The Federal Aviation Administration can’t “keep pace with the commercial spaceflight industry” and “lacks the resources” to respond to mission changes, SpaceX said in a letter sent in response to $633,000 in federal fines for launching two missions with unapproved changes. SpaceX owner Elon Musk has promised to sue the agency, but it seems as if we’re still in the “strongly worded letter” phase of this particular feud.
EVs have big lithium-ion batteries, and often those batteries can send energy back to the grid, just as they pull energy from it when charging. Last year, the three automakers created ChargeScape to turn the bidirectional charging capabilities of millions of EVs into a potential business. And now the whole thing is operational. According to Ford:
ChargeScape’s technology wirelessly connects to electric vehicles and, working with participating utilities, manages home charging efforts when the grid is constrained and even can send energy back into the power grid when needed.
In another sign that automakers are confused about how their customers want to spend their time while confined in their vehicles, Ford released a new karaoke app for the F-150 Lightning and (eventually) the Mustang Mach-E. The process only works while the vehicle is parked, leading Ford to assume this will be a popular activity while EV charging. Me? I’ll take “wandering aimlessly through a Walmart” over this.
Predictably, the actual process to use the new app is hilariously complicated.
