In a few short weeks, Rivian will start shipping its first R1T pickup and R1S SUV "Launch Edition" models to consumers. If you’ve been thinking about preordering one of the vehicles, you’ve had to base your decision on internal estimates from the company. No more. The Environmental Protection Agency has published its official range guidelines after testing both the R1S and R1T.

Fitted with Rivian’s 135kWh power pack, the EPA says the R1T can travel 314 miles (approximately 505 kilometers) on a single charge, while the R1S can go 316 miles on a full battery. In 2022, Rivian will offer a “Max” pack the company estimates will provide approximately 400 miles of range per charge. The automaker promised to share more details about its EPA certification soon.

Lyft will cover the legal fees of drivers sued under the state of Texas’ recently enacted SB8 abortion law, the company announced on Friday. The law prohibits women from terminating a pregnancy after six weeks. That’s a time frame before most even know they’re pregnant. Critically, SB8 also allows private citizens to sue anyone who assists a pregnant woman trying to skirt the ban, including rideshare drivers who face the prospect of $10,000 fines.

“This law is incompatible with people’s basic rights to privacy, our community guidelines, the spirit of rideshare and our values as a company,” Lyft said in a blog post. In response to SB8, the company is establishing a legal defense fund it says will cover 100 percent of the legal fees incurred by its drivers. It’s also donating $1 million to Planned Parenthood.

“This is an attack on women’s access to healthcare and on their right to choose,” Lyft CEO and co-founder Logan Green said on Twitter in which he also called other companies to offer the same support. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi responded some 30 minutes later, announcing Uber would follow suit. “Team Uber is in too and will cover legal fees in the same way,” Khosrowshahi said. “Thanks for the push.” The move comes after the US Supreme Court formally denied a request earlier in the week from abortion clinics in the state to freeze the law.

Fans of Neil Gaiman could soon see another of the author’s creations get the TV treatment. According to a report from Variety, WarnerMedia has ordered a pilot for a potential HBO Max series featuring the Dead Boy Detectives. The two characters, Charles Rowland and Edwin Paine, first appeared in issue 25 of Gaiman’s TheSandman comic. They’re ghosts who investigate supernatural crimes.

The interesting thing here is that Rowland and Paine will appear in the upcoming third season of HBO Max’s Doom Patrol. However, Variety reports it’s unclear whether Sebastian Croft and Ty Tennant, the two actors who play Rowland and Paine in Doom Patrol, will also play the detectives in this new pilot. Steve Yockey, best known for his work on The Flight Attendant, is penning the episode’s script.

Following the success of Good Omens, streaming audiences have wanted to see more of Gaiman's unique brand of fantasy. That’s led to an influx of projects linked to the author, including an upcoming Netflix adaptation of The Sandman.

BMW’s Motorrad division has been on something of a roll in recent years, delivering fun and futuristic concept vehicles. Take the CE 04 electric scooter as an example. It looks like the company’s design team pulled the idea straight from Akira or Ghost in the Shell. Its latest project is no different.

Spotted by The Verge, BMW describes the CE 02 as “neither a classic motorcycle nor a scooter.” The company envisions it appealing to young people who may not have ridden a motorcycle before. Like its older sibling, it’s an all-electric vehicle.

BMW

BMW didn’t disclose the capacity of the onboard battery but said the EV can travel about 56 miles on a single charge, while an 11kW belt-drive engine affords it a top speed of 56 miles per hour. With its 15-inch front and rear disc brake wheels included, the entire frame comes in at approximately 264 pounds. This being a concept, you’ll notice in the photos BMW shared there aren’t pedals or footrests for a rider to plant their feet on. What the CE 02 does have is storage space for a skateboard you can use for that purpose instead. Good times.

BMW

BMW hasn’t said whether it plans to manufacture the CE 02. But if the automaker decided to make the electric mini-bike, it could find a more affordable niche under the CE 04, which will go on sale for around $16,000 in 2022.

Working since 2017 with Tokyo’s Waseda University, Nissan says it has developed and recently started testing a new recycling process that represents a more efficient and cost-effective way of recovering rare-earth metals from electric motors.

The process itself involves heating a used motor to 1,400 degrees Celsius (approximately 2,552 degrees Fahrenheit) so that it melts down. The company then adds an iron oxide to the mixture to oxidize the rare-earth metals, followed by a borate-based flux. The latter substance causes the molten mixture to separate into two liquid layers, with the rare-earth metals floating to the top of the mixture where they can be easily removed.

In testing, Nissan claims it’s been able to recover 98 percent of a motor’s rare-earth elements using the new recycling process. The entire procedure also takes about half as much time as manually disassembling a motor, which is what Nissan currently does to recycle rare-earth metals. The company hopes to implement the process by the mid-2020s.

Nissan

If we’re to have any chance to address the climate crisis, finding new and novel ways to recycle and reuse rare-earth metals will be vital. The 17 minerals that make up the rare-earth group are critical to making electric vehicles, solar panels and wind turbines. A 2018 study by the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure found a shortage of rare-earth metals is likely to limit the world’s ability to meet the emission reduction targets set out by the Paris climate agreement.

Since April, we’ve known EA has been working on a standalone mobile version of its popular Battlefield games it plans to release sometime in 2022. This week, the publisher shared new details on the upcoming title.

To start, EA plans to begin beta testing Battlefield Mobile this fall with “a series of smaller playtests" involving players in Indonesia and the Philippines who own Android devices. “As we continue with testing, we’ll expand the size of these tests, [and] add new regions,” the company said over on its community website.

The initial beta test will only feature a single map called Grand Bazaar and the franchise’s signature Conquest game mode. EA promised to share more details about other maps and modes closer to Battlefield Mobile’s 2022 release date. In the meantime, the company confirmed the game would be a free-to-play title that will “only” include cosmetic items. You’ll earn some of those through optional seasonal battle passes. Battlefield Mobile won’t support crossplay between any console or PC versions of the Battlefield franchise since it is “being built specially for mobile.”

If you live in Indonesia or the Philippines, you can pre-register on the Google Play Store to get more information about the upcoming beta tests.

WhatsApp has started rolling out its long-awaited cross-platform chat history transfer feature. First announced at Samsung’s recent Unpacked event, the tool allows you to move your chat history, including any voice memos, photos and videos you may have sent to family and friends, between Android and iOS. The feature is currently only available on Samsung phones running Android 10 and above, though WhatsApp notes it will come to more Android devices “soon.”

You can see the full rundown of how to use the tool on WhatsApp’s website. However, one of the more notable requirements is that you’ll need a Lightning to USB-C cable to connect your two phones together. What’s more, both devices must have the same phone number. Oh, and your Samsung phone must be either brand new or recently factory reset. In short, the process isn’t quite as streamlined as we had hoped, but WhatsApp promises it’s secure and reliable.

When Firaxis announced Marvel’s Midnight Suns last week, the studio’s Jake Solomon promised the game would share “zero mechanics” with XCOM, but said little else about how its gameplay systems would work. Now we have a better idea following a trailer the developer shared on Thursday.

In short, Midnight Suns has more in common with deck-building games like Slay the Spire and Griftlands than XCOM. Battles still unfold over the course of multiple turns, but instead of each hero bringing the same set of abilities to every battle, you’ll have to draw for cards every turn. 

Some grant straightforward attacks, while others allow you to reposition enemies. According to Solomon, battlefield terrain and the positioning of adversaries play a critical role in Midnight Suns since you force your opponents to collide with obstacles and each other to damage them. As you progress through the game, you’ll have the chance to upgrade your cards to make them more powerful and create new synergies between different heroes.

Following the reveal, Firaxis clarified on Twitter you won’t have to buy loot boxes or pay for any other microtransactions to unlock additional cards. However, Midnight Suns will include character skins you can buy, though those don’t affect the balance of the game.

Outside of combat, there’s a hub called the Abbey where your custom-made character, the Hunter, can interact with the other members of the Midnight Suns, including Blade, Doctor Strange and Iron Man. And much like in Nintendo’s Fire Emblem series, that’s something you’ll want to do since it will make them a more effective team on the battlefield.

Midnight Suns Publisher 2K plans to release the game to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PS5, Windows PC, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S in March 2022.

Fujifilm has announced the latest addition to its GFX family of cameras. Body-only, the new GFX 50S II will debut at $3,999, making it the company’s most affordable medium format camera to date. That’s still a lot of cash to put down to get the tonality and micro-contrasts you can only find on a medium format camera, but it’s significantly less than the $5,999 and $5,499 Fujifilm sells the GFX 100S and GFX 50S for at the moment.

Fujifilm

Headline features of the GFX 50S II include a 51.4-megapixel sensor that’s 1.7 times larger than what you’ll find on a full-frame camera like the Sony A7 III, five-axis in-body stabilization Fujifilm claims provides up to 6.5-stops of shake reduction and a body that weighs just under two pounds. According to Fujifilm, the GFX 50S II also features faster and more accurate autofocus than its predecessor thanks to the inclusion of its latest X-Processor 4. In practice, we’ll have to see how quickly the GFX 50S II can acquire a subject since it uses a contrast-detection system, instead of the more modern phase-detect approach, for autofocus.

The GFX 50S II comes with 19 of Fujifilm’s signature film simulations. It also includes the pixel shift multi-shot feature the company introduced at the end of last year in an update to the GFX 100. In the case of the GFX 50S II, it allows you to combine 16 RAW captures into a 200-megapixel DNG file. One other notable feature is the 1.8-inch monochrome display on the top of the camera you can glance at to see your current capture settings. In addition to selling the camera on its own, Fujifilm will bundle the GFX 50S II with a new 35-70mm kit lens for $4,499. Fujifilm says the GFX 50S II should arrive in the US sometime in late October.

Fujifilm

Fujifilm has also refreshed its much-loved X-T30. The new II model features the same 26.4-megapixel X-Trans sensor as its predecessor but comes with more memory for faster performance and an LCD with 1.68 million dots of resolution. It will also include the company’s latest film simulations and firmware. Body-only, Fujifilm will sell the X-T30 II for $899. Lastly, the company added two new f/1.4 primes to its XF lineup. Both the XF23mm R LM WR and XF33mm R LM WR feature weather sealing and will come under $1,000 when they go on sale this fall.

The global semiconductor shortage is about to claim another casualty. Starting on Monday, General Motors will temporarily halt production at all but four of its North American factories due to chip supply constraints. The halt in production will affect many of the automaker’s most profitable vehicles, including the Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra.

“During the downtime, we will repair and ship unfinished vehicles from many impacted plants, including Fort Wayne and Silao, to dealers to help meet the strong customer demand for our products,” a spokesperson for GM told the Detroit Free Press. “Although the situation remains complex and very fluid, we remain confident in our team’s ability to continue finding creative solutions to minimize the impact on our highest-demand and capacity-constrained vehicles.”

This is the second time GM has had to temporarily shut down production due to the global chip shortage. The company announced a similar two-week idle back in April. The shortage has affected nearly every automaker. The same month GM scaled back production, so did Ford, Honda and BMW. It has even affected Tesla, which recently delayed both the Roadster and Semi due to supply constraints. With the shortages expected to continue until at least 2023, and no immediate solutions forthcoming, GM likely won’t be the last company to change its production schedule.