Just when you thought the hype about room-temperature superconductors was over, it’s not.
Room-temperature superconductors, if one is ever found and independently confirmed, could revolutionize everything from electricity transmission to computing, electric vehicles, MRI machines, maglev trains and more.
Lately, claims of room-temperature superconductivity seem to be blooming like flowers after a rainstorm.
In the last year alone, three high-profile cases were either debunked, retracted or seriously doubted.
Researchers who TechCrunch+ spoke with were skeptical that this new material is a room-temperature superconductor.
While other automakers are dialing back their electric vehicle plans, BMW is quietly going all in.
“The tipping point for the combustion engine was last year,” CFO Walter Mertl told journalists at a roundtable in Munich recently.
The German automaker has seen sales of its fossil fuel vehicles plateau and is expecting a slow decline, he said.
“Growth will come increasingly from electric vehicles.”BMW sold a record 2.5 million vehicles last year, 15% of which were all-electric.
This year, the company thinks it’ll sell 500,000 EVs, or 33% more than last year.
Another CES has come and gone and transportation was still one of the central actors on one of the world’s largest tech stages.
Here are some of the tech themes that stood out to us at CES 2024.
With so many electric vehicles, it might not surprise folks to learn that EV charging companies were also there en masse.
HydrogenHydrogen power isn’t new, however, it’s taken a bit of a backseat lately to more traditional battery electric vehicles.
In-cabin hardware meets softwareAutomakers, automotive suppliers and even some startups, showed off their respective vision for the inside of the car.
Hertz is selling its EVs because it botched the rollout for ride-share drivers It's a precautionary tale for how to assess new markets — and how not to introduce a new product.
Hertz made a splash in 2021 when it announced that it would buy 100,000 Tesla Model 3 sedans in a little over a year.
Hertz said in an SEC filing that it would be selling 20,000 of its EVs and replacing them with fossil fuel-powered vehicles.
After Hertz started buying EVs, it directed most of them to Uber drivers.
Uber drivers also rented the cars for longer periods of time, Hertz said, meaning that fewer employees were needed to support a given number of vehicles.
Much progress has been made since then, and 2024 — the 20th anniversary of Ghostrider — will be another seminal year for autonomous vehicles, especially for off-road industries.
The possibilities off-roadSafety remains the paramount metric for autonomous vehicle deployment, yet there has to be industry consensus on how to adequately measure a robotic or human driver’s safety.
For commercial operations, there is another compelling reason for deploying autonomous vehicles in these conditions: increased profits.
Safety remains a concernSafety remains the paramount metric for autonomous vehicle deployment, yet there has to be industry consensus on how to adequately measure a robotic or human driver’s safety.
To increase transparency, the California DMV logs autonomous vehicle collisions.
In a phone conversation on Thursday, Hyundai Motor India spokesperson Siddhartha P. Saikia said the company would provide a statement.
The bug exposed the customer’s personal information through the web links Hyundai Motor India shared with customers over WhatsApp after receiving their vehicles for servicing at an authorized service station.
TechCrunch shared the details of the bug with Hyundai Motor India on the same day, and requested Hyundai Motor India fix the bug within seven days due to its simplicity and severity.
Established in 1996, Hyundai Motor India is among the top three carmakers in the country, alongside Maruti Suzuki and Tata Motors.
Hyundai Motor India has a network of over 1,500 service stations in the country.
CES has increasingly become defined by what automakers and other mobility-focused companies bring to Las Vegas, and CES 2024 has been no exception.
Hydrogen’s making a big comebackThe underlying technology for hydrogen-powered vehicles has been around for a while, though it’s been eclipsed by battery-powered electric vehicles.
But at CES 2024, a number of companies from Nikola to Hyundai and Bosch were touting its benefits.
We explore why this is the year several companies are highlighting hydrogen, with an additional deep dive into Hyundai’s plans.
Kia’s modular EV lineup is revealedModular phones may have come and gone, but Kia hopes modular vehicles will have a bit more success.
At least, CES 2024 suggests it is Hyundai, Nikola, Bosch and others are seriously pushing fuel cells, but why now?
At CES, Nikola finally showed off one of its first US-built hydrogen trucks that it’s starting to ship to customers.
The rides included a small train “capable of being powered by hydrogen energy” and an “AI fortune teller.”Why now?
For one, the 2022 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law put $9.5 billion towards “clean hydrogen initiatives” to create hydrogen production “hubs” across the U.S.
For example, Shell, BP, Chevron and ExxonMobil are all members of a lobbying group called the Clean Hydrogen Future Coalition.
Lucid Motors delivered only 6,001 of the 8,428 cars it built last year, as it continues to struggle to generate demand for its luxury electric sedans.
Lucid also said in late 2023 that it had shipped 800 cars to Saudi Arabia to be assembled at a new facility in the Kingdom.
In total, Lucid’s 2023 production and sales figures were only marginally better than they were in 2022, where it built 7,180 cars and delivered 4,369 of them.
The disappointing sales figures cap a tough year for Lucid.
This story has been updated to note that Lucid Motors declined to comment on whether the 800 cars in Saudi Arabia were included in the delivery figures.
That emphasis on sustainability is translating into a goal at Finn to have 80% of its car inventory electric by 2028, from 40% today.
Previous backers such as HV Capital, Korelya Capital, UVC Partners, White Star Capital and Picus Capital are also participating.
It’s been a very bumpy road for the car subscription market over the years.
The idea of car subscriptions is neat, but the execution is not.
And it’s brokered deals in advance with car retailers to buy up the vehicles when subscriptions are finished.
