Holy s$%§!!! How can a company design such a beautiful car! The Mercedes Vision EQ Silver Arrow has an absolute stunning design, pure art. Excellent close-up shots in this teaser.
It is a full-electric replica of Silver Arrow from 1938, which reached a world speed record of 432.7 km/h.
The future is electric
Starting a new chapter of mobility and technology with a Hyundai Ioniq full electric car.
An amazing full electric car.
It is available as Hybrid, Plug-In and Electric model. In Las Vegas it was also equipped with a demo of a fully autonomous driving assistant.
Premium collaboration
Tesla was the first premium supplier in the EV market. All market players are trying to shape the future, creating a game changer, which Tesla certainly did. But now, in the next round of the game (FULLY autonomous driving), Tesla is not taking the lead anymore.
Waymo, the Google company developing a fully autonomous driver technology, has now partnered with Jaguar and unveiled the self-driving Jaguar i-Pace. The plan is to have the Waymo’s driverless transportation service available with the i-Pace to the public this year in Phoenix, Arizona. The Waymo Jaguar cooperation has the potential for a production of up to 20.000 self-driving i-Pace cars in the first two years of production.
The new Jaguar i-Pace seems to be even more powerful than two variants of a Tesla Model X, at least according to a challenge sponsored by Jaguar. 🙂
With all the fascination of a game-changer in self-driving technology, let us hope that governments will carefully control and restrict self-driving technology to make sure that the self-driving computer can not unlash the full power of this car.
Autonomous killing
Elaine Herzberg will unfortunately enter history. She is the first pedestrian killed by a self-driving Uber car. She was 49 years old when she crossed N Mill Ave in Tempe, Arizona at this place on March 18, 2018.
Elaine Herzberg was walking her bike across the street when an autonomous Volvo XC90 SUV from Uber approached the scene with Rafaela V. in the driver seat as a backup driver. Unfortunately neither the backup driver nor the Uber LiDAR system reacted. As a result, the car continued to drive straight forward, without steering or reducing speed, and killed Elaine Herzberg.
The video of Uber, which was handed over to the police, creates the impression that N Mill Ave is in the middle of nowhere because it is extremely dark. However, in reality, N Mill Ave is actually in the middle of the well-electrified city Tempe, with a population of about 180.000 people. Unless there is a power-outage, this is not a place in the middle of nowhere. A non-Uber video, driving along the same route, shows the real light situation (position of the accident at 0:34 min).
It shows that the video of Uber is simply a joke – it was either edited or recorded with a poor camera (probably the same poor camera which is responsible for autonomous driving…). The pedestrian could have been seen already at 0:31 min. The accident happened at a position of about 0:34 min, so this opens up a reaction window of about 3 seconds for the car’s LiDAR system and/or the backup driver (assuming that the backup driver pays attention to the street and not to the phone). However, there was not even a steering or braking attempt.
Basically after we have successfully automated lawn mowers, we are now trying the same with automated cars on public roads – what a breakthrough in technology! An autonomous (smartphone-controlled) “backup driver” is the perfect combination for an autonomous car. Looking forward for autonomous trucks and busses on public roads and for autonomous drones coming down on us from above. Let’s carelessly adopt all this technology. It makes life so much more convenient. So sad!
Luckily the pedestrian in the video below was not distracted by his smartphone, when an autonomous Uber car run over a red traffic light, which was red already since 3 seconds. Another autonomous killing attempt…
How many casualties will we need to limit the speed of autonomous cars and to monitor them with attentive backup drivers, always keeping their hands on the steering wheel? Rest in peace Elaine Herzberg. Hopefully Uber paid at least for your funeral.
Disturbing Starman
On one hand it is very inspiring to see what a private company can do: Headed by Elon Musk, his company SpaceX managed the first successful Falcon Heavy test flight into space, with synchronous autonomous landing of the boosters – a stunning coverage.
On the other hand it is very disturbing to see what SpaceX is using this test flight for: In space they have released a red Tesla Roadster with “Starman”, an astronaut-suited mannequin driver, and cameras for live video coverage on the way to Mars.
So let’s get familiar with life on Mars – one car will be already there. 😉 The Daft Punk / The Weeknd song “I Feel It Coming” gives an impression of life on Mars. 🙂
Rocket over L.A.
On December 22nd 2017 citizens of L.A. got scared when they suddenly saw an unknown bright object in the sky.
A few people were aware of this event and prepared themselves to capture it from a good viewpoint.
It was actually the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The rocket had 10 Iridium satellites on board, which were all successfully deployed in orbit as part of the Iridium® NEXT satellite constellation network. Originally intended for satellite telephony, the new Iridium generation can now also listen to the transmission of every aircraft in the world, giving a 100% picture of the realtime location of every airplane on the planet. Additionally it has the ability to monitor all ships in realtime, giving a 100% picture of every ship in the ocean. The SpaceX Iridium webcast shows the full launch and satellite deployment and explains the details of the “hosted payload” (at 9:00 min).
Elon Musk has done an amazing job, building rockets from scratch with his SpaceX team. These are extracts of an office tour he conducted in 2010.
Machining the rocket engines in house, Elon Musk said in 2010 that “…next year we will make more rocket engines than any country in the world”.
Rocket science
Elon Musk has revolutionized mobility on the street. Nobody is questioning anymore that electric cars are the future on the roads. He will also revolutionize the long distance travel: As a residue of his SpaceX program, he is planning to replace commercial long distance aircraft flights with rocket flights.
It is impressive to see how precise his rocket prototypes are performing a propulsive landing.
42 x 100
According to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the number 42 is the answer to life, the universe and everything. Bugatti qualifies for this number in several aspects: After 10 years of development, their latest supercar for series production “Chiron” multiplies this number 100 times: It reaches a top speed of 420 km/h on the road, frightening reality! The good part is that only 500 pieces of this car will be produced at the price of 2.4 million Euros each, so it is unlikely to be surprised by such a car on the highway. In a Bugatti advertisement video, including some drone shots, it was accelerated to 400 km/h and the decelerated to zero within 42 seconds.
To slow down the 1.500 horsepower engine from this insane speed, 420 mm carbon ceramic brake disks and a rear air brake spoiler are used. Much more than these insane specs, it’s so impressive to see that it was possible to combine all disciplines of knowledge to create such a masterpiece of engineering. Now that the era of electric cars has begun, it will probably be the last of its kind with a combustion engine.
Filming this car at top speed is difficult because no drone or other car can catch up with its speed but nevertheless already the shots from a fixed location are impressive, like this one filmed in Dubai with great close-up and sunset shots.
Vision of The Island
All-electric cars became attractive with Tesla. The design of a Tesla is beautiful and test-driving a Tesla is amazing. Once you get out of a Tesla, you don’t want to go back into your stinking gasoline-powered car again. Electric cars are actually giving the hope of a good future, with less dust and noise in cities.
Mercedes has created an extreme vision of an electric car: Their design study has become reality in a Maybach 6 Cabriolet, an all-electric car with a 750 horsepower electric engine. The shape is stunning.
The teaser video combines excellent product close-ups with drone shots and a cinematic music that reminds so much of the movie score of The Island by Steve Jablonsky.
The German ADAC published several high quality photos of the design study in his blog, the original article by ADAC can be found here.
The interior, with blue fibre pipes, reminds even more of the movie The Island.
The best part is under the hood: On the first sight, the white blocks under the hood look like exchangeable battery packs – but they are not. These are custom-designed leather suitcases, umbrellas and a picnic set with plates and cutlery! It seems that Mercedes assumes that the buyer of such a luxury car is staying on camp grounds more often than in luxury hotels.
It’s even more crazy that this car can also be driven with a remote control. This guy has to be really careful. Will we soon need a special remote control car drivers license?
Pop up
Airbus and Italdesign are partnering for the development of a seamless urban mobility concept. “Pop.up” is the concept of a capsule which can be connected e.g. to an electric vehicle module or to an electric drone module. The idea is to keep the passenger in the capsule all the time, no matter if it is driving, flying or in a Hyperloop.
Introduction by Airbus.
Introduction by Italdesign.