Electric Vehicles & Cars News - Page 52

Hyundai has quite the marketing video for its Nexo: a hydrogen fuel cell-powered SUV that emits just water and oxygen, getting an Olympian to run inside of a bubble in its emissions.

It's hard to convey just how clean a hydrogen fuel cell-powered SUV is, so getting a super-fit Olympian (in this case, Olympic swimmer and brand ambassador Mireia Belmonte) to run on a treadmill inside of a bubble that is sucking in the emissions from Hyundai's Nexo is a neat-o idea.

Hyundai makes it clear that the vehicle only emits water and 99.9% filtrered oxygen, with the South Korean car giant teaming with the Spanish National Centre on Hydrogen and a sports medical center to make sure the entire test was safe -- and in the end, we get an awesome display at how efficient and green the Nexo hydrogen fuel cell-powered SUV is.

NASCAR is getting into the hybrid and electric vehicle movement (they can't ignore it anymore, I guess) with NASCAR senior VP of Racing Development John Probst announcing during an interview with TechCrunch that they're preparing for hybrid vehicles entering NASCAR races as soon as 2022.

Probst says it will start with hybrid vehicles and eventually extend to electric vehicles, but it won't be an instant overnight switch being flicked. NASCAR says it will be waiting for "Next-Gen gas race car" guidelines that will arrive in 2021, after which we can expect the full push into the world of hybrid and EVs entering NASCAR races.

NASCAR says that hybrids and electric vehicles aren't a perfect match for its current tracks, so the organization will have to investigate the possibility of making shorter tracks for hybrids and EVs. In these modified, shorter tracks drivers can take advantage of regenerative braking on hybrids and EVs in order to battle other racers.

The 2020 Tokyo Olympics is gearing up to pioneer some of the biggest technology leaps, from Intel saying they are going to be using 3D athlete tracking technology, to now automated buses for transport.

Toyota has announced that they will be supplying 20 of its e-Palette electric vehicles (which look like mini-buses) to both the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games. The e-Palette vehicles will serve as automated transportation for athletes, and will cruise through the athletes' village in a loop at a very reasonable 12 miles per hour.

Each of the vehicles will have a safety manager on board and Toyota also mentions that the vehicles have been equipped to house the needs of all of the athletes. According to the press release, Toyota say that the vehicle can transport up to 4 wheelchair passengers at once while also providing easy access via an electric ramp and large opening doors. The 2020 Tokyo Version of the e-Palette is specifically designed for mobility, and will serve as the best-friend to any athlete that needs it.

What would be your dream car? Usually the first thing that comes to mind is either a Lamborghini or a Ferrari. Well, according to new data that has been scraped American's most dreamed about car is not a Lamborghini or a Ferrari, it's in fact Tesla's Model S.

Above we have a map that shows geotagged Twitter data that has been scraped over the past three months (July to now). The data was collected by Autowise through tracking any mentions of "dream car" or #dreamcar. Then the data was organized into what car is most wanted by each state, the results are what you see above.

According to Autowise's data, six cars dominated conversations; Tesla Model S, Ford Mustang, Range Rover, Jeep Wrangler, Chevy Corvette and Chevy Camaro. The Tesla Model S absolutely dominated the scene with 20 states saying that this car was their dream car. Coming in at second place we have the Ford Mustang with 13 states, and following not-so-closely behind is the Range Rover with 6 states.

Soon Tesla owners will be able to customize their horn sound, with the possibility of also being able to upload their own audio file and use that for a horn.

Tesla Motors owner, Elon Musk took to Twitter yesterday to announce that "Customized horn & movement sounds" are soon to be "coming to Teslas". One of the sounds that Musk teased was "coconuts being one, of course" which seems to be reference to the Monty Python and Arthur's entrance on his imaginary horse. (video located below).

Musk also said that he "will consider" allowing Tesla owners to upload their own audio files to use as horn sounds. While that sounds like a great idea at first, Tesla could have potential trouble with some countries horn standard laws and how that falls under road-safety guidelines. There is also always the potential of Tesla owners changing their horn sounds to blast vulgar language, and while that would certainly be amusing to hear walking down the street, it wouldn't provide necessary road utility.

As it stands, the Tesla EVs of today have power cells with lifespans somewhere between 300,000 and 500,000 miles -- but now we could be looking at upwards of 1 million miles thanks to new research.

This is what Elon Musk and Jeff Dahn are talking about in a new paper in the Journey of The Electrochemical Society (JES) which teases we might be living in a world with Tesla EVs that have 1 million mile batteries.

Tesla's battery research arm is partnered with Dahn and his research team, with Dahn explaining: "Cells of this type should be able to power an electric vehicle for over one million miles and last at least two decades in grid energy storage".

All eyes have been on Tesla for years with its growing family of electric vehicles, but now Byton has joined the match with its first EV in the new M-Byte SUV -- and it feels like it's ripped right out of the future.

Byton has used an eye-catching 48-inch display built into the dash, as well as multiple control screens including one built-into the steering wheel itself.

Byton is touting 224 miles of WLPT range (less on EPA scale) from its 72 kWh version of the M-Byte, while the larger 95 kWh model with dual front/rear motors has up to 270 miles of WLPT range. The 72 kWh version has 270 horsepower, while the higher-end 95 kWh model packs 402 horsepower.

What many consider as the car that molded Porsche into what we see today was accidentally auctioned falsely for $70 million, a settlement was later solidified at $17 million.

At the Monterey Car Week in California, bidding started for a super 1939 Porsche Type 64, a car that according to Wikipedia is "considered by many to be the first automobile from what was to become the Porsche company, and a true design precursor to the post-war production model". Looking at the above video we can see that the bidding began at $13 million and then jumped to $30 million, which is where the mistake first began.

When the figure jumped to $30 million the crowd was verbally shocked, it then increased to $40 million, then to $50 million, $60 million and finally settling at $70 million. The announcer then said that he figures were incorrectly projected and that the correct figure is $17 million, the projected numbers then quickly reverted back to the correct figure.

Every owner of a car knows that feeling of when they have misplaced their car keys, well now that worry is over as a Tesla owner has implanted her keys into her own arm so she never looses them again. Will you follow her lead?

A software engineer going by the name of 'Amie DD' has taken key utility to the next level by implanting her Tesla keycard RFID tag into her own arm. Amie DD spoke to The Verge, saying that the implantation actually works and that her arm needs to be about an inch away from her vehicle to successfully unlock it.

Originally, Amine DD attempted to transfer the Tesla keycard software to an existing RFID tag she already had implanted in her arm, those efforts were unfortunately fruitless. Moving on to beat this issue, Amie decided to dissolve the Tesla keycard in acetone and encase the recovered chip in bio-polymer. She then visited a body-modification studio to get the card safely implanted in her arm.

You would think that the US military would be implementing the newest technology possible into their naval force, but actually the contrary is happening.

According to an article coming out of USNI, the US Navy force will be taking a step backwards technology wise and removing touchscreens from their destroyers over the next 18 - 24 months. The touchscreens will be replaced with conventional helm controls and physical throttles.

This decision has been made after the events of 2017 when the USS John S. McCain destroyer collided with container ship Alnic MC which resulted in the tragic deaths of 10 crew members. After an investigation was conducted into who the collision happened it was found that the warships complex touchscreen interface played a pivotal role in the unfortunate crash.