General Motors

Waymo raises $2.5 billion in second external funding round

Waymo just announced a second external funding round, raising $2.5 billion for the continued advancement of its autonomous driving technology. According to investor website PitchBook, the company is valued at just over $30 billion, though that figure does not include this most recent funding round. (A spokesperson didn’t respond to a request seeking clarification.) For… Read more

General Motors’ electric vehicle plan just got even more expensive

General Motors announced that it would increase its investment in electric and autonomous vehicles to $35 billion through 2025. The new figure represents a 30 percent increase over the amount the automaker said it would spend last November, and a 75 percent increase from its initial investment prior to the pandemic. It’s a staggering amount… Read more

Cruise gets permit from California to provide passenger test rides in driverless vehicles

The California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) said Friday (pdf) it has authorized General Motors-owned self-driving vehicle company Cruise to provide driverless passenger service to the public in its robotaxis. The CPUC said Cruise is the first entrant in its driverless pilot program, which lets companies give test rides in vehicles without drivers. Under the terms… Read more

Tesla starts using in-car camera for Autopilot driver monitoring

Tesla is starting to use the camera above the rear-view mirror in the Model 3 and Model Y to help make sure people pay attention to the road while using Autopilot, the company’s advanced driver assistance system. Until now, the main way Tesla’s cars measure driver attention is through torque sensors in the steering wheel… Read more

Lockheed Martin and GM are working on an electric Moon buggy

Lockheed Martin and General Motors unveiled plans on Wednesday to build an autonomous buggy-like vehicle that future astronauts can use to zip around the surface of the Moon. The two companies collaborated to pitch a conceptual Lunar Terrain Vehicle to NASA’s Artemis program, a Moon exploration campaign that calls for various robots, vehicles, and scientific… Read more

Electric vehicle startups hit speed bumps after raising tons of cash

Electric vehicle startups have raised an absurd amount of money in the last year by merging with special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs. That money — billions of dollars, collectively — was supposed to be enough to help each of them start fighting for space in a market dominated by Tesla. But many of these… Read more

How Ford’s F-150 Lightning stacks up against the Tesla Cybertruck and Hummer EV

Ford has revealed its first all-electric F-150, the Lightning, and on paper it looks like a really compelling truck. It’s priced aggressively for an electric vehicle, has plenty of power, and looks to be more capable at towing and hauling than the cheapest gas-powered F-150s. But Ford’s not alone in developing an electric pickup truck… Read more

Ford teams up with South Korea’s SK Innovation to build EV batteries in the US

Hot off the heels of the public debut of the F-150 Lightning pickup truck, Ford announced that it will form a joint venture with South Korea’s SK Innovation to manufacture batteries for electric vehicles at scale. The two companies signed a memorandum of understanding to create a joint venture called BlueOvalSK that would manufacture batteries… Read more

Chevy Bolt EUV gets lower than expected EPA range of 247 miles

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says the new “EUV” version of the 2022 Chevy Bolt will travel an average of 247 miles on a full battery pack — three miles shy of the estimate General Motors provided when the vehicle was announced in February. The updated version of the existing Bolt, meanwhile, will top out… Read more

General Motors has a solution for our crappy EV charging infrastructure

General Motors announced a “holistic charging approach” to electric vehicle charging that it’s calling the Ultium Charge 360. Much like Ford does with its FordPass network, the Ultium Charge 360 will integrate GM’s own vehicle apps and software with a variety of third-party charging services, such as Blink, ChargePoint, EVgo, Flo, Greenlots, and SemaConnect. The… Read more

The UAW wants to unionize EV startup factory workers

The United Auto Workers union is “laying the groundwork” to organize factory workers that will build electric vehicles for startups like Rivian and Lucid Motors, president Rory Gamble told CNBC. “That’s a given. We are formulating plans to go out to all these start-ups to give these workers a voice,” he said. “In today’s world,… Read more

Ford takes its first step toward producing its own electric car batteries

Ford announced the launch of a new battery development center in Michigan, the first step toward taking on some of the burden of building its own battery cells for electric cars in-house. The new “global battery center of excellence” will be called Ford Ion Park and will be based in Southeast Michigan. Ford said the… Read more

Honda will phase out gas-powered cars by 2040

Honda said it will stop selling gas-powered vehicles by 2040. The automaker expects 40 percent of its sales globally to be comprised of battery-electric and fuel-cell vehicles by 2030, followed by 80 percent in 2035, and 100 percent of sales by 2040. Honda is the latest car company to commit to an all-electric future, with… Read more

Congress resurrects push to allow thousands more autonomous vehicles on the road

Robot cars are back in the spotlight on Capitol Hill after previous efforts failed to pass comprehensive legislation allowing more autonomous vehicles on the road. US Sens. Gary Peters (D-MI) and John Thune (R-SD) plan to introduce an amendment to a funding bill that would grant federal regulators the power to exempt tens of thousands… Read more

Toyota finally gets off its ass and announces a real electric vehicle strategy

Toyota, an early pioneer in electrification that has since fallen far behind its competitors, finally announced an electric vehicle strategy that will result in 15 new battery-electric vehicles released by 2025. The company, which helped pave the way for companies like Tesla and others by proving that vehicles with alternative powertrains could be immensely popular,… Read more