Lifeboat Foundation

Toyota USA thinks one of the best ways to unlock your car door, is with your face.

Three days ago, when Global Equities Research projected more than 300,000 reservations for the Tesla Model 3 electric car by the start of this week, that number seemed outlandish.

And yet, by the end of Saturday, the global total had reached 276,000, according to a tweet by Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

When the Model 3 was first unveiled in California on Thursday evening, the number of deposits that day alone had already crossed 100,000.

Continue reading “Tesla Model 3 preorders have likely doubled the electric cars sold” »

And the company behind it is ran by a brilliant 26 year old hacker.

Very nice goal to have “all things connected” in Toyota’s and Microsoft’s case is “Singularity” lite meaning physical structures are connected; however, bio connection does not exist (only consumer profile information is available and integrated). This could be considered an interim state for Singularity.

The company called Toyota Connected has a goal of simplifying technology so it’s easier to use, perhaps even getting rid of distracting and complicated touch screens that now are in most cars and replacing them with heads-up or voice-activated technology, said Zack Hicks, the company’s CEO who also is Toyota Motor America’s chief information officer. Like other automakers, Toyota Connected will research connecting cars to each other and to homes, as well as telematics features that learn and anticipate a driver’s habits. The company, like other automakers, will explore transmitting a driver’s health data to a doctor or driving patterns to an insurance company so people are insured based on where they travel, Toyota said.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has been working on a wireless charging system for EVs and plug-in hybrids for years. The goal is to create a system that makes charging EVs and hybrids easier for drivers and to make EVs and other plug-in vehicles as cheap and easy to own as a gasoline vehicle. ORNL has announced that it has demonstrated a 20-kilowatt wireless charging system that has achieved 90% efficiency at three times the rate of the plug-in systems commonly used in electric cars today.

ORNL has multiple industry partners that are participating in this program including Toyota, Cisco Systems, Evatran, and Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research. “We have made tremendous progress from the lab proof-of-concept experiments a few years ago,” said Madhu Chinthavali, ORNL Power Electronics Team lead. “We have set a path forward that started with solid engineering, design, scale-up and integration into several Toyota vehicles. We now have a technology that is moving closer to being ready for the market.”

Continue reading “ORNL 20kW wireless charging system hits 90% efficiency” »

Auto-piloting Tesla: awesome or terrifying?

With the open-space interior design, that’s one plane we’d love to take.

At long last, here’s our first look at the Tesla Model 3, the company’s debut mass-market electric car starting at $35,000 and (perhaps) launching next year.

Telsa CEO Elon Musk unveiled the vehicle to the press and relentless devotees during an event at the company’s design studio in Hawthorne, California this evening.

Continue reading “Tesla finally unveils the Model 3: Its first car for the masses” »