Lifeboat Foundation

Autonomous, electric vehicles are driving around Yellowstone National Park in a new test program that could become a permanent mode of transportation.

Last week, the park debuted its new “TEDDY” program — or The Electronic Driverless Demonstration in Yellowstone.

Continue reading “Yellowstone National Park Testing Out Driverless Shuttles This Summer” »

An EV may be your next tow vehicle — and the options just keep getting better.

If you’re looking for the best EV for towing a trailer or boat, you’re in luck. There are more electrified cars and trucks available in the automotive marketplace today than ever before, and quite a few are engineered to tow some substantial weight.

A complete compendium of those EVs offering maximum trailer weight ratings of at least 1,500 pounds could go on forever. You don’t have forever, so we rounded up a representative group of the electric vehicles available today that offer maximum trailer weight ratings ranging from 1,500 to 10,000-plus pounds. One of these smart and powerful EVs just might be your best EV that can tow.

And it doubles up as a backup energy unit and a camper.

Norwegian tech startup Fresco Motors just revealed its new Fresco XL, an electric vehicle (EV) that it claims will have a range of 620 miles (1,000 km). If the claim is true, it would make it the longest-range EV in the world.

Continue reading “It’s Official. Lucid Air Is the Longest-Range EV Ever” »

While the Tesla Cybertruck has recently been delayed again, the hype is so strong around the electric pickup truck that some people are already working on thrid-party accessories for the vehicle.

Now, we see the most ambitious project yet, a kit that transform the Tesla Cybertruck into an electric boat.

When it comes to ambitious Cybertruck accessories, I thought that nothing could beat the Cyberlandr, which is trying to fit a full camper into the electric pickup’s bed. But I was wrong.

Under pressure to hit fourth-quarter sales goals while coping with widespread semiconductor shortages, Tesla decided to remove one of the two electronic control units that are normally included in the steering racks of some made-in-China Model 3 and Model Y cars, according to two employees and internal correspondence seen by CNBC.

Tesla did not disclose the exclusion, which has already affected tens of thousands of vehicles being shipped to customers in China, Australia, the U.K., Germany and other parts of Europe. It was not immediately clear whether Tesla would make similar changes to cars manufactured in or shipped to the U.S.

Using an automatically-operated clutch.

New patent filings from Ford outline a design for a new type of manual box that only uses hand inputs and doesn’t require a clutch pedal to shift, a report from *The Drive* reveals.

With its new design, Ford aims to remove some of the negative associations drivers have with manual transmission vehicles, which has led some big automakers, such as Mercedes-Benz, to announce they will stop producing stick shift cars. ## An easier way to shift gears.

Continue reading “It’s Official, No More Stick Shifts for Mercedes-Benz” »

We’ve all likely had our share of car crashes over the years. Let’s trace the various published research underlying a somewhat simple but altogether crucial question, namely if you know that a crash is about to occur should you go limp or attempt to tighten and brace yourself. Turns out that the answer is complicated and often dependent upon the circumstances at hand. First, there is a popular assumption that you ought to let your body go loose or limp when an impending car crash is about to occur. Some claim that this ragdoll posturing will be advantageous. The purported logic is that we all know that a straight and narrow stick will presumably break and snap entirely when placed under intense pressure. As such, if you tense up, you are risking all manner of personal bodily damage. According to the sage wisdom of Confucius: “The reed which bends in the wind is stronger than the mighty oak which breaks in a storm.”

Full Story:

Quick, you are inside a self-driving car and it is about to get embroiled in a car crash, what should you do? And what should the AI driving system do? Tough questions, for sure.

Continue reading “The Ethical Debate About Whether AI Ought To Warn You When The Self-Driving Car That You Are Riding In Is About To Crash” »