Tag: Cars

Nikola inventory falls 14 % after CEO downplays Badger truck plans

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A large pickup truck gradually vanishes.

Enlarge / The entrance half of the Nikola Badger. (credit score: Aurich Lawson / Nikola Motor Company)

Nikola CEO Mark Russell downplayed the corporate’s Badger pickup truck in feedback to the Monetary Instances on Thursday.

“The Badger was an fascinating and thrilling venture to some shareholders, however our institutional shareholders are largely centered on the marketing strategy,” Russell mentioned. “Our core marketing strategy since earlier than we grew to become publicly listed all the time centered on heavy vans and hydrogen infrastructure.”

Russell’s feedback had been revealed after markets closed on Thursday. Nikola’s inventory value plunged on Friday morning and is presently down about 14 % for the day.

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Cruise will quickly hit San Francisco with no arms on the wheel

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Cruise has been testing its self-driving cars, with safety drivers, in San Francisco for about five years.

Enlarge / Cruise has been testing its self-driving automobiles, with security drivers, in San Francisco for about 5 years. (credit score: Andrej Sokolow | Getty Pictures)

Final week, Waymo, the self-driving-vehicle developer owned by Alphabet, expanded a first-of-its-kind service providing rides to paying passengers round Phoenix—with nobody behind the wheel. Movies shared by Waymo and others present its minivans navigating extensive, sunny streets with ease.

Now rival Cruise, a Normal Motors subsidiary, has taken a step towards working its personal self-driving-taxi service—on the hilly, winding, pedestrian-swarmed streets of San Francisco. On Thursday, Cruise mentioned the California Division of Motor Autos had granted it a allow to check as much as 5 of its modified Chevy Bolts with out anybody behind the wheel. In a weblog submit, Cruise CEO Dan Ammann mentioned actually driverless automobiles would function within the metropolis earlier than the top of the yr.

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Sixty Coinbase workers take buyout provide over “no politics” rule

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Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong.

Enlarge / Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong. (credit score: Steven Ferdman/Getty Photos)

Sixty Coinbase workers have accepted a buyout provide after CEO Brian Armstrong introduced a controversial new coverage curbing political activism inside the corporate. Armstrong disclosed the determine in a Thursday electronic mail to workers.

Armstrong introduced the brand new coverage final week after a summer time when many expertise corporations confronted strain from their workers to change into extra outspoken on problems with social justice.

“Whereas I believe these efforts are well-intentioned, they’ve the potential to destroy plenty of worth at most corporations, each by being a distraction, and by creating inner division,” Armstrong wrote in a September 27 weblog put up. “We have seen what inner strife at corporations like Google and Fb can do to productiveness. I imagine most workers do not wish to work in these divisive environments.”

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45 minutes on the street in a prototype Volkswagen ID.Four electrical automobile

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  • Behind the wheel of a preproduction prototype Volkswagen ID.Four electrical crossover. [credit: Jonathan Gitlin ]

In late September, Volkswagen unveiled a brand new crossover known as the ID.4. It is one among plenty of new battery electrical autos that the automaker has within the works, and the primary destined for this facet of the Atlantic. Though the order books are actually open, the ID.Four remains to be ending its closing stage of growth, and buyer automobiles will not begin arriving on boats till subsequent yr. However prematurely of that, final week VW let Ars have a fast go in an early pre-production prototype.

It was a way more low-key expertise than my final time driving one among VW’s electrical prototypes. Then, it was the ID Buggy and an authentic Manx buggy on a sunny day at Pebble Seaside. The brilliant inexperienced prototype had an digital pace limiter however would breach 25mph whereas coasting down a slight grade, and we even had a photographer in a chase automobile to document the occasion.

This time, I met up with VW at an Electrify America charging station a few miles from Dulles Worldwide Airport in Virginia. As an alternative of brilliant sunshine, there have been grey skies and the occasional half-hearted drop of rain. There was no classic automobile for comparability, and no chase automobile. In actual fact, there was no photograph shoot in any respect—VW requested us to maintain it to inside pics solely. However there was additionally no chaperone, only a request to be again inside 45 minutes.

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2020 Subaru Outback is fan service in the absolute best method

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  • In case you love Subaru, you will love the brand new Outback. [credit: Eric Bangeman ]

The Ascent could also be a surprisingly good three-row SUV, and the redesigned Forester has been promoting properly, however the Outback remains to be Subaru’s best-selling automotive and its best-known mannequin. The 2020 Outback marks the sixth technology of Subaru’s venerable crossover. In case you’re a long-time Subaru proprietor trying to improve, there’s loads to love right here. In case you’re new to Subaru, the Outback has some promoting factors that make it stand out from the group of compact crossovers.

On the surface, not so much has modified for the Outback. With 8.7 inches (22cm) of floor clearance, the Outback nonetheless rocks that traditional let’s-go-off-roading-to-the-grocery-store look. Constructed on Subaru’s world platform, the sixth-generation Outback appears similar to the earlier 12 months’s mannequin. Until you are trying intently on the grille, which has black accents as a substitute of chrome, or the taillights, you will be hard-pressed to identify any large variations. The most important adjustments come beneath the hood and contained in the cabin.

The 2020 Outback nonetheless comes commonplace with the naturally aspirated 2.5L boxer engine, however there’s now a turbocharged 2.4L energy plant that comes with the XT mannequin we examined. Out there in an Outback for the primary time since 2009, the turbocharged engine is able to 260hp (191kW) at 5,600rpm and 277lb-ft (376Nm) of torque at 2,00rpm. The usual, horizontally mounted 2.5L engine sees some modest efficiency positive aspects from final 12 months: 182hp/134kW and 176lb-ft/237Nm, up from 175hp/129kW and 174lb-ft/235Nm—mainly the identical because the Forester. What hasn’t modified is an eight-speed Lineartronic repeatedly variable transmission, which has the identical upside (gas economic system) and draw back (noise) as all the time. The whole Outback lineup now comes geared up with paddle shifters and an eight-speed manual-mode perform.

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Honda shocks F1, says it can stop the game after 2021

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  • Pierre Gasly stands on his Alpha Tauri racing automobile after profitable the 2020 Italian Grand Prix. To date it’s Honda’s second F1 win of the yr. [credit: Red Bull ]

On Friday morning in Tokyo, the Honda Motor Firm shocked the world of Formulation 1 by asserting it has determined to go away the game on the finish of 2021. The choice was defined in a speech by Honda President and CEO Takahiro Hachigo:

At the moment, Honda decided to additional speed up such initiatives and attempt for “the conclusion of carbon neutrality by 2050” in an effort to understand a sustainable society. To this finish, our present aim of “electrifying two-thirds of our world vehicle unit gross sales in 2030” will turn into a checkpoint we should move earlier than we get to the 2050 aim, and subsequently we should additional speed up the introduction of our carbon-free applied sciences.

As a substitute of spending $164 million (€140 million) a yr on an F1 engine program, Honda will as a substitute commit these assets to carbon-free expertise for street automobiles, together with battery and gasoline cell electrical automobiles. A Honda Formulation E program has already been dominated out, however we consider the IndyCar program will proceed unchanged, on condition that it’s funded by the American Honda Motor Firm.

By my rely, that is the fifth time that the Japanese automaker has stop F1; it contested the game as a producer of its personal automobile and engine between 1964-1968 and from 2006-2008 and as simply an engine provider to different groups within the 1980s, 2000s, after which once more since 2015.

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After 12 years, Mitsubishi kills the i-MiEV electrical automobile

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The Mitsubishi i-MiEV, as seen when we tested it in 2011.

The Mitsubishi i-MiEV, as seen after we examined it in 2011. (credit score: Jonathan Gitlin)

It should be canceling season in Japan proper now. First we came upon the surprising information that Honda is withdrawing from Formulation 1 on the finish of 2021. Now, it is the flip of the Mitsubishi i-MiEV electrical car. Nikkei reviews that the automaker is asking time on this diminutive battery EV this yr, quoting an unnamed government as saying, “we did not have the funds for and personnel to proceed investing in EV improvement.”

Not like the Honda information, the one actual shock right here is that the i-MiEV was even nonetheless in manufacturing. Mitsubishi has solely managed to promote 32,000 of them since 2009, and right here within the US gross sales of the i-MiEV resulted in 2017.

Because it occurs, the i-MiEV was the primary automobile I reviewed for Ars Technica, means again in July 2011. The specs had been hardly earth-shattering—a 50kW (66hp) electrical motor and 16kWh of lithium-ion battery storage, and a spread of simply 70 miles (112km), which ought to put all of the complaints in regards to the e-tron vary into some context. It wasn’t notably low cost, both: the i-MiEV we examined clocked in at $31,125. (That is $35,935 in 2020 cash.)

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Nikola founder purchased truck designs from third social gathering

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A 2018 Nikola video showed the Nikola One prototype rolling down a shallow hill in Utah. Nikola now says it never claimed the truck was driving under its own power.

Enlarge / A 2018 Nikola video confirmed the Nikola One prototype rolling down a shallow hill in Utah. Nikola now says it by no means claimed the truck was driving below its personal energy. (credit score: Nikola)

The unique design for Nikola’s flagship truck was bought by founder Trevor Milton from a designer in Croatia, based on two individuals with data of the matter, regardless of firm claims in a 2018 lawsuit that the car was initially designed by Mr. Milton “in his basement..”

The truck, the Nikola One, is on the centre of a $2 billion lawsuit with Tesla, wherein Nikola alleges its rival infringed on its patents. Nikola claims in that lawsuit that Mr. Milton started designing the mannequin in 2013, with different firm workers later engaged on it.

In a rebuttal to the lawsuit filed final week, Tesla alleged that Nikola couldn’t shield the designs as a result of they didn’t originate from the corporate itself, however from Adriano Mudri, a designer based mostly in Croatia.

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Nikola patented a stolen truck design, Tesla claims in authorized response

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  • Nikola Chairman Trevor Milton unveils the Nikola One truck in December 2016. [credit: Nikola ]

Two years in the past, hydrogen-truck startup Nikola sued Tesla claiming that the Tesla Semi was a knockoff of Nikola’s personal truck design. On Wednesday, Tesla filed a response within the case accusing Nikola of basing its personal truck on a 2010 idea by designer Adriano Mudri. Mudri is now director of design on the Croatian automaker Rimac.

“Adriano Mudri is the designer of the Street Runner idea truck,” Tesla writes in its authorized submitting. “The Street Runner idea truck was entered into the 2010 Michelin Design Problem, and was chosen for show on the 2010 North American Worldwide Auto Present.”

In keeping with Tesla, Nikola founder Trevor Milton met with Mudri “throughout 2014 and/or 2015.” Tesla says that Milton knew in regards to the Street Runner idea truck on the time he utilized for the design patents Nikola later used to sue Tesla and that Mudri’s design “constituted a big ingenious contribution” to the designs Nikola patented.

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California bans new inner combustion engines, beginning in 2035

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The words Mad Gas 2035 are printed in a Mad Max Fury Road typeface.

Enlarge (credit score: Aurich Lawson / Getty Pictures)

On Wednesday, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed an govt order requiring that every one new passenger vehicles and vans bought within the state from 2035 be zero-emissions autos. Moreover, all drayage vans—those that transfer containers round at locations just like the Port of Los Angeles—should additionally go emissions free by this date, in addition to off-road autos and gear. Medium- and heavy-duty autos get an additional decade to conform, however by 2045 these too should ditch inner combustion engines.

Though that is the primary such ICE ban in america, Governor Newsom is following within the footsteps of policymakers in Europe, China, and elsewhere. In 2016, Paris, Madrid, Athens, and Mexico Metropolis introduced bans on new diesel autos from 2025. The identical 12 months, Germany’s Bundesrat voted to outlaw new ICE autos from 2030, though this was not a binding decision.

The next 12 months, France introduced that new ICE autos can be banned from 2040. The UK additionally picked 2040 as the tip of recent gasoline and diesel autos inside its borders, a timeline that in February was introduced ahead by 5 years to 2035, then this previous Monday it was introduced ahead one other 5 years, to 2030. And China can be phasing out inner combustion autos, albeit over an extended timeline.

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