Tesla Motors announced today they’d (barely) hit their electric car sales target for Q4 2015 and for all of 2015. This was another make-or-break moment for the company. While the Model X launch is not quite as significant as the Model S launch in 2012, launching production of a second…
Ford Motors recently announced two plans that reawaken interest in Ford’s electrification plans. I think most people have forgotten about those plans, because Ford seemingly hasn’t done very much. Except, if you look at the monthly sales figures you see that Ford C-Max Energi and Ford Fusion Energi sales, if taken…
Ford is investing an additional $4.5 billion in electrified vehicle solutions by 2020, including the new Focus Electric with all-new DC fast-charge capability, which delivers 80 percent charge in an estimated 30 minutes and projected 100-mile range The company is adding 13 new electrified vehicles to its product portfolio by…
Earlier this week Nissan unveiled a preview of its autonomous car technology with the Nissan IDS. Now, according to the Daily Kanban website, it’s likely that large chunks of the IDS will make up the 2018 Nissan Leaf. The writer of that piece, Bertel Schmitt, was invited to…
How good is the Tesla Autopilot feature? This feature was rolled out to Tesla Model S owners over the last couple weeks, and marks a large advance towards fully autonomous vehicles. Since then some Model S owners have posted videos of the autopilot system doing amazingly good things, and also…
Yesterday, Nissan unveiled a bold new concept car fulfilling the “zero emissions zero fatalities” promise made a couple years ago. It’s an all-electric car with self driving autonomous features galore. Its story is told with an enticing image gallery and a series of video’s demonstrating usage scenarios that aren’t quite the challenges…
The German press is reporting that a file (dossier) of research data in the Dieselgate (or what the Germans call Abgas-Affäre) investigation has been stolen from the prosecutors office. The Public Prosecutor is investigating this theft, which is disturbing even though it’s described as more of an annoyance because the file only…
General Motors and LG Corp announced today what they describe as an “unprecedented supplier relationship” in which LG Electronics Vehicle Components will supply most of the components of the Chevy Bolt. Car companies like GM tend to proudly manufacture the majority of car components in their own factories. Indeed, while GM turned to…
My, how the mighty have fallen. Consumer Reports today announced it cannot Recommend the Tesla Model S, despite that car being so utterly excellent that it “broke” CR’s ratings system. That is, Consumer Reports twice did a review of the Tesla Model S which awarded the car the highest ranking of…
Tesla Motors is delivering the promised Autopilot mode with an Over-The-Air update scheduled for tomorrow, Oct 15, 2015. Maybe we will look back on October 15 as the first day of the robot dominance of humanity. Maybe this will simply make Tesla’s automobiles that much more attractive, and cement Tesla’s…
Today Volkswagen made the announcement we wanted them to make that will eminently resolve the whole Dieselgate problem. In all the reams of material I’ve written about Volkswagen’s emissions cheating scandal, Dieselgate, the risk to VW’s electric vehicle plans have been screaming in the back of my mind. Will VW be…
http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20130153317 Abstract: An integration assembly for a battery pack mounted between the passenger cabin floor panel of an electric vehicle and the driving surface is provided, the assembly utilizing a multi-layer thermal barrier interposed between the battery pack enclosure and the passenger cabin floor panel, where the multi-layer thermal barrier…
http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.html&r=16&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=PG01&S1=%2820131003.PD.+AND+Google.AS.%29&OS=PD/20131003+AND+AN/Google&RS=%28PD/20131003+AND+AN/Google%29 Abstract Methods and apparatuses for gesture-based controls are disclosed. In one aspect, a method is disclosed that includes maintaining a correlation between a plurality of predetermined gestures, in combination with a plurality of predetermined regions of a vehicle, and a plurality of functions. The method further includes recording…
