The Biden administration is planning some of the most stringent auto pollution limits in the world, designed to ensure that all-electric cars make up as much as 67 percent of new passenger vehicles sold in the country by 2032, The New York Times reported, citing two people familiar with the matter. From the report: That would represent a quantum leap for the United States -- where just 5.8 percent of vehicles sold last year were all-electric -- and would exceed President Biden's earlier ambitions to have all-electric cars account for half of those sold in the country by 2030. It would be the federal government's most aggressive climate regulation and would propel the United States to the front of the global effort to slash the greenhouse gases generated by cars, a major driver of climate change. The European Union has already enacted vehicle emissions standards that are expected to phase out the sale of new gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035. Canada and Britain have proposed standards similar to the European model.

At the same time, the proposed regulation would pose a significant challenge for automakers. Nearly every major car company has already invested heavily in electric vehicles, but few have committed to the levels envisioned by the Biden administration. And many have faced supply chain problems that have held up production. Even manufacturers who are enthusiastic about electric models are unsure whether consumers will buy enough of them to make up the majority of new car sales within a decade. The action from the E.P.A. is likely to hearten climate activists, who are angry over the Biden administration's recent decision to approve an enormous oil drilling project on federal land in Alaska. Some inside the administration argue that speeding up a transition to renewable energy, with most Americans driving electric vehicles, would lessen demand for oil drilled in Alaska or elsewhere.

San Francisco autonomous vehicle company Cruise recalled and updated the software of its fleet of 300 cars, reports the San Francisco Chronicle, " after a Cruise taxi rear-ended a local bus "when the car's software got confused by the articulated vehicle, according to a federal safety report and the company."

The voluntary report notes that Cruise updated its software on March 25th. Since last month's low-speed crash, which resulted in no injuries, Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt said the company chose to conduct a voluntary recall, and the software update assured such a rare incident "would not recur...." As for the March bus collision, Vogt said the software fix was uploaded to Cruise's entire fleet of 300 cars within two days. He said the company's probe found the crash scenario "exceptionally rare" with no other similar collisions.

"Although we determined that the issue was rare, we felt the performance of this version of software in this situation was not good enough," Vogt wrote in a blog post. "We took the proactive step of notifying NHTSA that we would be filing a voluntary recall of previous versions of our software that were impacted by the issue." The CEO said such voluntary recalls will probably become "commonplace."

"We believe this is one of the great benefits of autonomous vehicles compared to human drivers; our entire fleet of AVs is able to rapidly improve, and we are able to carefully monitor that progress over time," he said.
The Cruise car was traveling about 10 miles per hour, and the collision caused only minor damage to its front fender, Vogt's blog post explained. San Francisco's buses have front and back coaches connected by articulated rubber, and when the Cruise taxi lost sight of the front half, it made the assumption that it was still moving (rather than recognizing that the back coach had stopped). Or, as Cruise told the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, their vehicle ""inaccurately predicted the movement" of the bus. It was not the first San Francisco incident involving Cruise since June, when it became the first company in a major city to win the right to taxi passengers in driverless vehicles — in this case Chevrolet Bolts. The city's Municipal Transportation Agency and County Transportation Authority recorded at least 92 incidents from May to December 2022 in which autonomous ride-hailing vehicles caused problems on city streets, disrupting traffic, Muni transit and emergency responders, according to letters sent to the California Public Utilities Commission....

Just two days before the Cruise crash in March, the company had more problems with Muni during one of San Francisco's intense spring storms. A falling tree brought down a Muni line near Clay and Jones streets on March 21, and a witness reported on social media that two Cruise cars drove through caution tape into the downed wire. A company representative said neither car had passengers and teams were immediately dispatched to remove the vehicles.

On Jan. 22, a driverless Cruise car entered an active firefighting scene and nearly ran over hoses. Fire crews broke a car window to try to stop it.

"As automakers scour the planet for the metals it will take to build tens of millions of electric cars, they are deliberately taking a detour around one of the only places on earth where so much of what they need is laying around and available to be plucked," reports the Washington Post: The deep seabed is teeming with potato-sized rocks packed with the nickel, cobalt, copper and manganese EV manufacturers covet. But efforts by mining companies to harvest the nodules with undersea robots are hitting rough waters. EV manufacturers who need the minerals for their batteries are distancing themselves from the practice as diplomats and scientists sound an alarm over the ecological damage that could be caused by rushing to scrape the sea floor.

The misgivings of the auto companies are hardly assuaged by the messy, contentious deliberations over it all at the headquarters of the United Nations-chartered International Seabed Authority here. The authority, tasked with protecting and guiding development in international waters, has been in turmoil since the small Pacific Island nation of Nauru invoked a clause tucked in the Law of the Sea that could allow mining within months, likely before the full environmental impact is known or regulations are put in place....

More than 700 marine scientists have signed a petition demanding a [mining] moratorium, which is also supported by 13 countries. French President Emmanuel Macron is calling for a permanent ban.... Some car manufacturers, including BMW, Renault, Rivian, Volvo and VW publicly support a moratorium on seabed mining. GM, Ford and Daimler are, for now, keeping deep seabed materials out of their supply chain plans amid corporate concerns about environmental impact.
The Post got an interesting perspective from Ethan Elkind, director of the climate program at UC Berkeley's Center for Law, Energy and the Environment. "Auto companies don't want EV batteries associated with more destruction than they already have been," he tells them. "If ecological damage of these sensitive undersea areas comes to light after mining begins, they don't want to be a part of it."

Walmart plans to have its own network of electric vehicle charging stations by 2030 to tap into the growing adoption of EVs in the United States. Reuters reports: The new fast-charging stations will be placed at thousands of Walmart and Sam's Club stores, alongside nearly 1,300 it already offers as part of a deal with Volkswagen unit Electrify America, one of the country's largest open public EV networks. Walmart's more than 5,000 stores and Sam's Club warehouses are located within 10 miles of about 90% of Americans.

"We have the ability to address range and charging anxiety in a way that no one else can in this country," Vishal Kapadia, Walmart's recently appointed senior vice president of Energy Transformation, said in an interview. Owning its chargers, instead of partnering with a network operator, will help Walmart address reliability and cost issues, Kapadia said. Kapadia said he expects the new charge points to be direct-current fast chargers, with about four chargers on average installed per store.

Full-size, self-driving bus services will begin in Scotland next month in what is believed to be a world first. The BBC reports: Stagecoach said the route over the Forth Road Bridge would launch on May 15. The 14-mile route will run between Ferrytoll park and ride in Fife and Edinburgh Park train and tram interchange. Five single-decker autonomous buses will have the capacity for about 10,000 passenger journeys per week.

The vehicles have sensors enabling them to travel on pre-selected roads at up to 50mph. They will have two members of staff on board. A safety driver will sit in the driver's seat to monitor the technology, and a so-called bus captain will help passengers with boarding, buying tickets and queries. The UK government said Project CAVForth would be the world's first full-size, self-driving public bus service.

For flights, Google already showed you whether the flight price you were looking at was high, low, or typical compared to historical prices. Now it's going a step further by putting a guarantee on those predictions. Android Police reports: Now, whenever Google thinks a flight is priced as low as it's going to go, it will put a "Price Guarantee" badge beside the price indicating it doesn't think that price will drop any further. If you decide to book a flight with a price guarantee through Google and the price does go down, the company will reimburse you for the difference in price via Google Pay similar to the promotion it ran in 2019. The price guarantee was announced in a blog post today alongside new features for researching hotels.

"Now when you search for a hotel on mobile, you'll be able to swipe through full-screen images of the hotel similar to how you might view a story on Instagram," reports Android Police. "From that photo page, you can also quickly tap into reviews to see if a property is as good as it looks and learn more about the area where a potential hotel is located. There's also a link to the hotel's website right on the page when you're ready to book."

It's not just the Ford Mustang that's losing its AM radio. The Detroit Free Press reports: "We are transitioning from AM radio for most new and updated 2024 models," Ford spokesman Wes Sherwood told the Free Press. "A majority of U.S. AM stations, as well as a number of countries and automakers globally, are modernizing radio by offering internet streaming through mobile apps, FM, digital and satellite radio options. Ford will continue to offer these alternatives for customers to hear their favorite AM radio music, news and podcasts as we remove amplitude modulation — the definition of AM in this case — from most new and updated models we bring to market." Commercial vehicles will continue to offer AM radio because of longstanding contract language, Sherwood said....

"In essence, EV motors generate a lot of electromagnetic interference that affects the frequencies of AM radio and make it difficult to get a clear signal," said Mike Ramsey, an analyst with Stamford, Connecticut-based Gartner Research Group, which specializes in digital transformation and innovation. "It could be shielded, but given the diminishing listening habits to AM, the automakers haven't chosen to do it. Most of the content there is available through other means, including podcast and internet streaming. In my view, this isn't that different from automakers discontinuing 8-track players, cassette players and CD players. Technology has advanced. The idea that it is a critical safety channel is a bit suspect given that almost all critical communication now is sent through mobile phones...."

Veteran analyst John McEloy, host of "Autoline After Hours" webcast and podcast said automakers don't need to get rid of AM radio. "It's happening because automakers would love to get rid of the cost of an AM radio," he told the Free Press. "Some of them, like Ford, are using EVs as an excuse to get rid of it. GM shields its AM radios in its electric cars to they don't get any interference."
But the article also quotes a spokesperson for GM saying they're "evaluating AM radio on future vehicles and not providing any further details at this time."

Last month U.S. Senator Markey noted that seven more top automakers have already removed AM radio from their electric vehicles — BMW, Mazda, Polestar, Rivian, Tesla, Volkswagen, and Volvo.

Around 4 in the morning one Tuesday night in San Francisco, an autonomously-driven Cruise vehicle stopped at a red light — and was rear-ended by a Honda. But then "the Honda driver reversed backward several feet, stopped and drove forward again, making contact with the Cruise vehicle a second time," reports NBC News. After damaging the car and injuring its two test drivers, according to a collision report the Honda then "left the scene without exchanging information."

It's just part of "a pattern bedeviling tech companies that are trying to make driverless cars a reality," reports NBC News, after reviewing collision reports from the California Department of Motor Vehicles: The reports, which were written by employees of the tech companies, describe 36 instances in 2022 in which a person driving a car or truck left the scene of a crash involving their vehicle and an autonomous vehicle. The problem has continued at a similar pace this year, with seven examples as of early March....

"My best guess is that the drivers think they can't be held liable," said Anderson Franco, a personal injury attorney in the city. "If you are operating your own vehicle and you crash into an autonomous vehicle, the correct thing to do is take photographs, call the police and have it documented," he said. But it's not always clear from the outside of a Cruise or other autonomous vehicle what to do if there's a problem. Cruise said in a statement to NBC News that it was in the process of making its phone number more prominently displayed on the outside of vehicles, so drivers in a crash know who to call....

The human drivers who have hit autonomous vehicles appear to be getting away with little accountability. Autonomous vehicles are usually equipped with a variety of external cameras that could record the license plate numbers of hit-and-run drivers but it's not clear how often the companies have gone down that road.... Cruise said in a statement that the hit-and-runs are usually minor. It said it works with San Francisco police "when necessary" and searches its videos for the license plate numbers of other cars "if needed." Cruise declined to comment on specific cases. Waymo said it has kept its options open about how to respond to hit-and-runs.
California's Department of Motor Vehicles pointed out that because of the limited data available, "it's unclear if the rate of hit-and-run incidents involving autonomous vehicles is higher or lower than the rate involving conventional vehicles."

Today a warning was published from the editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle. "Experts say post-pandemic woes stemming from office workers staying home instead of commuting into the city could send San Francisco into a 'doom loop' that would gut its tax base, decimate fare-reliant regional transit systems like BART and trap it in an economic death spiral...." Despite our housing crisis, it was years into the COVID pandemic before our leaders meaningfully questioned the logic of reserving some of the most prized real estate on Earth for fickle suburbanites and their cars. Downtown, after all, was San Francisco's golden goose. Companies in downtown offices accounted for 70% of San Francisco's pre-pandemic jobs and generated nearly 80% of its economic output, according to city economist Ted Egan. And so we wasted generous federal COVID emergency funds trying to bludgeon, cajole and pray for office workers to return downtown instead of planning for change. We're now staring down the consequences for that lack of vision.

The San Francisco metropolitan area's economic recovery from the pandemic ranked 24th out of the 25 largest regions in the U.S., besting only Baltimore, according to a report from the Bay Area Council Economic Institute. In the first quarter of 2023, San Francisco's office vacancy rate shot up to a record-high 29.4% — the biggest three-year increase of any U.S. city. The trend isn't likely to end anytime soon: In January, nearly 30% of San Francisco job openings were for hybrid or fully remote work, the highest share of the nation's 50 largest cities. Amid lower property, business and real estate transfer taxes, the city is projecting a $728 million deficit over the next two fiscal years. Transit ridership remains far below pre-pandemic levels. In January, downtown San Francisco BART stations had just 30% of the rider exits they did in 2019, according to a report from Egan's office. Many Bay Area transit agencies, including Muni, are rapidly approaching a fiscal cliff.

San Francisco isn't dead; as of March, it was home to an estimated 173 of the country's 655 companies valued at more than $1 billion. Tourism is beginning to rebound. And new census data shows that San Francisco's population loss is slowing, a sign its pandemic exodus may be coming to an end. But the city can't afford to wait idly for things to reach equilibrium again. It needs to evolve — quickly. Especially downtown. That means rebuilding the neighborhood's fabric, which won't be cheap or easy. Office-to-housing conversions are notoriously tricky and expensive. Demolishing non-historic commercial buildings that no longer serve a purpose in the post-pandemic world is all but banned. And, unlike New York after 9/11, San Francisco is a city that can't seem to stop getting in its own way.
So what's the solution? The CEO of the Bay Area Council suggests public-private partnerships that "could help shift downtown San Francisco's focus from tech — with employees now accustomed to working from home — to research and development, biotech, medical research and manufacturing, which all require in-person workers."

And last week San Francisco's mayor proposed more than 100 changes to streamline the permitting process for small businesses, and on Monday helped introduce legislation making it easier to convert office buildings to housing, expand pop-up business opportunities, and fill some empty storefronts. This follows a February executive order to speed housing construction. The editorial points out that "About 40% of office buildings in downtown San Francisco evaluated in a study would be good candidates for housing due to their physical characteristics and location and could be converted into approximately 11,200 units, according to research from SPUR and the Urban Land Institute San Francisco."

But without some action, the editorial's headline argues that "Downtown San Francisco is at risk of collapsing — and taking much of the Bay Area with it."

The Fresno Bee newspaper reports that flooding in parts of California "have also ground work to a halt at several key construction sites for California's high-speed rail project." But while standing water at some locations has prevented work crews from reaching their job sites, the Central Valley director for the Cailfornia High-Speed Rail Authority said it's the prospects for a lengthy summer run of water in local irrigation canals that present a greater potential disruption to construction later this year....

At the Tule River viaduct near Highway 43 and Avenue 144 south of Corcoran, drone video posted to social media on March 22 by the Tulare County Sheriff's Office shows vehicles stranded in floodwaters and support columns for the structure sticking out of the water. "There's a lot of work we can't get to," Garth Fernandez, who heads up the rail agency's Central Valley region, told The Fresno Bee in a telephone interview this week. "So at Tule River and Deer Creek, right now we are not working. ... We don't even have access to that (Deer Creek) site right now because it's all under water." Fernandez added that in the meantime, the rail agency and its contractor have turned their attention to providing what help they can to nearby communities that are being affected by flooding....

While some construction locations are facing delays because of standing flood water, crews have been able to continue working at other sites in Madera, Fresno, Kings and Kern counties — a 119-mile stretch covered by three separate construction contracts.... So far, no significant damage has been reported on any of the high-speed rail structures that have been completed or are in various stages of construction. "From north to south, water is flowing underneath all of our completed structures," Fernandez said. "All of our structures are on piles and deep foundations, so I don't believe we'll have an issue with damage to our structures... We may have some areas of erosion, some embankments washed out in a couple of places, but that minor damage can be resolved rather easily," he added. "But for all of our major structures, the current reporting is that we are holding good."

The rail line has been designed to cope with major floods; viaducts and a railbed that will elevated above the level of the surrounding land are expected to minimize the risk of damage from future floods, Fernandez said. "Our facilities are designed for a 100-year flood, so (the current events are) showing that our design is actually working," he said. "It's designed in a way that even though it's a large system north to south, it's able to convey all the flood water past our embankments and our alignment."

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Friday said it was approving California's plans to require a rising number of zero-emission heavy-duty trucks as the state pushes to cut pollution. Reuters reports: California Governor Gavin Newsom said as a result of the plan, "half of all heavy duty trucks sold in CA will be electric by 2035." "Time to stop playing small ball," he added. Under an executive order Newsom signed in 2020, California plans to mandate by 2045 that all operations of medium- and heavy-duty vehicles be zero emission where feasible, shifting away from diesel-powered trucks.

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) had sought waivers from the Clean Air Act to set heavy-duty vehicle and engine emission standards. California has been joined by Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Washington and Vermont in adopting the rules. CARB has noted heavy-duty vehicles greater than 14,000 pounds comprised 3% of vehicles on California roads, but account for more than 50% of nitrogen oxides and fine particle diesel pollution.

The EPA said it is not yet approving California's request to set new regulations on pollutant exhaust emission standards for nitrogen oxide (NOx) and particulate matter for 2024 and future medium- and heavy-duty engines and vehicles. Separately, California in August moved to require all new light-duty cars and trucks sold in the state by 2035 to be either electric or plug-in electric hybrids. California needs an EPA waiver for that regulation.

General Motors plans to phase out widely-used Apple CarPlay and Android Auto technologies that allow drivers to bypass a vehicle's infotainment systems, shifting instead to built-in infotainment systems developed with Google for future electric vehicles. Reuters reports: GM's decision to stop offering those systems in future electric vehicles, starting with the 2024 Chevrolet Blazer, could help the automaker capture more data on how consumers drive and charge EVs. GM is designing the on-board navigation and infotainment systems for future EVs in partnership with Alphabet's Google. GM has been working with Google since 2019 to develop the software foundations for infotainment systems that will be more tightly integrated with other vehicle systems such as GM's Super Cruise driver assistant. The automaker is accelerating a strategy for its EVs to be platforms for digital subscription services.

GM would benefit from focusing engineers and investment on one approach to more tightly connecting in-vehicle infotainment and navigation with features such as assisted driving, Edward Kummer, GM's chief digital officer, and Mike Hichme, executive director of digital cockpit experience, said in an interview. "We have a lot of new driver assistance features coming that are more tightly coupled with navigation," Hichme told Reuters. "We don't want to design these features in a way that are dependent on person having a cellphone."

Buyers of GM EVs with the new systems will get access to Google Maps and Google Assistant, a voice command system, at no extra cost for eight years, GM said. GM said the future infotainment systems will offer applications such as Spotify's music service, Audible and other services that many drivers now access via smartphones. "We do believe there are subscription revenue opportunities for us," Kummer said. GM Chief Executive Mary Barra is aiming for $20 billion to $25 billion in annual revenue from subscriptions by 2030.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: European Union countries gave final approval on Tuesday to a landmark law to end sales of new CO2-emitting cars in 2035, after Germany won an exemption for cars running on e-fuels. The approval from EU countries' energy ministers means Europe's main climate policy for cars can now enter into force -- after weeks of delay caused by last-minute opposition from Germany. The EU law will require all new cars sold to have zero CO2 emissions from 2035, and 55% lower CO2 emissions from 2030, versus 2021 levels. The targets are designed to drive the rapid decarbonization of new car fleets in Europe.

"The direction of travel is clear: in 2035, new cars and vans must have zero emissions," EU climate policy chief Frans Timmermans said. E-fuels are considered carbon neutral because they are made using captured CO2 emissions -- which proponents say balances out the CO2 released when the fuel is combusted in an engine. The Commission will, in autumn 2023, propose how sales of e-fuel-only cars can continue after 2035. Such cars will have to use technology to prevent them from starting when filled with petrol or diesel.

The New York Times reports: Since January, the price of lithium has dropped nearly 20%, according to Benchmark Minerals, while sales of electric vehicles have soared. The price of cobalt, another important battery material, has fallen by more than half. Copper, essential to electric motors and batteries, has slipped by about 18%, at a time when U.S. mines and copper-rich countries such as Peru are struggling to increase production.

The price moves have confounded many analysts who predicted costs would stay high, or climb higher, slowing the transition to cleaner forms of transportation. Instead, the drop in commodity prices has made it easier for carmakers to cut prices for electric vehicles. This month, Tesla lowered the prices of its two most expensive cars, the Model S sedan and Model X sport utility vehicle, by thousands of dollars. That followed cuts in January by Tesla to its more affordable Model 3 and Model Y, and by Ford Motor to its Mustang Mach-E. The average price of an electric vehicle in the United States fell by $1,000 in February compared with January, according to Kelley Blue Book. "For electric vehicles, the major roadblock is cost," said Kang Sun, the CEO of Amprius Technologies, a young battery maker that this month announced plans for a factory in Colorado. The falling price of lithium, he said, "is going to promote EV sales."

Sun said he thinks prices could fall much further because demand for the metal has not risen as fast as some in the industry expected.... Ryan Melsert, CEO of American Battery Technology, attributed the recent decline in lithium prices to temporary factors like a seasonal slowdown in electric vehicle sales in China. "We expect to see very high prices for the foreseeable future," Melsert said. Vivek Chidambaram, the senior managing director for strategy at Accenture, the consulting firm, also expects the decline to be temporary. Lithium prices have fallen because sales of electric vehicles, while still brisk, are not growing as fast as automakers expected, he said. That has led suppliers to produce more than is needed.
The article notes America's Department of Energy is providing $3 billion in grants to create a domestic battery supply chain — partly because the supply of lithium has to increase 42-fold by 2050, according to the State Department's undersecretary for energy.

"We have to find additional sources of supply because 42 times is a lot," he tells the Times. "Right now, we don't have enough."

CNN reports: When EU lawmakers voted to ban the sale of new combustion engine cars in the bloc by 2035, it was a landmark victory for climate. In February, the European Parliament approved the law. All that was needed was a rubber stamp from the bloc's political leaders.

Then Germany changed its mind.

In a reversal that stunned many EU insiders, the German government decided to push for a loophole that would allow the sale of combustion engine cars beyond the 2035 deadline — as long as they run on synthetic fuels. It's an exception that could put the European Union's green credentials at risk. The bloc is legally obliged to become carbon-neutral by 2050. With cars and vans responsible for around 15% of its total greenhouse gas emissions, a phase-out of polluting vehicles is a key part of EU climate policy....

Other European countries, including Italy, Poland and the Czech Republic, have joined Germany in demanding the exception.
The case for synthetic fuels: they're made from hydrogen and carbon dioxide captured from the atmosphere, so burning them only releases air pollutants that have already been offset. CNN got this quote from the transport minister of the liberal FDP (part of Germany's current governing coalition).

"The goal is climate neutrality, which is also an opportunity for new technologies. We need to be open to different solutions."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: In 2025, United Airlines will fly an air taxi service between the downtown Vertiport Chicago and O'Hare International Airport, using electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft it is purchasing from Archer Aviation. The Archer Midnight eVTOL aircraft will complete the route in about 10 minutes; according to local resident and Ars Managing Editor Eric Bangeman, that journey by car can take over an hour due to road construction. "Both Archer and United are committed to decarbonizing air travel and leveraging innovative technologies to deliver on the promise of the electrification of the aviation industry," said Michael Leskinen, president of United Airlines Ventures. "Once operational, we're excited to offer our customers a more sustainable, convenient, and cost-effective mode of transportation during their commutes to the airport."

If Chicago works out, United plans to add other airport-to-city "trunk routes," with "branch" routes between different communities coming later. The Archer Midnight has a range of 100 miles (160 km) and a top speed of 150 mph (241 km/h). If approved by the FAA, the Chicago air shuttle would be the first commercial eVTOL service to begin operating in North America. Asked about the cost, an Archer spokesperson told the Chicago Sun-Times that the company hopes to make the service competitive with Uber Black, so it will be roughly $100 for the trip.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica, written by Jonathan M. Gitlin: A perennial question that has accompanied the spread of Android Automotive has been the question of support. A car has a much longer expected service life than a smartphone, especially an Android smartphone, and with infotainment systems so integral to a car's operations now, how long can we reasonably expect those infotainment systems to be supported? I got the chance to put this question to Dirk Hilgenberg, CEO of CARIAD, Volkswagen Group's software division: Given the much longer service life of a car compared to a smartphone, how does VW plan to keep those cars patched and safe 10 or 15 years from now?

"We actually have a contract with the brands, which took a while to negotiate, but lifetime support was utterly important," Hilgenberg told me. The follow-up was obvious: How long is "lifetime"? "Fifteen years after service, and an extra option for brands who would like to have it even longer; you know, we have to guarantee updatability on all legal aspects," he said. "So that's why we are, as you can imagine, very cautious with branches of releases because every branch we need to maintain over this long time. So when you have end of operation and EOP [end of production] and it's 15 years longer, we still have to maintain that; plus, some brands actually said 'because my vehicle is a unicorn, it's something that people want even more, they only occasionally drive it but they want to be safe,'" Hilgenberg told me.

(The unicorn reference should make sense in the context of VW Group owning Bugatti, Lamborghini, and Porsche, whose cars are often collected and can be on the road for many decades.) In those cases, CARIAD would provide continued support, Hilgenberg said. "Especially as cybersecurity, all the legal things are concerned, you see that already. Now we do upgrades and releases, whether it's in China, whether it's in the US, whether it's in Europe, we take very cautious steps. Security and safety has, in the Volkswagen group, you know, the utmost importance, and we see it actually as an opportunity to differentiate," he said. In an update to the article, Ars said CARIAD got in touch with them to add some clarifications. "As part of its development services to Volkswagen's automotive brands, CARIAD provides operational services, updates, upgrades and new releases as well as bug fixes and patches relating to its hardware- and software-products. We usually support our hard- and software releases for extended periods of time. In some cases this can be up to 15 years after the end of production ('EOP') for hardware and 10 years after EOP for software releases. Moreover, there are legally mandatory periods we comply with, e.g. cybersecurity as well as safety updates and patches are provided for as long as a function is available. In addition, there may be individual agreements with brands for longer support periods to specifically satisfy their customers' needs," wrote a CARIAD spokesperson.

Ars notes: "there's no guarantee that OEMs can make the business model work for this long-term support."

The head of the nation's air traffic controllers said there have been too many near collisions at airports and laid out steps to avoid more -- including more supervisor oversight in control towers and extra controller training for "unusual circumstances." From a report: "Even though we all know that multiple levels of safety are built into our system, there is no question that we are seeing too many close calls," said Tim Arel, chief operating officer of the Federal Aviation Administration's Air Traffic Organization. The five steps laid out Thursday by Arel in an agency-wide memo follow last week's FAA safety summit focusing on the recent series of near collisions involving commercial airliners on or near the runways of US airports. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating six incidents this year alone. "Our dedication to continuous improvement demands that we dig deep to identify the underlying factors and address them," Arel said. "With the summer travel season just around the corner, airlines and the traveling public have high expectations."

The steps laid out in the memo direct supervisors to "devote their full attention to the operation and airfield during peak traffic periods at each facility" and instruct improvements to training. The memo notes simulator training for controllers was "last updated in 2016." Additional safety steps include working with the National Air Traffic Controllers Association to reinforce existing safety protocols and reexamining runway incursion data "to identify underlying factors that led to these close calls and identify remedies." The most serious types of near-collisions on US runways this year are about double the rate seen in the past, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Thursday. "In past years, they've occurred at roughly a rate of once per month," he told a Senate committee. "Right now, they are this year occurring at a rate that is double that. "Buttigieg spoke specifically about the two most serious categories of runway incursions and said there's a "definite increase."

Ford's electric vehicle business has lost $3 billion before taxes during the past two years and will lose a similar amount this year as the company invests heavily in the new technology. The Associated Press reports: The figures were released Thursday as Ford rolled out a new way of reporting financial results. The new business structure separates electric vehicles, the profitable internal combustion and commercial vehicle operations into three operating units. Company officials said the electric vehicle unit, called "Ford Model e," will be profitable before taxes by late 2026 with an 8% pretax profit margin. But they wouldn't say exactly when it's expected to start making money.

Chief Financial Officer John Lawler said Model e should be viewed as a startup company within Ford. "As everyone knows, EV startups lose money while they invest in capability, develop knowledge, build (sales) volume and gain (market) share," he said. Model e, he said, is working on second- and even third-generation electric vehicles. It currently offers three EVs for sale in the U.S.: the Mustang Mach E SUV, the F-150 Lightning pickup and an electric Transit commercial van. The new corporate reporting system, Lawler said, is designed to give investors more transparency than the old system of reporting results by geographic regions. The automaker calculated earnings for each of the three units during the past two calendar years.

Thirteen million diesel cars producing "extreme" levels of toxic air pollution are still on the roads in Europe and the UK, according to a report, seven years after the Dieselgate scandal first exploded. From a report: The non-profit research group, the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), revealed in 2015 that many diesel cars were highly polluting, emitting far more nitrogen oxides on the road than in official testing. The scandal led to a more rigorous test being introduced in the EU in 2019. However, based on extensive testing evidence, the ICCT has now revealed that about 13m highly polluting diesel vehicles sold from 2009 to 2019 remain on the roads. A further 6m diesels have "suspicious" levels of emissions, the ICCT said. The cars span 200 different models produced by all the major manufacturers. The ICCT said the bestselling models from 2009-2019 in the EU27 and UK with "extreme" emissions are Euro 5 versions of the VW Passat and Tiguan, Renault Clio, Ford Focus and Nissan Qashqai.