Cars – Page 7

After telling Cadillac to pound sand, F1 does 180, grants entry for 2026

Andretti, Andretti Global, cadillac, Cadillac F1, Cars, Formula 1 / Kris Guyer / November 27, 2024

The United States will have a second team competing in Formula 1 from 2026, when Cadillac Formula 1 will join the sport as its 11th team. The result is a complete 180 for the sport’s owner, which was highly resistant to the initial bid, first announced at the beginning of 2023.

“As the pinnacle of motorsports, F1 demands boundary-pushing innovation and excellence. It’s an honor for General Motors and Cadillac to join the world’s premier racing series, and we’re committed to competing with passion and integrity to elevate the sport for race fans around the world,” said GM President Mark Reuss. “This is a global stage for us to demonstrate GM’s engineering expertise and technology leadership at an entirely new level.”

Team first, engines later

We will have to wait until 2028 to see that full engineering potential on display. Even with the incoming changes to the technical regulations, it’s far more than the work of a minute to develop a new F1 hybrid powertrain, let alone a competitive package. Audi has been working on its F1 powertrain since at least 2023, as has Red Bull, which decided to make its internal combustion engine in-house, like Ferrari or Mercedes, with partner Ford providing the electrification.

GM’s decision to throw Cadillac’s hat into the ring came with the caveat that its powertrain wouldn’t be ready until 2028—two years after it actually wants to enter the sport. That means for 2026 and 2027, Cadillac F1 will use customer engines from another manufacturer, in this case Ferrari. From 2028, we can expect a GM-designed V6 hybrid under Cadillac F1’s engine covers.

As McLaren has demonstrated this year, customer powertrains are no impediment to success, and Alpine (née Renault) is going so far as to give up its own in-house powertrain program in favor of customer engines (and most likely, a for sale sign as the French automaker looks set to walk away from the sport once again).

After telling Cadillac to pound sand, F1 does 180, grants entry for 2026 Read More »

Automatic braking systems save lives. Now they’ll need to work at 62 mph.

automatic braking, Cars, nhsta, syndication / Kris Guyer / November 19, 2024

Otherwise, drivers will get mad. “The mainstream manufacturers have to be a little careful because they don’t want to create customer dissatisfaction by making the system too twitchy,” says Brannon, at AAA. Tesla drivers, for example, have proven very tolerant of “beta testing” and quirks. Your average driver, maybe less so.

Based on its own research, IIHS has pushed automakers to install AEB systems able to operate at faster speeds on their cars. Kidd says IIHS research suggests there have been no systemic, industry-wide issues with safety and automatic emergency braking. Fewer and fewer drivers seem to be turning off their AEB systems out of annoyance. (The new rules make it so drivers can’t turn them off.) But US regulators have investigated a handful of automakers, including General Motors and Honda, for automatic emergency braking issues that have reportedly injured more than 100 people, though automakers have reportedly fixed the issue.

New complexities

Getting cars to fast-brake at even higher speeds will require a series of tech advances, experts say. AEB works by bringing in data from sensors. That information is then turned over to automakers’ custom-tuned classification systems, which are trained to recognize certain situations and road users—that’s a stopped car in the middle of the road up ahead or there’s a person walking across the road up there—and intervene.

So to get AEB to work in higher-speed situations, the tech will have to “see” further down the road. Most of today’s new cars come loaded up with sensors, including cameras and radar, which can collect vital data. But the auto industry trade group argues that the Feds have underestimated the amount of new hardware—including, possibly, more expensive lidar units—that will have to be added to cars.

Brake-makers will have to tinker with components to allow quicker stops, which will require the pressurized fluid that moves through a brake’s hydraulic lines to go even faster. Allowing cars to detect hazards at further distances could require different types of hardware, including sometimes-expensive sensors. “Some vehicles might just need a software update, and some might not have the right sensor suite,” says Bhavana Chakraborty, an engineering director at Bosch, an automotive supplier that builds safety systems. Those without the right hardware will need updates “across the board,” she says, to get to the levels of safety demanded by the federal government.

Automatic braking systems save lives. Now they’ll need to work at 62 mph. Read More »

I, too, installed an open source garage door opener, and I’m loving it

APIs, apple home, Cars, esp32, Features, garage door, Garage Door Opener, GENIE, home assistant, home automation, homekit, ifttt, mqtt, Open Source, opengarage, Smart Home, Tech / Tim Belzer / November 15, 2024

Open source closed garage

OpenGarage restored my home automations and gave me a whole bunch of new ideas.

Hark! The top portion of a garage door has entered my view, and I shall alert my owner to it. Credit: Kevin Purdy

Like Ars Senior Technology Editor Lee Hutchinson, I have a garage. The door on that garage is opened and closed by a device made by a company that, as with Lee’s, offers you a way to open and close it with a smartphone app. But that app doesn’t work with my preferred home automation system, Home Assistant, and also looks and works like an app made by a garage door company.

I had looked into the ratgdo Lee installed, and raved about, but hooking it up to my particular Genie/Aladdin system would have required installing limit switches. So I instead installed an OpenGarage unit ($50 plus shipping). My garage opener now works with Home Assistant (and thereby pretty much anything else), it’s not subject to the whims of API access, and I’ve got a few ideas how to make it even better. Allow me to walk you through what I did, why I did it, and what I might do next.

Thanks, I’ll take it from here, Genie

Genie, maker of my Wi-Fi-capable garage door opener (sold as an “Aladdin Connect” system), is not in the same boat as the Chamberlain/myQ setup that inspired Lee’s project. There was a working Aladdin Connect integration in Home Assistant, until the company changed its API in January 2024. Genie said it would release its own official Home Assistant integration in June, and it did, but then it was quickly pulled back, seemingly for licensing issues. Since then, no updates on the matter. (I have emailed Genie for comment and will update this post if I receive reply.)

This is not egregious behavior, at least on the scale of garage door opener firms. And Aladdin’s app works with Google Home and Amazon Alexa, but not with Home Assistant or my secondary/lazy option, HomeKit/Apple Home. It also logs me out “for security” more often than I’d like and tells me this only after an iPhone shortcut refuses to fire. It has some decent features, but without deeper integrations, I can’t do things like have the brighter ceiling lights turn on when the door opens or flash indoor lights if the garage door stays open too long. At least not without Google or Amazon.

I’ve seen OpenGarage passed around the Home Assistant forums and subreddits over the years. It is, as the name implies, fully open source: hardware design, firmware, and app code, API, everything. It is a tiny ESP board that has an ultrasonic distance sensor and circuit relay attached. You can control and monitor it from a web browser, mobile or desktop, from IFTTT, MQTT, and with the latest firmware, you can get email alerts. I decided to pull out the 6-foot ladder and give it a go.

Prototypes of the OpenGarage unit. To me, they look like little USB-powered owls, just with very stubby wings. Credit: OpenGarage

Installing the little watching owl

You generally mount the OpenGarage unit to the roof of your garage, so the distance sensor can detect if your garage door has rolled up in front of it. There are options for mounting with magnetic contact sensors or a side view of a roll-up door, or you can figure out some other way in which two different sensor depth distances would indicate an open or closed door. If you’ve got a Security+ 2.0 door (the kind with the yellow antenna, generally), you’ll need an adapter, too.

The toughest part of an overhead install is finding a spot that gives the unit a view of your garage door, not too close to rails or other obstructing objects, but then close enough for the contact wires and USB micro cable to reach. Ideally, too, it has a view of your car when the door is closed and the car is inside, so it can report its presence. I’ve yet to find the right thing to do with the “car is inside or not” data, but the seed is planted.

OpenGarage’s introduction and explanation video.

My garage setup, like most of them, is pretty simple. There’s a big red glowing button on the wall near the door, and there are two very thin wires running from it to the opener. On the opener, there are four ports that you can open up with a screwdriver press. Most of the wires are headed to the safety sensor at the door bottom, while two come in from the opener button. After stripping a bit of wire to expose more cable, I pressed the contact wires from the OpenGarage into those same opener ports.

Wires running from terminal points in the back of a garage door opener, with one set of wires coming in from the bottom and pressed into the same press-fit holes. — The wire terminal on my Genie garage opener. The green and pink wires lead to the OpenGarage unit. Credit: Kevin Purdy

After that, I connected the wires to the OpenGarage unit’s screw terminals, then did some pencil work on the garage ceiling to figure out how far I could run the contact and micro-USB power cable, getting the proper door view while maintaining some right-angle sense of order up there. When I had reached a decent compromise between cable tension and placement, I screwed the sensor into an overhead stud and used a staple gun to secure the wires. It doesn’t look like a pro installed it, but it’s not half bad.

A garage ceiling, with drywall stud paint running across, a small device with wires running at right angles to the opener, and an opener rail beneath. — Where I ended up installing my OpenGarage unit. Key points: Above the garage door when open, view of the car below, not too close to rails, able to reach power and opener contact. Credit: Kevin Purdy

A very versatile board

If you’ve got everything placed and wired up correctly, opening the OpenGarage access point or IP address should give you an interface that shows you the status of your garage, your car (optional), and its Wi-Fi and external connections.

Image of OpenGarage web interface, showing a — The landing screen for the OpenGarage. You can only open the door or change settings if you know the device key (which you should change immediately). Credit: Kevin Purdy

It’s a handy webpage and a basic opener (provided you know the secret device key you set), but OpenGarage is more powerful in how it uses that data. OpenGarage’s device can keep a cloud connection open to Blynk or the maker’s own OpenThings.io cloud server. You can hook it up to MQTT or an IFTTT channel. It can send you alerts when your garage has been open a certain amount of time or if it’s open after a certain time of day.

Screenshot showing 5 sensors: garage, distance, restart, vehicle, and signal strength. — You’re telling me you can just… see the state of these things, at all times, on your own network? Credit: Kevin Purdy

You really don’t need a corporate garage coder

For me, the greatest benefit is in hooking OpenGarage up to Home Assistant. I’ve added an opener button to my standard dashboard (one that requires a long-press or two actions to open). I’ve restored the automation that turns on the overhead bulbs for five minutes when the garage door opens. And I can dig in if I want, like alerting me that it’s Monday night at 10 pm and I’ve yet to open the garage door, indicating I forgot to put the trash out. Or maybe some kind of NFC tag to allow for easy opening while on a bike, if that’s not a security nightmare (it might be).

Not for nothing, but OpenGarage is also a deeply likable bit of indie kit. It’s a two-person operation, with Ray Wang building on his work with the open and handy OpenSprinkler project, trading Arduino for ESP8266, and doing some 3D printing to fit the sensors and switches, and Samer Albahra providing mobile app, documentation, and other help. Their enthusiasm for DIY home control has likely brought out the same in others and certainly in me.

Kevin is a senior technology reporter at Ars Technica, covering open-source software, PC gaming, home automation, repairability, e-bikes, and tech history. He has previously worked at Lifehacker, Wirecutter, iFixit, and Carbon Switch.

I, too, installed an open source garage door opener, and I’m loving it Read More »

Trump team puts EV tax credit on the block, Tesla is on board: Report

Cars, EV adoption, EV tax credit, Tesla / Rejus Almole / November 14, 2024

Ending the tax credit is not something the incoming administration can do via executive action—Congress controls government spending, and this would require new legislation. But the budget reconciliation process results in bills that cannot be filibustered, and Reuters says that the Trump transition team will likely use this route as part of a larger revamp of tax laws.

Tesla was a major beneficiary of the new clean vehicle tax credit; under the previous scheme, an OEM was only eligible until it sold its 200,000th plug-in vehicle, at which point the credit available to its customers began to sunset. Tesla—which exclusively sells plug-in vehicles—was unsurprisingly the first to reach this threshold, at which point its EVs became more expensive than competitor cars. But the sales cap was eliminated under the new rules.

One might expect the company would be up in arms over this proposal. But according to Reuters, that’s not the case—Tesla is in favor of ending the clean vehicle tax credit, and CEO Elon Musk has previously said such a move would be far more damaging to rival companies than to Tesla.

Trump team puts EV tax credit on the block, Tesla is on board: Report Read More »

Six inane arguments about EVs and how to handle them at the dinner table

Cars, EV adoption / Paul Patrick / November 14, 2024

no, you don’t need 600 miles of range, uncle bob

Need to bust anti-EV myths at the Thanksgiving dinner table? Here’s how.

Credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images

The holiday season is fast approaching, and with it, all manner of uncomfortable conversations with relatives who think they know a lot about a lot but are in fact just walking examples of Dunning-Kruger in action. Not going home is always an option—there’s no reason you should spend your free time with people you can’t stand, after all. But if you are headed home and are not looking forward to having to converse with your uncle or parent over heaped plates of turkey and potatoes, we put together some talking points to debunk their more nonsensical claims about electric vehicles.

Charging an EV takes too long

The No. 1 complaint from people with no experience with driving or living with an electric car, cited as a reason for why they will never get an EV, is that it takes too long to recharge them. On the one hand, this attitude is understandable. For more than a century, humans have become accustomed to vehicles that can be refueled in minutes, using very energy-dense liquids that can be pumped into a fuel tank at a rate of up to 10 gallons per minute.

By contrast, batteries are not at all fast to recharge, particularly if you plug into an AC charger. Even the fastest fast-charging EVs connected to a fast DC fast charger will still need between 18–20 minutes to go from 10 to 80 percent state of charge, and that, apparently, is more time than some curmudgeons are prepared to wait as they drive from coast to coast as fast as they possibly can.

The thing is, an EV is a paradigm shift compared to a gasoline-powered car. Yes, refueling for that gas car is quick, but it’s also inconvenient, particularly if you live somewhere where all the gas stations keep closing down.

Instead of weekly trips to the gas station—or perhaps more often in some cases—EV owners plug their cars in each night and wake up each morning with a full battery.

I can’t charge it at home

The second-most common reason that people won’t buy an EV is actually a pretty good reason. If you cannot reliably charge your car at home or at work—and I mean reliably—you don’t really have any business buying a plug-in vehicle yet. Yes, you could just treat your nearest fast charger location like a gas station and drive there once or twice a week, but using fast chargers is very expensive compared to plugging in at home, and repeated fast charging is not particularly great for batteries. DC fast charging is for road trips, when you don’t have enough range in your car to get to your destination. But for most daily driving, that just isn’t the case.

But don’t worry, there are plenty of efficient parallel hybrids you can pick from that will serve your needs.

An EV is too expensive

Unfortunately, the promised reduction in the cost of lithium-ion batteries to a point where an electric powertrain is at price parity with a gasoline powertrain has still not arrived. This means that EVs are still more expensive than their fossil-fueled equivalents. But gasoline cars don’t qualify for the IRS clean vehicle tax credit, and in their eagerness to sell EVs, many car manufacturers are offering incentives to customers who don’t qualify for the credit.

Beyond incentives, while it seems like every new EV that gets released costs $80,000 or more, that simply isn’t true. There are at least 11 different EV models to choose from for less than $40,000, and 17 that cost less than the average price of a new car in 2024 ($47,000).

What’s more, 75 percent of American car buyers buy used cars. Why should that be any different for EVs? In fact, used EVs can be a real bargain. They depreciate more than internal combustion engine vehicles thanks in part to the aforementioned tax credit, and there’s now a used EV tax credit of up to $4,000 for buyers that qualify. We’re even expecting quite a glut of EVs to arrive on the used market in a year or so as leases start to expire.

What happens when it rains or snows or I have to evacuate a hurricane?

The problem of inclement weather and EVs is another commonly heard talking point from naysayers and FUD-spreaders. First off, charging an EV in the rain or snow is no less safe than refueling a gas car in the rain. And while you will lose some range in very cold weather, guess what? So does every other car and truck on the road, it’s just that those drivers don’t keep track of that stuff very closely.

The potential need to evacuate an area due to extreme weather like a hurricane also causes plenty of concern among the EV-naive. And again, this is a misplaced concern. If there’s extreme weather on the way, make sure to charge your car fully beforehand, just like you’d make sure to fill up your gas tank. Yes, if the power fails, the chargers won’t work anymore, but neither will any of the gas station gas pumps, which also run on electricity. And as long as there’s electricity the chargers will still work—those gas stations will need regular deliveries of fresh gasoline to serve new customers.

Finally, if you’re stuck in slow-moving or even stationary traffic, you are far better off doing that in an EV than a gas-powered vehicle. An EV powertrain uses no energy when it’s not moving, unlike a gas engine, which needs to burn 0.5-1 gallon an hour as it idles its engine. And driving slowly in an EV is very efficient, especially as you regenerate so much energy in stop-start driving.

I need 600 miles of uninterrupted range

There isn’t really a good rebuttal for this one, other than telling the person to go and buy a diesel if they’re truly serious about having to drive uninterrupted for such long distances. If they admit it’s really only 500 miles, suggest they look at a Lucid Air.

They’re bad for the environment

This is another area where EVs have an undeserved bad rap, based mostly on outdated facts. EVs are simply much more efficient than an equivalent ICE vehicle. For example, a Ford F-150 Lightning can travel 300 miles on the equivalent of three gallons of gasoline. An F-150 hybrid, which gets 24 mpg on the highway, would need 12.5 gallons of gasoline to go the same distance.

Even if that electricity comes from coal-fired power stations, the EV is still cleaner than all but the very most efficient hybrid cars, and most of the US grid has moved away from coal. In fact, the average EV driven in the US emits the same amount of carbon dioxide as a car that achieves 91 mpg. And as electrical generation increases the percentage of renewables, the knock-on effect is that every car that’s charged from the grid gets cleaner as well.

Now, it is true that it requires more energy to make an EV than an ICE vehicle, but the EV will use so much less energy once it’s built and being driven that it only takes a few years—as little as two, in some cases—before the EV’s lifetime carbon footprint is smaller than the gas-powered car.

We don’t have enough electricity

Another common concern is that there simply isn’t the spare capacity in the national grid to charge all the EVs that would have to be charged if EV adoption continues to grow. This worry is ill-founded. Studies have shown there is no need for extra power generation while EVs remain below 20 percent of the national fleet, and we’re quite far from reaching that benchmark. Meanwhile, renewable energy gets more plentiful and cheaper every year, and solutions like microgrids and batteries will only become more common.

Plus, as we just covered, EVs are extremely efficient compared to cars that burn fossil fuels. While we may need between 15–27 TWh of electricity by 2050 just to charge EVs, that’s about half a percent of current capacity.

Jonathan is the Automotive Editor at Ars Technica. He has a BSc and PhD in Pharmacology. In 2014 he decided to indulge his lifelong passion for the car by leaving the National Human Genome Research Institute and launching Ars Technica’s automotive coverage. He lives in Washington, DC.

Six inane arguments about EVs and how to handle them at the dinner table Read More »

Tesla is recalling 2,431 Cybertrucks, and this time there’s no software fix

Cars, tesla cybertruck recall, Tesla recall / Tim Belzer / November 13, 2024

Tesla has issued yet another recall for the angular, unpainted Cybertruck. This is the sixth recall affecting the model-year 2024 Cybertruck to be issued since January, and it affects 2,431 vehicles in total. And this time, there’s no fix being delivered by a software update over the air—owners will need to have their pickup trucks physically repaired.

The problem is a faulty drive unit inverter, which stranded a Cybertruck at the end of July. Tesla says it started investigating the problem a week later and by late October arrived at the conclusion that it had made a bad batch of inverters that it used in production vehicles from November 6, 2023, until July 30, 2024. After a total of five failures and warranty claims that the company says “may be related to the condition,” Tesla issued a recall.

Tesla is often able to fix defects in its products by pushing out new software, something that leads many fans of the brand to get defensive over the topic. Although there is no requirement for a safety recall to involve some kind of hardware fix—20 percent of all car recalls are now software fixes—in this case, the solution to the failing inverters very much requires a technician to work on the affected trucks.

Tesla says that starting on December 9, it will begin replacing the faulty inverters with new ones that have components that won’t malfunction.

Tesla is recalling 2,431 Cybertrucks, and this time there’s no software fix Read More »

Secondhand EVs will flood the market in 2026, JD Power says

Cars, used ev prices / Tim Belzer / November 7, 2024

In 2023, 46 percent of all franchise (i.e. not Tesla, Rivian, Vinfast, or Lucid) EV sales were leases, a trend that JD Power says it has seen through the first three quarters of 2024 as well. Once Tesla is included, about 30 percent of new EV sales this year have been leases. By contrast, fewer gasoline-powered cars are being leased each year since the start of the pandemic.

That means there will probably be a shortage of used ICE vehicles in 2025 and 2026. Used EVs might also be a little scarcer next year, JD Power says. It expects a 2 percent drop in the number of used EVs next year, but a 230 percent increase in 2026 as 215,000 cars end their leases.

JD Power also has some good news about new EV prices—they’re getting cheaper. The average price for a new electric compact SUV, once tax credits and manufacturer incentives are included, is $35,900, $12,700 less than the price in 2022 for the same class of vehicle.

Secondhand EVs will flood the market in 2026, JD Power says Read More »

Trump’s election win spells bad news for the auto industry

Cars, china tariffs, EV adoption, Trump / Tim Belzer / November 6, 2024

so we’re really doing this again, huh?

As a candidate, Donald Trump had no love for EVs or foreign imports.

Expect bigger and less efficient trucks in the coming years. Credit: Emily Elconin/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Yesterday, Donald Trump won a second presidential term from American voters. His first term was marked, among other things, by attempts to water down environmental laws and regulations aimed at the auto industry. And as a candidate in 2024, Trump has promised plenty of disruption to the sector through both trade policy and an abrogation of the government’s commitment to fight climate change. Here are some of the more significant changes we think are coming.

Electric vehicle adoption

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 was one of President Joe Biden’s signature policy achievements, part of a $450 billion climate package. One of its many sections revised the way we incentivize consumers to buy electric vehicles, with an update to the clean vehicle tax credit that requires final assembly in North America, as well as ever-increasing amounts of US-sourced battery components and minerals to be eligible.

But such policies are not loved by the Republican Party. During his first term, Trump repeatedly criticized EVs, saying that “all-electric is not going to work,” and he vociferously attacked EVs during his campaign, telling supporters at his party’s national convention in July that “I will end the electric vehicle mandate on day one,” referring to a current White House goal to reach 50 percent EV adoption by 2030, and calling the most significant climate legislation ever “the new green scam.”

The Project 2025 policy document, developed by the Heritage Foundation in lieu of an official Republican Party manifesto, contains little affection for EVs. It says we should “respect the right of Americans to buy and drive cars of their own choosing rather than trying to force them into electric vehicles and eventually out of the driver’s seat altogether in favor of self-driving robots” and that the waiver given to the California Air Resource Board should only apply to that state and not the other 16 states and the District of Columbia, which currently abide by CARB’s emissions rules.

Indeed, the Trump campaign press secretary told journalists that California’s waiver would be “immediately revoked” if Trump returned to office.

As such, fuel efficiency rules set forth by the US Department of Energy and the US Environmental Protection Agency, which are meant to go into effect in two years, are almost certainly toast at this point. As we know, the previous Trump administration took an unorthodox approach to undermining existing fuel economy standards, sidelining the EPA in the process.

Given these facts, the future for electric vehicle adoption in the US now appears questionable, and it’s likely that OEMs—the American ones in particular—will return to their 2016–2020 playbook, which involved lots of supersized gas-guzzling SUVs and pickup trucks, with less emphasis on the safety of pedestrians. As an example, Ford has been candid that its EV division is losing billions of dollars a year, and a second Trump administration may well empower shareholders to demand a more profitable allocation of those resources from the automakers in which they are invested.

For companies like Toyota and Stellantis, which lag behind European and Korean rivals when it comes to EVs, Trump’s election will no doubt give their product planners a small measure of relief.

The EV industry says it is ready to work with the incoming government “and all groups that want to ensure our nation’s innovation and economic competitiveness remain the best in the world. The next four years are critical to ensuring that these technologies are developed and deployed by American workers in American factories for generations—a goal that unites every state regardless of their electoral college votes,” said the Zero Emission Transportation Association (ZETA).

“We encourage members of both parties to support policies that provide business and trade certainty so that EV manufacturers up and down the supply chain can unleash the next chapter of American automotive dominance. The United States’ global competitiveness depends on it,” ZETA said to Ars in a statement.

Tesla off the hook?

Tesla, however, should be placed to do better under the next Trump administration. Its CEO Elon Musk has taken a hard right turn politically over the past couple of years, funding republican political causes to the tune of tens of millions of dollars before contributing more than $150 million to Trump’s reelection—a far cry from the Musk of the early 2010s who claimed that climate change was the most pressing issue facing humanity.

As it stands, the future looks very bright for Musk and Tesla. In recent years, the Texas-based automaker has been the subject of at least 14 safety defect investigations by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and many Tesla watchers believed that NHTSA has been getting ready to order a costly hardware recall due to the dangerous nature of Tesla’s “Full Self Driving” and “Autopilot” driver assistance systems.

But a position for Musk in Trump’s cabinet is well within the bounds of possibility—as a candidate, Trump more than once has suggested making Musk a key adviser or giving him control of one or more government departments. With the keys to the Department of Transportation (and thereby NHTSA) in his pocket, any meaningful regulation of Tesla would be very unlikely.

Perhaps a Musk cabinet position would safeguard the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program, however. This $7.5 billion program is building out fast chargers along highway corridors and in underserved communities, and the disbursement of funds by the state DOTs (which administer it) has been glacial, making it a potentially ripe target for cancellation. But Tesla has been a recipient of NEVI funding and stands to benefit further in the future if the program survives.

But not every Tesla watcher thinks this would be entirely positive for the company. Musk already splits his time as CEO between several companies, and some investors think a cabinet position would mean even more time away from Tesla’s helm. “Musk getting a cabinet seat in a Trump win would be a complicated decision that would take time away from Tesla and is not what shareholders want to see,” said longtime Tesla bull and analyst Dan Ives to Investors Business Daily.

Big import tariffs on imported cars and parts

Under the Biden administration, there has already been broad bipartisan support to protect US auto manufacturing from cheap Chinese imports, supported by both automakers and unions. In addition to tying clean vehicle tax credits to North American manufacturing, the Biden administration recently levied a 100 percent import tariff on Chinese-made EVs.

Many industry watchers think this will only escalate under the new administration after Trump repeatedly suggested abolishing many federal taxes—including income tax—and replacing them with import tariffs that would significantly drive up the cost of imported goods to US consumers. German automakers that depend on the US market are already seeing their stocks slide today, even though companies like Mercedes-Benz and BMW already have US manufacturing sites. “There’s some natural cover-up against possible tariffs,” BMW CEO Oliver Zipse told Automotive News.

Trump’s election win spells bad news for the auto industry Read More »

Kia says its new EV camper concept is the “ideal escape pod”

Cars, electric van, Kia, Kia EV9, SEMA / Tim Belzer / November 5, 2024

Whenever we write about electric vans, the comments reveal a growing but pent-up demand for a camper version. Well, it seems that those vibes are being felt at Kia. It has created a pair of concepts for the Specialty Equipment Marketing Association (SEMA) automotive trade show, which got underway in Las Vegas today.

One of the two concepts will look more familiar—the EV9 ADVNTR is based on the popular electric three-row SUV. But the other is the PV5 WKNDR, a rugged off-road camper based on a forthcoming Kia electric van platform.

The EV9 ADVNTR makes good use of the existing EV9’s angular design, with new sections filled in with protective cladding. There’s a suspension lift and all-terrain tires, plus a roof rack, to distinguish it from lesser EV9s, but otherwise it’s relatively stock.

A green electric Kia EV9 concept seen in a forest — The EV9 ADVNTR could be a rival for Rivian, although I’m not sure if there’s any production intent. Credit: Kia

The PV5 WKNDR is the more interesting of the two. Like the SUV, it’s lifted and wears off-road tires and sports the same matte-green-with-yellow-highlights color scheme. Designed to be “the ideal escape pod for extended weekends in nature,” it now features a pop-up camper roof complete with solar panels.

There’s another pop-out section from the side for storing gear while you’re parked and set up (called the gear head), and a reconfigurable interior depending on your mood. A kitchen with an induction stove pops out of the side of the WKNDR, and you can use the gear head as a pantry, Kia says.

The production PV5 is set to go on sale in Korea next year. Kia

Since we’ve only seen renders so far, it’s hard to know how much of the tech on the PV5 WKNDR is real. The press kit says that the solar panels can charge the PV5’s batteries, but so, too, can “unique hydro turbine wheels.” It does not elaborate on what these are, but it sounds like maybe you can stick a wheel in a running stream and it’ll spin the motor, thereby generating electricity? If I were at SEMA, I would be sure to ask.

Kia says its new EV camper concept is the “ideal escape pod” Read More »

Driving the biggest, least-efficient electric car: The Hummer EV SUV

car review, Cars, Hummer EV SUV / Tim Belzer / November 5, 2024

GMC’s Hummers have always been divisive. After getting hold of the rights to a civilian version of the US military vehicle in 1999, the company set about designing new, smaller vehicles to create an entire range. The ungainly H2 and H3 followed, both SUVs playing to the sensibilities of a country grappling with its warlike nature. By 2010, the Hummer brand was dead and laid dormant until someone had the bright idea to revive it for the electric vehicle generation. We drove the pickup version of that new Hummer in 2022, now it’s time for the $104,650 Hummer EV SUV.

I’ll admit I was worried that the Hummer EV wasn’t going to fit in my parking space. This is an extremely large vehicle, one that’s classified as a class 3 medium-duty truck—hence the yellow lights atop the roof. In fact, at 196.8 inches (5,000 mm) long, it’s actually slightly shorter than the pickup version, although that length doesn’t count the big spare tire hanging off the back.

Its 86.5-inch (2,196 mm) width just about fit between the lines, although it was a tight squeeze to try to open a door and climb up into the Hummer if my neighbor was parked as well. And climb up you do—there’s 10.2 inches (259 mm) of ground clearance even in the suspension’s normal setting, and the overall height is a towering 77.8 inches (1,976 mm). There is an entry mode that drops the car on its air springs by a couple of inches, but only if you remember to engage the feature when you park.

The curb weight is equally excessive at 9,063 lbs (4,119 kg)—at more than four metric tons, you’d need a commercial driver’s license to get behind the wheel of a Hummer EV in many other countries. Almost a third of that mass is the ginormous 217.7 kWh battery pack. Such over-provisioning means that despite the high drag coefficient of 0.5 and a frontal area that makes barn doors look skinny, the Hummer EV SUV has an EPA range estimate of 314 miles (503 km) on a single charge. In fact, the actual range indicated by our test car was 358 miles on a full charge, based on GM’s own testing. (As a class 3 truck, the Hummer doesn’t actually fit into the EPA’s tests properly.)

Driving the biggest, least-efficient electric car: The Hummer EV SUV Read More »

The Trek Checkpoint SL 7 AXS Gen 3 may be the perfect gravel bike

Cars, Checkpoint SL 7 AXS Gen 3, cycling, trek / Rejus Almole / November 4, 2024

As I followed a friend down a flow-y, undulating single-track trail, I started laughing. Unlike my mountain bike-riding companion, I was on a gravel bike, the new Trek Checkpoint SL 7 AXS Gen 3. You might be wondering why a review of a gravel bike is starting with such a ride. The answer is simple—the Checkpoint had excelled everywhere else I rode it, so I was curious to see how it would fare on a non-technical MTB track. Amazingly well, as it turns out.

Unlike every other bike Ars has reviewed to this point, the Checkpoint SL 7 Gen 3 has no battery and no motor—there’s no e- in this bike. As is the case with our other bike reviews, sometimes we ask for a specific model, but manufacturers tend to contact us when we’ve already got a garage full of bikes we’ve not finished the reviews for (there are currently 12 bikes in my garage, some of which belong to other family members).

Launched in 2018, the Checkpoint is Trek’s gravel-centric bike. For 2025, Trek has split its gravel lineup into the third-generation Checkpoint Trek and the Checkmate SLR 9 AXS. The latter features a lighter-weight frame, a power meter, and SRAM’s new Red XPLR groupset. Selling for $11,999, the Checkmate is a gravel racer. Priced several thousand less at $5,699, the Checkpoint SL 7 AXS is now Trek’s top gravel bike for those looking for a fun day out on the trails.

With the Gen 3 Checkpoint, Trek has added mounts all over the frame, tweaked the geometry to make it more comfortable for long rides, improved ride comfort by reworking the rear IsoSpeed decoupler (which softens the bumpiness from rough trails and pavement), and increased the tire clearance to 50 mm (42 mm with fenders). Trek uses three different types of carbon on its drop handlebar bikes. The top-of-the-line OCLV 900 shows up on the racing-focused Madone road bike, while the OCLV 800 is used in the Domane endurance bike lineup as well as the Checkmate. The SL 7 uses Trek’s 500 Series OCLV carbon, and the bike weighs in at 19.85 lb (9.0 kg)—about 100 g heavier than the Gen 2. The drivetrain comes from SRAM, with a SRAM Force XPLR AXS D2 groupset.

The Trek Checkpoint SL 7 AXS Gen 3 may be the perfect gravel bike Read More »

Distracted driving tool shows just how far you can travel while texting

Cars, distracted driving / Paul Patrick / November 1, 2024

The texting example is particularly good at getting the point across, at least to me—my times averaged about 14 seconds to complete the task. Had I been behind the wheel of an actual car at that speed, I would have traveled more than 1,400 feet (426 m) with my eyes on the phone during that period. Not good!

Of course, the people behind the distracted driving simulator recognize that this is mostly an awareness-raising tool—for academics studying the topic, we have things like the $80 million National Advanced Driving Simulator, which can pitch, yaw, roll, tilt, and move about inside a large hangar-like room in Coralsville, Iowa.

“While this simulator can’t provide a complete picture of the dangers of distracted driving, our hope is to help illustrate how dangerous it is to glance down at your phone—and remind everyone how that time can add up when you’re behind the wheel,” Ryan said.

Thankfully, the solution to distracted driving is rather simple—at least conceptually. Just keep your eyes on the road, and save the phone use for when you’re parked.

Distracted driving tool shows just how far you can travel while texting Read More »