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[ Last week, the Biden administration made it official: American cars are really going electric. The US Environmental Protection Agency finalized a rule, long in the works, that will require automakers selling in the United States to dramatically boost the number of battery-powered vehicles sold this decade, putting a serious dent in the country’s carbon … Read more
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[ “The ‘heart of joy’ effectively takes 30 years of experience and blends it into a single control unit,” BMW chief technical officer Frank Weber tells WIRED. “Everything that is driving-performance-related, chassis-control-related, powertrain-related—it’s all integrated into one control unit. If you love the idea of the ultimate driving machine, there are functions in there that … Read more
[ Following recent reports that Fisker has been preparing for a possible bankruptcy filing, today the embattled automaker announced that it is suspending all manufacture of its electric vehicles. “Fisker will pause production for six weeks starting the week of March 18, 2024, to align inventory levels and progress strategic and financing initiatives,” the company … Read more
[ Chinese automakers are starting to equip electric cars with camera drones. For now, this drone integration is aimed at content creators who want to collect videos of themselves driving. These systems typically enable one-click filming of a moving vehicle, with the action viewable live on the car’s interior display as well as recorded for … Read more
[ I experienced the City NGP function under XNGP in a P7i in Shanghai, and later in a G6 in Guangzhou. With my second experience I soon realized it was a tale of two cities. In Shanghai it was quite smooth, and at least one of the interventions made was due to me being disoriented … Read more
[ Last week, the electric automaker Rivian unveiled the R2, its latest electric SUV. When the vehicle starts rolling off production lines—in the first half of 2026, Rivian says—the R2 will join the R1S SUV and the R1T pickup truck in the automaker’s lineup. Critically, Rivian pledges its newest entry will be cheaper: At “around” … Read more
[ Yes, things sure have changed—for Rivian and for the world—since the automaker debuted in the US in 2021 and recorded the largest IPO the stock market had seen in seven years. One big change is that interest rates are higher, which makes large purchases more expensive to finance, and makes buyers cagier about purchasing … Read more
[ Every six months, the automotive research company JD Power surveys some 5,000 US electric vehicle owners about their experiences driving their battery-powered cars. The latest edition of this survey, out this week, found that EV’s perennial bugbear is still bugbear-ing. In fact, it’s got worse: Drivers say they are even more dissatisfied with the … Read more
[ All these firms seek to capitalize on what Apple recognized a decade ago: The software and connectivity now built in to new autos gave tech incumbents a jump on traditional auto-builders. But those advantages haven’t always proven out. Project Titan had plenty of other challenges. High-profile executives from tech companies, tech-inspired automakers like Tesla, … Read more
[ “We have a giant, beautiful, red paperweight in our driveway,” Snell says. Snell is just one of many California hydrogen fuel-cell car owners facing difficulties as a confluence of unfortunate events—tech limitations, rising station operating costs, policy changes, even the Russian invasion of Ukraine—have hiked hydrogen fuel prices and taken hydrogen fueling stations offline. … Read more
