Electric Vehicles & Cars - Page 32

Airbus will be taking to the skies with its new flying taxi concept, with its first flight to take place by the end of 2018, according to the company.

The first flips will be unmanned, I'm guessing for safety concerns, but there are plans for human pilots and a four-person aircraft that will fly people around in cities by 2023, before they become completely autonomous.

Airbus announced the autonomous flying taxi concept back in August 2016, with the company looking at using quad-rotor designs. Airbus is using a VTOL method (vertical take-off and landing), mixed with an electric-powered aircraft, it should fly four people around very easily through cities.

Tesla has most of the electric vehicle market in its hands, with so much of its marketing hype winning over the world for all the right reasons, and soon it'll be an entirely different industry... the trucking industry.

Tesla will unveil their new electric semi-truck on October 26, with a new photo of the purported truck showing up on the internet today. Someone posted the photo of the Tesla electric semi-truck, which looks absolutely incredible. It looks super thin and contained, versus the beefy front of a normal semi-truck.

Elon Musk, founder and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX has teased before that the entire unveiling event for the electric semi-truck is going to be "unreal". The semi-truck will, according to Musk "will deliver a substantial reduction in the cost of cargo transport, while increasing safety and making it really fun to operate".

So... in all my 16,500+ articles here at TweakTown, never did I think I'd be writing about limited edition submarines. Well, here I am... writing that Aston Martin has just unveiled their new limited edition submarine.

The flagship project comes from Aston Martin Consulting, with the submarine still in the concept stages right now under codename Project Neptune. Project Neptune is a futuristic submarine that Executive Vice President and Chief Creative Officer at Aston Martin, Marek Reichman, explains: "Project Neptune is defined by its sleek, elegant exterior. We have used forms and proportions that express the same devotion to design, engineering and beauty that shape our cars".

Aston Martin hasn't been open with specifications or details on Project Neptune, so we don't know how deep it'll go, how fast it'll cut through the depths of the oceans, or whether Lex Luthor has pledged towards the project. Time will tell.

AMD is now making custom AI processors for Tesla, and now it seems NVIDIA is losing another piece of the electric car makers' pie, with Intel taking over the infotainment systems according to sources of Bloomberg.

What makes this news even more interesting is that Tesla, NVIDIA, and Intel have declined to comment. Tesla shipped around 76,000 vehicles in the last financial year, so while it's not a carmaker that ships millions of vehicles, it does get a lot of press because of the technology inside of the cars.

Tesla's Autopilot 2 system is still powered by NVIDIA designs, but it seems like it's one of the last parts of Team Green inside of Tesla cars with AMD and Intel both making big moves with the electric car giant.

After countless Australia-US trips in the last few years, there's nothing better than the thought of improved Wi-Fi on flights. This is something that Netflix is helping airlines with, to improve on-board Wi-Fi.

Netflix is offering their encoding technology that they developed for mobile devices, with airlines across the world in the hopes of building new partnerships. What benefit would there be to the airlines, exactly? Netflix says that streaming high quality video during a flight would reduce airlines' bandwidth-related costs by up to 75%... impressive.

Whichever airlines partner with Netflix would benefit by providing customers with a greatly improved in-flight media experience, especially if they can provide much faster in-flight Wi-Fi for constant connectivity to mobile devices.

The Japanese Cartivator project aims to have a big spectacle ready for the 2020 Olympic Games: a real flying car.

Many old sci-fi films predicted the 21st Century would give rise to amazing inventions, including a Jetson's-like flying car. While our day-to-day transit is mostly earthbound, the Cartivator project aims to make those sci-fi dreams a reality. The project, which is backed by Toyota, sees a number of key Japanese engineers working on the Skydrive, a prototype flying concept car that's been in development since 2012.

According to reports from Nikkei Asian Review, the engineers hope to have the Skydrive flying car ready for the 2020 Olympics, which will be held in Tokyo, Japan. To accelerate the project the team is developing a two new bases of operation in Tokyo and Toyota City, and Fujitsu will also lend efforts to the project. The team has released a finalized specification for the Skydrive prototype which is included below. If the engineers are successful, the 2020 Olympic Games will be a true milestone in human history.

Tesla is weeks away from showing off their new electric semi-truck, with Elon Musk tweeting that there will be an unveiling event on October 26 in Hawthorne, CA.

Musk promises that the Tesla semi truck is "worth seeing this beast in person" and that it's "unreal". Musk said last year as part of his Master Plan, Part Deux that Tesla's new electric semi truck will "deliver a substantial reduction in the cost of cargo transport, while increasing safety and making it really fun to operate".

All eyes are on Tesla for their upcoming electric semi truck on October 26.

I don't think there's a person on this planet that isn't aware of the current hurricanes swirling around in the Atlantic Ocean, but Tesla has stepped up for people escaping Florida in their electric cars by unlocking battery capacity.

Tesla has been unlocking the full battery pack of their current Model S and Model X vehicles, in both 60 and 60D vairants, from their stock 60 kWh to the larger 75 kWh. Tesla has software locked their batteries to 60 kWh, but unlocked the Model S/X 60/60D vehicles to their full 75 kWh capacity for those stuck in Florida.

This provides Tesla owners with an extra 30-40 miles of range for free, so they can drive out of Hurricane Irma. Tesla will continue keeping the full 75 kWh battery unlock through to September 16.

Tesla's Gigafactory 1 in Nevada has expanded significantly over the last year. We recently saw a video how the factory has grown in a year.

A new video has appeared on YouTube showing that the factory is coming along great with lots of activity on site. Musk recently said that Tesla Motors plans to manufacture 100 Model 3 vehicles in August, and above 1,500 in September. By the end of the year, they should reach 20,000 cars per month. This is where the Gigafactory comes in.

The Gigafactory will be more than five million square feet (including several floors) once it's completed, and it will be capable of producing more battery cells than any other lithium ion battery factory in the world, Musk has said.

NVIDIA has been spending money on AI, deep learning, and self-driving car technologies and investments into startups for a while now, but they've just splashed down $20 million into a funding round for TuSimple.

TuSimple is a Chinese autonomous trucking startup, with Sina leading a new funding round that will include NVIDIA Drive PX 2 autonomous computers, Jetson TX2, and other NVIDIA products. TuSimple has already completed a SAE Level 4 (true self-driving) test ride between San Diego, California and Yuma, Arizona.

TuSimple completed the self-driving truck test in June, with a 200-mile journey that used cameras to navigate along the highways. The company has R&D facilities in both Beijing and San Diego, along with over 100 staff.

Faraday Future, the electric car company, looking to compete with Tesla with their own high-performance electric vehicle has begun to clear up some of the doubts around their business. They previously had issues finding enough funding to build a new factory that would allow them to start to deliver vehicles based on pre-orders that people have made.

In a blog post, the company revealed their new California manufacturing facility which was rumored to replace their Las Vegas facility that they couldn't get enough funding to build from scratch. Instead, Faraday Future bought an existing factory for $14 million in Fresno and today unveiled the new factory's look and location.

On Twitter, Faraday Future actually posted a video with a sneak behind the scenes peek of the factory itself and inside the operations of Faraday Future.

While autonomous car technology excites millions of people across teh world, the future of driver-less cars means one of the biggest job sectors in the world - transportation, is going to be heavily affected, with millions of jobs lost.

India is cutting this future off by not supporting self-driving cars so that there aren't major job losses, with India's Transport and Highways Minister, Nitin Gadkari, telling reporters: "We won't allow driverless cars in India. I am very clear on this". He continued: "We won't allow any technology that takes away jobs. In a country where you have unemployment, you can't have a technology that ends up taking people's jobs".

Gadkari continued, saying that India needed 22,000 commercial drivers and that the government is opening multiple new training facilities to train 5000 more professional drivers over the next few years.

Tesla's Gigafactory 1 in Nevada has expanded significantly over the last year. The company worked tirelessly on its first Gigafactory in preparation for the start of the Model 3 production.

Thanks to Planet's constellation of satellites, we can now see how the Gigafactory grew over the last year. And that's not even the finished building. What we see now represents around 30% of the total finished factory.

Tesla plans to finish the factory around 2020, and when they do, the Gigafactory 1 should be the largest building on earth by footprint.

Elon Musk has stated he has received permission to build an underground Hyperloop which will connect New York and Washington D.C.

Musk explained on Twitter that he got a "verbal government approval" for the Boring Company to start the project.

The proposed route would include stops in Philadelphia and Baltimore, while the entire trip from New York to Washington DC would take 29 minutes.

According to the Las Vegas Review Journal, Faraday Future has said that they are walking away from their planned $1 billion electric car manufacturing facility in North Las Vegas. They will instead seek an existing building to build their vehicles in, instead.

By starting production in an existing facility, the company can prove its own viability and now the company is looking for a place with 1 million square feet to build their cars in either California or Nevada.

Read also: Faraday Future unveils their first production vehicle

Musk recently announced that the Model 3 production would start earlier than expected and just on schedule, the first production Model 3 came out of Tesla's factory yesterday.

This is the first time that more than 400,000 customers who pre-ordered a Model 3 will get to see the final product.

Musk posted two photos of the electric car, and it looks stunning. Tesla's CEO also pointed out that Ira Ehrenpreis, Tesla investor, and board member, had rights to the first car as he was the first to place a full deposit, but gave those rights to Musk as his 46th birthday present.

Tesla has just announced it will be building the largest lithium-ion battery storage project in the world in South Australia, nearly a year after a 50-year storm knocked out the entire electrical grid, leaving 1.7 million residents without power - myself included. This news is close to home, well - it is home, as I'm based in South Australia - where Tesla is building this massive battery storage project.

After the infrastructure failure, the South Australian government (which was already a leader in renewable energy) looked into a sustainable solution so that this wouldn't happen again. The state government askedw for solutions on grid-scale energy storage solutions of at least 100MW capacity, with Tesla today announcing they will be making a 100MW/129MWh Powerpack system that will be teamed with global renewable energy provider Neoen's Hornsdale Wind Farm located near Jamestown, South Australia.

Tesla's Powerpack will be used to charge renewable energy from the Hornsdale Wind Farm, which will then deliver electricity during peak hours ensuring reliable power is delivered to South Australia's electrical infrastructure. SA was already a leader in renewable energy, but Tesla's investment into the state will only highlight that fact.

Volvo has announced that every car they launch from 2019 will have an electric motor, marking the historic end of cars that have only an internal combustion engine (ICE) and placing electrification at the core of its future business.

This means that within the next two years, Volvo will completely switch to manufacturing only electric cars and hybrids, making them the first major car manufacturer to stop selling cars with only gas or diesel engines.

Håkan Samuelsson, President and Chief Executive of Volvo Cars, said in a statement:

Elon Musk has announced that the Model 3 production starts on Friday, with first deliveries starting on July 28th.

It was previously stated that Tesla plans to unveil the final production version of the Model 3 in July, with deliveries starting sometime during the summer, meaning that the company is ahead of the schedule, which is good news for the company and its shareholders.

Musk stated that Tesla Motors will deliver the first thirty Model 3's on July 28th, with production growing exponentially. In August, they plan to manufacture 100 cars, and in September above 1,500. By the end of the year, they should reach 20,000 cars per month.

At this year's CES, Faraday Future unveiled their highly anticipated electric vehicle - the FF 91. The FF 91 is their first production vehicle, and the company plans for it to compete directly with Tesla.

The company has now announced that they have successfully tested the limits of FF 91 in its first attempt to challenge the 4,720-foot ascent of the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb.

The FF 91, driven by FF Principal Engineer Robin Shute, finished with a time of 11:25:083, beating last year's Tesla P90D by 20 seconds.