Cars

partial-automated-driving-systems-don’t-make-driving-safer,-study-finds

Partial automated driving systems don’t make driving safer, study finds

ADAS, advanced driver assistance systems, Autosteer, Cars, IIHS, lane departure, lane keeping, partial automation, partially automated driving, road safety / /

hands on the wheel, eyes on the road —

Many driver assists do increase safety, but little evidence lane keeping is one.

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A Nissan steering wheel with ProPILOT assist buttons on it

Enlarge / Nissan’s ProPilot Assist was one of two partially automated driving systems to be studied for crash safety improvements.

Nissan

Driver assists that help steer for you on the highway haven’t contributed much to road safety, according to a new study from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the Highway Loss Data Institute. That’s in contrast to other features often bundled together as “advanced driver assistance systems,” or ADAS, many of which have shown a marked reduction in crash and claim rates.

“Everything we’re seeing tells us that partial automation is a convenience feature like power windows or heated seats rather than a safety technology,” said David Harkey, IIHS president.

However, we should note that, as a follow-up to a pair of earlier studies published in 2021, the new research by IIHS and HLDI focused on two older partially automated driving systems, model-year 2017–2019 Nissan Rogues with ProPilot Assist and model year 2013–2017 BMWs with Driving Assistant Plus.

Those earlier studies found plenty of benefits to some ADAS features. Of BMW’s various collision avoidance systems, many reduced the claim frequency for various types of vehicle damage, property liability, and injury claims.

Crash rates

But when IIHS’s senior vice president of research, Jessica Cicchino, analyzed crash rate data for this population of cars, she found that despite an apparent modest reduction, there was no significant difference in lane departure crashes between BMWs equipped with lane departure warning and prevention and cars fitted with both systems plus partial automation, versus cars without any steering assist, after controlling for variables like driver age, gender, model year, and so on.

However, BMWs with lane departure warning and prevention did have significantly fewer lane departure crashes during daylight hours than cars without such systems.

The ADAS in Nissan Rogues did significantly lower rear-end and lane departure crash rates, with the greatest benefit being in the cars with the most assists (partial automation as well as forward collision warning, automatic emergency braking, lane departure warning, lane departure prevention) versus Rogues without such systems.

But Cicchino found those effects persisted on surface streets and roads with speed limits lower than 35 mph (56 km/h), speeds at which ProPilot Assist won’t keep centered in a lane unless following another car. That suggests some other factor at work here—possibly the fact that the better-equipped Rogues also had more effective headlights, IIHS says. (This year, IIHS started requiring an automaker to fit all trim levels in a model with the best headlights in order to be eligible for a Top Safety Pick or Top Safety Pick+ rating.)

Not the first time lane-keeping has claimed credit

This isn’t the first time that a different bit of equipment bundled together under a specific trim package or option has confounded attempts to determine the safety of lane-keeping systems. In 2018, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration told Ars that Tesla misattributed the safety benefit of its Autopilot partially automated driving system when in fact, the safety impact was likely due to automatic emergency braking and forward collision warning.

Testing for the safety of lane-keeping systems is more challenging than other crash-avoidance systems, because it must be actively engaged by the driver as opposed to constantly monitoring for danger, like an imminent forward crash. Not everyone with lane-keeping systems engages them, and even those who do don’t engage them on every journey.

Studies that look at actual telematics data from cars, which would accurately record when such systems are turned on, would help better answer this question, according to the study. And even then, the benefit is likely to be small—only 6 percent of police-reported crashes in the US “were run-off-road or same-direction sideswipes resulting from unintentional lane departures, or rear-ends, that occurred on interstate highways,” Cicchino wrote.

“With no clear evidence that partial automation is preventing crashes, users and regulators alike should not confuse it for a safety feature,” Cicchino said in a press release. “At a minimum, safeguards like those IIHS promotes through its rating program are essential to reduce the risks that drivers will zone out or engage in other distracting activities while partial automation is switched on.”

Partial automated driving systems don’t make driving safer, study finds Read More »

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Airbag problems force massive recalls at Alfa Romeo, BMW, Fiat, and Jeep

Airbag recall, alfa romeo, bmw, Cars, fiat, Jeep, NHTSA recall, Stellantis, Takata / /

blow me up —

Takata airbags and problematic sensors lead to recall across four car brands.

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Red lighting air bag control symbol in car

Getty Images

Both BMW and Stellantis are recalling hundreds of thousands of vehicles in the US this month due to airbag problems. For BMW, the problem, which potentially affects 394,029 cars, is a continuation of the Takata airbag recall, the largest automotive recall in history. Stellantis has slightly fewer potentially affected cars, with 322,000 subject to recall, but for a different problem caused by a suspect sensor in the seat belt buckle.

BMW

While the BMW recall will be sent to almost 400,000 owners, the company suspects only 1 percent of that population will have a problem that needs remedying. That’s because it wants dealers to check any cars where the owner has replaced the factory-fitted steering wheel with a Sport or M-Sport version equipped with a PSDI-5 inflator.

These inflators lack a desiccant or drying agent that would otherwise prevent the ammonium nitrate airbag propellant from taking on moisture, degrading the airbag’s performance to the point where it could overinflate and shower the interior with metal fragments. At least 24 people have been killed by defective Takata airbags in the US, which led to 42 million cars being recalled to fix the problem.

BMW’s recall affects the model-years 2006–11 323i, 325i, 330i, 330Xi, 335i, 335Xi; the model-years 2006–12 325Xi, 328i, 328Xi; and the model-years 2009–11 335d. Should inspection find a replacement wheel with a Takata inflator, it will be replaced with a new airbag module, BMW says.

Stellantis

The Stellantis recall appears to affect cars produced in Italy: the model-years 2017–24 Alfa Romeo Giulia, model-years 2018–24 Alfa Romeo Stelvio, model-year 2024 Fiat 500E, model-years 2019–23 Fiat 500X, and model-years 2019–23 Jeep Renegade.

Here, the problem is not an airbag inflator but the Hall effect sensor, supplied by ZF, on the seat belt buckle—or, more specifically, the wiring that connects that sensor to the car’s internal network. Suspect connectors were used in different models at different times, some as early as 2016 and some as late as this June. In cars with faulty Hall effect sensor wiring, the airbag may not trigger during a crash.

Stellantis says that dealers will directly wire the sensor to the wiring harness with a solder tube in affected cars.

Airbag problems force massive recalls at Alfa Romeo, BMW, Fiat, and Jeep Read More »

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Massive car dealer ransom attack is mostly over after 2 weeks of work-arounds

Cars, cdk global, cyberattack, ransomware / /

CDK Global car dealer outage —

CDK outage likely slumped June auto sales, may have cost more than $600M.

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Cars lined up, shown at an angle in a row, at a car dealership.

Enlarge / Vehicles for sale at an AutoNation Honda dealership in Fremont, California, US, on Monday, June 24, 2024.

Getty Images

After “cyber incidents” on June 19 and 20 took down CDK Global, a software-as-a-service vendor for more than 15,000 car dealerships, forum and Reddit comments by service tech workers and dealers advised their compatriots to prepare for weeks, not days, before service was restored.

That sentiment proved accurate, as CDK Global last expected to have “all dealers’ connections” working by either July 3 or 4, roughly two weeks’ time. Posts across various dealer-related subreddits today suggest CDK’s main services are mostly restored, if not entirely. Restoration of services is a mixed blessing for some workers, as huge backlogs of paperwork now need entering into digital systems.

Bloomberg reported on June 21 that a ransomware gang, BlackSuit, had demanded “tens of millions of dollars” from CDK and that the company was planning to pay that amount, according to a source familiar with the matter. CDK later told its clients on June 25 that the attack was a “cyber ransom event,” and that restoring services would take “several days and not weeks.” Allan Liska, with analyst Recorded Future, told Bloomberg that BlackSuit was responsible for at least 95 other recorded ransomware breaches around the world.

Lisa Finney, senior manager for external communications at CDK, told Ars on Monday that the firm had no additional information to provide about the attacks, service restoration, or plans for dealers preparing against future attacks.

During the outage, many dealerships pivoted from all-in-one software platforms to pens, paper, Excel sheets, phone calls, and, in some cases, alternative local software. Car Dealership Guy rounded up some of the dealerships’ work-arounds. Repair part numbers, hours, and partial VIN numbers were being tracked in Excel. Lots of dealers grabbed the last contracts they had on hand, blanked out customer information, and made editable PDFs out of them.

Lots of dealers and service managers advocated preparing for the next outage with “no Internet days.” Others noted that the steps some dealerships were taking, like using their own phones for contacting sales leads, could run afoul of privacy and “Do not call” provisions.

Anderson Economic Group, a Michigan-based auto analyst, estimated that CDK’s shutdown cost auto dealers more than $600 million over a two-week period. CDK’s outage is expected to play a large part in a June car sales slump.

Massive car dealer ransom attack is mostly over after 2 weeks of work-arounds Read More »

here’s-nascar’s-idea-for-a-fully-electric-stock-car

Here’s NASCAR’s idea for a fully electric stock car

battery electric vehicle, Cars, electric race car, NASCAR / /

1,000 kW —

The prototype is here to gauge interest and promote NASCAR’s sustainability push.

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A NASCAR EV prototype seen from the front 3/4 view

Enlarge / After developing the Next Gen stock car and then the Garage 56 car, NASCAR’s tech team has now created a battery-electric race car prototype.

NASCAR

This past weekend was a busy one on the racing calendar. Over in the UK, the British Grand Prix at Silverstone was yet more evidence that Red Bull no longer has the fastest car in F1. In Ohio, IndyCar had a mostly successful introduction of its new supercapacitor-based hybrid system. And a couple of Great Lakes over, NASCAR held its second street race in Chicago, choosing that event to also show off its prototype of a fully electric stock car.

In doing so, it has partnered with the technology company ABB, which, among other things, makes charging equipment and is also Formula E’s title sponsor. “The objective of the collaboration between NASCAR, ABB in the United States, and the NASCAR industry is to push the boundaries of electrification technology, from EV racing to long-haul transportation to facility operations,” said ABB Executive Vice President Ralph Donati.

The NASCAR EV prototype starts with a modified Next Gen chassis, which was introduced to the sport in 2022. This is something of a no-brainer: in addition to the other stuff you want in a race car chassis, like a good ratio of stiffness to weight, it’s also designed to be able to safely protect the driver from the consequences of the very high-speed crashes that occur in the series. So, there shouldn’t be any concerns about the 78 kWh liquid-cooled lithium-ion battery pack.

The EV prototype was developed together with Ford, General Motors, and Toyota. And yes, it's a crossover.

Enlarge / The EV prototype was developed together with Ford, General Motors, and Toyota. And yes, it’s a crossover.

NASCAR

That pack supplies three electric motors: one for the front axle and one for each rear wheel. And it’s far more powerful than any V8-powered stock car, with 1,341 hp (1,000 kW) available at peak power. The motors are supplied by STARD, an Austrian motorsport company that also helped Ford develop the wacky Supervan 4, Supervan 4.2, and most recently, its SuperTruck EV demonstrators.

Like those machines, this electric demonstrator also looks a little out of the ordinary for a race car. It’s most noticeable in profile, where you see the EV prototype is a few inches taller than a Next Gen car, aiming for a crossover-shaped body.

Flax composites

Those body panels might just be the first thing we see translate from the prototype over to competition cars. NASCAR recently moved away from sheet metal for its bodywork, but for this car, it opted to make the body out of flax-based composites from a company called Bcomp.

People have been working on sustainable alternatives to carbon fiber for a while now—we encountered hemp body panels on the Eco Racing Radical in the late 2000s. Plant-based composites are heavier than synthetic carbon composites, but as sustainability becomes an increasingly important aspect of modern racing series, that becomes a trade-off worth making, as Bcomp says its composites have an 85-percent smaller carbon footprint when compared to a traditional composite of similar stiffness.

“Integrating sustainable innovations into the design process helps set the standard for sustainability across our industry and supports forward progress towards the company’s sustainability goals and targets,” said Bcomp’s vice president of vehicle design, Brandon Thomas.

Bcomp bodywork helps reduce the EV prototype's carbon footprint.

Enlarge / Bcomp bodywork helps reduce the EV prototype’s carbon footprint.

Bcomp

Just don’t expect to see an all-electric NASCAR race anytime soon. While a battery EV like the prototype you see here would work well on road and street courses as well as short ovals, since all three offer chances to regenerate energy under braking, no one is entirely sure how to make EVs work on superspeedways.

Rather, the car is a way for the sport to gauge fan interest and to promote NASCAR IMPACT, the sport’s new sustainability push. The plan is for ABB to help NASCAR decarbonize its operations, which are responsible for far more of its carbon footprint than the cars running on track. It wants to reduce its footprint to zero by 2035, but a more immediate goal is to use only renewable electricity at its racetracks and facilities by 2028, as well as building out on-site charging stations.

Here’s NASCAR’s idea for a fully electric stock car Read More »

the-greening-of-planes,-trains,-and-automobiles

The greening of planes, trains, and automobiles

Cars, Science / /

Getting greener —

We need new fuels as society moves away from coal, natural gas and oil.

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The greening of planes, trains, and automobiles

As the world races to decarbonize everything from the electricity grid to industry, it faces particular problems with transportation—which alone is responsible for about a quarter of our planet’s energy-related greenhouse gas emissions. The fuels for transport need to be not just green, cheap, and powerful, but also lightweight and safe enough to be carried around.

Fossil fuels—mainly gasoline and diesel—have been extraordinarily effective at powering a diverse range of mobile machines. Since the Industrial Revolution, humanity has perfected the art of dredging these up, refining them, distributing them and combusting them in engines, creating a vast and hard-to-budge industry. Now we have to step away from fossil fuels, and the world is finding no one-size-fits-all replacement.

Each type of transportation has its own peculiarities—which is one reason we have different formulations of hydrocarbons today, from gasoline to diesel, bunker fuel to jet fuel. Cars need a convenient, lightweight power source; container ships need enough oomph to last months; planes absolutely need to be reliable and to work at subzero temperatures. As the fossil fuels are phased out, the transport fuel landscape is “getting more diverse,” says Timothy Lipman, co-director of the Transportation Sustainability Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley.

Every energy solution has its pros and cons. Batteries are efficient but struggle with their weight. Hydrogen—the lightest element in the universe—packs a huge energy punch, but it’s expensive to make in a “green” way and, as a gas, it takes up a lot of space. Liquid fuels that carry hydrogen can be easier to transport or drop into an existing engine, but ammonia is toxic, biofuels are in short supply, and synthetic hydrocarbons are hard to produce.

The scale of this energy transition is massive, and the amount of renewable energy the world will require to make the needed electricity and alternative fuels is “a little bit mind-blowing,” says mechanical engineer Keith Wipke, manager of the fuel cell and hydrogen technologies program at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado. Everything, from the electrical grid to buildings and industry, is also thirsty for renewable power: It’s estimated that overall, the global demand for electricity could more than double by 2050. Fortunately, analyses suggest that renewables are up to the task. “We need our foot on the accelerator pedal of renewables 100 percent, as fast as we can, and it will all get used,” says Wipke.

Each mode of transport has its specific fuel needs. Much is still to be settled, but here are some likely possibilities.

Enlarge / Each mode of transport has its specific fuel needs. Much is still to be settled, but here are some likely possibilities.

In order to stay below 1.5° of planetary warming and limit some of the worst effects of climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recommends that the world hit net-zero emissions by 2050—meaning that whatever greenhouse gases we still put into the air we take out in other ways, such as through forests or carbon capture. Groups including the International Energy Agency (IEA)—a Paris-based intergovernmental organization that analyzes the global energy sector—have laid out pathways that can get the world to net zero.

The IEA’s pathway describes a massive, hard-to-enact shift across the entire world, including all kinds of transport. Their goal: to replace fossil fuels (which release long-captured carbon into the air, where it wreaks havoc on the climate) with something more sustainable, like green hydrogen or biofuels (which either don’t produce greenhouse gases at all or recycle the ones that are already in the air).

Although some transportation sectors are still in flux, we can now get a pretty good glimpse of what will likely be powering the ships, planes, trains, and automobiles of tomorrow. Here’s a peek into that future.

The greening of planes, trains, and automobiles Read More »

how-the-lincoln-nautilus-surprisingly-won-me-over-with-its-ride,-huge-screen

How the Lincoln Nautilus surprisingly won me over with its ride, huge screen

car review, Cars, Lincoln Nautilus / /

yes, really —

How I stopped worrying and learned to love the big screen.

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A panoramic screen in a Lincoln Nautilus

Enlarge / In the past, car companies engaged in “horsepower wars.” Now it seems they’re competing in a screen size war.

Jonathan Gitlin

It’s important to try to approach a review car with an open mind, but I’ll admit my preconceptions were stacked against the Lincoln Nautilus. It’s on the larger end of the midsize SUV segment, bigger than I like them, and my last encounter with a Lincoln wasn’t entirely positive. And then there’s the whole giant screen. Not to be outdone by Cadillac and its 33-inch display, Nautilus has a 48-inch screen that stretches between the A pillars, which sounds like a recipe for distraction. And yet, this hybrid SUV won me over rapidly.

We tested the hybrid Nautilus, a $1,500 option for a model that starts at $50,415. The hybrid system combines a 2.0 L turbocharged four-cylinder direct-injection engine with an electric motor in parallel, sending torque to all four wheels via a continuously variable transmission. Total output is 310 hp (231 kW), with a maximum output of 300 hp (223 kW) from the internal combustion engine, or 134 hp (100 kW) from the electric motor.

It’s quite efficient, too. The EPA rates the hybrid Nautilus at a combined 30 mpg (7.84 L/100 km), although a combination of 22-inch wheels and oppressive Washington, DC, summer temperatures meant that I averaged a little bit less than that.

Lincoln hasn’t disclosed a torque figure for the electric motor, but it’s easily sufficient for the task of getting the 4,517-lb (2,049 kg) SUV up and moving, both smoothly and near-silently, before the gas engine thinks about firing up. At city speeds, the electric motor does almost all of the work, at least as long as the weather isn’t too extreme—in the depths of winter and the height of summer, you can expect the engine to fire up more often unless you turn off the heater or AC.

  • I’m not the biggest fan of the exterior styling, but this was a very good metallic red paint.

    Jonathan Gitlin

  • On the other hand, I am a fan of the interior, except for the placing of the touchscreen.

    Jonathan Gitlin

  • There’s quite a lot of room in the rear.

    Jonathan Gitlin

  • The Nautilus starts at just over $50,000, but you can spend a lot more than that depending on options and trim level.

    Jonathan Gitlin

  • Note the door handles that stick up and out from the side.

    Jonathan Gitlin

  • This might be the best Lincoln I’ve driven.

    Jonathan Gitlin

  • The backup camera shows up where you normally see your map.

    Jonathan Gitlin

  • The Lincoln emblem is illuminated.

    Jonathan Gitlin

It’s a car that seems to encourage you to relax a bit and not be in quite so much of a hurry behind the wheel. That impression was helped by the seats, which offer plenty of adjustment and one of the best massaging functions you’ll currently find on four wheels. There’s even an optional digital scent diffuser.

Ride comfort was more than acceptable, despite the huge wheels, and the oblong-ish steering wheel never requires very much effort thanks to plenty of assist from the power steering. If the point of a luxury car is to pamper its occupants while they are transported from A to B, then the Nautilus should be considered quite luxurious.

How the Lincoln Nautilus surprisingly won me over with its ride, huge screen Read More »

paralyzed-driver-robert-wickens-tests-formula-e-car-with-hand-controls

Paralyzed driver Robert Wickens tests Formula E car with hand controls

Cars, disability, Formula E, Robert Wickens / /

give him a rookie test! —

Robert Wickens was paralyzed from the waist down in a 2018 IndyCar crash.

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PORTLAND INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - JUNE 28: Robert Wickens during the Portland ePrix I at Portland International Raceway on Friday June 28, 2024 in Portland, United States of America. (Photo by Simon Galloway / LAT Images)

Enlarge / Robert Wickens looks out from the cockpit of the Formula E GenBeta test car in Portland, Oregon.

Formula E

PORTLAND, Ore.—The timing of Robert Wickens’ life-altering crash at Pocono Raceway in 2018 could hardly have been more cruel. After landing a full-time seat in IndyCar, he was named rookie of the year at the Indy 500 in June, finally showing the world his talent in a single-seat race car. F1’s loss was IndyCar’s gain, and the prospect of championships seemed certain. But a bad wreck derailed all of that, leaving Wickens paralyzed from the waist down. This past weekend, he made his return to the cockpit of a single-seater, testing a Formula E car with hand controls at Portland International Raceway.

It wasn’t his first time in a racing car since 2018—for the last few years he’s been running in IMSA’s Michelin Pilot Challenge series, taking the 2023 TCR championship in a Hyundai Elantra N. But Formula E’s GenBeta car weighs almost 900 lbs less than Wickens’ Hyundai and boasts far more power and that immediate electric torque. More power than the Gen3 Formula E cars that lined up to race the following day, too—the 530 hp (395 kW) GenBeta machine is Formula E’s test bed and is able to deploy energy from its front electric motor (in addition to the rear motor) instead of just regenerating energy under braking.

I spoke with Wickens a few hours before his test and asked what he was expecting in terms of performance. “It’s an entirely different beast to an IndyCar,” he said. “So I know here in Portland that they actually had the exact same straight line speed as IndyCar [170 mph/275 km/h], obviously achieving in very different ways. The aerodynamic differences between the two and the whole philosophy of the series are entirely different. You’ll never really compare them, apples to apples, I don’t think, but, I’m really excited to give the Gen beta car a go,” Wickens said.

The GenBeta car is Formula E's rolling test bed.

Enlarge / The GenBeta car is Formula E’s rolling test bed.

Formula E

Unlike the steering wheel and accelerator and brake pedals most of us use, there’s no standard hand control setup, especially for a racing car. When Alex Zanardi competed in the 2019 Rolex 24, he used a wheel-mounted hand throttle to accelerate, but braked using a hand lever. That would be a challenge to fit into the tight confines of a single-seater cockpit, but that’s not the only reason Wickens and Formula E haven’t gone that route.

Hand controls

“When I was very early in my recovery, I had the luxury to talk to Alex several times. And he told me that if you need something easy, doing the brake lever off the steering wheel is the quickest solution to get into a car. But if you want to be as competitive as you can be, you have to have the brake on the steering wheel in some capacity,” Wickens said.

“It’s not like a sequential gearbox where you just downshift and then your two hands are on the steering wheel turning in—you’re trail-braking all the way to the apex. In Daytona, for example, you’re in the whole first section of the bus stop one handed—it’s like you can’t be 100 percent committed to the corner entry with one hand,” he explained.

I suggested that sounded like trying to race someone while holding a cellphone at the same time. “Pretty much yeah. But then unfortunately that cell phone is manipulating the balance of the car,” Wickens pointed out.

The advantage of a lever is the amount of force it allows the driver to send to the master cylinder. In his current setup in the TCR car, there’s a pneumatic actuator that helps apply sufficient brake pressure, “because I can only squeeze so much with my hands. And the difficulty with it is, there’s a small latency in achieving peak brake pressure. And that latency is not the same every time,” he said. While most of us would be rightfully terrified at having inconsistent brakes on track, Wickens adapted his driving style, something he says won’t transition to faster cars, though.

Paralyzed driver Robert Wickens tests Formula E car with hand controls Read More »

here’s-how-michelin-plans-to-make-its-tires-more-renewable

Here’s how Michelin plans to make its tires more renewable

Cars, Michelin, Sustainability, tires / /

🛞♻️🛞 —

The tire company wants a completely sustainable tire by 2050.

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Single green tire in a stack of tires

Enlarge / Tires are a growing source of microplastic pollution. Michelin says it wants to change that.

Getty Images

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle—it’s more than just a fun alliteration tagline. It’s also a set of instructions for how to consume in a way that’s less destructive to our environment. We reduce our consumption and reuse what we already have, then recycle it once it no longer has any use. Unfortunately, many are going straight to recycling and calling it a day.

At its sustainability summit in Northern California at the Sonoma Raceway, Michelin laid out a new roadmap for its plans to become a more sustainable company. Most importantly, the company shared what it’s been doing for decades to reduce the harm done to the world by its tires.

The company reiterated its desire to have 100 percent renewable tires by 2050. Companies make a lot of pronouncements like this, and they only sometimes come to fruition. But looking at Michelin’s present efforts and past record, the company has a decent chance of succeeding.

The now

Michelin currently has a demonstration tire made of 42 percent renewable materials. The company has plenty of time to reach its goal in 2050, so it’s trying to make the change in the most profitable way possible.

“We are guided by a sustainable world view of organizing principles that is in every business decision we make. We balance it across three domains: the people, the planet, the profits,” Michelin North America President and CEO Alexis Garcin said during a presentation.

The “People, Planet, Profit” principles emphasize eco-consciousness but also remind everyone that Michelin is a company that needs to make money to keep tires rolling off the lines.

During the event, Michelin said that its research into more sustainable tires requires teams to show that the materials they use are readily available and that the tire can be produced at scale. This is a vast improvement over companies that unveil unrealistic, feel-good items that won’t ever see production.

The then

In 1992, Michelin introduced its first fuel-efficient tire. It had a lower rolling resistance, allowing drivers to potentially save money on gas and reduce their carbon footprint (although, to be fair, most probably didn’t think about that).

The company has been stress-testing the stuff that goes into tires, too. In 2019, it introduced new racing tires for IMSA’s WeatherTech Sportscar Championship that used 30 percent renewable and recycled materials, with no real drop-off in performance.

There’s also the reputation for longevity. According to a 2023 study by the German ADAC (Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil-Club—think Germany’s AAA), Michelin’s average tire abrasion rate was 28 percent lower than the rate in average tires from other brands on the road in Germany.

The abrasion rate is how much of the tire is shed while driving. The higher the abrasion rate, the more particulates are left on the asphalt, which migrate to the soil and eventually end up in the water supply. Much has been said about these particles that have permeated our environment, little of it good.

Tires are a major source of microplastics, and as our vehicles get larger and heavier due to an insatiable appetite for large vehicles and our transition to EVs, tire companies have a spotlight on them to reduce their product abrasion rates. Here, Michelin seems to be ahead of the curve.

The later

Eighty percent of a tire’s environmental impact comes from the time that it’s sitting on a vehicle. Building a more sustainable tire can’t be done by just relying on different materials, especially if those materials wear down quicker than what’s already on the road. Michelin’s lifecycle assessment looks at the cradle-to-grave impact of a product as an ecosystem.

“For us, it’s people, profit, planet. We care about all of them at the same time with the same intensity, and that’s how we think we’re going to be sustainable,” Garcin said. If the company keeps sight of the goal, it might just pull it off.

Here’s how Michelin plans to make its tires more renewable Read More »

tesla-posts-disappointing-production-and-sales-numbers-for-q2-2024

Tesla posts disappointing production and sales numbers for Q2 2024

Cars, Tesla, Tesla deliveries / /

line goes up —

Sales fell by 5 percent, with production cut by more.

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Tesla Inc. vehicles in a parking lot after arriving at a port in Yokohama, Japan, on Monday, May 10, 2021.

Enlarge / For some time now, Tesla has produced more cars than it has sold. This past quarter, that changed.

Toru Hanai/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Tesla published its quarterly production and delivery numbers yesterday afternoon, and anyone hoping that the last three months have marked a return to growth will be disappointed. For Q2 2024, the automaker built 418,831 electric vehicles, a 14.4 percent decrease on Q2 2023. The drop in sales wasn’t quite as bad—in Q2 2024 Tesla sold 443,956 EVs, a 4.8 percent decline, year on year.

After several boom years, even the hype-generating powers of Tesla CEO Elon Musk weren’t able to stave off the realities of a small and stagnant product line and a brutal price war, particularly in China. The first quarter of 2024 saw Tesla’s deliveries fall by 8.5 percent, the first time this number hadn’t gone up since 2020.

Later in April, we saw the effect on Tesla’s balance sheet. Profits fell by more than half, and profit margins slumped to just 5.5 percent, barely half the industry average.

In fact, there’s evidence that Musk’s vast reach through social media may be directly harming the Tesla brand at this point. A poll of more than 7,500 New York Times readers, collected earlier this year, revealed that many had a problem being associated with Tesla and Musk, with one comparing driving a Tesla to “a giant red MAGA hat.”

There may be a bright spot in the production and delivery numbers. Tesla delivered 422,405 Models 3 and Y between April and June, but it only built 386,576 at its factories in the US, Germany, and China. For many quarters, Tesla has been building more cars than it has delivered, raising questions and inspiring open source satellite image analysts to go looking for inventory from space. Now, perhaps, the automaker is clearing some of that excess inventory and matching production to more realistic expectations of demand.

In a brief text note to investors, Tesla notes that its solar energy and storage division had a bumper quarter, deploying 9.4 GWh of energy storage. This could see the division contribute up to 20 percent of Tesla’s total revenues for the quarter.

Musk’s reaction to the decline in Tesla’s automotive sales business has been to pivot. Perhaps bored of the realities of a low-margin industry surrounded by cutthroat rivals, the erratic CEO now says the future of the company will be humanoid robots, based on annual projections that bear little to no resemblance to objective reality as we know it.

Tesla investors obviously don’t mind; the company’s share price has risen by more than 8 percent since the market opened at 9: 30 am.

Tesla posts disappointing production and sales numbers for Q2 2024 Read More »

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Why Fisker’s bankruptcy is likely to leave its EV owners without warranty

bankruptcy, Cars, EVs, Fisker, Fisker Ocean, syndication, warranty / /

Getting Fisked —

Build problems and unmet need for software updates have Fisker owners worried.

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Fisker CEO Henrik Fisker introduces the all-electric compact hatchback Pear during its inaugural

Enlarge / Fisker CEO Henrik Fisker introduces the all-electric compact hatchback Pear during its inaugural “Product Vision Day” in Huntington Beach, California, on August 3, 2023.

It was the last week in June, and José De Bardi hadn’t gotten much sleep. The trouble had really kicked off on June 18, about a week earlier, when the electric vehicle company Fisker announced it had filed for bankruptcy protection. Now some 6,400 Fisker owners like De Bardi wondered: What will happen to their cars in the future?

The bankruptcy “lit a fire,” De Bardi says. “We had to get organized if we had any chance of representing owners’ interests.” Within days, he and a handful of other Fisker vehicle owners had established a nonprofit organization called the Fisker Owners Association, dedicated to keeping their cars running. (Hence, the lack of sleep.) By the end of the month, 1,200 owners—representing nearly a fifth of total Fisker cars sold—had registered through the group’s website, De Bardi says.

Fisker vehicle owners’ questions are mostly practical. Fisker began shipping the Ocean, its electric SUV—priced to start at $41,000 and ranging up to $70,0000—last year. Immediately, the vehicles were found to have serious build quality shortcomings and software issues, including a less-than-responsive central touchscreen. (WIRED’s reviewer declined to rate the vehicle entirely, calling it “just not ready yet.”)

Owners reported that some of the most serious issues, including a difficult-to-use brake hold and Bluetooth connectivity problems, were ironed out through software updates. But owners sometimes complained that it was tricky to get their vehicles serviced or repaired, because there weren’t enough certified Fisker repairers and technicians. Fisker initially launched with a Tesla-like “direct to consumer” model that eschewed the traditional “middleman” dealerships often seen in the US. But in January, the company began to sign dealerships to a new Fisker network, citing ballooning costs associated with the direct model.

Ownership woes

Even now, as the carcass of Fisker gets picked over, the EVs still have niggling problems—window cracks, dysfunctional key fobs, sudden connectivity blackouts—and will unquestionably need servicing and spare parts to keep them running into the future. Without Fisker, the company, to provide that, what are owners to do?

The FOA is still in the early stages of figuring it out. A small band of volunteers have worked around the clock to define the problems owners might face down the road—legal questions about their vehicle financing; issues with the car’s app; finding parts—and start solving them. These people have full-time jobs, too. De Bardi, for example, who lives in the UK and has headed up the European owners’ efforts, is also the CTO of a telecommunications firm.

Experts say Fisker owners’ situation is looking increasingly tricky. Automotive companies have a playbook to handle bankruptcies, developed during the 2008 financial crisis, which led General Motors and Chrysler to file for Chapter 11 protection, as Fisker has. Thanks in part to support from the US government, those automakers were able to honor their vehicles’ warranties as the companies restructured.

But in legal proceedings in Delaware this month, Fisker’s situation looked more dire. Lawyers for the firm’s creditors argued that Fisker should have filed for bankruptcy late last year. And Fisker plans to sell its remaining inventory, some 4,000 vehicles, to a firm that leases electric vehicles to New York City Uber and Lyft drivers, lawyers told the court.

If the company is forced to liquidate this way, owners may not be top of mind for the court and Fisker’s creditors, says John A.E. Pottow, a professor of law who studies bankruptcy at the University of Michigan Law School. The company may simply not have enough money to honor its vehicles’ warranties. “If Fisker is bankrupt, they have no obligation to update their software,” he says. And the company’s assets—its cars, their parts, and its intellectual property—may be too piddling to attract another firm to take up the mantle of service and repair. “Bankruptcy is never good,” Pottow says. “The smaller the business, the worse the issues.”

Right now, Fisker owners should make sure they have great comprehensive insurance on their cars, says Justin Simard, an associate professor of law researching commercial law at Michigan State University College of Law. Without a functioning service and repair system, “you could get totaled out with a little fender bender,” he says. The worst-case scenario might also see Ocean insurance rates increase and the cars’ resale values plummet even further, he says.

Fisker spokesperson Matthew Debord declined to comment on issues related to vehicle repair and parts manufacture, and referred WIRED to the company’s statements related to its Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Fisker initially paused production of the Ocean in February, after warning investors it might not be able to see out the year. A month later, reported investment talks between the electric vehicle maker and Nissan collapsed, and the fate of Fisker became clearer. The automaker brought in some $273 million in revenue last year but lost $940 million and owes some $850 million to bondholders.

A handful of other electric vehicle makers, including Lordstown Motors, Arrival, and Volta Trucks, have also filed for bankruptcy amid a more-challenging-than-expected climate for electric vehicles and new vehicle development. A fleet maintenance firm agreed to provide service for Lordstown’s remaining fleet customers, while the assets of Arrival sold to another EV manufacturer, Canoo. Volta Trucks emerged from restructuring earlier this year with new ownership and says it will continue to manufacture vehicles.

Despite it all, José De Bardi, the Fisker Owners Association leader, says he wants to keep his black Fisker Ocean around for as long as he possibly can. “It’s now a fantastic car,” he says, acknowledging the EV’s initial “quirks.” Despite the challenges—and hard work—the group is feeling optimistic. “We’re feeling positive that we’re going to get some kind of good outcome,” he says.

This story originally appeared on wired.com.

Why Fisker’s bankruptcy is likely to leave its EV owners without warranty Read More »

the-2025-polestar-4:-great-steering-and-a-small-carbon-footprint-stand-out

The 2025 Polestar 4: Great steering and a small carbon footprint stand out

car review, Cars, electric car review, First drive, Polestar, Polestar 4 / /

watch out, Porsche Macan —

The styling is sharp inside and out, but the infotainment needs some polishing.

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A white Polestsr 4 in a field

Enlarge / The Polestar 4 is the latest entrant into the crowded midsize luxury electric SUV segment. We think it has what it takes to stand out.

Jonathan Gitlin

“If you’re going to make a car and use all that energy, it should be a good car,” said Thomas Ingenlath, CEO of Polestar. Ingenlath was referring to the company’s latest electric vehicle, a midsize SUV with striking coupe looks called the Polestar 4. While Ingenlath is on point from a sustainability perspective, it makes good business sense, too. The Polestar 4 needs to be a good car to stand out as it enters one of the most hotly contested segments of the market.

In fact, Polestar uses less energy to make its latest EV than anything else in its range—the company quotes a carbon footprint of 19.9 tonnes of CO2 from cradle to gate. Like some other automakers, Polestar is using a monomaterial approach to the interior to make recycling easier, choosing the same base plastic for all the components in a particular piece of trim, for example.

The carpets are made from, variously, recycled fishing nets or plastic bottles. The vinyl seats use pine oil instead of the stuff extracted from the ground, and the knitted upholstery fabric—also recycled plastic bottles—was designed to leave no off-cuts.

  • The headlights are a Polestar trademark now, even though there have been just four models so far.

    Jonathan Gitlin

  • Coupe-like looks, SUV-like practicality.

    Jonathan Gitlin

  • No, your eyes don’t deceive you, there is no rear windshield.

    Jonathan Gitlin

  • The interior is inspired by sportswear.

    Jonathan Gitlin

  • The back seat of the Polestar 4 outdoes rivals from Porsche, BMW, Audi, and Mercedes-Benz.

    Jonathan Gitlin

  • At night, LEDs illuminate the interior from behind textile trim panels. The colors are switchable depending on which theme you have the car set to—more on that later.

    Jonathan Gitlin

The fastest Polestar yet

In addition to being the greenest Polestar so far, this one is also the most performant. We tested the $62,900 Long Range Dual Motor version, which can send up to 536 hp (400 kW) and 506 lb-ft (686 Nm) to the wheels. Pick this version and you should see 270 miles (434 km) from the 100 kWh battery pack. In a suitable location like a motorway toll booth, 60 mph arrives in 3.7 seconds (100 km/h in 3.8).

That’s if you’re in performance mode, at least. Switch to range mode, and clutches disconnect the front permanent magnet synchronous motor and remap the throttle pedal for better efficiency. There’s also a heat pump as standard. The car can DC fast-charge at rates of up to 200 kW, which should take the battery pack from 10 to 80 percent state of charge in 30 min. At home on an 11 kW AC charger, 0–100 percent SoC should take about 11 hours.

There is also a Long Range Single Motor variant with precisely half the power and torque but an EPA range of 300 miles (482 km). Driven by just its rear wheels, the Polestar 4 has more modest performance—60 mph arrives in 6.9 seconds, 100 km/h in 7.1—but it also carries a $8,000-cheaper price, starting at $54,900. New tariffs on Chinese-made EVs have come into effect, but Polestar told Ars that it is sticking with the original pricing. Next year, production of US-market Polestar 4s will begin in South Korea, which will mean significantly smaller import tariffs. (This story originally stated there had been a $10,000 price increase; this was incorrect.)

Jonathan Gitlin

It’s surprisingly good to drive

It has to be said: Making an electric car go fast is not particularly difficult. Electric motors generate most of their torque almost immediately, and unlike with a combustion motor, if you increase the peak power, there isn’t really an efficiency hit lower down the performance envelope. So even a 3-ton monster can get hurled down the road rapidly enough to embarrass a whole lot of supercars.

The Polestar 4 isn’t quite that heavy—5,192 lbs (2,355 kg)—so it forgoes air suspension in favor of conventional coil springs and dampers. These are passive in the Single Motor, but the Dual Motor is equipped with active dampers as standard, and if you choose the performance pack, it’s upgraded with stiffer springs and antiroll bars and new damper tuning.

Our test car was so equipped, and it was a noticeably firm ride, particularly when sitting in the back. There was also a bit of wind noise at speed, but more tire roar, thanks presumably to the performance pack’s 22-inch wheels.

The 2025 Polestar 4: Great steering and a small carbon footprint stand out Read More »

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Tesla announces third and fourth Cybertruck recalls

Cars, Policy, Tesla Cybertruck, tesla cybertruck recall / /

Cybertruck recalls —

Wiper motor may stop working and cosmetic applique may detach while driving.

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A Tesla Cybertruck with the passenger door open is displayed in a convention center.

Enlarge / A Tesla Cybertruck at the Viva Technology show at Parc des Expositions Porte de Versailles on May 24, 2024 in Paris, France.

Getty Images | Chesnot

Tesla has announced two more recalls of the Cybertruck, both of which affect over 11,000 vehicles produced since the car first became available late last year. Cybertruck owners will need to bring their cars in for service because of faulty windshield wiper motors and a cosmetic piece that could come off the vehicle while it’s being driven.

Tesla previously recalled the Cybertruck in April over a faulty accelerator pedal assembly and in January for a software problem in which the font size of brake, park, and antilock brake system visual warning indicators were too small. The January recall also affected Tesla Model 3, S, X, and Y.

A new recall notice says, “the front windshield wiper motor controller may stop functioning due to electrical overstress to the gate driver component. A non-functioning windshield wiper may reduce visibility in certain operating conditions, which may increase the risk of a collision.”

The wiper motors have a gate driver that “may have been damaged due to electrical overstress during functional testing,” the notice said. The fix is to “replace the windshield wiper motor with a wiper motor that has a properly functioning gate driver component.”

The wiper motor recall affects 11,688 cars. While it is estimated that 2 percent of cars have the defect, the notice said the “recall population includes all Model Year 2024 Cybertruck vehicles manufactured from November 13, 2023, to June 6, 2024.”

Tesla said it is not aware of any crashes, injuries, or deaths related to the wiper motor problem. Newly manufactured Cybertrucks shouldn’t have the problem because “the supplier introduced a functional test using a lower current to prevent damage and ensure integrity of the gate driver,” the notice said.

Cosmetic applique may not stay on the car

The other new recall notice describes a problem “with a cosmetic applique along the exterior of the trunk bed trim, known as the sail applique, which is affixed to the vehicle with adhesive.” The applique or adhesion was not installed correctly on some cars, “which may cause the sail applique to become loose or separate from the vehicle.”

“If the applique separates from the vehicle while in drive, it could create a road hazard for following motorists and increase their risk of injury or a collision,” the recall notice said. The fix is to “replace or rework the sail applique such that the assembly meets specifications and ensures sufficient adhesion between the applique and the vehicle’s deck rail.”

It’s estimated that 1 percent of vehicles have the applique defect, and the “recall population includes all Model Year 2024 Cybertruck vehicles manufactured from November 13, 2023, to May 26, 2024.” That amounts to 11,383 Cybertrucks. Customers will not be charged for the fixes to the wiper motor and applique.

The problem was discovered in December 2023 when “an undelivered Cybertruck with a single missing applique arrived at a Tesla delivery center after being transported on a vehicle hauler,” the notice said. The problem was found a second time in May 2024 on a customer vehicle, and then on more cars when “Tesla surveyed and assessed the retention of sail appliques on vehicles in the field.”

Tesla said it is not aware of any crashes, injuries, or deaths related to the applique problem. On newly manufactured Cybertrucks, “quality control improvements to the adhesive application” should keep the piece attached to the car.

Separately, one Cybertruck owner recently alleged that his car crashed into a neighbor’s house despite him holding down the brake pedal. The driver claimed that Tesla told him, “We have reviewed logs and due to the terrain the accelerator may or may not disengage when the brake is depressed.”

We contacted Tesla about the alleged braking problem today and will provide an update if the company responds. There is video of the accident, and the driver says the incident left skid marks for about 50 feet, “almost like one motor was accelerating while the other set of wheels locked.”

Tesla announces third and fourth Cybertruck recalls Read More »