Electric Vehicles & Cars News - Page 63

Intel is making a massive investment into autonomous car technology, acquiring Israeli self-driving car firm Mobileeye for a huge $15.3 billion.

Mobileye has technology inside of 27 carmakers' vehicles, with technology from cameras to sensors around the car, to emergency braking technology, lane assistance systems, and more. Intel has been working with Mobileye for a while, teaming with BMW last year to make a fully autonomous car by 2021.

Intel isn't just throwing down its $15 billion investment for nothing, as the company sees the autonomous car market becoming a mammoth $70 billion market by 2030. Intel boss Brian Krzanich made it very clear that by combining Intel's processing power with Mobileye's advanced automotive computer vision systems, and its partnerships with carmakers, as something transformative. Krzanich said: "Together, we can accelerate the future of autonomous driving with improved performance in a cloud-to-car solution at a lower cost for automakers".

Rolls-Royce is well-known for its luxury cars, and they decided to stick with their motto at the Geneva Moto Show.

The company has unveiled a version of their Ghost car painted with actual diamonds. The paint, named Diamond Stardust, contains 1,000 crushed diamonds, is the most expensive paint ever used on a Rolls-Royce.

It took two months of testing to make sure that the diamonds would maintain their glow when used in the paint.

Hyperloop One has released never-before-seen images of its development site in the Nevada desert at Middle East Rail, an event held in Dubai.

The testing site, known as DevLoop, is Located 30 minutes from Las Vegas in the Nevada desert. The first public test is expected in the first half of 2017 when the company will prove that they are "well-positioned to deliver the first working Hyperloop."

The company stated that they are excited about the first public trial on the 500 meter-long DevLoop, which has a diameter of 3.3 meters.

Tesla currently has 373 Superchargers in North America, but their goal is to double the number by the end of the year, the company has stated in their investor letter.

Tesla clearly wants to expand their Supercharger network, and they already started the expansion in January.

Tesla's Superchargers were free up until the beginning of this year. Any customer who buys a Tesla car after January 1st, 2017 will have to pay a small fee when filling up at a Supercharger station. However, they will also be supplied with 400 kWh of free Supercharging credits each year, good for about 1,600 kilometers.

At this year's CES, Faraday Future unveiled their highly anticipated electric vehicle - the FF 91. The FF91 is their first production vehicle, and the company plans for it to compete directly with Tesla.

However, the company has been struggling with certain financial problems for a while now. It was reported that the company had to stop factory construction to afford their glamorous event at CES.

Read also: Faraday Future stops factory construction to afford CES

Tesla Motors will reportedly enter "pilot production" of its more affordable Model 3 electric vehicle on February 20, according to "people familiar with the matter", says Reuters.

Reuters' sources didn't say how many Model 3 vehicles would be built in February, but it would most likely be a smaller number of cars in order to test Tesla's assembly system, and the quality of vehicle parts used on the Model 3. Tesla Motors' boss Elon Musk told investors that more than 370,000 customers have put deposits down on the Model 3, with July 2017 set to be the kick off month on production.

Model 3 vehicles will be built in Fremont, California on February 20, and then two days later - Tesla reports its Q4 2016 results. Perfect timing for the production to start, isn't it? Reuters source said: "What better way to stoke the fan base and Wall Street than to wheel out pre-production models".

The Hyperloop system could become a reality in at least one country by 2020. The first test of this system was carried out in May in Nevada when the capsule reached a speed of 1,200 kilometers per hour.

If you are curious what it feels like to ride the Hyperloop, now you can - in virtual reality.

SpaceX published a video on their YouTube channel showing a demonstration pod and tube being tested on a short track.

Tesla owners are receiving some cutting edge technological features in their electric cars, with the company rolling out the first phase of its Enhanced Autopilot system.

The new Enhanced Autopilot initiative provides Tesla owners with some new abilities: Traffic Aware Cruise Control, Forward Collision Warning, and Autosteer. Musk tweeted over the weekend that the Autosteer feature will keep your car in the lane, but is capped to 45mph.

Autosteer works together with Traffic Aware Cruise Control "so the car can drive on highways in stop-and-go traffic", reports Business Insider. They continue: "Forward Collision Warning will alert drivers of a potential impact with an upcoming obstacle, but there is no emergency braking to actually stop the car, so the onus is on the driver".

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.

Shortly after the launch, the company bragged that they collected 64,124 reservations in less than 36 hours. However, Faraday Future didn't state how many of those reservations came with a deposit.

According to Business Insider, not many. Sources close to the company revealed that only 60 people actually paid the $5,000 deposit for their reservation.

When Faraday Future unveiled their first production vehicle at this year's CES, they were bragging that their electric car has faster acceleration that Tesla's Model S P100D, the quickest production car in the world.

Tesla's Model S P100D Ludicrous mode could achieve 0 to 100 km/h (0-60 mph) acceleration in 2.46 seconds, but Elon Musk said that there is room for improvement with the latest software update, Ludicrous+.

As it turns, Musk was right since a Model S P100D accelerated from 0 to 100 km/h in just 2.389 seconds, after the latest software update. According to Faraday Future, their car can accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h in 2.39 seconds, meaning that Tesla beat them with one software update. Also, Faraday Future plans to start the production of the FF 91 in 2018.