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Tesla’s Director of Artificial Intelligence, Andrej Karpathy, says that he believes ‘Tesla Bot’ is “on track to become the most powerful AI development platform.”

Since Tesla AI Day last year, CEO Elon Musk has been slowly pushing the idea that Tesla is becoming more of an AI/robotics company.

Musk has been boasting about the company’s AI talent, led by Director of Artificial Intelligence, Andrej Karpathy, and believes that the company is in the best position to make advancements in AI due to the real-world applications in its vehicles.

Next stop? Mass production.

With that in mind, we asked Zajac how he believed the AirCar will compete with the oncoming surge of eVTOL aircraft: “AirCar is a completely different category of vehicle,” Zajac replied. “Whereas AirCar is fully taking advantage of the aerodynamic forces during flight and the lifting force is generated by fixed wings and [its] lifting body, the VTOLs are [essentially] helicopters. As a result, VTOL vehicles have low energy efficiency, shorter range, and smaller cruising speeds. I believe both will be used side by side for different purposes.” The question does remain on how many people will be willing to shell out for a flying car that needs access to a runway for takeoff. With Morgan Stanley predicting the flying car sector will be worth $1.5 trillion by 2040 and KleinVision having flight certification under its wings, we may be very close to finding out. has played a central role in the twists and turns of Associate Professor Areg Danagoulian’s life.

Continue reading “A Flying Car Was Officially Cleared to Fly” »

Today, we come across a new video about the Rivian EDV — actually, it’s a pre-production prototype, spotted at a fast-charging station.

The video gives us a good look at the vehicle, although according to the description, the driver was not particularly happy with the recording of the van. The video description says that the “driver wanted to call cops on me.”

Considering some of the details, it appears to be the same type as another early unit seen in December 2021 in Woodhaven (south of Detroit), Michigan.

Until recently, charging your electric vehicle at a public charging station was sort of like a full-time job. Although the charging time varies, the average time required to fully charge an electric vehicle (EV) at those stations is eight hours.

That’s changing — and rapidly, you might say.

On Monday, Starkville Utilities Department announced it will be adding two fast-charging EV stations, one downtown near its office and another near the Starkville Sportsplex.

Long a hub of geothermal power production, a forgotten backwater of Southern California known as the Salton Sea, is a bountiful reservoir of lithium, is being dubbed “Lithium Valley.” The silvery-white metal is now in huge demand as it is used in electric vehicle batteries. Ben Tracy reports.

Each weekday morning, “CBS Mornings co-hosts Gayle King, Tony Dokoupil and Nate Burleson bring you the latest breaking news, smart conversation and in-depth feature reporting. “CBS Mornings” airs weekdays at 7 a.m. on CBS and 8 a.m. ET on CBSN.

Continue reading “California’s ‘Lithium Valley’ on the rise” »

Tesla appears to have finally agreed to walk back one feature of its controversial yoke steering wheel, as it will now provide a regular horn.

When Tesla unveiled the new Model S with the “yoke” butterfly steering wheel, it was controversial. Some were worried about the actual shape of the wheel being problematic, while others were concerned about the lack of drive stalk to choose the drive mode.

As for the former, we thought that the automaker wouldn’t risk bringing the controversial yoke steering wheel to market without a nonlinear steering curve enabled by a steer-by-wire system – especially knowing that Tesla has been developing a steer-by-wire system.

“Penske Truck Leasing and National Grid are among the first companies adding preproduction E-Transit vans to their fleets for a variety of uses, including testing the BlueOval™ Charge Network, America’s largest public charging network, plus depot fleet charging tools that monitor and help manage energy usage,” Ford explained.

Maybe The US Postal Service Will Electrify After All

That brings us to the US Postal Service, owner of a fleet of 231,541 vehicles of various types. USPS expects to roll up to 165,000 new vehicles into the fleet under a 10-year contract signed last spring with the firm Oshkosh Defense, a subsidiary of Oshkosh Corporation.

Solar Electric Vehicle (SEV) startup Aptera Motors, recently shared test footage of the beta version of its upcoming SEV. The SEV prototype was seen on a test track alongside the three alpha versions already unveiled by Aptera. The beta version represents Aptera’s last phase before pre-production and deliveries later this year.

Aptera Motors is a mobility startup based in San Diego, California, that specializes in solar electric vehicles (SEVs). Since this is the second iteration of the company intending to bring its flagship SEV to market, it has been a story we at Electrek have been following for quite some time.

After unveiling its new SEV in late 2020 with the same monicker as the company, Aptera Motors has been quite prudent in keeping the public and its growing list of reservation holders in the know about its progress.

In an attempt to clear the winter roads (and make deicing easier on the environment, vehicles, and infrastructure), cities across the U.S. are exploring rock salt alternatives — and beet juice is one of the most promising.

Ice breaker: Adding salt to water can drop its freezing point below 32 degrees Fahrenheit.

That little quirk of chemistry has proven incredibly useful for driving in winter weather — by dumping rock salt on roads when it snows, we can prevent water on them from freezing (or melt ice that’s formed) until temperatures sink below 15 degrees Fahrenheit.