For four years, teams of college students have been doing something that most automakers spend billions to attempt: building a smarter, more connected electric vehicle from the ground up. Last week, that experiment reached its conclusion. Georgia Tech claimed first place in the final year of the EcoCAR EV Challenge, a collegiate engineering competition … Read more
Uber has nearly doubled its self-funded insurance reserves since 2023, accumulating $12.5 billion that a consumer advocacy group says the company intends to redirect toward its robotaxi ambitions if it succeeds in limiting its accident liability in California and several other states. The findings, released Thursday by Consumer Watchdog, contend that the reserves — held … Read more
On Tuesday, Los Angeles surrendered one of its most mythologized pieces of asphalt to a German automaker with something to prove. The 6th Street Bridge — the concrete arc over the Los Angeles River that has stood in for everything from John Travolta’s drag strip in Grease to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s motorcycle chase in Terminator 2 … Read more
Volvo’s new EX60 promises up to 400 miles on a charge and targets a segment dominated by Tesla and Ford — at a starting price just under $60,000. Volvo Cars is making its most ambitious play yet for American electric vehicle buyers, unveiling the EX60 on Sunday in New York City with a starting price … Read more
At this year’s Google I/O, the future of the automobile sounded less like a machine and more like a companion. No more clipped voice commands. No more shouting “Navigate to nearest gas station” three times because the system misheard you over road noise. Instead, drivers can now speak to their cars the way they speak … Read more
Tesla quietly raised prices on several Model Y variants last week, the first such increases in roughly two years, a move that analysts and industry observers say signals a meaningful departure from the aggressive discounting that has defined the company’s recent commercial playbook. Tesla offered no explanation for the increases and declined to comment. The … Read more
In connected car news are NXP, Quanta, AGL, Rivian, DOJ, Hyundai, HopSkipDrive & Daimler Truck North America [ez-toc] NXP & Quanta Zonal Networking For SDVs NXP Semiconductors has partnered with Quanta to launch a deterministic zonal networking solution designed for next-generation software-defined vehicle (SDV) architectures. The platform integrates NXP’s S32 automotive processing hardware with TTTech … Read more
In autonomous and self-driving vehicle news are Waymo, Uber, Rivian, Lucid Nuro, Ouster, NVIDIA, Amazon, Stradvision, Volvo, Aptiv, Innoviz TIER IV, Sony, Isuzu, AiMotive & Bitsensing. Waymo Way Out of Control in Atlanta & Dallas Alphabet Inc.’s autonomous driving subsidiary Waymo faced consecutive fleet routing and operational failures this week, prompting software modifications and highlighting … Read more
In EV, battery and charging news are Camber, International Transportation Service, Taylor Machine Works, Chalmers University of Technology, IEEE, Volvo Cars, Breathe Battery Technologies, California Energy Commission, Wallbox NV & Freenow by Lyft[ Camber Deploys Distributed EV Charging Infrastructure At Port Of Long Beach Camber has announced the successful commissioning of a distributed charging system … Read more
Toyota’s new San Antonio assembly line — code-named Project Orca — reflects a calculated bet on America’s shifting appetite for fuel-efficient vehicles amid surging gas prices and a changing trade landscape. Toyota has filed for regulatory approval to build a new vehicle assembly line at its San Antonio manufacturing complex, committing $2 billion to a … Read more
The VW bus is back and this time with a mattress. Volkswagen’s ID. Buzz returns for 2027 after a year off the American market, loaded with new technology, a factory-built camping trim, and one long-overdue fix that drivers had been demanding since the van’s debut.< There is something almost theatrical about the way Volkswagen has … Read more
TORRANCE, Calif. — Honda made a forceful case Wednesday that the hybrid engine, not the battery-electric vehicle, will define the near future of American driving — announcing plans to introduce 15 new hybrid models across its Honda and Acura brands globally by 2030, with North America as the primary target market. The announcements came during … Read more
