Transportation

The massive $16.8 billion chip facility, which is being built by Tesla and SpaceX with help from Intel, will be located in Grimes County, population 29,268. After securing over a billion dollars in tax breaks from two rural school districts, SpaceX says it will break ground later this year. The fab will supply AI chips to power Musk’s plans to build a “robot army” that includes self-driving cars and humanoid robots, as well as for the data centers he plans on launching into space.

Accell Group is the latest victim of Bikeaggedon: the turmoil created by soaring e-bike demand at the onset of covid, followed by a collapse of the supply chain, and then a period of massive oversupply.

The automaker only announced the new 4-door electric sedan last spring and it’s already adding a new variant. The Mercedes-AMG GT 53 will be a new high-performance model arriving in US dealerships in 2027. Mercedes has used the 53 badge for its electrified 3.0-liter turbocharged inline-six engines. Now it will be applied to an all-electric sedan with a dual-motor 800V architecture, 536 horsepower and 590 lb-ft of torque, and a 0-60 acceleration in 3.4 seconds.

The Amazon-owned robotaxi company said it would launch its first-ever commercial service in Las Vegas on August 10th. Fares will be calculated from a base fare, plus distance and time traveled. Destination fees, such as trips to the airport, may also be factored in. The news comes a few days after Zoox obtained approvals from the Department of Transportation to start charging for rides in its steering wheel- and pedal-less vehicle.

The MTA is auctioning off its old MetroCard vending machines, and I’m struggling to picture where one would fit something like this in your average New York City apartment. It weighs 1,050 pounds! Maybe some enterprising transit nerd could convert it into a work station for their computer.

The New York City Council just released a surprisingly large raft of bills — 17, to be exact — aimed at overhauling the city’s enforcement and regulation of electric bikes. The council is considering a ban on higher speed e-bikes, new license and insurance requirements for delivery companies that rely on e-bikes, and stricter penalties on riders who flee the scene of a crash. But transportation advocates are worried that the bills will discourage people from using e-bikes while also ignoring the larger danger posed by reckless driving. Either way, the great e-bike crackdown continues.

A supervisor still needs to be aboard each vehicle ready to intervene if needed, but it’s a step closer to fully driverless operations and puts Uber ahead of competition from Waymo and Baidu. Uber said more than 100,000 Londoners have signed up for the chance to be first riders starting “later this summer,” after its interest list opened in June.

“Fake news,” is how he responded to a Wall Street Journal report on the possible sale of Tesla’s business in its second-largest market:

After suspending freeway routes in May because of safety concerns in construction zones, Waymo announced that freeway routes coming back in Phoenix and “soon” in Los Angeles, Miami, and San Francisco.

Using the in-car screens, you can access Gemini for things like changing the temperature in your Waymo or getting a recommendation for a good coffee shop, Waymo says. The feature is in beta, and Gemini operates “independently from the Waymo Driver.”

The ultra-long range Airbus A350-1000ULR operated by Qantas took off from Melbourne, Australia and flew for 24 hours and 24 minutes, covering 23,075km (14,338 miles) before landing at the plane’s factory in Toulouse, France. The new aircraft will debut on the carrier’s nonstop Sydney-London route starting in 2027. ​

LG’s Wide Hover Screen concept combines a 20-inch central console display and ultra-short-throw projector to create a large heads-up display on the windshield. It builds upon LG’s UltraView Windshield Display designed to help drivers keep their eyes on the road by minimizing unnecessary eye movement.

The vehicles will operate with safety drivers, but are built for fully driverless operations, the companies say. After the UK opened the door for autonomous ridehail vehicles, several companies have indicated they intend to launch in London, including Uber, Wayve, and Waymo. Lyft and Baidu’s vehicles will stick to the neighborhood of Brent for their initial testing.

There are few things more Japanese than the kei minicar, which is now under threat from China. Starting today, BYD’s all-electric, five-door Racco is available to buy locally for less than ¥2 million (about $12,200) with a range of 210 kilometers (130 miles).

Now that BMW has shown off its M Concept Neue Klasse, M division head Frank van Meel talked to Autocar, saying that the future M3 EV’s “heart of Joy” controlled quad-motor setup could create racing and driving dynamics that the combustion engine M3 doesn’t match:

Shortly after confirming it was looking at closing plants and cutting up to 100,000 jobs, the world’s 2nd largest auto company posted miserable financials and a desperate outlook as it lays the ground work for a radical overhaul of its business under threat from Chinese upstarts.

“When I logged into my Tesla account and view my lease/contract with it, it loads a PDF which just shows the Book of Enoch?” the anonymous owner said in a Reddit post (first spotted by Electrek). “What do I even do with this? Lol.” The Book of Enoch is a 2,000 year old apocalyptic religious book about angels and demons, so it’s anyone’s guess why it would pop up for a Tesla solar customer looking for their lease. AI-prompted mixup seems like a likely bet.

An Uber spokesperson tells Bloomberg that the move comes as the company works “to simplify operations, strengthen in-person collaboration, and continue to embrace AI.” Uber is also asking remote customer service employees to return to the office, Bloomberg reports.

The extending roof panel on the Solarky SunV provides up to 300W of solar charging for its 10.2kWh LFP battery. And its aluminum chassis and plastic panels make it so lightweight, that it can go about 150km (93 miles) before a recharge — or up to 200km (124 miles) with enough sunshine, according to the company. It’s already on sale in markets including Thailand and Indonesia.

In the spirit of other EVs that deviate significantly from established designs, Range Rover revealed the first images of its (camouflaged) electric GT, which looks nothing like the boxy SUVs the UK-based automaker is mostly known for. The saloon-like grand tourer will be “the most technologically sophisticated Range Rover vehicle ever created,” Range Rover boasts.

Aurora announced that it is deploying its second-generation driverless truck on public roads in Texas. The trucks will be used to haul freight for Aurora’s commercial trucking customers like Hirschbach, Uber Freight, McLane, Detmar, and more. The initial fleet will be “modest,” spokesperson Rachel Chibidakis said, but expects to ramp up to 200 trucks by year end.

Props to Fred Lambert at Electrek for catching this: the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is requesting from Tesla all information about a document called “Radar Saves Us” in its investigation into Full Self-Driving crashes. The details could prove that Tesla knew its camera-only approach to autonomous driving was flawed, which could trigger another massive recall for the company.

So far, most electric vehicles have looked more or less like cars. But recently, a few companies have looked to another, smaller mode of transport for inspiration. The Verge’s Andy Hawkins explains why companies like Amble and Chip are reinventing the golf cart, in the hopes of creating an entirely new kind of street-legal vehicle. As long as the speed limit stays low.

Tesla filed an NHTSA crash report that lists the driver as “Remote (Commercial / Test),” which Electrek says is a first for Tesla. It’s one of numerous accidents with Tesla’s robotaxis in the past year, and involved a Model Y hitting a tree stump while trying to get out of a dead end road.