Toyota finally gave the Tacoma pickup truck a glow-up in its fourth generation after eight years, including an important powertrain update: the Tacoma is available as a hybrid for the first time. 

First introduced for model year 1995, the Tacoma was equipped with a five-speed manual or four-speed automatic transmission matched with three gas engine options (four or six cylinders).  The Tacoma was 199 inches long and could tow between 3,500 and 5,000 pounds. 

The 2024 Tacoma is 14 inches longer from stem to stern than the 1995 truck. It’s built on the same global truck platform as the Tundra (all new for 2022), Sequoia (which launched its third generation for model year 2023) and the redesigned Land Cruiser, unveiled earlier this year. 

And Toyota says the Tacoma’s new i-Force Max hybrid powertrain, offered as an option on the TRD Sport, TRD Off-Road, and Limited trims and standard on TRD Pro and Trailhunter variants, is the most powerful powertrain ever offered on a Tacoma. 

Take a look at the no-longer-secret recipe behind the 2024 Tacoma, including the new engine/motor combination. 

More torque, better off-road capability

The new Tacoma’s hybrid setup starts with the same 2.4-liter engine found in the gas-only trims. In the i-Force Max versions, a 48-horsepower electric motor sits between the engine and eight-speed transmission. If that configuration sounds familiar, it’s because Toyota equipped its Grand Highlander (launched earlier this year) with a 2.4-liter hybrid powertrain, too. The Grand Highlander Hybrid Max is the fastest and quickest in the lineup, providing 362 horsepower and 400 pound-feet of torque in the SUV. 

In the new Tacoma, the hybrid setup produces 326 horsepower and 465 pound-feet of torque. That’s more than double what the original V6 could provide in the 1995 Tacoma; even more impressively, it’s significantly more than the 265 pound-feet in the outgoing 2023 model with a V6. Great torque numbers are essential for effortless off-roading, as the rotation helps the vehicle power up and over hills and boulders.

Some trims of the 2024 Tacoma are available with a multi-link rear coil suspension, replacing the leaf springs from the previous generation. Leaf springs are sturdy and preferred for more heavy-duty hauling, but the coil springs offer more flexibility and cushion for the ride. They’re a bit more expensive, which is why they’re an option on the higher grades. The three least expensive trims (SR, SR5 XtraCab and TRD PreRunner) will still come standard with leaf springs. 

Tacoma fans know that the compact truck was already quite capable off-road, climbing rocks and hills like a mountain goat. However, after driving a 2021 model back to back with the new 2024 hybrid version, I can attest that the additional torque makes a noticeable difference. On an off-road course near Malibu, California, I scaled steep ascents and crawled over rock piles, and it’s clear that chief engineer Sheldon Brown and his team have smoothed out the edges. 

And it’s quieter, too

A smoothed-out ride is even more clear on the asphalt. Tackling the twisty curves of Mulholland Drive, the interior of the Tacoma Limited was hushed, and Brown says technologies like active noise cancellation ensure a quiet cabin. This technology reduces the overall noise, vibration, and harshness, commonly referred to as an acronym: NVH. The study and adjustment of noise and vibration characteristics has become an art form, and Toyota put extra time and money into improving the in-cabin experience in the upper trims of the Tacoma. 

“We’re also using electronic sound enhancement, or ESE, to supplement what we’re hearing through the exhaust system,” Brown says. “We use specialized software that is paired with the exhaust type: the standard OE exhaust or you might choose our performance exhaust, which is an option. So it not only sounds good, but it cancels out any of those noises and vibrations that otherwise might make their way in.”

Some industry analysts have accused Toyota of taking too much time to get into the electrification stream, but the fact is that the Japanese company has been pumping out successful hybrid powertrains for decades. Now that the Tundra, Sequoia, and Tacoma are all available with an engine/motor combination, the 4Runner and Land Cruiser can’t be far behind. 

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Entry-level motorcycles too often feel like beginner bikes. Even if they don’t have training wheels, they have the vibe of first bicycles that are quickly outgrown and forgotten.

BMW has escaped this trap with the G 310 R, which is an ideal starter bike because of its affordable $4,995 price tag, its rider-friendly low seat that makes it easier to plant both feet on the ground, and its 349-lb. curb weight. The company even trimmed its regular $495 destination fee to $245 to help keep the price within reach for buyers on a budget.

BMW tells me that the G 310 R is a favorite at Motorcycle Safety Foundation’s Basic RiderCourse. It is easy to see why, considering the bike’s combination of racy styling and ease of use.

But anyone who decides to start out on a G 310 R shouldn’t feel like it is a temporary ride, waiting to be replaced by a “real” bike once the owner gains some experience. That’s because the G 310 R provides “real” big technology like standard anti-lock brakes (ABS) and a sophisticated suspension that includes an inverted fork for the front wheel and a long-wheelbase cast aluminum swingarm for the rear.

Inverting the fork (also called “upside down” forks”) bolts the heavy forks sliders into the triple clamps that secure them to the bike’s steering head, leaving the lightweight tubes to stretch down to the axle. That leaves the lighter tubes as the unsprung mass that has to travel up and down with the road surface while the heavier part is fixed in place. This contributes to more responsive front suspension.

Meanwhile, the lengthy swingarm to the rear axle lends the bike greater stability compared to a short swingarm.

The value of anti-lock brakes should be self-evident, but to recap, the BMW’s computer prevents riders from locking a wheel under heavy braking. In a car, this produces a slide and prolongs stopping distances. On a bike, if the front wheel locks, it tends to immediately slip to one side or the other and pitch the rider to the ground. 

If the rear wheel locks, the bike will start to slide sideways. Riders’ typical response to this is to release pressure to the rear brake. Doing so while the bike is not pointed in the direction of travel when the rear tire regains traction causes the bike to catapult the rider off in a spectacular and painful “high side” crash. 

ABS is worth its weight in cryptocurrency because it prevents both kinds of crashes by ensuring that the wheels keep turning until the bike comes to a complete stop. It is also important because most riders, when faced with a potential crash, fail to apply the brakes hard enough. Ideally, knowing that they can’t lock the brakes will encourage more riders to brake harder so that maybe more of them will stop short of hitting the obstacle ahead.

Regardless, riding the Cosmic Black G 310 R test bike was enough fun to put such sober considerations in the background. I had the opportunity to test it alongside BMW’s sexy S 1000 R and I can confirm that the smaller bike held its own while slicing through mountain switchbacks, courtesy of its advanced suspension and light weight.

It also highlighted the G 310 R’s user-friendliness. While the S 1000 R has a very abrupt clutch friction point and brakes that grab aggressively with the slightest application of pressure (very much like Ferrari’s brakes), the G 310 R has a wide, easy-to-engage clutch friction point and brakes that grip progressively, making it very easy for even beginning riders to pull away from a stop and then arrive at the curb like pros instead of the amateurs they are.

Like most of today’s generation of starter bikes, the G 310 R has only one cylinder in its 313-cc engine, when earlier small bikes would have had smoother-running twin-cylinder engines. But the BMW’s 34-horsepower single incorporates a counterbalancer, so it revs to its surprisingly high 9,500-rpm redline with unexpected smoothness. This makes it easier to keep the engine spinning out as much power as possible while clicking through the six-speed transmission, letting the G 310 R feel adequately powerful.

The bike’s engine has an unorthodox configuration, with the cylinder tilting rearward like the back half of a Harley-Davidson V-twin. As with the Harley’s rear cylinder, that puts the BMW’s intake system in front, with the exhaust pipe trailing off the rear, which is the opposite of most single-cylinder bikes.

The rear-leaning cylinder lets the bottom of the engine and the heavy transmission shafts that live there slide forward, shifting the bike’s balance onto the front wheel for greater stability. It also clears space behind the transmission for the aforementioned long rear swingarm.

All of this speaks to the benefit of rethinking the engineering challenge from the beginning of a project and dismissing convention to deliver a superior result. The G 310 R is fun to ride for riders of all levels, not just beginners. But it treats them especially well, just as the Motorcycle Safety Foundation’s rider’s school. The BMW engineer team should be proud of their clever solutions to creating an affordable bike that is a true BMW.

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After three years of construction and limited operations, the next-generation Hyundai Motor Group Innovation Center production facility in Singapore is officially online and fully functioning. Announced on November 20, the 935,380-square-foot, seven-floor facility relies on 200 robots to handle over 60 percent of all “repetitive and laborious” responsibilities, allowing human employees to focus on “more creative and productive duties,” according to the company.

In a key departure from traditional conveyor-belt factories, HMGIC centers on what the South Korean vehicle manufacturer calls a “cell-based production system” alongside a “digital twin Meta-Factory.” Instead of siloed responsibilities for automated machinery and human workers, the two often cooperate using technology such as virtual and augmented reality. As Hyundai explains, while employees simulate production tasks in a digital space using VR/AR, for example, robots will physically move, inspect, and assemble various vehicle components.

[Related: Everything we love about Hyundai’s newest EV.]

By combining robotics, AI, and the Internet of Things, Hyundai believes the HMGIC can offer a “human-centric manufacturing innovation system,” Alpesh Patel, VP and Head of the factory’s Technology Innovation Group, said in Monday’s announcement. 

Atop the HMGIC building is an over 2000-feet-long vehicle test track, as well as a robotically assisted “Smart Farm” capable of growing up to nine different crops. While a car factory vegetable garden may sound somewhat odd, it actually compliments the Singapore government’s ongoing “30 by 30” initiative.

Due to the region’s rocky geology, Singapore can only utilize about one percent of its land for agriculture—an estimated 90 percent of all food in the area must be imported. Announced in 2022, Singapore’s 30 by 30 program aims to boost local self-sufficiency by increasing domestic yields to 30 percent of all consumables by the decade’s end using a combination of sustainable urban growth methods. According to Hyundai’s announcement, the HMGICS Smart Farm is meant to showcase farm productivity within compact settings—while also offering visitors some of its harvested crops. The rest of the produce will be donated to local communities, as well as featured on the menu at a new Smart Farm-to-table restaurant scheduled to open at the HMGICS in spring 2024.

[Related: Controversial ‘robotaxi’ startup loses CEO.]

HMGICS is expected to produce up to 30,000 electric vehicles annually, and currently focuses on the IONIQ 5, as well as its autonomous robotaxi variant. Beginning in 2024, the facility will also produce Hyundai’s IONIQ 6. If all goes according to plan, the HMGICS will be just one of multiple cell-based production system centers.

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The SUV market is big business, especially in the United States. Even supercar manufacturers like Lamborghini are making five-seat SUVs and thriving. Aston Martin’s DBX crossover represents roughly half of its overall sales. And that’s only on the gas-powered side. All-electric SUVs are just starting to find their groove, and vehicles like the three-row Kia EV9 SUV and Volkswagen ID.Buzz “microbus” are on their way to the U.S. market in 2024. Now, emerging luxury EV builder Lucid just announced the Gravity, a seven-seat SUV with an astonishing claim of 440 miles of all-electric range.

The SUV boasts other niceties like acceleration from zero to 60 miles per hour in less than 3.5 seconds, 1,500 pounds of payload (what it can carry inside) and the ability to tow 6,000 pounds. To compare, Tesla’s Model X can tow 5,000 pounds, haul 1,065 pounds inside the vehicle, and can go for 348 miles with the long-range package.

Here’s how Lucid is pushing other EV automakers to increase range and capability.

Gunning for Tesla

Lucid started producing its first model, the Air, in 2021 after more than a dozen years developing battery technology. Launched with 520 miles of EPA-estimated all-electric range and up to 1,111 horsepower, the Air earned rave reviews from users and journalists alike. Luxurious and uncommonly aerodynamic (more about that below), the Air’s starting price is roughly the same as a Tesla Model S. However, the Lucid model gets 115 more miles of range and  91 more horsepower than the Tesla.

If it sounds like an intrastate basketball rivalry, it may be partially attributed to the cross-pollination across the executive level. Before joining Lucid in 2013, CEO Peter Rawlinson spent three years at Tesla as a top engineer. Rawlinson led the engineering team for the Model S; when he left Tesla, he emerged swinging with the Lucid Air sedan. 

The company’s latest accomplishment is the Gravity SUV, and Lucid says “it can achieve 440 miles of range with a battery pack a little more than half the size of some of our battery-hungry competitors.” For context, a GMC Hummer EV’s battery pack alone weighs in at a hefty 2,818 pounds on the GM’s Ultium platform. 

The entire Lucid Air weighs 5,203 pounds and the Gravity is expected to tip the scales north of 6,000 pounds. Sure, it’s relatively heavier than some three-row SUVs such as the Kia Telluride and Lexus GX, but it’s on par with others like the Grand Wagoneer. 

Advanced battery technology 

Carrying two electric motors, the Gravity is touted as more efficient than its competitors. Rawlinson says the Gravity’s smaller and lighter technology battery pack means consuming fewer precious metals and minerals and results in less energy to charge and less pressure upon the grid. 

The Lucid Air is available with two battery packs–92 kilowatt hours or 112 kilowatt hours–and while Lucid is being vague about its exact specs for now, we expect the Gravity to utilize the larger 112 kWh version. For scale, the GMC Hummer EV and Cadillac Escalade IQ use packs over 200 kWh. 

Justin Berkowitz, Lucid’s senior manager for technology PR, says the company offers “the most efficient electric motors on the market and ultra-high voltage power electronics (over 900 volts compared to many EVs at 400-500).” All of these are designed, patented, engineered, and manufactured in-house by Lucid, and the company also develops the software powering it all. 

The stellar range is also a result of Lucid’s proprietary winding technique that produces a denser magnetic field along with several other innovations that create a super-compact package. The company holds eight patents related to the motor’s windings and cooling, and continues to find ways to squeeze as much copper into the motor stator as possible to generate big energy in a small package.

Aerodynamics are also a key, and Lucid says the Gravity has a drag coefficient of under 0.24. The lower the number, the more efficient the result. Hyundai’s three-row gas-powered Palisade has a 0.33 coefficient of drag, and the upcoming Kia EV9 hits 0.28. Tesla says its Model X sits at 0.24, so Lucid is sliding just below that with the Gravity. It’s still not as aerodynamic as the five-passenger Hyundai Ioniq 6, which has an impressive 0.21 drag coefficient. Give them time, though. Lucid is poised for major growth. 

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Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt announced his resignation from the controversial robotaxi startup on Sunday evening. The co-founder’s sudden departure arrives after months of public and political backlash relating to the autonomous vehicle fleet’s safety, and hints at future issues for the company purchased by General Motors in 2016 for over $1 billion.

Vogt’s resignation follows months of documented hazardous driving behaviors from Cruise’s autonomous vehicle fleet, including injuring pedestrians, delaying emergency responders, and failing to detect children. Cruise’s Golden State tenure itself lasted barely two months following a California Public Utilities Commission greenlight on 24/7 robotaxi services in August. Almost immediately, residents and city officials began documenting instances of apparent traffic pileups, blocked roadways, and seemingly reckless driving involving Cruise and Google-owned Waymo robotaxis. Meanwhile, Cruise representatives including Vogt aggressively campaigned against claims of an unsafe vehicle fleet.

[Related: San Francisco is pushing back against the rise of robotaxis.]

“Anything that we do differently than humans is being sensationalized,” Vogt told The Washington Post in September.

On October 2, a Cruise robotaxi failed to avoid hitting a woman pedestrian first struck by another car, subsequently dragging her 20 feet down the road. GM issued a San Francisco moratorium on Cruise operations three weeks later, followed by a nationwide expansion of the suspension on November 6.

But even with Cruise on an indefinite hiatus, competitors like Waymo and Zoox continue testing autonomous taxis across San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Austin, and elsewhere to varying degrees of success. As The New York Times reports, Waymo’s integration into Phoenix continues to progress smoothly. Meanwhile, Austin accidents became so concerning that city officials felt the need to establish an internal task force over the summer to help log and process autonomous vehicle incidents.

[Related: Self-driving taxis allegedly blocked an ambulance and the patient died.]

In a thread posted to X over the weekend, Vogt called his experience helming Cruise “amazing,” and expressed gratitude to the company and its employees while telling them to “remember why this work matters.”

“The status quo on our roads sucks, but together we’ve proven there is something far better around the corner,” wrote Vogt before announcing his plans to spend time with his family and explore new ideas.

“Thanks for the great ride!” Vogt concluded.

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A litany of issues has plagued Formula One’s highly anticipated (and derided) Las Vegas Grand Prix race for months, but the event’s most recent issues are perhaps its most ridiculous yet—the cars on-average 212 mph speeds are too fast for the Vegas Strip.

F1 racers can’t bolt down any standard roadway—they require specialized, carefully laid pavement. America’s other two F1 venues in Austin, Texas, and Miami, Florida, were both built specifically for the high-speed races, but the Las Vegas Grand Prix circuit presents a wholly different challenge, as it is located within the city itself. To prepare for this weekend’s competition, workers first removed the route’s top 5-to-10 inches of asphalt before replacing it with 60,000 tons of a base layer followed by another 43,000 tons of intermediate and top layer pavement.

Speaking to The Washington Post on Thursday, Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority chief executive Steve Hill estimated the new circuit pavement would last 6-10 years, and only need piecemeal maintenance without requiring extensive road closures.

But according to event organizers on November 16, F1 drivers’ first, late evening practice run barely lasted eight minutes before abruptly being forced to end. Near the track’s final corner, racer Carlos Sainz suddenly stopped, reporting apparent damage to his Ferrari’s flooring. A quick investigation of the track revealed that the race car’s speed and accompanying force put too much stress on a drain cover’s concrete framing, causing it to protrude and significantly damage the Ferrari’s chassis—the main frame to which its engine and suspension are attached. If that weren’t enough, racer Esteban Ocon’s car received a similar blow from the dislodged debris shortly after Sainz.

[Related: How the Formula races plan to power their cars with more sustainable fuel.]

This isn’t the first time grates proved to be an F1 car’s Achilles heel—another vehicle suffered a similar fate at a practice during the 2019 Azerbaijan Grand Prix. In that instance, however, F1 organizers welded shut the track’s coverings—a solution unavailable to last night’s crew members since it’s illegal to do so under Nevada law. Instead, repairers raced (so to speak) down the Las Vegas track, applying quick-setting concrete to the remaining 20-to-30 coverings.

It was 2:30am local time before racers could return for a second practice run. By this point, they raced past attendee stands devoid of any fans. Labor laws prevented security workers from continuing to staff the event. Those who attempted to stick it out to see the racers return were forced to leave for the night around 1:3gett0am. The competitors completed their trial runs without further incident.

Both drivers and their team members haven’t minced words since the evening’s debacle. Belgian and Dutch racer Max Verstappen described the Vegas Grand Prix as “99 percent show and 1 percent sport,” while Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur called the incident “unacceptable.”

“The situation is we damaged completely the monocoque, the engine, the batteries. I’m not sure this is the topic for me today,” Vasseur told reporters at the time. “We had a very tough [first practice], it cost us a fortune, we fucked up the session for Carlos.”

Mercedes chief Toto Wolff, however, defended the race and described the issue as a “black eye,” but nothing else. “This is nothing… they’re going to seal the drain covers and nobody’s going to talk about that tomorrow morning anymore,” Wolff continued.

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Car seats, like the vehicles themselves, are available in a variety of materials with a wide range of manual and electronic controls. My old 1977 Dodge Aspen, for instance, had a front row bench seat that moved as one, like a faux-brocade couch on rails. It had no ventilation, no heat, and definitely no massaging functions. Automobile seating has come a long way since then. 

The first production car with optional heated seats was the 1966 Cadillac DeVille, and massaging seats came along decades later in 2000 Mercedes-Benz and Cadillac models. Bentley, however, has taken the spa-like cabin to the next level with its available “airline seat specification” setup; the British brand says its super-deluxe airline seat specification is a world first.

This $11,000 option in the extended wheelbase version (EWB) of the Bentayga includes not just heat, but cooling, massage, recline, and small trays that fold out like those on a commercial airline. This SUV’s seats even have sensors that predict that you’re about to start sweating even before you know it yourself and preemptively adjusts the temperature. 

Here’s how they work.

First class seats

When travelers on an airplane upgrade to business or first class, they gain a significant amount of legroom and space around their seat. Bentley chose to call this Bentayga EWB setup “airline seat specification” to drive home the message that this is a roomy, first-class experience. As soon as you sit down, the sheer number of positioning options is dizzying: The rear seats can be adjusted 22 ways, not including the rear footrest behind the front passenger seat. 

Steve James, the head of interior design for Bentley, has been developing seating for the luxury brand since 2006. His first task when he joined Bentley was to come up with the initial concept for the seats in Bentley’s then-new flagship model, the Mulsanne. While the uber-luxurious Mulsanne model included heated, cooled, and massaging seats, the Bentayga EWB says “hold my Dom Perignon” and ratchets it up even more to prevent fatigue, not just treat it.   

“High-end cars focus quite a lot on fatigue recovery; if you’re getting tired in the car, the massage function is designed to help after the fact,” James says. “But we thought the real luxury experience is to do something to stop the fatigue in the first place. We saw an opportunity with the Bentayga EWB because we have more room to work with.” 

Science, research, and “perfect posture” 

James explains that Bentley focused on two key metrics during the development of the first-class seats: posture and thermal response. Bentley collaborated with an American chiropractor and Comfort Motion Global (CMG), a company that partners with research universities to test its proprietary technologies. Through its research, it discovered that making small adjustments in the leg and back angles of a vehicle seat–as little as one to two degrees–results in a positive increase of blood flow, increasing alertness and reducing fatigue. 

Bentley’s seats are fitted with 12 electric motors and three pneumatic valve engine control units. Unique algorithms developed in conjunction with CMG apply 177 individual pressure changes, shifting stress points from one area to another to stop the onset of fatigue. And the leg rest feature in the Bentayga is situated at a particular angle to create what James calls “perfect posture” that bends the legs slightly for maximum comfort and blood flow. 

“As you may have experienced if you’re in a plane or sitting statically for a long period of time, fatigue sets in,” James says. “The postural system is a system of pneumatic bladders inside the seat and they make small micro-adjustments that fine-tune the angles of your pelvis, your thighs, they are helping motion constantly happen. Small motions that give the customer the option to regulate them. They really make a difference.”

Temperature

Another important element of Bentley’s high-end seats is what it calls “thermal comfort.” (There is a default calibration, but it can be adjusted depending on the average temperature preference of the passenger.)

Bentley embedded two sensors in the seats, each constantly measuring humidity and temperature levels of the bottoms and backs of the seats. With that data, the car can automatically activate its seat climate system for heating or ventilation to maintain the passenger’s individual comfort level. James says that the system detects temperature variations of 0.1 degrees and registers upward and downward trends and the human brain doesn’t notice before the delta is 0.5. So the seats’ constant monitoring heads off perspiration before it even happens.

While the concept started to take shape in 2015, the brand didn’t create a working prototype until 2019 after years of data collection and validation. The team had to do quite a bit of calibration on the thermal comfort side, as different passengers feel comfort at vastly different temperatures depending on a number of factors. And as it turned out, one of the engineers became a real-time case study; he became ill during the development and started feeling hot and sweaty. As designed, the system measured that and calculated the delta in his calibration preferences. 

“The real clever bit of the system is it can sense even to one-tenth of a degree Celsius at all times,” James says. “It can measure how you’re feeling and how your temperature is trending. So if you start feeling a little bit warm or perspire a bit–we can actually see it before you feel it.”

In a mainstream car with heated seats, you might find that activating them to full power feels wonderful in cold temperatures until you start overheating. At that point, the seats hold residual warmth that feels uncomfortable until it cools off. Bentley’s seats are designed for an ideal balance of hot and cool so that you feel consistently content. 

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To understand how electric cars work, it helps to keep in mind the ways in which they’re similar to regular gas-burning vehicles. They’re cousins from different generations, not machines from different universes. If you drive, you know the drill: Press down on the pedal with your right foot to get moving, point the vehicle where you want to go, maybe put on some music, and try not to crash. 

“An EV has four wheels,” says Chad Kirchner, the founder of evpulse.com, a news and information site about electric vehicles. “There’s a start button, there’s an accelerator pedal, there’s a brake. In a lot of ways, an EV—and the EV driving experience—is identical to a gas-powered experience.” 

That said, there are key differences in engineering, design, maintenance, and performance between electric cars and internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles.   

Electric car battery system 101

To begin with, an ICE vehicle relies on a tank of gasoline or diesel to get the energy it needs. An EV, on the other hand, requires a battery system, which consists of a multitude of individual cells. And just like a gas tank, the battery cells store energy. 

“But [a battery cell] also produces power—and the power is a result of the voltage of that particular cell, and the current it’s able to output,” says Charles Poon, the global director of Electrified Systems Engineering at Ford, which makes the Mach-E, the F-150 Lightning, and the E-Transit electric vehicles. He describes the battery as the car’s heart.

Battery design in EVs will differ between automakers, and one of the main ways is the shape of their cells. To make things a bit more tangible, consider the Mach-E, an electric car that descends from a famous line of gas-burning vehicles that gave birth to the term “pony car.” The cells in the Mach-E are in pouch form, whereas other batteries in the market have cylindrical cells (Tesla uses those) or prismatic cells. A Mach-E battery system has hundreds of cells. 

[Related: This giant bumper car is street-legal and enormously delightful]

The lithium-ion-based electric car batteries can also have slightly different chemistries. For example, a Mach-E can come with nickel, cobalt, and manganese (NCM) batteries or lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries. The former are known for being able to hold power for longer and performing well in cold temperatures, while LFP batteries are less expensive and can charge up faster. 

How do electric motors work? 

The term AC/DC is not only the name of an Australian rock band, but also describes two forms of electricity: alternating current (AC) and direct current (DC). Both types of power are important for electric cars to work.

The electricity coming out of your wall outlet at home is in AC form, but batteries store their energy in DC form. Because of this, electric cars have a component known as a charger that takes the AC power flowing into the vehicle and switches it to the more battery-friendly DC. A quicker way to charge up one of these cars is by using a DC fast charger, which provides the car with juice in DC form, so the car doesn’t have to convert it. 

“It bypasses the AC charger [in the car], and goes directly into the battery,” Poon explains. 

[Related: What an electric vehicle’s MPGe rating really means]

So the batteries store power in DC form, but there’s a twist: electric motors work with AC power. This means the vehicle has to transform electricity yet again, which it does using a traction inverter that converts the DC back into AC. “And then that is what actually ends up spinning the electric motor, producing power,” Poon adds.  

There are two key components in an electric motor: a stator and a rotor. The rotor sits inside the stator and rotates using the wonders of magnetism that kick in when AC power hits the motor. 

“We send what we call three phases of alternating current through a stator that has wires that are wound radially, sequentially, around the stator,” he explains. “And we are able to create a rotating magnetic field—so the magnetic field rotates, and it pulls the rotor along with it.” 

And voilá! After passing through some gearing, that rotation turns the wheels on your electric vehicle. 

While an ICE car has one engine, Kirchner, from evpulse.com, notes that electric vehicles in the market can have as many as four motors. For example, the rear-wheel drive version of a Mach-E uses one motor, while the all-wheel drive version uses two—one for the front and one for the back. At the other end of the spectrum, a Rivian R1T can have as many as one motor per wheel. 

[Related: Electric cars are better for the environment, no matter the power source]

The pros and cons of driving an electric vehicle

Could you imagine if taking your foot off the gas pedal in an ICE vehicle magically made more gasoline appear in the tank? Something like that happens in an EV.

This cool trick is called regenerative braking, and allows drivers to start slowing down not by pushing the brake pedal as in regular cars, but by taking their foot off the accelerator. Don’t worry—that brake pedal is still there when you need it. In one-pedal or regen mode, things happen in reverse: the wheels turn the motors so they act like generators and send power back to the batteries. 

“You are actually taking the vehicle momentum and putting it back in as chemical energy into the battery,” Poon says.

Mach-E Chief Engineer Donna Dickson says one-pedal driving still remains an unfamiliar technique for drivers, but notes that it helps prevent wear on the brakes while also adding battery charge.

The power source is not the only difference between electric cars and ICE vehicles. There are other details that set the two apart. For example, Kirchner says that while combustion engines have to rev a little to make torque, EV motors make all of their torque from a complete standstill. This results in great acceleration. “Around town, even electric cars that you would not consider sporty by looking at them feel very quick, which makes them excellent city cars,” he continues. 

Another benefit of driving an electric vehicle is that they need less maintenance. There’s no need for an oil change, although their heavier weight means their tires experience more wear and tear. 

On the downside, you can’t charge up the batteries as rapidly or as easily as gasoline goes into a tank, but if you can charge at home, you have a unique perk: “You start every morning with a full tank,” says Kirchner. But that doesn’t always come as easy as it sounds. 

[Related: How does a jet engine work? By running hot enough to melt its own innards.]

“If you are an EV owner, it’s pretty much imperative at this point to have someplace to plug in and charge overnight,” says Paul Waatti, manager of industry analysis for AutoPacific. However, “there’s a good portion of America that doesn’t live in a single-family home.” People residing in condos, apartments, and other residential setups will have a more challenging time finding a charger to plug in their cars overnight. As for public chargers, Waatti says those networks are “very far off from being seamless at this point,” meaning there are too few and many don’t work properly.

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To put it very simply: the Rimac Nevera electric hypercar is very, very fast. With 1,194-horsepower, a top speed of 256 MPH, and the ability to accelerate faster than an F1 racer, it’s not just one of the most powerful EVs in the world—it’s one of the most powerful cars, period. The $2.1 million Nevera has dashed past so many world records at this point that its makers are now forced to get creative in setting new ones. And they certainly have, judging from a new video released on November 7.

In addition to all its other feats, the Rimac Nevera is apparently now also the Guinness World Record holder for the “fastest speed in reverse.” How fast did it take to earn yet another laurel? 171.34 MPH—certainly an intense speed in any direction.

[Related: Behind the wheel of the bruisingly quick Rimac Nevera hypercar.]

On Tuesday, Nevera chief program engineer Matija Renić revealed that the new stunt actually began as a joke during the hypercar’s development stage.

“We kind of laughed it off,” Renić said via the company’s announcement. Renić noted its cooling and stability systems, not to mention aerodynamics, simply weren’t engineered for putting the pedal to the floor while in reverse. “But then, we started to talk about how fun it would be to give it a shot.”

Simulations indicated a Nevera likely would top 150 MPH while driven backwards, but there was no way to be sure just how stable it would remain while blazing down the road. “We were entering uncharted territory,” Renić added—an understatement if there ever was one.

But as these multiple videos attest, the Nevera is certainly up to the task should it ever improbably become necessary. According to the company’s record-setting test driver, pulling off the stunt “definitely took some getting used to.”

“You’re facing straight out backwards watching the scenery flash away from you faster and faster, feeling your neck pulled forwards in almost the same sensation you would normally get under heavy braking,” Goran Drndak said via Rimac’s November 7 announcement. “You’re moving the steering wheel so gently, careful not to upset the balance, watching for your course and your braking point out the rear-view mirror, all the while keeping an eye on the speed.” Although being “almost completely unnatural” to the car’s design, Drndak said the Nevera “breezed” through the stress test.

It’s hard to imagine what’s left for the Nevera to achieve, but if the latest record is any indication, chances are Rimac designers will think of something.

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In Sweden, the word lagom represents the Goldilocks-esque concept of “not too much, not too little, but just right.” Swedish automaker Volvo had this concept in mind when it created the brand’s newest model, the EX30. At the same time, the electric car had to meet a major objective: have the lowest carbon footprint of any Volvo model to date.

Volvo says that the EX30’s “total carbon footprint” is 25 percent less CO2 than the electrified versions of its C40 and XC40 models, in line with the automaker’s stated goal to cut CO2 emissions per car by 40 percent by 2025. To achieve this, they took into account the manufacturing processes, worked to simplify its design, and reduced the materials it needs. Even the exterior colors like Moss Yellow and Cloud Blue superficially reflect Volvo’s Earth-friendly goals. 

What’s more, the vehicle will cost less than $40,000, which in a world of extra-pricey EVs (the average price for an EV was $53,469 in July of this year, according to Cox Automotive), is impressive. Starting at $36,245 (including destination fees), the EX30 is an attractive package.

Here’s how Volvo achieved its sustainability goals while aiming for that “just right” feel.

Sustainable interior ‘rooms’ 

The company integrated recycled PVC collected from house window frames, PET plastic from single-use water bottles, plant materials like flax fibers, and even discarded denim threads from the blue jeans recycling process into the EX30’s interior. 

Buyers of the new EX30 can choose between four interior expressions for the vehicle. Volvo calls the interior themes “rooms” because people spend so much time in their car, Volvo color and materials designer Camille Audra explained to PopSci. 

Two interior rooms employ recycling themes: they are called indigo, which is made from denim like the blue jeans you may be wearing right now, and breeze, a patterned knit. And two feature natural materials: they are called mist (flax fiber) and pine (tree resin).

“This is inspired from fashion,” Audra says. “People wear blue jeans everywhere in the world.”

Old denim is often recycled into things like pet bed inserts, building insulation, and thermal packaging insulation.  During the process, Audra says, the short fibers that are left over could become waste, but in this case, are instead collected and woven into a new material.

Combined with cellulose (also a plant-based material) to give strength to the material, the fibers become a durable surface for the dashboard and door panels. Bonus: there are no zippers or button flies to get in the way. 

Along with blue jeans material, flax fiber is lightweight and natural. Also known as linseed, flax is exceedingly strong when woven into fibers. (The flowering plant yields seeds that are pressed to extract oil, or dried and sold as a product in grocery stores around the country. Flaxseed meal—the byproduct of the flaxseed oil-pressing process—has a second life as livestock feed.) Volvo is on track with other automakers, like Kia and Hyundai, that are also using flax fibers inside their cars for sustainability and weight benefits.

“We decided to use flax because it’s used to regenerate soil [between crops] and uses less water than other crops, and still has a nice touch and feel,” Audra says.

In the summer of 2021, Volvo revealed its Concept Recharge, which used flax fibers from a Swiss company called Bcomp. By investing in Bcomp, a company that has also provided products to the racing arm of McLaren or Porsche, Volvo now has a mainline to sustainable materials. 

“Bcomp’s calculations show that compared to regular plastic parts, the natural fiber-based composites are up to 50 percent lighter, use up to 70 percent less plastic and generate up to 62 per cent lower CO₂ emissions,” Volvo says. 

Volvo is also featuring a “room” in a pine theme. The manufacturer uses a material called Nordico, which is made from recycled materials such as PET bottles, corks recycled from the wine industry, and pine resin from sustainable forests in Sweden and Finland. 

New colors, natural themes

For one interior trim option, Audra revealed that the design team scanned a piece of granite and then imprinted the granite’s natural patterns onto the recycled plastic. Using a stone grain offers more recycling options later as well, because the texture doesn’t require paint as a finish. 

On the outside, Volvo offers a vibrant hue—probably the brightest color ever seen on a Volvo model—called Moss Yellow, inspired by the lichens that grow on the rocks of the west coast of Sweden. And Cloud Blue looks white in the sunlight but transforms into a soft blue when it’s overcast. 

Even the technology reflects Volvo’s all-in commitment to a low carbon footprint. By keeping parts to a minimum, Volvo creates fewer carbon emissions when manufacturing the EX30. So far, its strategy is working: the brand expects 80 percent of EX30 buyers to be new to Volvo, and overall sales are skyrocketing. 

Correction on Nov. 8, 2023: This post has been updated to clarify that the denim material is used on the dashboard and door panels, not the seats.

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One of the most ubiquitous sights on the road is an 18-wheel truck. These large, loud vehicles are a prolific presence on America’s interstates, and are made up of two big components: the tractor, which does the pulling and is where the driver is, and the trailer, where the stuff goes. 

In an effort to clean up the relatively large emissions that come from this part of the transportation sector, some companies are working on electric tractors that can pull trailers: Freightliner has a model called the eCascadia, Tesla has its Semi, Volvo its VNR, and others are working on it, too. But a relatively new company called Range Energy is focusing on the trailer itself, equipping it with batteries, a motor, and other intelligence. The trailer can be paired with a tractor burning diesel, or an electric one, like one of those eCascadias. 

Currently, there are about 3.5 million trailers in the United States, according to a company called ACT Research.

Range Energy is led by Ali Javidan, an early Tesla employee and veteran of Google and Zoox, the autonomous car company now owned by Amazon. Javidan also brings something else to the table: experience towing things. “I’ve always been around equipment, cars, trucks, stuff like that,” he says. “A few of my uncles had car dealerships, mechanic shops, lots of land in Sacramento. And so growing up, one of my first experiences driving was towing cars from the dealership to the service center, or moving boats around the farm, or things like that.” 

So while he points out that he has “very, very limited time in a class-8 tractor trailer,” which is a big 18-wheeler, he adds that he has “lots of towing empathy.” 

[Related: Futuristic aircraft and robotic loaders dazzled at a Dallas tech summit]

Range’s RA-01 product looks like a regular trailer—typically a big, boxy, and boring presence on the road—but has some key changes. There’s a motor that turns one of the axles at the back of the trailer. That motor gets the power it needs from an onboard battery pack, which isn’t inside the trailer (where it would interfere with cargo space) but is below it. There’s also what Javidan refers to as “smart kingpin.” A kingpin on a big 18-wheel truck is the point where the trailer connects to the tractor. What makes the Range Energy kingpin different from a regular kingpin is that it senses what the tractor is doing. “It’s a real-time measurement of how hard the tractor is pulling,” Javidan says.

Because it gathers this information, the trailer can be “kind of like an obedient dog on a leash,” he says, with the goal of making the trailer feel “essentially weightless” for the tractor. The trailer wouldn’t ever push the tractor, though. 

The result, according to Range, is that if this trailer is paired with a diesel-burning tractor, that tractor could get around 35 to 40 percent better fuel efficiency. And if it were paired with an electric tractor, it could add about 100 miles of range or more. 

Another benefit potentially arises from what happens when a truck towing a Range trailer goes downhill. That’s because of regenerative braking, which uses the motion from the wheels to charge the battery back up and simultaneously slow the whole rig down. That means that the truck’s brakes get less wear and tear, too. “The second-biggest maintenance item on a trailer is brakes,” he says. (Tires take the top slot.) Plus, Javidan says that the system has a stability boost going downhill, “because we’re dragging from the trailer.” 

The most obvious negative tradeoff that comes with electrifying the trailer is weight. “It adds about 4,000 pounds to the total system,” Javidan says. (A tractor-trailer rig has to stay below 80,000 pounds in total, although an electric tractor gets an additional 2,000 pound allowance.) For trucks hauling something heavy, like soda, this could affect the amount of goods they can transport in one load. But many trucks carrying stuff have “cubed out,” Javidan says—meaning that the truck’s interior space fills up before hitting the maximum weight limit. (Just think about an Amazon box filled packaging around something small, like toothpaste, and you get the idea.) 

Javidan says that they’ll start beta testing next year, with deliveries to customers planned for 2025. “You will start seeing these trailers on the roads in real volumes starting in 2026,” he predicts. 

There’s good reason for regulators and companies to work on cleaning up this transportation sector, both from a climate-change perspective and a public-health one. If you consider buses and medium- and heavy-duty trucks, those big rigs make up just 6 percent of vehicles on the roads in the US, but account for sizable portions of greenhouse gas emissions and nitrogen oxides (NOx). In other words, they are “disproportionately emitting emissions,” says Stephanie Ly, the senior manager of eMobility Strategy and Manufacturing Engagement at the World Resources Institute. 

The NOx emissions have “major public health impacts,” she says. Exposure to this diesel-heavy industry has serious ramifications for people, with repercussions like “years of life lost” as well as “asthma, cancer, infertility, and so many other negative effects, particularly for those that live nearest to high-traffic truck centers,” she says. And these groups, Ly adds, “are primarily communities of color, and communities that are lower income, or have less access to different types of employment, so they’re especially vulnerable.”

With Range Energy’s plan to electrify the trailer, Ly notes that “it’s absolutely fascinating what they are proposing.” That said, just as there are multiple companies working on creating electric tractors that do the pulling, other firms also are working on electrifying the trailer, too. ConMet eMobility, ZF, and Einride all represent potential competitors for Range. 

“I will say in the trucking sector, there’s quite a bit of brand loyalty within the supply chain,” Ly adds. In other words, any new player might have something of a long haul ahead of them as they try to pull onto the highway, get into the right gear, and travel down that open road.

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The most popular car paint color in America is white. The hue has names like Blizzard White, Snow Quartz, and Wind Chill Pearl. Black, gray, and silver aren’t far behind on the popularity scale, rounding out the vast majority of cars on the road. 

These stats don’t mean that automakers are staying monochrome, though. On the contrary, Italian automaker Fiat thumbed its nose at bland colors and declared earlier this year it wouldn’t make cars in any shade of gray. Jeep likes to debut names for its vehicle finishes that are as colorful as the paint itself: Snazzberry, Hellayella, and Punk’N, for example. And Mazda has established itself as a colorful brand with its ubiquitous Soul Red Crystal Metallic and new Artisan Red, which morphs from a black cherry look in the sunlight to a dark, almost-black tint on a cloudy day or at dawn and dusk. 

Automakers use electrostatic spray guns to apply even layers of paint on the vehicles they produce, and car paint has evolved into a high-tech science that delivers more colors than designers imagined even 10 years ago. 

For example, Honda’s luxury arm, Acura, debuted its new Precision EV concept last year; it sports an arresting blue finish that seems to radiate from the inside out. Gypsy Modina, who leads the brand’s color and materials group, created the Double Apex Blue Pearl tint, which will grace the 2024 ZDX Type S. 

This is how Modina whips up pigments that set Acura apart and how she sees the future of paint and color technology. 

Color inspiration 

Modina got her degree in fine arts at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, the alma mater of notable automotive designers like Ralph Gilles, chief design officer for Stellantis, and John Krsteski, senior chief designer for Genesis. She started working for Acura 18 years ago, and now mixes colors like a mad scientist for the brand to come up with bespoke paint finishes. 

Her job seems more science than art. She has to understand how light bounces from the vehicle to the eye and how the color accentuates the form and fits the personality and demographic of that car. 

“I don’t think I knew I’d be doing so much science and math [in this field],” Modina says wryly. “It’s funny, because I find it hard to follow a recipe when cooking.” 

She doesn’t sit at her desk dreaming up color combinations. Instead, the process is more exciting: Modina travels the world seeking inspiration and finds it in fashion-forward places like Milan, Italy but also in nature, hiking in locations as far-flung as Kruger National Park in South Africa.

What Modina sees coming down the pipeline is colors and materials that are designed with the goal of minimizing waste and pollution by recycling, and using more natural versus chemical materials. Interestingly, that doesn’t align with what some manufacturers are showing off on the technology side, like the BMW SUV that features a specially developed body wrap stimulated by electrical signals to change color.

“Now you’re seeing concepts that change colors and car bodies that are more like screens,” Modina says. “There are things you can create that can be more solutions to a circular economy. The goal is for circularity, and I do think optimistically that there are material technologies and sciences that can [contribute to that].” 

The topic has a colorful history: Back when cars used to be spray-painted by hand with layers upon layers of pigment, the overspray would build up in the paint bays. Over time, chunks of buildup needed to be removed, and someone along the way discovered the beauty of baked-on layers of color that could be polished into gemlike stones. You’ll find “Fordite” stones (also called “motor agate” or “Detroit agate”) as pieces of jewelry on Etsy and other sites. But the process that created these multicolored polished stones no longer exists.

Car paint that glows even when it’s cloudy

On a cloudy and gray day during Monterey Car Week in August 2022, Acura unveiled its Precision EV in Double Apex Blue. That kind of weather could be an unfortunate backdrop for the high-profile presentation of a new car, but the blue finish looked like it was glowing even through the gloom. Modina and the design team breathed a sigh of relief. 

“We were giving each other high fives,” Modina says. “There aren’t that many colors that do that.”

The glow is a physical manifestation of what Acura’s first all-electric vehicle, scheduled for delivery next summer, represents. 

“We knew electrification was coming into play and we wanted the blue to go more liquid and more sheer,” Modina says. “There’s something about electrification that has a smoothness to it and we wanted [the paint to appear] more liquid. We also wanted it to be unique; we saw in the US market that people are more open to bold colors.”

The form language (the term refers to design styles unique to each manufacturer) and shape are closely related to the brand, Modina says. She and her team design many different types of hues, but the brand’s Double Apex Blue and Performance Red stand out because they must lay on the body in a way that matches the brand’s personality. Blue, in particular, is a heritage color for Acura, and has been refreshed over the years. This particular blue includes nano-pigments, which are finer particles that load the color with higher saturation, making the tint appear more intense. 

Light, color, and form work together with our emotions to stimulate a response; in Acura’s case, the brand wants us to see its cars as fast and performance-oriented. Even if they’re popular, cars in bland colors just can’t measure up.

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Hundreds of years before Google Maps and other apps like it made navigation as easy as looking at your smartphone, explorers found their way around the planet by the light of the moon and stars, or by shadows cast by the sun. Today, humans rely on electronic devices, not their instincts or the study of celestial bodies. And of course before the smartphone came along, people also used maps printed on dead trees. But kids born recently aren’t using paper maps at all; instead they just punch in an address to receive a route to get where they’re going.

Off-roading champion Emily Miller wanted to teach others what she learned from years of navigating with a ruler, pencil, compass, and topographical map. With that in mind, she created the Rebelle Rally, the longest off-road time-distance navigational rally in the United States. The idea of a navigational rally might not be novel, but this one is: All competitors are required to disable any digital navigational aids on their vehicle and seal up their electronic devices (mobile phones, AirTags, tablets, laptops, and more) for the duration. It’s a test of driving precision and navigation skills, not a speed race pell-mell across the desert. 

Over eight days, Rebelle Rally competitors are shut off from the world, sleeping in tents near ghost towns and rock faces instead of hotels and cities. This year, the rally’s course started in Mammoth Lakes, California, crossed into Nevada, and finished in the southeast corner of California at the majestic Glamis Dunes. The only news participants hear is their daily standings in the competition—there’s no endless scrolling of social media feeds. Plotting latitude and longitude points requires one’s full attention, and by the end of a 10-hour day spent hunting checkpoints, there’s no need for entertainment. The competitors are wiped out physically and mentally, heading for their tents to sleep.

I just completed my second year of the rally; I was sponsored by Hyundai and we operated a Santa Cruz with a 1.5-inch lift in the front and a 1-inch lift in the back. We had off-road accessories (traction boards, shovels, and a spare tire) mounted to a custom Rally Innovations rack to help us along. This is what it’s like to compete at this crossroads of analog and high-tech. 

Analog navigation

Now entering its ninth year, the Rebelle Rally just wrapped up its most recent competition with 65 teams of two women each; the all-female event concluded on October 20. Each morning, the teams were alerted that it’s time to get going by the gentle clanging sound of a cowbell at 5 a.m. Many teams are already up by that point, the sounds of tent zippers tearing the fabric of the silence even before that.

Each day, a race official distributes a list of 20 or more checkpoints to the teams long before dawn. Then teams plot latitude and longitude points along with distances and headings on their paper maps. On-the-ground checkpoints are marked with flags (mandatory green checkpoints, the easiest), or poles (blue checkpoints, which are more difficult to find) or invisible geofenced areas (black checkpoints, requiring precision within 200-300 meters to avoid a penalty). 

Once a team drives to the checkpoint and sees the flag, or sees what they believe to be the spot, one of the competitors clicks on a satellite tracker that displays the exact latitude and longitude point where the signal is traced. A company called YB Tracking and the Iridium satellite network track the competitors to keep them safe; the staff knows exactly where each car is, even if the teams themselves are lost. 

Teams also participate in enduro segments, which are a series of checkpoints that include time checks along the route and require intense focus and concentration to stay at the average dictated speed, which may change frequently. To prepare for these on-time sections, competitors use mathematical formulas to calculate the seconds and minutes of each segment in the precise roadbook based on the distance and speed. 

Using a solar-powered calculator and a basic stopwatch, we found our way. 

Green power takes the gold

After seven days of full-time driving plus the half-day prologue, it was a team called the Limestone Legends that took first place in a Rivian R1T all-electric pickup truck. Not only was it the first time an all-electric vehicle earned the gold medal in the Rebelle Rally, the second place vehicle was a hybrid: a Jeep Wrangler 4xe. Rivian has been a strong supporter of the Rebelle Rally starting in October 2020 with a pre-production model of an R1T, which became the first fully electric truck to ever compete in the event. 

Charging up an EV in the middle of the desert is a challenge. While gas-powered cars are fueled up by a tanker that travels from base camp to base camp with the rally, it’s not as easy to provide a boost for batteries that way. So, the Rebelle Rally partnered with Renewable Innovations to provide hydrogen-powered EV charging to the Rivian and Jeep 4xe models each day. 

Each base camp embraced green energy too, mobilizing a 53-foot mobile Renewable Innovations semi with high-density solar panels combined with “follow-the-sun” smart flowers on each side to collectively deliver 50 kilowatts of peak power for base camp. 

While our phones and navigation systems were unavailable by design, my team did have a Nextbase dash cam in the car so we could capture the beauty of the off-road trails in California and Nevada. It came in handy when we witnessed a crash—a Mitsubishi crossover tried to pass us and the full-size SUV in front of us on the left. We handed over our camera’s memory card to the police, providing an airtight record of what happened. And luckily, no one was seriously hurt. 

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“I always build things,” says Dan Hryhorcoff. 

Case in point: Hryhorcoff has constructed an absolutely delightful giant bumper car, a project that he says began during the pandemic. The rest of us may have baked bread as COVID came down the pike, but Hryhorcoff, who lives in northeastern Pennsylvania and has also built a submarine, constructed an enormous blue bumper car. It gets its propulsion from a repurposed Chevrolet engine and is street-legal. 

Before he constructed the big bumper car, Hryhorcoff had made a different vehicle, starting on it around 2013 or so. “When I retired, I decided I kind of wanted to build a car,” he recalls. For that project, he chose to focus on a 1950s pedal car for children called a Murray “sad face.” “I decided to copy that and make a large one.” (Those Murray models have a front that does indeed look like a sad face, but anyone who sees Hryhorcoff’s work will probably smile.) 

Creating that big red vehicle provided him with further experience working with fiberglass, a material he had also worked with when building the submarine. “I had a lot of fun with that [Murray car] at car shows and things, and it got a lot of attention from a broad audience,” he says.

“Then COVID hit,” he adds. He wanted a new project. His thinking? “Another car project would be good.” 

Building the big bumper car

He settled on a bumper car. To get the source material he needed for the project, he turned to an amusement park in Elysburg, Pennsylvania called Knoebels, and the bumper cars they have there. Specifically, he focused on the 1953-model bumper car that was made by a company called Lusse. He liked that it had a “Chevrolet pickup truck sorta look” from the 1950s. 

“I decided to copy one of those,” he says. Spending some eight hours at Knoebels gave him the chance to get the information he needed. “I measured, and took photos, and made templates, and whatever I needed to, to copy the car as well as I can.” He chose to make his version of the car double the size of the base model. As the Scranton Times-Tribune noted in a story about Hryhorcoff in July, the bumper car ride at Knoebels dates back to the immediate post-World-War-II era.

[Related: This Florida teen is making a business out of rebuilding old-school auto tech]

Inside, the big bumper car’s power plant comes from a Chevrolet Aveo. “I took the front of the Aveo, and chopped it off, and put that in the back of the bumper car,” he explains. “And the front of the bumper car is a motorcycle wheel.” That single wheel up front means it can turn very sharply. The exterior is made out of fiberglass. All told, it measures 13 feet long, 7 feet wide, and 5.5 feet tall, making it twice the size of a regular bumper car. A pole in the back mimics the way actual bumper cars get their electricity, except this one connects to nothing. 

A project like this would likely be a bumpy ride for anyone without the experience that Hryhorcoff, 72, brings to the table. “I learned to run a lathe when I was 13 years old, with my dad, and he was kind of a jack-of-all-trades,” he recalls. (A lathe is a tool for forming metal into a round shape, and a wood lathe is the kind of equipment you could use to make a baseball bat.) He built a go-cart, tinkered with lawn mowers, and learned about auto repair in a garage. His interest, as he describes it, was “all around mechanical.” 

He spent four years after high school in the Navy in the early 1970s, where he worked stateside and repaired radios for F-4 jets, and then studied mechanical engineering at Penn State. After working for a drilling company, he started his own machine shop called Justus Machine. 

Always diving into something new

The submarine he built came from plans for a K350 model purchased from George Kittredge, and is called Persistence. “I knew I was building something that wasn’t gonna kill me, if I build it correctly,” he says. (Watch a video of the sub in action here.) That sub has gone as deep as 540 feet with no one on board, Hryhorcoff says, and he’s taken it down himself to about 150 feet deep. 

[Related: How does a jet engine work? By running hot enough to melt its own innards.]

Hryhorcoff describes himself as an engineer, not an artist, and prefers to follow plans and undertake projects in which he knows any challenges he might face are surmountable. “Any project I’ve ever chose was a project that I knew I can get through it, but I had something new to learn in the process,” he says. “There were always some unknowns.” But those unknowns, he adds, were within the realm of doable for him and his equipment, even if he had to learn new stuff along the way.

“I’d rather big projects, rather than a dozen little ones,” he adds. 

Watch a short video about Hryhorcoff and this project, below:

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First officially unveiled back in 2019, Tesla’s electric Cybertruck impressed and amused the public with its angular, “Blade Runner-inspired” design and purported features including reinforced glass, stainless steel body, and a lack of door handles. Although originally slated to arrive in reservation holders’ driveways in 2021, the EV release faced numerous delays exacerbated by COVID-19 pandemic supply chain issues. This week, however, Elon Musk said Tesla’s long-delayed Cybertruck will finally roll off the company’s Giga Texas lot on November 30, when Tesla is now scheduled to begin delivery. However, the company’s CEO cautioned investors against early celebrations.

During the company’s Q3 earnings call on October 18, Musk stressed that both customers and shareholders should “temper expectations,” particularly for the Cybertruck’s initial profitability. Tesla faced various challenges with scaling and ramping up production. Musk went as far as to say, “we dug our own grave with Cybertruck” during the vehicle’s multi-year hype campaign.

[Related: Tesla’s Cybertruck is the latest lofty promise in the world of electric pickups.]

“Cybertruck is one of those special products that comes along only once in a long while. And special products that come along once in a long while are just incredibly difficult to bring to market to reach volume, to be prosperous,” Musk opined, as reported by The Verge on Wednesday.

The Cybertruck base model was initially estimated at $39,900 in 2019, but Tesla is expected to announce updated pricings during its November 30 release event. No price ranges are currently available on Tesla’s website, but customers can still put down a refundable $100 deposit for a Cybertruck with the promise to “complete your configuration as production nears.”

In the meantime, multiple companies have released their own electric truck options, including the Ford F-150 Lightning and Rivian’s R1T. During this week’s Tesla earnings call, the company stated that it had the capacity to produce more than 125,000 Cybertrucks annually. Musk said he saw a potential for Tesla to produce 250,000 Cybertrucks in 2025. Musk said that more than one million people have reserved the Cybertruck so far.

[Related: Here is what a Tesla Cybertruck cop car could look like.]

The product may not be ready, but the concept keeps iterating itself. In September, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison teased concept art for a Cybertruck cop car including EV’s recognizable design beneath red and blue emergency lights, a bull bar, and multiple Oracle logos. “Our next generation police car is coming out very soon,” Ellison, a “close friend” of Musk, said during his presentation at the data service giant’s CloudWork conference to audible murmurs in the crowd. “It’s my favorite police car. It’s my favorite car, actually. It’s Elon’s favorite car.”

Musk’s desire to release an electric pickup truck dates as far back as 2012, when he tweeted he “would love make a Tesla supertruck with crazy torque, dynamic air suspension and corners [sic] like its on rails.”

“That’d be sweet…,” he added at the time.

The post Elon Musk says ‘we dug our own grave with Cybertruck’ ahead of its November release appeared first on Popular Science.

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Best overall		Peerless Auto-Trac Light Truck/SUV Tire Traction Chain		SEE IT	Peerless Auto-Trac chains offer excellent traction while being one of the easiest sets of tire chains to install.
Best for trucks		Security Chain Company Quik Grip		SEE IT	These large chains offer maximum durability to support the weight of heavy duty pickup trucks.
Best budget		Security Chain Company Super Z6 Cable Tire Chain		SEE IT	These large chains offer maximum durability to support the weight of heavy-duty pickup trucks.

When driving on snowy and icy roads, often the one thing that can keep you from getting stuck is a good set of tire chains. These vehicle accessories consist of metal chains that install around the wheels of your vehicle to maximize traction in snowy and icy conditions, making them a necessity for those who live in regions that see extreme winter weather each year. In fact, some states even require snow chains if traveling in certain mountainous areas during extreme winter weather. Finding the right set can be challenging, as not all tire chains are identical. They come in different sizes, materials, and tread patterns to suit different types of vehicles and varying severities of winter weather. Many models are designed to be easy to install, reducing the time one has to spend out in the cold. Learn what features are vital to consider when shopping for these winter weather vehicle accessories and find out why the models below are some of the best tire chains on the market.

• Best overall: Peerless Auto-Trac Light Truck/SUV Tire Traction Chain
• Best heavy-duty: AutoChoice 6 Packs Car Snow Chains
• Best low-profile: Glacier Passenger Cable Tire Chain
• Best for trucks: Security Chain Company Quik Grip
• Best budget: Security Chain Company Super Z6 Cable Tire Chain

How we chose the best tire chains

In reviewing more than 25 sets of tire chains for this article, we considered what sets best suit vehicles ranging from smaller cars to large SUVs and heavy pickup trucks, keeping the following considerations in mind:

Traction: Although traction isn’t the only thing, it’s clearly the most important factor in tire chains. We chose only models that provided ample traction.

Durability: I only included chains made from steel alloys that could hold up to supporting the weight of a vehicle in difficult weather conditions. This included traditional tire chains and those that use steel rollers or coils.

Installation: Tire chains are typically installed in extreme winter weather on the side of a road or in a snow-covered driveway. With this in mind, we only chose tire chains that one could capably install in these conditions. Tire chains with self-tightening features outranked those that required manual tightening.

The best tire chains: Reviews & Recommendations

Whatever kind of vehicle you drive, you don’t want to go out in the winter without the best tire chains, because even the best heated gloves, socks, and vests (even a battery-powered electric blanket) don’t keep you as comfortable as getting home and out of the storm safely. We’ve rounded up the best options on the market. from heavy-duty to budget-friendly picks.

Best overall: Peerless Auto-Trac Light Truck/SUV Tire Traction Chain

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Why they made the cut: This pick eliminates the major headache with tire chains—putting them on—with an innovative design that essentially automates the installation process, making them one of the most user-friendly options on the market.

Specs

• Material: Manganese alloy chain
• Shape: Diamond
• Size options: 14 to 20 inches

Pros

• Easy to install
• Excellent traction with a diamond-shaped pattern
• Durable steel alloy construction

Cons

• A little on the heavy side

Tire chains generally aren’t user-friendly. Most require you to jack the car up to properly tighten them to the wheel, which often involves paying someone else to do the work. That’s not the case with Auto-Trac’s Peerless tire chains, which use a tensioning system that automatically tightens the chains to the wheel. To install, simply attach the internal cable to the tighteners that run around the outside sidewall of the tire and begin driving to activate the ratcheting system that tightens the chains.

The diamond pattern of this set of chains not only facilitates the automatic ratcheting system, creating a tight grip around the tires, but it also makes for better performance by creating more surface area and improving traction.

In addition to being easy to install, this set is durable, thanks to its manganese steel alloy construction and heavier gauge chain links. Of course, that gauge also makes these chains on the heavy side at 15 pounds for the set. With sizes ranging from 14 to 20 inches, this set of chains is one of the more versatile options on the market, capable of fitting light trucks, SUVs, and cars.

Best heavy-duty: AutoChoice 6 Packs Car Snow Chains

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Why they made the cut: The thickness and coverage of these chains take the traction one can get from a set of tire chains to another level. And while the installation may take longer, it’s less complicated.

Specs

• Material: Steel
• Shape: Squares
• Size options: 14 to 20 inches

Pros

• Heavy-gauge chains provide optimal traction
• Separate pieces make them easier to install
• Fits a wide variety of tire sizes

Cons

• Installation is more time-consuming
• Expensive

One look at this set of tire chains from AutoChoice, and one can see that they are much beefier than other models, thanks to sets of six thick chains for each tire. With their thicker gauge and square design, these chains dig into snow and ice to provide ample traction. The chains are divided into six separate pieces per wheel—a six-pack—which attach independently. The chains have thick straps that consist of tendon material that thread through the rims and tighten to the wheel in a similar fashion to ratcheting tie-down straps.

This design has both positives and negatives. By having separate pieces, they’re easier to install, as there is no need to untangle and line up a single stretch of chain or jack up the wheel. Simply apply one set, then move on to the rest. On the flip side, attaching six separate sets of chains to each wheel is time-consuming.

While this set of tire chains is on the pricier side—you’ll need to buy a set of six per wheel—it does include some useful extras, including two pairs of gloves, a long hook to help with mounting, and a fiber-absorbent towel.

Best low-profile: Glacier Passenger Cable Tire Chain

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Why they made the cut: Although there is a trade-off in traction, we love the low-profile design of this set of chains, which makes them suitable for most cars.

Specs

• Material: Steel rollers
• Shape: Square
• Size options: 14 to 20 inches

Pros

• Fits type S low-profile vehicles
• Lighter weight makes them easier to install
• Affordably priced

Cons

• Traction isn’t as good as standard tire chains

Tire chains can be tricky with passenger vehicles with S clearance, which means there is limited space between the wheel well and the tire. Adding the additional thickness of snow chains can damage the car as the chains scrape against the wheel well when the suspension flexes. In fact, some car manufacturers will even void warranties if they find that a car has used chains that are too bulky for the wheel well.

Glacier solves that problem by creating tire chains that aren’t really chains at all. Glacier’s tire chains actually consist of a set of hardened steel rollers that run perpendicular to the tire treads and secure to a thick gauge wire cable that runs the circumference of the tire’s outer sidewall.

The result is a tire chain with a low enough profile that it can fit S-clearance passenger vehicles. And, at 6 pounds, these chains are also easier to install than heavier sets. Keep in mind that there is a trade-off. While these roller-style chains will improve vehicle traction for snowy weather, they don’t provide the same traction as a set of traditional tire chains.

Best for trucks: Security Chain Company Quik Grip

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Why they made the cut: Though they may be tougher to install, you can’t argue with the fact that these chains offer the superior traction and durability that heavy-duty trucks driving on snow-covered roads require.

Specs

• Material: Alloy steel chain
• Shape: Square
• Size options: 15-20 inch

Pros

• Durable all-chain construction
• CAM tightening system makes installation easier
• Thicker gauge chains provide superior traction

Cons

• Harder to install than other types
• Won’t work with low-clearance vehicles

Larger trucks and SUVs require heavy chains that won’t break under intense weight or extreme conditions. Thanks to their durability, these thicker steel alloy manganese chains are one of the best options for full-size trucks. They’re even rated to work with farm equipment and dual-wheeled trucks.

Security Chains’ tire chains have a square configuration design, which provides maximum start-up traction. We like this set in particular because of the integrated CAM tightening system that eliminates the need to use tensioners to tighten the chains. The Quik Grip chains that don’t have this feature are less expensive, but we think it’s worth the additional cost to save the hassle of purchasing tensioners separately.

Even with the CAM tightening system, these chains are more difficult to install than other options, but the superior durability and traction they offer make them a must-have for heavy-duty trucks that face severe winter weather. Remember that these chains won’t fit trucks with S-class clearance requirements.

Best budget: Security Chain Company Super Z6 Cable Tire Chain

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Why they made the cut: These tire chains are inexpensive and versatile, capable of fitting most cars, trucks, and SUVs. We also like the design, which makes them easier to install than other tire chains by eliminating the need for manual tightening.

Specs

• Material: Alloy steel coils
• Shape: Diagonal
• Size options: 14 to 20 inches

Pros

• No need to manually tighten
• Low profile makes them compatible with most vehicles
• Affordably priced

Cons

• Steel coils do not provide as much traction

This versatile set of tire chains from Security Chain is easy to install, affordably priced, and will fit vehicles with restricted clearance around the wheels. They consist of alloy steel traction coils thinner than standard chains, making them compatible with most cars. They only require a quarter-inch of sidewall clearance, so they’re suitable for most cars and SUVs as well as trucks.

These tire chains are also easier to install than other models thanks to rubber connectors that hold the coils taught, eliminating the need to tighten the chains manually.

This set of chains also preserves handling better than bulkier chains while preserving such important safety features as anti-lock brakes, traction control, and all-wheel drive. Keep in mind there is a trade-off. The low profile and limited coverage of the coils do provide less traction than larger sets of tire chains.

Things to consider before buying tire chains

Traction

Perhaps the most important trait to consider is how well the chains will keep you from getting stuck. The rule of thumb is rather straightforward when it comes to traction. The thicker the chain and the more coverage on the tire tread, the better the traction. Chains with heavier gauge steel links will dig into snow better than coils or rollers, providing better traction. Keep shape in mind as well: Square-shaped chains may provide better traction for getting started but diamond-shaped chains provide better directional traction, which means better handling.

Material

Please pay attention to what the chains are made from, which will determine their durability. Generally speaking, a steel alloy with manganese is considered “high strength” steel, which can better withstand the pressures exerted on it when functioning as a tire chain. While chains may have superior strength, steel alloy rollers and coils are also quite strong. In addition to the chains, pay attention to other materials they use to hold them in place. While rubber and thick nylon straps may be durable enough for cars and light trucks, heavy-duty trucks require all-chain construction.

Size

Size is important because the tires must be compatible with the size of the tires on your vehicle. Tire chains are not one size fits all. Most models of tire chains come in a broad range of sizes to suit different tire sizes. Tire chain manufacturers include size charts that correspond to the model numbers of their products. Check the size of your tires (printed on the sidewall of each tire) and match that size to the right model tire chain.

Installation

Most likely, you’ll be installing tire chains in inclement weather, so it’s important to purchase chains that you can install as quickly as possible. If you have a car or small truck, consider purchasing a set of tire chains that are self-tensioning. Self-tensioning chains take a little more work to install initially, but they don’t require you to tighten (and retighten) the chains manually.

FAQs

Final thoughts on the best tire chains

• Best overall: Peerless Auto-Trac Light Truck/SUV Tire Traction Chain
• Best heavy-duty: AutoChoice 6 Packs Car Snow Chains
• Best low-profile: Glacier Passenger Cable Tire Chain
• Best for trucks: Security Chain Company Quik Grip
• Best budget: Security Chain Company Super Z6 Cable Tire Chain

Choosing the right tire chains requires finding a product balancing good traction and easy installation. The Peerless Auto-Trac Light Truck/SUV Tire Traction Chain excels on both fronts, making it one of the best all-around tire chains you can put on your car or truck. If you’re looking for a set of chains to outfit your heavy-duty pick-up truck, then consider going with Security Chain Company Quik Grip, which offers superior traction and durability.

Why trust us

Popular Science started writing about technology more than 150 years ago. There was no such thing as “gadget writing” when we published our first issue in 1872, but if there was, our mission to demystify the world of innovation for everyday readers means we would have been all over it. Here in the present, PopSci is fully committed to helping readers navigate the increasingly intimidating array of devices on the market right now.

Our writers and editors have combined decades of experience covering and reviewing consumer electronics. We each have our own obsessive specialties—from high-end audio, to video games, to cameras, and beyond—but when we’re reviewing devices outside of our immediate wheelhouses, we do our best to seek out trustworthy voices and opinions to help guide people to the very best recommendations. We know we don’t know everything, but we’re excited to live through the analysis paralysis that internet shopping can spur so readers don’t have to.

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You are more than a data point. The Opt Out is here to help you take your privacy back.

AMERICANS SPEND A LOT of time in cars. Whether you have a long commute, enjoy riding with friends as they drive around, or just like sitting in the parking lot for a bit of solo time, a car might feel like an extension of your home—an intimate space for you to sing out of tune or seek silence in the middle of your day.

Unfortunately, if you’re in a car that was manufactured within the past few years, that environment isn’t as private as you think it is. Carmakers have been adding sensors, cameras, and microphones to their vehicles to improve safety and usability, but these bits of tech are also collecting a hefty amount of data that the automotive industry and other companies are selling and sharing. And don’t think this applies only to car owners: Your privacy is also at risk if you rent a car or are simply sitting in a passenger seat.  

These newer cars know what you say, where you go, and possibly even whom you’re sleeping with and how often. It’s scary, but what’s scarier is that consumers currently have little choice but to consent. 

More than computers on wheels

Cars have been equipped with onboard computers and sensors for a while now. The tools’ applications have always been rather practical—letting you know when your fuel tank is close to empty or when your machine is due for an oil change, even allowing you to get full system diagnostics via Bluetooth. But as technology advanced, so did the role of electronics within every vehicle. Now cars can help you master parallel parking, respond to your voice commands, and even alert you to the presence of other drivers as you change lanes.

“A lot of this can be used as safety features, but [car companies] are not going to let the opportunity to collect data and make money off of that slip away. They’re not just doing it for safety,” says Jen Caltrider, program director for Privacy Not Included, a series of privacy-focused consumer product reviews, at the Mozilla Foundation. 

The same navigational tool that guides you to your destination, for example, is collecting your location data, and the sensors that show which passenger hasn’t buckled up can tell if you’re alone or not, where people are sitting, and if there’s any movement. Those capabilities alone provide hundreds, if not thousands of data points every day that go straight to the car manufacturer’s servers. It’s hard to tell if any of that information is encrypted or not, Caltrider says.

Other than what your car’s sensors and cameras track, manufacturers also learn about you from other sources. If you’re buying a car, the data harvesting starts with every visit to the dealership or the brand’s website, and it continues when you enlist the help of a bank or some other type of financial institution to pay for your car. Then, when you drive home in your new ride, manufacturers keep gathering data through the car’s app. You can choose not to use the app, but it’s likely you’ll lose access to any vehicle features that require it, such as remote ignition. And then there’s what Caltrider and her team call “connected services,” including insurance companies and navigation and entertainment apps like Here and Sirius XM, which have basically become data brokers in the vehicle data industry. The bad news is that it’s unclear exactly how the information flows, how it’s shared, and where and how it’s stored. 

Your car might know too much about you

In September, Caltrider and her research team at the Mozilla Foundation launched an in-depth analysis of the privacy policies of 25 car companies doing business in the US, including the most popular ones: Toyota, Ford, Chevrolet, and Honda. The results? The Mozilla team labeled cars the worst product category it has ever reviewed for privacy.

When you read the privacy policy for any app or device, it’s common to feel confused. Tech companies have been writing privacy policies for decades, and they generally include broad or vague terms that make you feel as if they care about your data—or at least don’t make it obvious that they don’t. Car privacy policies are different: way more explicit and entirely absurd.

“Car companies are moving into the tech company world,” Caltrider says. “But they’re so inexperienced at it and it really shows.”

One of the wildest privacy policies in the Mozilla Foundation’s report is Nissan’s, which requires users to consent to the collection of sensitive information including sexual orientation, sexual activity, health diagnosis data, and genetic information. The document also says this data can be sold or disclosed to third parties for targeted advertising. It’s not clear how exactly Nissan is collecting this data or if it’s currently capable of doing so, but the fact that you’re agreeing to all of this by simply buying a Nissan is problematic enough. 

And these requirements don’t affect only drivers and car owners, as consent is murky territory in the land of vehicle privacy policies. For one thing, cars don’t grant the same control over data collection that your phone does. Most of the time, car owners will see a request for permissions on a single screen that pops up when they first set up their new car, and they may not be able to go back to it and revoke those permissions later on. 

That also means there’s assumed consent from anybody who steps inside the vehicle. Privacy policies like that of Subaru make it clear that terms and conditions affect everyone on board, regardless of whether they’re the vehicle’s registered owner or not. This means that the company burdens Subaru owners with the responsibility of informing all their passengers about the privacy policy and assumes that people are agreeing to it just by stepping into the car. It’s a safe bet that no ride-share driver or courteous coworker has ever read you a long list of types of data collection you needed to consent to before they’d give you a ride home. 

Car manufacturers, vehicle data hubs, and other actors in the industry, like insurance companies, calm concerned drivers and passengers by promising that the data they collect and save is anonymized, meaning it cannot be traced back to specific people. While anonymizing data is a common practice that’s meant to protect individuals’ privacy, research has shown that it’s not always effective and that the owner of any anonymized data can be easily re-identified when the information is combined with other datasets. This is especially true when location data is involved, Caltrider says. 

As we’ve mentioned, targeted advertising is one of the main uses car companies and third parties have for collecting data with vehicles, but it’s not the only one. More than half of the manufacturers analyzed in the Mozilla Foundation’s report say they can “share your information with the government or law enforcement in response to a ‘request.’” This leaves a lot of room for abuse, as there are no details about whether this request can be as informal as a call or an email to the right person, or if it must be a powerful document, like a court order. 

Unlike with home security cameras, it’s hard to tell exactly how many times these companies have responded to requests from police and other law enforcement agencies. But a 2021 Forbes investigation revealed that both Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had been requesting information from three companies in the vehicle data industry, including General Motors, which is the parent company of Buick, Chevrolet, Cadillac, and GMC. 

Regulation is the answer

The automotive industry in the US is huge—it brought more than $156 billion to the US economy in 2022, and more than 75 percent of Americans own a car. You’d imagine that such a rich market would include several car brands privacy-savvy users can choose from, but the Mozilla Foundation report is categorical: When it comes to data protection, they’re all bad. 

This leaves people who need to buy a new car with little choice but to consent to data collection. And it leaves their passengers with even less choice. Because it’s not only luxury vehicles that come equipped with sophisticated sensors and cameras—classic sedans like the Toyota Corolla and family SUVs like the Ford Escape also have them. As much as we’d like to say there’s an individualistic DIY way to snatch back your privacy, there’s not. You’ll have to appeal to the powers that be.

“Get mad and contact your elected officials,” says Caltrider. “It’s past time the US had a strong federal privacy law.”

She also recommends not using your car’s app, but acknowledges that this is a bandage solution and might not be an option for some people. Some of the features people need, like being able to warm the car in cold weather by turning it on remotely, require the use of the software. 

Using our power as constituents and asking our elected officials for laws that protect our data is the best chance we have of taking back the intimacy we once found inside our vehicles. Car companies simply aren’t going to change on their own—just like tech companies, they have no incentives to do so.

“And it’s not like they have a long history of ethical behavior,” Caltrider says. “They have quite the opposite.”

Read more PopSci+ stories.

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There used to be a joke that if Microsoft made cars, your car would crash twice a day for no reason at all. But the reality of software-defined cars (that is, vehicles in which clever coding has as much say as masterful machining in determining a car’s characteristics) is demonstrated by the 2024 Chevrolet Corvette E-Ray, whose smart software lets the car’s new electric motor deliver supplemental power to the front wheels so imperceptibly that the driver would have trouble guessing that the latest version of America’s sports car has all-wheel drive.

That’s because the Corvette’s signature 6.2-liter, overhead-valve, LT2 small block V8 is still roaring, powering the rear wheels with its 495 horsepower, just like in the base Stingray model. But now there’s that 160-hp electric motor up front, running off a 1.9 kilowatt-hour array of LG lithium-ion batteries deftly tucked into the car’s central tunnel.

This $104,295 vehicle is a regular hybrid-electric, with no external power plug, so the battery is small and gets its juice entirely from the gas engine and from regenerative braking that turns the electric motor into a generator when the car slows. Having that extra 160 hp and 125 lb.-ft. torque on tap is “like having a nitrous oxide tank that fills itself,” remarked chief engineer Josh Holder, referring to the “NOS” gas made famous by The Fast and the Furious movie franchise for giving combustion engines a burst of extra power.

The quickest Corvette ever

But rather than the explosive power delivery from NOS, the E-Ray’s omnipresent electric motor “torque fill” just makes the car constantly more muscular. This power, combined with the traction of all-wheel-drive, makes the E-Ray the quickest Corvette ever, with a 0-60 mph acceleration of 2.5 seconds and a 10.5-second quarter mile time.

Those times are achieved using the E-Ray’s Performance Launch mode, which uses the car’s various software-controlled systems to optimize power delivery from the gas and electric motors to deliver the fastest possible acceleration.

The driver can keep the E-Ray’s battery topped off so that it is ready to deliver that boost by pressing the Charge+ button. If you ever watch Formula 1 races, you’ll see a car’s rear light flashing when the driver is building the state of charge in its battery in preparation for a passing attempt on a car ahead. The E-Ray’s Charge+ button on the center console, down by the driver’s right thigh, ensures that the battery’s virtual NOS tank is fully topped off with electrons.

The Corvette Z06 we tested last year is nearly as quick, but that car produces its power with more noise and drama. The E-Ray appeals to the enthusiast who wants a comfy ride that also happens to be ludicrously fast. And if you need to sneak out of your neighborhood in the morning without annoying the neighbors, let the small block V8 sleep late and cruise out on electric power alone using Stealth mode to reach speeds as high as 45 mph.

Other driving modes with pre-set performance parameters include Tour, Sport, Track, and Weather. Each of those optimizes the car’s sound, power delivery, stability control, traction control, and dynamically adjustable magnetic suspension damping to match those conditions. Additionally, drivers can select their own preferences in My Mode and Z Mode.

Driving the Corvette E-Ray on and off the track

The E-Ray rolls on the same wide wheels wrapped in meaty Michelin rubber and enclosed by the same 3.6-inch wider fenders as the Z06, but the rubber on those wheels is Michelin’s Pilot Sport all-season tire to make the E-Ray compatible with rain and snow. I didn’t encounter those conditions on the roads around Denver or during my track drive at Pikes Peak International Raceway, but I could feel the E-Ray’s stability and surefootedness.

In addition to the all-weather tires, the E-Ray is also available with the same Michelin Pilot Sport 4S summer tires as are used on the base Stingray version. And as on that car, these excellent tires provide the consistent grip, comfort, and durability drivers want in everyday driving. And as I found track testing the Stingray, these tires are really not at home on the track, where they quickly turn hot and greasy compared to true track tires, losing their grip after thrashing through just a few hard corners.

No matter, that’s not the E-Ray’s purpose. Yes, it is fast, but the similarly priced Z06 ($111,295) is the weapon of choice for track rats. The E-Ray is for drivers who want that kind of speed in a car they can enjoy every day in comfort.

Even with its all-wheel-drive traction, the E-Ray is not penalized by sluggish steering response on corner turn-in, as is typically the case with cars that route power through the front wheels. That’s because the computer is smart enough to know when and how much power to send from the electric motor to the front wheels.

It can even let the driver induce a drift in corners, spinning the rear wheels without the front-drive power interfering with the sideways-sliding fun. That car-straightening front power is welcome when driving home from work in bad weather, but it can spoil the fun on the track, so the E-Ray knows when to have the electric drive step back and let the V8 do the work.

A weighty issue 

Just as the E-Ray rolls on the same wide wheels as the Z06, it also packs the same Brembo carbon ceramic brakes inside them to help slow the car. This is in addition to the E-Ray hybrid-electric regenerative braking, which does much of the car’s stopping. 

But the big brakes are important, because while the hybrid system adds braking power, it also adds mass. Chevrolet says the E-Ray weighs 3,774 pounds as a coupe and 3,856 pounds as a convertible, which means that it is about 350 pounds heavier than the Z06 and 400 pounds heavier than the Stingray.

This is in spite of a huge effort by the car’s engineering team to minimize the weight penalty of the electric motor and battery pack. “We put the highest bounty on weight of any car we’ve ever done,” recalled Holder. Even with that effort, electric motors and batteries are still heavy. “It is the heaviest Corvette we’ve ever done,” Holder acknowledged, adding, “but it is the lightest hybrid we’ve ever done.” 

The E-Ray matches the slower Stingray’s EPA fuel economy rating of 19 mpg in combined driving, with a score of 16 mpg city and 24 mpg highway. The Z06’s rating depends on the exact equipment, but it is either 14 mpg or 15 mpg in combined driving. City driving in either case is a dismal 12 mpg.

The added mass is low in the chassis, with the electric motor between the front wheels and the battery pack in the central spine running between the seats in the cockpit, so the center of gravity is low. Engineers mask that weight with savvy chassis control with the magnetically controlled adaptive dampers and the aforementioned massive brakes, so the E-Ray never feels heavy on the road.

As with the seamless power delivery, credit the brainy calibration by the Corvette team’s programmers in creating the reality of their choice rather than the one suggested by physics. It turns out that software-defined vehicles are far better than the old Microsoft joke predicted.

Take a look at my track drive, below:

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This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here.

Leading American electric vehicle makers Tesla and Rivian are supporting a controversial pact between carmakers and automotive repair organizations that critics say is an attempt to undermine legislation that would make it easier for Americans to fix their cars.

For several years, the American car industry has been feuding with automotive service groups and right-to-repair advocates over who should control access to telematic data, information about speed, location, and performance that cars transmit wirelessly back to their manufacturers. Many in the automotive repair industry say this data is essential for fixing today’s computerized cars, and that it should be freely available to vehicle owners and independent shops. Increased access to telematic data, repair advocates argue, will drive down the cost of repair and keep vehicles on the roads for longer. This is particularly important for EVs, which must be used as long as possible to maximize their climate benefits and offset the environmental toll of manufacturing their metal-rich batteries.

These arguments have led members of Congress from both parties to introduce a bill called the REPAIR Act that would grant car owners, and the mechanics of their choosing, access to their telematic data. But the auto industry, which stands to make billions of dollars selling telematics to insurers, streaming radio services, and other third parties, contends that carmakers should be the gatekeepers of this data to avoid compromising vehicle safety. 

In July, ahead of a congressional hearing on right-to-repair issues, an automotive industry trade group called the Alliance for Automotive Innovation announced it had struck a “landmark agreement” with repair groups regarding telematic data sharing — an agreement that ostensibly preempted the need for legislation. A few weeks later, Tesla and Rivian, neither of which is a member of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, announced their support for the agreement. The only problem? Major national organizations representing the automotive aftermarket and repair industries weren’t consulted about the agreement, don’t support it, and claim it won’t make cars easier to fix.

The new agreement “was an attempt by the automakers to distort the facts of the issue and create noise and confusion in Congress,” Bill Hanvey, president of the Auto Care Association, a national trade association representing the aftermarket parts and services industry, told Grist. The Auto Care Association is among the groups that was not consulted about the agreement.

This isn’t the first time the auto industry and repair professionals have reached a voluntary agreement over right-to-repair. 

In 2002, the Automotive Service Association, one of the signatories on the new agreement, struck a pact with vehicle manufacturers to provide independent repair shops access to diagnostic tools and service information. Then, shortly after Massachusetts passed the nation’s first right-to-repair law focused on vehicles in 2013, manufacturers and organizations representing the aftermarket, including the Auto Care Association, signed a memorandum of understanding, or MOU, nationalizing the requirements of the law. That law granted independent mechanics explicit access to vehicle diagnostic and repair information through an in-car port. 

Gay Gordon-Byrne, executive director of the right-to-repair advocacy organization Repair.org, believes automakers signed the 2014 MOU “in order to prevent more legislation—and particularly more legislation that they would not like.” Automakers objected to including telematics in the 2014 MOU, according to Hanvey. “Because, at the time, the technology was so future-looking, the aftermarket agreed to get a deal in place,” he said.

Telematics is no longer technology of the future, however. Today, manufacturers use telematic systems to collect reams of real-time data related to a vehicle’s activity and state of health, potentially allowing manufacturers to evaluate cars continuously and encourage drivers to get service from their dealers when needed. Independent mechanics, meanwhile, need drivers to bring their vehicles into the shop in order to read data off the car itself—if the data is accessible at all.

In 2020, Massachusetts voters passed a ballot measure called the Data Access Law requiring carmakers to make telematic repair data available to owners and mechanics of their choosing via a standard, open-access platform. Shortly after voters approved it, Alliance for Automotive Innovation sued Massachusetts to stop the law from going into effect, arguing that it conflicted with federal safety standards. The federal judge overseeing the lawsuit has delayed ruling multiple times, keeping the requirements in legal limbo for nearly three years. In June, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell decided to begin enforcing the law, lawsuit notwithstanding. 

While fighting Massachusetts’ Data Access Law in court, automakers were also negotiating their own rules on data sharing. The agreement that the Alliance for Automotive Innovation announced in July included the imprimatur of two repair groups: the Automotive Service Association, a not-for-profit advocacy organization that lobbies states and the federal government on issues impacting automotive repair, and the Society of Collision Repair Specialists, a trade association representing collision repair businesses. 

Dubbed the “Automotive Repair Data Sharing Commitment,” the new agreement reaffirms the 2014 MOU by requiring carmakers to give independent repair facilities access to the same diagnostic and repair information they make available to their authorized dealers. In a step beyond the 2014 MOU, the new agreement includes telematic data required to fix cars. But carmakers are only required to share telematic repair data that “is not otherwise available through a tool,” like the in-car port used today, “or third party-service information provider.”

Because of those caveats, critics say, the agreement effectively changes nothing about telematic data access: Carmakers are still able to decide what data to release, and in what format. Independent shops may still be forced to read data off cars that manufacturers and their dealers have immediate, over-the-air access to, or they may have to subscribe to third-party services to purchase data that dealers receive at no charge. 

What’s more, the qualification about dealerships suggests Tesla and Rivian wouldn’t have to provide any telematic data whatsoever, since neither company works with dealers. That’s especially problematic, Hanvey said, considering both companies make cars that rely heavily on telematic systems. In a pair of class action lawsuits filed earlier this year, Tesla customers alleged that the company restricts independent repair by, among other things, designing its vehicles so that maintenance and repair work rely on telematic information Tesla exclusively controls. 

“The EVs are much more technological, much more reliant on code, and the repairs are much more complicated,” Hanvey said. “It’s difficult enough getting them repaired today, and if you take out the aftermarket, it’s going to be even more challenging for consumers.” 

Neither Tesla nor Rivian responded to a request for comment.

The voluntary nature of the agreement weakens it further, critics say. The Massachusetts Data Access Law and the REPAIR Act under consideration in Congress—which would also require manufacturers to give vehicle owners direct, over-the-air access to telematic repair data via a standard platform—would carry the force of law. By contrast, “there’s no distinction about what happens if this MOU is violated,” Hanvey said. 

Gordon-Byrne told Grist in an email that carmakers haven’t universally complied with the 2014 MOU. “And outside of Massachusetts there isn’t any statute to force compliance,” she said. 

“The problem,” Gordon-Byrne continued, “is lack of enforcement. If the parties don’t like the arrangement—they can talk about it once a year.” Indeed, the new agreement includes a yearly review of the terms by the signatories, as well as the establishment of a panel that will meet biannually to discuss any issues parties have raised regarding repair information access and to “collaborate on potential solutions where feasible.”

The Automotive Service Association and the Society of Collision Repair Specialists don’t represent all of the stakeholders who care about telematic data, which in addition to carmakers, dealers, and mechanics, includes companies that sell and distribute aftermarket parts. In fact, these two signatories appear to represent a small slice of the auto repair industry, which included more than 280,000 U.S. businesses this year, according to market research firm IBIS World. The Automotive Service Association did not provide membership numbers when Grist asked, but there were 1,243 U.S.-based businesses listed in its online directory as of this week. (Several major carmakers are also affiliated with the group, including Nissan, Ford, and Audi.) The Society of Collision Repair Specialists, which didn’t respond to Grist’s request for comment, includes approximately 6,000 collision repair businesses, according to its website. 

The Auto Care Association, meanwhile, represents over half a million companies that manufacture and sell third-party vehicle parts, and service and repair cars. And it’s not the only group that feels the new agreement doesn’t go far enough: So does the Tire Industry Association, which represents roughly 14,000 U.S. member locations that make, repair, and service tires, MEMA Aftermarket Suppliers, representing several hundred aftermarket parts manufacturers, and the Auto Care Alliance, a group of state and regional auto service provider networks with 1,200 members across the country. None of these groups was consulted in advance about the new agreement.

The data sharing agreement “is history repeating itself once again,” Ron Turner, director of the Mid-Atlantic Auto Care Alliance, said in a statement, referring to the voluntary industry agreements of 2002 and 2014, which the organization claims stymied national legislation and have not been adequately enforced. The groups promoting it, Turner said, “are slowing down much-needed legislation and enforcement the automotive industry has needed for decades.”

The Alliance for Automotive Innovation feels differently about voluntary agreements. Brian Weiss, vice president of communications at the trade organization, told Grist in an email that the 2014 MOU “has been working well for almost a decade” and the new data-sharing agreement builds off it. Weiss declined to respond to specific criticisms of the agreement, offer examples of telematic data that carmakers would have to release as a result of it, or explain why the Auto Care Association, a signatory on the 2014 agreement, wasn’t included in the new one.

Robert Redding, a lobbyist for the Automotive Service Association, told Grist that voluntary agreements have worked for its members, too, citing the service information agreement the group negotiated with carmakers in 2002. (The Automotive Service Association was not a party to the subsequent 2014 MOU.) The new agreement, Redding said, was the result of a yearlong negotiation process, and he believes parties came to the table “in good faith.”

“We feel very good about the agreement,” Redding said. “This worked for service information, and we believe it’ll work for vehicle data access.” 

The groups backing the new agreement are already using it to argue that further regulation is unnecessary. In a September 22 court filing in the lawsuit concerning the Massachusetts Data Access Law, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation touted the agreement as evidence of the car industry’s “ongoing effort to ensure that consumers enjoy choice with respect to the maintenance and repair of their vehicles.” 

Several days later, at a September 27 hearing of the House Energy Subcommittee on Innovation, Data, and Commerce, Automotive Service Association board of directors chairman Scott Benavidez testified that the new data sharing agreement “nullifies the need for the REPAIR Act.” It was similar to an argument the group made nearly 20 years earlier when it opposed a national right-to-repair act for vehicles, arguing that the voluntary agreement it negotiated with carmakers in 2002 rendered legislation unnecessary.

Dwayne Myers, CEO of Dynamic Automotive, an independent auto repair business with six locations in Maryland, was disappointed to see the Automotive Service Association publicly oppose the REPAIR Act. Myers has been a member of the organization for about a decade, but he says he wasn’t consulted about the new agreement in advance of its release and he doesn’t believe it should be used to undermine laws guaranteeing access to repair data.

“They could have just remained quiet and let their MOU sit there—they didn’t have to oppose the right to repair,” Myers said. “To me it just felt bad. Why as an industry aren’t we working together, unless you’re not on our side?”

This article originally appeared in Grist at https://grist.org/transportation/tesla-and-rivian-signed-a-right-to-repair-pact-repair-advocates-are-skeptical/

Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org

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On May 30, Canadian defense company Roshel Defence Solutions officially launched its new armored troop transport, the Senator model Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle. Part of the launch was surviving a series of tests to prove that the vehicle can protect its occupants. 

The testing was conducted by Oregon Ballistic Laboratories and done to a standard called NATO “STANAG 4569” level 2. (STANAG means “standard agreement,” and 4569 is the numbering of that agreement.) What that means in practice is that the Senator MRAP is designed to withstand a range of the kinds of attacks that NATO can expect to see in the field. These include bullet fire from calibers up to 7.62×39mm at roughly 100 feet (30 meters). Why 7.62×39mm caliber bullets? That’s the standard Soviet bullet, which has outlasted the USSR itself and is common in weapons used across the globe.

In addition, STANAG 4569 dictates that the vehicle must survive a 13 pound (6 kg) anti-tank mine activated under any of the vehicle’s wheels, as well as survive a mine activated under the vehicle’s center. Beyond the bullets and mines, the vehicle also has to withstand a shot from a 155mm high explosive artillery shell burst landing 262 feet (80 meters) away. 

All of this testing is vital, because a troop transport has to advance through bullet fire, keep occupants safe from mines, and travel through an artillery barrage. That NATO standards are designed to withstand Soviet weapons is a convenience for any equipment exports aimed at Ukraine, but also means the vehicles are broadly useful in conflicts across the globe, as an abundance of Soviet-patterned weaponry continues to exist in the world. 

To showcase the Senator MRAP in simulated attack, Roshel released two videos of the testing. The first, published online on May 29, features a bright green checkmark in the corner, “all tests passed” clearly emblazoned on the video as clouds of destruction and detonations appear behind it.

A second video, released June 16, shows the Senator MRAP in slow motion enduring a large TNT explosive hitting it on the side. The 55 lbs (25kg) explosive is a stand-in for an IED, or Improvised Explosive Device. IEDs were commonly used by insurgent forces in Iraq against the United States, and in Afghanistan against the NATO coalition that occupied the country for almost 20 years. While anti-tank mines tend to be mass-produced industrial tools of war, IEDs are built on more of a small scale, with groups working in workshops generally assembling the explosives and then placing them on patrol routes.

It was the existence of IEDs, and their widespread use, that prompted the United States to push for, develop, and field MRAPs in 2006. Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles were not a new concept. South Africa was one of the first countries to develop and field MRAPs in the 1970s, putting essentially a V-shaped armored transport container on top of an existing truck pattern. The resulting “Hippo” vehicle was slow and cumbersome, but could protect its occupants from explosives thanks to the V-shaped hull deflecting blasts away. 

MRAPS did not guarantee safety for troops on patrol, but they did drastically increase the amount of explosives, or the intensity of attack, needed to ambush armored vehicles.

“The presence of the MRAP also challenged the enemy, since the insurgents had to increase the size of their explosive devices to have any effect on these more survivable vehicles. The larger devices, and longer time it took to implant them, increased the likelihood that our troops would detect an IED before it detonated,” Michael Brogan, head of the MRAP vehicle program from 2007 to 2011, told the Navy’s CHIPS magazine in 2016.

The Senator MRAP features, like its predecessors, a V-shaped hull. It also benefits from further innovations in MRAP design, like mine-protected seats, which further reduce the impact of blast on their occupant. Inside, the Senator can transport up to 10 people, and Roshel boasts of its other features, from sensor systems to weapon turrets. For as long as IEDs and mines remain a part of modern warfare, it is likely we can expect to see MRAPs transporting soldiers safely despite them.

Watch one of the tests, below:

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Lamborghini, the brand that started making supercars to compete with Ferrari 60 years ago, is starting a new era. Steeped in a history of loud and powerful V8, V10, and V12 engines, the Raging Bull has launched its first “high performance electrified vehicle,” a hybrid called Revuelto. 

While watered-down performance may be a possibility for some mass-produced cars, that’s not going to fly for Lamborghini. Instead of backing down to a smaller engine and tacking on an electric motor, the brand opted to attach two motors to the front and one to the back and matched them to a new V12, the lightest one the automaker has ever built. Then Lamborghini whipped up a recipe for a battery that regenerates so quickly that it never gets all the way down to zero, and added a plug-in port for good measure.

All in, the system adds up to an astonishing total of 1,001 horsepower and more than 800 pound-feet of torque. That officially makes it the most powerful plug-in hybrid on the market. Lamborghini started from the ground up for this car, fashioning a new carbon fiber structure (picture a Lego base plate upon which brick houses are built) made to be as light as possible. And then it went to work making sure the Revuelto was as technologically advanced as it could be with its electronics.

To top it off, the Revuelto is also registering a significant emissions reduction, which Lamborghini says tops 30 percent over its predecessor, the Aventador. For a supercar, this is a big deal. The Revuelto is capable of about 6 miles in all-electric range, which loud-engine-averse neighbors will appreciate as the car pulls away in silence. 

Can the Revuelto still carry the brand’s name with pride, even as a hybrid? Here’s what we think after driving it on the Autodromo Vallelunga track in Rome, Italy.  

Melding design and engineering

Hybrids are hot right now, as are EVs. But Lamborghini has not gone soft and bent to the market, says the brand’s chief technical officer, Rouven Mohr. The small-batch automaker has created a hybrid that harnesses electric power without diluting the car’s core power, and that’s no small feat.

“To us, hybrid doesn’t mean sacrificing performance,” Mohr says.

Mohr, along with his team and the stylings of head of design Mitja Borkert, started with the V12 engine as a centerpiece. Lamborghini fans equate the sound of its iconic powerplant with the full experience, and erasing that part of the brand’s DNA wasn’t an option, Mohr emphasizes. 

Borkert also went to work creating a body shape that evokes ghosts of models past. After commissioning 17 exploratory models that filled up his studio, Borkert took inspiration from Lamborghini’s Countach and Diablo, along with elements from fighter jets and Ducati superbikes. He raised the roof and added more legroom than the Avendator, the Revuelto’s predecessor, making it easier to get in and out.

[Related: The new Lamborghini Revuelto is a powerful hybrid beast]

Along with a riot of Y-shaped designs repeated throughout the car on the headlamps and on the dash, Borkert suggested an opening that leaves the engine bay exposed. Not only does it look cool, he says, it serves an important purpose: natural engine cooling. Lamborghini also opted to implement a long, skinny battery that is easily cooled from the outside to the center; heat management is a key factor for performance.

Tire-maker Bridgestone contributed to the Revuelto by creating bespoke performance Potenza Sport tires with wide footprints and grippy tread, especially the top-level option that is equally capable on the road as they are on the track.

“It’s not an easy car to fit tires,” Mohr says. “It weighs more [than the Aventador] and the power profile is huge.”

Lamborghini zooms in on technology

Lamborghini may have been seen more for its muscle and brawn than its brains in the past, but that’s changing, as well. The new Revuelto features intelligent torque distribution that balances the weight precisely from side to side and front to back so that cornering feels planted.

Aventador enthusiasts may say the Revuelto loses the raw edge of its older sibling, but after a day on the track, I say the new setup polishes the diamond. Even hurling the car toward the corner after a breathtaking straightaway, I never felt as though I could lose control. The massive carbon ceramic brakes gave the hybrid the stopping power it needed and gave me the confidence to push it. 

Plus, the infotainment system upgrade is the best I’ve seen in a Lamborghini, equipped with Alexa connectivity and a set of widgets on the modest screen that can be rearranged and shared with the passenger on their own screen.

The real test is on the road and the track. While Lamborghini says it isn’t pursuing the crown for the fastest car on the planet (Mohr wryly says the race for best lap times in the supercar world is a “little bit crowdy” at the moment), it’s still lightning quick. But the best part is the feel of the drivetrain, which is completely seamless between the V12 and its electric helpers. Pressing the accelerator down in Corsa (track) mode and getting to 150 miles per hour on a straightaway is ridiculously smooth and quick. Top speed in the new supercar is 350 kilometers per hour (about 218 miles per hour).

Lamborghini is looking toward the future with the Revuelto, and it’s looking very good. The brand has been logging record sales, and with an all-electric concept—the Lanzador—on the table and a plug-in Urus SUV confirmed, it’s not looking back.

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It has been more than two years since former Audi CEO Markus Duesmann announced that after 2026, the automaker will develop only battery-powered models. Audi’s plan is to have more than 20 fully electric models in its portfolio by 2025. The carmaker has already started down this road by investing about 18 billion euros ($19 billion and change) in electrification and hybridization.

In the process, Audi is pursuing battery technology that optimizes energy efficiency. Its primary focus for innovation is solid state batteries, which use solid electrolytes instead of liquid. The brand designs, develops, and checks battery cells and battery components on its own at its battery testing center in Gaimersheim, Germany. It recently transitioned its battery packs from winding to a stacking configuration, where the cells are stacked neatly, like a layer cake, to increase the overall capacity. 

More capacity means greater range. And better range makes these vehicles more marketable in a competitive, burgeoning market. Any advantage between today and the sometime-in-the-future implementation of solid state batteries is a coveted position. 

Here’s how it works.

Stacking adds density, thus energy

The German brand is known for agile, sleek vehicles that consistently earn high marks for performance and handling. As part of the Volkswagen group along with Porsche and even Lamborghini, Audi is in good company. Audi (along with the other brands in the group) has ratcheted up its EV goals, seeking the best ways to leap ahead of its competitors, and battery stacking is the latest mark of progress.

[Related: Why solid state batteries are the next frontier for EV makers]

In new EVs like the Q8 e-tron, electrodes in lithium-ion cells are thin foils which are traditionally wound into a structure called a jelly roll, Audi explained to PopSci. These jelly rolls can be either round for cylindrical cells or flat for prismatic cells. In prismatic cells, the utilization of the inner volume is limited due to the rounded edges.

By stacking single electrode sheets into larger stacks, more of the cell’s inner volume can be used, increasing the cell’s capacity. This allows Audi’s EVs to make better use of the physical space per cell, as was previously the case with winding technology.

Imagine it this way: in winding, the cell material is wrapped around a roll and squeezed together into a rectangular shell. During stacking, the electrode layers are superimposed to completely fill the rectangular space so that the cell has about 20 percent more active material, which increases the capacity. Cramming more electrons into the space equals overall improved range. A total of 12 battery cells form a module and 36 modules make up a battery system, protected by cube-shaped aluminum housing.

For the Q8 e-tron SUV and Sportback, Audi engineers created a battery pack that delivers about 20 kilowatt hours more gross capacity over 2023 models. Now, the battery offers 114 kWh instead of the 95 kWh on the previous battery tech. And incredibly, it doesn’t take up any more space than the old battery pack. As a result, 2024 Q8 e-tron owners can get 30 percent more range. The Q8 Sportback S-Line e-tron with the ultra package gets 300-plus miles. Even the standard Q8 e-tron SUV is good for 285 miles (296 for the Sportback) so it’s pretty close. 

The 2023 model served up a 222-mile EPA-estimated range for the standard SUV and 218 miles in Sportback form. For the 2024 Q8 e-tron, the EPA estimates it’s good for 285 miles for the SUV and 296 miles for the Sportback model. An optional Ultra package, available only with the Sportback, features a smaller wheel and tire package with low-rolling-resistance rubber and retuned suspension that gives it a lower ride height for added efficiency, and this setup delivers the magical 300-mile EPA estimate.

Pros and cons to stacking 

Like most new technologies, there are advantages and disadvantages to consider, Audi says. The advantage of this new stacking method allows for more active material to be implemented into lithium-ion cells, resulting in greater capacity, energy, and power. The disadvantage is a slower production process, resulting in higher cost.

Ultimately, Audi opted to prioritize the advantages over the disadvantages, a brand representative shared with PopSci.

Audi cell technicians had a dual goal of packing as much energy as possible into the stack while still having the ability to recharge it as quickly as possible. However, more density requires more time to charge compared to previous, less-dense batteries. This latest achievement also comes with a side of improved battery chemistry that Audi says has a better charge curve, which allows it to hold higher charging rates for longer.

At its battery testing site in Gaimersheim, Audi also runs a construction facility for prototype batteries. Here, employees build the high-voltage batteries from the ground up all the way to pre-series production. The goal for the next iteration will involve greater integration of the cells into the battery pack, reducing overhead, optimizing the battery’s design, and increasing the overall vehicle’s efficiency with the newest cell technologies.

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As I’m riding through the wilds of southwest Colorado, up through Cinnamon Pass at over 12,000 feet in altitude, I’m thinking about the suspension on the Polaris Xpedition UTV (utility task vehicle) I’m piloting.

Yes, of course I’m also intently focused on the dirt road as we navigate across narrow cliffside paths and splash through mud puddles. But the premium Fox shocks in this off-road vehicle keep my tires planted as they flex with the ground beneath me, absorbing the dips, bumps, and rocks at an impressive rate. The all-new Xpedition, launched this May, seems to eat rocks for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Here’s how it does that. 

Machined shocks 

Outdoorsy people—those who like camping, fishing, hunting, hiking, biking, and more—occupy Polaris’ sweet spot. The company says the 2024 Polaris Xpedition is best described as an “adventure side-by-side” as opposed to the utility vehicles used on ranches and farms or the recreational vehicles you might see tearing across sand dunes in California. Side-by-side in this case means it has at least two seats, which you don’t see in some all-terrain vehicles like quad bikes or snowmobiles.

This vehicle has a flat roof made for carrying kayaks, fishing poles, traction boards, and rooftop tents, all available as accessories. After driving the Xpedition all day and then testing out the rooftop tent to camp out next to a waterfall, I concur that it checks all the boxes. When carrying just two people, the vehicle’s second row can be folded down to hold even more stuff, or the Xpeditioncan accommodate five people and less cargo. It’s also now available as a completely-enclosed UTV with both warm and cool climate control, the only side-by-side on the market to do so.  

“We started from the ground up with a one-piece frame, which is going to make it a lot stronger,” Polaris sales manager Eric Borgen says. “Our older products had frames that would bolt together in the middle; having that one piece frame is obviously going to make it a lot more rigid, which is also going to help make sure that our roll cage doesn’t flex.”

Layered into the new frame, the FOX Podium QS3 shocks are one of the key factors for a smooth ride. The shocks use “position sensitive spiral technology,” and that means two things. One, the equipment uses damping force, which controls vibration; and two, spiral grooves inside the shock body allow fluid to flow around the piston assembly, refining the movement.

“If you look inside of the actual shock body and you take it apart and you look down the barrel, it’s very similar to what people do to rifles,” Borgen explains. “They’ve machined a groove—a corkscrew—in the body. So when the piston is going up and down inside the shock body, it allows the fluid to bypass the valving.”

What that means is when driving 20 miles an hour through rocky trails, or over a washboard road, a typical passenger vehicle would toss your head around inside the cabin uncomfortably. With these shocks, the ride in the Xpedition is smoothed out in a noticeable way. Instead of a handful of zones that get progressively stiffer, the UTV’s shocks are machined for a consistently composed ride for the passenger at various speeds and road conditions. Indeed, the only time I felt a significant impact across 100 miles in the San Juan mountains was when a rock got loose under me and hit the underside. The Xpedition crunched along and left it in the dust.  

GPS off the grid

One thing that can strike fear into the heart of a new off-roader is getting lost. As more and more people explore the great outdoors (the trend has ticked noticeably upward in the last several years) they’re looking for ways to do it safely, and Polaris’ contribution to that is its Ride Command technology. 

Ride Command provides a built-in GPS navigation and wayfinding system that works even if you’re out of cell coverage zones. It includes a million-plus miles of verified trails and allows riders to plan a route before heading out. Even more importantly, it can be set up as a group ride so the vehicles can band together and see each other on the map as a color-coded dot. 

As Borgen, a desert-racing champion himself, led our group on a pre-established route, I could see at a glance on the map display in front of me how far ahead he was and what speed he was going. As a result, if I saw that he was slowing way down to let vehicles pass from the other direction (riders going uphill have the right-of-way on the trails) I could adjust even before I could see him through my windshield.  

There is one thing Borgen tells our group before we set out, and it’s the most important thing we need to know above and beyond all of the technology and engineering: how to be a considerate off-road driver. Some drivers have sparked animosity by going too fast on the trails and creating an uncomfortable environment for others, squarely placing a spotlight on the industry. 

The Polaris representative stresses the magnitude of being a considerate consumer, watching out for those who don’t like the noise and the dust off-highway vehicles carry with them. In that vein, the company is working toward more electric vehicles, like its new 2024 Ranger XP Kinetic. 

“Hikers are trying to enjoy the public land too,” he says. “So slow down; don’t dust ’em out, please. We don’t want to ruin our places to ride, because even though Jeeps and dirt bikes and side-by-sides are all different, we’re all doing the same thing and we all need to work together to maintain our lands.” 

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As gas-guzzling cars are replaced by their electric counterparts, tailpipe emissions are on the decline. But cars have other negative impacts on environmental health, beyond what comes out of their exhaust pipes.

One of the bigger, and lesser known, problems is tire pollution—or “tire and road wear particles,” in industry terminology.

Tires shed tiny particles with every rotation. Tire wear happens most dramatically during rapid acceleration, braking, and sharp turns, but even with the most conservative driving, particulate pollution is an unavoidable consequence of car use. And it’s a problem that’s poised to get worse as drivers transition to EVs.

“We’re pushing for decarbonization by going to battery electric vehicles, and in doing so we’re pushing up tire wear emissions … which is going to prove difficult to solve,” said Nick Molden, founder and CEO of Emissions Analytics, a London-based company that performs independent tests on cars’ real-world tailpipe and tire emissions. Molden pointed out that tailpipe exhaust is dramatically reduced by filters and catalytic converters, which use chemical reactions to reduce pollution. Meanwhile, tires are a fundamentally open system, so there is no viable way to capture the polluting particles that fly off of them.

Emissions Analytics found that a single car sheds almost nine pounds of tire weight per year, on average. Globally, that amounts to six million metric tons of tire pollution annually, with most of it coming from wealthier countries where personal car use is more prevalent.

The amount of tire pollution emitted per vehicle is increasing as more electric cars hit the road around the world—some 14 million of them this year, according to the International Energy Agency. EVs tend to be significantly heavier than gas-powered or hybrid cars due to their larger, heftier batteries. The average battery for an EV on the market today is roughly 1,000 pounds, with some outliers approaching 3,000 pounds—as much as an entire gasoline-powered compact car. Emissions Analytics has found that adding 1,000 pounds to a midsize vehicle increased tire wear by about 20 percent, and also that Tesla’s Model Y generated 26 percent more tire pollution than a similar Kia hybrid. EVs’ more aggressive torque, which translates into faster acceleration, is another factor that creates more tire particulate mile for mile, compared to similar internal combustion engine cars.

Tire particulate is a toxic slurry of microplastics, volatile organic compounds, and other chemical additives that enter the air, soil, and water around trafficked areas. The rubber, metals, and other compounds coming off tires settle along roads where rain washes them into waterways. Smaller bits of tire particulate linger in the air, where they can be inhaled, and the smallest of this particulate matter—known as PM 2.5, because each particle is 2.5 micrometers or less — can directly enter the bloodstream. A 2017 study estimated that tire wear is responsible for 5 to 10 percent of oceanic microplastic pollution, and 3 to 7 percent of airborne PM 2.5 pollution. 

One particularly concerning chemical in tires is 6PPD, which is added to virtually all tires to prevent rubber from cracking. But in the environment, 6PPD reacts with ozone to become 6PPD-quinone, a substance that has been linked to salmon die-offs in the Pacific Northwest. A 2022 study confirmed the compound is also lethal to rainbow trout and brook trout.

Further research has shown that the chemical is absorbed by edible plants like lettuce and has the potential to accumulate in them. A study in South China found both 6PPD and 6PPD-quinone in human urine samples. The human health effects of the chemical are not yet understood, but other chemicals found in tires have been linked to problems ranging from skin irritation to respiratory problems to brain damage.

Given the intensifying realities of climate change, phasing out gas-powered vehicles rapidly is a must. But experts say the U.S. and other wealthy countries can accomplish this while also mitigating the environmental and health problems caused by EVs’ increased tire wear—namely by curbing car use overall.

Foremost, local policymakers can take steps to make U.S. cities less cripplingly car-dependent. Although that might sound like a daunting task, there’s historical precedent: The Netherlands used to be dominated by cars and experienced a higher rate of traffic fatalities than the U.S., until activist groups like Stop de Kindermoord (“Stop Child Murder”) mobilized in the 1970s to let policymakers know that they wanted less traffic on their streets. According to Chris Bruntlett, the co-author of Building the Cycling City, policymakers created the low-traffic, bike-friendly Dutch cities we know today by instituting traffic-calming measures. “Officials started with speed-limit reductions, parking restrictions, through-traffic limitations, and lane narrowings and removals,” Bruntlett told Grist.

David Zipper, a mobility expert and a visiting fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, says that city leaders can also remove subsidies for car ownership, such as free residential parking on public streets. “Once car subsidies are removed, fewer people in cities will choose to buy and own them,” Zipper said.

Of course, measures to reduce car use only work in tandem with investments in alternative transportation. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 provided some federal funding for transit and pedestrian and bike infrastructure, but making the most of these funds will require political will from state and local lawmakers. Zipper said that policymakers in some U.S. cities have begun to take positive actions—like Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, who has committed to expanding her city’s bike lane network until 50 percent of the population lives within a three-minute walk of a bike lane.

Another way to reduce tire pollution is to trade big, heavy cars for smaller and lighter ones. Especially in the U.S., cars have grown significantly in size and weight in recent decades. Automakers began promoting SUVs in the 1980s, because a legal loophole allowed vehicles designated as “light trucks” to skirt fuel-efficiency regulations. Nine out of the 10 best-selling cars in the U.S. last year were trucks or SUVs, and the International Energy Agency has found that SUVs were the second largest cause of the global rise in CO2 emissions between 2010 and 2018.

One legislative solution to car bloat is introducing weight-based vehicle taxes, which encourage consumer interest in lighter cars and can be used to offset the cost of increased wear on roads caused by heavier vehicles. France implemented a weight-based car tax in 2021, charging consumers a penalty of 10 euros (about $10) for every kilogram above 1,800 (about 4,000 pounds) that their car weighs. This year, Norway also extended its weight-based vehicle tax to include EVs at a rate of a little more than a euro per kilogram above the first 500 kilograms (about 1,100 pounds) for EVs. Norway also taxes vehicles on their carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides emissions. Taken together, these three taxes have the combined effect of dramatically incentivizing small electric vehicles. 

In the U.S., some states already prorate vehicle registration fees based on weight, and Washington, D.C. recently overhauled its registration system to more heavily penalize larger cars. In D.C., owners of cars heavier than 6,000 pounds now have to pay $500 in annual fees. New York state lawmakers also recently introduced legislation that would similarly incentivize smaller cars.  

Regulators can also take steps to minimize the harm caused by tire pollution — and in California, the process has already begun. In October, a new regulation implemented by the state’s Department of Toxic Substances Control, or DTSC, will require manufacturers of tires on the California market to research safer alternatives to 6PPD. Manufacturers that sell tires in the state are obligated to notify DTSC about products containing 6PPD by the end of November. 

Karl Palmer, deputy director of safer consumer products at DTSC, believes that making tire makers conduct an “alternatives analysis” will ultimately result in products that are safer for the environment.

“We’re using California’s market strength to say, ‘If you want to park here, you’ve got to comply with our rules,’” Palmer told Grist.

This article originally appeared in Grist at https://grist.org/transportation/evs-are-a-climate-solution-with-a-pollution-problem-tire-particles/.

Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org

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Here’s a fast fact you may not know: the Brits have dubbed driving 100 mph “doing the ton.” So it is perhaps appropriate that the British supercar-maker McLaren provided me with the opportunity to go two tons—yes, that’s 200 mph—in the company’s Artura hybrid-electric V6 model.

You remember the Artura from my test drive; it’s a $289,000 mid-engine supercar with 671 horsepower and 531 lb.-ft. torque. McLaren says it’ll accelerate to 60 mph in 3.0 seconds and through the quarter-mile in 10.7 seconds. For reference, if a car can do that run in less than 10.0, drag strips require a protective roll cage.

But when people look at a supercar and ask, What’ll it do? they mean top speed. Could the Artura reach the two tons of 200 mph?

It is hard to achieve top speed because, well, it is illegal on public roads outside portions of the German autobahn, and most race tracks don’t have straights long enough to achieve terminal velocity.

Enter the Sun Valley Tour de Force. This is an annual fund-raising charity event in Idaho’s Sun Valley ski region. With a hiatus for Covid, this year’s event was the sixth running of the Tour de Force, which, in exchange for a $2,950 entry fee, lets drivers take a blast along about a mile and a half of state route 75 just north of Ketchum to see how fast they can go. GPS transponders provide official results. The organization raised $1,000,000 this year for the benefit of The Hunger Coalition in Idaho.

I don’t know about you, but when I envision top speed runs, I think of the vast, desolate salt flats in Nevada and Utah. That’s not this. Route 75 is a rural two-lane highway, the sort that adventurous travelers seek out when avoiding the monotony of interstate driving.

[Related: An inside look at the data powering McLaren’s F1 team]

The road is relatively narrow and has little in the way of a shoulder on either side. The surface is old and uneven. The route isn’t even straight. Or flat!

Instead, the cars launch from a start line and drive about half a mile up a slight hill into a fast, gentle left turn that ends with a quick blind crest and then a drive onto the slightly downhill mile straight that is called Phantom Hill to the finish line. The checkered flags marking the finish are in a place called Frostbite Flats, which sounds like where your game piece goes for punishment in Candyland.

The prospect of driving faster than I’ve ever gone before in this setting is daunting. However, the event’s speed record is 253 mph, set by a driver in a Bugatti Chiron, so it is possible to go very fast on this road.

It is the sort of drive I’ve long since decided I wouldn’t do. Cars tend to become like aircraft with no control surfaces at speeds higher than about 150 mph. A generation ago, Car & Driver magazine senior technical editor Don Schroeder was killed during a 200-mph run on a test track, maybe due to a blown tire or seized wheel bearing.

I’ve briefly touched 180 mph at the end of the front straight at Estoril, former site of the Portuguese Grand Prix, in a McLaren Senna and a Lamborghini Aventador SVJ. Both of those cars have thoroughly sorted aerodynamics that kept them stable and on the ground at those speeds. The McLaren engineers were similarly thorough with the design of the Artura, which gave me confidence that the car wouldn’t take flight. This, and the chance to hit 200 mph, sealed the deal. I’d do it!

There is no practice run, though I did have the chance to drive on the highway the day before to scout the lay of the land and the condition of the asphalt. Talking it over with retired Formula 1 driver Stefan Johansson, who McLaren has brought in to drive another one of their cars, I set the powertrain mode to “Track” and put the suspension model on “Comfort” for compliance on the bumpy two-lane highway.

Event organizers station spotters along the route to watch for wildlife or spectators getting too close to the route and provide me a radio for reports of any trouble ahead. The police close off the road at both ends of the course long enough for each run. Mine will take 52 seconds.

Sliding into the Artura’s driver’s seat, I realize the benefit of gull-wing doors, which open the space above the seat when the door is open so it is easier to get in and out while wearing a helmet. I struggle to get my helmet-clad noggin under the roofline, but I’m comfortable once inside.

I’ve made sure to drive the car in the battery regeneration mode on the way to the event, so the hybrid-electric drive system’s battery pack stands at an 80 percent state of charge for the run. As a plug-in hybrid-electric, the Artura’s battery pack could have been fully charged ahead of time, but I couldn’t get a place to plug it in in the hotel’s garage. The ambient temperature is 50 degrees, perfect for making maximum power from the combustion engine.

Sitting behind the wheel, I can see spectators watching from the boundary 100 yards back from the road. In the tall grass, they look like wildlife photographers on the African savanna. By tradition, the first car away is the fellow with the vintage Volkswagen Rabbit pickup truck. He gets close to 90 mph every year and keeps coming back for more.

Next away is a woman in a modified McLaren 720S, whose 218-mph top speed proves to be the fastest time of the day, as warmer temperatures later prevent her father, the car’s owner, from topping her speed.

Then is Johansson, in the brand-new McLaren 750S. He hits 200 mph on the official scoreboard. Two tons!

Then it is my turn. Officials wave me off from the start line, and the Artura squirms, fighting for traction on the launch. It is at triple-digit speeds almost immediately and I ease off the gas as I bend into the left turn, looking for a clear view when I top the peak of the blind crest.

As I clear the hilltop and mat the accelerator pedal, I can’t even make out the finish line flags in the distance, out there on Frostbite Flats. But I do steal a glance at the speedometer: 172.

That seems like a solid foundation for building speed over the next mile. In the cockpit, the Artura sounds great. A hundred yards away from the road, McLaren Houston general manger Pablo Del-Gado is watching. After my run he excitedly reports that from the sidelines, the Artura’s 120-degree V6 was the best-sounding car of the day.

Now at serious speed, I place the Artura in the center of the road. Fortunately, as an arid area, Idaho builds very little water-draining crown into their roads, so there is no concern about getting too far from the centerline and having the car tug its way toward the ditch.

The Artura’s suspension absorbs the bumps and the steering tracks true, with the car going exactly where I want, but things have gotten busy. The drive plays out like a scene from the original Mad Max, when budget-limited director George Miller sped up the film for dramatic effect.

Modern sports cars are programmed to deliver maximum performance for the situation, so I’ve left the transmission in fully automatic mode. Most cars do not achieve their top speed in top gear because that takes the engine rpm out of the peak of the power band. I didn’t realize the Artura would shift to top gear when my foot was on the floor, seeking more speed, so in retrospect, I wish I’d shifted manually and left it in sixth gear rather than letting it upshift to seventh.

Hammering down the straight, the Artura pulled quickly from 172 mph to 199 mph on the speedometer. And stayed there. Thanks to what felt like time dilation in my situation, the digital display seemed to sit maddeningly near 200 mph for minutes. Finally, “199” flickered to “200.”

The speedometer stayed at 200 mph all the way through the finish line. That seemed sufficient to ensure the official results captured that outcome.

Coasting down from 200 mph, previously ludicrous speeds now seem pedestrian. Organizers have warned us to make extra effort to shed speed so that when we approach the parking lot at the end of the run, we are at a speed that is actually safe rather than one that seems safe to a driver who is pumped up on adrenaline and whose perception is distorted by having recently hit two tons.

I get to the parking lot, where attendants point me to my parking slot. Heading over to the official timing and scoring display, I get crushing results from the GPS: 194.98 mph. Not two tons. Dammit. Apparently, the Artura’s speedometer is slightly optimistic. By 2.5 percent, it looks like.

But the in-car GoPro captured the dashboard display, which shows “200.” I have photographic proof of having achieved that speed, even if it comes with a really big asterisk.

Weeks later, organizers whimsically sent me an official-looking speeding ticket from the Blaine County Sheriff’s Office, citing me for my official top speed of 194.98 mph. It is the first time I’ve ever wished for a bigger number on a speeding ticket.

Watch a video of my drive, below:

The post Driving a McLaren at 200 mph is a thrilling, dangerous experience appeared first on Popular Science.

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Tesla’s Cybertruck isn’t even available to the public yet, but concept art for a Cybertruck cop-car made its appearance in Las Vegas on Wednesday. During a presentation by Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison at the data service giant’s CloudWork conference, a massive screen showed off the EV’s recognizable, angular design beneath red and blue emergency lights, as well as a bull bar and multiple Oracle logos.

But as Inside EVs noted on September 21, the rendering features misplaced bumper lights and rear wheels, while also missing the vehicle’s single, massive windshield wiper. Although this could indicate the project is early on in its development, Ellison promised its imminent debut.

“Our next generation police car is coming out very soon,” Ellison said to audible audience murmurs. “It’s my favorite police car. It’s my favorite car, actually. It’s Elon’s favorite car.” 

[Related: What TikTok’s deal with Oracle could mean for user security.]

“Among other things, it’s very safe, very fast, it’s got a stainless steel body, and we don’t have to add a screen or cameras to it because we can actually use their existing cameras and existing screen to put our application on it,” Ellison continued.

Both Oracle and Tesla already work alongside law enforcement, providing cloud support software and electric vehicles, respectively, for forces in Wisconsin, California, and elsewhere. Ellison has also called Musk a “close friend” in the past, and previously sat on Tesla’s board of directors. According to Ellison’s presentation, the first Oracle-integrated police cars already include voice-activated, retrofitted third-party “Tesla-like” screens, but the company plans to leverage the Cybertruck’s existing camera systems and monitors. 

First unveiled in 2019 and promised to arrive in 2021, Tesla has since delayed the Cybertruck multiple times while also increasing its estimated price tag. At last check, production and delivery were slated to begin by the end of 2023, although that deadline now appears dubious. During the EV’s debut event, Tesla vehicle designer Franz von Holzhausen threw metal balls at a prototype Cybertruck to demonstrate its “Armor Glass” windows, causing the driver side windows to shatter.

“The ball didn’t make it through,” Musk joked at the time.

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From the start, Tesla has eschewed traditional manufacturing, design, and sales models, and the company’s latest move could involve revolutionizing the production of its snub-nosed EVs, as a recent Reuters story reports. Previously, the EV giant proved it could reduce costs and parts by casting the front end and back end of its Model Y as whole sections instead of assembled parts, which Tesla calls “gigacasting,” on brand with its 10-million-square-foot Gigafactory in Austin, Texas.  

Tesla’s next step could be die-casting nearly the entire underbody as a singular piece versus the 400 parts it generally takes to assemble the same section of a conventional car, according to Reuters. As that news organization puts it, if Tesla manages to die cast the whole piece successfully, it would “further disrupt the way cars are designed and manufactured.” 

How does a house-sized die-casting machine work, and can it make that much difference in the industry? Read on to learn more.

How the casting process works

Tesla already uses what it calls a gigapress, an aluminum die-casting machine at its factories in the US, Germany, and China. In very basic terms, molten metal is injected into a mold (the “die”), then cooled, ejected, and trimmed. The die-casting process was originally conceived in the mid-1800s, and automotive companies have used this manufacturing method for decades.

In June, Reuters stated that Tesla also developed an aluminum alloy that allows it to “skip the heat treating traditionally used to increase the strength of the cast part.” That detail might trigger alarm bells, considering the tendency for Tesla vehicles to show signs of lackluster quality control when it comes to fit and finish. However, Ed Kim, president and chief analyst for research firm AutoPacific, believes Tesla approaches its body assembly differently.  

“The areas where Tesla has had issues in terms of quality are typically related to squeaks and rattles and panel fit,” Kim says. “But it has done a great job on innovative manufacturing techniques.”

The entire industry has taken notice, with Toyota, Hyundai, Volvo, and others pledging to explore a similar manufacturing avenue (and calling it “hypercasting” and “megacasting” instead). Large-scale die casting is a tricky process, and some critics point to the fact that a single flaw can compromise the whole piece. On the other hand, using a gigapress (or “megapress” as other automakers may call it) can help preserve profit margins by streamlining the process. 

The cost conundrum

Price is certainly a large factor, and Tesla says it cut related costs by 40 percent, according to Reuters, by using a gigapress on its most popular vehicle, the Model Y. That appeals to other automakers, like Toyota. 

“It doesn’t surprise me that Toyota has taken an interest in [gigacasting], because I’ve always thought of Toyota as a manufacturing company above all else,” Kim says. “Historically, Toyota really set the bar on smart, efficient manufacturing and figuring out ways to take cost out of the process without sacrificing quality.” 

Toyota executives may be kicking themselves for not adopting more large-scale die-casting first, he continues. The process is still very new, however, with much to prove, although automakers will certainly be watching. American companies are especially vulnerable to cost and revenue challenges, and the United Auto Workers’ current strike is creating a new flux in future plans; they may look at what Tesla’s doing and decide to go that route, but the relationship with the factories and those who work there adds a layer of complexity.  

Tesla has promised that a new $25,000 entry-level model is on the horizon, and that will require creative cost-cutting measures across the board, including perhaps the gigapress. 

“It’s so different from the assembly line model,” Kim says. “Given the rumored failures on the Cybertruck, the brand is particularly sensitive to manufacturing costs for its upcoming entry-level car and it needs to keep costs down.” 

The EV company’s ability to pull off using the gigapress on its Model Y contributed to its ability to slash prices, putting the competition on the defensive. Die-casting in this manner is technically difficult to execute and changes are very costly, which is why not everyone is jumping in right away, Kim says. Reducing manufacturing costs in a repeatable manner is the holy grail, he says, and automakers are all keeping an eye on this development. 

“Based on the success of the Model Y, Tesla can potentially pull it off,” he admitted. 

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Honda’s newest electric scooter, called the Motocompacto, looks like a roving suitcase. Announced this week, the Motocampacto is designed to be foldable and lightweight, meaning that the handlebars and seat can be tucked into the suitcase-shaped main body of the vehicle. The idea is that this should make it easy to transport and easy to store. According to Honda, it should be able to reach “a maximum speed of 15 mph and [has a] zero-emissions range of up to 12 miles.” 

Additionally, Motocompacto “can be fully charged in just 3.5 hours in both the folded and ready-to-ride configuration using a common 110 v outlet.” At a price tag of $995, it will be available for purchase later this year. 

The Motocompacto is an updated, electric take on an early ’80s Honda design called the Motocompo. Similarly, the Motocompo was also a collapsible scooter, but it looked more like a handyman’s duffle bag in its condensed form. The intent was that it could fit into the cargo space of the Honda City kei car, presumably so it could serve as a final mile solution, where it carried people to their destination beyond where they were allowed to park a car. 

[Related: Electric cars are better for the environment, no matter the power source]

While Motocompacto should be able to carry out the same jobs as the original model, it comes with more modern conveniences. “Motocompacto is perfect for getting around cityscapes and college campuses. It was designed with rider comfort and convenience in mind with a cushy seat, secure grip foot pegs, on-board storage, a digital speedometer, a charge gauge and a comfortable carry handle,” Honda said in the press release. “A clever phone app enables riders to adjust their personal settings, including lighting and ride modes, via Bluetooth.”

Its wheels and frames are made with heat-treated aluminum, and it has bright LED headlight and taillight, side reflectors, and “a welded steel lock loop on the kickstand that is compatible with most bike locks.” It weighs around 41 lbs, comparable with how heavy a carry-on suitcase typically is. 

[Related: BMW’s electric scooter will hit 75 mph and has motorcycle vibes]

The vehicle is part of Honda’s larger goal to release more electric models of its fleet by 2030, and to sell only electric or fuel cell models by 2040. It joins other major carmakers around the world, like GM, Ford, Hyundai, Volvo, and more, which are all committing to lowering global carbon emissions by offering more new EVs as options for consumers. The Motocompacto is set to be sold in conjunction with the company’s newest lineup of all-electric SUVs, Jane Nakagawa, vice president of the R&D Business Unit at American Honda Motor Co., said in a statement. “Motocompacto supports our goal of carbon neutrality by helping customers with end-to-end zero-emissions transport.” 

Watch an intro video to the Motocompacto below:

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A tiny racing car completely designed and driven by university students has set a new Guinness World Record for fastest acceleration in an electric vehicle. Earlier this month, the miniscule speedster rocketed from 0 to 100 km/h (roughly 62 mph) in just 0.956 seconds, traveling a total distance of 12.3 meters (40.35 feet). The new benchmark time is over a third faster than the previous record set almost exactly a year ago in September 2022 by a team of student designers at Germany’s University of Stuttgart.

Months of design work and testing took place thanks to the members of Academic Motorsports Club Zurich (AMZ), a student organization that has built a new race car every year since its founding in 2006. After three vehicles running on internal-combustion engines, AMZ switched over to completely electric designs in 2010. They’ve adhered to the eco-friendly alternative ever since.

“Working on the project in addition to my studies was very intense. But even so, it was a lot of fun working with other students to continually produce new solutions and put into practice what we learned in class,” Yann Bernard, AMZ’s head of motor, said in the team’s announcement on September 12. “And, of course, it is an absolutely unique experience to be involved in a world record.”

[Related: How Formula E race cars are guiding Jaguar’s EV future.]

The AMZ team’s newest iteration, dubbed mythen [sic], were entirely designed and optimized by the university students. Among its many impressive attributes, mythen boasts a carbon and aluminum frame that keeps the vehicle’s entire weight at just under 309 pounds. Specialized four-wheel hub motors alongside a novel powertrain combined to boost the race car via around 326 hp.

From an aerodynamic standpoint, mythen is so fast and lightweight that it even needed some backup additions to keep it on the race track. Two wings—one in both the front and rear—helped push the car towards the ground. Students meanwhile also designed and installed a “kind of vacuum cleaner” to help hold the vehicle on the road via suction, according to the team’s announcement.

“[P]ower isn’t the only thing that matters when it comes to setting an acceleration record,” said Dario Messerli, AMZ’s head of aerodynamics in a statement, “Effectively transferring that power to the ground is also key.”

Before this month, AMZ set the world acceleration record for electric cars twice already—once in 2014, and two years’ later in 2016. Given how quickly these cars seem to run, as well as how frequently they are redesigned and tested, it stands to reason that the team will probably be fending off competitors in the very near future.

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Best overall		AUTO-VOX T2		SEE IT	With a full-color instruction manual and a complete kit that works with most cars, this dust- and water-resistant camera is the easiest wired install.
Best for RV		Furrion Vision S FOS07TAPM		SEE IT	Offering a four-camera, complete vision design, plus motion sensor tech with microphones, this IP65 camera can handle a crosscountry adventure.
Best budget		LeeKooLuu LK3		SEE IT	Great installation options and above-average weather resistance make you feel like speeding less didn’t mean compromising.

With backup cameras being mandated in newly made U.S. vehicles starting in 2018, it is inevitable that you’ll find yourself in a car with one, if you haven’t already. Whether you’ve been an Uber passenger or used a backup camera in your latest rental car, your immediate reaction may have been to wonder if there is an easy way to retrofit your car with this newly ubiquitous feature. We were curious, too, and spent some time researching what the market has to offer. The good news is that there are a wide number of types, brands, and price levels for the best aftermarket car accessories, and from these, we’ve selected our top picks for the best backup cameras.

• Best overall: AUTO-VOX T2
• Best for Garmin products: Garmin BC40
• Best for RV: Furrion Vision S FOS07TAPM
• Best green: BOSCAM SunGo Pro
• Best for Jeep Wrangler: EWAY Backup Rear-View Spare Tire Mount
• Best budget: LeeKooLuu LK3

How we chose the best backup cameras

Backup cameras are a strange breed, in that what makes a good backup camera is completely different from what makes a good digital camera (or even a good dash cam). While the latter will be all about PPI and the other hallmarks of high-quality imagery, including lenses and the like, the best backup cameras focus on functionality. Don’t get us wrong, we care about high-quality imagery from our backup cameras, too, but in selecting the best backup cameras we reoriented from the basics and sought out the special qualities that make backup cameras function so well. We combined this research with critical reviews, peer suggestions, and user impressions to narrow down our choices to five use cases.

The best backup cameras: Reviews & Recommendations

The following recommendations and write-ups come after some careful review of the aftermarket backup camera market and combine the top picks of today with specific customer needs. As a result, you’re going to see a mixture of great general-use backup cameras and products that only support a particular car model. In this way, we’ve covered at least one product that will work for just about anyone.

Best overall: AUTO-VOX T2

SEE IT

Why it made the cut: The AUTO-VOX T2 has the best features a backup camera can provide, all wrapped up in a simpler design.

Specs

• Connection: Wired
• Power source: Reverse brake light
• Angle of view: 170 degrees

Pros

• Full-color instruction manual
• Easiest wired install
• Complete kit works with most cars
• Dust- and water-resistant camera

Cons

• Only works when in reverse

The incredible specs of AUTO-VOX’s T2 make it the go-to for a simple backup camera experience. The camera, which sits atop your license plate, has a wide view of 170 degrees, automatically adjusts for brightness, is rated IP68 to protect from dust and water damage, and provides vivid night vision colors. These top-of-the-line qualities carry the T2 heavily, but there’s a bit more going on here.

The T2’s internal display also makes it the best rear-view mirror backup camera. Instead of using a separate view panel, the T2 gives you a new rear-view mirror with a special electronic surface. When you engage in the reverse gear, a portion of your mirror turns into a camera display so you can check the digital view and the real mirror view side-by-side. When you shift out of reverse, the panel disappears and you have a full rear-view mirror again.

While the wired connection might put you off as there is a bit of installation work (if that’s you, check out the BOSCAM SunGo Pro, our best wireless backup camera and a solid “green” pick) you should also understand that the wiring on the T2 is in a league of its own. For one, the wires are limited by relying heavily on your reverse brake light’s power. You won’t even need a wire down to your cigarette lighter up front with you. This one-wire design keeps a lot of the trouble away from you and into the rear of your car.

Additionally, the provided kit comes with a lot of gear, including all of the wire casing and clamps you’ll need, plus different bracket adapters to make the T2 compatible with over a dozen of the leading car manufacturers. From Toyota and Nissan to Acura and Cadillac, the T2 will likely work with your car. Between the detailed instruction manual that includes full-color images and the plentiful YouTube videos showing the installation, you’ll be able to handle it.

Best for Garmin products: Garmin BC40

SEE IT

Why it made the cut: The Garmin BC40 wirelessly delivers a clear backup view with easy installation.

Specs

• Connection: Wireless
• Power source: Two AA batteries
• Angle of view: 160 degrees

Pros

• Wireless connection makes for easy installation
• IPx7 waterproof rating
• Offers simple voice command control

Cons

• Requires a separately-sold Garmin Navigator unit to function

The Garmin BC40 is one of the best wireless backup cameras designed for use with Garmin navigator systems, delivering a 160-degree rear view of your vehicle with very little installation effort. The camera unit clips into an included license plate mount and powers on using two separately-sold AA batteries, after which it pairs easily with any compatible Garmin navigation device that’s brought within a 5-foot radius of the camera. After this easy setup process, the camera stays paired at ranges of up to 25 feet, powering on anytime the GPS device is activated and turning off automatically when forward motion is detected. The BC40 also allows users to program custom voice commands for hands-free activation and deactivation, giving it an edge in safety over touch-only backup camera devices.

Best for RV: Furrion Vision S FOS07TAPM

SEE IT

Why it made the cut: The Furrion Vision S is pre-made to attach to over a dozen popular brands of RV and trailer, provides four cameras for complete coverage, and assembles completely wirelessly.

Specs

• Connection: Wireless
• Power source: Wired to marker lights
• Angle of view: 120 degrees x 4

Pros

• Four-camera, complete vision design
• Ready-to-attach mounting
• IP65 dust- and water-resistant
• Motion sensor tech with microphones

Cons

• Expensive

For those of you into mobile homes, RVs, campers, and trailers of immense length, even the thought of stopping for gas can send you into a rage of panic. One spouse at the wheel and the other outside the vehicle aggressively signing to come back, stop, or turn—the whole event is quite stressful.

That’s why you need something more intense for RVs than a standard backup cam … you need four of them! With the Furrion Vision S FOS07TAPM, you’re getting exactly that: four high-quality cameras with night vision and excellent weather resistance that beam images directly to a 7-inch anti-glare monitor. Now you can know your vehicle’s rear-view, as well as make sure your left flank, doesn’t clip that branch as you reverse out of trouble.

The thing that sets Furrion products above the rest is how many more big brands come Furrion-ready compared to others in the market. This includes Keystone, Starcraft, East To West, and Heartland. In other words, many of these models already have mounting brackets installed, at least for the rear camera. Plus, the entire thing is wireless, meaning no drilling through your vehicle to install your RV backup camera.

With all that you’re getting, it should come as no surprise that this is the most expensive product on our list at over a grand, but remember that you’re getting four times the cameras and equipment, so the price largely balances out in the end.

Best green: BOSCAM SunGo Pro

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Why it made the cut: Finally, we have a solar-powered camera option that really works.

Specs

• Connection: Wireless
• Power source: Solar exterior, cigarette lighter interior
• Angle of view: 170 degrees

Pros

• Speedy install
• Low-light night display
• IP68 dust- and water-resistant
• Customer service winner

Cons

• License plate bracket tight

If you’re looking for the most sustainable backup cam, check out the BOSCAM SunGo Pro, which features a solar-powered camera and a low-light night display. It’s all wrapped up in a nature-resistant IP68 shell, as well, so you freely explore nature while putting a little less stress on the environment.

The BOSCAM SunGo Pro is able to be charged from your car’s exterior using a single-crystal silicon solar panel. Also known as monocrystalline solar cells, single-crystal solar panels are the most commonly used and convert sunlight more efficiently than polycrystalline designs. In a worst-case scenario, such as having your car parked under a tree for a week, an alternative USB charge port is available.

One of the things to note about the BOSCAM SunGo Pro is that the bracket mount for the camera, the part that goes around your license plate, is rather tight. Basically, there is a sense that it almost won’t fit, but it does. Don’t let this turn you off of a great product, though, and know that BOSCAM is there for you to help.

Speaking of help, when researching products online, the write-ups often bring up a lot of customer problems. What is much rarer is an honest discussion of solutions that amounts to more than “I fixed it myself.” One of the very promising things about BOSCAM as a company is how often you hear that a customer complaint led to real dialogue and reasonable help from the company.

Best for Jeep Wrangler: EWAY Backup Rear-View Spare Tire Mount

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Why it made the cut: The EWAY modifies the traditional rectangular license plate mount and circle-fies it for the iconic Jeep Wrangler rear spare tire.

Specs

• Connection: Wired (RCA)
• Power source: Reverse brake light
• Angle of view: 150 degrees

Pros

• Made for Jeep Wrangler specifically
• Anti-fog lens
• Low impact installation
• Rearview-mirror display

Cons

• Included instructions lacking

The Jeep Wrangler’s iconic hatchback look, with the large spare tire affixed to the back, creates a sense of style and adventure for the driver but also an immediate problem: Where should I put a backup camera on my Jeep Wrangler? The truth is, the options are somewhat more limited for Wrangler drivers, but the EWAY camera is here to fix that problem by mounting directly behind that spare tire and peering beyond it.

Of course, it takes more than just proper, simple mounting to make something worthy of the title of best backup camera for a Jeep Wrangler. What gives? For one, the camera is in crisp HD, provides a full 150-degree angle of view, and sends the view to a 4.3-inch display on a modified rear-view mirror. It’s also using an anti-fog lens and pulling in an official IP68 rating, making it dust- and water-resistant. Essentially, the EWAY gets carried by stats, numbers, and overall value for the cost.

As far as wired backup camera installations go, the EWAY is relatively low impact. For example, the guideline view can be toggled without cutting, and you are provided with ample cable length. What is difficult is dealing with the instruction manual, which can be a real head-scratcher. Definitely supplement the instructions with a very visual YouTube tutorial.

Best budget: LeeKooLuu LK3

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Why it made the cut: With the LeeKooLuu LK3 you get a 1080p, 149-degree, IP69 camera quality for under $50.

Specs

• Connectivity: Wired
• Power source: Reverse brake light OR cigarette lighter
• Angle of view: 149 degrees

Pros

• Great installation options
• Above-average weather resistance
• Strangely superior camera

Cons

• Unusual angle of view

The LeeKooLuu LK3 is your super-affordable go-to if you’ve gotten used to backup cameras and want quality, but don’t want to spend extra for advanced features when upgrading your old car. Instead, what you’re getting with the LK3 is one of the best backup cameras with a relatively simple system.

Two qualities to immediately look at when assessing the LK3’s camera are picture quality and angle of view. At 1080p, you’re getting a really high-quality backup camera in a sub-$50 shell, which is nothing to sneer at. However, this is where we need to remind you of the more important factor: angle of view. And, wow, the LK3 sports an unusual 149-degree angle of view. If you’ve used a newer car’s built-in 150-degree angle of view and gotten really used to it, this will probably feel just slightly off.

Another unusual feature of the LK3, though this time in a positive way, is the IP rating. IP69 is unusually high for a backup camera, with most peaking at IP68. So, what does an extra numeral mean? Well, for the typical backup camera user, not much. This basically just means that the LK3 can spend extra time underwater, a situation that would be so catastrophic for you that the livelihood of your LK3 would be the least of your worries. At the very least, you can rest assured that the LK3 will survive your next torrential downpour.

Things to consider before buying the best backup cameras

Since a backup camera is going to be installed on your car in some place, oftentimes just behind the license plate, there are a lot of different logistical issues to consider than whether it feels comfortable in your hand like a traditional camera. You’ll also be viewing the typical fish-eye lens in a completely different light when you realize how important angle of view becomes to a backup camera’s functionality. Here’s our in-depth guide for each quality:

Power source

Expect quite a few different power sources for backup cameras. These range from connecting to your rear brake lights to being solar-powered. And that’s just for the camera part! Remember that the internal viewing unit will also need a power source. Again, there’s quite a bit of variation here, from cigarette lighter plug-ins to wires that sneak under your dash. We’ll detail our top picks here, but if you venture out to make your own choice, do the extra time to research this thoroughly so you know what you’re getting into.

Wired vs. wireless

The debate over whether to get a wired or wireless backup camera is another subjective matter. While wireless backup cameras remove the hassle of wires and are just about the only way to go for trailers and exceptionally long vehicles, they do have the potential to introduce more lag into your system. If we lived in a world where people solely relied on backup cameras for backing up, that would be quite dangerous. The reality is, though, that backup cameras are a single tool in a multi-step process of backing up.

If you prefer an essentially lagless wired backup camera, be mindful that the wire will need to connect the camera (on the outside of your vehicle) to the camera inside your vehicle. This might seem like a hassle, but it can be worth it for a quality backup camera, such as our top pick, the AUTO-VOX T2, which also happens to have a streamlined wire system. If you do get a wired model, be sure to check out the instructions thoroughly before attempting to install it to avoid damaging your vehicle.

Angle of view

In this list, you’ll see HD, 1080p, and all other kinds of assorted camera qualities. Remember, though, that these will only help you so much. You aren’t shopping for beginner travel cameras to come with you on vacation; you’re looking for the best backup camera. Instead, the main measure of quality here will be the angle of view.

A high angle of view will allow you to see more in one picture than you could by looking through a single mirror and will greatly reduce the overall chances of danger to your vehicle while backing up. Expect to see values between 150 to 170 degrees for angle of view in high-quality backup cameras.

FAQs

Final thoughts on the best backup cameras

• Best overall: AUTO-VOX T2
• Best for Garmin products: Garmin BC40
• Best for RV: Furrion Vision S FOS07TAPM
• Best green: BOSCAM SunGo Pro
• Best for Jeep Wrangler: EWAY Backup Rear-View Spare Tire Mount
• Best budget: LeeKooLuu LK3

Getting the best backup cameras on your slightly older car does not need to be challenging or take an overly thorough amount of analysis. It is understandable to have some fear in regards to installing a product like this, especially with wired models, but offered with quality instruction manuals, online video tutorials, and even wireless models, backup cameras are indeed for everyone. Lastly, our picks for the top backup cameras, including the fantastic budget option from LeeKooLuu, will suit your needs perfectly well, except in some special fringe cases.

Why trust us

Popular Science started writing about technology more than 150 years ago. There was no such thing as “gadget writing” when we published our first issue in 1872, but if there was, our mission to demystify the world of innovation for everyday readers means we would have been all over it. Here in the present, PopSci is fully committed to helping readers navigate the increasingly intimidating array of devices on the market right now.

Our writers and editors have combined decades of experience covering and reviewing consumer electronics. We each have our own obsessive specialties—from high-end audio to video games to cameras and beyond—but when we’re reviewing devices outside of our immediate wheelhouses, we do our best to seek out trustworthy voices and opinions to help guide people to the very best recommendations. We know we don’t know everything, but we’re excited to live through the analysis paralysis that internet shopping can spur so readers don’t have to.

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Today, Tesla is the industry leader—the automaker with the most EV sales. An updated Model 3 is finally on the horizon, and we’re hoping the company will address some of its quality and finish issues. What we’re hearing is that they will use more luxurious materials in the cabin, an updated dash, and more sound-deadening features like acoustic glass, to start.

But Tesla isn’t the only game in town. There’s also the Aston Martin Lagonda EV, Cadillac’s fully-customizable Celestiq, the Rolls-Royce Spectre, and the upcoming all-electric Chevrolet Corvette. And Automobili Pininfarina’s PURA Vision design concept is breathtakingly good, with a glass dome and French door-like openings that create a cavernous and comfortable way for passengers to enter. These cars are generally for the few and elite, however, and while they’ll move the industry in their own ways, it’s the mass-market EVs that are important for the rest of us.

Let’s take a look at what’s on the horizon for next year.

Volvo EX30

Expected to make its debut later this year, Volvo’s smallest-ever SUV, the EX30, is all-electric. The EX30 will start at $36,145, which is significantly less than its EV predecessors, the C40 Recharge and XC40 Recharge. It’s also smaller than the other two but can match their towing capacity—up to 2,000 pounds. 

Equipped with a 268-horsepower motor, the base model EX30 comes with rear-wheel-drive and will be good for an estimated range of 275 miles. For a higher (to be determined) price, the EX30 will also be available as an 422-horsepower all-wheel-drive model. In either case, Volvo says it will charge up from 10 percent to 80 percent in about 26 minutes on a DC fast charger.

Available in a decidedly non-Volvo color called “moss yellow” along with a handful of other hues, the EX30 will feature renewable and recyclable materials inside. Taking its place in the front of the cabin, a 12.3-inch tablet serves as the infotainment, climate, and vehicle control center, and Calm View reduces the amount of information on display. 

Jeep Recon

We’ve seen Jeep’s future and even took a spin in the 650-horsepower Magneto, Jeep’s Wrangler EV concept. It’s not quite ready for production, yet; after all, the Wrangler is a beloved nameplate and a switch this big requires extra attention to all of the details. Jeep has seen massive success with its hybrid Wrangler 4xe and will keep the momentum going on that model. 

Meanwhile, the brand will start production of the all-electric Recon next year. Jeep has revealed only scant information so far; what we can see is that there will be seating for five and it’ll sport fun Wrangler-like features like removable doors and a power-folding rooftop. This upcoming midsize SUV will be trail-rated, and we expect it to include some of the same goodies as in the Wrangler, like the new trail maps app that debuted this year. No final word on pricing yet, but it’s fair to guess that it will probably start at about $50,000. 

Hyundai Kona Electric

The outgoing Kona is adorable, like a pet Corgi. For 2024, Hyundai sharpened the small SUV’s edges, giving it a leaner, more modern look, and the vehicle is longer and wider than before. Estimated to have a range of between 197 and 260 miles (depending on the battery pack) and powered by a single motor making 133-horsepower, the base model is destined to thrive in city environments. Those wishing for more oomph will want to take a look at the 201-horsepower option. Starting at an estimated $35,000, the Kona EV is in the sweet spot of pricing. 

We’re truly excited about the entire Hyundai EV lineup, which also includes the Ioniq 5 and Ioniq 6. All three models share a pixel theme and a futuristic feel, and it will be interesting to see which of these (or all) advance to the next model year and beyond. 

Mercedes-Benz CLA EV concept

Typically, the words “Mercedes-Benz” and “affordable” pair together as well as fine red wine and Tostitos. The German powerhouse is (kind of) changing that with the upcoming CLA EV concept car. Launching an entry-level EV class will benefit Mercedes-Benz by proving its EV mettle and bringing more fans to the brand, giving them the opportunity to upgrade over time; that’s a smart strategy to attract younger buyers. 

Mercedes-Benz says its new four-door coupe will have a range of 466 miles. It’s worth noting that number is higher than the Tesla Model S, which offers 405 miles, and the only other car on the market right now with more than that is the Lucid Air, at over 500 miles. However, the Air sits solidly in the six-figure price zone, while the CLA EV is predicted to start at about $60,000. That may not sound cheap, but on the Mercedes-Benz scale, it’s extraordinary. It’s unclear how soon the CLA EV will be available, but it looks like it’s going to be next year. 

Honda Prologue, the Chevrolet Blazer EV, and more

Strange stablemates as they may seem, there is a symbiotic relationship between Honda and Chevrolet that will bring us a pair of EVs next year. Honda teamed up with Chevy to use Ultium battery packs (used on vehicles like the GMC Hummer EV and Cadillac Lyriq) on the Prologue, which is a midsize SUV expected to launch in 2024 with a price tag starting in the mid-$40,000s. The Prologue will be offered with a single or dual-motor configuration. We expect Honda to match the range of the ZDX built by its luxury branch, Acura; the ZDX is also powered by the Ultum platform and can go for at least 315 miles. 

On the other side, the Chevrolet Blazer EV will look different from the Prologue and seems to come with a higher price tag, starting in the mid-$50,000s. We can’t wait to get our hands on the SS trim, with an impressive setup that generates 557 horsepower. 

And wait, there’s more to come. We’re looking forward to hearing more about Fisker’s sub-$40,000 Ocean model and Kia’s new upcoming EV9; the EV6 is one of our favorite EVs on the market currently for smooth driving and a terrific cabin configuration. 

Last, but certainly not least, Ford recently announced the 2024 Mustang Mach-E Rally model designed for off-roading, and we can’t wait to get our hands on it. Expected to start at $65,000, the Mach-E Rally boasts two electric motors making 480 horsepower and 650 pound-feet of torque. 

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A comprehensive data privacy assessment of 25 major automakers’ vehicle tech deems cars “the official worst category of products for privacy” that the Mozilla Foundation has ever reviewed. For a bit of context here, every car company analyzed by Mozilla’s security experts failed crucial benchmark safeguards, compared to 63 percent of mental health apps they reviewed this year (which often come with their own serious security risks).

“While we worried that our doorbells and watches that connect to the internet might be spying on us, car brands quietly entered the data business by turning their vehicles into powerful data-gobbling machines,” Mozilla’s researchers explained in their findings announcement earlier this week. Because of this, they warn, vehicles’ “brag-worthy bells and whistles” now possess “an unmatched power to watch, listen, and collect information about what you do and where you go in your car.”

The companies boasting abysmal ratings include pretty much any automaker you can imagine—including Ford, Subaru, Jeep, BMW, Honda, Acura, Chevy, and Nissan, among others—with Tesla ranked dead last on the list. According to the experts, nearly 85 percent of surveyed automakers “share” car owners’ data to data brokers and other businesses. In total,19 of the 25 companies actually sell your personal data to third-parties, while over 55 percent of the carmakers’ Privacy Policies allow them to share your information to government and law enforcement authorities. Such data deliveries can be facilitated via a simple “request” instead of a legal warrant or court order.

[Related: Mental wellness apps are basically the Wild West of therapy.]

If all that weren’t enough, an additional creepy layer further worsens matters. According to Mozilla, at least two companies—Nissan and Kia—include Privacy Policy data categories explicitly labeled “sexual activity” and “sex life.” Exactly what kind of data this entails isn’t clear, but new cars often come equipped with microphones and cameras. Even if this data is somehow anonymized and aggregated, chances are those in the market for a new vehicle might want to take a closer look.

In an email provided to PopSci, a Kia spokesperson explains, “The privacy of consumers is important to Kia… Whether certain information is collected by us depends on the context in which a consumer interacts with us,” before clarifying that, “Kia does not and has never collected ‘sex life or sexual orientation’ information from vehicles or consumers in the context of providing the Kia Connect Services.”

Per Kia’s privacy policy page, “sex and gender information,” as well as “health, sex life or sexual orientation information” may be collected.

A spokesperson for Nissan tells PopSci the company complies “with all applicable laws and provide[s] the utmost transparency,” while stating “Nissan does not knowingly collect or disclose consumer information on sexual activity or sexual orientation.”

“Our privacy policy is written as broadly as possible to comply with federal and state laws, as well as to provide consumers and employees a full picture of data privacy at Nissan,” the spokesperson continues. “Some state laws require us to account for inadvertent data collection or information that could be inferred from other data, such as geolocation. For employees, some voluntarily disclose information such as sexual orientation, but it is not required and we do not disclose it without consent.”

What’s particularly infuriating these findings is that, as Mozilla explains, there simply isn’t much everyday car owners can do about it. Each individualized review of the 25 carmakers includes a section entitled “Tips to protect yourself,” which includes suggestions such as to avoid using a car’s app and limiting its permissions on your phone.

“But compared to all the data collection you can’t control, these steps feel like tiny drops in a massive bucket,” concedes Mozilla researchers. In response, the Mozilla Foundation has launched a petition asking companies to overhaul their massive, apparently unparalleled data collection programs.

Update 9/07/23 1:26 PM: This article now includes statements from both Kia and Nissan.

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Historically, the process of designing vehicles could take years. Starting with initial sketches and ending with the final product, the timeline has included making life-size clay exterior models, doing interior modeling, conducting tests, and more.

During the lockdowns of the global pandemic beginning in 2020, General Motors teams found themselves in a new quandary: moving forward on projects while working remotely, and without physical representation of the vehicles in progress to touch and see. GM had dipped a big toe into using virtual reality to accelerate the development process for the GMC Hummer EV pickup, which launched in October 2020. That gave the team a head start on the Zevo 600, an all-electric delivery van.

Developed by BrightDrop, GM’s breakout business dedicated to electrifying and improving the delivery process, the Zevo 600 went from sketch to launch in January 2021 in a lightning-quick 20 months. A large part of that impressive timeline is due to the immersive technology tools that the team used. The modular Ultium battery platform and virtual development process used for the Hummer EV greased the wheels. 

Here are the details on the virtual tools that helped build the electric delivery van. 

What does it mean to design a vehicle this way?

BrightDrop says it considers itself a software company first and a vehicle company second, and there’s no question it’s pushing the envelope for GM. Bryan Styles, the head of GM’s immersive technology unit, sees the impetus behind this focus as coming from the industry’s increasing speed to market.

“The market continues to move very quickly, and we’re trying to increase the speed while still maintaining a high level of quality and safety at this pace,” Styles tells PopSci. “Immersive technology applies to design space up front, but also to engineering, manufacturing, and even the marketing space to advertise and interface with our customers.”

Working remotely through technology and virtual reality beats holding multiple in-person meetings and waiting for decisions, which can be very challenging as it relates to time constraints. 

“GM’s Advanced Design team brought an enormous amount of insight and technical knowledge to the project, including our insights-driven approach and how we leveraged GM’s immersive tech capabilities,” says Stuart Norris, GM Design Vice President, GM China and GM International, via email. “This enabled us to continue to collaboratively design the vehicle during the COVID-19 pandemic from our offices, dining rooms and bedrooms.”

The project that led to BrightDrop started with a study of urban mobility; the GM team found “a lot of pain points and pinch points,” says GM’s Wade Bryant. While the typical definition of mobility is related to moving people, Bryant and his team found that moving goods and products was an even bigger concern.

“Last-mile delivery,” as it’s often called, is the final stage of the delivery process, when the product moves from a transportation hub to the customer’s door. The potential for improving last-mile delivery is huge; Americans have become accustomed to ordering whatever strikes their fancy and expecting delivery the next day, and that trend doesn’t appear to be slowing down any time soon. In jam-packed cities, delivery is especially important.

“We traveled to cities like Shanghai, London, and Mumbai for research, and it became very apparent that deliveries were a big concern,” Bryant tells PopSci. “We thought there was probably a better design for delivery.”

Leave room for the sports drinks

Leveraging known elements helped GM build and launch the Zevo 600 quickly. As Motortrend reported, the steering wheel is shared with GM trucks like the Chevrolet Silverado, the shifter is from the GMC Hummer EV Pickup, the instrument cluster was lifted from Chevrolet Bolt, and the infotainment system is the same in the GMC Yukon. 

Designing a delivery van isn’t like building a passenger car, though. Bryant says they talked to delivery drivers, completed deliveries with the drivers, and learned how they work. One thing they discovered is that the Zevo 600 needed larger cup holders to accommodate the sports drink bottles that drivers seemed to favor. Understanding the habits and needs of the drivers as they get in and out of the truck 100 or 200 times a day helped GM through the virtual process. 

The team even built a simple wooden model to represent real-life scale. While immersed in virtual technology, the creators could step in and out of the wooden creation to get a real feel for vehicle entry and exit comfort, steering wheel placement, and other physical aspects. Since most of the team was working remotely for a few months early in the pandemic, they began using the VR tech early on and from home. As staff started trickling into the office in small groups, they used the technology both at home and in the office to collaborate during the design development process even though not everyone could be in the office together at once.

The Zevo 400 and 600 (each referring to the van’s cargo capacity in cubic feet) is the first delivery vehicle that BrightDrop developed and started delivering. So far, 500 Zevo 600s are in operation with FedEx across California and Canada. The first half of this year, the company has built more than 1,000 Zevo 600s and are delivering those to more customers, and production of the Zevo 400 is expected to begin later this year.

Maserati did something similar  

GM isn’t alone in its pursuit of fast, streamlined design; Maserati designed its all-new track-focused MCXtrema sports car on a computer in a mere eight weeks as part of the go-to-market process. As automakers get more comfortable building with these more modern tools, we’re likely to see models rolled out just as quickly in the near future. 

It may seem that recent college graduates with degrees in immersive technology would be the best hope for the future of virtual design and engineering. Styles sees a generational bridge, not a divide. 

“As folks are graduating from school, they’re more and more fluent in technology,” Styles says. “They’re already well versed in software. It’s interesting to see how that energy infuses the workforce, and amazing how the generations change the construct.” 

Where is vehicle design going next? Styles says it’s a matter not necessarily of if automakers are going to use artificial intelligence, but how they’re going to use it.

“Technology is something that we have to use in an intelligent way, and we’re having a lot of those discussions of how technology becomes a tool in the hand of the creator versus replacing the creator themselves.” 

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Two self-driving taxis blocked an ambulance on its way to a hospital, potentially contributing to the patient’s death, according to a San Francisco Fire Department report obtained by Forbes. The incident involving two Cruise vehicles occurred on August 14, just four days after state regulators approved 24/7 public availability of autonomous cab services in the city.

[Related: “Cruise’s self-driving taxis are causing chaos in San Francisco.”]

Emergency responders arrived around 10:45 PM at the scene of an accident involving a critically-wounded pedestrian, the report states. While there, however, the Cruise autonomous taxis occupied two lanes of a four-lane, one-way street, forcing a police vehicle in a separate lane to move to make space for the ambulance to leave. 

“The [patient] was packaged for transport with life threatening injuries, but we were unable to leave the scene initially due to the Cruise vehicles not moving,” reads a portion of the official report. “This delay, no matter how minimal, contributed to a poor [patient] outcome… The fact that Cruise autonomous vehicles continue to block ingress and egress to critical 911 is unacceptable.”

Cruise representatives dispute the SFFD report, instead claiming the fleet vehicles did not hamper medical treatment in any way. “The ambulance behind the [autonomous vehicle] had a clear path to pass the AV as other vehicles, including another ambulance, proceeded to do,” a Cruise spokesperson told PopSci. “As soon as the victim was loaded into the ambulance, the ambulance left the scene immediately and was never impeded from doing so by the AV.” In footage provided to The NY Times, EMS maneuvered around a Cruise vehicle roughly 90 seconds after loading the victim into the ambulance.

Public documents obtained by Forbes detail over 70 instances since April 2022 of autonomous vehicles allegedly obstructing a variety of emergency responses—including fires, and restoring electrical services. Despite months of pushback from many residents and city officials, California regulators approved the public usage of autonomous taxi services like Cruise and Waymo in San Francisco last month. Within days of the greenlight, however, the autonomous vehicles reportedly ran stop signs, produced lengthy traffic jams, and recklessly swerved to avoid pedestrians.

Update 09/05/23 12:50 PM: This article has been updated to include a statement from Cruise.

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The divide between the motorcycle and scooter communities has long been deep, as illustrated in the classic 1979 rock flick Quadrophenia, which depicted the strife between the scooter-riding mods and the motorcycling rockers.

Today, there probably aren’t any actual brawls, but you don’t see a lot of crossover between people who ride scooters and those who ride motorcycles. I’m evidence of that because after decades of motorcycling, BMW’s innovative CE 04 electric scooter is my first scooter ride. It was worth the wait to ride the 2023 model, after the bike debuted for the 2022 model year.

The transition is eased by the fact that the CE 04 looks more like a spaceship than a scooter. Think of it as your dainty beach rental scooter augmented by Star Trek tech. Its size and bodywork fooled a good many motorcyclists into giving me the wave as they passed, an acknowledgement not generally extended to pilots of mere scooters.

There are other aspects of the CE 04 that make it much more than a Bermudan rental ride. There is the price tag, which starts at $11,795, as much as two or three times the cost of conventional scooters. And there is the curb weight, which at 509 lbs. is hefty as two or three beach scooter playthings.

To aid with that bulk the CE 04 has a reverse setting, making it easy to back out of the garage or parking space. The CE 04’s low-speed power metering means that twisting the grip only a little in such circumstances makes it easy to move the scooter microscopically. Seriously, it is possible to move the CE 04 a millimeter at a time.

The CE 04’s top speed and range

Fortunately, on the road, it covers ground a bit faster. BMW says the CE 04 is not intended for highway travel, but curiosity got me onto the interstate with it to see what it would do, and when riding in sport mode the CE 04 easily zooms up to 70 mph and holds that speed effortlessly. BMW says the top speed is 75 mph, but I have reason to believe it can actually go a bit faster than that.

Of course, the faster and further you go, the more you’re going to burn through the battery’s storage. Much distance at that speed will have the rider testing the CE 04’s Level 2 240-volt charging speed to refill the depleted 8.5 kWh battery pack. The battery is mounted at the very bottom of the frame for a lower center of gravity. It uses air cooling through the attached finned heat sink on the pack’s underside, benefiting from airflow beneath the scooter.

BMW says it will take about an hour to reach an 80-percent state of charge from a completely dead battery pack using 240-volt charging, and more like 3.5 hours for regular 120-volt household current. The bike’s charging display said that charging from 40 percent state of charge to 100 percent using my ChargePoint Level 2 charger took two hours. The SAE charging port is just below the handlebars, on the right side.

Normal riding range is 80 miles, but low-speed cruising around town will do better than that and of course, those 70 mph highway blasts will leave you looking for a charging station much sooner. This distance is not so different from that of an internal combustion engine Harley-Davidson Sportster motorcycle with the tiny “peanut” gas tank. Riders have tolerated that for many years, though a Sportster did leave me walking to a gas station one time.

[Related: At $1,807, the Honda Navi is the perfect starter motorcycle for a beginner]

Another difference between the CE 04 and typical scooters is the absence of the noisy, smoking, two-stroke motor providing the accompanying soundtrack of a leaf blower everywhere you ride. While those scooters deliver more sound than fury, the CE 04’s 42-horsepower permanent magnet EMP 156 electric motor blasts the BMW to 60 mph in 9 seconds.

Riding in ECO mode extends the riding range while making the CE 04 feel sluggish. It also increases the regenerative braking when the rider releases the twist throttle. Rain mode has the opposite effect, providing less braking so the bike coasts more freely to avoid inadvertently breaking traction. I rode mainly in Road mode on dry pavement.

It does not cruise as silently as expected—there’s a pretty constant electric whine at all speeds. More surprisingly, there’s a pretty loud gear whine during steady-state neighborhood-speed riding.

BMW’s motorcycles have historically employed a driveshaft rather than the usual chain, but the CE 04 follows Harley’s example with the kind of belt drive as seen on those American cruising machines. The belt’s benefit is that, unlike a chain, it never needs to be lubricated or adjusted.

That belt spins a rear wheel that, as a solid black-painted 15-inch disc, looks like nothing so much as a stamped steel temporary spare wheel for a car even though it is actually lightweight cast aluminum.

Starting the CE04—it’s wireless

Riders start the CE 04 with a press of a button thanks to the wireless key fob that can remain safely zipped inside the rider’s protective jacket. Twist the grip and the machine scoots effortlessly away, leading me to squirt up to speed and slow down a few times to get a feel for the electric power delivery. Pretty cool.

Regeneration slows the CE 04, making it easy to start and stop using the throttle, but there are regular brakes there too, in case a squirrel darts out directly ahead. BMW has developed a two-wheeled equivalent to its iDrive infotainment input device, with a scrolling wheel on the left handlebar that riders can also press inward to click a menu selection. BMW has named this the Multicontroller.

[Related: Behind the wheel of Volkswagen’s reinvented classic: the electric ID.BUZZ]

The Multicontroller for the CE 04’s 10.25-inch color display screen is a clever solution to the challenge of operating a computer with gloved hands while riding. However, it takes practice to master the menu system, and I didn’t have enough saddle time to get comfortable trying to use it while in motion.

The compact electric motor and underslung battery pack leave space beneath the seat to securely stow your helmet on arrival, relieving riders of the hassle of carrying their helmet with them or worrying it will get stolen while away from the bike.

For urban riders who are the CE 04’s target market, this setup seems ideal. They probably won’t even consider whether the CE 04 is technically a scooter or a motorcycle as long as it provides another piece to their urban mobility puzzle—along with ride-hailing services, taxis, and mass transit that all allow them to eschew car ownership.

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Europe’s seven largest commercial truck manufacturers agreed in 2020 to cease producing diesel vehicles within two decades’ time, and have been aggressively working towards meeting that goal ever since. On August 31, one of those companies announced its latest potential tool in the emissions-heavy industry’s transition towards a more sustainable future. Instead of revolutionizing what’s underneath a semi-truck’s hood, however, Sweden’s Scania aims to take advantage of all the free real estate surrounding the tons of cargo in transit on roadways.

Per a release from Scania, the company recently partnered with Uppsala University and the energy company Midsummer to develop a 560-horsepower plug-in hybrid semi-truck prototype whose 60-foot-long trailer is wrapped in 100 square meters of solar panels. According to CleanTechnica, the additional solar powered boost could supply the truck with an additional annual driving range of up to 5,000 kilometers in Sweden—a promising figure, given the prototype’s location.

The Scandinavian nation isn’t exactly known for its endless days of sunshine. July in Stockholm, for example, only experiences clear skies a little over half the month on average—and that’s the highest rate for the entire year. November, by contrast, is cloudy nearly 75 percent of the month. But in this case, the overcast skies’ regularity works to the project’s advantage.

[Related: Does Hyundai’s rooftop solar panel change the fuel-economy equation?]

“We specifically wanted to see if it made sense in Sweden, because if you go to places such as Southern Europe, Australia or North Africa, there’s obviously a lot more sunshine,” explained Eric Falkgrim, a Technology Leader at Scania’s Research and Innovation department and the solar-powered truck’s project manager, in the August 31 announcement. “If it can work here in the less sunny and somewhat darker conditions then that would confirm the widespread validity of the project.”

Falkgrim noted that although the concept of slapping solar panels atop a semi-truck trailer may initially seem relatively simple, the logistics were anything but easy. “It’s a little bit of a wild and crazy idea because it comes with a lot of new hardware and software systemization and development, to make it safe to handle the transfer of power, and to handle [design] faults,” he continued.

Generally speaking, solar panels aren’t optimized for near-constant traveling. As such, it’s “fairly involved from a technical point of view,” said Falkgrim. Despite only recently starting prototype testing on Sweden’s public roads, he explained the project is “about seeing if the solution makes sense, and so far we believe it does.” Although such a design isn’t expected to become widespread on roadways for a few years, Scania’s initial testing shows the tech is not only feasible, but promising.

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Nobody wants to think about car accidents or break-ins, but the truth is it’s better to be safe than sorry. That’s why we always recommend driving with a dash cam. Having HD footage of the event can be extremely helpful, whether you’re reviewing it yourself because something feels off or you have to hand it over to the authorities. And getting better footage at a better price is our deal of the day.

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Vantrue’s N2 Pro Uber Dual Dash Cam pulls double duty, with cameras facing outward and inward to record 1080P video of what’s happening inside and outside your car simultaneously. If you disable the front-facing camera, the rear-facing one can record video in 2.5K instead of 1080p HD. The footage is stored on a MicroSD Card—we recommend getting a 256GB-sized one to ensure you have enough room for several hours of footage. You can view your recordings on the camera or plug it into a computer using a USB-C cable and transfer them to a PC or Mac.

The dash cam is attached to a suction cup, allowing you to install it in the most convenient location for you. It’s powered by connecting a USB-C cable to both the dash cam and a power adapter that fits in your car’s cigarette lighter; both accessories are included. If an incident happens when you’re out of your car, you’ll be happy that this dash cam has a 24-hour parking monitor mode, which will record 10 seconds of footage if its motion sensor is triggered. Similarly, the N2 Pro Uber Dual Dash Cam has a night mode, so you can be sure your footage is clear after the sun goes down.

If you’d like a little extra security in your car—both as a deterrent and potential source of evidence—Vantrue’s N2 Pro Uber Dual Dash Cam is a great deal.

Summer is almost over, but the savings aren’t, so dash to save on these other great deals:

• Vantrue E3 3 Channel 2.7K WiFi Dash Cam, $229.99 (was $359.99)
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• Vyncs GPS Tracker for Vehicles, $74.99 (Was $89.99)
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• AstroAI Digital Tire Pressure Gauge, $11.99 (Was $15.99)
• Klipsch Heritage Wireless The One II, $179.95 (Was $299)
• Apple 2023 MacBook Air Laptop with M2 chip, $1,234 (Was $1,299)
• Blink Video Doorbell, $38.99 (Was $59.99)
• Blink Outdoor (3rd Gen), $89.99 (Was $179.99)
• Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II, $249 (Was $299)
• Bose TV Speaker, $219 (Was $279)
• Edifier G2000 Gaming Computer Speakers, $84.99 (Was $109.99)

The post Save $81 on Vantrue’s always-on HD dash cam at Amazon appeared first on Popular Science.

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At first glance, the McDermitt Caldera might feel like the edge of the Earth. This oblong maze of rocky vales straddles the arid Nevada-Oregon borderlands, in one of the least densely populated parts of North America. 

But the future of the modern world depends on the future of places like the McDermitt Caldera, which has the potential to be the largest known source of lithium on the planet. Where today’s world runs on hydrocarbons, tomorrow’s may very well rely on the element for an expanding offering of lithium-ion batteries. The flaky silver metal is a necessity for these batteries that we already use, and which we’ll likely use in far greater numbers to support mobile phones, electric cars, and large electric grids.

Which is why it matters a ton where we get our lithium from. A new study, published in the journal Science Advances today, suggests that McDermitt Caldera contains even more lithium than previously thought and outlines how the yet-to-be-discovered stores could be extracted. But these results are unlikely to ease the criticisms about the environmental costs of mining the substance.

[Related: Why solid state batteries are the next frontier for EV makers]

By 2030, the world may require more than a megaton of lithium every year. If previous geological surveys are correct, then the McDermitt Caldera—the remnants of a 16-million-old volcanic supereruption—could contain as many as 100 megatons of the metal. 

“It’s a huge, massive feature that has a lot of lithium in it,” Tom Benson, one of the authors of the new paper and a volcanologist at Columbia University and the Lithium Americas Corporation.

One high-profile project, partly run by Lithium Americas Corporation, proposes a 17,933-acre mine in the Thacker Pass, on the Nevada side of the border at the caldera’s southern edge. The project is contentious: Thacker Pass (or Peehee Mu’huh in Northern Paiute) sits on land that many local Indigenous groups consider sacred. Native American activists are continuing to fight a plan to expand the mine-exploration area in court. 

But not all of the lithium under McDermitt’s rocky sands ranks the same. Most of the desired metal there comes in the form of a mineral called smectite; under certain conditions, smectite can transform into a different mineral called illite that can sometimes also be processed for lithium. Benson and his colleagues studied samples of both smectite and illite drilled from the ground throughout the caldera. “There’s lithium everywhere you drill,” he says. 

Previously, geologists assumed that you could find both smectite and illite in a wide distribution across the caldera, but the authors only found the latter in high concentrations in the caldera’s south, around Thacker Pass. “It’s constrained to this area,” explains Benson.

That’s important. Benson and colleagues think that the caldera’s illite formed when lithium-rich fluid, heated by the underlying volcano, washed over smectite. In the process, the mineral absorbed much of the lithium. Consequently, they project the illite in Thacker Pass holds more than twice as much lithium than the neighboring smectite.

“That’s really helpful to change exploration strategy,” Benson says. “Now we know we have to stick in the Thacker Pass area if we want to find and mine that illite.”

Some of Thacker Pass’s proponents believe that would result in fewer costs and less damage from mining. Anyone who deals with lithium is, on some level, aware of the environmental costs. The recovery process produces pollutants like heavy metals, sucks up water, and emits tons of greenhouse gases. By one estimate, fitting a new electric vehicle with its lithium battery can result in upwards of 70 percent more carbon emissions than building an equivalent petrol-powered car (although the average electric car will more than make up the difference with day-to-day use).

That said, not all extraction is the same. There are two main types of lithium sources: brine recovery and hard-rock mining. Some of the lithium we use comes from super salty pools. Over millions of years, rainwater percolates through lithium-containing rocks, dissolves the metal, and carries it to underground aquifers. Today, humans pump brine to the surface, evaporate the water, add a slurry of hydrated lime to keep out unwanted metals, and extract the lithium that’s left behind. Much of the world’s brine lithium today comes from the “lithium triangle” of Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile—one of the world’s driest regions.

Alternatively, we can directly mine lithium ores from the earth and process them as we would with most other metals. Separating lithium from ore typically involves crushing the rock and heating it up to temperatures of more than 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Getting to those high temperatures often requires fossil fuels in the first place. This method is less laborious and costly than brine extraction, but also far more carbon-intensive.

[Related: Inside the high-powered process that could recycle rare earth metals]

McDermitt Caldera’s smectite and illite belong to what some lithium watchers see as a new third category of extraction: volcanic sedimentary lithium. When volcanic minerals containing lithium flow into nearby valleys  and react with the loose dirt, they leave behind lithium-rich sediments that require little energy and processing to separate.

With the new alternative, mining proponents claim they can drastically reduce the environmental impact of their current and future activities at Thacker Pass. And the research by Benson’s team seems to suggest that, if lithium companies probe in the right places, they might get rewarded more for their efforts.

But this is likely little comfort to lithium-mining opponents in Oregon and Nevada, whose criticisms will be considered as the Bureau of Land Management maps out drilling in the deposit. Their case parallels those of Indigenous Chileans who oppose lithium extraction near their homes in the Atacama and locals fighting a lithium mining project near Portugal’s northern border. Together, they’re fighting a world that’s growing hungrier for lithium, along with new ways and places to exploit it.

The post What’s the most sustainable way to mine the largest known lithium deposit in the world? appeared first on Popular Science.

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Piloting a new Bugatti Chiron Super Sport down the Pacific Coast Highway on a random Saturday afternoon is a bucket-list item for anyone who loves cars as much as I do. Bystanders crane their necks as the Bugatti roars by; it’s not often these beasts are seen in the wild. 

This French-made Bugatti is very, very expensive and very, very powerful. These $4 million(ish) cars can accelerate from zero to 62 miles per hour in 2.4 seconds, and the top speed for the Chiron Super Sport is 273 miles per hour. That’s speedier than Japan’s Shinkansen bullet train, by the way. 

However, what makes this machine interesting is not just its beating heart, which is the car’s 1,600-horsepower engine. The car sports a sleek, prowling silhouette with wide aerodynamic scoops carved from the flanks, and cathedral-like buttresses anchoring the rear. It’s also unique in its engineering; built on a hand-constructed carbon fiber monocoque (the car’s structural frame), the Chiron Super Sport is powered by 16 cylinders and four turbos, which breathe more air into the combustion chamber to fan the flames. 

This vehicle, even at its base configuration, sets itself apart with features like diamond membranes in the Accuton audio system and titanium in the exhaust system. 

Let’s take a closer look at the unique touches that will take your breath away, even when the Chiron Super Sport is sitting perfectly still. 

A car celebrating a ‘Golden Era’

Bugatti customers can request a customized vehicle through the brand’s Sur Mesure program (“custom made” in French). Anything goes in the design studio, and one customer chose a Chiron Super Sport to be the canvas for a celebratory mural honoring the company’s history. Bugatti designer Jascha Straub rose to the challenge and led a team that invested 400 painstaking hours drawing 45 sketches by hand on the sides of the car. 

For this specific vehicle (dubbed “Golden Era”), Straub tells PopSci that it was important to the design team to use pencil sketches directly on the car. The pencils they chose incorporate a bit of wax, giving the drawings an oil pastel effect. “There are easier ways to do it, like using a pen or marker, but a pen drawing doesn’t look like a pencil sketch,” he says. “We wanted to keep the grain and shading and highlights intact, which was why it was clear we had to use pencil.” 

During the first set of tests, the designers used body prototype panels and sketched directly on the paint, then covered it with a transparent protective layer called clear coat. The problem, they discovered, was that the clear coat cracked atop the pencil markings. As a result, the designers defined a process to achieve the desired effect: First, a light layer of clear coat was laid on top of the gold paint, and then the images were sketched on top with professional-quality Prismacolor and Polychromos pencils. Then they added another thin layer of clear coat, and the artists sketched right on top of that. Every image was drawn at least three to four times, Straub says. 

And there’s more: just above the gear shifter, the dashboard on all of these vehicles is fitted with embedded tweeters each using a one-karat diamond membrane for extremely low-distortion, high-quality sound. The membrane looks like a contact lens, but made from the hardest naturally-occurring substance on Earth. Because diamonds are so strong, the sound waves pass through them quickly and without warping. Paired with titanium parts, the Accuton audio system is about as good as it gets. 

So what’s a W16 engine?

The Chiron Super Sport’s W16 engine—which is currently the only 16-cylinder powertrain in a car—does the work of moving this automotive cathedral on wheels from place to place. First seen in the brand’s 2005 Veyron, the W16 is made up of 3,500 individual parts, each piece assembled by hand. 

Some quick engine background: A V8 engine has the “V” in it because of its shape; two banks of four cylinders each are arranged in a V configuration. In this case, the W16 has the “W” in the name because the cylinders are arranged in a ‘W’ configuration for efficiency of space. Essentially, the engineers at Bugatti created a 16-cylinder engine that is the size of a 12-cylinder engine. 

But this W16 is more than just the sum total of two V8s. Bugatti’s W16 is enhanced by four turbos (two on each cylinder bank). Typically, turbos are added to boost power to a smaller engine, but that’s not the case here, clearly: The engine is massive and the turbos are the icing on top. An intricate water-cooling setup keeps it running smoothly without overheating. For that matter, the brand turned to titanium for the exhaust system, as the W16 kicks off a lot of heat. This iconic engine setup is as distinctive for its artistry as its sheer power. 

What comes next for Bugatti?

Right now, the French company’s future is uncertain. 

A century after he founded the company, Ettore Bugatti himself might be surprised to see his company still building cars in his name. (Bugatti died in 1947.) Even more so, he might be shocked to learn that Croatian EV-maker Rimac owns a majority stake in Bugatti, with plans to electrify the brand. He’d surely find kinship with Rimac’s founder and CEO, the young Mate Rimac himself, who kick-started his career converting the powertrain of his 1984 BMW 3 Series from internal combustion to electricity.

While former Bugatti CEO Stephan Winkelmann has already said that the W16 engine is “the last of its kind,” that doesn’t necessarily mean the supercar builder is finished with massive powertrains. If the automaker takes a tip from Lamborghini, it may opt for a high-powered hybrid going forward. The partnership with Rimac is surely going to charge things up. 

The post What’s a V8 engine doubled? The Bugatti Chiron Super Sport’s W16. appeared first on Popular Science.

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This article was originally featured on Hakai Magazine, an online publication about science and society in coastal ecosystems. Read more stories like this at hakaimagazine.com.

Satyam Tripathi, a 27-year-old seafarer from Uttar Pradesh, India, leans against the railing of the MT Pablo, the oil tanker that has been his home for the past several months. Though the days at sea often blur together, today stands out as vividly as the South China Sea below. Today is his birthday.

Moments later, his mother calls on WhatsApp. How are you? she asks, forgetting her birthday wishes for her usual motherly enquires: are you as happy at sea as I know you to be on land? Tripathi had acclimatized quickly to life in the merchant navy. The oil tanker is a surprisingly social place, and his head is filled with romantic ideas of a life on the ocean. He reassures her: yes, mother, I’m still happy.

That afternoon, on May 1, 2023, the Pablo exploded off the Malaysian coast.

The crew were thrown by the blast. Adrift in the ocean, clinging to charred metal, most of the ship’s 28 crew waited anxiously for nearby ships to scramble to their rescue.

Twenty-five seafarers were saved in the immediate aftermath of the explosion. The Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency spent days searching for the rest. But three remain unaccounted for, Tripathi among them.

Footage of the incident spread quickly across the messaging service Telegram, where fellow seafarers prayed for the missing crew. But within hours, rumors began to swirl of what kind of ship the Pablo really was.

As staff at the ship-tracking service Tanker Trackers noted, the Pablo had spent years smuggling Iranian oil. The vessel also featured on a list of ships under investigation for sanctions-busting by the organization United Against Nuclear Iran. It quickly became clear that for as long as Tripathi had been working on the ship, the vessel he’d called home had been smuggling oil for the Iranian regime.

The ship was a member of the so-called shadow fleet, which emerged in 2018 shortly after the United States reimposed a flood of sanctions against Iran. The sanctions had been waived in 2015 as part of an international effort to end Iran’s nuclear program. But in May 2018, then-president Donald Trump reversed course. In response, Iran enlisted a fleet of vintage tankers to secretly transport its oil without US oversight.

These ships are in poor shape. Many, says Samir Madani, cofounder of Tanker Trackers, were on their way to the scrapyard. “But buyers would show up with a slightly better offer, and then keep them operating for a few more years,” he says.

So, too, with the Pablo. Before it was rechristened, the vessel was variously known as the Olympic Spirit II, the Mockingbird, the Helios, the Adisa, and a handful of other names. Already past its prime, the ship was sold to an undisclosed buyer for demolition. But a few days later, the deal quietly fell through, and the vessel began operating in the shadows.

Tripathi’s family only learned he was missing a few days after the explosion. By then, the search for survivors had been called off.

Shubham Tripathi, one of Satyam’s two brothers, received a single phone call from Satyam’s employer: “We were told there had been a disaster, that he was missing, but that no one was looking for him.”

Desperate, Shubham took to Google. “That is when I saw everyone talking about the smuggling.” It was his first time hearing about the shadow fleet, and he was shocked by what he read. But of one thing he was certain: “Satyam did not know.”

His assumption is not simply brotherly protectiveness. Michelle Bockmann, a senior analyst at Lloyd’s List Intelligence, a shipping industry intelligence and analytics firm, says that “to suggest that any of the crew on board a ship like Pablo are somehow aware of the smuggling is a really unfair assumption to make.”

As far as Satyam was aware, he was undertaking a nine-month contract as a deck fitter on board a legal vessel. He’d found the job through SeaSpeed Marine, a certified crew management agency in Mumbai, India. It appeared to be an entirely legitimate and respectable job, and he was praised by his friends back home.

Yet the same clandestine operations that keep the illegal oil flowing also make it all but impossible for the Tripathi family to find closure. The ship’s registered owner, Pablo Union Shipping, is a shell company that cannot be traced. The vessel’s insurance is listed as “withdrawn” on most shipping websites. “We have complained, but what else can we do?” Shubham says. “They do not care for us.”

With no one to claim responsibility for the wreckage, the Pablo now sits abandoned—a hazard to ships off the Malaysian coast.

Working on a decrepit ship is dangerous. But those who did know the Pablo’s true purpose routinely put the crew’s lives in jeopardy.

Before the explosion, Satyam’s Facebook activity showed multiple check-ins in Malaysia, where the shadow fleet conducts risky ship-to-ship transfer operations—passing oil from one tanker to another to disguise its origin. These outlaw tankers conduct their transfers far out at sea, often with their mandatory automatic identification system location trackers disabled. They also overlook standard safety procedures. “These operations happen without tugboats and a boom line to assist,” says Madani.

Against that backdrop, the Pablo’s fate is likely a preview of what’s to come says Sam Chambers, a shipping expert and editor at Splash, a shipping industry trade magazine.

In late 2022, in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the European Union and G7 countries slapped sanctions on seaborne Russian oil. Like Iran, Russia is turning to the shadow fleet, often recruiting the very same tankers—staffed with crews sourced through the same crew management companies—that have experience smuggling Iranian oil.

Chambers says that with Russia joining Iran in seeking out the shadow fleet, there is a growing risk of substandard vessels running into trouble.

Right now, many more people like Satyam are unknowingly engaging in oil smuggling, having their lives put at risk to circumvent international sanctions. It’s likely that many more will suffer for it.

This article first appeared in Hakai Magazine and is republished here with permission.

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The electric version of Ford’s F-150 pickup, the Lightning, came out in 2022. Now, the automaker is revealing a limited-edition matte-black version of the electric truck. Cloaked in as much black as possible, it’s gorgeous. 

To get the vehicle to be this matte black color, Ford has had it outfitted in a 3M vinyl wrap. Parts of the truck, like the side-view mirrors or details on the charge-port door, retain a normal glossy black paint color, which Ford calls “agate” black. 

Ford has continued the black theme with other parts of the truck. For example, the 22-inch wheel rims are black, and the lugnuts are—you guessed it—black. The Ford logo in the front, a famously blue oval, is now black. You may also be able to imagine what’s going on in the interior—black leather seats and a black center console.

The vehicle has a Platinum-level trim, the fanciest Lightning version available. The matte-black edition will cost buyers $97,995, and Ford will only make 2,000 of them when it starts delivering them next year. A regular Platinum-level Lightning costs $91,495.

Black is a hot color choice

The arrival of such a chic vehicle certainly makes a bold appearance, but it also can invite a conversation around how a design like this would fare in our increasingly warm summers. After sitting in the sun, an all-black car will probably get toastier than a light-colored car.

In fact, a study published in 2011 in the journal Applied Energy studied just this topic, focusing on a black Honda Civic and a silver Honda Civic parked in the sun on a day in July 2010, in Sacramento, California. The cars soaked in the sun for about an hour, and then had their air conditioning run for about half an hour, and they went through that cycle five times. 

The researchers measured the temperature of different parts of the cars as time went on. The roof of the black car reached temperatures of around 176 degrees Fahrenheit or more. The roof of the silver car stayed relatively cooler, never getting hotter than 140 degrees. As for the back seat, it hit over 165 F in the black car and around 156 F in the silver car. The cabin air temp reached higher maximum temps in the black car than the silver car, as did ceiling temperatures. In other words, parts of the black car got hotter than the same parts of the silver car. (The difference between the windshield and dashboard temperatures of each vehicle wasn’t too dramatic, though.) 

Ronnen Levinson, the first author on the study and as a staff scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, explains that there are several reasons that cars get hot when they’re in the sun. The first is actually the windows. “If you’re trying to manage the temperature inside the car, the most important thing to do is worry about the glass,” he says. “During the day, you have a lot of sunlight coming in through those windows, and that, more than anything else, is going to heat the car cabin.” This same phenomenon is why homes and buildings sometimes make use of solar-control windows, to keep a house cooler. 

The next factor to think about is the obvious one: the paint color. A black car will get hotter than a white or silver one. “When the painted metal is in the sun, if it is an ordinary black, it is going to get much hotter than an ordinary white,” he says. That’s because white can reflect more light than black. 

The third variable is the cabin interior: he says that ideally the seats as well as parts like the inside of the doors should be lighter in color, too. The way the interior comes into play is that it can keep radiating heat after the air conditioner has been cranked up. “It actually takes quite a while to lower the cabin temperature,” he says. “And the reason is that all of the solid objects in the cabin, they’ve been cooking in the sun—they keep releasing heat.” 

Bottom line: A car with a white or silver paint job and a light-colored cabin is going to stay cooler in the sun than a very dark car, and don’t forget that the windows are actually a big culprit in terms of the vehicle getting toasty, regardless of its color. To deal with the dashboard temperature issue, consider a sunshade for the windshield.

Preconditioning

But don’t let this factor deter you from pursuing the Darth Vader look for your pickup, as there are steps to make the issue better. To mitigate the heat, Vince Mahe, the Lightning’s chief engineer, advises opening the windows and making use of the seat-cooling function, which he says draws less energy than the air conditioner. In an electric car, running air conditioning or heating (as well as other factors) can influence its range. Mahe says that the heater “hurts the range most.” 

There’s a step that customers can take at home before they unplug their EV, too, whether they want it to be cooled down in the summer or warmed up in the winter before they depart. “We tell customers in wintertime to do pre-conditioning, so that they can get the battery warmed up, to run at optimal temperature,” he says. That involves having the truck warm up while it’s still plugged into its charger. Here’s more from Ford on preconditioning a Lightning.

The post Ford’s matte-black, $100K Lightning pickup will be hot hot hot (literally) appeared first on Popular Science.

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Acura’s first EV, the ZDX, debuted as a concept car almost exactly a year ago. As of last week, the ZDX is a reality, with deliveries expected for early next year. Acura plans to boost adoption as quickly as possible to support the ZDX and the rest of its EV dreams, and it has some ambitious plans to make it happen, with billions of dollars invested in the future. 

Starting at $60,000, the 2024 Acura ZDX includes an estimated 325 miles of range for the single-motor rear-wheel-drive version. ZDXs with all-wheel drive are expected to have a range of 315 miles, and the Type S should have 288 miles of all-electric range and 500 horsepower to boot. Acura says the new SUV can tow up to 3,500 pounds with rear-wheel or all-wheel drive. 

As Honda’s luxury arm, Acura will likely produce a vehicle with high-quality materials and an elegant layout inside the cabin, including a space below the console for storage since the ZDX doesn’t require a transmission tunnel. Beyond just the ZDX, take a look at the automaker’s multi-faceted plan for the battery development, charging infrastructure, and more. 

Betting on batteries—and more

Acura’s new ZDX is built on GM’s Ultium battery platform, a flexible and modular system used for GMC’s Hummer EV and Cadillac Lyriq SUV (in fact, the exterior dimensions of the ZDX mirror the Lyriq’s). As such, Acura’s near future is tied closely to GM’s for charging protocols. 

When GM switches to Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS), the ZDX will as well, between 2025 and 2026, executive vice president of Honda Motor Company Shinji Aoyama said during an interview along with Jay Joseph, American Honda’s vice president of sustainability and business development, and American Honda Motor Company president and CEO, Noriya Kaihara.

Honda is investing heavily in battery infrastructure, development, and manufacturing with its new EV battery facility, a joint venture with LG Energy Solutions. This $3.5 million collaboration in Jeffersonville, Ohio is expected to be completed by the end of 2025.

In the meantime, Aoyama says Acura will start a pilot production of solid-state batteries. Touted as safer, denser, and less susceptible to temperature changes, these types of batteries can pack more power into a smaller footprint. In turn, that will affect the size and shape of future vehicles as well as overall range. However, battery size alone doesn’t help the overall adoption rate, Joseph asserted during the sit-down with PopSci.

“The antidote to range anxiety isn’t bigger batteries. It’s improving the charging infrastructure,” Joseph says.

Acura recognizes that the typically-heavy nature of EVs is a crucial area to research. Currently, EVs weigh a minimum of 4,000 pounds, Aoyama says, but he sees change going forward. That could be addressed through the use of different materials, disparate structures, denser batteries, or all of the above. 

Improving the charging infrastructure

In July, Acura announced it would join Honda, BMW Group, General Motors, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, and Stellantis (the automaker behind Dodge, Ram, Alfa Romeo, Jeep, and others) to create a new charging network joint venture. Together, the consortium plans to build 30,000 EV fast-charging stations across the United States and Canada, using both Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS) and Combined Charging System (CCS).

“A whole bunch of [battery-electric vehicles] have come to the market in a very short time,” says Joseph. “The trend is quite clear: people are moving to BEVs in the same way that people have moved to SUVs over passenger cars.”

This is on the heels of Ford’s surprise proclamation in May that it had entered an agreement with Tesla to allow current Ford EV owners to use Tesla Superchargers across the US and Canada starting in 2024. Also, Ford CEO Jim Farley promised the automaker’s next generation of EVs will include Tesla’s charging plug. GM, Rivian, and Volvo quickly followed suit.

Acura says it’s going much further. It’s not enough to just build charging stations; they must be the high-speed type to allay range anxiety, brand representatives say. Plus, EV drivers need to know that if their map (or app) points them toward a charge point, it will be secure, reliable, and accessible. One of the current challenges for EV drivers is that CCS charging stations are often located behind buildings in poorly-lit areas, and broken chargers stay down for extended periods of time. As a result, drivers don’t feel comfortable, which contributes to poor adoption rates. Joseph says he recognizes that Tesla does a good job monitoring its equipment and the company fixes issues fast. It makes a big difference. 

The US needs to have about 200,000 DC fast charging charge points to meet EV customer demands, and Acura plans to be part of the solution to pain points in today’s market.

“We think we can make an impact,” Joseph says. “If you drive around Europe, charging is ample. Certain corridors are very well supported; it’s effortless. People need for charging to be easy, and that paves the path to adoption.”

No more hybrids

Meanwhile, Acura is finished with hybrids. The NSX, the last of Acura’s hybrid supercars, rolled off the line in November. Acura’s NSX is equipped with a potent combination of three electric motors with a 3.5-liter V6 engine, good for 600 horsepower and 492 pound-feet of torque. It’s an absolute thrill ride.

For all the Acura NSX fans lamenting the end of this vehicle, there’s hope on the horizon. The brand offered a surprise sneak peek of what it’s calling the Performance Electric Vision Design Study last week at Monterey Car Week, and the sketches point to the emergence of a new supercar. You could bet good money there’s an all-electric version of the NSX just around the corner.

Hydrogen

If hybrids are out of the equation, hydrogen isn’t. There’s a delicate balance between supply and demand, and right now affordability of hydrogen is a challenge, Aoyama says. 

“Retail [hydrogen] in California costs $30 per kilogram, and it needs to be about half that,” he says. 

Overall, Acura recognizes much room for innovation, and Joseph sees this as a “once-in-100-years” transformation.

“We are so used to putting liquid molecules [in our cars] and electrons work totally differently,” he says. “The nature of our relationship with energy is changing. There is an adoption curve, but [driving EVs] is truly better and easier over time.”

The post Acura plunges into the EV space with GM as a collaborator appeared first on Popular Science.

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This story was co-published with Grist, a nonprofit media organization covering climate, justice, and solutions.

Electric vehicles are becoming more and more commonplace on the nation’s roadways.

The federal government wants nearly two-thirds of all cars in the United States to be EVs within the next decade. All the while, EVs are breaking sales records and manufacturers are building more and more charging stations and production plants to incentivize a shift away from fossil fuels in the transportation sector.

With EVs taking the streets by storm, an unlikely industry now wants a piece of the pie.

Trade associations, fuel producers, and bipartisan lawmakers are pushing for biogas, fuel made from animal and food waste, to start receiving federal credits meant for powering electric vehicles.

The push for biogas-powered EVs would be a boon for the energy sector, according to biogas industry leaders. Environmental groups and researchers, however, say biogas has yet to prove itself as a truly clean energy source. 

Biogas created from agriculture has been linked to an increase in waterway pollution and public health concerns that have disproportionately exposed low-income communities and communities of color to toxic byproducts of animal waste.

With the nation needing more ways to power fleets of Teslas and Chevy Bolts, the use of livestock manure to power EVs is still in limbo. 

How does it work? 

For biogas, there are, broadly speaking, three sources of waste from which to produce fuel: human waste, animal waste, and food waste. The source of this fuel input can be found at wastewater treatment plants, farms, and landfills. 

At these locations, organic waste is deprived of oxygen, and a natural process known as anaerobic digestion occurs. Bacteria consume the waste products and eventually release methane, the main ingredient of natural gas. The gas is then captured, piped to a utility, turned into electricity, and distributed to customers. 

Fuel created from animal waste isn’t a new concept. Farms around the country have been cashing in on biogas for decades, with a boom in production facilities known as anaerobic digesters expected after funding was included for their construction as part of climate provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act. 

At the end of June, the EPA finalized its Renewable Fuel Standard, or RFS, which outlines how much renewable fuels—products like corn-based ethanol, manure-based biogas, and wood pellets—are used to cut greenhouse gas emissions as well as reduce the use of petroleum-based transportation fuel, heating oil, or jet fuel.

Under this program, petroleum-based fuels must blend renewable fuels into their supply. For example, each time the RFS is updated, a new target goal for how much corn-based ethanol is mixed into the nation’s fuel supply is set. This prediction is based on gas and renewable fuel industry market projections.

These gas companies and refineries purchase credits from renewable fuel makers to comply with the mandated amount of renewable fuel that needs to be mixed into their supply.

A currency system tracks which renewable fuels are being produced and where they end up at their final lifecycle under the RFS. This system uses credits known as RINs, or Renewable Identification Numbers. According to the EPA, a single RIN is the energy equivalent of one gallon of ethanol, and the prices of the credits will fluctuate over time, just as gas prices do.

Oil companies and refineries purchase credits from renewable fuel makers to comply with the mandated amount of renewable fuel that needs to be mixed into their supply. The unique RIN credit proves that an oil seller has purchased, blended, and sold renewable fuel.

Currently, the biogas industry can only use its RIN credits when the fuel source is blended with ethanol or a particular type of diesel fuel. Outside of the federal program, biogas producers have been cashing in on low-carbon fuel programs in both California and Oregon. 

With the boom in demand for renewable electricity, biogas producers want more opportunities to sell their waste-based fuels. And a boom in EVs might get them there.

During recent RFS negotiations, the biogas industry urged the EPA to create a pathway for a new type of credit known as eRINs, or electric RINs. This pathway would allow the biogas and biomass industry to power the nation’s EVs directly. While the industry applauded the recent expansion of mandatory volumes of renewable fuels, the EPA did not decide on finalizing eRIN credits.

Patrick Serfass is the executive director of the American Biogas Council. He said the EPA could approve projects that would support eRINs for years but has yet to approve the pathway for biogas fuel producers. 

“It doesn’t matter which administration,” Serfass said. “The Obama administration didn’t do it. The Trump administration didn’t do it. The Biden administration so far hasn’t done it. EPA, do your job.”

Late last year, the EPA initially included approval of eRINs in the RFS proposal. Republican members of Congress who sit on the Energy & Commerce Committee sent a letter to the EPA, saying that the RFS is not meant to be a tool to electrify transportation.

“Our goal is to ensure that all Americans have access to affordable, available, reliable, and secure energy,” the committee members wrote. “The final design of the eRINs program under the RFS inserts uncertainty into the transportation fuels market.”

The RFS has traditionally supported liquid fuels that the EPA considers renewable, the main of which is ethanol. Stakeholders in ethanol production see the inclusion of eRINs as an overstep. 

In May, Chuck Grassley, a Republican Senator from Iowa, introduced legislation that would outlaw EVs from getting credits from the renewable fuels program. Grassley has been a longtime supporter of the ethanol industry as Iowa alone makes up nearly a third of the nation’s ethanol production, according to the economic growth organization Iowa Area Development Group.

Serfass said biogas is a way to offset the nation’s waste and make small and medium-sized farms economically sustainable, as well as local governments operating waste treatment plants and landfills. When it comes to animal waste, he said the eRIN program would allow farmers to make money off their waste by selling captured biogas to the grid to power EVs. 

“There’s a lot of folks that don’t like large farms, and the reason that large farms exist is that as a society, we’re not always willing to pay six to nine dollars for a gallon of milk,” Serfass said. “You have farm consolidation so that farmers can just make a living.”

Initially, digesters were thought of as a climate solution and an economic boom for farmers, but in recent years, farms have stopped digester operations because of the hefty price tag to run them and their modest revenue. Biogas digesters are still operated by large operations, often with the help of fossil fuel companies, such as BP. 

In addition to farms, Serfass said biogas production from food waste and municipal wastewater treatment plants would also be able to cash in on the eRIN program. 

Dodge City, Kansas, a 30,000-person city in the Western part of the state, is an example of a local government using biogas as a source of revenue. In 2018, the city began capturing methane from its sewage treatment and has since been able to generate an estimated $3 million a year by selling the fuel to the transportation sector.

Serfass said the city would be able to sell the fuel to power the nation’s EV charging grid if the eRIN program was approved.

The EPA’s decision-making will direct the next three years of renewable fuel production in the country. The nation’s renewable fuel program is often a battleground for different industry groups, from biogas producers to ethanol refineries, as they fight over their fuel’s market share.

Of note, the biomass industry, which creates fuel from wood pellets, forestry waste, and other detritus of the nation’s lumber supply and forests, wants to be approved for future eRIN opportunities. 

This fuel source has a questionable track record of being a climate solution as the industry is directly linked to deforestation in the American South and has falsely claimed they don’t use whole trees to produce electricity, according to a industry whistleblower.

The EPA did not answer questions from Grist as to why eRINs were not approved in its recent announcement. 

“The EPA will continue to work on potential paths forward for the eRIN program, while further reviewing the comments received on the proposal and seeking additional input from stakeholders to inform potential next steps on the eRIN program,” the agency wrote in a statement. 

Ben Lilliston is the director of rural strategies and climate change at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. He said he supported the EPA’s decision to not approve biogas-created electricity for EVs.

“I think the jury is still out around biogas from large-scale animal operations about how effective they are,” Lilliston said.

 He wants more independent studies to determine what a growing biogas sector under the eRIN program would mean for the rural areas and communities of color that surround these facilities.

Predominantly Black and low-income communities in southeastern North Carolina, have been exposed to decades of polluted waters and increased respiratory and heart disease rates related to the state’s hog industry, which has recently cashed in on the biogas sector. 

In Delaware, residents of the largely rural Delmarva peninsula have become accustomed to the stench of the region’s massive poultry farms. These operations now want to cash in on their waste with the implementation of more biogas systems in a community where many residents are Black, or immigrants from Haiti and Latin America WHO speak limited English, according to The Guardian. 

“I think that our concern, and many others, is that this is actually going to increase both emissions and waste and pollution,” Lilliston said. 

Aaron Smith, a professor of agricultural economics at the University of California Davis, said electricity produced from biogas could be a red herring when it comes to cheap, clean energy. 

“There’s often a tendency to say, ‘We have this pollutant like methane gas that escapes from a landfill or a dairy manure lagoon and if we can capture that and stop it from escaping into the atmosphere, that’s a win for the climate,” Smith said. “But once we’ve captured it, should we do something useful with it? And the answer is maybe, but sometimes it’s more expensive to do something useful with it than it would be to go and generate that energy from a different source.”

Smith’s past research has found that the revenue procured by digesters has not been equal to the amount of methane captured by these systems. In a blog post earlier this year, Smith wrote that taxpayers and consumers are overpaying for the price of methane reduction. He found that the gasoline producers have essentially subsidized digester operations by way of the state’s low-carbon transportation standards. To pay for this, the gasoline industry offloads its increased costs by raising the price of gas for consumers. 

“I think we do need to be wary about over-incentivizing these very expensive sources of electricity generation under the guise of climate games,” Smith told Grist. 

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Jaguar has an ambitious vision to go all-electric by 2025 with a new set of EVs. By 2030, the brand plans to launch e-models of its whole lineup. It joins a suite of other carmakers racing to develop zero-emissions vehicles to fight against climate change. And, on the race track, the luxury brand is already showing off its electric prowess. 

Although Jaguar had a Formula 1 team for a few years in the early 2000s, it took a break and didn’t participate in any motorsport activity after 2004. It returned in 2016 through a new all-electric championship called Formula E.

“It was a very immature series, but it had this ability, this scope to be massive,” Jack Lambert, research innovation manager for Jaguar Motorsport, tells PopSci. When the championship launched, the market was only starting to embrace EVs. “And as the technology developed from Gen 1 to Gen 2, and now Gen 3, the road relevance has developed with it.”    

As summer starts winding down, Jaguar is coming to the end of its ninth season of racing in Formula E. Lambert notes that since the first race, EV technology has rapidly progressed, reshaping how the races look. Next year, the company expects to deploy fast-charging systems in its races next year, which will put that technology to the test. “I would imagine in the next two or three seasons, we would see the pure acceleration capabilities of Formula E cars being able to match that of Formula 1,” he says. “We’re catching up.”

[Related: Electric cars are better for the environment, no matter the power source]

During the early phases of the Gen 1 races, when battery technology was less advanced, teams had to use two cars to complete the approximately 30-mile race. “We would see these really dramatic pit stops where the driver would come in and jump out of the car, basically while it was still moving, and try and jump into another one that’s fully charged,” Lambert says. Just six seasons later, he says, Jaguar’s 500-horsepower electric cars have batteries that last the full 50-minute race. Plus, the cars can pull in 600 kilowatts through regenerative braking, an electric vehicle quirk that can convert the kinetic energy from braking into power that charges the battery. 

Formula 1 vs Formula E

They may look similar on the surface, but at the core, Formula 1 and Formula E races are quite different. Formula 1 is known as a constructors’ series. Each team must design and manufacture every element of the vehicle, and consider how a chassis would work with aerodynamics, power units, braking technology, and all of a car’s other systems. 

Formula E, on the other hand, is a manufacturers’ series, which means that a high percentage of each vehicle is the same. “We place our unique development in only certain areas of the car that are technically regulated by the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA). For Formula E, it’s all focused on the powertrain and e-mobility-related technology,” says Lambert. Jaguar’s engineers must figure out how to take power from the battery and get that to the wheel in the most efficient way possible. The crux of their focus is on the inverters, the motors, and the batteries. 

[Related: An inside look at the data powering McLaren’s F1 team] 

Formula E cars operate the way that all EVs do. The batteries store a big block of chemical energy that needs to be turned into kinetic energy at the tires. “The way you do that is you take the energy that comes out of the wheel in the form of voltage and direct current through an inverter,” Lambert explains. The inverter uses several switching methods to convert direct current into an alternating current, in the form of an oscillating sine wave. The motor, which contains a magnet, has a magnetic field. When the oscillating electric current interacts with the rotor’s magnetic field, it creates torque that translates to a gearbox and ultimately drives shafts and tires. 

Race to road

When Jaguar’s team thinks about race to road technology transfer, they aren’t focused on any specific component. Race cars have dramatically different hardware than any road-bound consumer cars. It’s more about the systems engineering approach to solving big-picture problems, such as how to get electric power from the battery to the tires in the most efficient way. 

“Efficient powertrains in racing allow us to be faster and complete the race distance quicker, but actually, the same technology translated into road allow consumer EVs to go further on one charge,” Lambert explains. “There’s a lot of different approaches and a lot of different technologies that enable that.” 

One good example is their work with semiconductor company Wolfspeed on silicon carbide technology, a material that has been used in Jaguar’s race car inverters since 2017. These types of inverters can expand an EV’s overall range, “but at the time it wasn’t appropriate for the market, given that it was very early in its maturation and it was expensive,” says Lambert. “Now what you’re seeing is the automotive industry is catching up. So all the cars that you’ll see on the road going forward, particularly in the luxury space, will have silicon carbide within their inverters.”

Through racing, Jaguar can also observe how its technology behaves and collect relevant data around performance metrics like acceleration and battery use. And data, like in Formula 1, is a powerful tool for the team. 

The design for Formula E cars are checked over and locked in for two seasons. That means once racing regulators approve a car design, the team can’t really change it. What Jaguar’s engineers and developers can tweak in the off-season is their software. In collaboration with IT company Tata Consultancy Services, Jaguar is building analytics platforms to process and handle all the data—3 terabytes every weekend—generated through the races. This software’s capabilities, as tested through racing, could one day help smart or autonomous vehicles on the road. 

Quite often, when the Jaguar team looks at a new EV innovation, they’ll note that it’s not fully developed for consumer vehicles, but it could be put into a race car. “That becomes an early innovation testbed,” says Lambert. “Rather than having something that lives in the virtual space and in the research for two years, we can quickly turn that into proof-of-concept and put it on a race car.”

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After just getting the green light last week to operate 24/7 in San Francisco last week, driverless robotaxis have had a rocky few days blocking traffic, running stop signs, and generally showing that they might not be as ready for the real world as companies like Waymo (owned by Google parent company, Alphabet) and General Motors’ Cruise would like. 

Last Thursday, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) voted 3-1 in favor of allowing robotaxis to begin 24/7 commercial operations immediately. At the time, there was plenty of pushback from the general public, public transportation representatives, and emergency services like the fire department. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, for example, had apparently logged almost 600 “incidents” involving autonomous cars since 2022, while the San Francisco Fire Department has tracked 55 “episodes” this year where the vehicles interfered with its attempts to fight fires and save lives by running through yellow emergency tape, blocking firehouse driveways, and refusing to move out of the way of fire trucks. Despite this, the proposal went ahead. 

Then over the weekend, things took a turn for the surreal. In what ABC7 News called a “bizarre futuristic scene,” ten Cruise vehicles blocked a road in the North Beach area of the city for around 20 minutes. Videos on social media show the robotaxis stopped with their hazard lights flashing, blocking a road and intersection preventing traffic from navigating around them. In one TikTok video, a user commented that “the Waymo is smarter” after it pulled up and managed to navigate around the stalled Cruise car. 

Cruise responded to a post on the social network formerly known as Twitter, blaming the situation on Outside Lands, a music festival taking place in San Francisco. According to Cruise, the large crowds at the festival “posed wireless bandwidth constraints causing delayed connectivity to our vehicles.” However, critics pointed out that the festival was approximately 6 miles away from where the vehicles were blocking traffic. 

In an interview with ABC7 News, Aaron Peskin, president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors said that the city would be petitioning CPUC and asking the state regulators to reconsider the decision to allow robotaxis to operate in the city. “We’re not trying to put the genie back in the bottle, but we are standing up for public safety.” He explained that, “What this says to me is when cell phones fail, if there’s a power outage or if there’s a natural disaster like we just saw in Lahaina that these cars could congest our streets at the precise time when we would be needing to deploy emergency apparatus.”

[Related: San Francisco is pushing back against the rise of robotaxis]

And that’s just the headline event. In another video posted to social media over the weekend, a Cruise vehicle is shown illegally running a stop sign and having to swerve to avoid a group of four pedestrians—two women and two children—while other posters have reported similar experiences. More entertainingly, on Tuesday, photos were posted of a Cruise vehicle “drove into a construction area and stopped in wet concrete.” According to The New York Times, the road was repaved at “at Cruise’s expense.”

All this comes as the autonomous vehicles space is going through a major change up. For the past decade or so, tech companies, car companies, ride sharing services, and start ups have plowed through billions to develop robotaxis with limited financial success. As a result, some companies, like the Ford and Volkswagen backed Argo AI, have shut down, while others, like Waymo, have cut jobs. 

Now, though, it seems like Cruise and Waymo feel like they are in a position where their AVs can start earning money, at least in cities with friendly regulators—even if they are a long way from turning a profit. Other companies, like Motional and the Amazon-owned Zoox, are still testing their vehicles—but you can be sure they are watching the San Francisco situation with interest. Pony.ai, which lost its permit to test its vehicles in California last year, currently operates a fully driverless ride-hailing service in China and is testing in Tucson, Arizona.

But given how the first few days of uninhibited operations have gone for Cruise, it remains to be seen if San Franciscans will continue to allow robotaxis to operate. Peskin, the president of the Board of Supervisors, told KPIX-TV that the driverless vehicle companies “should take a timeout and a pause until they perfect this technology.” In the gap period between when that could happen, if the city convinces CPUC to revoke its permit, robotaxis could quickly go from winning one of their biggest victories to one of their worst setbacks.

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If you have never towed a trailer, camper, or boat before, it may seem daunting. With the towed vehicle attached, the SUV or truck doing the driving feels different. Turns require different entry and exit points, and wind can be a big factor. Just driving past a heavy-duty pickup truck towing a large RV inspires awe and a healthy respect for the sheer power of these machines.

Trucks like the 2024 GMC Sierra 2500 HD (signifying its heavy-duty classification) can tow an incredible amount of weight. The EPA classifies trucks with a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) above 8,500 pounds as heavy duty. That figure includes the curb weight of the vehicle, all passengers, and cargo. With a GVWR of 10,150 pounds, the 2024 GMC Sierra 2500 HD definitely qualifies in this category. Astonishingly, the Sierra 2500 HD can tow nearly twice its own weight, when properly equipped. 

Check out this brawny pickup truck and see how it achieves its towing capacity and brute strength, straight from its engineers.

More power 

If you think trucks are getting bigger and stronger, you’re not wrong. Ten years ago, the 2013 GMC Sierra HD was capable of towing a maximum of 17,800 pounds. For model year 2024, the Sierra 2500 HD can tow up to 22,500 pounds, an increase of 4,000 pounds over the previous year. That’s a big jump.

Truck manufacturers are in tune with both the market and its customers, analyzing the competition before determining its goals for the next model. If a truck’s core customers never tow anything bigger than a small pop-up camper, then drastic increases in towing capacity aren’t necessary. In the case of the Sierra 2500 HD, GMC says the people who buy this truck mean serious business. Buyers want to be able to tow not merely a 15-foot camper but a large speedboat or a fifth wheel trailer with a big RV.

A fifth-wheel travel trailer is a large, heavy trailer that requires a fifth wheel hitch to tow. This kind of hitch requires a unique coupling mechanism to sit in the bed of the truck and requires that the towing vehicle has enough horsepower, torque, and body strength to handle it. The coupling device has a steel structure designed to meet a level of stiffness for the most balanced, safest ride possible. It also has rubber components between the steel parts to maintain solid handling. 

At the top of the line, the GMC Sierra 2500 HD is equipped with a 6.6L turbocharged diesel engine paired with a 10-speed transmission. For 2024, it generates 470 horsepower and 975 pound-feet of torque at low revolutions per minute, which gives it a high level of pulling power. 

Rigorous testing

The main test criteria for General Motors is the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE International) SAE J2807 process, which is the industry standard for towing. Meeting SAE J2807 is not a requirement for any automotive company to follow. However, if you look at tow ratings posted online at various manufacturer sites you’ll find a footnote sharing whether it is following that procedure or not. The Big Three carmakers in America – Ram, Ford, and GM – generally do. 

General Motors runs several types of tests on its designs, including a climatic wind tunnel that simulates a wide range of environmental conditions like wind speed, temperature, and humidity. Engineers place thermocouples, also called “thermoelectrical thermometers” all over the development truck – up to 200 of them, Norwood says – to collect data and communicate it back to the team. 

GMC engineer Shawn Norwood says the automaker conducts other “more extreme” tests above and beyond the SEA standard. Some tests evaluate handling, and some check powertrain cooling to make sure the correct level of robustness is dialed in. In the heavy duty segment, 90 percent of buyers use their trucks to tow, so it’s an important metric. 

“Our customers really push these trucks to the top,” Norwood says. “If they’re right on the edge [of its capacity], we don’t want to have any issues.” 

If a driver pushes the truck past its capacity, they might overheat the vehicle and cause damage to the transmission or engine. The rear axle is also at risk of buckling if the load is too heavy, which could put the driver and its passengers (along with other vehicles on the road) in danger. GMC equips its heavy duty trucks with a visible and audible alert when the weight is getting close to the limit to avoid towing into the danger zone. 

As more people take to the roads for camping, overlanding, and towing, GMC recognizes that there are a lot of new-to-towing drivers out there. To help those who don’t have much experience driving with a towed vehicle attached, in the last few years, the company has implemented technology called “Transparent Trailer” that allows the driver to “see through” the trailer using a series of stitched-together camera angles. As a result, drivers can be more confident on the road, which aims to make the experience more fun and less stressful overall.

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On Thursday, California state regulators voted 3-1 in favor of allowing robotaxi services to begin paid, public 24/7 operations in San Francisco, effective immediately. The major industry approval comes after public and regulatory pushback. For example, during public testimony on August 8, 2023, representatives for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency announced that they have logged nearly 600 “incidents” involving autonomous vehicles since spring 2022—only “a fraction” of potential total issues, given nebulous reporting requirements.

Several companies such as Waymo and General Motors’ Cruise have been testing autonomous vehicle services in San Francisco for years, which concerned some local advocates and city officials. Earlier this year, SFMTA issued a joint letter to California regulators about autonomous vehicles triggering false 911 alarms in San Francisco. The Mayor’s Office on Disability noted at least three instances of EMS being dispatched to autonomous taxis due to “unresponsive passengers” within a single month, only to find them asleep in their vehicles. Meanwhile, city officials claim robotaxis have negatively affected San Francisco’s roadways with traffic jams and other disruptions.

[Related: What’s going on with self-driving car companies, from Aurora to Zoox.]

Such worries do not appear to sway California Public Utilities Commission members—one of whom previously served as a managing counsel at Cruise. “I do believe in the potential of this technology to increase safety on the roadway,” the commissioner said this week. “Today is the first of many steps in bringing (autonomous vehicle) transportation services to Californians, and setting a successful and transparent model for other states to follow.”

According to The WaPo’s analysis of public data, the number of autonomous taxis on California roads have increased exponentially over the past few years. 551 autonomous vehicles traveled over 1.8 million miles in the state during 2020. Just two years later, the number rose to 1,051 cars tallying up 4.7 million miles of travel time.

Robotaxi providers don’t intend to limit service to only San Francisco, of course. Companies such as Lyft, for example, are testing their own autonomous vehicles in cities like Las Vegas, Nevada. 

“Today’s permit marks the true beginning of our commercial operations in San Francisco,” said Tekedra Mawakana, co-CEO of Waymo, in a statement earlier this week. “We’re incredibly grateful for this vote of confidence from the CPUC, and to the communities and riders who have supported our service.”

However, city officials and critics are reportedly meeting soon to “discuss next steps,” which could include filing for a rehearing, as well as potential litigation. “This is going to be an issue that San Francisco and cities and states around the country are going to grapple with for a long time to come,” Aaron Peskin, president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, told The WaPo on Thursday. “So this is the beginning, not the end.”

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A new high-speed railway system inspired by Japanese bullet trains could someday carry commuters between Houston and Dallas in under 90 minutes. Announced on Wednesday, the partnership between Amtrak and a company called Texas Central aims to connect the two cities by train, spanning roughly 240 miles at speeds upwards of 205 mph.

According to Quartz, the applications have already been submitted to “several federal grant programs” to help finance research and design costs. Amtrak representatives estimate the project could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by over 100,000 tons annually and remove an estimated 12,500 cars per day from the region’s I-45 corridor. The reduction in individual vehicles on the roads could also save as much as 65 million gallons of fuel each year.

[Related: High-speed rail trains are stalled in the US—and that might not change for a while.]

The trains traveling Amtrak’s Dallas-Houston route would be based on Japan’s updated N700S Series Shinkansen “bullet train,” a design that first debuted in 2020. Bullet trains have operated in Japan for over half a century, and are now completely electric, as well as lighter and quieter than traditional railcars. Additionally, the transportation method generates just one-sixth the amount of carbon-per-passenger mile than a standard commercial jet, according to Texas Central’s descriptions.

“This high-speed train, using advanced, proven Shinkansen technology, has the opportunity to revolutionize rail travel in the southern US,” Texas Central CEO Michael Bui said via the August 9 announcement.

[Related: A brief, buttery ride on Shanghai’s maglev train.]

American city planners have been drawn to the idea of high-speed railways for decades, but have repeatedly fallen short of getting them truly on track due to a host of issues, including funding, political pushback, and cultural hurdles. That said, 85 percent of recently surveyed travelers between Dallas and the greater North Texas area indicated they would ride such a form of transportation “in the right circumstances.” If so, as many as 6 million travelers could be expected to ride the train by the end of the decade, with the number rising to 13 million by 2050. Similar high-speed projects are also in the works to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles (though no track has actually been installed yet), as well as another that hopes to connect LA and Las Vegas, although repeated setbacks have delayed such endeavors.

“The US is really a very auto-centric country,” Ian Rainey, a senior vice president at Northeast Maglev, told PopSci in 2022. “… If you can get that sweet spot of big populations that are 100 to 300 miles apart from each other, I think you’ve got a winner for high-speed rail.” 

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Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft was supposed to depart Earth last month in a crewed test flight scheduled for July 21. It never left the ground. Problems with the spacecraft’s parachute system and the discovery of flammable tape around internal electronics led NASA, in June, to indefinitely postpone the flight. 

The work to fix the problems with the Starliner won’t be complete until next year, NASA and Boeing officials announced this week. ”We’re anticipating that we’re going to be ready with the spacecraft in early March,” Boeing Starliner vice president and program manager Mark Nappi said during an August 7 press conference. 

It’s just the latest in a long series of problems and delays that have plagued the Starliner since its first test flight. And, in the meantime, SpaceX has been eating the more venerable aerospace giant’s lunch.

In 2014, NASA awarded both SpaceX and Boeing contracts to develop spacecraft for the space agency’s Commercial Crew Program. The goal at the time, according to Laura Forczyk, founder of the space industry analysis firm Astralytical, was to provide NASA with rides to space after the 2011 retirement of the Space Shuttle, without relying on Russia and its Soyuz spacecraft. Boeing was the clear favorite. 

“They chose to do similar redundant systems, Dragon and Starliner, for the purpose of at least one succeeding. That one was assumed to be Starliner,” Forczyk says. “And it was a question whether SpaceX would even succeed at all.”

SpaceX completed testing of its Crew Dragon spacecraft, and then flew its first official mission with NASA astronauts in November 2020. But computer issues kept Boeing’s spacecraft from completing its uncrewed flight test, the Orbital Flight Test (OFT), in December 2019. 

[Related: Watch SpaceX’s giant Starship rocket explode]

Then, in April 2021, issues with an engine valve—due to exposure to salty air at Cape Canaveral, Florida—led to the cancellation of the re-attempted uncrewed flight test, OFT-2. Boeing wouldn’t successfully complete that test until May 2022. 

The next step in Starliner testing, a crewed flight test, or CFT, was originally scheduled for December 2022. This was delayed multiple times—in February, March, and April—before the July launch date was postponed due to the issues with the parachute and flammable tape. 

According to Nappi, Boeing has redesigned linkages for the parachutes to make them more robust. The aerospace company plans to conduct a “drop test” of the new design in November, releasing a version of the Starliner from 11,000 feet over the Nevada desert. Boeing is also removing the flammable tape where possible, and considering ways to place protective coatings on the tape in areas where it cannot be so easily replaced. 

Despite marking March 2024 as the month when Starliner could be ready, NASA and Boeing do not have an official launch date in mind. And given how the program has run so far, that’s probably a wise decision, according to Forczyk. 

“There’s multiple things that could happen that will continue to delay this,” she says. “Just based on the hardware testing, I do believe that we’d have to see everything go perfectly from now until March in order for them to even optimistically consider March as a date for their next true test mission.” That an aerospace giant like Boeing is still dealing with fundamental engineering troubles this late in the game, while an upstart like SpaceX is about to fly its seventh crewed mission for NASA on August 25, has to be embarrassing for Boeing, she adds. 

More importantly though, it’s costing Boeing money: NASA awarded the company $4.2 billion to develop the Starliner in 2014, and it is on the hook for all costs beyond that amount. CNBC estimates the company has lost around $1.5 billion on Starliner so far. 

[Related on PopSci+: A DIY-rocket club’s risky dream of launching a human to the edge of space]

”This program has been such a money loss for Boeing that it makes me wonder how committed Boeing is going to be to the continuation of this program,” Forcysk says. She notes that Boeing has said it will fulfill its obligations to NASA, which include six crewed flights to the ISS, but the company may no longer be interested in trying to offer Starliner services to other governments or private customers. 

NASA, meanwhile, may soon have alternatives to Starliner. 

“Coming on board, perhaps, is Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser, which has been in development for like 20 years,” Forczyk says. And Blue Origin’s New Glenn spacecraft is expected to begin flying commercial payloads by August 2024. 

With those alternatives or backups to Crew Dragon flights, and NASA’s planned retirement of the ISS by the end of the decade, it could be that Starliner is a very expensive project that flies fewer than 10 missions. 

The end result is that SpaceX, once considered the underdog by NASA, looks to be the primary human space launch contractor for NASA for the foreseeable future. “These other systems that are in development will offer competition, but at what point does SpaceX become less dominant?” Forczyk says. “Right now SpaceX is so far ahead of everyone else in human-rated orbital launch that it’s going to take a lot for other companies to catch up.”

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An electric vehicle contains a multitude of battery cells, giving the car’s motors the power they need to turn the wheels. But if the right equipment is involved, that battery system can theoretically do more than just provide juice for the car itself: It can also send energy back to someone’s home during a blackout. 

General Motors announced yesterday that it is expanding the number of EVs in its lineup that can do just that. Previously, the only vehicle in its stable that GM said will have that ability is the Silverado EV RST pickup. Now, GM says that other EVs it’s making, like the Chevy Equinox, Chevy Blazer, and the Cadillac Lyriq, will be able to do the same. The automaker notes that this ability is coming to “its retail portfolio of Ultium-based electric vehicles by model year 2026.” Ultium is what the company calls its modern battery platform. 

As for the vehicles that GM announced yesterday would be getting the ability to support vehicle-to-home power, Derek Sequeira, director of EV Ecosystem at GM, tells PopSci, “that’s just the first tranche,” adding: “There are things that are behind the curtain that haven’t been talked about yet.” 

Not mentioned in yesterday’s announcement are two other GM electric vehicles, the GMC Hummer EV and the Chevy Bolt, the latter of which GM killed but then said would be coming back to life. “We haven’t released timing for either one of those vehicles moving to the vehicle-to-home technology, or the Bolt moving to Ultium technology, but stay tuned, that will come within due time,” Sequeira says.

There is some specific equipment that needs to be in place for all this work. For context, an electric vehicle’s batteries keep their power in DC form. When someone plugs an EV into a level-one or level-two charger, the vehicle is receiving power from the grid in AC form, and internally converting it to DC power for its batteries. Plugging an electric car into a DC fast charger means that step isn’t needed. 

So for an electric vehicle to energize your home, the DC power from the car’s batteries needs to become AC again. Some specialized equipment is involved. One is a bidirectional charger that can both send juice to the vehicle as well as receive it; GM calls that piece of gear a PowerShift Charger. The other components involve a bidirectional inverter—to handle the conversion process between DC and AC—as well as what Sequeira describes as a “microgrid interconnection device.” 

“It allows the Ultium home ecosystem to isolate from the grid in the event of a power outage, and basically turn your home into a mini-microgrid where your vehicle is supplying the power to your home,” he adds. The kit also involves a “dark start battery, which provides the power to get things going” in a blackout, says Sequiera. He says that the Silverado EV RST could provide as many as 10 to 20 days of power, although that’s with “minimal loads.”

General Motors is not the only automaker getting into the business of powering homes with electric vehicles, which is abbreviated at V2H. Ford’s electric pickup, the F-150 Lightning, can do it too. In fact Robby DeGraff, the product and consumer insights analyst at AutoPacific, notes via email that “Ford has really been the leader I think so far when it comes to V2H capability with the F-150 Lightning.” He also points out that Nissan’s Leaf vehicle has vehicle-to-grid capabilities when paired with Fermata Energy’s technology. And Hyundai’s Ioniq 5 or Ioniq 6 can utilize a special connector to power an appliance-level load. 

The enormous electric Cadillac Escalade IQ announced today will support home powering as well, but at around $130,000, it’s a pricey way for anyone to ensure their lights can stay on during a blackout. DeGraff stresses that it’s critically important for GM to make sure the more affordable vehicles in the company’s pipeline get the capability too. “The eventual confirmed replacement for the entry-level Bolt EV and Bolt EUV has to offer this as well,” he says. 

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Genesis has been making a name for itself with thoughtful design and standout features in recent years, catapulting the automaker to a 14 percent year-over-year sales increase in 2022. Hyundai’s luxury arm has steadily amassed fans and wowed the public with firsts like facial recognition technology and a rotating crystal orb gear shifter, both of which are found in the company’s GV60 EV. With vehicles like the GV60 and the G80, it’s ramping up EV production.

While the Korean brand’s G60 is futuristic and bold, the Genesis Electrified G80 sedan looks almost exactly like the gas-powered version inside and out. This is no shortcut; it’s a deliberate tactic to quench the thirst of EV curiosity without requiring massive adjustments of its buyers.

Read on to learn more about the Electrified G80 and how Genesis is converting fans of its luxury sedans into the EV segment.  

Two kinds of EV buyers

The GV60, which was unveiled in 2021, is the brand’s first all-electric vehicle built on the Hyundai Motor Group’s Electric-Global Modular Platform, but it’s not Genesis’ first EV. That honor belongs to the Electrified G80 sedan, which debuted at the 2021 Auto Shanghai event in China. Before that new architecture was ready, the Electrified G80 was built on a dual-purpose platform that serves both internal combustion engines and motor-driven EVs. 

As the electric-global platform was in development, Genesis engineers had the foresight to create a building block that would ease the transition, especially for its luxury sedan enthusiasts.

Genesis has been producing a gas-powered sedan called the G80 since 2017. It introduced a pure EV version of that car, which they call the “Electrified G80,” for 2023 on the same platform. Typically, when an automaker refers to a car as “electrified,” that means it contains a hybrid system. That’s not the case here, as Genesis opted to use the modifier to keep the G80 family names intact.

“What we’re seeing at Genesis is that there are two camps of EV customers: the ones who represent the early adopters, want to lead the charge, and care about tech and sustainability,” says Genesis representative Jarred Pellat. “They want the vehicles that scream ‘I’m an EV!’”

The others, Pellat says, want something familiar. They covet the benefits of EV ownership: a quiet ride, fun driving dynamics with low-end torque, and power; they want to enter this new era of electrification, but still want to keep their “normal” luxury car. In essence, this segment wants a car that happens to be an EV but doesn’t look like an EV. When the Nissan Leaf EV debuted, for instance, it was a funky little capsule that made a clear statement. Volkswagen’s ID.4 is also in that category of cars that don’t look like any of its gas-powered siblings. 

That’s especially important in Genesis’ home market in Korea, where the G80 is one of the brand’s top-selling vehicles. In Korea, many G80 owners are repeat customers, and as the oldest model in the lineup, it has the longest-standing customer base. If a customer is tremendously satisfied with their G80, they can transition to an EV easily because it looks and feels very similar. Until they press the accelerator and experience the instant torque of an EV, that is.

The Electrified G80 vs. the gas-powered G80

Starting at a smidge over $80,000, the Electrified G80 rings in at nearly $30,000 more than the base model gas-powered G80. 

The regular G80 is offered in two trims: 2.5T models are equipped with a 2.5-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine good for 300 horsepower and 311 pound-feet of torque, and it’s available with either rear-wheel or all-wheel drive. Upgrading to the 3.5T Sport means all-wheel drive only with a turbo 3.5-liter V6 and a boost to 375 hp and 391 pound-feet of torque. 

Even though the electrified version of the sedan takes a small horsepower hit for a total of 365, the torque is considerably more at 516 pound-feet. When you step on the pedal, it moves. That’s somewhat surprising, considering the electrified G80 weighs a half-ton more than the 2.5T and a quarter-ton more than the 3.5T Sport models. 

Hooked up to a DC fast charger, the Electrified G80 charges up from 10 percent to 80 percent in 22 minutes, Genesis says, which is slightly longer than the 18 minutes it takes for a GV60. The charging port is camouflaged in the grille with a push-button release, making it easy to pull straight up to a charger and get going. 

Total cargo space suffers a bit between the two models, as the gas-powered G80 boasts 13.1 cubic feet of trunk space and that number drops to 10.8 cubic feet in the G80 EV. Other than that, though, the G80 and Electrified G80 are similar enough to be comfortable. 

Genesis isn’t killing off its sedan line any time soon, either. It’s common in Korea for customers to use luxury sedans with chauffeurs, and Genesis models (Hyundai models as well) are equipped for that setup. The Genesis G80 comes with unique buttons embedded into the bolster of the passenger seats nearest the center console. In order to move the seat or change the incline, it’s within reach for the driver to push a button instead of leaning way over to the far side of the passenger front seat or getting out of the car to adjust them for rear seat passengers. 

With gas-powered and EV models of the same sedan, Genesis isn’t just optimizing its production line. It’s making it easy to switch. Not everyone wants to look different and stand out as they transition to the EV world, they just want to blend in. That’s where the Electrified G80 makes its stand. 

The post The Electrified G80 may look like a typical luxury sedan, but it’s an EV in disguise appeared first on Popular Science.

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The use of shared light, low-occupancy vehicles like bicycles and electric scooters (or e-scooters) is growing steadily in the United States and has become an essential part of urban transportation networks. Only 321,000 trips were recorded in 2010, rising to 112 million in 2021. These “micromobility” vehicles are typically designed to travel distances that are too short for driving but too far to walk. Almost 60 percent of all car trips in 2017 were less than six miles, which demonstrates the need for such micromobility solutions.

The rental of dockless e-scooter systems, in particular, emerged that same year and was operating in 65 cities in less than 12 months. Ride-sharing companies like Bird, Lime, and Superpedestrian make fleets of e-scooter available for users to rent for short periods through their respective apps. Because e-scooters have no tailpipe emissions and can replace short car trips, they are often the more eco-friendly mode of transportation. However, e-scooters still have environmental impacts that must be considered.

The sustainability of e-scooters

Giovanni Circella, director of the 3 Revolutions Future Mobility Program at the University of California, Davis, says that the use of e-scooters in US cities “tend to have somewhat positive effects in terms of environmental sustainability” by replacing the use of more polluting modes of transportation such as private cars and ride-hailing vehicles like Uber and Lyft.

In 2018, the Portland Bureau of Transportation launched a four-month pilot program to assess how e-scooters can help the city’s transportation needs. Data revealed that 34 percent of Portland riders and 48 percent of visitors took an e-scooter instead of driving a personal vehicle or taking an Uber, Lyft, or a taxi. 

[Related: Could swappable EV batteries replace charging stations?]

E-scooters can also promote a culture of active travel and “get the critical mass to justify investments in bike lanes and other infrastructure projects that support the use of active travel modes,” says Circella. However, shared e-scooters have mixed impacts, and they can also replace trips that would have otherwise been made by walking, bicycling, or taking public transportation, he adds.

Although the pilot program revealed that a number of users replaced motor vehicle travel with e-scooter sharing, “it also found that scooter-sharing replaced some lower emission active transportation trips,” says Susan Shaheen, co-director of Transportation Sustainability Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley.

Data shows that about 42 percent of Portlanders would have taken lower-emission trips if scooters weren’t an option: 37 percent said they would walk and 5 percent would’ve taken a bicycle. Moreover, the operations of the program—which involves the deployment and retrieval of e-scooters every day—likely added motor vehicle trips to the transportation system, but it is beyond the scope of the study.

It’s important to understand the overall impact of e-scooters beyond the trips they replace and consider other factors like manufacturing and longevity because results can vary based on the assumptions and scenarios modeled, says Shaheen.

A study presented at the 2020 IEEE European Technology and Engineering Management Summit analyzed the environmental impacts of e-scooters under different scenarios, changing different variables like the lifespan, kind of batteries, type of vehicle used to collect them, the average distance per lifetime, and more.

[Related: The pandemic could make cities more bike-friendly—for good.]

In the best case scenario, where e-scooters last 24 months and have a swappable battery that is replaced by riding in electric vans, e-scooter sharing has a lower environmental impact than private cars, electric mopeds, and public transport busses, but is still less sustainable than trams, bicycles, and electric bicycles. However, in the worst-case scenario where the lifespan of e-scooters is only six months, they would have the worst environmental impact out of all. 

A 2019 study published in Environmental Research Letters also reported that ensuring e-scooters are used for two years decreases the average life cycle emissions significantly.

Overall, shared e-scooters are most sustainable when they are replacing personalized individual transport, but it’s possible that they are also catalyzing trips that would not otherwise take place, says Parth Vaishnav, assistant professor of sustainable systems at the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability. Therefore, local governments should think carefully about encouraging e-scooter use, where to deploy them, and whether there are more effective ways of providing mobility, he adds.

How to make shared e-scooter systems more sustainable

E-scooters are a relatively sustainable mode of transportation, but they can become even greener. Shaheen says the public and private sectors can support e-scooter sharing systems by establishing solar docking stations where practical, using clean or renewable energy sources to charge e-scooters, and using electric vehicles to help with the distribution of scooters would be beneficial.

Switching to electric vehicles for the rebalancing and charging of e-scooters and opting for renewable energy has the potential to reduce the amount of fossil fuel involved in its lifecycle and operations. Most e-scooter companies have yet to explore these options. In 2019, Spin ran a 60-day pilot program and deployed dozens of solar-powered docking stations in Washington D.C. and Ann Arbor, but it’s unclear what the results were.

“The use of pricing and incentives to impact pick-up and drop-off behavior could also help reduce the need to rebalance the scooter network,” says Shaheen. This goes along with the recommendation of the aforementioned 2019 study to reduce collection and distribution distance to minimize the environmental impacts of e-scooters. It also suggests using more efficient vehicles, increasing scooter lifetimes, and charging less frequently. 

[Related: General Motors wants to predict when battery fires might happen.]

Policies may also help reduce the environmental burdens of integrating e-scooters into the transportation system. For instance, allowing e-scooters to remain in public areas overnight can already minimize the trips required to pick up fully charged e-scooters. E-scooter misuse and mistreatment also reduce their lifespans, so implementing policies against these acts would be beneficial. Vaishnav recommends demanding suppliers to produce more durable scooters.

In general, shared dockless e-scooter systems do increase mobility in cities for a number of people and have the potential to reduce emissions in the transportation industry. Concrete steps like ensuring a longer lifespan, switching to renewable energy for charging, and using electric vehicles to pick up and drop off e-scooters would help make them even more sustainable.

The post Shared e-scooters can be sustainable—but there’s a catch appeared first on Popular Science.

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As your car sits parked in the shade of a tree, a silent threat lurks above. Drop by drop, tree sap falls from the branches overhead, landing on your vehicle’s formerly sparkling hood. You’ll want to get it off before it’s too late.

At first glance, the sugary liquid seems harmless, but it can seriously ruin your vehicle’s paint job and body over time. First, it’ll bond to the clear coat, then penetrate down to the paint, and ultimately reach the metal underneath, leading to rust. 

Fortunately, if you notice the goo in time and spend a few minutes removing it, you can save your car from corrosion. Follow these easy steps, and you’ll be able to get tree sap off your vehicle in no time. 

How to remove tree sap from your car  

The easiest way to avoid dealing with tree gunk is to not park under a tree. But sometimes that’s not a viable option, and even if it is, wind can blow sap onto your shiny chariot. 

Whether the sap falls on glass or paint poses two wildly different scenarios, explains Larry Kosilla, life-long car detailer and founder of AMMO NYC. If the goop made it onto your windshield, you’re in luck, he says: “You can use a razor blade extension and just kind of shave it off.” 

[Related: The right and wrong ways to clear ice and snow from your car]

But a razor blade is not an excellent option if you’re removing sap from the roof or hood of your vehicle—especially if you’re inexperienced or anything but extremely careful. “If you are not good, then you can cut into the paint,” says Jonathon Klein, the managing editor at The Drive, a car magazine owned by PopSci’s parent company Recurrent Ventures. 

If tree blood is splattered across your car’s body, don’t do anything before you hose it down with water to remove dirt and debris. Afterward, dry your vehicle with a microfiber towel—this type of lightweight cloth is easy to wash, non-abrasive, and won’t leave lint behind like a cotton towel. 

“You don’t want to use any abrasives or anything that has a high grit count,” Klein says. “What you have to be aware of is to be careful throughout the process and not scratch your car’s paint.” 

After your cruiser is clean, you can start exploring your sap-removal options. Some classic household items can easily get tree sap off your car, but be warned—you should only use them sparingly, as they can damage your ride’s finish. 

Be careful, though: This disinfectant can be harsh and damage the clear coat of your car, but you can use it now and then to get rid of tree sap without completely ruining its paint job. 

Make a mix with a 1-to-1 ratio of 70 percent isopropyl alcohol and water and pour it into a cotton ball. Use it to cover the sap and let it sit for a few minutes. Alternatively, you can do the same with some alcohol-based hand sanitizer—if it’s thick enough, you can forgo the cotton ball and apply it directly to the sap. Finish by wiping your vehicle clean with a wet cloth. 

White vinegar

If white vinegar is the only ingredient you have on hand to remove stubborn tree sap, you can apply the same process mentioned above. But you should still beware: “Vinegar is on the acidic side and could be causing some damage to your car,” Kosilla says 

Make a 1-to-1 mix of water and white vinegar and spray it on the sap. Let it sit before cleaning everything with a wet microfiber cloth.

Hair dryer or heat gun 

If you’re not willing to risk pouring chemicals onto your car-baby, Klein recommends a heat gun. It’s a safe option used by beginners and experienced detailers alike.

“It is the easiest way that I have found to pull sap off a car,” he says. 

If you don’t have a heat gun at home and don’t want to get one, Klein says you can also use a hair dryer. Keep in mind this hairdressing tool normally doesn’t reach the same temperatures as a heat gun, so you may require a higher heat setting or a longer exposure to get rid of the tree sap sitting on your vehicle. 

Set the heat gun or hairdryer to low or medium and hover it about 6 to 10 inches above the sticky glob. The exact distance will depend on the temperature you’re using—make sure you’re close enough to warm up the sap but not so close that you melt the clear coat. Keep a steady heat flow for one to two minutes or until the sap gets gooey again, then remove it with a microfiber cloth. If it doesn’t come off, repeat the process. 

When using a heat gun, don’t be tempted to save yourself time by using more heat or applying it for longer than the suggested time, as temperatures 300 degrees Fahrenheit and above could damage your cruiser’s clear coat and paint.  

Dedicated sap-removers

Commercial products like Bug Be Gone and WD40 are multi-use cleaners that can remove tree sap, other plant residue, and animal droppings. 

Start by making sure your car is cool to avoid any discoloration. Only then, spray one of these multi-cleaner products on the sap spot and let it sit for about two minutes. After that, you should be able to wipe away the tree gunk with a wet microfiber cloth. 

How does tree sap damage your car? 

Typically, cars have five layers of paint and finish. The first one is an electrocoat, or e-coat that protects the metal against corrosion, and on top of that sit layers of primer, base coat, and the actual paint that gives your ride its color. The entire job is sealed by a transparent coating that shields your vehicle from the elements. If you’re a dedicated car owner, your machine might also be protected by a coat of wax, which provides a glossy, shiny finish. 

[Related: Tree resin could replace fossil fuels in everything from printer ink to shoe polish]

When a droplet of sugary sap plops onto your steel chariot, it will instantly stick to the wax and/or clear coat layers, and the longer it sits there, the harder it’ll be to remove. Car paint is designed to expand and contract in response to heating and cooling. As it does this and the sap hardens, the sticky stuff will become rooted into the paint.

The post How to keep tree sap from ruining your car’s paint appeared first on Popular Science.

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Every time a delicious kernel of corn passes your lips or you crunch into a slice of crusty, freshly-baked bread, you can thank a farmer. According to the US Department of Agriculture, farming and food-related industries contributed about $1.3 trillion to America’s gross domestic product in 2021. 

It’s not a stretch to say that agriculture is critical to our lives, as is the machinery that prepares the land, plants and fertilizes the seed, precisely pulls the weeds, and harvests it all. From its inception in 1837, John Deere started by manufacturing a steel plow and has evolved into a modern company producing highly technical equipment. But beyond making farming vehicles like combines and tractors, the Illinois-based company also manufactures heavy construction and forestry machines such as motor graders, dump trucks, and skidders.

[Related: The metallic guts of GE’s massive jet engines, in photos]

Here’s an inside look at this colossal machinery and the people who put it all together in the John Deere Davenport Works factory in Davenport, Iowa.

[Related: An exclusive look inside where nuclear subs are born]

Correction: This article has been updated to clarify that the equipment made at the Davenport, Iowa facility is for construction, not farming. Additionally, a dump truck originally identified at a 410 P-Tier has been updated to be correctly described as a 310 P-Tier.

The post In photos: How John Deere builds its massive machines appeared first on Popular Science.

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Traffic mapping apps allow you to choose the fastest route, avoid highways or tolls, and even determine the most eco-friendly paths.  But the newest choice could provide commuters a completely different peace of mind: the safest drive possible.

According to their paper published in Analytic Methods in Accident Research, a team at the University of British Columbia has designed an algorithm capable of analyzing real-time traffic data to determine which routes offer the least risk of accidents and road hazards. To test their system, researchers deployed 10 drones over downtown Athens, Greece to monitor the area’s vehicle speeds, acceleration rates, and positions. That data, which included “near-miss” assessments, was then fed into their newly crafted algorithm to assess the safety of various routes and options.

“This research is the first to use real-time crash risk data to provide navigation directions and give you the safest possible driving route through a city,” said Tarek Sayed, a civil engineering professor at UBC said in a statement. “The algorithm is capable of adjusting directions in real-time, suggesting detours to avoid hazardous locations. This helps enhance road safety for all users. For instance, companies will be able to route their fleet efficiently, prioritizing safety and reducing crash risk.”

[Related: Bug brains are inspiring new collision avoidance systems for cars.]

Interestingly, the researchers also discovered that a map’s fastest routes frequently did not overlap with its safest directions. In one section of the Athens roadways, for example, just 23 percent of its fastest routes were also considered its safest. On average, the area’s safest options used a little over half of the same roads determined for the quickest routes.

“There was a clear trade-off between safety and mobility,” explained Tarek Ghoul, a PhD student involved in the study. According to Ghoul, their algorithm’s safest routes were on average 22 percent less hazardous than its fastest route alternative, “suggest[ing] that there are considerable gains in safety on the safest routes with just a small increase in travel time.” Additionally, “intermediate routes” that balance both safety and drive times could offer pathways whose benefits “by far outweigh” any minor increased roadtimes. 

Such safety-focused algorithms aren’t only limited to vehicles, say Sayed and Ghoul. In the future, the same systems could also be applied for cyclists who often face less-than-hospitable road conditions. The team hopes such real-time information could soon be implemented into popular map apps to provide travelers with safer routes—be it by car, bike, or simply on foot.

The post A new mapping algorithm aims to steer drivers towards the safest route appeared first on Popular Science.

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For some drivers, electric vehicles sound pretty awesome—until it comes down to charging. Range anxiety is a real thing, and while there are around 32,000 fast chargers across the US that can refill your EV’s battery in half an hour or so, that’s still quite small compared to the more than 100,000 gas stations across the US as of 2017. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) estimates that there needs to be around 182,000 fast chargers across the country by 2030 to support the 30-42 million predicted EVs on the road.

When it comes to EVs and charging them, Tesla normally makes the biggest headlines, but this time other automakers are stepping up in an Avengers-style move. This week, a coalition of seven automotive companies—BMW Group, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz Group, and Stellantis NV—made a commitment to bring 30,000 fast chargers to North America. The first of these should come online by summer 2024, according to their announcement. 

[Related: Electric cars are better for the environment, no matter the power source.]

“To accelerate the shift to electric vehicles, we’re in favor of anything that makes life easier for our customers,” Mercedes-Benz Group CEO Ola Källenius said in the statement. “Charging is an inseparable part of the EV-experience, and this network will be another step to make it as convenient as possible.”

According to Reuters, each fast-charging machine costs somewhere between $100,000 to $200,000, making this endeavor one that could cost billions of dollars. Currently, Tesla has the largest network of fast chargers with 45,000 supercharging locations globally. 

Some of the companies involved with this new undertaking include companies such as GM and Mercedes that have already signed on to start using Tesla’s charging technology, called the North American Charging Standard (NACS), starting in 2025. The others still have product plans using the Combined Charging System (CCS). The new stations, according to the announcement, will offer charging connectors for both systems. 

The announcement stated that the network “intends” to solely run on renewable energy, but a plan for this has not yet been disclosed. The chargers will be concentrated in urban areas and on highways.

“We think this is an important step forward,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told Reuters. President Joe Biden has previously stated goals to bring 500,000 EV chargers online by 2030.

[Related: EV adoption doesn’t lighten energy costs for all American families.]

Currently, the vast majority of EV chargers in the US are “level 2” chargers, which can take anywhere from four to 10 hours to completely charge a vehicle, according to the Washington Post. Owners of EVs frequently have those level-2 chargers installed at their homes. System malfunctions also currently run amok—a recent survey found that one in five EV owners have rolled up to a charger and were then unable to charge due to issues like system malfunctions. 

“We believe that a charging network at scale is vital to protecting freedom of mobility for all, especially as we work to achieve our ambitious carbon neutrality plan,” Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares said in the statement. “A strong charging network should be available for all.”

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Only 40 minutes from the heart of Las Vegas, Nevada, Ford’s Bronco Off-Roadeo awaits eager new owners learning how to push their SUVs to the limit. The brand-new Bronco Raptor Experience can be found in Raptor Valley— about an hour’s journey across the rocky desert terrain. Here is where Bronco Raptor drivers can skid across a desert running course and jump their SUVs off a tabletop obstacle. It’s pure rally adrenaline on 37-inch wheels. 

This in-the-dirt experience isn’t only limited to gas-powered cars. Drivers of Ford’s Mach-E all-electric SUVs will now be able to get in on the fun. The Blue Oval decided to create a new variant called the Mach-E Rally, designed to tackle rougher roads off the asphalt. This car is unusual in several ways, as this is the first Mustang built for dirt and speed together; it’s also the company’s first foray into all-electric rally racing.

Read on to learn more about how the Mach-E Rally fits into the world of off-roading, desert racing and beyond.

EV market ready for more off-road adventures

The Mach-E Rally made its public debut this month at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in the UK, driven by former World Rally champion and driver of the M-Sport Ford Puma Hybrid Rally1 entry Ott Tänak. 

Specs aren’t available yet, and for the Mach-E to successfully transition to an off-road career, it would need more ground clearance and different tires than the low-rolling-resistance types on the street-ready Mach-E.  Ford offers a signup for curious tire-kickers who want to know more about the Mach-E Rally, with more information coming in the future. 

Ford has seen success with its F-150 Raptor pickup and Bronco Raptor SUV, both of which appeal to the increasing number of drivers seeking off-road adventures. It makes sense for the automaker to expand its footprint in the dirt on the EV side. 

While that concept is still rare, it’s not unheard of: EV company Rivian has proven its vehicles are adept at off-roading, bringing its R1T pickup and R1S SUV into the desert for the punishing Rebelle Rally. Three years ago, Rivian sent two of its nascent EVs on a cross-continent trip from the southernmost part of South America to Los Angeles, California through 13,000 miles of tough topography. Porsche and Volkswagen have also sent vehicles on off-roading ventures to show their versatility.

Mach-E Rally on trend 

According to Emme Hall with Edmunds, the idea to create the Mach-E Rally started about a year ago with an internet rendering of a Mach-E accessorized for off-pavement activities. Ford chief advanced product development and technology officer Doug Field saw opportunity there and presented the concept to CEO Jim Farley, who gave it the green light soon after.

The Mach-E Rally development is on trend. Aftermarket parts organization SEMA (Specialty Equipment Market Association) predicts that the light-truck segment (pickups, vans, SUVs and CUVs) will account for close to 80 percent of all new vehicle sales by 2027. In that segment, pickups alone will make up nearly 50 percent of all new vehicles sold. These figures translate directly to Americans’ growing zeal for the outdoors, especially during the pandemic. Mordor Intelligence says the off-road vehicle market was valued at $14 billion in 2020 and will reach $18 billion by 2026. 

As EV adoption increases (assisted by new agreements between Tesla and Ford, GM, Rivian, Volvo, Nissan, and more to adopt Tesla’s charging standard), the Mach-E and all of its variations have an excellent chance of succeeding with consumers. Currently, Ford’s Mustang Mach-E is doing quite well: sales increased 45 percent to 39,458 vehicles from 2021 to 2022. Ford is trying to keep up with this demand by building three battery plants: two in Kentucky and another in Tennessee in partnership with South Korean firm SK On. 

To give drivers a chance to learn about all the things their electric vehicle can do, Ford offers new Bronco owners an entire day of professional instruction at one of its Off-Roadeo locations in Nevada, Utah, Texas, and New Hampshire. Could a dirt-racing school for the Mach-E Rally be far behind? It wouldn’t surprise us.

The post Ford debuts a dirt-ready Mustang Mach-E appeared first on Popular Science.

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Best for luxury crossover vehicles		Pirelli Scorpion Winter P265 Winter Tire		SEE IT	Perfect snow tire for luxury crossover vehicles.
Best for cars		Bridgestone Blizzak WS90 Winter Tire		SEE IT	Great way to navigate through a suburban snowstorm.
Best for light trucks		Firestone Winterforce LT 225 Winter Snow Tire		SEE IT	Gives light trucks and emergency vehicles great control.

Stop slipping and sliding during the cold winter months and arm your car, truck, or SUV with proper snow tires. The best snow tires are more rugged than all-season tires and have the specialized treads needed to clutch the road during harsh conditions. But with so many car tires available, how do you know which tires offer great snow performance and which will be a waste of money? Understand how these tires for snow work and learn what to look for when shopping for these unique rubber lifesavers. From affordable options to get you through the winter to more robust snow tires for those living in a permanent winter wonderland, here’s how you can find the right tire at the right price for the right terrain.

• Best for cars: Bridgestone Blizzak WS90 Winter Tire
• Best for light trucks: Firestone Winterforce LT 225 Winter Snow Tire
• Best for luxury crossover vehicles: Pirelli Scorpion Winter P265 Winter Tire
• Best for off roaders: BFGoodrich All-Terrain Tire LT285
• Best budget: Nexen Winguard Ice Plus Winter Snow Tire

The best snow tires: Reviews & Recommendations

What makes the best modern snow tire the best? It must be up to the job, whether it’s picking up groceries or picking up tree trunks. The type of vehicle and the specific tasks you want to accomplish should be the first things to think about when shopping. Thankfully, most online retailers provide search tools that pinpoint the type of tire you’ll need.

Best for cars: Bridgestone Blizzak WS90 Snow Tires

SEE IT

You wouldn’t wear flip flops in a snowball fight, and shouldn’t trust standard tires in winter weather. Even if you only need to drive to the office and back, Bridgestone Blizzak tires can make a world of difference. They are great on snow and even better on wet slush, channeling the winter weather away from the tire. And when you need to stop suddenly, the Bridgestone snow tire is dependable. Solid ice will still be slippery with these tires, but for typical suburban roads it’s tough to beat the traction.

Best for light trucks: Firestone Winterforce LT 225 Winter Snow Tire

SEE IT

Firestone is known for their high-quality tires and the Firestone Winterforce LT series is no different. The Firestone Winterforce LT 225 Winter is rated for severe snow service equipment and excels at clinging to the road in deep snow. It’s also pretty good on light snow and slick surfaces. You can add studs to the tire for even greater traction. And for a truck tire, it isn’t prohibitively expensive. The Firestone snow tire is good for light trucks and SUVs that need to navigate through more than flurries.

Best for luxury crossover vehicles: Pirelli Scorpion P265 Winter Tire

SEE IT

The Pirelli Scorpion winter tire is perfect for drivers who need to get to job sites even in snowy conditions. They can handle a load of 2,337 pounds, and are relatively quiet. While on the pricey side, Pirelli snow tires are made of durable material that will last for several winter seasons. They handle great in deep snow, dry roads and everything in between. Even ice isn’t much of a challenge for these PIrelli tires. They can turn a luxury SUV such as an Audi SQ5 into a winter-weather driving machine.

Best for off-roaders: BF Goodrich All-Terrain T/A KO2 Tire

SEE IT

All-terrain tires, like all-season tires, are not specifically designed for snow. But the BF Goodrich tire can handle mud and dirt just as well as snow and ice. The molded aggressive tread bites into snow without issue, and handles well even on dry asphalt. If you want to go on winter adventures through windy mountain roads, the BF Goodrich all-terrain tire will make the journey easier and safer. 

Best budget: Nexen Winguard Ice-Plus Winter Tires

SEE IT

What can you expect from cheap ones? Surprisingly good winter weather traction. These Nexens are not made for high-speed, high-performance snow driving. But for those who keep it under 100mph and still want to travel through wet winter weather, these do a pretty good job. Cheaper tires won’t last as long, so it’s a good thing the tires are affordable. If you’ve never used snow tires and want to see if they make a difference, this is a good entry-level product at a great price. 

What to consider when shopping for the best snow tires

Just because it says “snow tire” on the label doesn’t mean it’ll be a great fit for your vehicle. Look for specific thread types and features that will work for your environment. But don’t get overwhelmed by stats. They are not as complicated as they appear.

Why choose snow tires? Better gas mileage and safety.

The biggest benefit of any snow tire is its handling in winter weather. When snow, ice, slush, or water cover the driving surface, a tire for snow will send precipitation flying away from the wheel. They’re designed with more tread depth and grooves to prevent hydroplaning; you’ll notice a difference between one for snow and a regular tire when making turns and coming to a complete stop. 

They also offer more than safety on winter roads. They also increase gas mileage. When standard tires slip and slide on snowy surfaces, your vehicle isn’t getting the optimal gas mileage. And if the tire is underinflated, it only makes things worse. They are designed to cling to the road, giving you proper traction and increasing gas mileage. They are also designed to work in sub-zero temperatures. 

While the result may be minimal, those extra miles-per-gallon will add up over time. If you’re worried about the cost of the tires, factor in the bonus gas mileage—a good investment in safety becomes a good investment in fuel economy.

For the best snow performance shop for aggressive tire tread patterns.

The treads and channels in the snow tire are engineered to move water and snow out of the way. The deep cuts and serrated voids on the rubber surface is what separates a snow tire from a regular tire. Thanks to the jagged cuts and small holes that suck up water, dedicated tires for snow are much better at grabbing the road than so-called all-season tires. 

How do you know if the tread will really stand up to a storm? Look for the Three-Peak Mountain Snowflake (3PMSF). This mountain icon will appear on the sidewall of a tire rated for snowy conditions. It’s a good place to start when considering snow-tire specs. 

For serious driving in areas where winter weather is the norm, you should look for an aggressive tread pattern. These dramatic saw-tooth designs are better at maintaining traction. They still have the 3PMSF certification, but go above and beyond other all-season tires. Put another way, not all 3PMSF-rated tires will be great for blizzard conditions and deep snow. Make sure the product is labeled as a winter tire, not just an all-season tire. And for even more gripping power, you may want to consider studded tires.

You can also try tire sipping. Tire sipping means making small cuts into the tire for better handling. Some auto shops will sip your tires for you. While tire sipping won’t turn a regular tire into a winter-rated tire, it may increase traction a bit.

When to use studded tires and when it’s illegal

Metal or rubber studs can be added to specialized snow tires. These tiny nuggets extend past the tread and help the tire grab onto icy roads. For those who drive on ice, a studded tire can make a huge difference in how the vehicle handles. If you want substantial snow performance, studs are the way to go. But the studs do have drawbacks. 

First, and most importantly, studs are not permitted everywhere. Only six states (Colorado, Kentucky, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Vermont, and Wyoming) allow drivers to use studs without restrictions. Other states have date restrictions (fall to spring). And some states ban studs altogether. Why?  Because the studs are great on snow and ice, but destructive on dry asphalt and cement. 

Second, studs need to be installed, which can take time. Each stud is attached to the tire with a stud gun into pre-designated holes. You cannot add studs to any tire. Only those made for studs can handle the added prongs. 

And third, studs are noisy. While you may not notice it, everyone around you will. Studded snow tires can be great for some locations and emergency vehicles, but are not ideal for every driver.

Make sure the tires are suited for your truck

If you drive a truck, keep in mind that not all truck tires are the same. Light service trucks won’t need the same tire as a heavy-duty pickup. Depending on the size of your truck and the load you’re carrying, you will need specific tires made for snow. For those driving a lifted truck (with modified suspension for big tires) hauling large loads, you may need studded tires for proper handling. Regular snow tires won’t be up to the challenge. 

If you’re more concerned with speed than snow, you can opt for a performance tire. These all-season tires lack the snow-crunching tread of snow tires, but can do a fair job on wet and slushy roads.

Affordable tires don’t necessarily mean you sacrifice quality

Tires can be expensive, but you should be able to find high-quality options that won’t break the bank. Cheaper ones can be just as good at trekking across the winter road. The big drawbacks are that the tread won’t last as long, the tire will be made of slightly weaker material, and they’re probably not ideal for big trucks. But for driving a car or SUV, cheaper snow tires can still be a useful alley in the war against winter. 

FAQs

The final word on the best snow tires

• Best for cars: Bridgestone Blizzak WS90 Winter Tire
• Best for light trucks: Firestone Winterforce LT 225 Winter Snow Tire
• Best for luxury crossover vehicles: Pirelli Scorpion Winter P265 Winter Tire
• Best for off roaders: BFGoodrich All-Terrain Tire LT285
• Best budget: Nexen Winguard Ice Plus Winter Snow Tire

Fight back against winter weather with high-quality options. The best snow tires will be built to channel water and slush and prevent snow from building up in the tread. And with optional metal studs, your car, truck, or SUV will be ready for blizzard-like conditions. (But before you opt for the studs, make sure they are permitted in your area.) No matter what type of vehicle you’re driving this winter, the proper tires for snow make sure the season is safe and manageable. Add the best windshield snow cover to your shopping cart, and you’re all set for this winter!

Why trust us

Popular Science started writing about technology more than 150 years ago. There was no such thing as “gadget writing” when we published our first issue in 1872, but if there was, our mission to demystify the world of innovation for everyday readers means we would have been all over it. Here in the present, PopSci is fully committed to helping readers navigate the increasingly intimidating array of devices on the market right now.

Our writers and editors have combined decades of experience covering and reviewing consumer electronics. We each have our own obsessive specialties—from high-end audio to video games to cameras and beyond—but when we’re reviewing devices outside of our immediate wheelhouses, we do our best to seek out trustworthy voices and opinions to help guide people to the very best recommendations. We know we don’t know everything, but we’re excited to live through the analysis paralysis that internet shopping can spur so readers don’t have to.

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In the series I Made a Big Mistake, PopSci explores mishaps and misunderstandings, in all their shame and glory.

The film Back to the Future may have debuted in 1985, but it’s still funny, sweet, and entertaining. And it will forever mark the blockbuster debut of arguably one of the most iconic movie cars in history: the DeLorean DMC-12. The DeLorean model, of course, plays a major role in the movie as the literal vehicle that drives the story.

Launched in 1981, the DeLorean (as it’s commonly called, as opposed to DMC-12) was kaput by the end of 1982. John DeLorean had been a respected engineer for General Motors before kicking off his own company, and while his vision for the vehicle appeared sound, there were several factors playing against success.

In 1982, DeLorean was arrested on drug charges; while he was later acquitted because his attorney proved entrapment, irreparable damage had been done. The company filed for bankruptcy and might have faded into one-hit wonder territory except for the massive hit that Back to the Future became. Because of the movie, DeLorean earned a spot in pop culture that remains strong nearly 30 years later. Seeing a DMC-12 on the road is rare, but it’s always a treat.

In many ways, the DeLorean was a failure. Yet that failure also became a global icon with an unmistakable silhouette. Let’s take a look at the rise and fall of this unforgettable car.  

The man behind the machine

John Zachary DeLorean was born in Detroit in 1925, the same year that Walter Percy Chrysler founded the Chrysler Corporation. The Great Depression pulled the country into a deep, dark funk that ended with the start of World War II. As a young man, DeLorean received a scholarship to the Lawrence Institute of Technology for industrial engineering, but his college career was paused when he was drafted into the US Army. After earning an honorable discharge following three years of service, he returned home to Michigan and completed his degree. Then he put it to use in jobs with Chrysler and Packard. 

In 1973, DeLorean became the youngest division chief in General Motors’ history, and he’s largely credited with managing the development of the Pontiac GTO, Firebird, and Grand Prix as well as the Chevrolet Cosworth Vega. He became famous, and burned through two marriages before settling down for a time with supermodel Cristina Ferrare. The jetset lifestyle was alluring and its siren call led him down a new path. 

After leaving GM, DeLorean went rogue, eschewing the establishment to build his own sports car. According to Forbes, the British government handed over $100 million in loans and loan guarantees in exchange for building the car in Dunmurry, Northern Ireland. On top of that, he cajoled private investors to lend him tens of millions of dollars more. As the entrepreneur’s dream to build “the best of the best” emerged, time was clicking by quickly, and DeLorean built the buzz in the best way he knew how: by pushing the edges of extravagance. 

“Months before the cars would be available, it was clear that DeLorean was going big,” Lily Rothman wrote for Time magazine in 2016. “For the holiday season of 1980, the American Express catalog advertised a DeLorean plated in 24-karat gold going for $85,000 (versus $20,000—about $54,000 today—for the steel version).” 

The trail to the fall

The first DMC-12 was finally produced on January 21, 1981. Only four months later, DeLorean bought a 430-acre estate for $3.5 million, then one of the largest residential real-estate deals in New Jersey history. 

Powered by a Peugeot-Renault-Volvo 2.85-liter V6 engine generating 130 horsepower, the DMC-12 was not as powerful or as quick as some of its rivals. The steering was heavy on this stainless steel beast, and it wasn’t easy to turn. But when those gullwing doors open, anyone living in the post-Back-to-the-Future era can almost imagine a Hollywood-effect smokescreen forming. Even today, it’s magic to drive on nostalgia alone. 

Not long after the launch, quality issues plagued the company and a dip in the car market affected its sales. Within a year of its release, DeLorean’s company was in shambles and more troubles were ahead. 

On October 19, 1982, DeLorean was charged with trafficking cocaine. The FBI videotaped him in a sting operation during which DeLorean was offered roughly $24 million to sell 220 pounds of the narcotic. However, DeLorean’s lawyer argued entrapment; he intimated that it was clear the businessman was desperate to save his company and a solution was dangled in front of him. Within 30 hours, DeLorean was free and clear, acquitted of all charges. 

Unfortunately, the damage was done. 

DeLorean’s legacy

DeLorean, who died in 2005, was a brilliant engineer, and his triumphs have faded into the background as his star burned bright and then burst into flames. 

In a recent interview by Hagerty on DeLorean’s daughter, Kathryn, she reveals that her father’s airbag research in the 1970s “helped debunk Detroit manufacturers’ artificially inflated cost estimates for the technology, featured prominently in federal hearings, and helped make the bags mandatory on new vehicles.” That’s an accomplishment that has since helped save millions of lives. 

And then there’s the car’s role in pop culture, still memorable after four-plus decades. 

In Back to the Future, Marty McFly asks Dr. Emmett Brown incredulously, “Are you telling me you built a time machine… out of a DeLorean?” And “Doc” proceeds to explain that if he were to build a time machine, he needed to “do it with style.” Certainly, John DeLorean’s vision had that in abundance.

The DeLorean used in the film is now housed at The Petersen Museum in California. The museum’s page about this particular car explains that writer and director Robert Zemeckis and writer Robert Gale chose the 1981 DeLorean DMC-12 in part because the car’s gullwing doors “made it look like an alien spaceship.” Back to the Future went on to sell $210 million in tickets in 1985, the highest-grossing movie of the year.

The car itself, however, wasn’t a great success. In fact, it was in many ways a failure. Only about 9,000 DeLoreans were built between 1981 and 1982, and just about 6,000 remain. That represents thousands more than should have been made, considering DeLorean’s funds started drying up long before production stopped. The DMC-12 was underpowered for its class, visibility out of the narrow windows was terrible, and interior quality left room for improvement. 

Yet, this wedge-shaped sports car retains a space in American culture for both its failures and triumphs as an icon. There’s one parked in a driveway not far from my house, and every time I drive by I slow down to look at it. After all, how often do you get to see a successful failure that’s also a time machine? 

The post Why the DeLorean DMC-12 was a star on the screen but not the road appeared first on Popular Science.

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It’s noon on a hot July day in New York City, and the thermometer reads 100 degrees Fahrenheit. I’m sitting in a red Ford Bronco overlooking an empty parking lot outside of Citi Field in Queens, learning to drive stick shift for the first time. My instructor is Autumn Schwalbe, Ford performance marketing specialist and a professional drag racer. 

Some car purists, and many Europeans, believe that you don’t truly know how to drive until you’ve mastered a manual. Despite making up less than 2 percent of annual car sales, manual cars could be making a small comeback, according to recent data—and the growing popularity is seen chiefly among drivers in their 20s.

I learned to drive on an automatic-transmission vehicle, like my parents and my peers. Dipping my toes into driving a manual was definitely a new endeavor, but one I felt excited to take on. Here’s how it went.

How to drive a stick shift, 101

Driving a manual transmission is a very involved process, and to me it feels almost like playing the piano. Like a piano, a manual car sports three pedals instead of the two in an automatic transmission car. The pedal on the left is the clutch, and the other two are the brake and the accelerator, which are in their normal spots, of course. There’s also a parking brake, which in the Bronco is located on the left of the steering wheel. 

“The basics of a manual: Always have your foot on the clutch, foot on the brake, and while you’re shifting, you’ll have your foot off the brake, but you’ll always use the clutch to shift the gear,” Schwalbe tells me. “You always want to be focused while you’re driving.”

The gears in a manual transmission car work similarly in principle to the gear shifts on a bicycle; certain sizes are better for achieving certain speeds. Most manual cars today have four or five forward gear ratios, although some can come with more. The Bronco has a seven-speed manual, but for today, we’re only working with first and second-gear (blame the limited space in the parking lot). Lower gears offer slower speeds but more torque, and as you go up each gear, the speeds start increasing, and the torque decreases. 

[Related: The Ford Bronco is back and ready to take on the Jeep Wrangler in new ways]

“Parking brake is very important, because once you take your foot off the brake, foot off the clutch, everything, if you did not have your parking brake on, you could roll, since it’s in neutral, and nothing’s controlling it,” says Schwalbe.  

In the Bronco, there’s a mechanism that sits on the stick shift like a turtleneck that can slide up and down. To reverse, you pull the component up and move the stick into the “R” gear. 

With the overview done, we’re prepping for the drive. First, to start the car, I have to press my foot all the way down on the clutch, and have my right foot on the brake, before I can hit the engine-on button. 

The car roars to life. Now, we have to move. Schwalbe is coaching me from the passenger’s seat. Once I shifted into first gear, I lifted my foot off the brake pedal, and set it on the accelerator. To refrain from lurching forward or stalling, I’m slowly lifting my foot off the clutch and then tapping down on the gas to move it forward. To stop, I push the clutch in and press down on the brake. We repeat this process in a lap or two around the open lot before we get ready to shift gears. 

We’re cruising at 10 mph in first gear, and before we can shift up a gear, the foot comes off the gas, the clutch needs to be pushed in. “You always have to have your foot on the clutch to shift,” Schwalbe notes. 

We practice slowing, speeding up, and shifting gears for a couple more laps. Being in a manual car definitely makes you feel more present and engaged, as you’re evaluating both the vehicle and the surroundings constantly, and moving the car’s components to adjust. By the end of the lesson, I feel comfortable with it, but am in no way ready to hit the road. Baby steps. 

In the Dark Horse

To showcase the true range of a stick shift car, NASCAR driver Ryan Blaney took me for a spin in the Mustang Dark Horse, a sleek, ground-hugging vehicle designed to get up to high speeds, fast. Zooming around the lot, deftly maneuvering around the edges, made me understand why drivers have to work out their necks to withstand the G-forces of racing. For a brief moment while we were going straight, I had a sensation like I was on a roller coaster. 

[Related: An inside look at the data powering McLaren’s F1 team]

Blaney notes that he’s used to the heat. NASCAR vehicles don’t come with AC that’s blasting us at the moment. A luxury. This event is falling in the middle of the season, which is made up of 38 races spanning from February to November. The next one is in Chicago. Racing is a cool gig, but free time is sparse. They only get a week of break during the season. “Weddings are hard to get to,” he says. “All the NASCAR drivers get married in the winter, because it’s our off-time.” 

NASCAR race cars all have manual transmissions, because it provides more control over the performance of the vehicle. Driving well on a manual takes skill, I have learned. Skills that Blaney clearly has, and I probably will never attain. Specifically, Blaney uses H pattern shifters while racing, although NASCAR has been testing sequential shifters, too. Formula 1 race cars, on the other hand, use a type of semi-automatic gearbox that’s controlled with paddle shifts.

In my experience, I’ll say that it’s not the hardest new skill to pick up over a weekend. And I guess like all the old trends that are new again, nostalgia (along with a cheaper price tag if you’re in the market for a car) is too great of a lure to resist.

The post I learned stick shift from the pros—here’s how it went appeared first on Popular Science.

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Yesterday, electric vehicle maker Canoo announced in a press release that it had delivered three new Crew Transportation Vehicles (CTVs) to NASA. The cute-looking and totally electric vehicles will transport astronauts to the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the Artemis lunar missions.

Designed as a big update to shuttle-era Astrovan, the CTVs were made specifically for the requirements of the Artemis missions, NASA says. Each vehicle can accommodate up to four astronauts in their brand-new Orion spacesuits, plus a spacesuit technician, on the drive to Launch Pad 39B. There’s also “room for specialized equipment,” NASA says. 

“The collaboration between Canoo and our NASA representatives focused on the crews’ safety and comfort on the way to the pad ahead of their journey to the Moon,” Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, the Artemis launch director, said in a press release. 

Although safety and comfort were obviously important, NASA also put a lot of thought into the visual design of the CTVs, which is meant to pay “homage to the legacy of the agency’s human spaceflight and space exploration efforts.” Apparently, everything “from the interior and exterior markings to the color of the vehicles to the wheel wells” was carefully chosen. 

[Related: With Artemis 1 launched, NASA is officially on its way back to the moon]

“I have no doubt everyone who sees these new vehicles will feel the same sense of pride I have for this next endeavor of crewed Artemis missions,” Blackwell-Thompson, who was involved in the design process, added. Canoo intends to reveal the interior and exterior in more detail later this year.

Canoo is one of the more interesting electric vehicle manufacturers in the US. It has developed a “skateboard” modular EV platform (other EV makers use the skateboard approach too). Basically, it consists of four wheels, a battery, a motor or two, and a drive-by-wire steering wheel on a 9.35-foot wheelbase, allowing the company to develop different vehicles from the same chassis. So far, it has a van-style Lifestyle Vehicle (which the NASA CTVs are based on), a delivery-van, and a pickup truck, which the US Army is currently testing. 

Of course, developing a brand-new platform like this is never a smooth process. Canoo’s press release boasts of an “on time” delivery, hinting at some of its past troubles. As recently as May last year, the company only had enough cash on hand to last another three months. It seems a spate of binding orders for more than 15,000 vehicles from companies like Walmart and two fleet leasing companies, Zeeba and Kingbee, were enough to keep it in the clear. It’s a big reminder that the EV space is still very new, and some of the companies making headlines right now might not be the ones that we are talking about in 10 year’s time.

Although they were delivered this week, the CTVs won’t have their big day until at least November of 2024. That’s the current planned launch date for NASA’s first crewed mission to the moon in 53 years, Artemis II. The little CTVs will drive the four astronauts the first nine miles of their trip into space, though the hulking Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion spacecraft will take them for the rest of their 10-day mission. Until then, the three EVs will be used for astronaut training exercises. 

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In general, we see cars as artificial and inanimate machines made from welded steel and plastic. But what if vehicles could be designed with the evolution of microorganisms in mind, representing a collaboration with nature? Kia, Hyundai, and Genesis are investigating that worldview with a group of young artists and scientists at the renowned Rhode Island School of Design. 

Hyundai Motor Group (HMG), the parent company of all three brands, kicked off the RISD x Hyundai Motor Group Research Collaborative in 2019. Now in its fourth year, the unique partnership is focused on actively exploring the relationship between nature, art, and design for the good of humankind. Using phrases like “biologized skin” for robots and “chemotaxi processes” to describe movement, the team of students, professors, and HMG engineers and designers are challenging traditional ideas about how machines can work. 

Here’s what to know about projects that RISD students have created with the future of Hyundai Motor Group in mind. 

Using slime mold to mimic autonomous vehicles

While test-driving a brand-new 2024 Kia Seltos in and around Providence, Rhode Island with a group of journalists, we made a stop at RISD to hear from students in the program. In an initiative called Future Spaces and Autonomous Vehicles, students examined the future of autonomous vehicles using scientific methodologies combined with design-focused thinking. 

The first presenter, 2023 graduate Manini Banerjee, studied at Brown and Harvard before making her way to RISD, and she challenged us to think about how a car might work if it were driven by organisms instead of algorithms. 

In their research, Banerjee and her lab partner, Mehek Vohra, discovered that each autonomous vehicle processes 40 terabytes of data per hour; that’s the equivalent of typical use of an iPhone for 3,000 years, Banerjee says. The problem, she asserts, is that data processing and data storage relies heavily on carbon-emitting data centers, which only accelerates global warming. Vohra and Banerjee set out to find out if there is an opportunity for organic, sustainable data-free navigation. 

[Related: Inside the lab that’s growing mushroom computers]

Using a slime mold organism as a vehicle, the team observed how the mold grows, learns, and adapts. In a cardboard maze, the slim mold organism mimicked the movements of autonomous vehicles. During the study, they noticed the slime mold learned how to find the maze’s center through sensing chemicals and light in its environment. Is it possible to replace carbon-heavy data processes with a nature-based solution? Yes, Banerjee says. (According to Texas A&M, slime molds exist in nature as a “blob,” similar to an amoeba, engulfing their food, which is mostly bacteria. And in related work, research out of the University of Chicago involved using slime mold in a smartwatch in 2022.) 

“Civilization has been measured by this distance between the natural and the built environment,” she told the group. “I feel that we’ve begun to build that space with technological advancements.”

“Turn away from blindly pursuing innovation”

Today, designers and engineers look to the outside world to better understand physiology, patterns in nature, and beauty. The future of nature and cars as collaborators is front and center for the RISD and HMG partnership. 

There are about 100,000 taxidermied specimens in RISD’s Nature Lab collection; it’s on par with a world-class natural history museum and has been around since 1939. Students can check out a specimen from the lab like one might check out a library book for study. For instance, studying the wings of the kingfisher may spur an idea for not just colors but patterns, textures, and utility. Observing the bone structure of a pelican for strength points or the ways an insect’s wing repels water can advance the way vehicles are made, too. 

The RISD team is also exploring how to embrace entropy, or the degree of disorder or uncertainty in a system, versus strict mechanical processes. Sustainability is also an important element in this research, meaning that researchers should understand how materials break down instead of contributing to waste and climate change. Together, those two concepts inform the idea that engineering and technology can be programmed with built-in degradation (an expiration date, if you will) at the rate of human innovation.

“The intent is to turn away from blindly pursuing innovation and toward creating living machines that may restore our relationship with nature,” Banerjee said during a TedX presentation earlier this year. “If we understand the organisms we’re working with, we won’t have to hurt, edit, or decapitate them. We can move from ‘nature inspired’ to ‘nature collaborated.’”

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Last week, General Motors (the company that owns the Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, and Cadillac car brands) announced that they had bought a software startup called ALGOLiON that specializes in predicting EV battery fires. 

Specifically, “the software uses sophisticated algorithms to identify miniscule changes that could impact battery health weeks earlier than other methods in use today without additional hardware or sensors all while the battery is still operating properly,” according to a press release GM put out about the acquisition.  

ALGOLiON was founded in 2014 by a pair of battery industry experts. The key product it developed was software called AlgoShield, which can detect early warning signs that lead to battery hazards. The company explained on its website that its software uses “patented quantitative algorithm systems” that analyze changes in electrical signals from the battery in charge and discharge modes. It also monitors DC currents and voltage signals coming from the device for abnormalities that could indicate the presence of defects. 

[Related: Electric cars are better for the environment, no matter the power source]

This technique allows the company to see hazard events that could lead up to a thermal runaway reaction, because it aims to catch early warning signs that come before a temperature rise can be gauged by external sensors. The company has tested its tech in various labs across Europe, the US, and the UK. 

Lithium-ion battery fires have become a growing concern for manufacturers of consumer electronic devices from cell phones to e-bikes to cars. GM had to recall thousands of Chevy Bolt EVs in 2021 because of underlying issues with the battery. It was a very expensive ordeal. (The company has since discontinued the Bolt, which used an older form of battery tech, to focus on making vehicles just with its newest battery system, called Ultium.)

Failures with battery cells can be due to design flaws, or wear and tear combined with the wrong mix of temperature and motion. And of course, EV battery fires aren’t just a GM issue. Tesla has also experienced bouts of bad publicity around this problem. And Ford had to recall a dozen F-150 Lightnings after an incident earlier this year. While gas and diesel cars can certainly also catch on fire, EV fires are sometimes stubborn to put out. 

The car industry is aware of the potential risks, and has been researching ways to make components less flammable, more compartmentalized, or created with new materials.

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With its new DB12, Aston Martin is aiming for the mantle of “super tourer.” Think of it as an adult supercar—a vehicle that provides long-distance comfort to go with track-shredding performance.

The DB12 will reach US shores in October, and while pricing hasn’t been set yet, Aston says that those waiting with open wallets can expect that pricing will be similar to that of the outgoing DB11 and its competitors, which is around $250,000.

Consider the DB12’s sporting credentials: a 671-horsepower twin-turbocharged 4.0-liter V8, 202-mph top speed, and 3.5-second 0-60 mph time. On the touring side, an aluminum chassis that is stiffer than that of the outgoing DB11 lets the active damping system work more effectively as it adjusts on the fly to provide a smooth ride or taut handling, depending on the driver’s mode selection.

Aston Martin may be best known for the vehicles that have appeared in James Bond films, from the DB5 in Goldfinger to the more recent DBS in No Time to Die, which was Daniel Craig’s last turn at the role. Today, the company is reinforced with financial backing from recent purchaser Lawrence Stroll, as seen on the Netflix series Drive to Survive as the father of F1 driver Lance Stroll.

The DB12’s engine is in the front and it sends power to the rear wheels, and only the rear wheels, exactly as the gods of combustion decreed. My test drive on the Route Napoléon in the South of France provided ample opportunity to sample the various settings: Wet, GT, Sport, Sports Plus, and Individual.

Special accolades go to the calibration of the Wet setting, which reined in the DB12’s horses and softened its responses enough to make driving a rear-drive, 671-hp 2+2 (it has two regular seats in the front, and two tiny ones in the back) coupe through torrents of rain on twisting roads relaxing. Only the windshield wipers seemed to break a sweat in the conditions.

While I appreciated the DB12’s crisp turn-in response at corner entry (the “turn-in” refers to the point when the car approaches a curve and the driver begins turning) and quick responses while shredding switchbacks in Sports Plus mode, when jet lag overtook my copilot, I am sure she appreciated the cushier ride in the car’s GT mode that I selected in a bid to minimize disturbances to her sleep.

Adding Wet mode not only provided confidence while driving through the rain showers, but it also lets the other modes perform with less computer intervention, because those modes don’t have to account for wet road surfaces and can be tuned with the expectation of dry grip levels.

Director of vehicle performance Simon Newton explains in a chat with Popular Science that while the DB12 carries over about 20 percent of its parts from the DB11 and retains much of that car’s architecture, clever engineering has produced a livelier and more responsive machine for sportier driving. 

Turn-in and steering response benefit from the vehicle’s 4.0-liter V8, instead of the DB11’s heavier 5.2-liter V12, which produced 41 fewer horsepower than the DB12’s engine. 

Global chassis stiffness (more is better) is only increased by 7 percent compared to the DB11, but the local stiffness at the suspension attachment points is improved so that the car turns instead of twisting those parts of the frame. Making the chassis stiffer means that the suspension system responds to input rather than the frame being twisted.

“We have a 140 percent increase in the stiffness between the front damper attachment point and the opposite direction,” he says. Improvements are similar at the rear of the car, he added.

Foam in the tires  

The lateral loads going into the suspension and chassis are increased by the DB12’s use of a brand-new tire from Michelin, the Pilot Sport 5S. These tires will appear on other cars in the future, but Aston worked with Michelin to develop this specific version to suit the DB12. 

That means providing the expected stupendous grip, but doing so with grace. Aston went through five iterations of development with Michelin for the DB12’s tires, when three or four such loops of development, feedback, and adjustment are the norm, says Newton. 

Because the Aston is a super tourer, not a supercar, it needs to have a serene ride in addition to having a lot of grip for cornering, accelerating, and braking. The tire’s performance needed to be balanced, just as the suspension is able to slice up switchbacks or cruise without waking my passenger. “That means not only in terms of lateral capacity but also finesse,” Newton explains. “We needed it to steer well and to ride well.”

They also need to be quiet, so as with the tires that Rolls-Royce uses, the DB12’s tires include noise-canceling foam inserts that hush tire hum by 20 percent inside the car.

The tires work in coordination with rigorously tuned electric power steering to provide good on-center steering feel and appropriate response to corner turn-in. Here is an area where the engineering team focused on dynamics more than isolation, removing the rubber bushing that isolated the steering column to enhance steering feel. Calibration engineers took care to deliver “an intuitive, confidence-inspiring feel,” as said Aston Martin in the car’s press release, and a day behind the wheel on mountain roads confirms the claim.

Hitting the brakes

The brakes, which are supplied by Brembo, are another area where Aston engineers toiled to deliver a combination of performance and refinement. The company boasts that the DB12’s carbon ceramic brakes shave nearly 60 pounds of unsprung mass from the car. That’s weight not carried by the suspension that has to move with the surface of the road, so minimizing that mass is crucial.

However, carbon ceramic brakes often come with compromises. On Ferraris, the carbon ceramics are annoyingly grabby, providing huge brake force with the slightest pressure on the pedal. Porsche’s carbon ceramics often squeal embarrassingly, which isn’t ideal in a gracious “super tourer.” Lamborghini avoids these issues at the cost of brake feel that goes spongy at track speeds.

But Aston, like McLaren, has found a way to avoid these problems. Unlike McLaren, Aston was willing to share how they did it, working in partnership with Brembo, which is the brake supplier. 

“It was a lot of work and it still goes on,” says Newton. That’s because while the engineering team toiled to ensure that the brakes are as good as possible when they are new, there are opportunities remaining to learn about their performance as they wear and make additional improvements, he said. Toward that goal, the company put in 100,000 miles of testing in hot weather, at various elevations, and at different points in brake pads’ wear life. “This is a point of continuing improvement,” says Newton.

To achieve the ideal starting point, the Aston team sought to ensure that “everything about DB12 is linear and predictable,” he explains. The challenge with carbon ceramic brakes is that their friction increases as they heat up, so it is important to offset that to maintain consistent brake response, hot or cold.

The team compensated with additional response from the brake booster when the brakes are cold and less when they are hot, with the aim of balancing the response in various conditions.

“Then we start to work on the refinement,” Newton says. The company had a head start on this effort from its work on the DBS, which came out a few years ago. The DB12’s brakes are similar to those on the DBS, according to Newton. 

For all this work, the carbon ceramic brakes on my test car are optional, and customers can stick with the easier-to-design cast-iron brakes. Those brakes get their own attention, with specific booster profiles and brake pads too, so it isn’t just a matter of having a different set of rotors.

Electronic stability control 

All of these technical changes to the car are backed by electronics that augment the DB12’s ability to respond to driver input. The electronic stability control system boasts a six-axis inertial measurement unit that provides a detailed picture of what the car is doing to the algorithm that decides what to do next. 

It controls the DB12’s adaptive dampers and electronic differential to let the car carve its way through switchbacks like a lightweight sports car while delivering the comfort that drivers (and snoozing passengers) expect from a car of this caliber.

Adding to the DB12’s posh atmosphere is an upgraded interior, which is specifically designed to address the sometimes “cottage industry” grade of Aston Martin cockpits in the past. In addition to upgrading the interior materials, the company has also developed its own modern infotainment system in place of the archaic system employed in the DB11 that was a source of frustration for drivers. 

Aston promises a 30-millisecond response time through the 10.25-inch capacitive touch display and the system adds support for both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. The company eliminated its cool-looking but obtrusive-to-use push button shifter on the dashboard for a compact shift lever on the center console that is easier to use without forcing the driver’s eyes off the road.

A shift with the shifters 

Alas, they’ve also relocated the shift paddles from a fixed place on the steering column in the manner of Ferrari and Lamborghini to steering-wheel-mounted paddles. Nelson insists that this is better, though I strongly prefer having the paddles stay where I can find them while turning the steering wheel.

Nelson says that it is unusual to need to shift while making the large steering inputs that make the driver shuffle their hands on the wheel and away from the shift paddles. But the French switchbacks showed exactly how unwinding the steering wheel while accelerating out of a slow corner often demands an upshift before the driver’s hands have returned to their straight-ahead position where they can find the shift paddles again.

In the end, the programming of the eight-speed ZF planetary automatic is smart enough that after a few paddle shifts for novelty’s sake, most drivers will leave the shifting to the computer, which does a faultless job, making the issue of paddle location irrelevant.

As with Daniel Craig’s conclusion of his run as James Bond, it is similarly appropriate that the DB12 looks forward with its new technology rather than sticking to the familiar hardware of the past, whether that be the V12 engine or the shift mechanisms used previously.

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While plug-in electric vehicles are the center of much hype, they aren’t the only type of newfangled, potentially sustainable vehicle that the world’s brightest minds have set their sights on. Fuel cell electric vehicles also use electricity, but instead of using a battery, they produce electricity internally using a hydrogen fuel cell. While these kinds of vehicles have been around for a while, the technology has faced plenty of challenges and hurdles—namely inefficiency and range anxiety.

However, a team of students at the Netherland’s Delft University of Technology recently took a big step for hydrogen cars—and, simultaneously, broke the Guinness World Record for the greatest distance driven on full tanks of hydrogen fuel. On Sunday, June 25, the student team drove their hydrogen-fueled Eco-Runner XIII for 2,488.4 kilometers (1,546.2 miles) over the course of three days on just one kilogram of hydrogen fuel—that’s about the distance between Boston and Miami. The student crew drove the 71.5 hours in rotating shifts of two hours, only stopping to switch out drivers.

[Related: A beginner’s guide to the ‘hydrogen rainbow’.]

The previous record of 2,056 kilometers (1,277 miles) was set only last May by ARM Engineering’s electric Renault Zoe, which operates using a methanol fuel cell. 

The impressive feat took place at Germany’s Immendigen track. The record-breaking vehicle is the thirteenth iteration of the Eco-Runner, the first of which was revealed in 2005. The scientists first exhibited the final design of the Eco-Runner XIII in May, touting the development as possibly the most efficient hydrogen car yet. The three-wheeled, cloud-shaped vehicle utilizes carbon fiber instead of steel for parts such as push rods in the steering system, the hull of the vehicle, and suspension beams. Additionally, the team took extra care to factor in energy efficiency in terms of energy losses—especially during the conversion of hydrogen to electricity, and then electricity to kinetic energy. To do so, the team used a “brand-new” fuel cell. 

All in all, the 72 kilogram (158 pound) car can drive around 45 kilometers per hour (27 miles per hour). While this one-person, funky-shaped, car might not be road-trip ready, the team hopes their developments can keep pushing the clean technology closer to the mainstream. Around 56,000 hydrogen cars were sold worldwide in 2022 according to one report, and the market for such vehicles is slated to hit $17.88 billion by 2029.  

[Related: This plane powered by hydrogen has made an electrifying first flight.]

For those who are intrigued by hydrogen vehicles and live in the Netherlands, you’re in luck—the first hydrogen energy refueling hub was just unveiled outside of Amsterdam.

“Electric cars are also part of the solution for sustainable mobility, but the electricity grid is already filling up,” Eline Schwietert, the Delft team’s press contact, said in a recent statement. “Electrifying the whole world is not an option. Hydrogen and electric cars go hand in hand. There is not one big winner.”

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This article has been updated.

To date, there are about 17,000 Tesla charging stations and more than 130,000 public charging stations across the US. Tesla owners are often effusive about its app and the effectiveness and speed of NACS (North American Charging Standard), while those using CCS (Combined Charging System) complain of broken stations and apps that are confusing and unintuitive. With behemoth automakers like Ford and GM switching over to Tesla’s NACS, CCS station owners will need to improve reliability and consider adding Tesla adapters too or face a fade into oblivion. 

Tesla owners may not be happy about the shift, as they’ve enjoyed access to their own fiefdom of chargers for years. Now they’ll have to make room for non-Tesla EVs and could face more wait time. Overall, it looks like a competitive fight that will benefit the consumer. 

“My guess is that what we will see is by 2027, there will probably be no more new EVs built for North America with CCS ports,” Sam Abuelsamid, an analyst at Guidehouse Insights, told Business Insider.

One company that’s bucking the wave is Volkswagen, which says it’s committed to the CCS standard. That’s no wonder: CCS provider Electrify America was partially founded with $2 billion from the VW emissions “Dieselgate” settlement. The charging network has 840 stations and plans to double its number of chargers by 2026. Others, like Toyota, have not yet commented on the possibility. 

Here’s the rundown of companies making the switch and those strongly considering it. 

Automakers already committed to NACS going forward

Ford

In May, Ford CEO Jim Farley surprised the market by unveiling an agreement with Tesla to allow current Ford EV owners to use Tesla Superchargers across the US and Canada starting early next year. And Ford’s next-generation of EVs will include Tesla’s charging plug, eliminating the need for an adapter. 

General Motors (Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, Cadillac)

Within a couple of weeks of Ford’s announcement, General Motors followed suit. Access to the Tesla network will begin in early 2024 for GM customers using an adapter, and GM will start building EVs with a NACS inlet port starting in 2025. After that, GM says it will make CCS adapters available for drivers of NACS-enabled vehicles. The company is also planning to integrate the Tesla Supercharger Network into its vehicle and mobile apps for payment and service, as well. 

Rivian

In June, Rivian announced it had signed an agreement with Tesla for access to Tesla’s Supercharger network across the US and Canada. Sometime next year (as early as spring 2024, Rivian says), the electric automaker will make NACS adapters available for its R1T pickup and R1S SUV. And next-generation Rivian vehicles (2025 and later) will include a NACS charge port as standard. 

Volvo

Volvo intends to manufacture only electric cars by 2030. With that goal in mind, Volvo says its US-market vehicles will be equipped with NACS charging ports starting from 2025. The Swedish automaker made a splash with its recent debut of the affordable EX30 EV, and it also offers the all-electric models XC40, EX90, and C40 Recharge. 

Nissan

On July 19, Nissan announced that it was joining the NACS standard too, and like other automakers, it will manufacture EVs with a NACS port in 2025. In 2024, it will offer an adapter for its Ariya EV; that vehicle currently uses CCS.

Companies actively considering moving to NACS

Hyundai

Hyundai president Jaehoon Chang told investors in June that the company would consider shifting to Tesla’s standard, but it’s still weighing its options. Kia and Hyundai both use the 800-volt battery architecture for fast charging; a Kia EV6 or Hyundai Ioniq 6, for example, can replenish up to 80 percent of its range in less than 20 minutes on a CCS DC fast charger. Tesla’s Superchargers, however, employ a 400-volt architecture and can’t charge Hyundai and Kia vehicles as effectively. 

Stellantis (Jeep, Chrysler, Alfa Romeo, Ram, Maserati, Dodge, Renault, Fiat, and more)

According to The Washington Post, Stellantis is pulling together a network of public electric vehicle chargers (including the Tesla standard) in the US, Canada and Europe. At this juncture, it remains to be seen if Stellantis will move ahead with a plan for its own network or will join together with the others on NACS. 

While the conglomerate Stellantis doesn’t currently sell any all-electric vehicles, it does sell three plug-in gas-electric hybrids: the Dodge Hornet, Alfa Romeo Tonale, and Chrysler Pacifica. An electric commercial van is in the works this year, as well as an all-electric Ram Rev pickup. 

This article has been updated with the news that Nissan will join the NACS standard, too.

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On June 26, the US Army announced a new name and a new acronym for what will replace the Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle. The program to do so was formerly known as the Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle, but the vehicle itself will now be known as the XM30 Mechanized Infantry Combat Vehicle. Replacing the Bradley is no small task, as the Army has tried and failed to find a suitable next-generation version of its fighting troop carrier for decades.

Before the Army decides on a final model of the XM30, it has awarded contracts to two teams to design and build up to 11 prototype vehicles each. These teams are led by General Dynamics Land Systems, based in Sterling Heights, Michigan, and by American Rheinmetall, also based in Sterling Heights, Michigan.

“In recent years, peer and near-peer competitors of the United States have significantly increased their combat vehicle capabilities. The character of warfare has changed and our potential adversaries bring increased capabilities to the battlefield. The best way to respond is to ensure that our formations equipped with Infantry Fighting Vehicles can bring greater survivability, powerful lethality at stand-off range, and improved maneuver capabilities to the battlefield,” Dan Heaton, of the Next Generation Combat Vehicle Cross Functional Team, says via email. “The Bradley Fighting Vehicle continues to be a capable and reliable asset for our Army. As we consider the future fight, however, we need to invest in a new vehicle that can meet the needs of the Army of 2040.”

The Bradley’s origins date back to the late Cold War, when the Army sought a troop transport that could not just deliver infantry safely to battle, but whose crew could use the vehicle’s weapons and sensors to fight alongside the disembarked soldiers. This design was oriented, as with much of US military planning at the time, towards fighting in the European plains and steppes where the Army expected to face the forces of the Soviet Union.

Today, Bradleys can be seen leading armored assaults against Russian lines in Ukraine, as the country works to expel the invading army using machines passed down to it by the US and others.

For the new XM30, building upon the success of the Bradley while designing for the future means leaning heavily into automation, reducing the crew needed to operate the vehicle from three to two, while keeping room for six passengers on the inside. In addition, it’s expected the vehicle will be armed with a 50mm cannon mounted in a remotely controlled turret. It will also have anti-tank guided missiles and machine guns.

“The XM30 at initial fielding [will] include waypoint navigation, Artificial Intelligent Target Recognition (AiTR), and Advanced fire control systems all of which are designed to ease the cognitive burden of the two-person crew,” says Heaton. 

That’s just the start, though. The Army is also working on ways to develop software that is independent of hardware, enabling each side of the equation to be upgraded independently. If better targeting comes from better software on the same hardware, the XM30 should be able to incorporate that.

“We don’t know which technologies will emerge in the future or the rate at which they will be ready to incorporate into a combat vehicle,” says Heaton. “Through the use of Modular Open System Architecture, we are building a vehicle platform that is intentionally designed to allow new technology to be incorporated into the vehicle at the right time. The XM30 is being designed with future upgrades in mind.”

Automation, especially on vehicles designed for combat, requires striking a balance between letting the machine automatically do tasks that require little human supervision, while ensuring human operators are fully in control of major decisions.

While new tools will change the minutiae of how the XM30 operates, the overall role of the vehicle will be the same as the Bradleys it is designed to replace.

“The XM30 is an armored combat vehicle designed to maneuver through the enemy’s security zone to deliver Infantry to positions of advantage to accomplish the unit’s mission,” says Heaton. “The focus of the autonomous behaviors is on reducing the cognitive burden on the crew and allowing formations to generate combat power faster than our adversaries.”

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Yet another major carmaker is opening up their fleet to Tesla’s formerly exclusive, proprietary charging stations. On Tuesday, Volvo announced plans to include the North American Charging Standard (NACS) charging port for its future vehicles available in the US, Mexico, and Canada beginning in 2025. Starting next year, owners of existing fully electric Volvos such as the EX30, XC40n, and C40 Recharge that currently feature the Combined Charging System (CCS) ports will be able to utilize Tesla’s Supercharger network via a separate, purchasable port adapter. In a somewhat ironic reversal, Volvo EV owners who wish to still utilize CCS charging stations after 2025 will then be able to purchase a separate port adapter.

[Related: GM’s new partnership with Tesla could supercharge the EV landscape.]

“As part of our journey to becoming fully electric by 2030, we want to make life with an electric car as easy as possible,” Volvo Cars CEO Jim Rowan said in Tuesday’s announcement. Rowan added that one of the biggest hurdles for EV car adoption has been ensuring an accessible, convenient charging infrastructure.

Although the ongoing division between CCS and NACS vehicles has been an issue, a number of industry leading vehicle manufacturers have recently announced partnerships with Tesla to ensure NACS compatibility—a tacit admission of the system’s increasing popularity, performance, and reliability. Earlier this month, both Rivian and GM revealed their own agreements with Tesla to begin offering similar port adapters next year alongside plans to include NACS ports in all new electric models starting in 2025. In May, Ford made a similar announcement for its own EV fleet.

[Related: Volvo’s new electric EX30 is cheaper than a Tesla Model 3.]

This isn’t Volvo’s first attempt at expanding charging capabilities and access for its vehicle owners. Last year, the company announced a pilot program to install EV chargers at certain Starbucks locations across 5 states in the Western US, including Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. According to the company, Volvo aims to only manufacture EVs by 2030, as well as become climate-neutral by 2040.

Such economical and creative partnerships are key to ensuring a smooth and timely transition to a majority EV transportation landscape. By the end of the decade, an estimated 25 percent of all vehicle sales are expected to be EVs, with 70 percent of all new purchases expected to be electric by 2040.

According to Grist on Wednesday, the Biden Administration’s Joint Office of Energy and Transportation recently announced a forthcoming “expedited review” alongside the Society for Automotive Engineers to consider making NACS a “public standard” akin to the USB-C cord.

The post Volvo is the latest automaker to hop on the Tesla EV-charging bandwagon appeared first on Popular Science.

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We are at the beginning of a green technological revolution, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. The transition to a low-carbon economy to mitigate climate change would not be possible without green technologies like electric vehicles, solar panels, wind turbines, and energy storage systems. However, these technologies rely on over 10 different minerals and metals—including copper, nickel, cobalt, and aluminum—whose production must increase significantly to meet demand.

By 2050, the annual supply of copper and nickel, in particular, will have to increase by about 150 to 200 percent relative to 2020 production levels to meet the needs of green technology deployments. If production grows rapidly, the associated environmental impacts and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are expected to rise as well. Under a business-as-usual scenario, the GHG emissions of copper and nickel may increase by 125 and 90 percent, respectively, by 2050. Therefore, decarbonizing the mining industry is an essential part of meeting global climate targets.

How mining affects the environment

Mining is an environmentally invasive process. Its impacts manifest in land use change, disturbance to local ecosystems, and GHG emissions, says Paolo Natali, a principal with RMI’s climate intelligence program who leads the Supply Chain Emissions Initiative. The nature of mining is to disturb large areas of land to retrieve resources deep below the surface, that’s why it can drive deforestation and increase the erosion rate greatly. Waste rock and tailings from mining may also contaminate the soil and water, which, combined with the clearing of forests, contributes to habitat loss and ecosystem damage.

[Related on PopSci+: The summer issue of PopSci is extremely metal.]

Mining is also a significant source of GHG emissions due to the use of diesel-powered equipment, which releases carbon dioxide, as well as through the release of trapped gasses like methane, says Natali. The supply chain is also energy-intensive because activities like drilling and blasting, material handling or the process of moving the mined material out of the mine via conveyor belts or trucks, grinding, metal smelting, and transporting all require a lot of energy.

Natali says copper and nickel extraction, in particular, are experiencing declining ore grades. Ore grades refer to the concentration of the mineral or metal content in an ore-bearing rock. Declining grades means that it’s taking more effort to gather the same amount of mineral, and therefore using up more energy and resulting emissions, he adds. As the ore grade decreases, the energy, diesel, and electricity used all increase. The finite nature of these resources—which makes it necessary to go deeper and into more remote areas to keep finding them—and the economies of scale that the mining industry has developed have enabled lower grades to be processed profitably, says Natali.

Increasing the production of copper and nickel to address the growing need for green technologies would increase the impacts of mining and harm the environment even further. Perrine Toledano, the director of research and policy at the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment, says meeting the rising mineral demand will put pressure on freshwater resources in copper mining regions and present a significant biodiversity risk in locations with nickel reserves. Chile, the world’s top copper producer, is already water-scarce and will face increasing water risks due to the impacts of climate change.

Overall, decarbonizing mining is necessary to successfully transition to a low-carbon economy.

Decarbonizing copper and nickel mining

To cut emissions associated with carbon-intensive energy production, the industry should replace fossil fuels and its generated electricity with renewable energy, sustainable biofuels, and green hydrogen, says Toledano. For instance, eliminating diesel use in mining equipment may remove up to 40 percent of a mine site’s emissions.

Aside from using clean electricity, Natali says adopting higher precision mining techniques to improve ore grades and electrifying the energy input, like by using conveyors or electric trucks during material handling, are crucial. Latest developments in battery electric large-haul trucks, such as fast charging or hydrogen fuel-cell range extenders, will have to be coupled with the increasing use of renewable energy and new technologies downstream to eliminate emissions from high temperature and chemical processes like smelting and refining, he adds.

[Related: For years, Chile exploited its environment to grow. Now it’s trying to save it.]

Circular economy interventions like increasing metal recovery and reusing mineral and non-mineral waste may also support emission reductions across the mining value chains. Both copper and nickel can be recycled repeatedly without losing their properties or quality. Moreover, recycled copper uses about 85 percent less energy than primary production.

Policymakers can support a just transition to net zero mining by establishing stricter and clearer regulation of mining activities and subsidizing green energy, says Natali. He also recommends requiring that imported minerals face similar environmental and social standards with domestically produced minerals.

Fossil fuel subsidies in place create an artificial cost disadvantage for renewables, says Toledano. Such subsidies reduce the cost of fossil-fuel-powered electricity generation, which makes renewable energy less competitive. They can also reinforce the reliance on fossil fuels and make it more favorable. Therefore, policymakers must ensure the penetration of renewable energies, which could support the transition of the mining industry to clean energy.

Decarbonizing copper and nickel mining won’t happen in an instant. However, by switching to renewable energy, improving production efficiency, and establishing policies that include climate-related mitigation and adaptation obligations on mining operations, meeting increasing mineral demand with fewer emissions may become achievable.

The post How can we decarbonize copper and nickel mining? appeared first on Popular Science.

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This post has been updated. It was first published in May, 2022.

Waymo is the latest autonomous car company to make headlines for the wrong reasons. On May 21, 2023, one of its vehicles operating autonomously hit and killed a small dog in an “unavoidable” incident. Although the safety driver didn’t see the dog, apparently the vehicle’s autonomous driving system detected it but was unable to do anything to prevent the collision. Of course, that’s something that can happen with human drivers too—but after the bad publicity of autonomous vehicles over the last few years, it’s not what any company in this field needs.

Still, despite plenty of setbacks, layoffs, and shut downs, a number of companies are making real progress in getting self-driving cars on the road. If you’re curious about what Waymo and some of the other major outfits are up to, here’s a handy alphabetized guide to some of the key firms working on autonomous vehicles. 

Argo AI 

Argo AI, the self-driving car play backed by Ford and Volkswagen, shut down in October of 2022. Both companies remain committed to developing some kind of driver automation, with Ford refocusing on lower levels of driver assistance technology.

Aurora

This company bought Uber’s former self-driving division in 2020. Its self-driving freight program, Aurora Horizons, is progressing well. The latest beta is now “feature complete,” meaning it has all the features it needs for the service to launch; the developers are just ironing out all the bugs. The company plans to launch the Aurora Driver system for trucks commercially next year. As of May this year, its trucks were hauling 50 loads and covering more than 14,000 miles each week in Texas for its shipping partners, FedEx, Werner, Schneider, and Uber Freight.

After testing self-driving Toyota Siennas on the streets of the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area last year, the company plans to launch its Aurora Connect ride-hailing service after it successfully debuts Horizons. 

Cruise 

Owned by General Motors, Cruise has been quietly successful. Its autonomous robotaxis are operating 24/7 in San Francisco for employees, though for the general public (who pay for rides), the service is available between 10 pm and 5:30 am in a limited area of the city—at least for the next few weeks. The company is also rolling out its ride-hailing in Houston and Dallas with a safety driver in the car. 

Motional

A joint venture between Aptiv and Hyundai, Motional is offering free rides to the public through both Lyft and UberX—though only in downtown Las Vegas. The service is available 24/7, though there’s still a safety-driver behind the wheel. It plans to operate fully autonomously later this year. 

Pony.ai

Pony.ai has had a rough few years in California. Last year, it lost its permit to test its fleet of autonomous vehicles over concerns about the driving records of the safety drivers it employed; and that’s after having its license to test its autonomous vehicles without a safety driver suspended the year before. Still, things are looking better for the company elsewhere. 

As of April this year, it is now operating a fully driverless ride-hailing service in Guangzhou, China, and is also permitted to test its cars in Beijing. State-side, it’s testing its autonomous cars with safety drivers in Tucson, Arizona.

Waymo 

Despite the dog situation and a staff cut, things have generally been on the up and up for the well-established firm owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet. (Although a couple of Waymo vehicles had some problems in San Francisco on June 25.)

It recently doubled the size of its commercial ride-hailing service area in Phoenix, Arizona. It now covers 180 square miles between the Downtown and East Valley areas. Also, like Cruise, the company may soon be able to expand its testing service in San Francisco to operate 24/7. Between the two cities, public riders apparently take 10,000 trips each week—which is pretty impressive.

Zoox 

Bought by Amazon in 2020, Zoox is operating its quirky bidirectional “toasters” on California public roads and now in Nevada, too. 

The purpose-built electric robotaxis don’t have a steering wheel or other manual controls and passengers sit facing each other, like in an old horse-drawn carriage. Combined with four-wheel steering, the little robots don’t really have a front or back so can comfortably drive in both directions. 

In California, the vehicles are ferrying Zoox employees between two of the company’s office buildings along a one-mile route that requires them to make left and right turns, navigate traffic lights, and safely interact with cyclists, pedestrians, and other vehicles. And in Nevada, the company says the vehicles are operating on “a one-mile loop around the neighborhood where our Las Vegas HQ is located.” Like in California, this is only for Zoox employees.

Ultimately, despite the still relatively frequent setbacks, the autonomous vehicle industry has also been making quiet gains over the past year or two. We’re still a long way from ubiquitous driverless cars, but the technology is being tested in more places, in more ways, and with less drama. What a time to be a robot (or a person who likes being driven around by one).

The post What’s going on with self-driving car companies, from Aurora to Zoox appeared first on Popular Science.

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If you’ve ever planned an off-roading excursion, you may have consulted trail guides, travel websites, and enthusiast forums to map out a path. The problem is, paper guides are most certainly out of date even by the time they go to print, and some sites may not be updated. In the last decade, apps like Trails Offroad have come to the rescue with community-driven input to keep the trail maps current.

Using that app, Jeep Wrangler enthusiasts can download trail maps onto portable tablets, which they then mount somewhere in the cabin. Then they follow the carefully curated instructions. Jeep took that a step further with its new Adventure Guides, which is a feature that lets Wrangler owners download and follow those trail maps right on the dashboard itself with a 12.3-inch touchscreen, now standard across the board in all vehicles.

Let’s take a look at how this works for off-roading enthusiasts.

Digital adventuring

Adventure Guides incorporates the information from Trails Offroad, which Jeep senior brand manager Brandon Girmus says is the best source for off-roading information. Trails are rated from one to 10, with one being the  least difficult and 10 being the most. There are also notes available in-app that includes concerns drivers might encounter, like “chance of pinstriping,” which means your vehicle’s paint job will likely be altered by the scraping of branches and foliage surrounding the trail. Some guides also include history about that particular trail and the surrounding area. 

Altogether, Adventure Guides includes 62 Jeep “Badge of Honor” trails like the Rubicon Trail in California, Hell’s Revenge in Utah, and Jericho Mountain in New Hampshire. A $39.99 premium subscription is also available to unlock Trails Offroad’s full catalog of 3,000-plus trail guides.

“Whenever we touch Wrangler, we go to our enthusiasts and customers and find out what they want,” Girmus told PopSci. “Plus, we observe at places like Easter Jeep Safari and we noticed a lot of Jeep drivers using tablets. We reach out to Jeep owners all the time, and one of the things they said they wanted more of is help planning and mapping off-road trails.”

The guides are downloadable into the vehicle’s head unit, or infotainment system, making it accessible even if the Wrangler is out of cell phone range. 

Trail guidance even for newbies

For someone new to the Wrangler ownership experience, routing an off-roading plan can be a little daunting. How to pick a trail, how challenging they want the trail to be, and how long it is are all key factors in determining what is going to work best. And no one wants to go blindly into a situation where they’ll get stuck or find themselves in a dangerous spot.

Girmus says the new touchscreen isn’t about winning the size race. Stellantis, Jeep’s parent company, is well known for its UConnect infotainment system. Additionally, they are  standardizing the 12.3-inch screen with digital trail guides specifically for Wrangler drivers.

“This is technology with a purpose,” Girmus asserts. “We didn’t put a larger screen into Wrangler just because we wanted a larger screen. Everything we touch and do to the Wrangler goes back to its purpose and mission, which is first and foremost to be the ultimate off-road machine.”

To prep the car itself for the unpredictable terrains of off-roading, in 2024, Jeep is offering a variety of trim levels for its gas-only and plug-in hybrid 4xe models. As a testament that off-roading can be environmentally friendly, but still enjoyable, the Wrangler 4xe in particular has been wildly successful for the brand; it was America’s best-selling plug-in hybrid in 2022. Offering 21 miles of all-electric range, the Jeep 4xe makes for a quiet ride in the wilderness, as opposed to the loud 392. 

For prospective buyers, entry-level Wranglers start at $33,690 (powered by a 2.0-liter inline-four engine) and goes up to nearly $90K for the Wrangler 392, which includes a roaring 6.3-liter V8. And there’s a variant for just about every preference in-between. No matter what you’re looking for in a ride, Jeep’s trail digitization beckons for adventure.

The post This trail map app will guide off-roading Jeep Wranglers right from the dash appeared first on Popular Science.

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For decades, drivers in the United States have been able to think about the efficiency of their gas-powered vehicles with a simple criteria: miles per gallon. In fact, the Environmental Protection Agency started publishing the mpg metric for vehicles in the 1970s, and it makes intuitive sense. Theoretically, how far could your car travel on a single gallon of gasoline? The mpg figure is the answer.

But with electric vehicles—as well as plug-in hybrids—the situation gets a tad more complex. A pure EV does not burn gasoline. It gets the energy for its batteries from the grid, and is better for the environment. 

Enter the MPGe metric, which stands for mile per gallon of gasoline-equivalent and “allows [for] a reasonable comparison between vehicles using different fuels,” the EPA says.

What is MPGe?

New EPA vehicle labels debuted in 2012. For electric vehicles, it includes the EV’s “fuel economy” listed in MPGe, as well as other metrics, like its range. You can check out the EPA’s EV label on the agency’s site. For plug-in hybrid-electric vehicles, that PHEV label shows both the car’s efficiency when running on just battery power (in MPGe), as well as its efficiency if it were just burning gasoline, in mpg. And of course, a traditional vehicle that burns only gasoline has a label with the regular mpg metric. 

One commonality between the mpg metric and MPGe is that a larger number means better efficiency. “Miles per gallon is designed such that bigger numbers are better,” says David Gohlke, an energy and environmental analyst at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. “Higher miles per gallon means you go farther—you get more goodness out of the gallon of gasoline that you’re burning.” 

[Related: Volvo’s new electric EX30 is cheaper than a Tesla Model 3]

The bigger-is-better metric might sound obvious, but that’s not always the case with other measurement metrics for vehicle efficiency. For example, the gasoline vehicle sticker also features a gallons-per-100-miles figure, and in that case, a lower number represents better fuel efficiency—ideally, you want to burn as few gallons as possible when driving 100 miles. Ditto, on an EV’s sticker you’ll find the kilowatt-hours-per-100-miles metric, with lower being more efficient. And a PHEV vehicle’s sticker contains both of those lower-is-better metrics. 

But with the proliferation of EVs, the main metric to keep in mind is MPGe. “The EPA said, ‘Okay, well we’re going to need some way of describing these electric vehicles to the average person,” Gohlke says. “The EPA has come up with a conversion factor that translates from a kilowatt-hour of energy into the equivalent amount of energy in terms of a gallon of gasoline.” 

How is MPGe calculated?

The kilowatt hours (kWh) equivalent from gas comes from “the total heat content that exists in a gallon of gasoline,” Gohlke says. “They say, ‘Okay, if we took this gallon of gasoline, and set it on fire, effectively, how much heat energy can we get out of that?’” 

The answer to that question is 33.7 kWh. An EPA spokesperson notes via email that this figure is “a standard number for the energy content in gasoline.”

[Related: How to use less gas when driving with Google Maps]

So now the question becomes: How far can an EV travel on 33.7 kWh, which is equal to the energy in 1 gallon of gas? And that’s where the MPGe figure comes from. 

For context when it comes to understanding kWh, the average American home used about 886 kWh of electricity each month in 2021, according to the US Energy Information Administration. Considering a 30-day month, that means daily electric use is about 30 kWh. If you have a 1,000-watt (1 kilowatt) microwave and use it for an hour, you’ve used 1 kWh of electricity. So MPGe is saying: Here’s how many miles this EV can travel on an amount of electricity that is just a bit more than the average US household consumes each day. 

How can you find an EV’s MPGe? 

To see how the EPA rates an EV with this MPGe metric, you can look up the vehicle at fueleconomy.gov. For example, one variant of the 2023 Hyundai Ioniq 6 gets 140 MPGe, when combining its city (153) and highway (127) ratings. That’s superb. A 2023 Tesla Model 3 gets 132 MPGe. What about the gargantuan GMC Hummer EV? It’s rated for 47 MPGe. The Hyundai and the Tesla are way more efficient than the Hummer. 

Even if the MPGe measurement takes some getting used to, Paul Waatti, manager of industry analysis at AutoPacific, argues that it plays an important role. That’s because an EV’s range, which is also listed on the sticker, isn’t the full story. “That doesn’t necessarily tell you how efficient the vehicle actually is,” he says. “You might have a really high range number, like [with the electric] Hummer for example, but if you look at the MPGe figure for that, it shows that it’s very inefficient.” 

Ultimately, the MPGe metric isn’t perfect, but it’s good to have. “From a consumer perspective, I think there’s still quite a bit of confusion on what it actually means,” Waatti says. Still, he argues that it’s an important metric for giving people a sense of the car’s efficiency. 

Bottom line: A higher MPGe means the EV is more efficient, and right now, a number at or close to 140 is ideal.

The post What an electric vehicle’s MPGe rating really means appeared first on Popular Science.

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Best overall		Black+Decker 20V Max Flex		SEE IT	A four-foot hose lets you reach more space sans hassle.
Best handheld		Shark Wandvac		SEE IT	Powerful suction meets a lightweight, ergonomic design.
Best budget		Bissell Cleanview Deluxe Corded		SEE IT	This budget-friendly option punches above its weight.

You—plus family and friends—spend a lot of time in your vehicle(s), which means so does dirt, crumbs … and, hopefully, a car vacuum cleaner. You probably drop food, spill beverages, and have hairs everywhere, especially if you have kids and/or a dog. Plus, there are all the things that might have traveled on the bottom of your shoes. All good reasons to keep a portable vacuum in your car, truck, SUV, EV, etc. We researched and tested a variety of options to find the best car vacuums for any and every need and preference.

• Best overall: Black+Decker 20V Max Flex   
• Best cordless: iRobot H1
• Best in-car charge: Eufy HomeVac H20   
• Best wet-dry: Bissell Garage Pro  
• Best convertible: Dreametech T30  
• Best handheld: Shark Wandvac 
• Best compact design: Baseus A3
• Best budget: Bissell Cleanview Deluxe Corded

How we chose the best car vacuums 

As a freelance journalist for over 10 years, I’ve reviewed home and tech products for publications including CNN Underscored, NBC News Select, Popular Mechanics, Architectural Digest, Tom’s Guide, The Daily Beast, USA Today’s Reviewed, TechRadar, Better Homes & Gardens, and Bob Vila. Our car vacuums were selected based on personal testing, extensive research, recommendations from fellow critics, and user impressions.

The best car vacuums: Reviews & Recommendations

Vacuuming your car can be tricky. There’s insufficient space to let a robot vacuum roam freely in your vehicle. And those bulky uprights won’t even fit. No, you need something with different features to reach those french fries under your car seat and the pet fur on every surface. Effectively removing debris from upholstery, floor mats, and carpets can take your car detailing efforts to the next level, and you can unlock that achievement with one of our picks for the best vacuums for cars.

Best overall: Black+Decker 20V Max Flex

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Why it made the cut: Dirt and debris can’t hide from the 4-foot hose on this vacuum, which can clean your car’s interior from top to bottom.

Specs

• Type: Cordless hand vacuum
• Weight: 3.2 pounds
• Battery life: 12 minutes
• Charging time: 4 hours
• Dustbin Capacity: 17 ounces
• Attachments: Yes

Pros

• 4-foot flexible hose
• Pet hair brush
• 3-stage filtration

Cons

• Short battery life

The Black+Decker 20V Max Flex Hand Vacuum is our choice as the best car vacuum, and it’s also the best for pet hair. The most difficult part of cleaning the interior of a vehicle is trying to reach deep under and between the seats, especially those tight spaces. Removing pet hair isn’t fun, either. However, this car vacuum cleaner makes it quite easy to do both. That’s because it has a 4-foot flexible hose that provides enough flexibility to clean every inch of your car. The hose and handle can be unwrapped from the vacuum for extended cleaning and then wrapped back underneath when the hose is not needed.

The pet hair attachment has a wide head that scoops up pet hair effortlessly from the floor or seat. There’s also a 2-in-1 nozzle accessory with a brush tool that’s useful for cleaning and dusting, and the crevice tool is slim enough to fit into tight spaces. Regardless of the attachment used, the car vacuum cleaner provides 24 AW of suction and is easy to maneuver. And the top handle also makes it easy to transport. However, the cordless vacuum only has a 12-minute battery life.

The 20V Max has a washable dust container, a washable pre-filter, and a pleated filter. And the freestanding charging dock has accessory storage mounts to neatly keep everything tidy and in one place. 

Best cordless: iRobot H1  

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Why it made the cut: Lose the cord with this sturdy, well-built vacuum, which has an adjustable trigger control, two cleaning modes, and three attachments to tackle any debris in your car.

Specs

• Type: Cordless handheld
• Weight: 3.79 pounds
• Battery Life: 15 minutes on high/24 minutes on low
• Charging Time: 4 hours
• Dustbin Capacity: 0.4L
• Attachments: Yes

Pros

• Adjustable trigger control
• Two suction modes
• Dual filtration system

Cons

• No storage for attachments

The iRobot H1 Handheld Vacuum is well-made and designed to last for a long time. It’s a wireless vacuum that’s easy to grasp and hold onto, which makes it easy to operate. You can turn it on and change modes with just one hand. In continuous cleaning mode, the trigger locks into place to avoid the hand strains that occur from keeping your finger on the trigger.

The iRobot H1 has two modes: a low power, when using the vacuum normally, and a high-power mode when you need more suction power. And since it’s battery-operated, there are no cords to trip over or local outlets to search for. In addition, the dual filtration system—which also has a washable exhaust filter and dustbin filter—keeps dust, pollen, and pet dander inside. And the dustbin can be emptied without touching the debris. Just press the lid release to open and empty the bin.

Attachments include an upholstery tool for vacuuming pet hair, a crevice tool for reaching in between seats and other tight spaces, and a 2-in-1 combination tool/hard bristle brush for vacuuming carpets and other surfaces. The vacuum cleaner can also be wall-mounted to store it out of the way (and includes a wall-mount bracket, drywall anchors, and screws). However, there is no place to store the attachments.

Best in-car charge: Eufy HomeVac H20   

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Why it made the cut: You can charge this vacuum as you drive with the car charger.

Specs

• Type: Cordless handheld
• Weight: 1.44 pounds
• Battery life: 30 minutes in eco mode/9 minutes max mode
• Charging time: 1 hour
• Dustbin capacity: 17 ounces
• Attachments: Yes

Pros

• Charge via car’s cigarette lighter
• Charges in one hour
• Built-in LED light

Cons

• Wall charger is a separate cost

Convenience usually comes at a price, and most cordless vacuum cleaners have a short battery life, requiring you to stop and recharge. However, the Eufy HomeVac H20 is unique for two reasons. First, it has a 30-minute runtime longer than most handheld car vacuums. However, it’s also unique because you can charge it in your car using the vehicle’s cigarette lighter in just one hour (it can also be charged via a wall charger, although that’s a separate purchase).  

The lightweight vacuum has 40 AW suction power and two power modes: eco, recommended for daily use, and a max power mode for extensive cleaning. There’s also a built-in LED light to illuminate dust. The built-in retractable crevice tool can clean corners and other tight spaces in the console, while the brush head cleans hard surfaces (like air conditioning vents) and the extension hose. The filters and dust cups are washable, and the storage bag makes it easy to house and transport the vacuum cleaner so that you can toss it in the glove compartment or trunk.  

Best wet-dry: Bissell Garage Pro  

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Why it made the cut: This wall-mountable wet-dry vac has everything you need for DIY car detailing at home.

Specs

• Type: Corded canister
• Weight: 33.2 pounds
• Battery life: N/A – corded
• Charging time: N/A
• Dustbin capacity: 4 gallons
• Attachments: Yes

Pros

• Wet and dry modes
• Blower hose
• Mounts on the wall

Cons

• Need wall space for vacuum and hose

You can save time and money spent at a car detailing shop with the Bissell Garage Pro Wall-Mounted Wet Dry Car Vacuum. It can be used to vacuum dry messes and also pick up wet messes—in fact, Bissell knows a thing or two about wet/dry vacs and has two entries on our list of the best vacuum-mop combos. The icons on the face plate provide status notifications: the full dirt tank icon turns yellow when the 4-gallon dirt tank needs to be emptied, and the full water tank icon turns red when the water level is too high. Since the vacuum cleaner can be mounted on the wall, it doesn’t take up valuable floor or shelf space. Also, the wall mounting kit includes a 32-foot hose to reach deep into vehicles. In addition, the blower hose can dislodge dirt in the corners and crevices of the car.

Accessories (and they are plentiful) include a large area cleaning tool, multisurface floor tool, extension wands, crevice tool, dusting brush with soft bristles, 5-inch small upholstery tool, 3-inch precision suction tool, precision blower tool, and also small, medium, and large detailing tools. When not in use, there’s an accessory bag for storage. The primary filter should be cleaned with a damp cloth, and the secondary filter is washable. And if you are looking beyond the best car vacuum for detailing and need to clean your home’s carpets, check out the best Bissell carpet cleaners.

Best convertible: Dreametech T30  

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Why it made the cut: The Dreamtech T30 is versatile enough to be used as either a car vacuum or a cordless stick vacuum to clean your home’s floors, depending on your needs.

Specs

• Type: Cordless stick/handheld
• Weight: 3.88 pounds
• Battery life: 90 minutes/eco, 35 minutes/standard, 7.5 turbo
• Charging time: 4 hours
• Dustbin capacity: 0.16 Gal
• Attachments: Yes

Pros

• Converts to stick vacuum
• Automatically adjusts suction
• 90-minute battery life

Cons

• Expensive

If you’re looking for a car vacuum and a cordless stick vacuum, we recommend the Dreametech T30 Cordless Stick Vacuum. It’s pricey but contains everything you need to clean your car and home. Since it’s also a cordless stick vacuum, it’s more powerful than typical car vacuum cleaners and has strong suction pressure (190AW) to remove debris quickly. There are three suction modes. In eco mode, the vacuum has a 90-minute battery life. In standard mode, it’s 35 minutes; in turbo mode, you’ll get 7.5 minutes. The vacuum cleaner also has an auto-adapt cleaning mode. When using the auto mode, it can sense whether you’re vacuuming a light, thick, or medium level of dust and then adjust accordingly.

The onscreen display shows the remaining battery life, selected cleaning mode, dust detection level, and even the cleaning record. Used in handheld mode, accessories include the 2-in-1 brush nozzle, soft dusting brush, mini electric brush, crevice nozzle (with LED light), and extension hose. However, by attaching the carbon fiber rod, the vacuum cleaner can also reach deep into your cargo area to remove hidden dirt. The T30 can be mounted on the wall for storage and charging, and the mount also has places to house attachments. The filter is washable and reusable.

Best handheld: Shark Wandvac WV201

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Why it made the cut: This lightweight vacuum has an ergonomic design, powerful suction, and superfast charging capabilities.

Specs

• Type: Cordless handheld
• Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Battery life: 10 minutes
• Charging time: 2.5 hours
• Dustbin capacity: 0.08 gallons
• Attachments: Yes

Pros

• Compact charging dock
• LED indicators
• Quick, hands-free emptying

Cons

• Short battery life

The Shark Wandvac Handheld vacuum has such a sleek, streamlined design that it’s hard to believe the power of this device, which has a 120W motor with HyperVelocity suction power. The ergonomic handle makes the car vacuum easy to hold, while the long slim body makes it easy to use the handheld to reach under seats and in cargo areas. Attachments include a multisurface pet tool to vacuum pet hair and a duster crevice tool for consoles and other areas.

The compact charging base doesn’t take up much space and has room to store the accessories as well. Speaking of charging, the Shark Wandvac only takes 2.5 hours to recharge, compared to many car vacuums that take 4 hours. And an LED light shows the battery status (low, charging, or charged). When it’s time to empty the dust bin, the eject button is several inches away (and on the other side), so your hands won’t even come close to the dirt. In addition, the filter is washable.

Best compact design: Baseus A3

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Why it made the cut: It can fit in your cup holder and is smaller than some flashlights but cleans well.

Specs

• Type: Cordless handheld
• Weight: 1.66 pounds
• Battery life: 17-45 minutes
• Charging time: 3.5 hours
• Dustbin capacity: 500 milliliters
• Attachments: Yes

Pros

• Type C charging
• Long battery life
• Light functions as flashlight

Cons

•  Type C charging may be inconvenient for some

With a 135W motor and suction power ranging from 10000 to 15000PA, the compact Baseus A3 Handheld Vacuum is a stylish yet functional device. At 11.6 inches tall and 2.2 inches wide, it’s slimmer than some flashlights and can sit in the cupholder in your console—or you can store it in the glove compartment. It also has the longest battery life on our list—up to 45 minutes, depending on the setting (there are two suction modes: low and high).

The vacuum uses Type-C fast charging, so you can even use a portable charger with it, and it has an LED light on the top to see under your seats. In fact, the LED light can also serve as a flashlight when you’re not using the vacuum cleaner (the light can be turned on or off). Attachments include a 2-in-1 crevice tool. The high-density honeycomb fine steel filter is washable.

Best budget: Bissell Cleanview Deluxe Corded

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Why it made the cut: If you want a simple, economically priced corded handheld vacuum, this one even has specialty tools.

Specs

• Type: Corded handheld
• Weight: 5 pounds
• Battery life: N/A – corded
• Charging time: N/A
• Dustbin capacity: 0.78 L
• Attachments: Yes

Pros

• Great price
• Includes attachments
• 18-foot cord

Cons

• Pleated filter is not washable

What’s not to like about the Bissell CleanView Deluxe Corded Car Vacuum? It’s a budget-priced option that punches above its weight. The handheld vacuum is lightweight and easy to use. It’s got a cord, but the 18-foot cord provides plenty of freedom. The flexible rubber contour nozzle vacuums pet hair, car upholstery, and other areas. There’s also a wide-mouth tool to quickly clean larger areas in the vehicle and a crevice tool that can fit into tight spaces, like in between seats and around consoles.   

The vacuum also has a hose to help extend its reach, which lets you reach far underneath car seats and also clean deep in the trunk. And the handle on top of the unit makes it easy to operate and transport. Although the dirt container and screen can be rinsed with cold water, the pleated HEPA filter is not washable.

What to consider when buying the best car vacuum

The best car vacuum for your needs may differ from the best car vacuum for someone else. For example, I have a 2-seater sports car, and cleaning it is always quick and easy. However, if you drive a large SUV, are cleaning up behind kids, or want to clean multiple vehicles simultaneously, your preferences may differ. Also, note that we didn’t include any big and bulky car vacuums on our list. In the old days, those were the only choices but advances in vacuum technology have pretty much eliminated the need to use those dinosaurs. These are some of the factors and features to consider when searching for a new car vacuum cleaner.

Battery life

For a small or relatively clean car, 10 or 12 minutes is more than enough battery life. But with a larger or dirtier car—or even one with cracks and crevices that are difficult to get into, you may need more time—may need longer battery life. Also, keep in mind that car vacuum cleaners and handheld models, in general, tend to have shorter battery life spans—and tend to take several hours to recharge.

Corded vs. cordless

While cordless vacuum cleaners are more convenient, as we noted above, car vacs have a short battery life. A corded vacuum cleaner eliminates the need to stop and recharge. However, you’ll have to deal with the hassle of the cord getting in your way, and you’ll need to ensure that the wall outlet is close enough for the vacuum to reach your car. I have corded and cordless models, and the issue with anything corded is making sure it can reach the wall outlet in my garage—although, sometimes, I cheat by plugging the corded vacuum into my solar generator. If you don’t have a garage, a cordless option definitely seems like the better choice.

Portability and storage

One thing you might not have considered: Why will you store the car vacuum when it’s not in use? If you have a garage, a wall-mounted model keeps it conveniently located and also saves valuable floor and shelf space.

If you don’t have a garage, you can store it in the house or keep it in your vehicle. Some models may take up valuable space in either location. However, some car vacs are small enough to store in your cup holder (although that might not seem like an ideal location for everyone).

Other features

If you have pet family members, car vacuum cleaners with pet tools can make removing hair much less tedious. Even if you don’t, attachments can make it easier to clean underneath and between seats and all other nooks and crannies in your vehicle. Flexible hoses, pet hair brushes, crevice tools, and dusting brushes are just some of the various attachments available. We’ve included the attachments that come with the car vacuums, but some companies also sell other attachments separately.

FAQs

Final thoughts on the best vacuums for cars

• Best overall: Black+Decker 20V Max Flex   
• Best cordless: iRobot H1
• Best in-car charge: Eufy HomeVac H20   
• Best wet-dry: Bissell Garage Pro  
• Best convertible: Dreametech T30  
• Best handheld: Shark Wandvac 
• Best compact design: Baseus A3
• Best budget: Bissell Cleanview Deluxe Corded 

With your own car vacuum, you can clean your vehicle anytime—and as much as you’d like. And you don’t have to sit in line waiting for your turn or hope the equipment is working properly. Considering how much time we spend in our vehicles, dropped and spilled food, dirt, dust, and other debris should be regularly removed, and the best car vacuums make this a quick and easy chore.

Why trust us

Popular Science started writing about technology more than 150 years ago. There was no such thing as “gadget writing” when we published our first issue in 1872, but if there was, our mission to demystify the world of innovation for everyday readers means we would have been all over it. Here in the present, PopSci is fully committed to helping readers navigate the increasingly intimidating array of devices on the market right now.

Our writers and editors have combined decades of experience covering and reviewing consumer electronics. We each have our own obsessive specialties—from high-end audio to video games to cameras and beyond—but when we’re reviewing devices outside of our immediate wheelhouses, we do our best to seek out trustworthy voices and opinions to help guide people to the very best recommendations. We know we don’t know everything, but we’re excited to live through the analysis paralysis that internet shopping can spur so readers don’t have to.

The post The best car vacuums in 2023 appeared first on Popular Science.

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The cruise control function has been around since the late 1950s, allowing drivers to keep a constant speed. Today, this often-standard feature is not just for rolling along while resting your right foot; drivers have learned over time that maintaining speed saves gas, too, and it smooths out the start-and-stop motion of average highway driving. 

What’s most remarkable about cruise control is not the system itself, which represented a breakout innovation at the time. This brilliant tech was invented by an engineer who was blind named Ralph Teetor, and it was his tenacity that led to a patent that changed driving as we know it. Cadillac picked up the technology soon after its debut as Speedostat, and rebranded it as cruise control, installing it in its luxury cars as an option. 

Today, GM is exploring other inventions for and by people with disabilities. The automaker is building an entire division dedicated to improving mobility for all called the Accessibility Center of Excellence, with benefits for all drivers and passengers. 

Here’s what GM is doing in this important field.

Why accessibility matters

A few months back, my 79-year-old dad pulled into a parking space set aside for people with disabilities at a store in Florida. As he got out of the car, my father recalls that a stranger yelled at him using a derogatory term, saying that he probably didn’t even have a disability. 

My father held out his artificial arm.

“Shake my hand,” he said dryly.

The nonprofit organization Disability:IN reports that there are about a billion people with disabilities on the planet, and roughly 25 percent of the US population is comprised of people with disabilities. While people might not notice an artificial arm or leg at first, it’s a visual and important clue that someone has a disability. Those with physical challenges as well as hearing loss, limited vision, or other non-apparent disabilities are doing the best they can in a world designed for people not living with disabilities, but there’s always room for improvement, and GM has put that high on its to-do list.

For the past year and a half, as GM’s chief engineer of accessibility, Carrie Morton has been working to make life easier for people who are disabled. With Morton in this role, which the company says is the first of its kind in the automotive sector, GM wants to change the way we think about cars within its Accessibility Center of Excellence.

Before Morton joined GM in 2022, she spent nearly a decade at the University of Michigan as the managing director of Mcity, formerly called the Mobility Transformation Center. The University of Michigan’s Mcity is a public-private partnership focused on transportation issues at the intersection of academia, industry, and government for the benefit of all.

“When we talk about inclusive design, it’s not just for people who use wheelchairs,” she says. “When you design for inclusivity, it helps everyone.”

Color blindness and (way) beyond

Morton and her team are dedicated to researching customer needs and defining what it means to have accessible solutions in vehicles. Currently, the center has about a half dozen spokes, but they reach far and wide, Morton says. Across the company, she works with advanced engineering, user design, policy, marketing, and more. That broader group actively working is nearing 100 people, and there are also weekly accessibility working groups made up of hundreds of people.

For example, consider something most people don’t pay any attention to: the colors on a dashboard. If you know someone with color blindness, you could imagine how challenging it might be to discern one control from another. Morton’s team is working on projects like that one, and she says they’re looking at current technologies like electronic steering and brake-by-wire as new opportunities to help adapt the controls for customer needs. 

“We have features like SuperCruise and other active safety features that help our customers with low vision or cognitive decline,” Morton says. “We also have RTT [real-time text] tech for the hearing impaired, and our seats use haptic feedback so if you’re not able to use the audio warning you can still benefit from the feature.” Real-time text appears on a screen in the vehicle.

Focusing on an initiative GM calls “Zero Barriers,” the team at the center makes a priority to hear from all customer types—especially people who might not have been included in the past, like those with both visible and invisible disabilities. That includes “situational disabilities” like a broken bone, eye injury, or mobility issues that are prevalent with aging. Think about how challenging it might be to get in or out of a vehicle with arthritic hips or worn-out knees. GM and Disability:IN are working with people with disabilities to find solutions for these challenges. 

One future innovation that could help is full automation. 

“My mother had Parkinson’s [disease] and my dad was having trouble with his eyes, so they couldn’t drive anymore; they became very isolated,” says Leslie Wilson, executive vice president of Disability:IN. “Could you imagine if self-driving vehicles had been available?” (GM owns Cruise, a self-driving car company; another prominent autonomous vehicle company is Waymo.) 

Then there are the issues of cargo and storage space—analog, yet important, features for people with disabilities, Morton says. Wheelchairs, service animals, and other equipment need space, and her team is working on the integration of those features as well. 

“GM is a large company with a lot of diversity and we want to implement that into our vehicles,” she says. “We’re working with the community to serve their needs.” 

The post How GM is moving its autos into an accessible and inclusive future appeared first on Popular Science.

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A deep-sea submersible built by the private research expedition company, OceanGate, is still missing after losing contact with its surface team on June 18 while en route to tour the Titanic’s sunken remains. Search-and-rescue efforts involving the US Coast Guard remain underway in search of the vessel carrying a billionaire explorer, the father-and-son scions of one of Pakistan’s wealthiest families, and a French maritime expert, and OceanGate’s CEO Stockton Rush. One OceanGate advisor estimates that the submersible has, at most, a 96-hour oxygen supply starting from when it launched at roughly 6 AM local time on Sunday.

According to OceanGate, its 22-foot-long, “revolutionary carbon fiber and titanium” Titan vessel boasts a depth range of 4,000 meters (13,123 feet), purportedly making it one of only three submersibles in the world capable of reaching the legendary shipwreck. The ability to reach such depths, however, makes it incredibly difficult to locate.

[Related: Staggering 3D scan of the Titanic shows the wreck down to the millimeter.]

Satellite communication methods like GPS are integral to location services on or near the Earth’s surface, but that ability quickly disappears as you head deeper underwater. One of the most popular devices, a Float-free Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (FF EPIRB), is frequently utilized by the Coast Guard during rescue missions. But according to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, EPIRBs activate only when a vessel capsizes to a depth of 1-4 meters—thus rendering them all-but-useless for a submersible such as Titan.

An experimental submersible deep below the surface will be much more challenging for authorities to find, requiring the use of special underwater equipment to search for the vessel and the signals it emits—if it emits any at all. As The New York Times notes, although many underwater vehicles include an acoustic device that emits detectable sounds underwater for rescuers, “it’s unclear if the Titan has one.”

Previous profiles of the Titan back up this potential oversight. In a 2022 Good Morning America segment detailing a previous, successful expedition to the Titanic, journalist David Pogue reads aloud a portion of the passenger waiver. In it, Titan is described as, “An experimental, submersible vessel that has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body, and could result in physical injury, disability, emotional trauma, or death.”

[Related: Watch never-before-seen footage of the Titanic shipwreck from the 1980s.]

In a follow-up Twitter thread this week, Pogue appears to confirm that Titan lacked any emergency distress location beacon at the time of his visit. “On my expedition last summer, they did indeed get lost for about 5 hours, and adding such a beacon was discussed…,” he writes.

OceanGate’s own CEO touted their cavalier approach to deep sea exploration at the time. “I got this from CampingWorld,” Stockton Rush says on camera, pointing to the Titan’s interior light. Rush then showed a modified video game controller, which he claimed controlled and steered the entire vessel. “It should be like an elevator. It shouldn’t take a lot of skill,” added Rush.

“The use off-the-shelf [sic] components helped to streamline the construction, and makes it simple to operate and replace parts in the field,” reads a portion of Titan’s official description.

Update 05/21/23: This article has been updated to reflect all confirmed passengers, including OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush.

The post Why finding the missing Titanic-bound tourist submersible is so challenging appeared first on Popular Science.

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On June 14, the US Army celebrated its 248th year as an institution. Timed in anticipation of that anniversary, the Army also announced the new name for its latest armored turreted military vehicle, initially known and developed with the name MPF, or Mobile Protected Firepower. But the MPF designation is no more; the vehicle is now the M10 Booker.

The Army prefers that the M10 Booker be referred to primarily as a “combat vehicle,” though “infantry assault vehicle” is also used. The vehicle, with a heavy gun and tank-like mobility, is less armored than a main battle tank like an M1 Abrams. It’s designed to go places the Abrams cannot, and to fight against enemy vehicles, defenses, and forces without needing the ultra heavy armor that bulk up battle tanks.

The name announcement took place at the National Museum of the US Army at Fort Belvoir, in Virginia. After a shroud was removed from the vehicle’s 105mm cannon, the barrel revealed the name Booker.

There are two people, both deceased, with the surname Booker who are specifically honored in the naming. The first is Robert D. Booker, a soldier who fought as part of the US Army in North Africa in 1943. Fighting against Axis forces, Robert Booker used his machine gun to defeat one machine gun nest, and then despite receiving fatal injuries, guided his squad as they advanced, actions for which he was awarded a posthumous medal of honor. 

The second person honored is Stevon A. Booker, who was among the tank crew leading the April 2003 assault on Baghdad. After the machine gun mounted on the tank failed, he lay prone on top of the tank and guided his unit to defeat anti-tank fire, continuing until he was fatally wounded, actions for which he was awarded a posthumous Distinguished Service Cross.

“The M10 Booker Combat Vehicle is named in [their] honor because it will accomplish what they both did – enabling squads to continue pushing forward through heavy machine-gun fire while protecting our most important weapon system: our Soldiers,” Army Chief of Staff General James McConville said at the Fort Belvoir celebration of the Army’s 248th birthday.

As designed, the vehicle’s mobility and firepower make it a useful tool for clearing uneven terrain, like the contested road to Baghdad or the fields of Tunisia, and then using a powerful gun to destroy fixed defenses and any defenders left crewing them.

“Our Soldiers will now have an infantry assault vehicle in a protected sense with decisive lethality to destroy the threats that took the lives of these two incredible Soldiers,” Doug Bush, the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology, said in an Army release.

The two namesake Bookers died almost 60 years apart, fighting in wars under drastically different circumstances, technologies, and stakes. In the thick of combat, distinctions between the world-existential crisis of World War II or the war of choice that was Iraq fade away for those in the field. What the Army is designed to do is deliver soldiers to where they’re needed, with the tools on hand to win the day, and both Bookers died protecting their comrades-at-arms. 

This is work that can be done by a tank, but the Army is explicit that this is not a task that can fall to a light tank. Maj. Gen. Glenn Dean, Program Executive Officer for Ground Combat Systems, told Task & Purpose, “The historic use of ‘light tank’ is to perform reconnaissance functions, and this is not a reconnaissance vehicle, it’s an assault gun. Historically, it’s not actually a mission match, even though it looks like, feels like, and smells like [a tank].” (Task & Purpose is owned by Recurrent Ventures, PopSci’s parent company.)

The Army already had one mobile not-quite-tank with a high powered gun for similar purposes, the Stryker Mobile Gun System. That vehicle, armored and turreted but with eight wheels instead of treads, is one the Army is actively divesting from. The new M10 Booker will fill a similar role, in a body designed for the wars of the 21st century.

Some of those threats will feel familiar. Machine guns remain an efficient, durable, lethal tool for all militaries and insurgencies alike, and stopping one with force is a task well-suited to the M10 not-a-tank’s big gun. While the M10 is not light by any definition, its 42 tons is a significant drop down from the over 70 tons of the Abrams. That helps the M10s be delivered, two at a time, by C-17 cargo jets, making it armor that can follow infantry from a secured airfield. 

In total, the Army plans to acquire 504 of the M10 Bookers, priced at around $13 million apiece. While new counter-tank tools make armored assaults harder, and despite the military theorists who proclaimed the death of the tank in April 2022, the need for militaries to advance under fire persists. That makes tanks and tank-like vehicles a durable feature of modern armies, and while the Booker is named after medal awardees, the point of the machine is to win battles without needing such heroics. 

Correction on June 20, 2023: This article has been updated to change the word “metal” to “medal” in the final sentence.

The post The Army’s new 42-ton assault vehicle has a compelling backstory appeared first on Popular Science.

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California’s massive, ongoing push to completely electrify its public and private transportation sectors by 2035 is getting a major boost.. According to recent reports,  the electric truck and charging station manufacturer Forum Mobility is planning to soon begin construction on a 96-vehicle capacity recharging depot for drayage carriers. These are the massive transports used to move goods between ports, distribution centers, and rail yards.

The news comes barely a month after the California Air Resources Board announced that, beginning next year, any new trucks purchased by a shipping company in the state must be an electric model powered by either hydrogen fuel cells or batteries. According to clean energy news site Electrek on Wednesday, funding for the 4.4-acre site will derive in part from a $4.5 million East Bay Community Energy (EBCE). Earlier this year, Forum Mobility also received a major additional investment from Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, a program aimed at helping the massive retailer achieve net zero carbon by 2040.

“Today we can provide a Class 8 electric truck, and all its charging needs, at a monthly price that’s competitive with diesel—without the emissions,” Matt LeDucq, CEO and co-founder of Forum Mobility, said at the time.

[Related: Electric vehicles are only one part of sustainable transit.]

Despite their comparatively small numbers compared to consumer vehicles, the EPA estimates that medium- and heavy-duty trucks account for around 23 percent of the nation’s annual greenhouse gas emissions. Tackling that segment of industry is key to transitioning towards a green, sustainable infrastructure for not just California, but the US overall.

According to Electrek, California’s in-state drayage fleet includes an estimated 33,000 trucks, which the California Energy Commission has stated will require approximately 157,000 medium- and heavy-duty chargers by the decade’s end to comply with all new vehicle regulations. When faced with those numbers, the addition of a 96-vehicle charging facility may only seem like a drop in the bucket. But it is  all-but-certain Forum Mobility’s Greenville Community Charging Depot is just the first of many similar announcements to come for the state. According to Forum Mobility’s CEO, the company is in the process of building enough recharging depots to simultaneously handle a total of 600 trucks over the next 18 months.

The post Where will electric semi-trucks recharge? California has a big solution. appeared first on Popular Science.

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Best overall		Uniden R7		SEE IT	This detector has built-in GPS, and plug-and-play simplicity that doesn’t need a phone.
Best mid-range		Uniden R3		SEE IT	Get a solid mix of advanced features without paying a premium price.
Best stealth		Escort Redline 360c		SEE IT	If you want it all and money is no object, this radar detector has it.

A solid radar detector can make you more aware of what’s happening around you while driving. It’s no secret that with the proliferation of more powerful engines and often even quieter cabins, it’s easier to go faster now than in previous years. Imagine you find yourself, in a newer SUV, going up a hill and the speed limit is much lower than if it feels safe to drive. You spot the highway patrol car going the other way, and you get a “slow down” wave. Maybe you get lucky, and the officer doesn’t flip his lights on and turn around. A robust radar detector tells you when radar is in use, and gives drivers the opportunity to make adjustments to their speed accordingly. The best radar detectors can detect all the commonly used methods for checking a vehicle’s speed, and they do it far enough out to give you time to react. 

• Best overall: Uniden R7
• Best stealth: Escort Redline 360c
• Best mid-range: Uniden R3
• Best budget: Cobra RAD 480i

How we chose the best radar detectors 

As an automotive journalist of more than eight years, I’ve written for some of the biggest names in the business, and I bring that experience into my favorite space: aftermarket. Whether it’s modifications to the hard parts or to the technology in the cabin, I’m interested in learning more and finding the best the industry has to offer. For this list of radar detectors I wasn’t able to get hands-on, so I used a method of aggregating reviews from across the internet on Amazon, rdforum.org, and the hands-on reviews from Vortex Radar. 

I eliminated a number of the cheaper units right off due to poor testing results, and cut out a number of brands that were outlandishly priced. I then assembled a wide range that covered the gamut of prices out there that represented good quality for their feature sets. If there were a few radar detectors in a certain price range, I compared to see what had the most useful features and selected the best in each set. The radar detectors, and companies, represented on this list all have a history of supporting their products as well and can be thought of as a good place to start your research and shopping.

The best radar detectors: Reviews & Recommendations

Much like dash cams, radar detectors can keep your driving in check. Here’s what we found to help control your need for speed.

Best overall: Uniden R7

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Why it made the cut: Offering an excellent value, the Uniden R7 features an amazing range, GPS for logging common false alarms, and it doesn’t require a separate mobile device to utilize the GPS.

Specs

• Directional arrows: Yes
• GPS: Built-in
• Connectivity: N/A

Pros 

• Great detection range
• Built-in GPS
• Redlight/speed camera alerts

Cons 

• Not completely undetectable to radar detector detectors
• Mute button on side of unit
• No Bluetooth/phone app integration

Uniden makes some excellent radar detectors but the company’s R7 is the best value overall. The upgraded R8 adds a few nice features over the R7 but it also adds a few hundred dollars to the price tag. That said, the R7 gets you a solid collection of features that makes it one of the best radar detectors out of the box, especially for the price point. The unit features directional arrows, multiple brightness settings, and a built-in GPS. The onboard GPS allows you to easily mark false alarms and set alerts for school zones and speed traps automatically. 

The built-in GPS eschews the need for it to connect to a smartphone for location services. But that also means the Uniden R7 must be updated via USB cable. That means you’d have to separately run an app like Waze to take advantage of data aggregation with other users. The only other downsides are the awkward side-button placement of the mute button (which you use to silence false alarms) and a mixed bag when it comes to detectability.

Best stealth: Escort Redline 360c

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Why it made the cut: If you want the absolute best with all the bells and whistles—and money is no object—then the Redline 360c should be on your shortlist.

Specs

• Directional arrows: Yes
• GPS: Built-in
• Connectivity: Bluetooth/Wi-Fi

Pros 

• Massive array of features
• Excellent false-alert filtering
• Mobile device integration

Cons 

• Expensive
• Suffering from availability issues

The Escort Redline 360c is easily the most expensive model on this list but taking a look at its capabilities should explain why. It offers excellent long-range detection, built-in GPS, undetectable to radar-detector detectors, and can be expanded with Bluetooth phone connectivity. The firmware also automatically updates over Wi-Fi. To top it off, the unit has a full complement of arrows so you know the direction of the signal, and high-quality OLED displays that share signal type and intensity. If you want even more information, then connecting to a phone app allows you to get real-time alerts from the community of Escort radar detector users. The unit will auto-learn as you drive and operate it, automatically filtering out common false alarms.

The main downsides to the Redline 360c are related to availability and price. Though listed for less than $800 on their website, the units were several hundred more on Amazon and in limited supply. Escort notes the issue on their website, which is likely due to the microchip shortage plaguing the country. 

Do note that there is another radar detector from Escort called the Max 360c, which is not the same as the Redline 360c. Though the primary distinction is the “detectability,” as the Max 360c is not “stealth” when it comes to radar detector detectors.

Best mid-range: Uniden R3

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Why it made the cut: If you want radar detection, but can’t justify the eye-watering price tag of the segment leaders, the R3 gets you a good range with a limited feature set.

Specs

• Directional arrows: N/A
• GPS: Built-in
• Connectivity: N/A

Pros 

• Built-in GPS allows manual marking
• Low-speed muting
• “Stealth” to some detection devices

Cons 

• More false alarms
• No phone connectivity
• Limited speed camera detection

When you start chasing the low-price leaders there’s a lot to lose, but you don’t lose as much with the Uniden R3. The R3 can detect well at long range and even has a built-in GPS, allowing users to manually mark false alarms, improving the detector’s capability on the roads you frequent. GPS allows the R3 to mute automatically when the vehicle is at low speeds and has access to a database of stationary/marked redlight and speed cameras. The R3 can detect all the common bands, as well as laser and MultaRadar. The R3 is also only detectable at closer range on the commonly used RDD devices. 

You will have to accept some compromises. The unit lacks directional arrows (common for the price) and is more limited in its ability to detect speed cameras. Additionally, the lack of Bluetooth means you’ll have to run an app like Waze separately to get real-time updates to threats. More expensive models offer that natively. All this translates to more false alarms than the best units. More alarms can be annoying since you don’t want to have to get on the brakes for every blind-spot monitor and automatic door you pass. 

If you want detection capability on a budget, and don’t mind marking your own locations, or running another app on your phone for real-time alerts, then the Uniden R3 is a great affordable choice.

Best budget: Cobra RAD 480i

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Why it made the cut: The Cobra RAD 480i is capital-A affordable, above all, but it gets passing marks from reviewers and covers the basics.

Specs

• Directional arrows: N/A
• GPS: N/A
• Connectivity: Bluetooth

Pros 

• Detects all the bands police use, and radar
• Bluetooth connectivity
• The price is right

Cons 

• Lacks built-in GPS
• Detection range lacking

The Cobra RAD 480i doesn’t have a fancy color display or directional arrows but it does the basics. The Cobra can detect radar and laser at a helpful distance but its real strength is in its Bluetooth connectivity. On its own, that wouldn’t be enough to set the Cobra apart from the rest, but on the back end Cobra shares data with Escort, since both brands are made by the same company. That means insights and live data come from a wide user base tied to the more expensive Escort units but at a bargain price. 

A subscription is required but, for an entry price of less than $200, it might be worth the downsides for some users. Pricing for the subscription runs $49.99 per year, or $4.99 per month. The lack of built-in GPS means you’ll need your phone paired and running Cobra’s app to benefit from the tracking and marking features. But, pairing a radar detector with a robust app and community means more coverage than is possible with apps like Waze alone.

Each unit gets a 1-year subscription with a purchase, so some buyers may want to consider a radar detector like the Cobra RAD 480i to see if it’s useful for them before stepping up to something with higher upfront investment.

Things to consider before buying the best radar detectors

The situation has changed for the majority of the country and, though there are still departments that use officers set up on the side of the road with a radar gun, more often than not they can check a vehicle’s speed while driving down the road, even going the opposite direction. That being said, the laws surrounding their use have changed as well and radar detectors aren’t legal to use in every state, so do your homework before hanging one on the windshield of your car. 

We’re absolutely not suggesting or condoning speeding, but we all make mistakes. When a modern minivan makes nearly 300 hp, not to mention the instant torque of today’s electric vehicles, it’s easy to find yourself going with the flow of traffic, even if that flow is above the posted limit. 

Legality

Before buying, and using, a radar detector, you should make sure your state, or the states you’ll be driving in, have not outlawed their use. As of the time of publication, only Virginia and Washington, D.C., have banned the devices themselves, but several others limit the use of devices mounted to the windshield. If you’re in a commercial vehicle, however, or on a military base, their use is prohibited across the nation. Check state and local laws before purchasing and using one.

Features

There’s a lot that goes into making a radar detector, and, like many devices, you do get what you pay for. I’ve included a few budget choices as well, but think of it as a compromise, where you hear more false alerts or are getting less precise information. Though not ideal, you can balance the need for features with where you spend most of your time driving. If you’re spending a lot of your time on the highway, or in rural areas, you could skip the GPS feature. If you’re in a city, then GPS and robust filtering can help avoid false alarms every time you pass a gas station or speed sign.

Bands

You’re going to start seeing a lot of acronyms, and different letters, but the very best radar detectors will cover all the relevant bands. Simply put, if your detector beeps, it probably means something bad. X band is one of the oldest frequencies still in use, though it has been retired by most departments. This is more common in rural areas, but can often be ignored by your detector if desired. More commonly used today are the K and Ka bands, which are harder to detect at longer distances. The downside, and why good filtering and GPS are important, is that many other sources of radar operate on the same frequency. That includes automatic doors and blind-spot monitoring systems on other cars. A new technology called MultaRadar (or MRCD/MRCT/photo radar) uses the K band, but modulates the frequency it uses, making it impossible to detect if your radar unit isn’t equipped to.

FAQs

Final thoughts on the best radar detectors

• Best overall: Uniden R7
• Best stealth: Escort Redline 360c
• Best mid-range: Uniden R3
• Best budget: Cobra RAD 480i

Running a radar detector can be incredibly helpful for drivers looking to improve their situational awareness, whether you’re addicted to speed or you just drive a new car and enjoy jamming out and losing yourself a bit too much. If you decide to buy one of the best radar detectors, remember to think about how you’ll use it and where you’ll spend the majority of your time driving, then match your radar detector’s features accordingly.

Why trust us

Popular Science started writing about technology more than 150 years ago. There was no such thing as “gadget writing” when we published our first issue in 1872, but if there was, our mission to demystify the world of innovation for everyday readers means we would have been all over it. Here in the present, PopSci is fully committed to helping readers navigate the increasingly intimidating array of devices on the market right now.

Our writers and editors have combined decades of experience covering and reviewing consumer electronics. We each have our own obsessive specialties—from high-end audio to video games to cameras and beyond—but when we’re reviewing devices outside of our immediate wheelhouses, we do our best to seek out trustworthy voices and opinions to help guide people to the very best recommendations. We know we don’t know everything, but we’re excited to live through the analysis paralysis that internet shopping can spur so readers don’t have to.

The post The best radar detectors in 2023 appeared first on Popular Science.

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The world’s first self-driving commercial passenger ferry started operating this week in Stockholm, Sweden. The MF Estelle was built by Zeabuz, a Norwegian start up, and will be operated by Torghatten, a Swedish ferry company under the brand name Zeam (Zero Emission Autonomous Mobility). It’s one of the first truly practical, real world examples of autonomous transportation that we’ve seen. 

The MF Estelle is both autonomous and electric. Its electric propulsion system is powered by solar panels on the top of the vessel. In the press release announcing the partnership, Stein Andre Herigstad-Olsen, CEO of Torghatten, said that “Estelle is a sustainable and green pioneer, offering a solution to traffic congestion and inspiring alternative modes of transportation.” It is the first step in the company’s plan to “create a network of virtual bridges, utilizing waterways to alleviate road congestion and promote affordable, environmentally friendly, and safe urban mobility.” 

While the MF Estelle will initially have an operator on board to make sure everything goes smoothly, Torghatten and Zeabuz intend for it to operate fully autonomously with an onshore supervisor by 2024. According to Zeabuz, multiple vessels using its ZeaMaster technology can be supervised by a single onshore supervisor, in much the same way that one of Wing’s pilots can manage multiple delivery drones. During normal operations, each vessel is able to safely navigate itself. When something unexpected happens, the “risk-aware supervisory control algorithm” makes sure the vessel adapts by slowing down, allowing more space in the waterway, stopping in place, and alerting the operator that a decision on how to proceed is needed. Seemingly, Torghatten is confident that the system is sufficient for busy city waterways shared with other vessels, canoes, kayaks, stand up paddle boarders, and even swimmers. 

Starting this week, the ferry will depart twice an hour from each side of the Riddarfjärden bay, crossing between Kungsholmen and Södermalm, two of the major island-districts in central Stockholm. Torghatten intends to extend that to four departures from each side each hour, and operate it for 15 hours a day. That’s a total of 120 daily sailings, each capable of transporting up to 24 passengers. Tickets cost 35 Swedish Krona (~$3.25).

While the MF Estelle is the first commercially operated passenger ferry, it isn’t the only electric autonomous vessel in development. Hurtigruten Norway hopes to have a zero-emission cruise ship in the water by 2030. It would be propelled by 50m-high sail wings (164 feet) as well as an electric engine system. It will also have multiple large batteries that are recharged by solar panels, wind technology, and the electric grid when it’s in port. 

Last summer, in a first for autonomous vehicles, the Mayflower Autonomous Ship successfully crossed the Atlantic Ocean without human crew. The trip wasn’t without issue—it was bound for Virginia but actually had to end its40-day 3,500 mile journey in Halifax, Nova Scotia. 

And, of course, militaries are interested in these kinds of vessels too. Both the Colombian Navy and the US Navy have openly discussed how electric unmanned vessels could play a major role in future military operations—and are actively developing them. 

For now though, the MF Estelle still stands in a class of her own. If you’re in Stockholm, you can take a passage on the first autonomous electric ferry with no apps, NDAs, or other hassle. 

The post The world’s first self-driving ferry is now in service appeared first on Popular Science.

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When folks think about Volvo, the first thing that comes to mind is probably the brand’s reputation for safety features. After all, it developed and patented the modern three-point seat belt in 1959 and then shared the design with the world. Inexpensive cars, not so much. 

However, Volvo is making a statement with its newest EV, the EX30. This super-modern compact electric SUV is packaged competitively at $36,145 to start; that’s more than the outgoing Chevrolet Bolt but less than Tesla’s least expensive EV, the Model 3. Sure, the base Nissan Leaf is still priced under $30,000, but that’s with the smaller battery pack and only 149 miles of all-electric range. The EX30 promises a more luxurious feel than Nissan’s EV and offers a huge difference in range, at 275 miles.

Can Volvo’s streamlined five-seat EV compete? If we shake the Magic 8-Ball, all signs point to yes. Here’s why. 

Outlook good

As Inside EVs reported in March, Volvo set a record for sales in February, moving 51,286 cars worldwide that month. That’s 22 percent more than February 2022 and the best February ever for the brand. Even more telling is its numbers in the plug-in electric car segment: Volvo sold 20,678 plug-ins, an impressive 40 percent of total volume.

The timing seems to be spot on. In April of this year, Chevrolet sounded the death knell of its diminutive Bolt EV with no room for resurrection. Like the college kid who comes home for Christmas to find out his parents turned his bedroom into a supersized home gym, GM will soon retool the production line for the Bolt models to make space for the much-larger electric Silverado pickup and its sibling, the GMC Sierra EV. The introduction of electric trucks is important to the US market, and Chevy is pouring its resources in that direction, pushing the smaller Bolt out even as the tiny EV’s sales started to peak.

Now, the Bolt is kaput. Enter, stage right: the Volvo EX30, which is the fourth EV model for the Swedish brand. Volvo debuted its XC40 Recharge EV for model year 2021, the C40 Recharge EV for 2022, and a three-row SUV (the EX90) is on the way. Volvo, it seems, is ramping up for EVs quickly and steadily. 

Can the EX30 outsell Tesla? Reply hazy, try again

The EX30 is about three inches longer and three inches wider than the Bolt EV, giving the Volvo a more commanding presence on the road than its Chevy competitor. Volvo’s new EV is 18 inches shorter than Tesla’s Model 3, but it wins in the cargo category with 31.9 cubic feet of available space, significantly more than the Model 3’s 22.9 cubic feet (truck and front trunk). 

From a power perspective, the EX30 comes with a 268-hp rear-drive setup; a 428-hp all-wheel-drive upgrade is available. Compared to the Bolt, which was good for 200 horsepower and 266 pound-feet of torque, the EX30 is considerably peppier, and Volvo says its Twin Motor Performance model will sprint to 100 kilometers (62 miles) per hour in a zippy 3.6 seconds. That’s only a tiny bit slower—0.1 seconds—than the Model 3 Performance. 

Here’s where the EX30 shines over both Tesla and Chevy’s EVs: the inside. Volvo prides itself on simple but luxurious interiors and the EX30 makes the most of its space and price point with a 12.3-inch touchscreen, a full-width sound bar on the dashboard that replaces embedded speakers, and recycled materials throughout. 

Getting more Americans to snap up electric vehicles and reap their environmental benefits means automakers need to produce affordable ones that are accessible to more people. Right now, the EX30’s price tag will make it one of the least expensive on the US market. One forthcoming bit of competition, besides from Nissan and Tesla, may come in the form of the Chevy Equinox EV, which will likely cost around $30,000, and Chevrolet says its range will reach the desired 300-mile mark. 

Every time a new EV hits the market, headlines proclaim “it’s a Tesla killer” and no doubt some will believe that’s true of the EX30 as well. The reality is that Tesla’s legions of fans aren’t going anywhere, and are unlikely to be swayed to the Swedish side. Volvo will likely catch the attention of new EV buyers looking for a solidly built car stocked with technology and safety features in a small luxury package.

The post Volvo’s new electric EX30 is cheaper than a Tesla Model 3 appeared first on Popular Science.

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This post has been updated. It was originally published on June 12, 2023.

The most vulnerable part of a military truck is the driver. The Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), tasked with finding and incorporating new commercial technology into the military, has set a deadline of June 13 for ideas about how to roboticize the military’s existing fleet of transport trucks. These vehicles could one day include rides like the Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck, or the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, although at first the program will focus on another machine, the PLS.

Under a program called Ground Expeditionary Autonomy Retrofit System (GEARS), DIU wants vendors to prove that they can automate the driving of vehicles, with six converted a year after the contract is awarded and up to 50 or more vehicles converted within two and a half years of the contract.

“Initially, those vehicles would include palletized load systems (trucks) and could move to more multipurpose trucks like the Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck, or the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV, also known as a Humvee) if shown to be successful,” a DIU spokesperson notes via email.

GEARS is the latest in what has been nearly two decades of effort by the Pentagon to solve an enduring problem from its recent wars. Deploying troops and equipment in a war zone, be it a whole country or even just a long front within one, means keeping people in places where supply infrastructure is limited, and that requires finding a way to resupply those soldiers. 

When there’s no threat of violence against cargo transport, military supply can mirror logistics in the domestic United States, where truck drivers bring gear as needed. When violence does threaten, as it does in both insurgency and conventional warfare, trucks face threats from ambushes, roadside bombs, or attacks from the sky in the form of missiles, artillery, or bombs. Robiticizing transport doesn’t remove that risk entirely, but it does mean that any vehicle that’s attacked results in just lost supplies and equipment, instead of killed or captured soldiers.

“The Department of Defense (DoD) has an existing fleet of military vehicles for its logistics operations. Today, however, these vehicles require human operators. In deployed situations, this creates unnecessary risk to service members’ lives and introduces limits to operational tactics,” reads the solicitation from DIU. “Human operators also have work-to-rest cycles, resulting in additional time constraints. In a fast-moving conflict, the ability to continuously move supplies from one hub to another will have significant impacts on the abilities to sustain operations while maintaining the safety of troops.”

[Related: The UK is upgrading military buggies into self-driving vehicles]

By replacing human drivers with uncrewed systems, the military can overcome the vulnerability of sending humans on milk runs, and such vehicles can push beyond the limits of humans who need to eat and sleep and rest. Continuous supply allows for cargo to be dispatched to where it is needed as soon as it is ready. 

Early in the US war in Iraq, getting supplies reliably and securely through the country meant deploying convoys, where several cargo trucks would carry guards and be escorted by other vehicles. While convoys allow supplies on the move to be protected, and take advantage of numbers to do so, they also present a juicy target. As the contours of fighting in Iraq changed over what’s now two decades of a US presence in the country, convoys persist as a target of opportunity for groups looking to harm or disrupt the US military in the country.

In 2004, DARPA, the Pentagon’s blue sky projects wing, launched a grand challenge, offering a prize for teams that could make a vehicle autonomously navigate a course in the desert. The 2004 challenge ended in a total bust, but multiple vehicles completed the 2005 version, in a moment widely covered as the start of autonomous driving for both commercial and military needs. 

[Related: What the future holds for the Army’s venerable Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle]

With GEARS, DIU is looking to bring commercial tools and techniques back into the fold. To that end, the government is providing the vehicles to use as test beds for prototypes, consistent with the military’s existing cargo fleet and part of the Army’s Palletized Load System. In addition, the new add-on systems could eventually work with the Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck, or Humvees. By adapting these existing vehicles with new software and sensor hardware in what should be straightforward conversions, the Army can gain a new capability without requiring new advances in vehicle body to accommodate uncrewed operation.

“Solutions must have the ability to operate in environments inherent to military operations,” reads the solicitation. “Desired mission sets include, but are not limited to, convoy operations, waypoint navigation, and teleoperations. Solutions should be built to open architecture standards and be capable of integrating new hardware, software, and features as they become available.”

However the teams get there, the goal is to have vehicles that can run without the need for a human in the driver’s seat, or at least, move the human to a remote seat and have them drive from there. By removing the human operator from the road vehicle, the supply truck becomes essentially a reusable package for goods, instead of a prime military target. Goods may still be lost in attacks, though reliably remote navigation will let the military know when and where such attacks occurred.

In the meantime, the military can supply its bases less like caravans under attack, and more as nodes in a big transportation network.

This story was updated to include clarifications and a statement from the DIU about what types of vehicles will be retrofitted and in what order.

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Two weeks ago, Ford took a major step forward within the EV market via a new partnership with Tesla. The new plan will soon open up the latter’s charging stations to Mustang Mach-E, F-150 Lightning and E-Transit owners. Following in their tire tracks, General Motors announced a similar alliance on Thursday—beginning early next year, GM owners will also be able to access over 12,000 Tesla Supercharger stations through a special adapter. And starting in 2025, all new electric GM models will come equipped to charge without the need for any external attachments.

“This collaboration is a key part of our strategy and an important next step in quickly expanding access to fast chargers for our customers,” GM Chair and CEO Mary Barra said in a statement. “Not only will it help make the transition to electric vehicles more seamless for our customers, but it could help move the industry toward a single North American charging standard.”

[Related: Ford EVs can soon be charged at Tesla stations.]

The move towards a single standard is a tacit concession to Tesla’s overall industry footprint, says CNBC. Although most EVs in America have long utilized what’s known as Combined Charging System (CCS) ports for fast recharging, Tesla vehicles rely on a proprietary setup known as the North American Charging Standard (NACS), alongside adapters owners could use at third-party stations. Beginning in late 2021, Tesla opened up some of its superchargers to other EVs thanks to a “Magic Dock” adapter, although anyone wishing to use it still needed to download Tesla’s app for access.

Like Ford, GM’s partnership will both simplify charging options for consumers as well as pave the way for more standardized infrastructure that supports the growing EV industry. Beginning in early 2024, owners of vehicles such as the Cadillac Lyriq and Chevy Bolt will be able to recharge at Tesla outlets using a specialized adapter, with new GM EVs featuring a NACS inlet sans adapter aiming to debut in 2025. Additionally, GM aims to integrate the Tesla Supercharger Network into its brands’ mobile apps to streamline location, payment, and charging sessions. GM also eventually intends to make CCS adapters for owners of NACS-enabled vehicles, although has not specified a timeframe for the rollout.

GM isn’t only looking to Tesla to help expand charging access for EVs—last year, the company partnered with Pilot Company and EVgo to add over 5,000 new DC chargers to the almost 13,000 stations already available across North America. An estimated one-fourth of all vehicle sales are estimated to be EVs by the end of 2030, with that number skyrocketing to over 70 percent by 2040. 

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Today’s cruise ships are environmental nightmares. Just one vessel packed with a veritable petri dish of passengers can burn as much as 250 tons of fuel per day, or about the same emissions as 12,000 cars. If the industry is to survive, it will need to adapt quickly in order to adequately address the myriad ecological emergencies facing the planet—and one Norwegian cruise liner company is attempting to meet those challenges head-on.

Earlier today, Hurtigruten Norway unveiled the first designs for a zero-emission cruise ship scheduled to debut by the end of the decade. First announced in March 2022 as “Sea Zero,” Hurtigruten (Norwegian for “the Fast Route”) showed off its initial concept art for the craft on Wednesday. The vessel features three autonomous, retractable, 50m-high sail wing rigs housing roughly 1,500-square-meters of solar panels. Alongside the sails, the ship will be powered by multiple 60-megawatt batteries that recharge while in port, as well as wind technology. Other futuristic additions to the vessel will include AI maneuvering capabilities, retractable thrusters, contra-rotating propellers, advanced hull coatings, and proactive hull cleaning tech.

[Related: Care about the planet? Skip the cruise, for now.]

“Following a rigorous feasibility study, we have pinpointed the most promising technologies for our groundbreaking future cruise ships,” said Hurtigruten Norway CEO Hedda Felin. Henrik Burvang, Research and Innovation Manager at VARD, the company behind the ship concept designs, added the forthcoming boat’s streamlined shape, alongside its hull and propulsion advances, will reduce energy demand. Meanwhile, VARD is “developing new design tools and exploring new technologies for energy efficiency,” said Burvang.

With enhanced AI capabilities, the cruise ships’ crew bridge is expected to significantly shrink in size to resemble airplane cockpits, but Hurtigruten’s futuristic, eco-conscious designs don’t rest solely on its next-gen ship and crew. The 135-meter-long concept ship’s estimated 500 guests will have access to a mobile app capable of operating their cabins’ ventilation systems, as well as track their own water and energy consumption while aboard the vessel.

Next up for Hurtigruten’s Sea Zero project is a two-year testing and development phase for the proposed tech behind the upcoming cruise ship, particularly focusing on battery production, propulsion, hull design, and sustainable practices. Meanwhile, the company will also look into onboard hotel operational improvements, which Hurtigruten states can consume as much as half a ship’s overall energy reserves.

Hurtigruten also understands if 2030 feels like a long time to wait until a zero-emission ship. In the meantime, the company has already upgraded two of its seven vessels to run on a battery-hybrid-power system, with a third on track to be retrofitted this fall.  Its additional vessels are being outfitted with an array of tech to CO2 emissions by 20-percent, and nitrogen oxides by as much as 80 percent.

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Teaching a teenager how to drive is often nerve-wracking for parents, and understandably so. Putting a kid behind the wheel of a machine that weighs a ton or more can be daunting, but it’s a necessary rite of passage to get them to that glorious day when they can drive themselves to soccer practice. Some teens take to it immediately, embracing freedom and experience, but others hesitate due to reasons like apathy or even fear.

But an innovative solution to this issue came from Loxley Browne, who is the CEO and founder of Club Athena in California, a non-profit organization that teaches girls aged 12 to 18 about STEM principles via an online platform. Browne works closely with her student advisory board to create hands-on projects for the girls in the program, and one day asked her student board president, Akshaya Koramutla, how her driver training was going.

As Browne recalls, Koramutla flinched and said, “I tried driving my dad’s car in a parking lot and it was really stressful. Another car almost hit me.”

That conversation sparked an idea for Club Athena’s next project: They would take a regular street car and turn it into a driving simulator to get the tweens and teens in the program comfortable behind the wheel.

Here’s how they turned a 1997 BMW convertible into a driving simulator.

Setting the budget

In 2019, Browne kicked off an organization called Athena Racing with the intention of teaching girls go-karting skills with a racing focus. A racing enthusiast herself, Browne wanted to share her passion with girls and help grow their confidence behind the wheel. However, the beginning of the COVID pandemic in 2020 derailed her in-person plan and she pivoted to online classes, as Club Athena.

From that transition came FABcamp, a week-long live virtual forum designed to inspire girls in the program with expert speakers and an afternoon hands-on fabrication session from their individual locations. The BMW-based simulator, nicknamed “Simmie,” was the group’s most recent FABcamp project, starting with that conversation between Browne and Koramutla.

“The girls all play games like Forza and iRacing,” Browne says. “They love it, and the simulator gives them driving experience without an adult in the car screaming at them.”

[Related: An inside look at the data powering McLaren’s F1 team]

First, the members of the club spent a month talking to companies that make simulators, collecting feedback from experts. Motorsports simulation expert and former racer Sean Yoder is on the advisory board for Athena Racing, and he was a key asset for the project. Now CEO of Nemesis Lab, which builds high-performance simulators and gaming hardware, Yoder has an impressive background. On a previous project, he worked with Yale University Medical Research to develop software to help determine how epileptic seizures affect performance using virtual reality driving simulation during video/EEG monitoring.

Starting with an all-in pie-in-the-sky budget, the team of students—led by Koramutla, Browne, and Yoder—narrowed the budget down to a manageable number.

“The spreadsheet allowed the girls to see the different items that we would need to consider as we built Simmie,” Browne says. “It helped to define the project management and for me to talk through the different steps of the build with them.”

Building Simmie

In 2022, they found a 1997 BMW 318i convertible online that was missing a central processing unit (or CPU) and bought it for $1,200, then spent five full days just cleaning it out. They removed the engine, transmission, and gas tank and sold those components. Then they took a sledgehammer to the front dash, which Browne jokingly refers to as “deconstruction therapy.”

“We weren’t able to get some of the parts out of the car easily,” Koramutla says. “Our solution to this problem was getting our safety gear on and using our hammers and crowbars to hack away at the unnecessary materials. The most intense part of the fabrication was concentrated on the dashboard and console area. Because we would be putting gaming components into the car, we needed to create a stable environment to attach them.”

After deconstruction, they reconstructed the interior, building a new dashboard and structure for the gaming components. The BMW received a new windshield, and the team placed monitors outside the windshield for the closest simulation to driving a real car on the street. Where the engine once was now houses the new structure for all the computer components. The steering wheel was replaced by a gaming wheel and a gaming pedal set is where the brake and accelerator used to be. 

“This is an ongoing process,” Browne says. “We’re going to add a butt shaker and air vents so you feel it when you go faster. We’ll add speakers and bass to feel the rumble.”

Sharing what they learned

Browne recorded all the segments of Simmie’s build and made it available online for FABcamp participants, like a virtual shop class. Soon, she says, the video segments will be available to the public so more kids can learn.

“Akshaya was up to her elbows in the car,” Browne says. “Now she knows how to use power tools and she’ll be able to think about all of these times we used cardboard and paper to create a prototype and then create something out of metal. She wants to be a doctor, and from this experience she’ll have the confidence to walk into an invention laboratory and tell them exactly what to do to create a new medical device.”

Simmie currently resides in a shop in San Diego, and Club Athena hosts one Saturday a month when the girls can book time to play and practice driving. Sometimes, they even bring brothers or friends with them. The car doesn’t move, but its drivers can still practice cruising.  

Browne’s goal is to create talent pipelines straight out of Club Athena and create paths for girls to go on and start STEM-related careers, guiding them all the way through. Her ultimate dream is to find a visionary philanthropist who wants to take it worldwide and build an “Ironman-type lab with hundreds of acres” to test builds. Just imagine a field of Simmies standing by to help teens get more comfortable with driving. 

Watch a short news segment about this simulator, below:

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One of the world’s busiest airports will soon showcase an innovative, undeniably cute way to speed up travelers’ entrances and exits. First announced earlier this month, Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) is partnering with EV Safe Charge to demonstrate how the company’s mobile electric vehicle charging station, ZiGGY, could be deployed in public spaces to economically and conveniently power up consumers’ parked cars.

[Related: Electric cars are better for the environment, no matter the power source.]

Electric vehicles are an integral component of the societal shift towards clean, renewable energy. Unfortunately, battery shortages stemming from supply chain issues alongside a need for evermore charging stations is hampering a wider adoption of green transportation. ZiGGY obviously isn’t a catch-all fix, but it’s still a novel tool that both its makers and DFW hope to highlight over the summer as part of the airport’s series of EV charging solution demos.

“We know that electric vehicles will be a big part of the future of transportation,” Paul Puopolo, DFW’s Executive VP of Innovation, said in a statement, adding their air hub is “leaning into emerging technology now so that we are prepared to meet the needs of the airport community well into the future.”

ZiGGY itself resembles a large vending machine on wheels, which makes a certain amount of sense given it dispenses electric fuel on demand. Using geofencing technology, app-based controls, and on-board cameras, ZiGGY can be deployed directly to the location of your parked EV, where a user can then connect the charging bot to their ride. To court additional revenue streams, each ZiGGY also features large video screens capable of displaying advertisements. Don’t worry about getting stuck behind it if someone is using a ZiGGY, either—its dimensions and mobility ensures each station can park itself behind an EV without the need for additional space.

Speaking with Ars Technica on Tuesday, EV Safe Charge’s founder and CEO Caradoc Ehrenhalt explained that the idea is to deploy ZiGGY fleets to commercial hubs around the world, such as additional airports, hotels, and shopping centers. “What we’re hearing from people… is the common thread of the infrastructure being very challenging or not possible to put in or not cost effective or takes too much time. And so there really is the need for a mobile charging solution,” said Ehrenhalt.

[Related: Why you barely see electric vehicles at car dealerships.]

Of course, such an autonomous vehicle could find itself prone to defacement and vandalism, but Ehrenhalt apparently opts to look on the sunnier side of things. “Ziggy is fairly heavy because of the battery,” they cautioned to Ars Technica. “It has cameras all around and sensors, including GPS, and so there potentially could be [vandalism], but I’m always hoping for the best of humanity.”

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At first glance, race cars and electric go-karts have nothing in common except for a vaguely similar shape. Both are open-cockpit vehicles with wide wheels, and they both thrive on sharp turns—and that appears to be it. 

What many don’t realize is that go-karts are often the entry point for future Indy 500 drivers, and competitors also practice in the tiny vehicles to develop muscle memory. Several companies manufacture karts, and the most recent iteration of Honda’s version is the eGX go-kart concept, which is equipped with two 10-kilo (about 23 pounds) swappable battery packs good for about 45 minutes at a time. This battery technology allows the brand to test the dynamics of electric vehicles on a smaller scale before rolling it out to the much pricier race cars (and eventually apply this insight to passenger vehicles as well). 

Honda Accord, Civic, CR-V, and Odyssey owners might not realize it, but Honda’s passion starts with racing, and passenger cars reap the research benefits. Only two manufacturers make IndyCar engines, and Honda is one of them. In the last 30 years, Honda has claimed 18 IndyCar championships and 15 Indianapolis 500 wins. 

PopSci had a chance to pilot one of these eGX karts in the Indianapolis area over Indy 500 weekend. It was heart-pounding, arm-muscle-straining excitement, like a taste of the race itself (minus the yellow and red flags). We also got to speak with engineers to better understand Honda’s strategy for its entire product lineup, from power tools to cars. Here’s what we learned.  

Battery packs offer modularity and continuity

Kids interested in racing start with small go-karts and work their way up. If they have enough skill and a little luck, they’ll find themselves behind the wheel of a high-performance IndyCar or F1 machine. As they develop, drivers keep practicing with karts—albeit increasingly high-powered versions—that twist and squeal and mimic the experience of a road course race. 

“Karts are closer to the open-wheel experience than anything else,” says John Whiteman, commercial motorsports manager at Honda Performance Development. (In case you were wondering, an open-wheel car is one that has its wheels outside of the car versus underneath, like a passenger car.)

Honda Performance Development, or HPD for short, was founded in 1993 for the purpose of designing and developing racing engines along with chassis and performance parts for motorsports. HPD has a history of repurposing small engines to make gas-powered karts and quarter midgets (small racers that are about one-quarter scale of a full-size midget race car).

If you’ve ever been to an outdoor recreational karting track with friends and family, you’re familiar with the whine and buzz of the gas-powered version. Gas-powered kart engines are often shared with lawn mowers, made by other companies like Briggs and Stratton as well as HPD, and indoor tracks use electric karts so they’re not filling the air with toxic fumes. 

The eGX takes a typical electric go kart to the next level, employing two saddle packs on either side of the seat to house the lithium-ion batteries that power the kart. That way, the kart is balanced and maintains its grip with the road without adding rear bias or tip-over potential by loading the battery on one side. 

Whiteman says the swappable battery packs offer many upsides, including reduced maintenance costs and environmental benefits. Through this technology, HPD has learned more about energy storage, heat management, and vehicle weights and balances. These battery packs are already in use for small construction equipment like cordless rammers and compact excavators.

Along with reduced emissions and noise pollution, battery-pack-powered vehicles keep the equipment in commission continuously if you have a bank of these batteries that can be charging up while the others are in use. 

How race car research benefits Honda’s passenger cars

Ultimately, Honda and its HPD division are testing new ideas to find out how that translates to performance and customer satisfaction. Rebecca Johnson, HPD director of production and senior manager, says exploring electrification and sharing each division’s findings throughout the company creates opportunities to improve across the board. 

“We’re trying to train ourselves to be better at hybrids and battery packs for electrified racing,” Johnson says. “Let’s build something. Let’s make a car and let’s call it our laboratory, if you will, and let people ‘play’ and iterate on the design or technology. As we strive forward, we can put that together with what customers want.”

In 2024, the IndyCar series will run with hybrid units with 2.2-liter engines; currently, the power is all supplied by renewable race fuel. Honda is getting ready for this change by testing battery packs and a custom concept hybrid built with a tubular cage and sheet metal copied from a production CR-V crossover. It’s mind-boggling to ride in the Beast, as Honda calls it internally, as it looks like an SUV with a giant wing and sounds like a screaming hurricane inside. This is the future, and it’s pretty exciting. 

Johnson is steeped in racing culture, and she has her eyes trained forward as HPD works to maintain the visceral appeal of IndyCar and Formula One races while moving toward drastically reducing emissions.   

“We’re a racing company that happens to sell cars,” Johnson says. “Racing is in our DNA. If we can prove out tough things on a race track, we can surely make a good Civic. If you can do it at [IndyCar] level, then you should be very good at performance for a Civic owner. They want all the things that we want [for race cars] but on a different level.”

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