It's Friday July the 18th twenty fourteen.
I'm Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield and this is episode
number forty three of T.E.N.Transport Evolved
News, for the week beginning July 14, 2014
The current U.S. administration might want
more Americans to dump the pump for good in
exchange for a plug, but that doesn't mean
it's about to step into the battle between
Tesla Motors and auto dealer associations
across the U.S.
Responding this week to an official online
petition calling for the White House to legislate
in favor of Tesla's direct-to-customer sales
model in every single state -- and signed
by more than one hundred and thirty eight
thousand people -- the a White House spokesperson
basically told the petitioners that they were
'on their own.'
"As you know, laws regulating auto sales are
issues that have traditionally sat with lawmakers
at the state level," the spokesperson said.
"However, we understand that pre-empting current
state laws on direct-to-customer auto sales
would require an act of Congress,"
And that, said the White House, is something
it's not prepared to do for Tesla right now,
essentially telling Tesla, its fans, and legal
team that they're on their own.
BMW announced a new deal with battery supplier
Samsung SDI this week which will see the number
of batteries purchased for BMW's plug-in car
programs increase by between 20 and 30 percent
in the next two years.
Samsung SDI, which currently produces lithium-ion
battery packs for consumer electronics giant
Apple as well as the battery packs used in
BMW's i3 and i8 plug-in cars, will stand to
make several billion euros from the new deal.
BMW meanwhile, will stand to gain a steady
supply of lithium-ion battery cells to expand
its electrified car lineup.
While BMW says some of the expanded battery
pack order will be used to increase production
volumes on both the i3 EV and i8 plug-in hybrid,
the rest of the battery cells will be used
to bring BMW's upcoming X5 e-Drive plug-in
hybrid crossover SUV to market.
The Nurburgring Nordschleife -- or green hell
-- as it's called by locals -- is one of the
world's most famous race tracks. And at nearly
thirteen miles in length, the Nordschleife
is a true Mecca for petrol-heads from around
the world seeking to tame its one hundred
and fifty four turns in as quick a time as
possible.
This week however, Toyota set what it claimed
was a new world record on the Nordschleife
in a Toyota Prius Plug-in hybrid. A fuel efficiency
record.
Sadly, the spectacle of a Toyota Prius Plug-in
Hybrid taking nearly twenty minutes to go
around the circuit isn't all that exciting,
nor is the claimed 698 UK mpg fuel economy
of the trip, using just five teaspoons full
of gasoline and the energy stored in its four
kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack.
Unfortunately for Toyota however, the whole
thing was really just a clever publicity stunt,
which some of our clever readers tell us,
worked out to a real-world 98 MPGe if you
add on the electricity used during the lap.
Its official: Tesla's third-generation electric
car -- the one previously called the Tesla
Model E until Ford threatened legal action
-- has a new name. The Tesla Model Three.
Announced this week in an exclusive interview
with British-based Auto Express, Tesla CEO
Elon Musk said the third-generation car -- which
we've been jokingly calling the Tesla Model
Three for several weeks -- would be represented
by three bars, giving the Model Three an unmistakable
name.
The thing we're not sure about yet, is how
those three bars will be represented. Auto
Express implies the three bars will be written
vertically like the roman numeral III. We
however think that Tesla will opt to use the
mathematical symbol used to denote 'strictly
equal to'. Or if you didn't take further maths,
this: ≣.
It's like an E, but not quite, and it also
matches the way Tesla writes its name. We
like.
In the same interview with Auto Express, Elon
Musk went on to disclose that Tesla's very
first customers -- those with the iconic,
limited-edition Tesla Roadster -- would soon
be getting a special upgrade option for their
ageing sports cars: a brand new battery pack.
Unlike the original battery pack, which offered
an EPA approved two hundred and forty four
miles of range per charge, Musk said the new
pack -- which uses Tesla's latest battery
pack chemistry -- would offer up to four hundred
miles of range per charge.
What isn't clear yet is how much the pack
will cost, or if it will also add Supercharger
capability to Tesla's first generation car.
We're hoping the answer is yet -- and the
cost around the twelve-thousand dollar mark,
because that's how much Tesla was charging
Roadster owners back in the day for pre-buying
a replacement battery pack for their car.
The key to automotive driving success isn't
developing computer systems that can outthink
a human, but developing computer systems that
think like a human.
That's according to Maarten Sierhuis, director
of Nissan's Silicon Valley research centre
in Sunnyvale, California, who told Automotive
News this week that automakers need to stop
thinking of cars as pieces of hardware and
start thinking of them as software.
"What the auto industry has to come to is
a shift from thinking about the car as a physical,
mechanical system," Sierhuis explained. "Autonomy,
autonomous systems, is about understanding
how humans do that, and then replicating it
with software."
But would you be keen on riding in a car that
thought like you did? Let us know in the Comments
below.
Staying with Nissan for a second, its CEO
Carlos Ghosn gave an update this week on Nissan's
roadmap to fully autonomous vehicles.
Unlike last year, when Ghosn promised we'd
be seeing autonomous cars by twenty twenty,
Ghosn now appears to be promising a more measured
rollout of autonomous driving technology in
the coming years, starting first with autonomous
parking and low-speed self-driving tech in
the next two years.
Then, Ghosn says, we should expect to see
lane-changing capabilities and eventually
intersection-navigation autonomy by the end
of the decade. It might not be the fully autonomous
driving experience we dream about, but it's
pretty darned close. And if it makes our roads
safer, I'm all for it.
Hyundai's first mass-produced Tucson Hydrogen
Fuel Cell Car -- with an EPA-approved range
of two hundred and sixty five miles per fill
-- has just successfully driven four hundred
and thirty five miles without needing a top
up.
Driven by pro fuel-cell advocates Marius Bornstein
and Arnt G. Hartvig, the Hyundai Tucson was
driven from Oslo, Norway through to Malmö,
Sweden, passing through Gothenburg in Sweden
and Copenhagen in Denmark along the way.
Initially, the duo had planned on stopping
in Copenhagen, but upon arrival there they
realised the car had plenty of range left,
so carried on until the car ran dry.
While it's nice to see that the team squeezed
all that extra range out of the FCV, it's
worth noting that their techniques -- extreme
hypermiling we'd guess -- would extend the
range of any car by a similar proportionate
amount, so this is more about the importance
of eco driving techniques than a particular
vehicle's range.
Just like any other Internet-connected device,
any car with built-in two-way remote communication
between it and the outside world has the potential
to the victim of an unauthorised hacking attempt.
That's a fact that has been reiterated this
week very clearly with the news that Tesla's
flagship Model S sedan -- which comes with
fully Internet connected capabilities as standard
-- has been successfully hacked by Security
researchers at Qihoo 360.
The Chinese security firm -- also a co organiser
of the SyScan +360 conference we told you
about last week, says its researchers discovered
the flaw ahead of this week's conference -- and
$10,000 dollar hack-a-tesla competition being
held during the event.
Qihoo hasn't given any specifics of what exactly
the flaw is, but Tesla Motors is reportedly
very interested in working with the security
company to ensure that no-one can gain access
to your nice expensive electric car without
your say-so.
It doesn't matter if you drive an electric
car, bicycle or use public transport on a
day to day basis, your personal carbon footprint
always soars when you get in an airplane.
At this week's Farnborough International Airshow
in the UK however, Airbus — better known
for its long-haul A380 double-deck, wide body,
four-engine jet airliner — has been demonstrating
its greener side with a plane that produces
no tailpipe emissions whatsoever.
Enter the E-Fan, an all-electric prototype
airplane which can fly for between 45 minutes
and an hour on a single charge of its 10 kilowatt-hour
lithium polymer battery pack. What's more,
the small, personal all-electric airplane
is set to enter into production in twenty
seventeen, and it's bigger brother -- a kind
of plug-in hybrid airplane called the E-Thrust
-- could be flying certain commercial routes
within ten years.
It just goes to show that you don't have to
stay on the ground to plug in.
That's it for this week. Don't forget to join
us next week for another episode of T.E.N.
In the meantime, visit www dot Transport evolved
dot com for all the evolved transport news
that's fit to print, subscribe to our channel
and other shows on YouTube, and join us for
our transport evolved news panel talk show
later today, when we'll be discussing these
stories and others.
I'm Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield, and until next
time, stay juiced up!
