Hark, the electric car! EVs have had a blockbuster half-decade, regulation-wise, with big countries like China and US giving the nascent tech a boost in pursuit of their own climate goals. So this week wasn’t so much a departure as an exciting continuation of a trend.
Audi released its E-tron SUV, complete with a glitzy, 1,500-person party in the Bay Area, and in addition to checking out the new ride, we took stock of all the new battery-charged autos on the market. Porsche continues to put out announcements about its Taycan sedan, due out around 2020: Now it says the car will have a very fast charger. Plus, Tesla continues to make news, some of it good—its Model 3 got an impeccable review from American safety regulators—and some of it bad, since it’s reportedly the target of a Justice Department investigation. Win some, lose some.
In other news, senior writer Jack Stewart tracked down a self-driving tram experiment in Germany; I explored how cities are thinking about scooter-share data; and we took a look at the latest bicycle commuting numbers.
Let’s get you caught up:
Tesla’s strange third quarter continues, with a report that the electric carmaker faces a federal criminal probe over Elon Musk’s “funding secured” tweets. Tesla says the government thus far has only requested documents of the company, which suggests, as one lawyer tells WIRED, that it’s just “nosing around.” But the investigation is still another cloud—and a self-conjured one!—that Tesla and Musk must work around as they try to ramp up Model 3 production.
In more positive Tesla news: The company’s Model 3 received a five-star crash rating in every category from the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration.
Say hello to the all-electric Audi E-tron, the German carmaker’s first battery-based SUV. WIRED contributor Eric Adams breaks down the specs, and senior writer Jack Stewart sees how the E-tron stacks up to the other electric competition.
The electric vehicle market is seriously heating up, which means automakers have to find ways to distinguish their latest offerings. Porsche, due to roll out its electric Taycan in the US around 2020, has announced at least one: an electric charging station that can top your zoomer off with 250 miles worth of charge in just 15 minutes.
OK, yes, electrics are cool. But so is old-fashioned speed: Ferrari this week announced its Icona line, starting with two cars that combine vintage design with a 0 to 60 time under 3 seconds. But good luck actually buying one, even if you’ve got seven figures lying around—it looks like the whole line is sold out.
Automated trucks will happen, eventually. But where will they happen? The traffic analytics company Inrix uses its fleet data to find where self-driving trucks’ key attributes—increased safety, fast shipments—are most needed. But will regulations help facilitate the development of the new tech in the right places?
In Potsdam, Germany, the wily engineers at Siemens are testing a driverless tram. (As of right now, the vehicles are passenger-free, too.) The company, like Waymo, is hoping to perfect the autonomous technology in a relatively unchallenging environment—one in which the vehicle traverses the same route, day after day, on tracks.
Cities have gotten a lot savvier since Uber and Lyft showed up on their streets less than a decade ago. As bike- and scooter-share companies continue their wheeling across America’s urban spaces, many government officials are demanding the startups hand over their trip data, I report.
The latest numbers from the American Community Survey show cycle commuting is down slightly—and a dramatic cycling gap between cities (and regions) persists.
WIRED’s 25th anniversary issue asked 25 WIRED icons to nominate the 25 people who will shape the industry’s future. And of course our icons wanted to talk drones. 23andMe’s Anne Wojcicki nominates Keller Rinaudo, cofounder and CEO of Zipline, the company that uses autonomous planes to fly medical supplies like vaccines and blood donations to hard-to-reach places. Zipline now fulfills about a fifth of the blood needs for Rwanda’s rural population, thanks to a contract with the country’s government.
It’s never too late to go public. Aston-Martin, the 105-year-old British carmaker that has ferried 007 around since 1964’s Goldfinger, announced this week its plans for an early October initial public offering, at $23.24 to $29.88 per share. That would make the company—which has made some lovely cars of late—worth around $5.3 billion to $6.7 billion.
29.6 days
The amount of time, on average, a late-model used Toyota Prius C spends on the the lot, making it the fastest-selling used vehicle in America, according to a survey by iSeeCars.com.1
News from elsewhere on the internet
Bloomberg reports that Liam O’Connor, Tesla’s vice president of global supply management, has left the company. He’s at least the fifth executive to leave the company in the past few weeks.
From The New York Times: How one Silicon Valley startup that started by making lidar for self-driving cars ended up building sensors to track people at the border.
Amazon’s $50 Echo Auto is the newest entry in a confused—and confusing—automotive infotainment market. Read more about Amazon’s Alexa strategy right here.
The scooter mavens at unicorn startup Bird announce they’ve given 10 million rides since their launch just one year ago.
Washington, DC is reporting its first scooter-share road death since the electric vehicles came to the city in February.
Look like the Chinese dockless bike-share company Mobike inflated its ride and ridership numbers.
One perspective on why Europe is trailing on self-driving cars: It’s being slow and deliberate.
Essential stories from WIRED’s pastWIRED turns 25 this month, which means we’ve been combing through our archives to see where we’ve been—and figure out where we’re going. Check out this 1997 take on the future of fuel cell-powered vehicles, which features a tech exec goading our writer into taking a sip of bus exhaust. (Everyone survives.)
1Correction appended, 9/24/18, 2:15 PM EDT: An earlier version of this story misstated the average time that late-model Toyota Prius Cs spend on lots. It is 29.6 days, not weeks.
