The flying fuel tank’s flight “was arguably aviation’s last milestone.”
Nearly 36 years ago, on December 23, 1986, pilots Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, designer Burt Rutan, and crew chief Bruce Evans earned the Collier Trophy, aviation’s most prestigious award, according to a NASA report published in 2013.
One of Tesla’s upcoming software updates should give the sound systems in its current and new vehicles a considerable upgrade. According to our source, Tesla has been working with major record labels for months to bring Dolby Atmos to Tesla cars. Once the software update rolls out, over 1 million Teslas that are currently on the road will support Dolby Atmos, including all newly manufactured vehicles.
Dolby Atmos is a surround sound format from Dolby that uses height channels to interpret sounds as 3D objects. Dolby Atmos debuted in 2012 in Los Angeles, and has since made its way into thousands of movie theaters, home theaters, and even cars.
Lucid Motors was the first carmaker to bring Dolby Atmos sound to its Lucid Air sedan early last year. This fall, Volvo and Mercedes-Benz revealed that they will be bringing Dolby Atmos to more cars as well. Volvo’s EX90 SUV will have Dolby Atmos, while Mercedes-Benz is adding Atmos to the Mercedes-Maybach S-Class, Mercedes-Benz S-Class, and its EQE, EQE SUV, EQS, and EQS SUV electric vehicles. Before long, Tesla should be on this list, too.
Those who follow Elon closely will notice that he is always trying to save a buck. For example, the AI chips used in current Teslas were made by Samsung instead of TSMC to save money. (TSMC makes the best chips but they are also the most expensive.) Another example of Elon saving money would be the mass layoffs at Twitter.
Well, it looks like Elon is really trying to get Full Self-Driving working and has decided that the next generation of FSD chips will be made by TSMC. He placed an order that is so big that Tesla will be the 7th largest customer of TSMC next year. He is going for 4/5 nm chips compared to the 14 nm chips he is using today.
Tesla has reportedly placed a massive order of chips for its next-gen Full Self-Driving (FSD) computer with Taiwan’s TSMC. The order is so large that it might make Tesla one of TSMC’s biggest customers.
Continue reading “Tesla reportedly places massive order of next-gen self-driving chips with TSMC” »
Elon Musk has been touting Tesla’s FSD Beta v11 for some time now, and it’s finally here. He says it will be ready for wide rollout before the end of 2022.
The new technology could massively boost small-city EV adoption.
A new battery technology developed by Swiss startup Morand could see electric vehicle (EV) batteries charge in less time than it takes to fill an internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle at a gas station, the company reveals.
Novel hybrid battery technology.
Continue reading “A game-changing new hybrid EV battery recharges in only 72 seconds” »
He is now the richest person in the world with a gap of a little over $10 billion.
Elon Musk, who broke records of personal wealth last year as the stock of his electric vehicle company Tesla soared, now has another record to his name. With Tesla’s stock price continuing its decline in 2022, Musk’s fortune has dropped by over $100 billion this year, Bloomberg.
Musk’s worth is mainly tied to his stock holding in Tesla, which according to recent estimates, now stands at around 14 percent. The CEO began offloading Tesla stock last year as the stock price soared and reached an all-time high of $402.
Self-driving car company Argo AI failure when Ford and VW pulled the plug after spending over $3 billion. It is big evidence that Lidar-dependent self-driving has a long way to go. All of the self-driving car companies except Tesla and Comma were using Lidar. Ford said removing the driver is over 5 years away. Most robotaxi players are dependent upon removing the driver for their business model to work enough to get to serious scale. 5+ years to get to the true starting point and 5+ years to scale translates to an 8-year lead for Tesla if Tesla solves robotaxi in 2 years. Uber had a 2.5 year lead over Lyft and that meant three times the market share for Uber.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) may be slowly making its way toward Ark Invest’s Golden Goose scenario, which involves a $22,000 price target pre-split.
At the beginning of 2020, ARK Invest released its updated TSLA valuation based on new research it had collected at the time. ARK analysts described ten difference scenarios Tesla could take leading up to 2024 and gave each one a price target.
Tesla seems to be on track to hit the scenario ARK Invest labeled “The High Functioning EV Company” which has a price target of $3,400. Keep in mind that ARK released these estimates before Tesla announced the stock split. In this scenario, Tesla manages to lower costs and build factories efficiently, but doesn’t launch its autonomous network.
Continue reading “New York Leads World’s Most Innovative Cities” »
The California PUC granted Waymo a permit to operate 24 hours/day in San Francisco taking select members of the public for rides with no safety driver in the vehicle. Waymo says it will begin this shortly. This comes on the heels of them expanding such service in Phoenix, as reported in my article on how the death of self-driving cars has been greatly exaggerated earlier this week.
This service will be with “trusted testers” rather than members of the broad public that can ride in Chandler and Phoenix, Arizona. Limiting ridership can be useful when demand is higher than supply, and also to learn from people who ride it repeatedly, but it has another less noble purpose, namely that riders can be under NDA and not exposing any problems to the public. (Waymo previously has required this of “trusted testers” but says they will very quickly transition to not needing an NDA.) Once a service allows members of the general public to ride with no conditions, it’s a declaration that “we’re confident we are not going to do anything embarrassing.” Cruise, which is Waymo’s rival in SF, has been serving the public for some time, and on Nov 16 announced they will be doing daytime rides with GM employees. Cruise had previously only been operating with passengers after 10pm on much calmer streets.
Waymo also announced it will deploy in Los Angeles soon (it has been testing with staff there.) In LA they also revealed their new robotaxi model, built by Geely under the Zeekr brand in China. I will have more comment when I get to see it, though I am disappointed the front seats don’t swivel to allow more social settings when a group of more than 2 go for a ride. (Facing backwards is less comfortable for some, but also safer in a forward crash.) California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), in ongoing efforts to support transportation innovation, today authorized Waymo LLC to participate in California’s pilot program to provide “driverless” autonomous vehicle (AV) passenger service to the public. Waymo joins the CPUC’s Driverless Pilot program, in which passengers can ride in a test AV that operates without a driver in the vehicle. Waymo may not charge passengers for any rides in test AVs.
