There’s a concern that electrifying supercars will kill their spirit. A breed of vehicle known for massive roars, outrageous designs, and cornering that smooshes your internal organs from side to side while the vehicle sticks to the road.
But electrification is coming and how that’s handled can mean the difference between a vehicle that wins over naysayers or one that fails and gives the gas-or-nothing crowd one more piece of evidence that everything is ruined when a battery is added. McLaren’s Artura is not only an engineering marvel built upon a brand-new architecture; it’s also sure to get everyone on board with the idea of cramming an electric motor into a supercar.
The Artura can do zero to 60 in three seconds. That’s EV fast, and it’s thanks to the supercar’s plug-in hybrid setup. Wedged between a twin-turbo V6 and the 8-speed transmission sits a tiny electric motor that’s powered by a 7.5kWh battery pack. It adds low-end torque at launch and while exiting corners while the gas engine catches up.
On the more environmental side, according to the EPA the Artura can travel 11 miles while in EV-only mode. McLaren noted that it could get up to 15 with more surface street driving. It’s not in the league of the other PHEVs on the market, which offer ranges above 30 miles per charge. Remember though, it’s a supercar with all the joy and excitement that comes with that package.
We got a chance to try it out on the roads around Las Vegas, Nevada, and ended the day with 14 laps around a track. In both situations, it impressed. Watch the video below for the full story.
Jeep's first foray into electrified vehicles hasn't gone quite as smoothly as planned. The brand has recalled 62,909 Wrangler 4xe off-roaders over a fault that leads to unexpected shutdowns of the 2.0L plug-in hybrid engine. The powerplant may switch off when the diagnostic system reacts to a loss of communication, possibly leading to a crash if the failure occurs mid-drive.
The flaw affects Wrangler 4xe variants from the 2021 through to 2023 model year vehicles produced before August 17th, 2022, when Jeep started shipping units with updated control software. The National Highway Traffic Safety Association (NHTSA) says there have been two crashes and one injury potentially linked to the problem, as well as customer assistance instances, warranty claims and field reports.
Jeep will fix the affected Wranglers by updating calibration software for their hybrid control and transmission processors. It expects to formally notify owners starting January 12th. The NHTSA started investigating reports as early as September 2021, but it wasn't until November this year that the investigation wrapped and Jeep's parent Stellantis decided to launch a voluntary recall.
The glitch is unlikely to represent a major setback to Jeep's electric vehicle push. However, the timing is less than ideal. It comes just a few months after Jeep unveiled Grand Cherokee and Wrangler Willy PHEV models, and previewed its all-electric Avenger SUV. The Stellantis-owned badge is just now trying to establish its EV reputation, and a recall won't help matters.
GM has installed its first Level 2 charging stations in Wisconsin and Detroit as part of a community charging initiative unveiled last year. A dealership in Marshfield, Wisconsin put up stations at locations including parks, a library and a sports complex, while another installed them at a healthcare/wellness center in Owosso, Michigan. The aim is to help dealers install up to 40,000 chargers in community locations (including underserved rural and urban areas) across the US and Canada.
"Nearly 90 percent of the U.S. population lives within 10 miles of a GM dealership. Our dealers are... well positioned to determine locations that expand access to EV charging, including at small businesses, entertainment venues, schools and other popular destinations,” said GM VP Hoss Hassani.
GM originally said it would offer a mix of 11.5kW and 19.2kW chargers, but it now says it will give dealers up to ten 19.2kW chargers that deliver "the most power available to a Level 2 charger." Those can be placed at "key locations" in neighborhoods, such as apartments, colleges and businesses. Crucially, the units won't be limited to GM drivers, so EVs from other brands can use them as well.
GM selected Canadian manufacturer FLO as the charging station provider, with manufacturing to take place at FLO's Auburn Hills, Michigan facility. While not nearly as quick as fast chargers, the 19.2kW 80-amp stations could get you from a 20 to 80 percent charge in under three hours — not bad if you're spending time at a library or park, for instance. Last year, GM said the chargers would be available to buy through dealers for home use, but it didn't mention that option in its latest press release.
Earlier this year, GM also unveiled plans for a coast-to-coast fast-charging network with 2,000 350kW chargers across 500 stations. It eventually plans to expand Ultium Charge 360 access to over 100,000 charge points across North America. Its current EV lineup includes the BrightDrop electric delivery vans, Cadillac Lyric and Celestiq, GMC Hummer and Sierra EVs, Chevrolet Blazer and Equinox EVs and the Bolt lineup. In an interesting twist, GM recently revealed that it has serviced over 11,000 Tesla EVs since last year.
Apple isn't done scaling back its plans for an electric car, apparently. Bloombergsources say the EV, codenamed Project Titan, is no longer a fully self-driving machine. It will reportedly have a conventional wheel and pedals, and will 'only' drive itself on highways. The company has also pushed the launch back by a year to 2026, the tipsters claim.
The rumored vehicle will supposedly offer enough autonomy that you can play games or watch video on the highway, but ask you to take control when it's time to drive on city streets or through adverse weather. Apple may debut the hands-free tech in North America at first and expand access "over time," the insiders add.
Apple has already declined comment. Titan has been in development for years, and has suffered numerous setbacks as well as major strategy shifts. The tech firm may have had doubts as early as 2015, and was said to have scuttled the vehicle in 2016 in favor of a licensed self-driving platform. Executive shuffles and layoffs didn't help, either. While the company did return to making a full-fledged vehicle, according to rumors, it had little success courting production help from brands like Hyundai.
More modest ambitions wouldn't be surprising. Full Level 5 autonomy (where a vehicle can drive itself in any circumstance) still isn't a practical reality, and even Waymo's robotaxis are only allowed to operate in good weather in California. There's also the question of legal permissions. While states are increasingly receptive to self-driving cars, there isn't yet a framework that would let the general public use completely autonomous vehicles. Even if Apple solved all the technical challenges, it couldn't realistically sell a truly hands-off car any time soon.
A switch to a semi-autonomous design could lead to fiercer competition. While Tesla has long been considered Apple's main rival, the EV market has grown rapidly in recent years. Brands like Ford, Hyundai, Volkswagen and Rivian have all made capable electric rides. Apple would be entering a crowded field, and there's no guarantee the company will stand out.
DHL is turning to Ford for help to electrify 60 percent of its delivery fleet by the end of the decade. On Monday, the automaker’s Pro division announced it would supply the logistics company with 2,000 E-Transit electric vans by the end of 2023. The order is part of a €7 billion investment DHL has set aside through the end of the decade to build a zero-emissions fleet. Ford notes it has already delivered some of the vans covered by the deal to DHL, and that the vehicles are handling express deliveries throughout Europe and the Americas.
While 2,000 vehicles is a drop in the ocean for a company like DHL (the company already has 27,000 EVs in its fleet), the door is open for Ford to provide DHL with more E-Transit vans. The memorandum of understanding the two signed will see Ford grant DHL access to test vehicles. They also plan to work together on new products and charging solutions. Ford isn’t the only company providing electric vans to some of the biggest parcel delivery firms on the planet. In 2019, for instance, Amazon announced it would buy 100,000 EVs from Rivian.
The holiday travel season is once again upon us! It's the magical time of the year that combines standing in airport security lines with incrementally losing your mind as the hands of your watch perpetually tick closer to a boarding time that magically moved up 45 minutes since you left the house and the goober in front of you is in the year of our lord 2022 still somehow confused about why we have to take our shoes off in security and goddamit dude stop arguing with the TSA and untie your laces already these tickets are nonrefundable.
Ai can help fix this. It can perhaps even give regular folks a taste of the effortless airport experience that more well-heeled travelers enjoy — the private jet set who don't ever have to worry about departure times or security lines like the rest of us schmucks stuck flying Spirit.
In their latest book POWER AND PREDICTION: The Disruptive Economics of Artificial Intelligence, University of Toronto economists and professors Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans, and Avi Goldfarb examine the foundational impact that AI/ML systems have on human decision making as we increasingly rely on automation and big data predictions. In the excerpt below, they posit what the airports of tomorrow might look like if AI eliminates traffic congestion and security delays.
Before considering the threat AI prediction may pose to airports, as with everything, there is an alternative system that can show us what the other side looks like. One example is the alternative universe of the very, very wealthy. They don’t fly commercial and so have no occasion to deal with either the old or newly designed public airport terminals. Instead, they fly privately and go through private terminals. Normally, glitz, glamour, nice restaurants, and art galleries are going to be where the very rich are. But in the world of airports, private terminals are positively spartan.
The reason there is no investment in making private terminals better places is that the very uncertainty that plagues the rest of us doesn’t plague the rich. With a commercial plane, you are tied to a schedule, and those planes will leave late passengers behind. With a private plane, the schedule is more flexible or even nonexistent. If the passengers aren’t there, the plane doesn’t leave until they arrive. If the passengers are there earlier, the plane leaves then. The whole system is designed so there is no waiting—at least, on the part of the passengers. No waiting means no need to invest in making waiting more pleasant. At the same time, the rich don’t have rules about when they need to leave for the airport. They leave when they want. If more people could have that experience, then surely the optimal terminal would be more spartan than cathedral.
You don’t have to be rich, however, to see this alternative universe. Instead, just compare the world on the other side of the arrival gates to those at departure. When arrival areas are separated from departure areas, they are spartan. You might find some light food outlets, but everything else is designed to get you out of the airport. The critical issue is how close the taxi and parking facilities are, even though you may not be in a stressful rush. Do you even remember any details of arrivals at your regular airport, other than how best to get out?
The AI Airport Threat
Airports are no strangers to AI. Air traffic control has adopted AI-based systems to better predict aircraft arrivals and congestion. At Eindhoven Airport, a new AI baggage-handling system is being piloted whereby passengers simply photograph their bags, drop them off, and pick them up at their destination—no labels required. Subject to privacy requirements, it hopes to do the same with people. All this will help you get to your flight more quickly.
None of these things, however, hit at the key drivers of uncertainty in your travel to your flight — traffic and security. Change, however, is already here with regard to traffic. Navigational apps such as Waze account for traffic conditions and can reasonably estimate how long it takes to get to any airport based on the time of day. The apps aren’t perfect, but they keep getting better.
The apps free passengers from having rules that tell them how early they need to leave for the airport. Instead, they can add that flight time to their calendar, and an app tells them the best time to depart and schedule their time accordingly. Even better, in the near future, the uncertainty in the actual time a flight leaves will be taken into account. Rather than just telling you when you need to leave based on a scheduled departure, the app will tell you when to leave depending on the flight’s predicted actual departure. Again, there is residual uncertainty, but the leap from having no information to having more precise information could save hours of waiting time. Similarly, many Uber riders who previously thought they wouldn’t care about knowing the predicted arrival time of their taxi now cite that information as one of the most valuable features of the service. Uber uses AI to make that prediction. AI could also predict security line wait times. Put it all together, and you can use the AI to decide when to leave for the airport rather than rely on rules. As with everything, there will be some who leap at this possibility ahead of others. At Incheon and many other airports, waiting isn’t bad anymore, so maybe you don’t need to make an informed decision.
Those developing an AI-driven navigation app or flight departure predictor have no direct interest in the earnings of in-terminal airport activities. However, the value of their AI applications depends critically on how many people do not want to wait at airports. Thus, if airports are currently less costly to wait in, the value of those apps is diminished. The security line prediction is another matter. Airports claim that they want to improve security times and reduce uncertainty. But as economists, we don’t think their incentives are aligned with passengers. Yes, improving security times leaves more time to spend at the facilities past security. But, at the same time, it will reduce uncertainty and cause people to tighten their airport arrival times. Combined with AI that solves the other uncertainty for passengers in getting to the terminal, will the airports want to eliminate the uncertainty under their own control?
Accommodating Rules
Our broader point is not about airports but about rules. Rules arise because it is costly to embrace uncertainty, but they create their own set of problems. The so-called Shirky Principle, put forth by technology writer Clay Shirky, states that “institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.” The same can be said of businesses. If your business is to provide a way to help people when they wait for a plane, what’s the chance you are going to ensure they don’t have to wait for planes?
If you want to find opportunities by creating new AI-enabled decisions, you need to look beyond the guardrails that protect rules from the consequences of uncertainty and target activities that make bearing those costs easier or to reduce the likelihood of bad outcomes that the rules would otherwise have to tolerate.
We can see this in the long-standing protection farmers employ in England — building hedgerows. A hedgerow is a carefully planned set of robust trees and plants that serve as a wall between fields. It is extremely useful if your field is full of farm animals, and you do not want to employ a person to ensure they do not wander off. It is also useful if you do not want heavy rainfall to erode soil too quickly or if you want to protect crops from strong winds. Given all this protection against risky events, we are not surprised that this practice was the origin of the term “hedging,” which evolved to have a broader insurance meaning.
But hedgerows come at a cost. By dividing farmland, they make it impossible to use certain farming techniques — including mechanization — that are only efficient for large swathes of land. After World War II, the British government actually subsidized the removal of hedgerows, although in some cases, that removal was excessive, given their role in risk management. Today, there is a movement to restore hedgerows, led most prominently by the Prince of Wales. In many situations, costly investments are made to cover or shelter a would-be decision-maker from risk. Miles of highways are cocooned with guardrails to prevent cars from going down embankments, hills, or into oncoming traffic. Most are, fortunately, never used, but each allows a road to be built in a way that might have otherwise not been sufficiently safe, given the fallibility of human drivers.
More generally, building codes precisely specify various measures to protect those inside buildings from uncertain events. These include fire, but also damage from weather, weak building foundations, and other natural phenomena like earthquakes.
What these protection measures have in common is that they typically generate what looks like over-engineered solutions. They are designed for a certain set of events — the once-in-a-lifetime storm or the once-in-a-century flood. When those events occur, the engineering seems worthwhile. But, in their absence, there is cause to wonder. For many years, Freakonomics authors Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner pointed out how life vests and rafts on aircraft — not to mention the safety demonstrations of each — appeared wasteful, given that no aircraft had successfully landed on water. Then, in 2009, Captain Sullenberger landed a US Airways plane with no working engines on the Hudson River. Does that one example of a low-probability event make the precautionary life vests worth it? It is hard to know. But we cannot conclude that the absence of a possible outcome causes us to assess the probability of that outcome at zero.
Levitt and Dubner’s main point, however, is that while it is often possible when protection measures are employed to assess the likelihood or change in the likelihood of underlying uncertainty over time, it is not possible to measure whether the investments made to reduce the probability of a consequence are excessive, as the very risk management strategy employed takes away that information. It is entirely possible that too much is wasted on something that, for other reasons, is no longer high risk at all.
Volkswagen's electric car lineup is now mature enough that it's introducing second-generation models — and it appears the company is taking some criticism to heart. VW has teased a redesign of the ID.3 that addresses complaints about the first version while upgrading the technology. The compact EV now sports a "matured" design with a supposedly sharper-looking exterior and higher-quality interior materials. Importantly, it's also more functional — there's a larger 12-inch infotainment display, two cupholders in the center console and a removable luggage compartment floor.
The tech may be the centerpiece. VW stresses the new ID.3 will use the company's "latest" software platform, which boosts the sometimes-sluggish performance and allows for over-the-air updates. It will also reflect feature upgrades that include easier paid EV charging, adaptive lane guidance and parking aids.
Volkswagen
VW won't formally unveil the revamped ID.3 until the spring, and pre-orders placed now won't arrive until the last quarter of 2023 due to "high order volume." However, it's keeping the current starting price of €43,995 (about $43,600) for the Life trim. Business, Style, Max and Tour variants will also be available.
There's no mention of which markets will get the new EV. As before, though, we wouldn't expect a North American ID.3 launch. VW remains focused on crossovers and SUVs like the ID.4 in this market, and its fledgling Chattanooga EV factory will still be ramping up production through 2023. All the same, the second-gen ID.3 will be worth a look as a preview what to expect for revisions of those models that do cross the Atlantic. They may not be complete reinventions, but they should fare better against stiff competition from the likes of Ford and Nissan.
Five years after CEO Elon Musk officially unveiled his Semi, Tesla’s electrified tractor trailer, the company delivered its first official production vehicle to Pepsi on Thursday during its "Semi Delivery Event" held at Tesla's Nevada Gigafactory. The beverage maker has ordered 100 of the vehicles in total.
First shown off in 2017, the Tesla Semi originally was set to retail for $150,000 and $180,000 for the 300- and 500-mile versions, respectively. Those prices are significantly higher than the $60k a standard diesel cab runs but Tesla estimates that its vehicles can operate 20 percent more efficiently (2kWh per mile, Musk revealed Thursday), and save up to $250,000 over the million-mile life of the Semi.
Each rig is “designed like a bullet,” Musk said at the vehicle’s unveiling, and would come equipped with a massive 1MW battery pack. This reportedly offers a 20-second 0-60, which is impressive given that these vehicles are towing up to 80,000 pounds at a time, and a spent-to-80 percent charge time of just 30 minutes. The Semis are also outfitted with Enhanced Autopilot capabilities, as well as jackknife-mitigation systems, blind-spot sensors and data-logging for fleet management.
As reservations opened in 2017, Musk said at the time, deliveries would begin two short years later, in 2019. By April 2020, Tesla had officially pushed that delivery date back to 2021, citing production delays and supply chain issues brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, just two months after that, in May of 2020, Musk sent a company-wide email reading, “It’s time to go all out and bring the Tesla Semi to volume production. It’s been in limited production so far, which has allowed us to improve many aspects of the design,” as seen by CNBC. In the same email he confirmed that production would take place in Tesla’s Nevada Gigafactory.
Cut to July, 2021, and the new delivery date has been pushed again, this time to 2022, citing both the ongoing global processor shortage and its own pandemic-limited battery production capability for the new 4680 style cells as contributing factors.
“We believe we remain on track to build our first Model Y vehicles in Berlin and Austin in 2021,” Musk said during the company’s Q2, 2021 investor call. “The pace of the respective production ramps will be influenced by the successful introduction of many new product and manufacturing technologies, ongoing supply-chain-related challenges and regional permitting.”
“To better focus on these factories, and due to the limited availability of battery cells and global supply chain challenges, we have shifted the launch of the Semi truck program to 2022,” he continued. Beginning in May of this year, Tesla started actively taking reservations again for a $20,000 deposit. "And first deliveries are now," Musk said on Thursday before welcoming Kirk Tanner, CEO PepsiCo Beverages North America, and Steven Williams, CEO PepsiCo Foods North America, on stage for high fives and handshakes.
Honda's big electrification push will include US-oriented hydrogen fuel cell cars. The automaker has revealed that it will begin US production of fuel cell vehicles in 2024. The first model will be a plug-in hybrid based on the current-generation CR-V (pictured here). You'll theoretically have pure electric driving for your daily commute, but still get zero-emissions driving for longer city-to-city jaunts.
More details of the hydrogen-powered CR-V will be revealed sometime closer to its 2024 launch, Honda says. It's only willing to offer a peek at the power plant (below). The existing CR-V is available as a conventional hybrid with a gas engine and no plug-in feature.
Honda
The new model is part of a larger Honda strategy to completely drop combustion engine vehicles by 2040 using a mix of pure EVs and fuel cell cars. On top of the hydrogen CR-V, Americans can also expect the fully electric Prologue SUV in 2024. The brand already sells the electric Honda E subcompact, but not in the US. Honda aims to be carbon neutral by 2050.
Whether or not there's a market for the fuel cell SUV is uncertain. Hydrogen cars haven't gained much traction in the US compared to their all-electric counterparts, due partly to high prices and a lack of filling stations. Honda axed the fuel cell-based Clarity sedan in 2021, reportedly in response to weak demand for the $71,200 machine. There's no guarantee customers will be more welcoming in 2024, particularly as EVs become more affordable and offer improved range.
Honda's Sensing level 2 driver assist system (AcuraWatch, if you bought upscale) will be growing more capable in the coming years, the automaker revealed on Wednesday. This decision comes as part of the company's efforts to advance its Safety for Everyone tennant and create a "collision-free society." These advancements are debuting this year in China under the Honda Sensing 360 and Sensing Elite monikers and will begin filtering to the US market in the second half of the decade, Honda has announced.
The original Sensing system first appeared on the 2015 CR-V Touring trim package but became a standard feature in 2019. It offers an array of assists with a focus on collision avoidance and mitigation, such as pedestrian detection, automatic braking, and driver attention monitoring. The original Sensing relied on a single monocular camera. Sensing 360, which debuted this year in China, adds 5 millimeter-wave sensors to that camera to provide (you guessed it) 360-degree coverage of the vehicle, while Sensing Elite is the premier version of the ADAS suite and includes extra features like hands-free active lane-change. These two packages will begin matriculating to the US market over the next few years and become standard equipment by the end of the decade, just like the current gen Honda Sensing is today.
Honda
What's more, Honda plans to expand Sensing 360's capabilities in 2024 to "further reduce driver burden by detecting abnormal conditions occurring to the driver and the vehicle’s surroundings and reducing the risk of collisions." The company didn't clarify what "abnormal conditions might entail, it could be in-cabin monitoring a la Volvo's EX 90 backseat baby detector, an evolution of its existing driver attention camera, or simply smarter headlights.
Honda
Sensing Elite will also receive new features in the near term. That reportedly includes, "technologies to assist the driver on non-expressways including a hands-off function while driving through a traffic jam on arterial roads; to enable hands-off functions during merging onto and exiting from an expressway at a road junction; to assist the driver by automatically parking in and driving out of a home garage," according to a Wednesday press release. All versions of the Sensing system are slated to receive motorcycle detection capabilities by 2030 as well.
