An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: The trend of big touchscreens in cars has left many yearning for the not-so-distant days when most user interactions happened with physical buttons. But Rivian's chief software officer Wassym Bensaid believes using buttons in a car is an "anomaly." "It's a bug. It's not a feature," Bensaid said Wednesday at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. "Ideally, you would want to interact with your car through voice. The problem today is that most voice assistants are just broken." To that end, Bensaid said that "every week" he's driving around an engineering vehicle that has an AI-powered voice assistant, though he did not specify which one. He mentioned earlier in his interview with TechCrunch's transportation editor Kirsten Korosec that Rivian has "partnerships that I cannot yet talk about."

"I think the car is actually a fantastic environment for AI," he said, while noting that latency and hallucinations are still very big problems that need to be solved. "The final north star I have is having voice [controls] become the primary means of interaction with the vehicle. The reality is that the vehicle is so feature-rich, that even if we do a fantastic job in the UI, there will always be prioritization that we need to do in terms of having things one or two menus behind," Bensaid told TechCrunch after he got off stage. Bensaid also said he's a big believer in the ability of AI-powered voice controls to handle complex requests. For instance, he said if a driver says "I'm hungry" the in-car assistant should be able to quickly direct them to a nearby restaurant that they might prefer. Bensaid said the company is committed to creating a unique, integrated user experienced tailored for Rivian owners -- one that won't include CarPlay.

CarPlay "takes over all the pixels in the screen, and it's a replacement of the entire experience, and we truly believe that with the technology capabilities that we have, we can offer a much more refined, integrated experience," he said.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Complaints about the brightness of modern headlights have become commonplace. On X, thousands of users have tweeted about headlights being too bright. The subreddit r/fuckyourheadlights has over 35,000 members who post blurry photos of offending high beams and LED headlights. Outlets like the New York Times and NBC News have written about the risks of headlight glare. Advocacy groups have called for bans on LED headlights. And the UK government launched a review into the dangers of headlight glare earlier this year, after many driver complaints. And yet, according to many experts, the problem with headlights is not that they're too bright -- it's that they're not bright enough. "We actually need more light on the road than what we have," says Greg Bannon, director of automotive engineering at the American Automobile Association (AAA). Only a minority of US roadways have overhead street lighting, as one 2019 AAA report noted. As a result, in many areas, headlights are the sole method of illumination when driving at night. But which is the safety bigger risk: inadequate illumination, or headlights that impair the vision of other drivers? The report notes that the U.S. standards set by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) haven't changed in decades and are much weaker than Europe's. Adaptive headlights, which automatically adjust brightness to avoid blinding other drivers, have been approved by NHTSA since 2022 but are still relatively rare due to differing standards and costs.

Zoox, an Amazon-owned autonomous vehicle company, is set to roll out dozens of its purpose-built robotaxis in San Francisco and Las Vegas, starting with employee rides in San Francisco's SoMa neighborhood and the Las Vegas Strip. "We have achieved that internal safety readiness" required to launch the service, said co-founder and CTO Jesse Levinson on the TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 stage. TechCrunch reports: The announcement comes a decade after Zoox was founded and four years since it was acquired by Amazon and unveiled its purpose-built robotaxi. In that time, the nascent autonomous vehicle industry has gone through the full hype cycle that led to multi-billion-dollar valuations and later a wave of shutdowns and consolidation. "We still exist," Levinson said, in a nod to the tumult the industry has gone through in recent years.

Levinson said Zoox is going to take a "measured approach" to rolling out its robotaxi service, and noted that his company has been working closely with local and federal safety regulators. "I can say that in the next few weeks, we're actually going to have a couple dozen Zoox robotaxis across our Foster City, San Francisco and Las Vegas, geofences that will expand several fold over the next year," he said. "And then, you know, 2026 is when we're going to really start cranking out production vehicles at very large scale."

He also said Zoox will launch an "explorer" program of early riders who will be able to use the robotaxis for free before opening the service up to paying customers. (Rival Waymo operated a similar invite-only early rider program before opening its service to the paying public.) These early riders, or explorers, will gain access to the Zoox vehicles early next year starting with Las Vegas, Levinson said. The Zoox AVs will operate throughout the "most busy 16 hours" of the day, Levinson said, noting that it's "so boring at four in the morning, we don't think we would learn very much."

Boeing received an email from the chief pilot at Ethiopian Airlines on December 1, 2018 with several questions, reports the New York Times (alternate URL here). "in essence the pilot was asking for direction. If we see a series of warnings on the new 737 Max, he posed, what do we do?" What ensued was an email conversation among a number of Boeing senior officials about whether they could answer the pilot's questions without violating international restrictions on disseminating information about a crash while it was still under investigation. That restriction was in play because a 737 Max flown by Lion Air had crashed a few weeks earlier leaving Indonesia. The inquiry from Ethiopian Airlines would prove chillingly prescient because just months later one of its 737s would go down because of a flight control malfunction similar to the one that led to the Lion Air crash. The Ethiopian Airlines crash would kill everyone on board and leave questions about whether Boeing had done everything it could to inform pilots of what it had learned about the malfunction and how to handle it.

In response to the inquiry from Ethiopian Airlines, Boeing's chief pilot, Jim Webb, proposed to his colleagues that he thank the airline for attending a previous briefing on the flight control system, called MCAS, but otherwise decline to answer the pilot's first two questions and just refer the airline to training materials and previously issued guidance. Most of those on the email agreed.
Boeing's eventual response? "I can only address the current system and the Operations Manual Bulletin. The first two questions directly relate to the accident scenario; therefore, I will be unable to address them here." The Times adds that Boeing's chief pilot Jim Webb then "ended the email by stating that if airline officials had any additional questions about the bulletin and system, they should feel free to reach out....

"It is impossible to know whether any pilots with Ethiopian Arlines would have acted differently if Webb's reply had been more forthcoming. But Boeing's limited response to an airline seeking help highlights a missed opportunity to collaborate on safety and to pass along lessons Boeing had collected following the Lion Air jet's crash into the Java Sea on Oct. 29, 2018."

San Francisco's Municipal Transportation Agency approved a $212 million contract with Hitachi Rail to modernize the Muni Metro system's outdated train control system, which currently uses floppy disks and wire loops. Government Technology reports: The software that runs the system is stored on floppy disks that are loaded each morning and an outdated type of communication using wire loops that are easily disrupted. It was expected to last for 20 to 25 years, according to Muni officials. It moves data more slowly than a wireless modem, they said. By late 2027 and into 2028, a new communications-based system, which employs Wi-Fi and cell signals to precisely track the locations of trains, will be installed by Hitachi, which will provide support services for 20 years under the agreement.

While the current train control system operates only on the Market Street subway and Central Subway, the new system will control Metro light rail trains on the system's surface lines as well. The Hitachi system is said to be five generations ahead of the current system, said Muni Director of Transit Julie Kirschbaum, who described it as the best train control system on the market.

The FAA has released final regulations for electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicles, introducing a new category of aircraft for the first time in nearly 80 years. These rules provide a framework for pilot training and operational requirements, addressing industry concerns while aiming to support the future of advanced air mobility. The Verge reports: The FAA says these "powered-lift" vehicles will be the first completely new category of aircraft since helicopters were introduced in 1940. These aircraft will be used for a variety of services, including air taxis, cargo delivery, and rescue and retrieval operations. The final rules published today contain guidelines for pilot training as well as operational requirements regarding minimum safe altitudes and visibility. [...] Powered lift includes aircraft described by industry watchers as electric vertical takeoff and landing, or eVTOL. Using tilt rotors, eVTOL aircraft are designed to take off and land vertically like a helicopter and then transition into forward flight on fixed wings like a plane.

[...] A new pilot training and qualifications rule was needed because "existing regulations did not address this new category of aircraft, which can take off and land vertically like a helicopter and fly like an airplane during cruise flight," the FAA said. The rule also provides a "comprehensive framework" for certifying the initial group of powered-lift instructors and pilots. According to the agency, the rule would: "Makes changes to numerous existing regulations and establishes a Special Federal Aviation Regulation (SFAR) with new requirements to facilitate instructor and pilot certification and training. Applies helicopter operating requirements to some phases of flight and adopts a performance-based approach to certain operating rules. Allows pilots to train in powered-lift with a single set of flight controls; legacy rules require two flight controls -- one for the student and one for the instructor." "The regulation published today will ensure the U.S. continues to play a global leadership role in the development and adoption of clean flight," said JoeBen Bevirt, founder and CEO of Joby, in a statement. "Delivering the rules ahead of schedule is testament to the dedication, coordination and hard work of the rulemaking team."

An anonymous reader shares a post: EVs are still winning. But they haven't won yet; only 4% of the global passenger car fleet, 23% of the bus fleet, and less than 1% of delivery trucks are electrified.

But at this point I think the writing is on the wall. The phenomenon of a superior technology displacing an older, inferior technology is not uncommon, and it generally looks like the EV transition is looking now. When a new technology passes a 5% adoption rate, it almost never turns out to be inferior to what came before; with EVs, that threshold has now been reached in dozens of countries.

In fact, we don't have to rely on trend-based forecasting to understand why EVs are just going to win. There are a number of fundamental factors that make EVs simply better than combustion vehicles. The longer time goes on, the more these inherent advantages will make themselves felt in the market.

The first of these is price. Currently, EVs often require government subsidies in order to be price-competitive with combustion cars. But batteries are getting cheaper and cheaper as we get better and better at building them. The cheaper batteries get, the smaller the subsidies required to get people to switch to EVs. Goldman Sachs reports that this crucial tipping point will be reached in about two years:

[...] Once batteries cross that tipping point, the EV revolution will take on its own momentum. It will simply be cheaper to buy an EV than a combustion car. People will gravitate toward the cheaper option, especially if it comes with other advantages. And in this case it does.

EVs' second advantage is convenience. Most EV owners will almost never have to fill their cars up at a station. This is because they will charge their cars at night, in their own home garages or driveway.

"Several of Europe's biggest carmakers unveiled low-cost electric vehicles at the Paris Motor Show this week," reports CNBC. The automakers are "seeking to jump-start a demand slump and recapture some of the market share now held by Chinese brands." "It feels like Europe is fighting back," Julia Poliscanova, senior director for vehicles and e-mobility supply chains at the Transport & Environment campaign group, told CNBC at the Paris Motor Show. "There are so many new models on show, and what is really great is that there are a lot of launches that are more affordable. So, Citroen, Peugeot [and] Renault, they are all showing some smaller affordable models," Poliscanova said. "This is exactly what we need for the mass market, for people to buy those vehicles more, and this is also where the competition from the Chinese is also the hardest," she added...

"The storytelling is that people have cooled off on EVs and there is no consumer demand, [but] this is really not true," Transport & Environment's Poliscanova said. "This year in Europe, we did not have affordable models, so people are not buying those overpriced premium vehicles. However, as soon as vehicles come in the right price range next year ... people will flock to buy them." Poliscanova said the launch of several low-cost EVs means electric car sales could account for up to a 24% market share next year, up from 14% this year. Chinese-made EVs typically cost less than half the prices seen in Europe and the U.S. last year, according to figures published by data firm JATO, underscoring the challenge for Western automakers to keep pace with Beijing...

Pere Brugal, president and managing director of GM Europe, said that the challenges facing Europe's auto industry should be seen as a transitional phase — and not evidence of a crisis. "The adoption of new technologies and new behaviors is never a linear growth story, but the end is full-electric [vehicles]," Brugal told CNBC at the Paris Motor Show.
Meanwhile, GM's CEO "says it will start making money on battery-powered models by the end of the year — becoming the only U.S. automaker aside from Tesla to achieve that feat," reports the New York Times (adding that sales are increasing "and the company just introduced a model that sells for less than $30,000 after a federal tax credit.")

And GM "is still committed to doing away with combustion engine cars in the United States by 2035."

A California oil refinery that produces 8% of the state's gasoline is shutting down late next year — a decision the Los Angeles Times says is "driven by climate change, the transition to electric vehicles and demands for cleaner air."

"There's no question we are going to lose refineries over time, because demand is going to go down as we transition to electric vehicles, but I did not expect to see any of them exiting this quickly," said Severin Borenstein, faculty director of the Energy Institute at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business. California "over the medium term" will have to rely more on imports, he said. "I think part of the response the state's going to need to consider is how to make sure that we can import sufficient gasoline to meet our needs...."

David Hackett, chairman of Stillwater Associates, an Irvine oil consultancy, said he was contacted by Phillips just before the announcement, and was told the closure was a business decision. He said that although the timing was somewhat surprising, the closure wasn't, given the age of the refineries, their relatively small size and the inefficient layout that connects them by a pipeline. "That plant has been for sale for years. It hasn't found any buyers and I think that this has been an economic decision on their part. They looked at the profitability of the place and compared it with the other businesses that they have, and it didn't make the cut," he said.
"The closure is likely to increase California's already high prices at the gas pump, given that much of the replacement gasoline will be shipped in by ocean vessel, analysts say..." according to another article from the Los Angeles Times.

"Environmentalists and community activists cheered the news, however, saying it will mean cleaner air for the thousands who live in the area and that the state must continue the transition away from its dependence on fossil fuels."

An anonymous readed shared this report from CNN: [U.S. army boats] are poorly maintained and largely unprepared to meet the military's growing mission in the Pacific, a new government oversight report said this week. The Government Accountability Office released a report on Wednesday that concluded there are "wide-ranging" issues facing Army watercraft, which limit the Army's ability "to meet mission requirements in the Indo-Pacific theater where the need for Army watercraft is most pronounced."

Despite Army policy requiring the vessels to be at least at a 90% mission capable rate — meaning the vessels are ready to perform their mission — the boats currently have a less than 40% capable rate this year. Overall, the fleet of watercraft has dropped by nearly half since 2018, going from 134 vessels to 70 as of May this year, in part due to divestment of vessels in 2018 and 2019... "Army boats have not been ready, capable, or in a mindset they'll have to do something dangerous or in the real world ... for decades now," a retired warrant officer and former chief engineer on Army watercraft told CNN at the time...

[Army spokeswoman Cynthia Smith] said that the Army is "actively" working to address gaps in the watercraft's capability as a whole, and prioritizing improving the current fleet while also "investing in a modernized fleet to meet the needs of the 2040 force." Col. Dave Butler, a spokesman for Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George, told CNN that the Army is also looking at possibly replacing the existing fleet of Army watercraft with autonomous vessels in the future. "What we see is the oil industry and other shipping industries are doing this already, we see that happening all around the world," Butler said. "There's no reason the Army shouldn't be thinking that way ... leaders from down at ship level all the way to the Pentagon are looking at this and determining the best way to deploy our forces...

"Maybe the future fleet is all autonomous, we just don't know," he said. "This is all stuff we're looking at in terms of trying to modernize the way we move people, weapons, and equipment."
CNN notes that the report "also said the Army is considering leasing civilian watercraft to bolster its existing fleet and moving all of its watercraft to the Pacific."

The report also included a response from Army Secretary Wormuth, who said the Army is "actively pursuing a holistic approach to mitigate the gaps in Army watercraft capability and capacity."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Global sales of fully electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles rose by an annual 30.5% in September, as China surpassed its record numbers recorded in August and Europe resumed growth, market research firm Rho Motion said on Tuesday. Gains in the U.S. market have been slow and steady in anticipation of the Nov. 5 election, which makes it difficult to predict future trends in the country, data manager Charles Lester told Reuters. EVs -- whether fully electric (BEV) or plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) -- sold worldwide reached 1.69 million in September, Rho Motion data showed.

Sales in China jumped 47.9% in September and reached 1.12 million vehicles, while in the United States and Canada they were up 4.3% to 0.15 million. In Europe, EV sales rose 4.2% to 0.3 million units, thanks to a 24% jump in the United Kingdom and gains in Italy, Germany and Denmark, Lester said. In the Chinese market, the penetration rate of BEV and PHEV is growing faster than some expected and sales "could be a record every month until the end of the year", Lester said. He added that Germany's 7% year-on-year growth was "definitely positive news", and that intermediate carbon emission reduction goals set in the EU for next year will test the bloc's market.

America's electric vehicle subsidies brought a 2-to-1 return on investment, according to a paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research. "That includes environmental benefits, but mostly reflects a shift of profits to the United States," reports the New York Times. "Before the climate law, tax credits were mainly used to buy foreign-made cars." "What the [subsidy legislation] did was swing the pendulum the other way, and heavily subsidized American carmakers," said Felix Tintelnot, an associate professor of economics at Duke University who was a co-author of the paper. Those benefits were undermined, however, by a loophole allowing dealers to apply the subsidy to leases of foreign-made electric vehicles. The provision sends profits to non-American companies, and since those foreign-made vehicles are on average heavier and less efficient, they impose more environmental and road-safety costs. Also, the researchers estimated that for every additional electric vehicle the new tax credits put on the road, about three other electric vehicle buyers would have made the purchases even without a $7,500 credit. That dilutes the effectiveness of the subsidies, which are forecast to cost as much as $390 billion through 2031.
The chief economist at Cox Automotive (which provided some of the data) tells the Times that "we could do better", but adds that the subsidies were "worth the money invested". But of course, that depends partly on how benefits were calculated: [U]ing the Environmental Protection Agency's "social cost of carbon" metric, they calculated the dollar cost of each model's lifetime carbon emissions from both manufacturing and driving. On average, emissions by gas-powered vehicles impose 57% greater costs than electric vehicles. The study then calculated harms from air pollution other than greenhouse gases — smog, for example. That's where electric vehicles start to perform relatively poorly, since generating the electricity for them still creates pollution. Those harms will probably fade as more wind and solar energy comes online, but they are significant. Finally, the authors added the road deaths associated with heavier cars. Batteries are heavy, so electric vehicles — especially the largest — are likelier to kill people in crashes.

Totaling these costs and then subtracting fiscal benefits through gas taxes and electricity bills, electric vehicles impose $16,003 in net harms, the authors said, while gas vehicles impose $19,239. But the range is wide, with the largest electric vehicles far outpacing many internal combustion cars.
By this methodology, a large electric pickup like the Rivian imposes three times the harms of a Prius, according to one of the study's co-authors (a Stanford professor of global environmental). And yet "we are subsidizing the Rivian and not the Prius..."

The Wall Street Journal reports on a "suspicious fleet of unidentified aircraft... as many as a dozen or more" that appeared in Virginia 10 months ago "over an area that includes the home base for the Navy's SEAL Team Six and Naval Station Norfolk, the world's largest naval port." The article notes this was just 10 months after the U.S. shot down a Chinese spy balloon...

After watching the drones — some "roughly 20 feet long and flying at more than 100 miles an hour" — there were weeks of meetings where "Officials from agencies including the Defense Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Pentagon's UFO office joined outside experts to throw out possible explanations as well as ideas about how to respond..." Federal law prohibits the military from shooting down drones near military bases in the U.S. unless they pose an imminent threat. Aerial snooping doesn't qualify, though some lawmakers hope to give the military greater leeway...

Drone incursions into restricted airspace was already worrying national-security officials. Two months earlier, in October 2023, five drones flew over a government site used for nuclear-weapons experiments. The Energy Department's Nevada Nuclear Security Site outside Las Vegas detected four of the drones over three days. Employees spotted a fifth. U.S. officials said they didn't know who operated the drones in Nevada, a previously unreported incursion, or for what reason. A spokeswoman said the facility has since upgraded a system to detect and counter drones...

Over 17 days, the [Virginia] drones arrived at dusk, flew off and circled back... They also were nearly impossible to track, vanishing each night despite a wealth of resources deployed to catch them. Gen. Glen VanHerck, at the time commander of the U.S. Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command, said drones had for years been spotted flying around defense installations. But the nightly drone swarms over Langley [Air Force base], he said, were unlike any past incursion...

Analysts learned that the smaller quadcopters didn't use the usual frequency band available for off-the-shelf commercial drones — more evidence that the drone operators weren't hobbyists.
"Langley officials canceled nighttime training missions, worried about potential collisions with the drone swarm, and moved the F-22 jet fighters to another base... On December 23, the drones made their last visit."

But toward the end of the article, it notes that "In January, authorities found a clue they hoped would crack the case." It was a student at the University of Minnesota named Fengyun Shi — who was reported flying a drone on a rainy morning near a Virginia shipyard that builds nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers. Their drone got stuck in a tree, and ended up with federal investigators who found "Shi had photographed Navy vessels in dry dock, including shots taken around midnight. Some were under construction at the nearby shipyard." On Jan. 18, federal agents arrested Shi as he was about to board a flight to China on a one-way ticket. Shi told FBI agents he was a ship enthusiast and hadn't realized his drone crossed into restricted airspace. Investigators weren't convinced. but found no evidence linking him to the Chinese government. They learned he had bought the drone on sale at a Costco in San Francisco the day before he traveled to Norfolk. U.S. prosecutors charged Shi with unlawfully taking photos of classified naval installations, the first case involving a drone under a provision of U.S. espionage law. The 26-year-old Chinese national pleaded guilty and appeared in federal court in Norfolk on Oct. 2 for sentencing. Magistrate Judge Lawrence Leonard said he didn't believe Shi's story — that he had been on vacation and was flying drones in the middle of the night for fun. "There's significant holes," the judge said in court.

"If he was a foreign agent, he would be the worst spy ever known," said Shi's attorney, Shaoming Cheng. "I'm sorry about what happened in Norfolk," Shi said before he was sentenced to six months in federal prison.
But "U.S. officials have yet to determine who flew the Langley drones or why..."

"U.S. officials confirmed this month that more unidentified drone swarms were spotted in recent months near Edwards Air Force Base, north of Los Angeles."

Thursday the Associated Press reported: One of the two companies that manufacture high-purity quartz used for making semiconductors and other high-tech products from mines in a western North Carolina community severely damaged by Hurricane Helene is operating again. Sibelco announced on Thursday that production has restarted at its mining and processing operations in Spruce Pine, located 50 miles (80 kilometers) northeast of Asheville. [Per Wikipedia, its pre-hurricane population was 2,175.] Production and shipments are progressively ramping up to full capacity, the company said in a news release.

"While the road to full recovery for our communities will be long, restarting our operations and resuming shipments to customers are important contributors to rebuilding the local economy," Sibelco CEO Hilmar Rode said... A Spruce Pine council member said recently that an estimated three-quarters of the town has a direct connection to the mines, whether through a job, a job that relies on the mines or a family member who works at the facilities.
An announcement last week from Sibelco attributed its resilience to their long-standing commitment to sustainability, "which includes measures to mitigate the impact of extreme weather events such as Hurricane Helene." Initial assessments indicated their operating facilities sustained only minor damage.

And "the company previously announced that all its employees are safe," Sibelco reaffirmed in its announcement Thursday: Sibelco, with support from its contractors, has been contributing to the local recovery efforts by clearing debris, repairing roads, providing road building materials to the North Carolina Department of Transportation, installing temporary power generators for emergency shelters and local businesses, and working with the town of Spruce Pine to restart water supply to residents.

Additionally, Sibelco has incorporated the Sibelco Spruce Pine Foundation to further support the community's recovery. The company previously announced that it is making an immediate $1 million donation as seed money for the foundation. Anyone interested in learning more or contributing to this initiative should contact the foundation by email or by visiting our website for additional information and donation opportunities.

"Boeing said Friday it will cull 10 percent of its workforce — roughly 17,000 jobs," reports the Washington Post, "as the aviation giant grapples with mounting losses and manufacturing disruptions amid a machinists strike that has dragged into a fifth week." Executives, managers and production employees will be affected by the cuts, chief executive Kelly Ortberg informed employees Friday in a memo. Boeing will also delay the launch of its 777X plane until 2026 due to ongoing challenges, Ortberg wrote... The layoffs add to the pain at Boeing, where a stalemate between the company's largest employee union dovetails with ongoing legal troubles and safety woes. The strike has halted production of some of the company's best-selling jets, further adding to its financial troubles. In the past five years, Boeing has lost more than $25 billion...

"Our business is in a difficult position, and it is hard to overstate the challenges we face together," Ortberg said in the memo. "The state of our business and our future recovery require tough actions...." Now at risk of a downgrade to its credit rating as its circumstances worsen, Boeing has taken other steps to reduce expenses, including imposing a hiring freeze and eliminating unnecessary travel.
"The strike by Boeing machinists is costing the company roughly $1 billion a month, according to estimates from S&P Global..."

At Tesla's "We, Robot" event at Warner Bros. Studios tonight, Elon Musk unveiled the Tesla Cybercab, Robovan, and an updated version of the Optimus robot. Slashdot is at the event capturing photos and getting demos of everything announced. You can follow along on X. Below is a summary of each of the offerings.

Tesla Cybercab: The Tesla Cybercab is a futuristic, fully autonomous robotaxi designed without a steering wheel or pedals, positioned to revolutionize mass transit with extremely low operating costs. It features a sleek design with upward-opening butterfly doors and a compact cabin that seats two passengers. Musk said the Cybercab uses inductive charging instead of a traditional plug-in. "Something we're also doing is and it's really high time we did this is inductive charging. So the robotaxi has no plug it just goes over the inductive charger and charges so yeah, it's kind of how it should be." The vehicle is expected to cost under $30,000. Regulatory approval will be needed before it can go into production, which is projected to begin by 2026 or 2027. Tesla Robovan: The Tesla Robovan is a dustbuster-shaped electric passenger van featuring sliding glass doors, a bright interior, and carriage-style seating for up to 20 passengers. "One of the things we want to do and we've seen this with the CyberTruck is we want to change the look of the roads the future should look like the future," said Musk. Musk also claimed that autonomy will "turn parking lots into parks," as fewer cars will be needed and they won't sit idle for most of the day. Pricing and release details were not disclosed. Tesla Optimus: The updated Tesla Optimus robot is a humanoid designed to handle everyday tasks, such as retrieving packages or serving drinks. Optimus walked on stage and interacted with attendees, though its current capabilities are still limited. Elon Musk envisions the robot as a transformative product, with plans to produce millions of units at a price of around $20,000. "It'll be able to do anything you want. So it can be a teacher, babysit your kids, it can walk your dog, mow your lawn, get the groceries, just be your friend, serve drinks. Whatever you can think of, it will do." Optimus is expected to start performing useful tasks by the end of the year, with broader availability projected by the end of next year. In closing, Musk said: "I think this will be the biggest product ever of any kind. Because I think everyone of the 8 billion people of Earth, I think everyone's going to want their Optimus buddy." Developing...

Days after a hurricane struck America's southeast, Florida's state's fire marshall "confirmed 16 lithium-ion battery fires related to storm surge," according to local news reports. "Officials said six of those fires are associated with electric vehicles and they are working with fire departments statewide to gather more data." (Earlier this year America's federal transportation safety agency estimated that after a 2022 hurricane "about 36 EVs caught on fire. In several instances, the fire erupted while the impacted EVs were being towed on their flatbed trailers.")

But Tuesday, when over 1 million Americans were without electricity, the Atlantic pointed out the other side of the story. "EV owners are using their cars to keep the lights on." When Hurricane Helene knocked out the power in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Friday, Dustin Baker, like many other people across the Southeast, turned to a backup power source. His just happened to be an electric pickup truck. Over the weekend, Baker ran extension cords from the back of his Ford F-150 Lightning, using the truck's battery to keep his refrigerator and freezer running. It worked so well that Baker became an energy Good Samaritan. "I ran another extension cord to my neighbor so they could run two refrigerators they have," he told me.

Americans in hurricane territory have long kept diesel-powered generators as a way of life, but electric cars are a leap forward. An EV, at its most fundamental level, is just a big battery on wheels that can be used to power anything, not only the car itself. Some EVs pack enough juice to power a whole home for several days, or a few appliances for even longer. In the aftermath of Helene, as millions of Americans were left without power, many EV owners did just that. A vet clinic that had lost power used an electric F-150 to keep its medicines cold and continue seeing patients during the blackout. One Tesla Cybertruck owner used his car to power his home after his entire neighborhood lost power.
One Louisiana man just ran cords straight from the outlets in the bed of his Tesla Cybertruck, according to the article. "We were able to run my internet router and TV, [plus] lamps, refrigerator, a window AC unit, and fans, as well as several phone, watch, and laptop chargers." Over the course of about 24 hours, he said, all of this activity ran his Cybertruck battery down from 99 percent to 80 percent...

Bidirectional charging may prove to be the secret weapon that sells electrification to the South, which has generally remained far behind the West and the Northeast in electric-vehicle purchases. If EVs become widely seen as the best option for blackouts, they could entice not just the climate conscious but also the suburban dads in hurricane country with a core belief in prepping for anything. It will take a lot to overcome the widespread distrust of EVs and anxiety about a new technology, but our loathing of power outages just might do the trick.
The article notes that Tesla has confirmed all its electric vehicles will support bidirectional charging by 2025.

Waymo has entered a "multi-year, strategic partnership" with Hyundai to integrate the company's autonomous driving system into the American-made Hyundai Ioniq 5. It's expected to join the Waymo One fleet after road tests starting in late 2025. Carscoops reports: Waymo and Geely joined forces in 2021 to introduce a mobility-focused Zeekr EV. The model was slated to be added to Waymo's fleet of autonomous vehicles and effectively replace their aging Jaguar I-Paces. While that was a solid plan a few years ago, the political climate has changed and China has emerged as America's boogeyman. Just last week, the Biden Administration proposed a new rule that could effectively ban all Chinese cars including models from Buick and Lincoln. [...]

Besides giving Waymo a 'safe' alternative to Zeekr, it sounds like the Ioniq 5 will eventually make up a bulk of the fleet. While that remains unconfirmed, the companies aim to produce the autonomous EVs in a "significant volume over multiple years." The firms also revealed the cars will be delivered with "autonomous-ready modifications like redundant hardware and power doors."

Rivian said it would make fewer electric vehicles this year than it did in 2023, resulting from a parts shortage. From a report: The news came as the company reported third quarter production and delivery numbers that came in below analyst expectations. Rivian says it expects to produce between 47,000 and 49,000 vehicles this year, down from the 57,000 vehicles it originally forecast. That number was flat from the previous year, when the company produced 57,232 vehicles and delivered 50,122. Rivian said the disruption is due to "a shortage of a shared component on the R1 and RCV platforms," referencing the company's R1T and R1S vehicles, as well as its commercial van platform. "This supply shortage impact began in Q3 of this year, has become more acute in recent weeks and continues," the company added.

New submitter ae4ax writes: North American buyers of JuiceBox EVSEs (chargers) received an email today declaring the imminent closure of Enel X Way USA, LLC, the maintainers of the software infrastructure behind their EVSEs. Customer support has already shut down, and apps will be deactivated and removed by October 11, 2024. The company claims economic headwinds from lackluster EV sales and high interest rates as the motivation for the closure. Enel X Way properties outside North America are not affected, they say. "An experienced third-party firm will be appointed to manage the company's affairs and ensure that the closure is handled with the utmost care and professionalism," the company said in a statement. "The appointed firm will be responsible for managing the remaining obligations and communicating directly with customers and partners regarding the closure."

Customers will still be able to charge vehicles but all their connectivity features -- the Enel X Way app and all other Enel e-mobility apps in North America -- will stop working. Commercial charging stations will also lose functionality. "So If you own a JuiceBox, you just got nine days' warning that your home charger can no longer be configured," reports Electrek.

Electrek's Michael Bower, who uses a JuiceBox to charge his Chevy Bolt, said: "I'm disappointed that Enel X Way is removing their apps -- and thus the ability to change the amperage -- for their EVSEs. I live in a condo with a 100A panel, so the ability to lower the amperage from 40 to 32 or 16 was beneficial when charging my EV while drawing power for laundry or the central A/C in the summer. It just shows how 'smart' EVSEs are too reliant on their respective apps."