AI is literally everywhere, so it's not a big surprise to learn that Volkswagen is planning to bring ChatGPT to its vehicles. As part of its CES 2024 announcements, the automaker says that its existing IDA voice assistant will work with ChatGPT across a range of its newer models. VW isn't the first to try this — Mercedes-Benz announced ChatGPT integration in June of last year, so it seems like this is certainly a thing we're all going to have to get used to.

Specifically, VW says that ChatGPT will be enabled in these specific models with the latest generation of the company's infotainment systems: ID.7 (pictured above), ID.4, ID.5, ID.3, the new Volkswagen Tiguan, the new Passat and the new Golf. It'll roll out ChatGPT as as "standard feature" in "many" production vehicles in Q2 of 2024; the company didn't say in which regions, but notes that the feature is only currently "being considered" for the US market.

As for what it can do, it sounds like ChatGPT will be used to enhance the existing capabilities of VW's voice assistant as well as offer some new conversational tricks. VW notes how its assistant can already do things like control the infotainment system, navigation, climate control and other such features. With the addition of ChatGPT, VW envisions interactions with more intuitive, back-and-forth language. That's something we're seeing from companies like Google and Amazon as they explore how to enhance Google Assistant and Alexa, so the same may apply here. VW's press release specifically cites "enriching conversations, clearing up questions, interacting in intuitive language, receiving vehicle-specific information" as things that ChatGPT can enable. 

One good thing is that this will all be built into the car without the need for a driver to really set anything up. As you can now, you'll activate the voice assistant — and if the car's standard system can't adequately answer the query, it'll anonymously send it to ChatGPT. The company stresses that ChatGPT doesn't get any information about the vehicle and questions and answers are deleted immediately. 

I'll admit that I was initially skeptical of how something like ChatGPT could be used in a car — but if it can in fact better understand and answer queries that are important when you're behind the wheel, I'm willing to give it a shot. VW didn't say if it would have any demos of this new tech at CES this year, but we'll be looking to see if we can experience it for ourselves. 

We're reporting live from CES 2024 in Las Vegas from January 6-12. Keep up with all the latest news from the show here.

Microsoft Teams is finally coming to Android Auto — an app that allows Android phones to connect to the car’s pre-existing infotainment system — next month, nearly a year after being announced by Google at I/O 2023. This is according to a Microsoft 365 roadmap that details future releases.

While the app launches in February, we still don’t have too many details regarding how it’ll be used. Microsoft has stated that you’ll be able to “join meetings and make calls” from the calendar view. There’s no information as to whether or not it’ll integrate with messages from the service or engage in some of the other Teams-specific features, like file and data collaboration. Of course, driving down a highway is probably not the best time to be fiddling with random work files.

Neither Microsoft or Google have offered up any information as to why Teams took so long to release for Android Auto. Google also announced Android Auto integration for Zoom and Webex at I/O 2023. Both software suites launched on the platform back in September. Android Auto also recently got apps by The Weather Channel and YouTube. The platform even offers games for passengers or when the car is parked, including a version of Solitaire and a simple racing game called Beach Buggy Racing 2.

Google says Android Auto currently integrates with 200 million cars, so the addition of Microsoft Teams is certainly a welcome one. Meanwhile, the company has also suggested that the adoption rate of Android Automotive — the similarly named but distinct product which is, unlike the Android Auto app, a full-fledge infotainment operating system — has exploded in the past year, as automobile manufacturers have begun to phase out internal infotainment systems in favor of Google’s operating system. Companies like Chevrolet, Volvo, Polestar, Honda, Renault and even GM have all announced the adoption of Google’s platform.

Tesla has lowered range estimates for two Model Y vehicles, the Model Y Long Range and the Model Y Performance, by six percent. This brings the range of the Model Y Long Range down to 310 miles from 330 miles and the Model Y Performance to 285 miles from 303 miles. The recently-launched and budget-friendly Model Y Rear-Wheel Drive was not affected and retains its 260-mile range rating, according to reporting by Electrek.

Tesla

There’s no official reason why Tesla lowered the range estimates, but it’s long been something of an open secret in the industry that the company tends to exaggerate these metrics. As a matter of fact, South Korea issued a hefty fine to the company for just that reason. There have also been accusations that Tesla keeps a “diversion team” on staff to cancel or minimize range-related service complaints.

In other words, the company likely made this move so its range estimates more accurately reflect reality and not some pie-in-the-sky thinking. It’s not that the old estimates were flat-out lies. The range calculations just assumed perfect weather conditions with a perfect driver operating the vehicle with maximum efficiency. In the real world, that’s very rarely the case.

The EPA conducts many of these tests and acknowledges that the pristine driving conditions will very rarely match up to real-life variables. To that end, the agency gives manufacturers some leeway with raising or lowering range estimates after conducting their own tests. Many manufacturers choose to voluntarily lower the range estimate to better match driver expectations. It looks like Tesla went in the other direction.

Even Tesla’s algorithms acknowledge these inaccuracies. If you fully charge a Model Y and set a destination that’s 260 miles away, the navigation algorithm will automatically route you through a Supercharger, as indicated by Electrek. If the range was truly, say, 330 miles, it wouldn’t have to do that.

For now, these changes only apply to the Long Range and Performance Model Y releases. We don’t know if Tesla’s other vehicles will get revised range estimates. The company doesn’t have a PR/communications department, in typical Elon Musk fashion, so there’s not really anyone to reach out to for more information.

Tesla is recalling 1.62 million vehicles in China over the same Autopilot safety issue that forced it to upgrade two million vehicles in the US. As before, fixes will be done will be via free over-the-air (OTA) updates to add features that ensure drivers pay attention while using Tesla's driver assistance system. It affects nearly every Tesla ever sold in the country, including imported Model S and Model X vehicles along with Model 3 and Model Y EVs made in China. 

According to China's State Administration for Market Regulations (SAMR), drivers may "misuse the level 2 combined driving assistance function, increase the risk of vehicle collision and posing safety risks." Like in the US, the OTA update will incorporate additional controls and alerts that encourage drivers to continue monitoring the vehicle when Tesla's Autosteer function is engaged. 

Tesla is also recalling 7,538 imported Model S and Model X vehicles to fix a problem that may prevent doors from unlocking in the event of a collision — an issue also addressed earlier in the US. That recall will be done via an OTA update as well, with no need for customers to go to Tesla stores.

Stateside, the NHTSA has kept its investigation into Autopilot safety controls open as it monitors Tesla's fixes. The regulator said last August that it was opening an investigation into Autopilot following 11 crashes with parked first responder vehicles since 2018 that resulted in 17 injuries and one death. In a letter to Tesla sent shortly afterward, the regulator requested detailed documentation on Autopilot to know how it ensures that human drivers will keep their eyes on the road while Autopilot is engaged and whether there are limits on where it can be used.

Earlier this week, Tesla said that it delivered a record 1.8 million EVs around the world. Over half of those (944,779 EVs) were sold in China, making it the company's biggest market by far. Tesla's Shanghai plant can produce up to 1.1 million Model 3 and Model Y cars a year for the Chinese market and exports to Europe, Australia and New Zealand. 

Reuters published an explosive investigative report Wednesday chronicling Tesla's alleged patterns of deliberate neglect and shifting blame onto customers for parts failures. The damning exposé accounts the Elon Musk-led company’s alleged long-running tendency to claim vehicle owners had engaged in “driver abuse,” charging them for repairs over failures caused by parts the company discussed internally as being flawed. The issues are often related to suspension and steering. Externally, Tesla’s portrayal of the problems has ranged from flat-out denial to partial acknowledgment.

Several accounts in the story document Tesla owners who were told their car's issues stemmed from prior damage or driver abuse. In some cases, they had just bought the vehicles:

One of the drivers Reuters interviewed, Shreyansh Jain, suffered a suspension collapse in a 2023 Tesla Model Y he had owned for less than 24 hours. When the automaker told him a lower control arm separating from the steering knuckle caused the failure, he expected Tesla to cover the repairs. A service rep who inspected the car said they found “no evidence of any external damage,” as revealed in a text message. 

About a week later, Tesla sent a letter to Jain, skirting blame and citing “a prior external influenced damage to the front-right suspension” as the cause.

Jain said he was the only person to have driven the car on its first day of ownership, and he hadn’t had an accident before the suspension failed. “I was like, ‘Bloody hell, how can metal just snap like that when I know for sure the car has not hit anything?’” he said to Reuters. Three months later, the repairs were complete, and Jain paid a $1,250 deductible (with his insurance covering the rest). He says his rates then spiked dramatically on another car he owned.

Tesla

Cincinnati surgeon Trace Curry paid $110,000 for a 2016 Tesla Model X. He replaced the SUV’s control arms twice, once covered by warranty and a second time at his expense. After the warranty ran out, Reuters reviewed invoices showing Curry paid around $10,000 for failed suspension and drive-axle parts. Then, in 2018, he replaced the front half shafts (under warranty); he replaced them again (at his own cost) for $1,500.

Reuters’ investigation suggests Tesla knew that many of the parts that required replacing in Curry's Model X — control arms, suspension and front half shafts — had high failure rates.

Andrew Lundeen was driving his wife’s 2018 Model 3 in August when the car’s power steering failed while driving over a speed bump. The Santa Rosa, California, resident told Reuters a Tesla service manager told him a power steering connector had corroded — and attributed it to a car wash, which the employee cited as a known problem.

Lundeed paid $4,400 out of pocket to replace the steering rack and a wiring harness, allegedly thanks to his bold decision to visit a car wash. “This is the only car I’ve ever heard of where a car wash can damage the wiring,” he told the Tesla manager. Lundeed described the employee as saying, “All I can tell you is we’re not a 100-year-old company like GM and Ford. We haven’t worked all the bugs out yet.”

Photo by Roberto Baldwin / Engadget

The investigation also documents Tesla’s can-kicking and inconsistent responses to part recalls in different regions. For example, the company’s engineers identified the aft link, part of the suspension, as having snapped in several incidents while owners drove at low speeds (similar to Jain’s account). A former Tesla employee “with direct knowledge of the matter” told Reuters that between 2016 and 2020, Tesla “resolved” around 400 aft link complaints in China — either through in-warranty repairs or through “goodwill repairs” if they were out-of-warranty.

The Musk-led automaker delayed a recall for four years, only agreeing to one after Chinese regulators applied pressure. The country’s State Administration for Market Regulation described a “risk of accidents” as part of the rationalization.

However, despite global reports of failures, Tesla never recalled the part in the US and Europe. The company told US regulators the problems resulted from “driver abuse.” Reuters also viewed a 2019 “talking points” memo urging service centers to blame “vehicle misuse,” like “hitting a curb or other excessive strong impact,” as the culprit. “Abuse” and “misuse” are conditions in the Musk-led company’s contract, giving the automaker leeway to reject in-warranty repairs for incidents it labels as such.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has been investigating Tesla since 2020 for the fore link (a suspension part) in Model S and X, and it began looking into power steering failures in the 2023 Model 3 and Model Y in July. Reuters’ nearly 5,000-word report is worth a read, especially if you’re a Tesla owner who has paid for repairs out of pocket. The NHTSA will likely find it an equally compelling read.

Volkswagen is the latest automaker to embrace Tesla's North American Charging Standard (NACS) in electric vehicles. Subsidiaries Audi, Porsche and Scout Motors will implement the NACS in their North American EVs starting in 2025 as well.

The VW brands are also looking into providing owners of existing models with adapters so they can tap into Tesla's Supercharger network. There are more than 15,000 Supercharger stations in North America. VW's EVs will be able to charge at those in addition to more than 3,800 DC fast charging outlets run by Electrify America and Electrify Canada.

With so many carmakers adopting the NACS, Tesla's charging solution is becoming a de facto standard. GM, Volvo, Polestar, Mercedes, Honda, BMW, Lucid and others have all pledged to support NACS charging within the next couple of years.

On the other hand, ChargePoint started rolling out support for the NACS across its EV charging network in October. Electrify America plans to offer the NACS connector at its stations by 2025 as well.

TomTom just announced a “fully integrated, AI-powered conversational automotive assistant” which should start popping up in dashboard infotainment platforms in the near-ish future. The company has issued some bold claims for the AI, saying it’ll offer “more sophisticated voice interaction” and allow users to converse naturally to navigate, find stops along a route, control onboard systems, open windows and just about anything else you find yourself doing while driving.

The company, best known for GPS platforms, partnered up with Microsoft to develop this AI assistant. The technology leverages OpenAI’s large language models, in addition to Microsoft products like Azure Cosmos DB and Azure Cognitive Services. Cosmos DB is a multi-model database and Cognitive Services is a set of APIs for use in AI applications, so this should be a capable assistant that draws from the latest advancements. 

TomTom promises that the voice assistant will integrate into a variety of interfaces offered by major automobile manufacturers, stating that the auto company will retain ownership of its branding. So this could start showing up in cars from a wide variety of makers. The company hasn’t announced any definitive partnerships with known vehicle manufacturers, but the technology will be integrated into TomTom’s proprietary Digital Cockpit, an open and modular in-vehicle infotainment platform.

This isn’t the first time a company has tried to stuff an LLM inside of a car. Back in June, Mercedes announced a three-month beta program that incorporated ChatGPT models into select vehicles. This tool also leveraged Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI service. TomTom is showing off the AI at CES in January, so we’ll know more about how it actually works at that point. 

Several years ago, Land Rover announced plans to offer electrified versions of all its vehicle and that process has finally begun. The company teased the Range Rover Electric in a press release and video, promising an 800 volt architecture and all the benefits of a modern EV. At the same time, it'll be just as powerful and capable off-road as its gas-guzzling counterparts.

Apart from some aspirational promises, details are still sparse. To start with, it'll supposedly have "performance comparable to a flagship Range Rover V8 and the all-terrain capability developed in-house by Land Rover experts." That all-terrain capability includes the ability to wade through 850mm of water (2.8 feet), though the current V8-powered 2023 Range Rover already offers 900mm of depth. 

Land Rover

The new model will supposedly be the "quietest and most refined Range Rover ever created," the company said, thanks to "active road noise cancellation configuration and sound design, plus cabin comfort levels enabled by its electric underpinnings." In other words, it'll take advantage of the relatively low noise levels and simplicity of an electric drivetrain, like other luxury EVs.

The new model will be built on Jaguar Land Rover's Modular Longitudinal Architecture (LMA) based on an 800 volt architecture, something that generally supports added charging power, enhanced performance, increased efficiency and weight savings. That, the company says, will help enable "fast-charging on public networks," among other benefits.  

The company is also promising "a seamless electric ownership experience — effortless charging, energy partnerships, software-over-the-air updates and intelligent technology to maximise range." On top of that, the vehicle and and batteries will both be built in the UK in Solihull and Wolverhampton, respectively.

Range, performance and other key specifications, along with full photos of the vehicle are still missing. If you're undeterred by that and swayed by Land Rover's promo video (featuring glimpses of the vehicle, a model in a gold dress wearing green rubber boots, some koi fish and plenty of water), you can now join the waiting list. 

A day earlier than teased, Rockstar has released the first official trailer of Grand Theft Auto VI, the next installment in arguably the biggest AAA game series. As indicated by a recent teaser image, GTA VI will be set in Leonida, Rockstar’s take on Florida, and largely centered on Vice City, the series’ stand in for Miami. Unlike GTA: Vice City’s ’80s flavor, it’s a contemporary world.

The game will have a playable female character for the first time in the modern incarnation of the franchise, and we get swampy areas, inspired by Florida’s National Park, and almost as swampy strip clubs. It is GTA, after all. The game will launch in 2025. Take a look right here.

— Mat Smith

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DJI Osmo Pocket 3 review

Maybe the only vlogging camera you need.

Engadget

It’s a bit niche: a standalone gimbal camera from a company you’ve heard of. DJI’s Osmo Pocket line isn’t for everyone, but the company continues to evolve and hone these portable cameras. Three years after the Pocket 2, the Osmo Pocket 3 has some big improvements, including a large 1-inch sensor that improves image quality significantly, especially in low light. There’s also a bigger screen that flips sideways, plus advanced subject tracking. However, in true 2023 style, it’s more expensive than its predecessor.

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ChatGPT says asking it to repeat words forever violates its terms

The chatbot could reveal personal information when asked to repeat words.

Last week, a team of researchers published a paper showing it could get ChatGPT to inadvertently reveal bits of data, including people’s phone numbers, email addresses and dates of birth it was trained on by asking it to repeat words “forever.” Doing this now is a violation of ChatGPT’s terms of service, according to a report in 404 Media and Engadget’s own testing. There’s no language in OpenAI’s content policy, however, that prohibits users from asking the service to repeat words forever. Under Terms of Use, OpenAI states users may not “use any automated or programmatic method to extract data or output from the Services” — but simply prompting the ChatGPT to repeat word forever is not automation or programmatic.

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The cheapest Tesla car won’t qualify for full federal tax credit from January 1

The rear-wheel-drive Model 3 will only receive half the credit.

Tesla has now announced that two of its models won’t qualify for the full $7,500 federal tax credit as of January 1, 2024. As our sister site TechCrunch pointed out, Tesla’s website currently has a top banner claiming tax credit “reductions likely for certain vehicles in 2024,” urging customers to “take delivery by 12/31” to qualify for the full claim.

According to the IRA (Inflation Reduction Act) rules, vehicles using battery components 50 percent made or assembled in the US qualify for the first half of the tax credit, i.e., $3,750. The cars can only get the remaining half of the credit if their manufacturer sources at least 40 percent of their critical minerals in the US or its free trade partners. China isn’t one of those partners.

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Car manufacturers continue pushing out EVs, and the government keeps offering incentives, but accessing charging stations is still a barrier for many people considering purchasing an EV. To that end, last year, General Motors partnered with Pilot Travel Centers and EVgo to install up to 500 charging stations at Pilot Flying J rest stops, and the first ones are now open. 

Currently, there are 17 charging stations open across 13 states, with GM estimating that number will jump to at least 25 before the end of 2023 — with 100 chargers between them. GM states that "many" stations will include multiple chargers with 350kW (which can be reduced depending on a car's charging needs), around-the-clock access with onsite staff, pull-through charging stations, Plug and Charge compatibility and protective canopies. They will also have typical rest stop amenities, such as restrooms and food, along with free Wi-Fi. 

EV drivers can locate charging stations in a few ways, including the GM vehicle brand, Pilot myRewards Plus and EVgo apps. The myRewards Plus app will have food, drink and merchandise deals for all EV owners. But, starting in Spring 2024, GM customers will also get discounts on charging fees and be able to reserve charging stations ahead of time. 

The 500 total stations should have up to 2,000 charging stalls and connect both urban and rural areas across the United States. While there's no end date for the project's completion, the trio plans to open 200 charging stations by the end of 2024.