'll showcase amazing new technology innovations on Sunday, Jan. 7, 2018, at 8-9:30 pm (PT). A reception with food and drinks will start at 7 pm, at the MGM Grand Conference Center located in the back of the MGM Hotel".

We should expect some new announcements in the world of self-driving car technologies, where NVIDIA has used previous CES press conferences to announce DrivePX, Tegra, and other car-related technologies. NVIDIA won't announce a new graphics card during CES as it has its GPU Technology Conference (GTC) where it will most likely unveil its new Volta-based GeForce cards. We could see some surprises in the Shield department of course, where I'm still expecting NVIDIA to unveil their own VR or AR headset in the Shield family, eventually.

With all of the talk of the largest lithium-ion battery facility in the world being built in my home town of South Australia, news of LG building the largest electric vehicle battery production facility in Europe is of just as large importance.

LG has announced news of a new car battery facotry in Poland, a first of its kind in Europe, that will help the growing demand of batteries by electric vehicle makers. VP of LG Chem, Chang-Beom Kang, said: "The company has chosen Poland as the most competitive location for production to satisfy the needs of European and global car producers".

The new facility will cost $1.63 billion, with LG about to break ground in the city of Wroclaw, which is awfully close to Germany, which is a major car manufacturing hub in Europe. LG Chem plans to manufacture up to 100,000 electric vehicle batteries in 2018, while they create 2500 people in the process. The new EV battery factory will also include an R&D center, too.

Tesla isn't far away from changing yet another industry, with the company now finishing off its first electric semi-truck prototype. Tesla Motors and SpaceX founder and CEO, Elon Musk confirmed the news over Twitter.

The company did plan on showing off the world's first electric semi-truck at a media event later this month, but Musk has confirmed the unveiling event has been pushed back to November 16. Musk took to Twitter to explain, where he said: "diverting resources to fix Model 3 bottlenecks and increase battery production for Puerto Rico and other affected areas".

Musk also confirmed that Tesla has been sending out updated invites to the media saying that the "first Tesla Truck prototype is completed". Musk continued his Twitter rampage, saying that the "specs are better than anything I've seen reported so far". Musk also said that the engineering and design teams have done amazing work on the electric truck, adding that their work "is aces" and that "other needs are greater right now".

Amazon wants to cut down on its reliance of third-party companies delivering its goods once they leave their respective distribution centers, with Bloomberg reporting the everything giant is testing its own delivery service.

This move would allow Amazon to reduce overcrowding its factory warehouses, as well as providing two-day Prime shipping on more of its products. Amazon is already delivering goods in India, but will be making its big splash in delivering goods in the US very soon with trials already kicking off near the West Coast. Bloomberg reports that Amazon's delivery services will be made available to other states soon.

Amazon's delivery service is reportedly called Seller Flex, which is... well... really odd. Amazon Delivery or Amazon To You (or something like that). The Verge received a statement from FedEx, one of two companies that would be directly impacted by Amazon's new Seller Flex program.