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It’s no secret that modern cars collect a stunning amount of data about the people who own and drive them, but the scope of that collection and what is being done with it might come as a surprise. Automotive News recently reported that eight automakers sent vehicle location data to police without a court order or warrant.
Spring is about to give way to summer, and with warmer temperatures comes the heightened need to ensure the safety of children and pets riding in cars. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says that on average, 37 children die each year of heatstroke after being left in vehicles or trapped in them — based on that average, a child dies this way somewhere in America about every 10 days.
Robert Playter, CEO of Boston Dynamics, with Atlas. (Boston Globe via Getty Images)
Sanctuary AI announced that it will be delivering its humanoid robot to a Magna manufacturing facility. Based in Canada, with auto manufacturing facilities in Austria, Magna manufactures and assembles cars for a number of Europe’s top automakers, including Mercedes, Jaguar and BMW. As is often the nature of these deals, the parties have not disclosed how many of Sanctuary AI’s robots will be deployed.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. — Driving without your hands on the steering wheel while driving a heavy-duty pickup weighing over 6,000 pounds on the 105 in Los Angeles seems like a profoundly bad idea. Having it hooked up to a trailer that could weigh at least twice as much seems like … well, whatever is at least twice as worse as “profoundly bad.” Irredeemably stupid?
Volkswagen Australia cites data saying 90% of wildlife collisions in Australia involve some variety of kangaroo (yes, there's more than one kangaroo species). A 2018 story said the nationwide 'roo population had topped nearly 50 million animals, and as Aussie cities expand, the suburbs are moving further into kangaroo territory, increasing the number of annual incidents. Especially in rural areas, kangaroos will gather at the roadside starting around dusk to get to the water that pools by the roadway and the vegetation growing there because of that water; a single insurance firm, the National Roads and Motorists' Association, said it received 14,500 claims in 2018 just from car-kangaroo crashes. To reduce such events, Volkswagen Australia spent three years working on a project with its local ad agency DDB Sydney, kangaroo behavior specialists at the University of Melbourne, and wildlife organization WIRES to create a gadget that would protect drivers and animals: The RooBadge.
The white coats at Oak Ridge National Laboratories (ORNL) in Tennessee have hit a research milestone for the world of electric vehicles that seems like a plausible reality in the coming decade. Earlier this month, after parking a Hyundai Kona EV over a new wireless charger design, the scientists and engineers registered a max wireless charging rate of 100 kW across a five-inch air gap at a claimed efficiency of 96%. In an earlier bench test, researchers hit 120-kW wireless charging speeds, but this test used a production car parked atop the prototype coil. The power registered is equivalent to a lower Level 3 plug-in system using a good cable, trouncing the best commercially available wireless chargers and wall-mounted Level 2 systems — potent enough to restore about 350 miles in an hour of charging compared to around 42 miles. In the case of the Kona EV, a full charge at the max rate would take less than an hour.
LONDON/DUBAI — Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates' national oil companies plan to extract lithium from brine in their oilfields, in line with efforts to diversify their economies and profit from the shift to electric vehicles (EVs), three sources told Reuters.