Jordan Golson | The Verge

GM’s Super Cruise getting fully automatic, hands-free lane changes and more for 2022

2021-07-23T00:01:00-04:00

General Motors’ Super Cruise, one of the best advanced driver assist systems on the market, is getting a big upgrade for 2022 and will be available on way more vehicles — including, for the first time, the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra half-ton pickup trucks.

To test out the new stuff, GMC had me out to GM’s Milford Proving Grounds to play with the new Super Cruise on the facility’s 4.5-mile banked circle track. Security at the facility is tight and our cameras were either confiscated or, in the case of my iPhone, covered in obnoxious red security tape.

I soon understood the need for security when I spotted what appeared to be the upcoming 2023 Z06 mid-engined Corvette being tested, a whole bunch of GMC Hummer EV pickups and, curiously, a Tesla Model Y. (GMC wouldn’t say why, but I assume it was to check out the competition.)

Available for the first time in the Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra pickup trucks

There are three main new capabilities to the 2022 variant of Super Cruise, and I got to test two of them:

Fully automatic lane changes, meaning the car can determine when it’s safe to pass a slower car in front of you and execute all lane changes without involving the driver at all.
Support for towing, allowing for hands-free trailering (but you can’t tow and have automatic lane changes, it’s one or the other).
Upgrades to the navigation, to show Super Cruise-enabled roads on the in-vehicle navigation system during route selection.

I took the Sierra out onto the facility’s “highway” and a GM engineer followed in a chase car. After setting Super Cruise to 70mph, I settled in for a nice hands-free drive in a large circle.

Super Cruise, which debuted in 2017 in the Cadillac CT6 sedan, is capable of completely hands-free driving across more than 200,000 miles of divided highway across North America. It compares the vehicle’s position, taken from both GPS and on-board cameras, to its location in a lidar scan of the world. Once the vehicle knows where it is, and that it’s safe to activate, Super Cruise will take over both steering and acceleration.

The driver is still required to pay full attention

The driver is still required to pay full attention. The car uses an infrared vision system to ensure that the driver’s eyes remain on the road. Look away at your smartphone for too long and the system starts with warnings before disengaging entirely. But if you keep your eyes on the road, you won’t need to touch the steering wheel at all unless there’s a situation the system can’t handle.

And with the updates, you’ll be able to touch the wheel even less. After I pulled onto the highway and set my speed, the chase car sped past, moved into my lane, and then slowed down to less than 70mph. My Sierra noticed this and slowed down to match, but then it began scanning the left-hand passing lane to see if it was safe to move over.

After a moment, the car beeped at me and popped up a message warning of the impending lane change and the vehicle swiftly moved to the left lane while simultaneously accelerating back up to my 70mph set speed. It wasn’t a dramatic move, but it was impressive to watch it in action. After passing the slower car, it moved back into the right lane and continued on.

The truck has four new wide-angle, long-range radar sensors to support the system, one on each corner of the vehicle. GM upgraded the two existing rear / side radars that were there to enable existing blind-spot monitoring features. The existing long-range radar for the adaptive cruise system is carried over. Between the seven different radar sensors, the car has 360-degree long-range coverage of the world around it.

Between the seven different radar sensors, the car has 360-degree long-range coverage of the world around it

2021 Cadillac Escalade models have an older version of the lane change system where the car would change lanes if the driver activated the turn signal (though it didn’t require any interaction with the steering wheel), but this is a significant improvement on that. Just keep an eye on the road, and the car should be able to move around slower cars and trucks in your way.

The new trailering option is more complicated than it might appear at first glance. When you attach a trailer for the first time, the truck asks a series of questions like how long the trailer is. This helps the truck calculate the total length and weight of the vehicle.

While in a normal curve, Super Cruise will stay closer to the inside lane line, which is how most humans drive. With the trailer attached, Super Cruise will instead work to keep the vehicle and trailer dead center in the lane. It’ll also leave more space between you and a vehicle in front (since the truck and trailer will take longer to slow down).

All versions of Super Cruise use mapping data to determine if it should slow down for an upcoming curve. But it will be more conservative with a trailer attached, slowing down sooner and to a lower speed than without.

A Sierra can haul 10,000 pounds without breaking a sweat, and that’s a significant amount of weight to entrust to the computer, but GMC’s engineers say it really works. In my 15-minute demo, I’m inclined to agree with them — though it was the definition of a controlled environment.

“democratization of technology”

Company reps wouldn’t specify pricing nor what trim levels on which Super Cruise will be available. Phil Brook, GMC’s VP of marketing, said the addition of Super Cruise to Sierra was a “democratization of technology” and that they didn’t want to keep it buried at exclusively high trim levels. We’ll see about that, but expect Super Cruise to be an expensive option either way.

GM says the new Super Cruise will be available on a number of different vehicles, including the upcoming GMC Hummer electric pickup, the GMC Sierra and Chevrolet Silverado pickups, the Cadillac Escalade and XT6 SUVs, and the Cadillac CT4 and CT5 sedans. The 2022 Chevrolet Bolt EUV will receive an older version of Super Cruise that doesn’t include the lane change features. Owners of 2021 Escalade vehicles with Super Cruise equipped will also receive the new features in a future over-the-air update.

Of course, this was a contrived test on GM’s own test track. But, given the performance of Super Cruise in our own real-world testing and the company’s conservative, take-it-slow approach to rolling out the feature across its lineup, we expect the new features to work as advertised.

None too soon, either. Arch rival Ford is planning to unleash its own hands-free Level 2 driving system, BlueCruise, later this year starting in 2021 versions of the Ford F-150 pickup and the Mustang Mach-E electric car.

And, of course, there’s Tesla’s Autopilot and the new beta version of its Full Self Driving features which also support automatic lane changes on the highway. However, the Tesla system requires the driver to keep their hands on the steering wheel to confirm that they’re paying attention instead of the completely hands-free driving that the camera-based driver monitoring systems from Ford and GM allow.

Though both Super Cruise and Autopilot have been around for a while, they haven’t been available in any pickup trucks — by far the most popular vehicles in America. The addition of Super Cruise to the Silverado and Sierra, and BlueCruise to the F-150, will bring these technologies (which might be old hat to Tesla owners) to an entirely new market of flyover truck buyers.

Disclosure: GMC paid for the author’s travel and accommodations for the reporting of this story.

The Chevy Volt is dead; long live the Chevy Volt

2018-12-01T14:00:06-05:00

Back in the 1990s, GM killed the electric car. But in 2011, it brought it back again with the Chevy Volt, selling more than 150,000 units over the past seven years, making it one of the best-selling plug-in hybrids on the market. The Volt perhaps doesn’t get enough credit for its political and technological significance.

Now, the Volt is sentenced to death in March 2019 as part of GM’s massive restructuring that will cut more than 14,000 salaried staff and factory workers and close seven factories worldwide by the end of next year. In addition to the Volt, the company also plans to jettison the Buick LaCrosse, Chevrolet Impala, and Cadillac CT6 sedans. President Trump lashed out at GM over the closures and threatened to impose new car tariffs on imports from China.

the Volt is sentenced to death in March 2019

The Volt has always been a political football. In 2012, President Obama promised to buy one when he left office, and talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh repeatedly bashed both Obama and GM for the Volt, saying that “nobody wants it” and criticizing the $7,500 federal EV tax credit.

Though the Volt’s sales numbers fell short of the original projections, it was hardly a failure. In 2011, its sales goal was 10,000, but Chevy only sold 7,671. Deliveries eventually grew to more than 20,000 units per year in both 2016 and 2017, putting the Volt on par with what Porsche has predicted for sales of its upcoming Taycan electric car. For the Volt, which received so much attention when it launched, it’s natural that its boosters would claim every sale as a victory, while nothing would satisfy those who think of it as a “Government Motors” boondoggle.

I bought a second-generation Volt in 2016, and before it was totaled in a crash (there were no serious injuries), my then-wife and I put more than 18,000 all-electric miles on the car, with just shy of 2,000 gasoline miles on the clock. The technology in the car is astonishing. We hardly noticed the switchover between electric and gasoline propulsion. Unlike Teslas, which run on electricity alone, the Volt is a “plug-in hybrid” that has a smaller battery pack, but it also packs a gasoline engine that starts up when the battery runs out of juice.

The Volt does this really, really well. And, unlike full-electric vehicles, it’s easy to loan to people who are unfamiliar with the quirks of electric cars. If you like, you can drive it like a normal car and never plug it in at all. But with some minor behavior changes — like plugging it in at night to charge up the battery — you can save money and the environment.

The rated range of 53 miles for a full charge of electricity held up, allowing my wife to drive her 50-mile round trip commute entirely on electricity. But even if the range had been shorter, the Volt’s hybrid status eliminates that electric car range anxiety because she could have stopped at a gas station in a pinch.

So why kill it?

So why kill it? The Volt is a sedan, and demand for four-door cars has been falling marketwide. This is probably the primary driver of the Volt’s cancellation. Earlier this year, Ford said it would be discontinuing most of its car lineup in favor of trucks and crossovers, and GM is doing something similar.

But my experience with the Volt convinced me that plug-in hybrids are the major stepping stone for owners between traditional gas-powered cars and full EVs like the Tesla Model 3. Most major carmakers have released plug-in hybrids like the Volt (or soon will), showing what a trailblazer it really was. It’s been rumored for more than a year that Chevrolet is working on a plug-in crossover replacement for the Volt, which is more in line with market trends than a four-seater sedan.

But there was one other big hitch with the Volt: the way they were sold. When my wife and I were planning to buy one, we started at our local Chevrolet dealer, which had several on the lot. When we arrived, the first thing our salesperson tried to do after we told him we wanted to test it out was… try to talk us out of it.

there was another big hitch with the Volt: the way they were sold

Why deter us from buying a car we knew we wanted? This puzzled me for months, but eventually, I figured it out: for a salesperson (commissioned or not), time is money. He could tell us everything we needed to know about the Chevy Equinox or the Malibu in under 10 minutes. The Volt (and the Bolt EV, which launched later), are much more complicated to explain, taking up more time. And other than Tesla, which eschews the dealer model in favor of its own if-Apple-sold-cars-this-is-how-it-would-look retail stores, no carmaker has been able to crack the code on how to sell the damn things.

The Volt getting canceled isn’t great news for electric car enthusiasts. But, with 150,000 on the road, most of them owned by EV evangelicals who are happy to explain how great they are, the Volt will continue to push the market forward for years to come. And for GM, it provided an invaluable R&D test-bed for its future electric car efforts.

The Volt is dead. Long live the Volt.

The Ford Mustang is the best-selling sports car in the world

2017-04-25T00:01:10-04:00

The Ford Mustang is now the world’s best selling sports car, according to a Ford analysis of IHS Markit data. The company has long sold the Mustang in the United States, but has recently pushed an international expansion of the vehicle, with 45,000 Mustangs sold outside the US in 2016, up 101 percent from the year before. Germany and China made up most of the growth.

That expansion means that the Mustang is now sold in 140 countries, with a quarter of sixth-generation Mustang sales (model year 2015 through today) shipped to customers outside the US. Beginning with the 2018 Mustang, the car will go on sale in six additional countries including Brazil, the Palau Islands, and the Ivory Coast.

Somewhat strangely, IHS wouldn’t specify what makes up a “sports car” in its rankings, nor would it give The Verge data on what the second-most popular sports car is — but it did confirm that Ford’s analysis is correct. Other sports cars that IHS tracked include the BMW 4 Series, the Nissan 370z, the Porsche 911, and the Mazda MX-5.

The 2018 Mustang will be the first in decades not to have a V6 engine, but the new model will boast a new 10-speed transmission, as well as an upgraded 5-liter V8 in the Mustang GT. And, for good measure, here are a bunch of cool pictures Ford sent over of the Mustang in various countries around the world.

Tesla is making a big expansion to its Supercharger network

2017-04-24T12:08:42-04:00

Tesla will have more than 10,000 high-speed Supercharger electric car chargers by the end of the year, the company revealed today, a doubling of where it was at the beginning of 2017. It also will expand its Destination Charging network — where the company partners with hotels, restaurants, and parking garages to install chargers — from 9,000 to 15,000 connectors.

The information comes in a blog post as Tesla reveals more about its plan to double the number of its Supercharger stations in North America this year, something first hinted at in a letter to shareholders back in February. Currently, Tesla operates 830 Supercharger stations (which are distinct from individual chargers) in 31 countries. It has 5,400 charging connectors across those stations.

Perhaps the most interesting bit of information in the post is that Tesla wants to make charging “ubiquitous in urban centers,” where street-parking customers may not have easy access to reliable daily charging, like they might in the suburbs. This is especially important as Tesla gets closer to the rollout of its more-affordable Model 3 electric car.

“To better serve the needs of owners who are traveling or those who don’t have access to reliable home charging, we will continue to aggressively expand our public charging networks,” the post reads. This suggests a change in policy for Tesla, which has, in the past, discouraged day-to-day use of Superchargers, saying instead that the system is meant for long-distance travel only.

The company says it will build larger sites along its “busiest travel routes”, and is planning to dramatically increase the size of individual Supercharger stations to allow many Tesla vehicles to charge at once. The Supercharging technology being installed will be the same as the current Superchargers, but more of them will be installed in urban areas to address congestion at existing charge stations and help Tesla owners who don’t have their own garages.

Congestion at Supercharging points has been a problem for Tesla, and the company has rolled out a few changes over the past six months to help address the problem. Back in December, Tesla announced that it would begin charging owners $0.40 per minute for leaving car parked at a Supercharger after it was completed charging in an effort to increase turnover, and new Tesla buyers (including all Model 3 owners) will need to pay for electricity acquired at Superchargers after exhausting a yearly allotment.

Britain goes a day without coal-fired power for first time since the 1880s

2017-04-23T08:35:27-04:00

Great Britain has gone an entire day without using electricity produced from coal for the first time since the industrial revolution says National Grid, the country’s energy utility.

The country has gone without coal-produced power numerous times before, but never for an entire day. Instead, the country used power produced from natural gas (50.3 percent), nuclear (21.2 percent), wind (12.2 percent), imports from other countries (8.3 percent), biomass (6.7 percent), and solar (3.6 percent) to power the country on April 21st. The numbers provided by National Grid don’t total to 100 percent because of power exports to other countries and hydro production.

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In 2015, coal accounted for 22 percent of the UK’s power generation, though that was a decrease of 7.3 percent below where it was in 2014, with natural gas and nuclear making up most of the rest. Numbers are similar in the US: in 2015, coal, natural gas, and nuclear made up 33 percent, 33 percent, and 20 percent of US electricity production respectively — though Great Britain is a bit ahead on the renewables front.

President Trump campaigned on loosening restrictions on coal fired power plants and coal mining, and said he was “putting an end to the war on coal” when he signed an executive order halting the US government’s efforts to fight climate change. The order rolled back restrictions on the amount of CO2 emissions made by fossil fuel-fired power plants, which are the largest concentrated source of such emissions in the country.

The 7 most interesting cars at the Shanghai auto show

2017-04-22T13:00:01-04:00

Auto show season marches on. The end of the New York International Auto Show signals the beginning of Auto Shanghai 2017, and this year there was no shortage of gorgeous cars with interesting designs and bizarre-looking technology. Let’s take a look at some of the major reveals from the show.

Renault R.S. 2027

At first blush, the Renault R.S. 2027 is an elegant concept racecar packed with LED lights. But for a concept, it’s actually pretty timid. Whether or not that’s a good thing depends on your point of view. On one hand, the ideas Renault is suggesting with the car (four wheel drive, better fuel efficiency, increased fan engagement) are a more practical take on the next 10 years of Formula One.

But on the other, why bother with a concept car if you’re only going to aim for practicality? Most of the ideas Renault proposed with the R.S. 2027 were already being worked on, if not by F1, then by its closest competitors. We’re not saying concept cars should only be used to propose impossible ideas. We’re just saying it would’ve been nice to hear something a little bit crazier from Renault.

Lynk & Co.

Lynk & Co, a Volvo-sibling startup owned by Chinese automaker Geely, might not be the first company to suggest shared ownership of a car — but it doubled down on the idea this week with the 03 concept, a staid but smart sedan to compliment the SUV that was announced last fall. You might own this car one day, or you might split it with your family. Or maybe you’ll only rent it when you need it, allowing others to access the car during the times when the only thing controlling its movement are gravity and the parking brake.

Unlike some other recent car startups with questionable futures, Lynk & Co at least has a lineage that makes one believe the company can survive the slog of making cars at a significant volume. Lynk & Co hopes the 03 concept can make a few waves, but it’s hard to break into an already turbulent auto industry.

NIO ES8

NIO (née NextEV) is being frustratingly vague about its all-electric concept SUV. We reached out to the Chinese startup about battery power and range, and all we got back were specs on the ES8’s dimensions, suspension, and all-wheel drive. These are not the specs most people want from their electric cars. People want to know how far they can drive it, and how much storage it has. To this NIO says, “TK.”

NIO previously has showed off an ultrafast supercar, a self-driving concept, and not much else. So whether or not the ES8 actually makes it to production is anyone’s guess. And aside from Tesla’s Model X, there aren’t many electric SUVs on the market. So it would be nice to have a few more to choose from.

Audi E-tron Sportback

Look at that glowing badge on the front of Audi’s new E-tron Sportback concept! Nothing says “Hi, I’m from the future” like a glowing badge, which explains why other automakers like Mercedes-Benz and Infiniti have also slapped illuminated logos on the grilles of their futuristic concepts. It’s a like digital kiss from a cold and distant robot.

Which is not to say that the Sportback isn’t a nifty car. Audi says it will have 320 kilowatts of power — in addition to a “boost mode” to 370 kW — and can sprint to 62 mph in 4.5 seconds. A 95 kWh battery pack will enable just over 310 miles of range per charge, though that will probably be closer to 275 miles, given that the German carmaker uses the European rating system for electric vehicle range. The automaker says the new electric coupe crossover will hit the market in 2019, about a year after the Quattro E-tron, Audi’s first electric concept which it introduced back in 2015.

Volkswagen I.D. Crozz

It’s not as sharp as the E-Tron concept, but Volkswagen’s I.D. Crozz SUV concept still looks pretty good in renderings. As we learned from the plasticky and frankly kind of gross interior of the I.D. Buzz microbus in Detroit, concept renderings aren’t everything. But an electric crossover SUV seems more likely to actually hit the road than the microbus revival Volkswagen so clearly loves to tease, so here’s hoping the company can eventually deliver on things like the 300-plus mile range and quick charging capabilities. After all, VW’s got a lot of ozone to make up for.

Mercedes-Benz Concept A Sedan

Mercedes-Benz is building some beautiful concepts these days. At the Geneva Motor Show, Merc gave us the gorgeous Mercedes-AMG GT Concept, and now it brought the Concept A Sedan to Shanghai. It’s a hint at what the German carmaker’s next generation of compact cars will look like, embodied by Mercedes’ “sensual purity” design language. The head of design for Daimler says it “shows that the time of creases is over,” with “perfect proportions and a sensual treatment of surfaces with reduced lines.” OK then. Looks good, though, right?

MG E-motion

MG Motor hasn’t appeared much — or at all — on this site, but the UK-based brand’s latest concept, the E-motion, seems tailor made for The Verge. A powerful electric powertrain wrapped up in the body of a wickedly voluptuous sports coupe, the E-motion is both fun and environmentally sustainable. MG, a subsidiary of Shanghai’s SAIC Motor, says the vehicle will go 0-to-62 mph in under four seconds, and will boast a range of more than 310 miles on a single charge. Those are pretty incredible numbers, so hopefully MG will see this particular concept through to the end.

The wagon is back: The Volvo V90 Cross Country drives itself through the desert

2017-04-21T16:51:44-04:00

I’ve borrowed a 2017 Volvo V90 Cross Country for an entire month, and will document my experience every week. Last week I drove to Albuquerque, New Mexico and back for a seven-hour highway test of the V90’s Pilot Assist semi-autonomous technology (and afterwards I stopped by an off-road driving park to get some cool pictures!).

Though Tesla’s Autopilot is perhaps the best-known semi-autonomous technology on the market today, a number of other companies currently or will soon offer something similar. Volvo is one of those, and the V90 Cross Country wagon is equipped with the second-generation of Volvo’s Pilot Assist technology.

Pilot Assist is two technologies working together to make driving a little bit easier: it takes Volvo’s existing adaptive cruise control and combines it with a steering assist that keeps the car between the lines on a well-marked roadway. That makes it a SAE Level 2 technology and it works quite well, as long as you use it in the right place.

In simple terms, the car can keep the vehicle within its lane and handle steering tasks at speeds below 80 mph. Like the systems in cars from Tesla and Mercedes, Volvo’s Pilot Assist does not handle everything. Drivers are still required to pay attention and make quick decisions if something unexpected happens.

In my experience, Pilot Assist works best on wide-open, largely straight roads like interstate highways or the US highways typically found in rural areas. These roads tend to be well-marked and largely free of crossing traffic because intersections are rare.

Once the standard cruise control activated by pressing the center button on the directional pad on the left side of the steering wheel, Pilot Assist is then turned on by pressing the right arrow on that same directional pad. If all is well, and the car’s on board cameras can see the road markings, a small icon of a green steering wheel appears on the instrument cluster and in the heads-up display.

From there, the car can maintain speed with a normal cruise control system and, thanks to the adaptive cruise control that Volvo has offered for years, can also match speeds with the car in front. It can even come to a complete halt in stop-and-go traffic. The Volvo system will require interaction from the driver if the car comes to a stop for more than a few seconds, either by pressing the “resume” button on the steering wheel (it looks like an arrow going in a circle) or by gently touching the gas pedal.

Along with maintaining speed, the car will turn the steering wheel to keep itself within lane markings, even on turns — though the system is super aggressive about requiring interaction from the driver.

While Tesla’s Autopilot allows the driver to go for more than a minute without interaction, depending on the situation (in stop-and-go traffic at 5 mph, Autopilot can go for quite a while without requiring the driver to touch the wheel), Volvo’s system is much more insistent.

Like with similar systems, Volvo’s Pilot Assist is built so the driver doesn’t have to do quite as much to physically drive the car while still remaining fully in charge of what’s happening. The safety-obsessed Volvo engineers really want the driver to keep at least one hand on the wheel, ready to take full control if necessary, and will periodically (every 10 to 15 seconds based on my experience, though I haven’t used a stopwatch to time it) use a visual alert on the instrument cluster and heads-up display to request the driver move the wheel slightly to show that you’re still there. If you ignore that, it turns down the radio and begins insistently bonging.

Keep ignoring it, and the car eventually turns the system off entirely. If there’s a medical emergency, for example, the other safety systems (including things like lane keep assist and automatic emergency braking) will remain active.

I found that if I keep my hand lightly on the wheel, even as the car handles most of the actual steering, that’s enough to make the system happy.

Volvo notes that Pilot Assist shouldn’t be used in slippery conditions and that it will not be aware of things like people or animals (though other Volvo safety systems may react to those), and that it will not react to stationary objects or vehicles crossing its path.

In my driving, when used correctly, I found that long drives were a bit easier on my eyes and my brain, as I basically monitored the car to make sure everything was going well, and I didn’t need to correct the path of the vehicle within its lane or adjust the speed often at all.

Volvo has a number of autonomous projects in the works, including its Drive Me pilot in several countries that should start later this year, a partnership with Uber, and new, more capable versions of the Pilot Assist system that’s in the V90.

But, for now, if you commute in highway stop-and-go traffic or go on long, interstate-road trips — and understand the current system’s limitations — Pilot Assist can make your drive a lot smoother and less tiring.

If you have questions about the Volvo V90 Cross Country, please reach out in the comments or via email (jordan.golson@theverge.com) and let me know what you’d like to know. Next week, I’m going to collect all the questions I’ve received and cover them in one giant reader Q&A.

If you’d like to learn more about the Volvo V90 Cross Country, you can go back and read parts one and two of my review.

Photography by Jordan Golson / The Verge

Tesla app update lets Powerwall owners keep an eye on their electricity

2017-04-20T16:01:11-04:00

Tesla’s iOS and Android apps are being updated today to give owners of the company’s Powerwall home energy storage product access to information about their in-home electricity grid.

The new app lets customers monitor all their Tesla products including the Model S and Model X vehicles, Powerwall, and solar panels. Real-time data on solar power generation, battery power flow, and household energy consumption are displayed. The app can also notify customers of a power grid outage and share info about current Powerwall status and that the battery has kicked in to keep the home powered up.

In the event of an anticipated power outage, either planned or because of possible bad weather, Powerwall owners can also adjust the amount of power stored by their home battery pack.

The update should be rolling out later today.

The Powerwall 2, introduced last year, is a giant battery similar to those used in Tesla’s electric cars. It allows homeowners to store 14 kWh of energy per unit, allowing for solar power generated during the day to be used at night — or as a backup power source in the event of a electricity outage. A built-in inverter allows for easier connection of solar panels to a home energy grid.

Tesla’s 14 kWh Powerwall costs $5,500 and includes a built-in inverter. Up to nine Powerwalls can be interconnected, and it can be wall- or ground-mounted, inside or out.

Tesla withdraws lawsuit against former Autopilot head, gets $100k in settlement

2017-04-19T17:27:42-04:00

Tesla has withdrawn the scathing lawsuit it filed against Sterling Anderson, the former program manager of its Autopilot team, and the company he founded with former Google exec Chris Urmson, Aurora Innovation.

According to a settlement agreement, Aurora will pay Tesla $100,000 (a paltry sum for a billion-dollar company like Tesla) and allow Tesla to hire an independent auditor to scour Aurora’s systems for confidential Tesla information, which would then be destroyed or returned to Tesla. Aurora will hire its own auditor to search for the same information, and will provide that information to Tesla. In a post on Medium, Anderson suggests that the $100,000 payment is meant to cover the cost of Tesla’s auditor.

Anderson and Aurora will also continue to abide by Anderson’s existing non-solicitation agreement with Tesla, and promise not to solicit employees or contractors of Tesla to leave that company for one year.

Though a cursory look suggests Tesla got most of what it wanted from its initial lawsuit filing (something that Tesla claims in its statement), there are two things that stand out:

First, $100,000 is not a lot of money to change hands considering that Tesla accused Anderson of taking confidential Tesla information and destroying evidence to cover his tracks, as well as attempting to poach a number of employees to his new venture. Second, the terms of the settlement are not covered by a confidentiality clause, a common requirement for many lawsuit settlements.

If Tesla’s claims about Anderson, stolen documents, and poached employees were completely accurate, one wonders why the company would withdrawn its lawsuit for such a small sum.

Even so, both companies are claiming victory. Here’s Tesla’s take:

Tesla’s lawsuit against Mr. Anderson, Mr. Urmson, and Aurora has been settled. Under the settlement, Mr. Anderson’s contractual obligations to Tesla will remain in place and will also be extended to Aurora, with additional specific protections being added to ensure there are no further violations. The settlement also establishes a process to allow Tesla to recover all of the proprietary information that was taken from the company, and it provides for Aurora’s computer systems to be subject to ongoing audits to monitor for any improper retention or use of Tesla’s property. Finally, $100,000 was paid to Tesla.

The statement issued by an Aurora spokesperson reflects that company’s very different view of the situation:

Delivering on a lofty vision is hard; in late January 2017 it got harder. Tesla filed a meritless lawsuit against us, supported by an aggressive public relations effort. Disappointed, but determined to defend our integrity, we immediately commissioned a comprehensive forensics audit that proved what we already knew to be true: (1) no material Tesla confidential information exists on our personal computers or company systems, and (2) there is no evidence that anyone at Aurora has used or has access to Tesla confidential information.

Today, less than three months after filing (and even before we were permitted to file a response) Tesla has withdrawn its claims, without damages, without attorney’s fees, and without any finding of wrongdoing. We have even agreed to reimburse the cost of a future audit to demonstrate the integrity of Aurora’s intellectual property.

In spite of this distraction, we’ve made great progress this last few months and are excited to now focus all of our energy on making transportation safer and better for all. We’ve been developing self-driving vehicles since long before it was trendy, and remain committed to bringing this important technology to market with the right team, doing things the right way.

Aurora remains in stealth, and will likely have more to share at a later date since it’s no longer being sued.

Emirates cuts some US flights, citing reduced demand following new security measures

2017-04-19T13:05:51-04:00

Emirates is reducing the number of scheduled flights between Dubai and the US cities of Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, Seattle, Boston, and Los Angeles.

The airline said in a statement emailed to The Verge that the decision came “in response to weakened travel demand” to the United States, and that changes in US government policy related to visas, security vetting, and restrictions on electronic devices in aircraft cabins from certain countries “have had a direct impact on consumer interest and demand for air travel” into the country.

“Until the start of 2017, Emirates’ operations in the US has seen healthy growth and performance, driven by customer demand for our high quality product and our international flight connections,” the statement continued. “However, over the past 3 months, we have seen a significant deterioration in the booking profiles on all our US routes, across all travel segments. Emirates has therefore responded as any profit-oriented enterprise would, and we will redeploy capacity to serve demand on other routes on our global network.”

The changes may be seen by some as a victory for US carriers who have repeatedly complained that Middle Eastern carriers including Emirates, Etihad Airways, and Qatar Airways have received government subsidies from their home countries that provide an unfair competitive advantage.

Emirates says that it is looking to reinstate and grow its US operations “as soon as viable,” and that it continues to provide 101 flight departures each week to 12 different US cities.

Over the next few months, Emirates says it will cut flights to Fort Lauderdale and Orlando from daily service to five per week service, while Los Angeles, Seattle, and Boston will move from twice-daily to once-daily service. Flights to hubs like Chicago and New York remain unaffected.