The automaker today is turning on vehicle-to-grid charging for its GM Energy customers. Will people actually use it? Some 250,000 electric vehicles manufactured by General Motors are driving around the US today--right now!--with an oft-secret capability: Their big, powerful batteries can charge other things. Potentially appliances, homes, and now, thanks to a software update pushed by the automaker this week, an electrical grid . Twelve of GM's EVs have this "bidirectional charging" capability, way more than US competitors' battery-electrics.

With a competitive price, winning design, and better performance than the R1, Rivian could be set to break into the big leagues. Just make sure you get the right model with the right tech. For years, Rivian made one argument: Serious all-electric adventure vehicles had to cost serious money. The R1S, still one of the more capable off-roaders on any surface, starts at $75,900. The R2 is Rivian's answer to its own problem.

SpaceX's stock market blast-off could be Musk's biggest gamble yet It's 07:25 am, 13 October 2024, at Starbase, near Boca Chica on the Texas side of the US/Mexico border, and on the launch pad stands the biggest rocket ever made. Its engines fire and it climbs into the skies over the Gulf of Mexico to cheers and screams in the SpaceX control room. But the launch is not the main event. What goes up must come down - and how it comes down will become a milestone in space exploration. Seven minutes later, the massive rocket booster that blasted the craft towards space starts falling back to Earth - until its engines reignite as planned.

The new Ferrari Luce, the brainchild of iPhone designer Sir Jony Ive, is unlike anything the Italian carmaker has ever created - so is the backlash it is facing. Its launch was such a big deal that Italian President Sergio Mattarella and Pope Leo were invited to view the luxury brand's first electric vehicle (EV). But internet critics, investors and even politicians have hit out at the Luce - which is Italian for light. The firm's shares fell 8% the day after the unveiling, as a host of memes mocked the $640,000 (£475,625) car, which is also its first five-seater. It comes as the global motor industry faces a number of major challenges, including fierce competition from Chinese carmakers.

BYD debuts China's most advanced EV chip in smart-driving push BYD on Thursday unveiled what it calls China's first automotive-grade 4-nanometer chip for self-driving cars. BYD, the world's largest electric vehicle maker, unveiled a series of technology advances, including what it calls China's first automotive-grade 4-nanometer chip for self-driving cars. The semiconductor breakthrough approaches the lead of Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies, which currently makes chips with a geometry of 7 nm but has pledged to debut 1.4 nm chips by 2031. It's designed to allow BYD's computer-assisted driving to stand out from a crowded Chinese EV market that includes rivals such as Xpeng and Xiaomi. Facing eight months in a row of falling sales and intense competition for more advanced charging and intelligent driving technologies, BYD is looking to spark more demand for its vehicles.

The pale-blue Ojai vehicles will start picking up members of the public in California and Arizona today. Starting today, Alphabet self-driving vehicle developer Waymo will start picking up members of the public in its new Ojai vehicles (pronounced "oh hai")--pale blue boxy minivans studded with sensors and complete with steering wheels, even though they're designed to travel without drivers. For now, the rides in these new cars, which can be summoned through Waymo's app, will be free. It's been a long road for the vehicle, first announced by Waymo in 2021 and tested on public streets since 2024. It's also a weird time for Waymo: The self-driving-vehicle company, which is trying to expand quickly across the US and the world, shut down service in six US cities last week due to issues with how its vehicles react to flooding.

The world's carmakers are struggling to compete with China Global carmakers are facing a reckoning as US, European and Japanese brands lose ground to Chinese rivals setting the pace not only in electric vehicles, but also in batteries, design and software. The BBC visited factory floors in Beijing and Hefei on the sidelines of Auto China 2026 - the world's largest car show - and found striking levels of automation and software development speed, leaving foreign brands that once dominated the Chinese market struggling to keep up. We have no chance against this, Honda chief executive Toshihiro Mibe told Japanese media after visiting a highly automated factory in Shanghai. Ford chief executive Jim Farley has also warned that Western carmakers, are in a fight for our lives as Chinese rivals expand globally. After decades spent investing in joint ventures with Chinese partners to build vehicles, foreign carmakers are now changing the nature of those partnerships to stay competitive.

Best Power Banks Best Smart Rings Routers vs. Modems Choose the Right Laptop Smart Sprinklers Deals Delivered But This Is Why It's Heartbreaking Designed by Jony Ive and a host of ex-Cupertino colleagues, the Luce shows us what might have been had Apple made good on its $10 billion bet. You know things are bad when the Pope gets involved . No doubt reeling from a launch that somehow went down even worse than Ferrari itself anticipated, the Italian carmaker sought to get the endorsement of none other than His Holiness Pope Leo XIV for its first EV, the Luce. Guided by Ferrari chairman John Elkann and senior Ferrari executives, in a hillside town about 15 miles southeast of Rome, the pontiff sat in the driver's seat and listened patiently as test driver Raffaele De Simone explained the vehicle's controls and driving modes as if he really was speaking to a man clearly in the market for a 1,000-horsepower electric car capable of hitting 62 mph in 2.5 seconds. Meanwhile, as Pope Leo was no doubt pondering how the Luce could boast one of the largest batteries in any production EV yet still only manage a maximum 329 miles, or how an accelerometer on the rear axle somehow worked like a guitar pickup to create in-cabin sound like an "instrument," the market was speaking.

After the Trump administration turned away from electrification, two of the nation's biggest governments will advocate for more electric vans, police cars, and eventually, snowplows. New York City is not a car town. But pay attention as you walk, bike, or, sure, drive around the country's most populous city, and you might notice a car trend: an increasing number of its vehicles are electric . The city government operates some 5,800 EVs, plus 4,700 hybrid vehicles--Parks Department pickups, Police Department crossover SUVs, school buses, paramedic response vehicles, even some hulking garbage trucks. A local law requires the city to transition its entire light-and medium-duty fleet to batteries by 2035 and its trucks by 2038.

It's now one of the 10 countries where (supervised) FSD is now available. Tesla's Full Self-Driving (FSD) driver-assistance system is now available in China . In a post on X, Tesla listed China as one of the 10 countries wherein FSD is already available. The company is, of course, talking about the supervised version of the technology, seeing as unsupervised FSD is still not available to the public. On Tesla's Chinese website, the company lists intelligent assisted driving as an add-on option for Tesla Model 3. It will cost customers in the country a one-time fee of 64,000 yuan ($9,410) on top of the vehicle itself.