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GM Wants Your Electric Car to Power Your House--and Your Neighborhood

WIRED

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.


Rivian R2 2026: Specs, Price, Availability

WIRED

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

BBC News

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.


Uber's robotaxis arrive in the UK: Self-driving cars will be available in London this summer

Daily Mail - Science & tech

Massive twist in JPMorgan'sex slave' case as accuser unveils NEW dossier of wild claims: 'The story is about to change dramatically' Trump's return to New York City for historic NBA Finals game takes dramatic turn as White House reveals sweeping ICE plot When I lost 150lbs men did double-takes in the street. Then I handed my husband sexy photos of my new body and he barely looked, so I moved on. I used to only drink socially but after a bad break-up I started boozing every night and gorging myself on crisps - then I took this £3 pill... now both wine AND junk food taste awful and I have dropped to a size 8 Americans finally snap over'ridiculous' tipping culture as millions slash gratuities... and reveal the trick they are refusing to fall for Luigi Mangione's sister lands prized job at America's most prestigious hospital... as she makes bold public move before murder trial Incredible footage emerges of star-studded celebrity row from Knicks' last appearance in NBA Finals in 1999 Kim Kardashian'steals Monaco Grand Prix winner's TOWEL' on disastrous debut as an F1 WAG to Lewis Hamilton after snubbing iconic TV reporter Explosive new details of accused baby killer's sickening video confession... as glamorous PhD student makes grim bathroom claim after 13-hour interrogation MOLLY CLAYTON: Whispers in the paddock, and some VERY raised eyebrows: Why Kim Kardashian's first appearance with Lewis Hamilton at the Monaco Grand Prix is sending the rumour mill into overdrive... as his mother stays firmly away Kanye West's wife Bianca Censori almost pops out of her nude suit on his 49th birthday after she calls him her '4ever' Idaho murder victim's father reveals new account of chilling moment he came face-to-face with Bryan Kohberger: 'I want to hunt killers' Gilmore Girls star Alexis Bledel became a TV icon in her teens... see her now during rare red carpet appearance at age 44 US tourists are'tricked' into paying 44 euros for two ice creams in Rome Bill Gates's embarrassing secrets revealed by Epstein-linked mistress who Melinda HATED Uber's robotaxis arrive in the UK: Self-driving cars will be available in London this summer READ MORE: Waymo'goes rogue': Self-driving car wakes residents at 4am Uber has unveiled its fleet of self-driving robotaxis, which will soon take to the streets of London . Designed in collaboration with Wayve, the robotaxi is an all-electric Ford Mustang Mach-e, equipped with surround cameras and radar. The high-tech set-up allows Wayve's AI to see the world with full 360-degree visibility around the car at all times.


Embattled Nidec to suspend biz acquisitions

The Japan Times

KYOTO - Nidec President Mitsuya Kishida has said the major Japanese motor maker will suspend business acquisitions for the time being to focus its efforts on reconstructing the firm rocked by accounting and product quality fraud. Business acquisitions have been a growth driver for Nidec, based in Kyoto. "I will work on rebuilding our company's governance system," Kishida said in an interview Friday, showing a plan to spend ¥130 billion over five years on measures to prevent irregularities. A panel of outside experts that investigated the accounting fraud has concluded that excessive pressure from Nidec's founder, Shigenobu Nagamori, on company staff to meet performance targets was among the factors behind the irregularities. Pointing out that Nidec had "a corporate culture to pursue short-term profits," Kishida said, "We will build a system that makes it impossible to commit irregularities regarding accounting and product quality control." On future business management, he said, "We will review our operations, including the possibility of ceding what we have in our group to partner entities," suggesting that consolidating some of its existing operations could be an option.


Ferrari wanted to take on Chinese EVs with the Luce - then the backlash started

BBC News

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.


Is the Ferrari Luce's Design Really That Bad? 3 Italian Auto Experts Weigh In

WIRED

Is the Ferrari Luce's Design Really That Bad? 3 Italian Auto Experts Weigh In The first electric Ferrari is already this year's most divisive car. We asked three Italian auto industry professionals to explain where the EV's design makes sense, and where it doesn't add up. The Ferrari Luce, the first electric vehicle in the brand's history, has generated heated discussion online, as comments and opinions about the design continue to bounce around the web. The Luce, an electric sedan with a $650,000 price tag that Ferrari presented with pomp and circumstance at the Quirinale in Rome on Monday, has paid dearly for its coming out from behind the curtain. Since Monday, the automaker has been suffering an avalanche of complaints and skepticism about the Luce.


BYD debuts China's most advanced EV chip in smart-driving push

The Japan Times

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.


Kernel-based potential mean-field games with unbiased random Fourier $U$-statistics

arXiv.org Machine Learning

We study the subclass of potential mean-field games in which the running interaction cost and the terminal target cost are both expressed through reproducing-kernel maximum mean discrepancy (MMD) penalties, and develop a computational framework that exploits this kernel structure. Both costs are estimated from finite-sample empirical distributions using a random Fourier U-statistic representation that is unbiased and has linear cost in the batch size. The drift of the controlled diffusion is parametrized by a neural network and trained via stochastic gradient descent. For this subclass we prove a sample-level almost-sure convergence theorem and an explicit almost-sure rate of convergence, under coupled rate conditions on the penalty parameter, the random-feature count, the sample size, and the optimization tolerance. The framework includes the kernel-MMD-penalty Schrödinger bridge problem as the special case of a vanishing interaction cost. Numerical experiments illustrate the method on the Schrödinger bridge problem in dimensions up to one hundred, and on an electric vehicle charging coordination problem with per-vehicle physical heterogeneity, where an aggregate-demand congestion cost represents price-feedback competition at the population level and the terminal MMD penalty shapes the state-of-charge distribution at the deadline.


The 6 Billion Chinese Startup Trying to Build Hands for Every Robot

WIRED

LinkerBot makes dexterous robotic hands for as little as $600. It wants to become the standard for humanoids and automated factories--and eventually replace human labor altogether. If you could buy a humanoid robot for less than a smartphone, would you? Would you buy several robots to handle cooking, cleaning, babysitting, and even your job? This is the pitch being made by Zhou Yong, the 40-year-old founder and chief technology officer of LinkerBot, one of China's leading manufacturers of dexterous humanoid hands.