Category: transportation

China accounts for 60% of global EV production, and is emerging as the world’s factory for EVs having already secured the same position in digital product manufacturing. Exports to the EU grew in the wake of it announcing a policy to ban the sale of new hybrid and gasoline-powered vehicles in 2035. China’s EV exports to Europe rose fivefold to 230,000 units, with the region absorbing half of China’s total EV exports. Belgium imported 87,000 units and the U.K. 50,000 units. Of the almost 500,000 units exported, more than 100,000 appear to have originated from Tesla’s Shanghai plant.

Starting Monday, Cruise is allowed to provide the “Drivered Deployment” service on some public roads in San Francisco between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. at speeds of up to 30 miles per hour, while Waymo can offer service in parts of San Francisco and San Mateo counties at speeds of up to 65 miles per hour, CPUC said. Neither company is allowed to operate during heavy fog or heavy rain. […] Waymo said it has tens of thousands of riders on a waitlst in California after it launched a tester program in August. “We’ll begin offering paid trips through the program in the coming weeks,” the company said.

Scaringe also acknowledged the company “wrongly assumed” the newly announced dual-motor models and standard battery pack would provide satisfactory price points similar to the original configurations.

Volkswagen had VW, Porsche, Audi, Bentley and Lamborghini-branded models on the vessel, which was on its way to Rhode Island from Germany’s Emden port when the fire broke out on Feb. 16. […] In a projection assuming all vehicles would be lost, the risk-modeling company Russell Group last week estimated that the incident could cost the automaker at least $155 million. About $438 million worth of goods were aboard the ship, $401 million of which were cars.

The order goes on to tell the owner to bring their car to a location specified by the DEP — a sewage treatment plant, to be precise — for inspection. Show up, and you’ll have the opportunity to get the car fixed to avoid a fine — much like California’s “fix-it” ticket system. The document also informs the owner that if they fail to show up, they could face a maximum fine of $875, plus additional fines for continuing to ignore the summons.

A New York City DEP spokesman confirmed to Road & Track via email the system is part of a small pilot program that’s been running since September 2021. From the description above, it sounds like it works much like a speed camera that automatically records a violation and sends it to you in the mail by reading your license plate. Instead of a speed gun, this new system uses a strategically placed sound meter to record decibel levels on the road, matching it to a license plate using a camera. […] The program will be reevaluated on June 30, according to the DEP. From there it’ll likely either be expanded or taken out of commission.

Wireless EV charging systems use magnetic frequency to transfer power from coils buried underground to a receiver pad attached to the car’s underbelly. An EV can pull into a designated parking place with an underground charging pad and add electricity the same way a smartphone charges wirelessly. Along an electrified road, vehicles with wireless charging capability can suck up energy as they drive, but for all other cars, it’s an ordinary road. Wireless charging can add $3,000 to $4,000 to an already pricey EV, notes Meticulous Research. Electreon, which is working with carmakers to add receivers to their vehicles, aims to get the cost down to $1,000 or $1,500, Stefan Tongur, Electreon’s vice president of business development, tells Axios. Users would likely access the feature through a monthly subscription, he noted.

Cruise’s rides for the public will run from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. and will be in the city’s northwest quadrant — including Nob Hill, the Fillmore, the Panhandle, the Sunset and the Richmond. For now, the rides from both services are free. Neither Cruise nor any other robot car company has permission from the California Public Utilities Commission to charge for rides, although Cruise applied for it in November.

“In the early days when we were just trying to balance the front and rear torque, I got the front end to lift,” he told me. As it turns out, so much of the car was developed digitally that, when it came time to do real-world testing, there were a few unexpected quirks. “We had to back off the torque on the front end,” he added, just as he prepared the Hummer for another launch. After our final sprint to highway speeds in WTF mode, I clarified with him that the Hummer would indeed do a wheelstand if it was tuned correctly. He reiterated his point, saying “originally” that was the case, and you could theoretically still make it do so “to prove that you can.” However, when it comes to the production versions of the hefty 4×4, he made it clear that for “functional safety reasons,” that wouldn’t be in the Hummer’s big bag of tricks. Talking about feeling cheated. So yes, the Hummer EV can do wheelies, just not in stock form.