Electric Vehicles & Cars - Page 4

Ford has announced it scaling back its EV operations in the US, after it claimed that customers are becoming more price-conscious and range-anxious, so Ford has made some huge adjustments to its future EV roadmap.

The company announced this week that it has adjusted its roadmap for its US vehicles, which will include a wider range of electrification options, and longer ranges. Ford is throwing away its next line of all-electric SUVs, they're gone now, replaced with hybrid models (that have shorter range, but longer overall range when combined with the gas engine).

This move will save the company at least $400 million reports CNN, because Ford will need to write down the manufacturing equipment that it had to install to build the EV SUVs... that it is no longer building. Ford said that the change in plans could cost the company upwards of $1.5 billion.

This is the most insane Tesla Cybertruck upgrade you could even imagine, with the introduction of STING: a groundbreaking series of up-armored, genset-equipped Tesla Cybertruck packages designed for those who want the best performance, best protection, and energy independence. Check it out:

Archimedes Defense and Unplugged Performance collaborated on STING, the upgraded Tesla Cybertruck that is engineered for both government and civilian use, with STING built to thrive in the harshest environments, offering unmatched capabilities for anyone, who needs to be ready for anything.

A recognized leader in high-power solutions for government and defense applications, Archimedes Defense, partnered with Unplugged Performance and its specialized division, UP.FIT, to develop STING. This collaboration leverages Archimedes Defense's expertise in power technology with Unplugged Performance's renowned Tesla upgrades, resulting in a product that pushes the boundaries of what a Tesla Cybertruck can achieve.

One parking lot in San Francisco is becoming the breeding ground for seemingly confused self-driving cars gathering at night and honking at each other.

Nearby resident Randol White captured footage of the Waymo self-driving vehicles taking over the parking lot and seemingly becoming stuck, and resulting in consistent honking at each other. The noise has kept residents in the area up at night, with reports stating several people in the nearby buildings have also complained about the noise. "Over the past two weeks, I've been woken up more times overnight than I have combined over 20 years," said Russell Pofsky, who lives in a building adjacent to White.

Notably, Pofsky said the honking incidents have happened during the day and night, and have started to affect his mood throughout the day. ABC7 News reached out to Waymo for comment on the strange scenario, and the company replied by acknowledging its vehicles "may briefly honk while navigating our parking lots" and that it "identified the cause and is in the process of implementing a fix." Despite the self-driving vehicles interrupting his sleep White says he still is a fan of Waymo cars and uses them quite regularly.

Intel has just launched the A760A, a discrete GPU made for cars, something the company announced today at its AI Cockpit Innovation Experience event.

The new A760A GPU isn't quite new, as it's a rebrand of a GPU already on the market, but now aimed at the automotive market. Intel says its new A760A GPU will deliver "next-level, high-fidelity experiences' for vehicles.

The A760A has higher performance compared to integrated graphics on other Intel processors that were made for vehicles, called SDV SoCs. Intel says its new A760A is an easy drop-in upgrade for car manufacturers that already have vehicles powered by SDV processors, allowing for performance upgrades without a platform change.

Spotify had a brief go at being a hardware company with the release of its Car Thing gadget, a device that served as a remote control for Spotify and could be attached to the vents in a car.

Car Thing wasn't a success, as the $90 product was only available for five months after going through an invite-only test in April 2021 and then a public waitlist to purchase one. General sales for Car Thing began in February 2022, and less than five months later, the product was stopped.

While initially seemingly like a good idea, Car Thing ended up being a remote control for Spotify that was playing on a smartphone, which significantly reduced the number of users interested in it. However, it still got into the hands of a very niche audience.

Tesla has just unveiled its new Model 3 Performance electric vehicle, with the company teasing a highly differentiated performance trip that uses Tesla's latest manufacturing and engineering capabilities to create what the company considers to be a "perfect, high-performance daily driver". Check it out:

The new Model 3 Perf ormance features Tesla's very latest Noise, Vibration, and Harshness (NVH) and comfort improvements of the new Model 3, as well as the bespoke chassis hardware the increases performance and stiffness while reducing mass, including adaptive dampers with hollow damper piston rods, multi-sectioned stabilizer bar, ultra-high strength steel springs, and stiffer suspension top mounts.

Tesla bakes in its latest-generation performance drive unit -- the Performance 4DU -- which unlocks even more torque, power, and improved efficiency of the new Model 3 Performance. Compared to the previous Model 3 Performance drive unit, the new Performance 4DU can delivery over 22% more continuous power, over 32% more peak power, and over 16% more peak torque delivery.

Elon Musk said that Tesla will unveil its self-driving Robotaxi product on August 8, in an official post from SpaceX and Tesla's CEO on X, the platform he also owns.

Musk tweeted out with a simple: "Tesla Robotaxi unveil on 8/8," and that's it. The Tesla CEO talked about self-driving Robotaxis back in 2019 and did originally say -- and we reported on it, with the link below -- that he'd have them out on the road in 2024, and here we are in 2024 with Robotaxis to be unveiled on August 8, 2024.

Reuters published a report before Elon posted on X about the Tesla Robotaxi, with a story that said Tesla had scrapped plans to build a more affordable electric vehicle, somewhere in the $25,000 or so range. Elon accused Reuters of "lying" after their story went out about Tesla reportedly scrapping low-cost EVs, with Musk posting on X: "Reuters is lying (again)".

An email sent out by Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been leaked online, revealing that Tesla has now changed the way it delivers its electric vehicles to customers.

The email was originally leaked online by WholeMarsBlog and then later confirmed by BusinessInsider, which details some internal changes to Tesla throughout North America. According to Musk, it's now "mandatory" to install and activate Full Self-Driving (FSD) V12.3.1 and take customers on a "short test ride before handing over the car". The reason for these changes is Musk believes "almost no one actually realizes how well (supervised) FSD actually works".

Musk went on to acknowledge that he is aware that these changes will "slow down the delivery process, but it is nonetheless a hard requirement." According to the BusinessInsider, Musk followed up with another companywide email that requires staff to give customers a demo of the vehicle after they are returned from service centers. Musk wrote, "This is very important".

During a recent interview with former CNN anchor Don Lemon, Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed the long-awaited Tesla Roadster will feature "rocket technology".

The contentious interview with Musk covered various topics that the billionaire is involved in, with one being the highly anticipated release of the Telsa Roadster, which was originally unveiled back in 2017. The Tesla Roadster is the company's most-delayed vehicle, originally being unveiled as a concept back in 2017, slated for release in 2020, and now we are in 2024. Musk has said these delays can be attributed to production issues.

However, Musk recently said in February that the EV sports car was going to arrive next year and would feature a second-generation design that will be "something that's never existed before". Notably, Tesla's CEO said the new design will enable the Roadster to achieve 0-60mph in under 1 second. Furthermore, the new Roadster will be designed jointly between Tesla and SpaceX to create "something that's not really a car" and also features "rocket technology."

You'd think a team working on Formula 1 cars would be using advanced software, but nope... it's been discovered that an F1 team has been using Microsoft Excel for the Williams car build workbook.

James Vowles and Pat Fry took over the team principal and chief technical officer roles for the Williams F1 in 2023, discovering the team had been using Excel to manage the car. The Race reports that this was just one of the features that the "team's outdated working practices and systems" that was holding back Williams, according to Vowles.

Vowles recently worked for Mercedes before joining the Williams F1 team, where he aimed on two parts of focus for his first year with Williams. The car's technology would need to be upgraded, with some sections of the vehicle needing a 10x increase in custom-made parts, while the second was the Excel spreadsheet that couldn't handle tracking parts, and be replaced with a completely new digital parts system.