Cars

the-2025-aston-martin-vantage-gets-a-bold-new-body-and-big-power-boost

The 2025 Aston Martin Vantage gets a bold new body and big power boost

Aston Martin Vantage, car review, Cars, First drive / /
An orange Aston Martin Vantage in the Spanish countryside

Enlarge / First revealed in 2017, the current Aston Martin Vantage has just had a styling and engineering overhaul.

Aston Martin

It’s high time Aston Martin had a winner on its hands. Last year it updated the DB12 with a smart new face, plenty of power, and the sort of infotainment you’d hope for from a luxury GT. The Vantage, the firm’s ‘entry-level’ car, has been given similar treatment in the hopes that it can peel a few more people away from Porsche dealerships.

Aston is looking not only to make better cars, but also to shift its image—it’s aiming to be seen as more luxurious than before, and is throwing as much power at the cars as possible. At first glance, it looks like Aston has cooked up something truly delightful.

The new car is more than 150 hp (112 kW) more powerful than the one it replaces, with 656 hp (490 kW) and 590 lb-ft (800 Nm) from a wonderfully appointed turbocharged 4.0 L V8. Its 0 to 60 time is quoted at 3.4 seconds, and Aston reckons that if you have enough space (and no speed limits) you’ll see the far side of 200 mph (321 km/h). It is not slow.

Aston has never really had a problem with building good-looking cars, but the new Vantage is a huge leap over its immediate predecessor. With the old car, the idea was that each model in the lineup would look suitably different depending on what it did. It was supposed to look like an athletic, purposeful sports car. And it did—but it didn’t nail its Aston Martin-ness.

In addition to keeping it looking fresh, the facelift also improved the car's cooling and aerodynamic performance.

Enlarge / In addition to keeping it looking fresh, the facelift also improved the car’s cooling and aerodynamic performance.

Aston Martin

The new one very much does. From its new headlights to its grille, side vents, skirts, quad exhaust pipes, and one of the best rear ends on the market today, the new car looks like an Aston Martin through and through. Of course, some of the changes are necessary—the front grille is 38 percent bigger than before because having a V8 with quite so much power means it needs better cooling. In fact, look closely and you’ll spot a number of tricks Aston has used to improve cooling and airflow all over the car. Were I the type to wear my glasses at the tip of my nose, I’d start muttering something about “form and function working in harmony,” but I’m not, so I won’t.

Aston has made a point of saying there won’t be another V12 Vantage and that the last generation’s take on it was the end of the line. This meant the engineers didn’t have to worry about giving the V8 so much power. The old V8 Vantage could have been nearly as potent, but the need to differentiate with the V12 meant it would have been imprudent.

The outside will turn heads, the inside should make you smile. The direct predecessor’s seats and dash were pleasant, and comfortable, but the center console and infotainment? Not great. It was of the ‘slap a tablet to the dash’ generation, and it was run off a reskinned version of Merc’s COMAND system, which was definitely of its era and not a patch on current systems. Today’s Vantage gets the same setup you’ll find in the DB12—a 12.5-inch touchscreen paired with actual buttons that do actual things.

The 2025 Aston Martin Vantage gets a bold new body and big power boost Read More »

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Forget aerobars: Ars tries out an entire aerobike

bicycles, Cars, Features, velomobile / /

Here comes a future —

Taking to the road in a modern, high-speed version of a 40-year-old dream.

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Image of a aerodynamic recumbent bicycle parked in front of a pickup truck.

Enlarge / The Velomobile Bülk, with its hood in place. Note the hood has an anti-fog covering on the visor (which is flipped up). The two bumps near the front of the hood are there to improve clearance for the cyclist’s knees.

JOHN TIMMER

My brain registered that I was clearly cycling. My feet were clipped in to pedals, my legs were turning crank arms, and the arms were linked via a chain to one of the wheels. But pretty much everything else about the experience felt wrong on a fundamental, almost disturbing level.

I could produce a long list of everything my mind was struggling to deal with, but two things stand out as I think back on the experience. The first is that, with the exception of my face, I didn’t feel the air flow over me as the machine surged forward down a slight slope. The second, related to the first, is that there was no indication that the surge would ever tail off if I didn’t hit the brakes.

Living the dream

My visit with a velomobile was, in some ways, a chance to reconnect with a childhood dream. I’ve always had a fascination with vehicles that don’t require fuel, like bicycles and sailboats. And during my childhood, the popular press was filled with stories about people setting human-powered speed records by putting aerodynamic fiberglass shells on recumbent bicycles. In the wake of the 1970s oil crises, I imagined a time when the roads might be filled with people cycling these pods for their commutes or covering long distances thanks to a cooler filled with drinks and snacks tucked in the back of the shell.

But the pods seemed to vanish from public consciousness as I got older, and I also learned that recumbent bikes are absolutely terrible on hills, which I’m now fond of climbing. The dreams had faded from my awareness when a reader, in response to one of our e-bike reviews, suggested I check out a velomobile. It turns out that my dreams weren’t dead; they had just relocated to Europe without mentioning it to me.

Marc Rosen and two of his velomobiles. The newer model, the Bülk, is closer to him.

Enlarge / Marc Rosen and two of his velomobiles. The newer model, the Bülk, is closer to him.

John Timmer

Velomobiles are a product category with a variety of designs and manufacturers producing them, most of them based in Europe. They’re also the fiberglass pods of my youth updated to current standards. Gone is the weight of fiberglass, and the one-off, hand-made hardware has been replaced by standardized models that have gone through refinements across generations. Safety features like lights, directionals, and mirrors are now standard.

But the prices, while not exorbitant (mostly in the $8,000–$10,000 range—for bicycles; you can pay more for far less carbon fiber), mean that living my childhood dream really wasn’t an option. The European Union-based companies don’t seem to have any agreements with US bike shops that would let me check one out in a showroom; I’ve heard of only two dealers in the US that keep velomobiles in stock, and neither is anywhere close to me. Fortunately, that didn’t preclude the option of trying one. One major vendor of velomobiles, Romania’s Velomobile World, has an ambassadors program, where people agree to let potential buyers take test rides in return for a discount on purchases.

That’s how I found myself setting out for a short spin near the Maryland-Pennsylvania border in a Velomobile Bülk owned by Marc Rosen, who also fielded a lot of my questions about the hardware.

Forget aerobars: Ars tries out an entire aerobike Read More »

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Automakers hedge their bets with plug-in hybrids as EV sales slow

BEV, Cars, Hybrid, PHEV, syndication / /

electrons and hydrocarbons —

Originally regarded as stopgap solutions, hybrids are in it for the long haul.

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Automakers hedge their bets with plug-in hybrids as EV sales slow

Honda

Global carmakers are stepping up their investment in hybrid technologies as consumers’ growing wariness over fully electric vehicles forces the industry to rapidly shift gear, according to top executives.

A combination of still high interest rates and concern over inadequate charging infrastructure has chilled buyers’ enthusiasm for fully electric cars, prompting a rebound in sales of hybrid vehicles that most of the industry had long regarded as nothing more than a stop-gap.

Tapping the resurgent demand for hybrids was a priority, executives from General Motors, Nissan, Hyundai, Volkswagen and Ford told the Financial Times’ Future of the Car Summit this week.

“We have to invest heavily in the future of plug-in hybrids,” said Mark Reuss, the president of General Motors. “We have to be agile. We have a global tool chest of technical things that we can deploy fairly rapidly.”

The view was echoed by José Muñoz, global president of Hyundai, which is now considering manufacturing hybrids at its new $7.6 billion plant in Georgia given more drivers are balking over buying fully electric vehicles.

“If you asked me six months ago, definitely a year ago, I would have told you… fully electric,” said Muñoz. “A lot of things have happened between then and now. Electric is still the future. But now we are seeing a longer transition.”

Electric car sales growth slowed in the US and Europe last year, prompting carmakers to offer discounts. Industry executives have already acknowledged that the market has lost some momentum as future sales growth increasingly depends on demand from mainstream buyers rather than early adopters.

At the same time, there are concerns over whether governments might backtrack on previous plans to force a rapid transition away from petrol-based cars.

Ford’s European boss, Martin Sander, said that the pace of the transition in Europe was “down to the consumer,” and that the US group was prepared to continue selling hybrid models into the next decade.

“We want to make sure that we are setting up our business model so that we are flexible enough” to address shifts in demand, Sander told the summit. “Our whole business and life cycle planning is much more dynamic now.”

US rival General Motors, which had largely eliminated plug-in hybrids from its range, said in January that it would reintroduce the technology.

Consumers’ increasing hesitation comes just as carmakers face a growing threat from Chinese manufacturers rolling out cheaper electric vehicles both in their domestic market and, increasingly, in Europe.

To remain competitive in China, Peugeot needs to stay “agile” to avoid getting sucked into the country’s price war, said its chief executive, Linda Jackson. “We’re holding on, but the Chinese market is the biggest automotive market in the world so it’s very difficult for a global manufacturer not to be present,” Jackson said.

According to Schmidt Automotive Research, Chinese brands like BYD as well as brands such as Polestar that manufacture in China accounted for almost 10 percent of the fully electric cars registered in western Europe in March. That is up from just over 4 percent two years ago.

“We see an increase of competition coming from China brands and other technology worlds,” Nissan chief executive Makoto Uchida told the summit.

The threat from Chinese companies has only heightened carmakers’ focus on hybrids, which typically have double-digit margins compared with often loss-making fully electric vehicles.

For many carmakers, the slower switch is allowing them to continue to squeeze profits from traditional engines while also providing more financial firepower to develop electric vehicle technology.

The majority of the industry still believes that developing profitable fully electric cars is the most important long-term goal.

Earlier this week, Toyota, the biggest champion of hybrids in recent years, said that it planned to lift spending on new technologies by more than 40 percent after hybrid sales drove the group’s profits to a record last year.

© 2024 The Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved. Not to be redistributed, copied, or modified in any way.

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Phantom braking lands troubled EV-maker Fisker in feds’ crosshairs

Cars, Fisker, Fisker Ocean, nhtsa, phantom braking / /

eek —

This makes four open federal safety investigations for the Fisker Ocean.

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A 2023 Fisker Ocean One sports utility vehicle (SUV) during the Montreal Electric Vehicle Show in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, on Friday, April 19, 2024

Graham Hughes/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The federal government is looking at a phantom braking problem that appears to be affecting the Fisker Ocean electric crossover. Earlier this week, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Office of Defects Investigation opened a safety probe into the electric vehicle—its fourth so far. Open investigations are also examining whether the doors can fail to open, in addition to problems with shifting into or out of park and issues with partial braking loss over low-grip surfaces.

The newest preliminary investigation was opened by NHTSA’s ODI after the regulator received eight complaints of alleged inappropriate automatic emergency braking. AEB is one of the more effective new active driver safety systems. NHTSA added it to its list of recommended safety features almost a decade ago, and last month, it published industry standards that will make the feature mandatory on all new cars and trucks, although not until September 2029.

But not every AEB implementation is equal. Both Tesla‘s and Honda‘s systems have suffered from too many false positives, also known as phantom braking, triggering the feature inappropriately, sometimes resulting in that car being crashed into from behind.

NHTSA’s report makes it clear that’s what’s happening here:

The complaints allege the activation of AEB, without an apparent roadway obstruction in the vehicle’s forward path, resulting in sudden vehicle deceleration. This occurs without adequate warning or input from the driver. The braking applications range from momentary, partial application resulting in rapid loss of speed to full application, which brings the vehicle to a complete stop in the travel lane. Three of the complaints alleged an injury.

Last August, Fisker held an event in California to debut an entire range of EVs, including one meant to sell for less than $30,000. Now, less than a year later, it’s unclear how much longer the company will survive. At the end of February, its share price tumbled when it issued a going concern warning, saying that it would not survive the next 12 months without fresh investment.

The startup automaker was in talks with Nissan that would have led to a partnership as well as an infusion of funds for Fisker. But Nissan walked away in March, devaluing Fisker’s stock price even further in the process. Earlier this week, Fisker filed for bankruptcy for its Austrian division.

Phantom braking lands troubled EV-maker Fisker in feds’ crosshairs Read More »

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Tesla is under a federal wire fraud probe for misleading investors

Cars, DoJ, SEC, Tesla / /
A Tesla Model X with Roger the inflatable autopilot (from the movie Airplane!) in the driver's seat

Aurich Lawson | Tesla | Airplane!

There’s more bad news for Tesla. On Monday, we learned that CEO Elon Musk is continuing to slash his way through the company payroll as Tesla went through a fourth round of layoffs in four weeks. Yesterday, we discovered exactly what questions the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration wants answered about the safety of Tesla’s Autopilot driver assist. And today, it emerged that the US Department of Justice is investigating whether or not Tesla committed securities or wire fraud by making misleading statements about Autopilot and its so-called “Full Self-Driving” (FSD) option.

Reuters reported that three people familiar with the matter told it about the investigation. One of the sources also told Reuters that the Securities and Exchange Commission is also investigating Tesla’s claims about its driver assists.

Not the first time

This isn’t the first time Tesla has been accused of securities fraud. In 2018, Musk agreed to a settlement with the SEC over his infamous “funding secured” tweet that sent the company’s share price skyrocketing despite the fact that there was never actually a possibility that he would take the company private. As a result, Musk was required to step down as chairman, and both Musk and Tesla were ordered to pay $20 million in penalties, to be distributed to investors who lost money after being misled by Musk.

(However, a federal jury in 2023 sided with the CEO in a class-action lawsuit brought by investors.)

In another case, several Tesla owners filed a class-action lawsuit against the car company about “grossly exaggerated” range claims, alleging fraud and false advertising. The judge in that case ruled that the customers could not sue Tesla as a class, telling them instead that they had to pursue their cases individually via arbitration. We learned last October that the DOJ was also investigating the matter.

(Authorities in South Korea fined Tesla $2.2 million in January 2023 for misleading customers about range.)

Federal prosecutors first became interested in “whether Tesla misled consumers, investors, and regulators by making unsupported claims about its driver assistance technology’s capabilities” in 2022. Critics have regularly pointed out that even the name “Autopilot” is misleading, and there have been multiple instances of Musk demonstrating the system on camera without keeping his hands on the steering wheel, despite other Tesla literature that states drivers must do so at all times.

The CEO has also regularly claimed that Tesla is far ahead of the rest of the industry in autonomous driving technology, issuing deadlines for full autonomy that, like most of Musk’s deadlines, have come and gone without delivering the product.

Tesla is under a federal wire fraud probe for misleading investors Read More »

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Here are all the F1 cars designed by the legendary Adrian Newey

Adrian Newey, Cars, F1 / /

the goat? —

No other F1 designer has penned more championship winning cars than Adrian Newey.

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Red Bull Racing Chief Technical Officer, Adrian Newey prepares to drive the Red Bull Racing RB5 up the hill during day one of The Goodwood Festival of Speed at The Goodwood Estate on July 2, 2010 in Chichester, England.

Enlarge / When you’re a legendary F1 designer like Adrian Newey, it’s easy to persuade the team to let you have a go in one of your own creations.

Andrew Hone/Getty Images for Red Bull

In Formula 1, the car isn’t quite everything, but ultimately, how well the team’s designers did their job creating a racing car is a more important factor in a team’s success on track than how good their drivers are. It’s not that F1 drivers don’t matter, but even the best driver on the grid will struggle to earn points if they’re not in a competitive car.

One designer has been responsible for creating competitive cars more than any other, penning 12 championship-winning cars in 32 years. His name is Adrian Newey, and this week, we discovered he’s looking for a new job.

As in other sports, F1’s “silly season” is what they call that time period when contracts are up and people are switching to new teams; it’s named as such because it’s what happens when there’s no real news to report but you need a story anyway.

This year, the silly season got underway well before the first of the year, and it’s been sillier than most. First, Andretti Cadillac got snubbed by the sport—because an email went to a spam folder—then seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton announced he was leaving longtime home Mercedes, for Ferrari. Just as everything started to calm down, the Red Bull team started to look a little… implodey as Red Bull team boss Christian Horner was accused of inappropriate behavior by a female employee.

At the time, rumors circulated that Red Bull’s superstar Max Verstappen could try to use the Horner scandal as a way to leave the team. That didn’t happen, but something just as consequential did—it precipitated the departure of Newey. The superstar designer will finish the Red Bull RB17 hypercar project before departing the team early in 2025.

“Ever since I was a young boy, I wanted to be a designer of fast cars. My dream was to be an engineer in Formula 1, and I’ve been lucky enough to make that dream a reality,” Newey said in a statement. His autobiography, which tells the story of how he made that happen, is worth a read, but today we’ve put together some galleries of Newey’s various creations—an illustrated history of his career as the world’s most successful race car designer.

The early years

Newey’s first racing cars weren’t F1 machines. He started work at the race car builder March, and after working as a race engineer in IndyCar and then F2 for March customers, he designed the March 82G, aka the Lobster Claw, which raced in IMSA’s GTP category. He then penned the 1985 Indy 500-winning March 85C, then its successor in 1986, before leaving March for a couple of years, then returning to design his first F1 car for the small F1 team Leyton House in 1988. Newey designed Leyton House’s cars for March until 1990 when he moved to Williams as chief designer.

  • Newey worked as race engineer for Keke Rosberg’s Fittipaldi F8 before moving to March to design cars.

    Bernard Cahier/Getty Images)

  • You can see why the March 82G earned the nickname Lobster Claw, seen here racing in Miami in 1983.

    Brian Cleary/Getty Images

  • Newey is known for his F1 accolades, but winning the Indy 500 with his first IndyCar (the March 85G) is nothing to sneeze at either.

    Focus on Sport via Getty Images

  • Newey’s first F1 chassis, the March 881.

    Pascal Rondeau/Allsport/Getty Images

  • Ivan Capelli of Italy drives the #16 Leyton House Racing March CG891 Judd V8 during the Fuji Television Japanese Grand Prix on 22 October 1989 at the Suzuka Circuit in Suzuka City, Japan.

    Pascal Rondeau/Getty Images

  • Mechanics assemble the Adrian Newey designed Leyton House CG901Judd V8 on 1st June 1990 at the Leyton House Formula One Racing Team in Bicester, Great Britain.

    Photo by Pascal Rondeau/Getty Images

The Williams years

Williams was a much more competitive team then than now, and Newey’s FW14 turned out to be one of the most successful F1 cars, notching up seven wins in 1991 and 10 wins in 1992, earning Nigel Mansell the championship in the process. 1993 saw Alain Prost take the crown with the Newey-designed FW15C, then Damon Hill became champion in 1996 with the FW18, followed by Jacques Villeneuve in 1997 with the FW19.

  • The FW14 was the first Newey car to win an F1 race. It was so good, Williams kept it for the following season (in B-spec), where it won the championship.

    Paul-Henri Cahier/Getty Images

  • The FW15C is considered by many to be the most advanced F1 car ever thanks to fully active suspension, a semi-automatic gearbox, and anti-lock brakes.

    Pascal Rondeau/Allsport/Getty Images

  • Damon Hill almost won the 1994 championship in the FW16. Here, we see Newey driving the car up the hill at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.

    Mark Thompson/Getty Images

  • In 1995, Damon Hill did not drive a great season, and Michael Schumacher won everything.

    Paul-Henri Cahier/Getty Images

  • But 1996 went much better and Hill took the title. Williams dumped him anyway, and Newey also left, disliking the way Hill was treated.

    Darren Heath/Getty Images

  • Newey was on gardening leave while his FW18 earned another championship in 1997.

    Paul-Henri Cahier/Getty Images

Here are all the F1 cars designed by the legendary Adrian Newey Read More »

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Here’s how Jaguar will relaunch as an all-EV brand

Cars, Formula E, jaguar, Jaguar Land Rover / /
A rendering of three futuristic coupes

Enlarge / Its unlikely the next electric Jaguar will look much like these extreme coupés, designed by the brand for Gran Turismo.

Jaguar

MONACO—It may be hard to remember, but not too long ago, Jaguar made a very nice electric vehicle. The I-Pace arrived in 2018, and it was the only EV other than the bare-bones Chevy Bolt that could compete with a Tesla on range. It was great to drive, too. An electric replacement for the XJ sedan was meant to be next until it was canceled months before production was supposed to begin.

“I’d seen the car, it was a beautiful car, but when I look at the designs that we have now, when I look at the technology that we’ll bring in the vehicle, it’s night-and-day different,” said Rawdon Glover, managing director of Jaguar. “I think that previous car would have been sort of a segue into something else, where we’re doing a step change.”

And a step change is what Jaguar Land Rover CEO (and Glover’s boss) Thierry Bolloré wants for Jaguar: for it to move upmarket, the way Range Rover has. Tearing up the electric XJ was a bold step—it meant the only new electric Jaguars to debut from 2021 until 2025 would be the brand’s Formula E race cars.

Racing driver Nick Cassidy is one of the few people to drive a new Jaguar this year, as he and his teammate Mitch Evans race in Formula E for the OEM.

Enlarge / Racing driver Nick Cassidy is one of the few people to drive a new Jaguar this year, as he and his teammate Mitch Evans race in Formula E for the OEM.

Jaguar Racing via Getty Images

But 2025 is getting close. Later this year, production of the XF, E-Pace, and F-Pace will all end, as will the I-Pace. The F-Pace production line at Solihull in the British midlands will be revamped to build the first of three models built on an all-new EV platform, Jaguar Electric Architecture. That first model will be a four-door electric GT, a space that’s about to get very competitive as the established Porsche Taycan is also joined by alternatives from Lotus and Polestar.

Jaguar is not quite ready to start talking specifics of that JEA platform, although Glover told me to expect about 400 miles of “real-world range” (700-plus miles, according to the WLTP test cycle) and a battery pack that can fast-charge to 80 percent in 15 minutes. I’ll admit, I’m looking forward to finding out more—Jaguar’s history has often featured financial troubles, but it’s also been jam-packed with innovation.

Formula E is making future Jaguars better EVs

I met with Glover on the day the team’s cars took a 1–2 victory on the streets of Monaco. They put on a good show—unlike Formula 1, Formula E cars can actually race around this place—three wide at times, and overtaking happens (occasionally, memorably, into a corner where most people think you can’t overtake).

The ePrix can’t quite compare to the F1 Grand Prix in terms of glamour, but it’s not too far off; the harbor had a decent complement of yachts packed with important sponsors in need of some VIP treatment. As an event to visit as a spectator, you’ll see better racing and have to battle smaller crowds if you choose the ePrix, not to mention save some euros in the process.

Here’s how Jaguar will relaunch as an all-EV brand Read More »

am-radio-law-opposed-by-tech-and-auto-industries-is-close-to-passing

AM radio law opposed by tech and auto industries is close to passing

AM radio, Cars / /

looks like it’ll pass —

A recent test of the emergency alert system found only 1 percent got it via AM.

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Woman using digital radio in car

Enlarge / Congress provides government support for other industries, so why not AM radio?

Getty Images

A controversial bill that would require all new cars to be fitted with AM radios looks set to become a law in the near future. Yesterday, Senator Edward Markey (D-Mass) revealed that the “AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act” now has the support of 60 US Senators, as well as 246 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives, making its passage an almost sure thing. Should that happen, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration would be required to ensure that all new cars sold in the US had AM radios at no extra cost.

“Democrats and Republicans are tuning in to the millions of listeners, thousands of broadcasters, and countless emergency management officials who depend on AM radio in their vehicles. AM radio is a lifeline for people in every corner of the United States to get news, sports, and local updates in times of emergencies. Our commonsense bill makes sure this fundamental, essential tool doesn’t get lost on the dial. With a filibuster-proof supermajority in the Senate, Congress should quickly take it up and pass it,” said Sen. Markey and his co-sponsor Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).

About 82 million people still listen to AM radio, according to the National Association of Broadcasters, which as you can imagine was rather pleased with the congressional support for its industry.

“Broadcasters are grateful for the overwhelming bipartisan support for the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act in both chambers of Congress,” said NAB president and CEO Curtis LeGeyt. “This majority endorsement reaffirms lawmakers’ recognition of the essential service AM radio provides to the American people, particularly in emergency situations. NAB thanks the 307 members of Congress who are reinforcing the importance of maintaining universal access to this crucial public communications medium.”

Why are they dropping AM anyway?

The reason there’s even a bill in Congress to mandate AM radios in all new vehicles is that some automakers have begun to drop the option, particularly in electric vehicles. A big reason for that is electromagnetic interference from electric motors—rather than risk customer complaints from poor-quality audio, some automakers decided to remove it.

But it’s not exclusively an EV issue; last year we learned the revised Ford Mustang coupe would also arrive sans AM radio, which Ford told us was because radio stations were modernizing “by offering Internet streaming through mobile apps, FM, digital and satellite radio options,” and that it would continue to offer those other audio options in its vehicles.

In response to congressional questioning, eight automakers told a Senate committee that they were quitting AM: BMW, Ford, Mazda, Polestar, Rivian, Tesla, Volkswagen, and Volvo. This “undermined the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s system for delivering critical public safety information to the public,” said Sen. Markey’s office last year, and AM radio’s role as a platform for delivering emergency alerts to the public is given by supporters of the legislation as perhaps the key reason for its necessity.

Tech and auto industries aren’t happy

But critics of the bill—including the Consumer Technology Association—don’t buy that argument. In October 2023, FEMA and the Federal Communications Commission conducted a nationwide test of the emergency alert system. According to CTA, which surveyed 800 US adults, of the 95 percent of US adults that heard the test, only 6 percent did so via radio, and just 1 percent on AM radio specifically. Instead, 92 percent received the alert pushed to their smartphone.

“Requiring the installation of analog AM radios in automobiles is an unnecessary action that would impact EV range, efficiency and affordability at a critical moment of accelerating adoption,” said Albert Gore, executive director of ZETA, a clean vehicle advocacy group that opposes the AM radio requirement. “Mandating AM radio would do little to expand drivers’ ability to receive emergency alerts. At a time when we are more connected than ever, we encourage Congress to allow manufacturers to innovate and produce designs that meet consumer preference, rather than pushing a specific communications technology,” Gore said in a statement.

AM radio law opposed by tech and auto industries is close to passing Read More »

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Tesla’s 2 million car Autopilot recall is now under federal scrutiny

Cars, NHTSA recall, tesla autopilot, Tesla recall / /

maybe ban it instead —

NHTSA has tested the updated system and still has questions.

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A 2014 Tesla Model S driving on Autopilot rear-ended a Culver City fire truck that was parked in the high-occupancy vehicle lane on Interstate 405.

Enlarge / A 2014 Tesla Model S driving on Autopilot rear-ended a Culver City fire truck that was parked in the high-occupancy vehicle lane on Interstate 405.

Tesla’s lousy week continues. On Tuesday, the electric car maker posted its quarterly results showing precipitous falls in sales and profitability. Today, we’ve learned that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is concerned that Tesla’s massive recall to fix its Autopilot driver assist—which was pushed out to more than 2 million cars last December—has not actually made the system that much safer.

NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation has been scrutinizing Tesla Autopilot since August 2021, when it opened a preliminary investigation in response to a spate of Teslas crashing into parked emergency responder vehicles while operating under Autopilot.

In June 2022, the ODI upgraded that investigation into an engineering analysis, and in December 2023, Tesla was forced to recall more than 2 million cars after the analysis found that the car company had inadequate driver-monitoring systems and had designed a system with the potential for “foreseeable misuse.”

NHTSA has now closed that engineering analysis, which examined 956 crashes. After excluding crashes where the other car was at fault, where Autopilot wasn’t operating, or where there was insufficient data to make a determination, it found 467 Autopilot crashes that fell into three distinct categories.

First, 221 were frontal crashes in which the Tesla hit a car or obstacle despite “adequate time for an attentive driver to respond to avoid or mitigate the crash.” Another 111 Autopilot crashes occurred when the system was inadvertently disengaged by the driver, and the remaining 145 Autopilot crashes happened under low grip conditions, such as on a wet road.

As Ars has noted time and again, Tesla’s Autopilot system has a more permissive operational design domain than any comparable driver-assistance system that still requires the driver to keep their hands on the wheel and their eyes on the road, and NHTSA’s report adds that “Autopilot invited greater driver confidence via its higher control authority and ease of engagement.”

The result has been disengaged drivers who crash, and those crashes “are often severe because neither the system nor the driver reacts appropriately, resulting in high-speed differential and high energy crash outcomes,” NHTSA says. Tragically, at least 13 people have been killed as a result.

NHTSA also found that Tesla’s telematics system has plenty of gaps in it, despite the closely held belief among many fans of the brand that the Autopilot system is constantly recording and uploading to Tesla’s servers to improve itself. Instead, it only records an accident if the airbags deploy, which NHTSA data shows only happens in 18 percent of police-reported crashes.

The agency also criticized Tesla’s marketing. “Notably, the term “Autopilot” does not imply an L2 assistance feature but rather elicits the idea of drivers not being in control. This terminology may lead drivers to believe that the automation has greater capabilities than it does and invite drivers to overly trust the automation,” it says.

But now, NHTSA’s ODI has opened a recall query to assess whether the December fix actually made the system any safer. From the sounds of it, the agency is not convinced it did, based on additional Autopilot crashes that have happened since the recall and after testing the updated system itself.

Worryingly, the agency writes that “Tesla has stated that a portion of the remedy both requires the owner to opt in and allows a driver to readily reverse it” and wants to know why subsequent updates have addressed problems that should have been fixed with the December recall.

Tesla’s 2 million car Autopilot recall is now under federal scrutiny Read More »

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Toyota will spend $1.4 billion to build electric 3-row SUV in Indiana

battery factory, car factory, Cars, Toyota / /

more jobs —

This is a different new 3-row EV from the one Toyota will build in Kentucky.

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An aerial photo of the Toyota factory in Indiana

Enlarge / This Toyota factory in Indiana is getting a $1.4 billion investment so it can assemble a new three-row electric SUV for the automaker.

Toyota

US electric vehicle manufacturing got a bit of a boost today. Toyota has revealed that it is spending $1.4 billion to upgrade its factory in Princeton, Indiana, in order to assemble a new three-row electric SUV. That will add an extra 340 jobs to the factory, which currently employs more than 7,500 workers who assemble the Toyota Sienna minivan and the Toyota Highlander, Grand Highlander, and Lexus TX SUVs.

“Indiana and Toyota share a nearly 30-year partnership that has cultivated job stability and economic opportunity in Princeton and the surrounding southwest Indiana region for decades,” said Governor Eric Holcomb.

“Toyota’s investment in the state began with an $800 million commitment and has grown to over $8 billion. Today’s incredible announcement shows yet again just how important our state’s business-friendly environment, focus on long-term success, and access to a skilled workforce is to companies seeking to expand and be profitable far into the future. Indiana proudly looks forward to continuing to be at the center of the future of mobility,” Holcomb said.

Curiously, Toyota says this will be an entirely different new three-row electric SUV from the one that it will build at its factory in Georgetown, Kentucky. That plant upgrade, which was made public last summer, will cost Toyota $1.3 billion.

Part of the improvements to the Princeton plant include a battery pack assembly line, which will use cells produced at a $13.9 billion battery plant in North Carolina, which is due to open next year.

Toyota will spend $1.4 billion to build electric 3-row SUV in Indiana Read More »

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Updating California’s grid for EVs may cost up to $20 billion

Cars, charging, electric grid, Electric vehicles, green, Science, Sustainability / /
A charging cable plugged in to a port on the side of an electric vehicle. The plug glows green near where it contacts the vehicle.

California’s electric grid, with its massive solar production and booming battery installations, is already on the cutting edge of the US’s energy transition. And it’s likely to stay there, as the state will require that all passenger vehicles be electric by 2035. Obviously, that will require a grid that’s able to send a lot more electrons down its wiring and a likely shift in the time of day that demand peaks.

Is the grid ready? And if not, how much will it cost to get it there? Two researchers at the University of California, Davis—Yanning Li and Alan Jenn—have determined that nearly two-thirds of its feeder lines don’t have the capacity that will likely be needed for car charging. Updating to handle the rising demand might set its utilities back as much as 40 percent of the existing grid’s capital cost.

The lithium state

Li and Jenn aren’t the first to look at how well existing grids can handle growing electric vehicle sales; other research has found various ways that different grids fall short. However, they have access to uniquely detailed data relevant to California’s ability to distribute electricity (they do not concern themselves with generation). They have information on every substation, feeder line, and transformer that delivers electrons to customers of the state’s three largest utilities, which collectively cover nearly 90 percent of the state’s population. In total, they know the capacity that can be delivered through over 1,600 substations and 5,000 feeders.

California has clear goals for its electric vehicles, and those are matched with usage based on the California statewide travel demand model, which accounts for both trips and the purpose of those trips. These are used to determine how much charging will need to be done, as well as where that charging will take place (home or a charging station). Details on that charging comes from the utilities, charging station providers, and data logs.

They also project which households will purchase EVs based on socioeconomic factors, scaled so that adoption matches the state’s goals.

Combined, all of this means that Li and Jenn can estimate where charging is taking place and how much electricity will be needed per charge. They can then compare that need to what the existing grid has the capacity to deliver.

It falls short, and things get worse very quickly. By 2025, only about 7 percent of the feeders will experience periods of overload. By 2030, that figure will grow to 27 percent, and by 2035—only about a decade away—about half of the feeders will be overloaded. Problems grow a bit more slowly after that, with two-thirds of the feeders overloaded by 2045, a decade after all cars sold in California will be EVs. At that point, total electrical demand will be close to twice the existing capacity.

Updating California’s grid for EVs may cost up to $20 billion Read More »

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Why are groups of university students modifying Cadillac Lyriq EVs?

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A Cadillac Lyriq EV

Enlarge / For the previous EcoCar 3 competition, student teams turned Camaro sportscars into hybrids. For the EcoCar EV challenge, their job is to improve on the Cadillac Lyriq.

EcoCar

Across the country, teams of students at 15 different universities are in the middle of a four-year project, dissecting an electric vehicle and figuring out ways to make it even better. The program, called the EcoCar EV Challenge, was founded more than three decades ago by the US Department of Energy and is run by the DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory.

Over the last 35 years, more than 30,000 students from 95 universities have participated in the EcoCar Challenge, part of the DOE’s Advanced Vehicle Technology Competition. Each segment spans four years, with the most recent cycle beginning in 2023 with a new Cadillac Lyriq donated by the General Motors automaker.

The students take this competition very seriously, as participation alone brings a lot of benefits, including the potential for a lifelong career path.

Mobility advancement in progress

One of the organization’s goals is to challenge teams to “identify and address specific challenges with equity in the future of mobility through the application of innovative hardware and software solutions” while working with underserved populations. Through this process, the student-run teams are discovering untapped potential for future EV development and finding solutions that could help local and national communities.

The entire first year is packed with intense research and planning. Students don’t even get to put their hands on a car until year two; meanwhile, they learn how to work together and communicate as a team. They run simulations with propulsion controls and modeling, and by the time they have access to a vehicle, they’re ready to dive in.

University of Alabama student Corban Walsh explains that during the prototyping process, automakers like Cadillac end up with a fleet of pre-production vehicles that can’t be resold. Walsh and his team were given a practically new all-electric Lyriq with just 17,000 miles (27,400 km) on it, and they decided their goal was to transform it from a rear-wheel-drive to an all-wheel-drive configuration and boost the horsepower from 300 to 550 (223 to 373 kW). With tasks like that, one might think this is an ideal club for car fanatics. But Walsh says the team has diverse interests and is in fact very software- and planning-focused.

Year one is research and planning.

Year one is research and planning.

EcoCar

“In some ways, we attract the ‘car guy’ type of person, but at the end of the day, you don’t have to be a car guy,” Walsh says. “You can even forget it’s a car sometimes.”

Any student can join the EcoCar EV Challenge, and general onboarding familiarizes them with the tracks and teams they can join. First, they take a lab tour and view required safety videos; then, they choose a subteam under the general categories of hardware, integration, and software development. The Connected and Automated Vehicle Features subteam, for example, integrates sensor hardware and software, stitching together the data.

Along the way, small tasks lead to big advances. One of the first orders of business for the Lyriq was to obtain a clean title and registration as a salvage vehicle to be considered road-legal. Teams strip the cars down as far as they can, sometimes moving forward through a series of trials and errors. They read all the manuals they can get their hands on, consulting with their GM mentor when they get stuck.

GM also supplies some parts, allowing students to order a limited number from the catalog. The University helps defray some of the cost, and companies like American Axle donate critical components like motors. Natick, Massachusetts-based Mathworks provides the simulation software the team needs for planning. Students learn how to use the resources available on campus, too.

“One of the hardest but coolest things we’ve worked on was when we had to plan mountings for two new motors,” Walsh says. “We decided to use the on-campus foundry where we can cast these parts.”

The foundry had excellent advice for the team, Walsh says, helping them figure out how to make mountings that were strong enough to hold the motor and won’t cause corrosion. They 3D-printed the part and made a ceramic mold, then burned out the plastic and let the metal harden.

Why are groups of university students modifying Cadillac Lyriq EVs? Read More »