Lifeboat Foundation

Panasonic is adding another production line to the massive factory it operates with Tesla in Nevada, an expansion that will increase battery cell capacity by 10%.

The Sparks facility, dubbed Gigafactory 1, is the centerpiece of Tesla’s plan to expand global battery capacity and reduce the cost of electric vehicles. Panasonic has been its most important partner in that project, which, based on a recent agreement, should last until at least 2023.

Tesla and Panasonic initially planned for the Gigafactory to have the capacity to produce 35 gigawatt hours of batteries each year. That goal was achieved with 13 production lines. This latest expansion, which was first reported by the Reno Gazette Journal and confirmed by TechCrunch, will add a fourteenth line.

There are advantages to having a vehicle with instant acceleration. Stop lights become more fun, and occasionally, it’s equally to surprise some high-performance gas cars with a sudden sprint. At times, though, this instant acceleration becomes a safety feature, as recently proven by Tesla owner Daniel Spalding, who avoided a potentially nasty crash by a hair’s breadth thanks to his Model 3’s torque.

Spalding, who has been documenting his ownership experience in his YouTube channel, recently shared a rather tense video that he recorded recently. The video was brief, but it featured something that no driver ever wants to see from the rear — a fast-approaching car that’s not decelerating enough. Usually, incidents like this end up with both cars being damaged significantly. Some drivers and passengers may even get injured.

Fortunately for Spalding, his Model 3 can access its full power when he floors the accelerator. In his video’s description, the Model 3 owner noted that traffic in front of him came to a sudden stop, and as it turned out, the car behind him — what appeared to be an Acura Integra — was clearly not paying attention. When he realized that the car behind him was about to hit him, Spalding floored his Model 3’s accelerator.

Tesla Motors, the all-electric vehicle manufacturer, is known for building popular EVs such as the Model 3, Model S, and upcoming Cybertruck. Tesla says it is developing the hardware and software necessary to power the world’s first self-driving cars. This software costs Tesla owners an additional $8,000 to purchase what it calls the Full Self-Driving Capability suite of features. But do all the features of the Full Self-Driving Capability package work as promised? We explain each feature’s intended use, and show you how they performed in our tests.

UPDATE: After publishing this video, a viewer alerted CR that there was a mismatch at 5:50 between what we described happened with stop sign control–our tester slamming on the brakes after the car missed the stop sign– and what we showed onscreen–the car slamming on the brakes. CR’s testers did experience both scenarios.

Continue reading “Tesla Full Self-Driving Review | Consumer Reports” »

A Tesla Model 3 from China has recently gone where no other Model 3 has gone before. In an epic 5,500 km (3,400-mile) road trip, a white Tesla Model 3 Dual Motor AWD started a long journey from Shenzhen all the way to the base camp of Mt. Everest. What’s more remarkable was that over the long trip, the Tesla owner remarked that he experienced no range anxiety at all, despite his extremely remote destination.

Driving to the base camp of Mt. Everest is no joke, and it is hardly something that is considered relaxing and convenient. Needless to say, any trip that involves one of the highest and most dangerous mountains in the world is not something that is taken lightly. Some who drive to Everest’s base camp even utilize support vehicles just to be on the safe side. The Model 3 owner, for his part, took on the journey alone.

Extremely energy-efficient artificial intelligence is now closer to reality after a study by UCL researchers found a way to improve the accuracy of a brain-inspired computing system.

The system, which uses memristors to create artificial neural networks, is at least 1,000 times more energy efficient than conventional transistor-based AI hardware, but has until now been more prone to error.

Existing AI is extremely energy-intensive — training one AI model can generate 284 tonnes of carbon dioxide, equivalent to the lifetime emissions of five cars. Replacing the transistors that make up all digital devices with memristors, a novel electronic device first built in 2008, could reduce this to a fraction of a tonne of carbon dioxide — equivalent to emissions generated in an afternoon’s drive.

In industry speak, he said it has to have electrical Vertical Take Off and Landing (eVTOL) to be a flying car. According to the Deloitte website, eVTOL vehicles have the potential to improve the future of elevated mobility by moving people and cargo more quickly, quietly, and cost-effectively than traditional helicopters. A separate journal described eVTOL as a new means of transport that can fly like an aircraft and take off and land vertically like a helicopter, “sometimes called personal aerial vehicle.”

Yoeli’s company has two models: the CityHawk and the Falcon XP, both of which weigh more than a ton, not including the passengers.

So how did he get these cars to fly?

The FBI is conducting a probe after a pilot from American Airlines reported a man flying a jetpack above Los Angeles International Airport Sunday night.

“The FBI is aware of the reports by pilots on Sunday and is working to determine what occurred,” a spokesperson told FOX 11 Tuesday.

A second pilot from a separate airline company also reportedly spotted a man using a jetpack as the planes were approaching the airport at around 3,000 feet and 10 miles out for a landing.