In 1954, in a moment of absolute frankness, the president of Gifford Motors described his company’s latest luxury automobile: “Designed to appeal to the snob in everyone. Designed to convert your bank account into our dividends.” Perhaps you’re wondering why you never heard of such an honest car executive. That’s because he existed only in… Continue reading In 1953, the Ford X-100 Concept Car Had It All
Author: IEEE_Spectrum
Electrifying Everything Will Require Multiphysics Modeling
A prototyping problem is emerging in today’s efforts to electrify everything. What works as a lab-bench mockup breaks in reality. Harnessing and safely storing energy at grid scale and in cars, trucks, and planes is a very hard problem that simplified models sometimes can’t touch. “In electrification, at its core, you have this combination of… Continue reading Electrifying Everything Will Require Multiphysics Modeling
Former SpaceX Engineer Brings Aerospace Ideas to EV Charging
As a young SpaceX engineer, Quincy Lee led a rollout of hundreds of terrestrial antennas for Elon Musk’s Starlink Internet service. The project covered three continents, took just 24 months—and turned out to be great preparation for Lee’s next chapter. Lee, now the founder and CEO of Electric Era, wants to make EV charging faster,… Continue reading Former SpaceX Engineer Brings Aerospace Ideas to EV Charging
Faster, Smaller AI Model Found for Image Geolocation
Imagine playing a new, slightly altered version of the game GeoGuessr. You’re faced with a photo of an average U.S. house, maybe two floors with a front lawn in a cul-de-sac and an American flag flying proudly out front. But there’s nothing particularly distinctive about this home, nothing to tell you the state it’s in… Continue reading Faster, Smaller AI Model Found for Image Geolocation
Solid-State Transformer Design Unlocks Faster EV Charging
This article is part of our exclusive IEEE Journal Watch series in partnership with IEEE Xplore. The rapid buildout of fast-charging stations for electric vehicles is testing the limits of today’s power grid. With individual chargers drawing 350 to 500 kilowatts (or more), which makes charging times for EVs now functionally equivalent to the fill-up… Continue reading Solid-State Transformer Design Unlocks Faster EV Charging
Hyundai Factory ICE Raid Sends Chills Through EV industry
When I visited Hyundai Motor’s “Metaplant” in May to drive the new Ioniq9 electric SUV, the facility was a symbol of everything right about U.S. auto manufacturing. It’s a US $7.6 billion showpiece of automation staffed by gung-ho and highly skilled workers, capable of churning out 500,000 EVs a year at full crank. The biggest… Continue reading Hyundai Factory ICE Raid Sends Chills Through EV industry
Quantum Sensors Sidestep the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
A cornerstone of quantum physics is uncertainty. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle states the more precisely you pinpoint the position of a particle, the less precisely you can know its momentum at the same time, and vice versa. However, a new study reveals that scientists have now discovered a way to sidestep this quantum tradeoff. This could… Continue reading Quantum Sensors Sidestep the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
The NEC-Approved Solution That’s Changing How Fleets Approach EV Charging
Register now free-of-charge to explore this white paper Overcome the Biggest Barriers to Fleet Electrification This whitepaper demonstrates how Automated Load Management (ALM) enables you to install charging stations that exceed your site’s grid capacity – legally and safely. No waiting. No massive utility bills. Just smart power distribution that works with your existing infrastructure.… Continue reading The NEC-Approved Solution That’s Changing How Fleets Approach EV Charging
Muscle-Bound Micromirrors Could Bring Lidar to More Cars
Five years ago, Eric Aguilar was fed up. He had worked on lidar and other sensors for years at Tesla and Google X, but the technology always seemed too expensive and, more importantly, unreliable. He replaced the lidar sensors when they broke—which was all too often, and seemingly at random—and developed complex calibration methods and… Continue reading Muscle-Bound Micromirrors Could Bring Lidar to More Cars
“Hearing Car” Detects Sounds for Safer Driving
Autonomous vehicles have eyes—cameras, lidar, radar. But ears? That’s what researchers at Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology’s Oldenburg Branch for Hearing, Speech and Audio Technology in Germany are building with the Hearing Car. The idea is to outfit vehicles with external microphones and AI to detect, localize, and classify environmental sounds, with the goal… Continue reading “Hearing Car” Detects Sounds for Safer Driving