Elon Musk - Page 4 of 14

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, you have to think out of the box in how you reach people. We really have to drive home the benefits of belonging to the union.”

Gamble declined to say what those plans involve, according to CNBC. The UAW did not respond to a request for comment from The Verge. Representatives for Rivian, Lucid Motors, Faraday Future, and Lordstown Motors did not respond to requests for comment.

Factory workers who build cars for legacy automakers like Ford, General Motors, and others have long been part of the UAW. But that’s not been the case for newer automakers in the US. The factory Tesla operates was once jointly owned by Toyota and GM, and its workforce was represented by the UAW. But when Tesla bought the shuttered factory after the recession in 2010, it rebuilt the workforce without a union.

Since then, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has maintained that his factory workers are better off without union representation. He once wrote that the UAW “does not share our mission,” and claimed its “true allegiance is to the giant car companies, where the money they take from employees in dues is vastly more than they could ever make from Tesla.” (The UAW collects monthly dues ranging from 0.805 percent to 1.44 percent of a worker’s monthly earnings, depending on a number of factors.) The National Labor Relations Board ultimately ruled that Musk’s comments should be considered union-busting and broke the law.

While a lot of attention has recently been paid to organizing efforts in tech and media industries, the number of non-government employees who belong to a union has fallen slightly over the last decade. The labor rights movement took an especially public hit earlier this month when a push to unionize an Amazon warehouse in Alabama overwhelmingly failed.

Similarly high-profile efforts to unionize in the auto industry have also recently failed, like when the UAW tried to organize workers at a Nissan plant in Mississippi in 2017 or at Volkswagen’s plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee in 2019.

There are a number of EV startups that plan to build their vehicles in the United States. But, like Tesla, they have been assembling non-unionized workforces ahead of production at their respective factories. Many of them are also now flush with cash thanks to big investments or mergers with publicly traded special purpose acquisition companies.

Rivian, which is backed by Amazon and is the most well-funded of the bunch, is supposed to start assembling its electric pickup truck and SUV at a former Mitsubishi plant it bought in Normal, Illinois. Saudi Arabia-backed Lucid Motors will build its electric luxury sedan at a massive new factory it’s building in Casa Grande, Arizona. Faraday Future, which is going public sometime before the end of June, is partway through refurbishing and retooling a former Pirelli tire plant in Hanford, California, where it will build its luxury SUV.

One of the youngest EV startups in the country, Lordstown Motors, bought a shuttered GM factory in Lordstown, Ohio that was previously operated by UAW workers. The company’s CEO Steve Burns has said he was considering rehiring some of that workforce, but he told The Verge last year that it would be up to them whether they want to unionize.

“[I]t isn’t our call, but in case they do, we will embrace it and make sure the union knows what we’re trying to accomplish and see how we can work together to hit it out of the park,” Burns said. “The culture of the place is union, you know, the history. So we anticipate that to happen, to have union representation.”

Tesla Model S Limited Edition with matching iPhone 12 Pro

Caviar has designed an ultra-luxurious gold Tesla Model S (Plaid) concept car, with two perfectly matching iPhone 12 Pro Limited Edition smartphones.

Caviar Luxury Atelier is known for manufacturing luxury and exclusive smartphones and accessories. The latest Apple iPhone and Samsung Galaxy models are usually used as a basis for their exclusive creations. This time Caviar has designed two new iPhone 12 Pro Limited Edition models, which are inspired by the Tesla Model S electric car. To further enhance the feeling of luxury and exclusivity, Caviar has also created a golden Tesla Model S concept. It is the first car that the brand redesigns.

To start with the iPhone 12 Pro. The new Caviar collection consists of two models, a black and a gold model. The back of the smartphones are made of hardened titanium, which is used in the aerospace industry. The design is further enriched with a black and gold PVD coating, whereby the contours of the Tesla Model S are clearly reflected in the design.

Naturally, the characteristic Caviar crown has also been incorporated into the design. Both iPhone 12 Pro models come in a limited edition of 99 pieces. The costs for this exclusive smartphone start at $ 6,150 USD, for which you will receive the black iPhone 12 Pro 128GB. For the gold model, prices start at $ 6,600 USD. Customers can also opt for the iPhone 12 Pro Max. Both variants are offered in three memory configurations: 128GB, 256GB and 512GB.

Tesla Model S Limited Edition electric car

Caviar’s specially designed smartphones can already count on a lot of attention, but with the Tesla Model S concept car, the company is taking it a step further. The luxurious high-tech car that Caviar has designed has a black glossy appearance, combined with rich gold accents. It is a particularly striking appearance – a beautiful show car for The Walk boulevard in Dubai Marine.

The radiator grille, elements of the rear and front bumpers, side skirts, discs and rear-view mirrors are covered with 24k gold of the highest standard in the Double Electroplated technique. A striking design detail is the eye-catching Caviar gold crown located on the bonnet and rear bumper. Under the right rear light there is a sign showing the number pieces in the limited edition – 01/99.

The gold Tesla Model S (Plaid) comes in a limited edition of 99 pieces. This uniquely pimped electric car can be ordered for $ 299,000 USD. By comparison, Elon Musk’s model costs about $ 140,000 USD.

Tesla Limited Edition concept car by Caviar

Ilse is a Dutch journalist and joined LetsGoDigital more than 15 years ago. She is highly educated and speaks four languages. Ilse is a true tech-girl and loves to write about the future of consumer electronics. She has a special interest for smartphones, digital cameras, gaming and VR.

SpaceX wins approval for lower Starlink orbits, overcoming rival objections

The Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday granted SpaceX approval to operate 2,814 Starlink satellites in lower orbits than originally planned, handing a win to Elon Musk’s satellite internet project. The decision delivered a partial defeat over its competitors, like Amazon and OneWeb, which sought to thwart the tweak over concerns it would create harmful frequency interference and ramp up risks of satellite collisions.

The FCC found that allowing lower orbits for Starlink satellites “does not create significant interference problems.” Lowering the orbits, it said, allows SpaceX to make “safety-focused” changes to the constellation, like being able to more quickly discard any dead or broken satellites by steering them toward a fiery end in Earth’s atmosphere.

The approval came with some conditions: SpaceX must coordinate with other operators to ensure signals from Starlink satellites don’t interfere with others. The company will need to provide semiannual reports to the FCC on Starlink failures. Those reports will also list any “conjunction events” or any maneuvers or close calls with other satellites.

SpaceX’s Starlink network so far has over 1,300 satellites in orbit. The company plans to launch thousands more to provide global broadband internet to rural parts of the world, for governments and consumers alike. Amazon and OneWeb are also developing their own satellite internet networks. OneWeb has launched 182 of its planned 648 satellites. Amazon’s Kuiper network hasn’t launched any yet, but it won FCC approval in 2020 to launch 3,236 satellites, half of which must be in space by 2026.

SpaceX won approval to operate its first group of 1,584 satellites in a lower-than-planned orbit in 2019. Almost all of those satellites are already in space, making the FCC’s decision on Tuesday timely for SpaceX’s next tranche of satellites.

The FCC’s approval means that SpaceX can lower the altitude of its next 2,814 satellites from a previously planned altitude of around 1,150 km to around 550 km, the same orbital neighborhood as Amazon’s proposed constellation. The FCC said SpaceX’s modification application attracted “nearly 200 pleadings” from other organizations and “a significant number” presentations and additional letters, most of which pushed back SpaceX’s change.

Those organizations included rivals Amazon and OneWeb, which sought to convince the FCC that SpaceX’s proposed altitude change would create signal interference with nearby satellites and increase risks of orbital collisions — especially as SpaceX’s autonomous collision avoidance system doesn’t tell other orbital operators which way a Starlink satellite will move to avoid a crash. Rivals also claimed the several proposed modifications to SpaceX’s original license, granted in 2018, should be treated as an entirely new constellation with a more rigorous approval process, an idea the FCC rejected in Tuesday’s ruling.

In a statement, Amazon cast the FCC decision as a win, pointing to one of the FCC conditions of the modification that says SpaceX must “accept” any interference from Amazon’s Kuiper constellation in the future. The condition suggests SpaceX’s 2,814 satellites must work around Amazon’s constellation, instead of Amazon having to adjust its network to SpaceX’s modification — a prospect the company fought against.

“This is a positive outcome that places clear conditions on SpaceX, including requirements that it remain below 580 km and accept additional interference resulting from its redesign,” a company spokesman said. “These conditions address our primary concerns regarding space safety and interference, and we appreciate the Commission’s work to maintain a safe and competitive environment in low earth orbit.”

Amazon’s fight against the SpaceX modification tumbled out of the obscure FCC meetings and into the open in January, when Musk accused Bezos’ company of trying to “hamstring Starlink today for an Amazon satellite system that is at best several years away from operation.” Amazon shot back in a company statement, saying “it is SpaceX’s proposed changes that would hamstring competition among satellite systems” and that Musk’s company is trying “to smother competition in the cradle if they can.”

On SpaceX’s autonomous collision avoidance system, which the company temporarily disabled this month to coordinate a collision-avoidance maneuver with a OneWeb satellite, the FCC said none of the companies “raise specific or particularized concerns that warrant additional inquiry at this time.” Questions about SpaceX’s automated system, the FCC said, “could be addressed through good faith coordination among the operators”.

Moving Starlink satellites to lower altitudes is a plus for astronomers, who for years have complained that SpaceX’s satellites reflect sunlight during ground-based nighttime observations and stain images of the cosmos with obtrusive streaks of light as they pass by in orbit. Lowering the satellites’ altitude puts them further into Earth’s shadow from the Sun. And combined with other efforts to reduce their reflectivity, operating the satellites in lower altitudes helps mitigate their impacts on visual astronomy, the American Astronomical Society was cited as saying in the FCC filing.

Tesla claims someone was in the driver’s seat in deadly Texas crash

A Tesla Model S that crashed and caught fire recently in Texas, killing two men, may have had someone in the driver’s seat, according to Tesla’s top executives. Their comments in an earnings call Monday contradict statements made by local law enforcement in the immediate aftermath of the crash, and could complicate the efforts by federal crash investigators who are also examining the incident.

Lars Moravy, Tesla’s vice president of vehicle engineering, said that company representatives were able to inspect the crash, along with local law enforcement and investigators from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). Moravy said the company was able to determine that the steering wheel was “deformed,” leading them to conclude there was someone in the driver’s seat at the time of the crash.

“All seatbelts post-crash were found to be unbuckled,” Moravy added. Tesla’s advanced driver assist system, Autopilot, can only operate when the seatbelts are buckled. (Consumer Reports recently was able to prove that Tesla’s vehicles can easily “tricked” into thinking a person is in the driver’s seat.)

If the government is upset with Tesla’s disclosures, it isn’t saying so. A spokesperson for the NHTSA declined to comment, while a representative for the NTSB did not respond to a request for comment.

Moravy said that Tesla was unable to recover the SD card from the vehicle, but that local law enforcement was working on getting that to the company. “We continue to hold safety in a high regard and look to improve our products in the future, through this kind of data and other information from the field,” he added.

The crash took place on Saturday, April 17th, in Spring, Texas. According to KHOU in Houston, investigators at the scene were “100 percent certain” that no one was in the driver’s seat at the time of the crash. Minutes before the crash, the wives of the men were said to overhear them talking about the Autopilot feature of the vehicle, which was a 2019 Tesla Model S, according to The New York Times. The two victims were identified as Everette Talbot, 69, and William Varner, 59, a prominent local anesthesiologist.

In the aftermath of the crash, Tesla CEO Elon Musk claimed that “data logs recovered so far” indicate that Autopilot was not engaged, nor had the vehicle owner purchased the company’s “Full Self-Driving” option that may have allowed the use of Autopilot on local roads. Today, the company took its comments a step further, directly contradicting law enforcement’s initial assessment of the incident.

It is not, however, the first time that Tesla has made public statements about a crash under investigation by the federal government. Musk has also been highly critical of media coverage about incidents involving Tesla vehicles, saying journalists are unfairly focusing on his company for sensationalist reasons and questioning why the numerous standard road deaths that occur every day are not covered as vigorously. (For a good counter argument, please read Jalopnik journalist Jason Torchinsky’s explanation about why Tesla crashes are newsworthy.)

In the call on Monday, Musk reiterated his critique of “deceptive media practices,” claiming that Autopilot was not in use at the time of the Texas crash, and slamming journalists for saying otherwise.

“Those journalists should be ashamed with themselves,” Musk said.

Elon Musk says Tesla made ‘significant mistakes’ with solar roof project

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said Monday that his company made “significant mistakes” in its solar roof tile project that have led to further cost overruns and delays. The product was originally revealed back in 2016.

Tesla is currently still trying to meet significant demand for the solar roof, but has yet to widely roll out the product, Musk said in a conference call with investors following the release of Tesla’s financial results for the first quarter of 2021. Tesla reported $494 million in sales of its energy generation and storage products in the first quarter, but the overall division is still not profitable. Musk’s comments come as irate customers have told outlets like The Verge and Electrek that Tesla is increasing the price of the solar tiles when it comes time for installation.

Musk said Tesla has run into trouble “assessing the difficulty of certain roofs,” and said that the “complexity of roofs varies dramatically.” If an existing roof has protuberances, or problems with the underlying structure, or is not strong enough to hold Tesla’s solar tiles, then the cost can be two or three times higher than Tesla’s initial estimates, Musk said. Tesla is refunding customers’ deposits if they don’t want to pay the price increase, Musk said.

Musk unveiled the Tesla solar roof in 2016 on the set of Desperate Housewives. At the time, he was trying to acquire Solar City, a solar energy company formed by his cousins. Musk was also chairman of Solar City at the time.

The roofs he showed off at the event weren’t fully working, Fast Company later reported, and Musk allegedly had said prototypes of the tiles were a “piece of shit.” Still, the vision for the solar roof — replacing regular roof shingles with photovoltaic tiles that could collectively capture even more of the sun’s energy than traditional solar panels, and storing that energy in Tesla’s Powerwall home battery — was crucial to the merger, he wrote in his second “master plan” for Tesla.

“We can’t do this well if Tesla and SolarCity are different companies, which is why we need to combine and break down the barriers inherent to being separate companies,” he wrote. “That they are separate at all, despite similar origins and pursuit of the same overarching goal of sustainable energy, is largely an accident of history. Now that Tesla is ready to scale Powerwall and SolarCity is ready to provide highly differentiated solar, the time has come to bring them together.”

The merger eventually went through, though it’s still the focus of a shareholder lawsuit in Delaware. Since that 2016 event, the solar roof has gone through multiple revisions but has yet to be widely rolled out. Musk even once said that 2019 would be the “year of the solar roof.”

Musk now says Tesla will expand solar roof installations this year, and on Monday he talked up the company’s recent decision to more bundle Tesla’s home battery with its solar products. “This is the long term solution to a sustainable energy future,” he said.

Elon Musk is hosting Saturday Night Live and no this is not a joke

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, will be hosting Saturday Night Live on May 8th, the official SNL account tweeted Saturday. The musical guest will be Miley Cyrus. Musk is known for his— how shall we put this — quirky sense of humor on Twitter, his preferred method of social media communication, but it’s not totally clear whether he’s actually funny enough to sustain a 90-minute hosting gig on the late-night comedy show.

Musk has made many notable media appearances over the years— there was that time he smoked weed on Joe Rogan’s podcast, and he had a cameo in Iron Man 2 (he even had a line for his debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe). He also played himself on an episode of The Simpsons, titled “The Musk Who Fell to Earth,” and on the now-retired show The Big Bang Theory, and its spinoff Young Sheldon. When he appeared on the Stephen Colbert show, the host likened him to Lex Luthor (which, all things considered, he probably enjoyed).

So he’s not totally without some show biz chops. How willing he’ll be to parody his — unique— public persona, well, we’ll have to wait a few weeks to find out.

Tesla is being scrutinized by Senate Democrats for Autopilot misuse

Two Senate Democrats are urging federal regulators to take “corrective actions” against Tesla to prevent further misuse of the company’s advanced driver assist feature. The request comes in the aftermath of a fatal crash in which two men from Texas were killed after their Tesla Model S crashed with no one in the driver’s seat.

In a letter sent to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Acting Administrator Steven Cliff, Senators Ed Markey (D-MA) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) implored the agency to determine the exact cause of this recent crash to “better inform” future legislation around advanced driver assist systems like Tesla’s Autopilot.

“We strongly urge you to conduct a complete investigation into Saturday’s fatal Tesla vehicle crash and develop recommendations for improving automated driving and driver assistance systems,” Markey and Blumenthal write. “We look forward to working with you and the NTSB to implement policy changes that stop these preventable deaths from occurring and save lives.”

A special crash team from NHTSA is investigating the crash, as well as investigators from the independent National Transportation Safety Board. On Monday, NHTSA said the agency is coordinating with local law enforcement to learn more about the incident and will “take appropriate steps” when investigators have gathered more information.

The incident took place at 9PM local time in Spring, Texas. According to KHOU in Houston, investigators are “100 percent certain” that no one was in the driver’s seat at the time of the crash. Minutes before the crash, the wives of the men were said to overhear them talking about the Autopilot feature of the vehicle, which was a 2019 Tesla Model S, according to The New York Times. The two victims were identified as Everette Talbot, 69, and William Varner, 59, a prominent local anesthesiologist.

It’s not clear what direction NHTSA’s investigation will take. In the past, the agency has been criticized for misrepresenting Autopilot’s safety record and for giving the company a pass when it comes to the possibility that its customers could misuse the technology in its vehicles. NHTSA recently disclosed that it has opened 27 investigations into crashes of Tesla vehicles, 23 of which remain active. Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently tweeted that “NHTSA is great.”

NTSB, on the other hand, has proven more willing to point fingers at Musk’s company. An NTSB investigation into the 2018 death of a Tesla owner in California said Autopilot was partly to blame. Musk has been much more hostile toward the agency, at one point hanging up on the chairman of NTSB.

Tesla didn’t respond to a request for comment, likely because the company has dissolved its press office and typically doesn’t respond to media requests anymore. In a recent tweet, Musk claimed that “data logs recovered so far” indicate that Autopilot was not engaged, nor had the vehicle owner purchased the company’s “Full Self-Driving” option that may have allowed the use of Autopilot on local roads.

Tesla owners have shown that Autopilot can be used on roads without lane markings, and Consumer Reports recently conducted a test proving that Tesla’s vehicles can easily be tricked into thinking there is someone behind the wheel, even when there’s not.

Tesla’s Autopilot is ‘easily’ tricked into working without anyone in the driver’s seat

Consumer Reports said Thursday it was “easily” able to trick Tesla’s Autopilot system to operate without anyone in the driver’s seat. The publication’s test came amid questions about the safety of the company’s advanced driver assist system in the aftermath of a fatal crash in Texas in which authorities said there was no one behind the steering wheel.

Using a weighted chain attached to the steering wheel to simulate the pressure of the driver’s hands, two Consumer Reports researchers were able to use the steering wheel dial on a Tesla Model Y to accelerate from a full stop, and then “drive” around on a closed-course test track for several miles — all while sitting in the passenger seat and backseat. They stopped the vehicle by again using the dial to bring the speed back down to zero.

Tricking the Tesla to operate without someone behind the wheel was as simple as keeping the driver’s seatbelt buckled, not opening the driver’s side door during the test, and using the weight to simulate hands on the steering wheel.

“The car drove up and down the half-mile lane of our track, repeatedly, never noting that no one was in the driver’s seat, never noting that there was no one touching the steering wheel, never noting there was no weight on the seat,” Jake Fisher, CR’s senior director of auto testing, said in a statement. “It was a bit frightening when we realized how easy it was to defeat the safeguards, which we proved were clearly insufficient.”

Fisher also warned against trying to similarly trick Tesla’s Autopilot, noting this experiment should not be attempted by anyone but a trained professional. In addition to conducting the test on a closed course, CR also had safety crews standing by and never exceeded 30mph. “Let me be clear: Anyone who uses Autopilot on the road without someone in the driver seat is putting themselves and others in imminent danger,” Fisher says.

The track on which CR conducted its test had painted lanes, which Tesla CEO Elon Musk has claimed Autopilot needs in order to operate. His response to the crash in Spring, Texas, in which two men were killed while in what authorities have described as a driverless Tesla Model S, noted that the road they were on did not have painted lines. However, some Tesla drivers have demonstrated that Autopilot works on roads without painted lanes. Federal crash investigators are now examining the crash in Texas.

Musk also claimed that data logs recovered from the crashed Model S “so far show Autopilot was not enabled.” But research has shown that Autopilot can turn off unexpectedly without notifying the driver. “Autopilot makes mistakes, and when it encounters a situation that it cannot negotiate, it can immediately shut itself off,” Fisher said. “If the driver isn’t ready to react quickly, it can end in a crash.”

Tesla warns that drivers need to keep their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel at all times, though the automaker famously refuses to include a more robust driver-monitoring system (like infrared eye tracking, for example) to ensure its customers are following safety protocols. Autopilot is considered a Level 2 “partially automated” system by the Society of Automotive Engineers’ standards, which requires that drivers keep their hands on the wheel and eyes on the road.

But this hasn’t stopped many Tesla owners from abusing Autopilot — sometimes going so far as to film and publicize the results. Drivers have been caught sleeping in the passenger seat or backseat of their Teslas while the vehicle speeds down a crowded highway. A Canadian man was charged with reckless driving recently after being pulled over for sleeping while traveling at speeds of 150 km/h (93mph).

Autopilot has been proven by federal traffic investigators to have contributed to a number of fatal crashes in the past, and the families of deceased drivers have sued Tesla for wrongful death. For his part, Musk blames driver overconfidence. “When there is a serious accident it is almost always, in fact maybe always, the case that it is an experienced user, and the issue is more one of complacency,” Musk said in 2018.

Consumer Reports has had a bumpy relationship with Tesla over the years. In 2015, the publication broke its own rating system in its effusive praise of the Model S P85D. But that love affair started going south almost immediately when it surveyed about 1,400 Tesla owners and used that data to project a “worse-than-average overall problem rate” for new buyers over the life span of the vehicle. As a result, it pulled its coveted “recommended” rating for the Model S. It did the same for the Model 3, citing “declining reliability.”

Tesla’s solar panels will soon only be sold in bundles with Powerwall

Tesla’s solar products will soon only be sold together with the company’s Powerwall battery, CEO Elon Musk announced on Twitter. Integrating them into a single product will making installations easier and home backup more seamless during outages, according to Musk. The change will affect both Tesla’s Solar Panels (which sit on top of an existing roof), and Solar Roof (which replaces a home’s existing roof slats).

The new policy was announced just hours after Musk responded to a tweet from Ark Investment Management’s director of research Brett Winton, who had complained that his Tesla solar panels hadn’t generated any electricity since installation because he was waiting on his local utility company to approve the connection.

Solar power will feed exclusively to Powerwall. Powerwall will interface only between utility meter & house main breaker panel, enabling super simple install & seamless whole house backup during utility dropouts.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 22, 2021

“Did you buy a Powerwall?” Musk tweeted at Winton, “Utility permission is required for flowing electricity back to grid, but usually not if stored in our battery.” Bloomberg notes that Ark Investment has been a big supporter of Tesla, and holds “significant stakes” in the company.

Did you buy a Powerwall? Utility permission is required for flowing electricity back to grid, but usually not if stored in our battery. This also enables 24/7 electricity security for your home.

Utility permission is still needed for when Powerwall is full & can stabilize grid.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 21, 2021

Signs of Tesla’s intention to bundle its solar products with the Powerwall were reported last month by Elektrek, who spotted that the company was only accepting new Powerwall orders when combined with a Tesla solar panel project. Powerwall supply shortages were thought to be to blame for the shift, with demand and wait times increasing for the home battery solution. In the fourth quarter of 2020, Tesla installed 86 mega-watts (MW) of solar energy, a 59 percent increase compared to the same period the previous year.

Alongside the change, Musk announced an upcoming software update for the Powerwall, which he says will enable upwards of a 50 percent power increase depending on production date. The current Powerwall is rated to provide 5 kW of real power (7 kW peak) in North America, but in a tweet the CEO said that Tesla’s newest units can “probably” provide as much as 10kW continuous, and “double that in peak” under the right circumstances.

The changes come after Tesla faced criticism for substantially raising the prices of some of its solar products. Earlier this month one customer reported that the company had told them a $35,000 solar roof order would now cost them $75,000, while the price of the accompanying batteries would increase from $30,000 to $35,000.

Two people killed in fiery Tesla crash with no one driving

Authorities in Texas say two people were killed when a Tesla with no one in the driver’s seat crashed into a tree and burst into flames, Houston television station KPRC 2 reported.

The cause of the crash, which happened at about 9PM local time in Spring, Texas (near Houston), is under investigation. According to KHOU in Houston, first responders had to use 30,000 gallons of water over four hours to put out the fire, as the Tesla’s battery kept reigniting. Authorities tried to contact Tesla for advice on putting out the fire; it’s not clear whether they received any response.

Preliminary reports suggest the car was traveling at a high rate of speed and failed to make a turn, then drove off the road into a tree. One of the men killed was in the front passenger seat of the car, the other was in the back seat, according to KHOU. Harris County Precinct 4 Constable Mark Herman told KPRC that “no one was driving” the fully-electric 2019 Tesla at the time of the crash. It’s not yet clear whether the car had its Autopilot driver assist system activated.

Tesla didn’t respond to a request for comment on Sunday. The company dissolved its press office and doesn’t usually respond to media inquiries, however.

There have been at least 23 Autopilot related crashes under investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, but this appears to be the first fatal crash where there was no driver in the driver’s seat. Tesla has previously cautioned its customers that Autopilot is not an autonomous driving system and still requires constant attention to the road while in use. The company’s cars only check that attention with a sensor that measures torque in the steering wheel, though, leaving room for misuse — something the National Transportation Safety Board admonished Tesla for last year.

Tesla has previously provided guidance for first responders who encounter fires involving its EV batteries. Reignition of the battery can be a problem, because unlike gas-powered vehicles, even if the fire is extinguished, an EV battery still has stored energy. Tesla’s guidance suggests it’s better to let the fire burn out than continuing to try to put it out.

In the past, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has rejected calls from Tesla engineers to add better safety monitoring when a vehicle is in Autopilot, such as eye-tracking cameras or additional sensors on the steering wheel, saying the tech is “ineffective.” He said in 2018 that Tesla would regularly release safety data about its Autopilot feature, but added that “negative” press coverage about it might persuade customers not to use it.

“When there is a serious accident it is almost always, in fact maybe always, the case that it is an experienced user, and the issue is more one of complacency,” Musk said on a May 2018 call with investors. “They just get too used to it. That tends to be more of an issue. It’s not a lack of understanding of what Autopilot can do. It’s [drivers] thinking they know more about Autopilot than they do.”

Elon Musk says Starlink internet service should be ‘fully mobile’ by the end of this year

SpaceX’s new Starlink satellite internet service is in a very limited beta testing period right now, but the company is already thinking ahead: as first noted by CNBC, SpaceX has filed an application with the FCC for Starlink components that would allow the service to work on moving vehicles. Big moving vehicles, that is — Elon Musk tweeted that the existing Starlink terminals are too big for Tesla’s vehicles, and the idea is targeted at planes, RVs, trucks, and ships.

Not connecting Tesla cars to Starlink, as our terminal is much too big. This is for aircraft, ships, large trucks & RVs.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 8, 2021

This would be a big change for Starlink, which right now does not even allow customers to move the existing hardware from address to address — if you can get in the beta, the signup forms are clear that the service is limited to the location you enter at checkout. That’s because the Starlink satellite constellation isn’t fully built out yet, so it’s not a permanent limitation, but it’s still a limitation today, and one that Elon once again clarified today in a tweet:

Yeah, should be fully mobile later this year, so you can move it anywhere or use it on an RV or truck in motion. We need a few more satellite launches to achieve compete coverage & some key software upgrades.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 15, 2021

I actually have a Starlink system that I’ll be reviewing for The Verge’s upcoming Infrastructure Week — the promise of fast, reliable satellite internet that can compete with America’s various broadband monopolies is very enticing, but early testers have reported mixed results. (Which, again, Elon says will improve.) Let me know if you have questions in the comments below!

Elon Musk’s SpaceX will reportedly build NASA’s lunar lander

NASA picked Elon Musk’s SpaceX to receive $2.9 billion to build a lunar lander, as part of the Artemis mission to send humans to the Moon by 2024, The Washington Post reported. It’s a major vote of confidence in SpaceX from NASA — as no other company received money.

There were three major contenders for the project. SpaceX beat out Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, working with a selection of other aerospace companies, and Dynetics, a defense contractor. NASA had previously rewarded all three contenders with a combined $967 million to develop lunar lander concepts.

NASA was expected to pick two companies to receive contracts today on the first Moon landing mission since the Apollo program. So giving the contract to SpaceX alone is a slap in the face to Blue Origin in particular — and its team, which included Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. In the commercial crew program, for instance, both Boeing and SpaceX received contracts. The redundancy gave NASA options in case one of the companies didn’t deliver.

Developing…

Dogecoin is on a run, has escaped the yard, and is headed to the moon

Oh, super, Dogecoin is spiking. The joke currency, which as recently as January 27th was worth less than a cent, hit 47 cents this morning, according to Robinhood’s tracker. As I type this, the market cap is more than $51 billion.

The currency is based on an au-courant-as-of-2013 meme of a Shiba Inu, and was intended to satirize bitcoin. Well, kids, the joke’s over. It’s now a top-10 cryptocurrency.

Weird year for finance, honestly. There was the Gamestonk thing which made GameStop stock so valuable, a member of the board of directors had to step down so that he could sell shares without restrictions. (Noted investor David Einhorn accused Elon Musk of pouring “jet fuel” on the January rally; a hedge fund called the top of the January rally based on the Musk tweet and raked in the dough.) Keith “Roaring Kitty” Gill stands to make millions, which he will presumably use to buy fancier headbands. NFT mania seized the world, after artist Beeple — aka Mike Winkelmann — sold an NFT of Everydays: The First 5,000 Days for $69 million. Coinbase went public earlier this week, and closed its first day of trading worth more than the company behind the Nasdaq, the exchange it trades on.

Last night, Musk — a shitposter with a hobby of being CEO of Tesla and SpaceX — tweeted “Doge Barking at the Moon.” For those of you fortunate enough to have avoided internet-related brainworms: a bunch of people probably thought this was a reference to a phrase used by internet traders, “to the moon.” Musk, who is known for coming to memes late, has called dogecoin his favorite cryptocurrency. In February, he called it “The People’s Crypto.”

Look, it’s not my fault that the interest rate is zero percent — that was always gonna make shit weird, because there’s almost nowhere safe to park your money without losing some of it to inflation. That means a lot more money is sloshing around than usual, which is fueling everything from SPACs to Gamestonk. What worries me is that we could be locked into zero interest rate policy world for as long as five years, which is an awfully long time for memes to mess with actual money. As long as there’s this much money sloshing around, anything goes. Anyway, if you are a hedge fund that called the top on Dogecoin based on an Elon Musk tweet, let me know — I’d love to interview you and find out how that call went.

iPhone 12 Pro Space Collection featuring Elon Musk

Caviar launches 5 Limited Edition models of the iPhone 12 Pro (Max) dedicated to space conquerors. Each features a real fragment of a famous spacecraft.

Today it is exactly 60 years ago that the first manned space flight took place. This memorable day has been renamed the Day of the Cosmonauts. In honor of this special event, the Russian accessory company Caviar has introduced a range of smartphones within the “Space Conquerors” Collection. It are five iPhone 12 Pro (Max) models, each dedicated to a famous personality within the space industry.

These exclusive and luxurious smartphones are certainly not for everyone’s budget. This is partly because Caviar has provided every phone model within the Space Conquerors Collection with a real fragment of the hulls of famous spaceships. That makes these models very unique, but also expensive.

iPhone 12 Pro Collection: Elon Musk edition

The first model is dedicated to a modern aerospace pioneer; Elon Musk. The Tesla founder has a dream to conquer Mars, with his SpaceX development program. The iPhone 12 Pro (Max) Musk edition is made of ultra-strong titanium with a PVD coating. The device is adorned with the recognizable silhouette of Elon Musk, which is depicted against the red-gilded background of the planet Mars.

A gilded line around the red planet symbolizes the upcoming flight – the dream of the legendary visionary. The flight path is crowned with a real space particle, which has been on board of the CRS-14 Falcon 9 and the CRS-17 Dragon – both spacecraft are made by SpaceX.

The date engraved on the gold line is the date SpaceX was founded. In 2021, the company will be celebrating its 19 anniversary, therefore Caviar has decided to manufacture only 19 copies of the iPhone 12 Pro Space Conqueror Musk Edition.

The price of the iPhone 12 Pro Musk Limited Edition is set at $ 6,610 USD (128GB). In addition, there is a choice of 256GB and 512GB. The same design is also available with the iPhone 12 Pro Max as a base, for this Limited Edition smartphone the starting price is set at $ 7,150 USD.

Space Conquerors Collection: Gagarin edition

On April 12, 1961, the first manned flight to space took place, on board of the Vostok 1 was astronaut Yuri Gagarin. In honor of this important event, jewelry brand Caviar has designed the iPhone 12 Pro (Max) Gagerin Edition. The case of the Gagarin model is made of hardened aeronautical titanium and composite stone, decorated with a three-dimensional image of the Vostok rocket, which put Gagarin in orbit.

The centerpiece of the design is a rare Navigator watch, engraved with the date of the first flight into space. On an identical watch, Yuri Gagarin counted his cosmic 108 minutes, which turned the world upside down and immortalized his name and achievement.

The most unique design element of the Gagarin model is a real fragment of the Vostok 1 spacecraft – which made the first flight around Earth. The Gagarin model has become one of the most exclusive models in Caviar’s history – only 12 smartphones will be produced, in honor of the memorable date of April 12.

This is the most expensive model of the Space Conquerors collection. The iPhone 12 Pro Gagarin edition is available for a starting price of $ 8,920 USD. For the iPhone 12 Pro Max, the price is set at $ 9,450 USD.

Space Conquerors: Korolev Limited Edition

Caviar has also created an iPhone dedicated to the Ukrainian Soviet physicist Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, also known as the father of the Soviet space program. This smartphone model is adorned with a three-dimensional gold-plated star, bears the name of the Soviet engineer and creator of the first artificial Earth satellite, Sputnik 1.

A striking design detail is the enormous star thrown into space by a human hand. It is a symbol of the global event. It is a metaphorical representation of how Korolev and the Soviet Union take the first steps towards cosmic infinity.

The body of the smartphone is made of hardened titanium with an artistic engraving of a monochrome space landscape. Double coating of 999 gold made in Double Electroplated technique, 7 microns was used in the decor. There is an engraving on the case, containing the date of the launch of the first satellite. It says: ‘The father of practical astronautics, 4 October 1957’.

Caviar will produce 99 copies of the Korolev edition. The iPhone 12 Pro Korolev edition is available for $ 6,760 USD (128GB). For the iPhone 12 Pro Max, prices start at $ 7,300 USD.

iPhone 12 Pro Limited Edition dedicated to Bezos

The fourth model in Caviar’s Space Conquerors collection is dedicated to American space pioneer Jeff Bezos and his space company Blue Origin. His mission is to bring people to the Moon. The Moon seems so close that you can reach out and touch, but the 384,467 kilometers that separate us is a serious test for experienced astronauts.

The body of the smartphone is adorned with an exquisite lightweight feather, which is the symbol of Blue Origin. It is depicted on all the spaceships born of the engineering thought of the best designers of Bezos. In the background, a deep blue composite stone has been incorporated, symbolizing the earth.

Our planet stands out in the endless space, which is designed in black PVD titanium with geometric relief patterns. The memorable date is engraved on the contour of the Earth: “Going to the Moon to stay, April 29, 2015” – referring to the date of the successful test of the reusable triple spacecraft New Shepard.

This smartphone appears in a limited edition of 99 pieces. The iPhone 12 Pro Bezos edition is available for $ 5,840 USD (128GB). Enthusiasts of the iPhone 12 Pro Max should expect a starting price of $ 6,380 USD.

Armstrong edition with real fragment of Apollo 11

Last but not least, Caviar has dedicated a phone model to the first man to set foot on the Moon: Neil Armstrong. The American astronaut and aeronautical engineer, along with colleagues Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, reached the Moon in 1969 on board of the Apollo 11 spacecraft. During his descent on the ladder, Armstrong made the legendary statement: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

This iPhone 12 Pro Limited Edition includes a relief image of titanium featuring astronaut Armstrong placing the American flag on the Moon. In the background you can see a cosmic landscape, consisting of stars and planet Earth.

What makes this model extra special, Caviar has incorporated a real fragment of Apollo 11 into the design – the spacecraft that brought the first human to the moon. A commemorative engraving has also been added that reads: “First moon landing. July 20, 1969”.

Symbolizing the designation “Apollo 11”, Caviar will produce only 11 copies of the Armstrong edition. This exclusive smartphone has a starting price of $ 6,450 USD, for which you will receive the iPhone 12 Pro (128GB). For $ 6,990 you will be the proud owner of the iPhone 12 Pro Max Armstrong edition (128GB).

It is not the first time that Caviar has designed an exclusive smartphone line-up dedicated to space. Last year, the iPhone 11 Pro Space Odyssey Collection was launched. Not long after, the company also released an iPhone 12 Pro Concept dedicated to Elon Musk and his SpaceX project.

Watch: Elon Musk’s Neuralink says this monkey is playing Pong with its mind

Neuralink, Elon Musk’s company focused on developing brain-machine interfaces, has posted a video to YouTube that appears to show a monkey navigating an on-screen cursor using only its mind.

Pager, a 9-year-old macaque monkey, had a Neuralink implanted about six weeks before the video was shot, the video’s unnamed narrator says. He was first taught to play video games with a joystick for a banana smoothie reward, delivered through a metal straw. While he was doing this, the Neuralink device recorded information about which neurons were firing — learning, essentially, to predict hand movements by recording which regions fired. After learning the patterns, the joystick Pager used to play was disconnected from the computer. The monkey appears to go on playing the game using only his mind — playing a game of Pong with no joystick whatsoever.

First @Neuralink product will enable someone with paralysis to use a smartphone with their mind faster than someone using thumbs

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 9, 2021

This style of scientific release is unusual; ordinarily, videos like this are supplementary material to peer-reviewed papers published in scientific journals. Those papers contain data that can be checked by other scientists. It’s believable that a monkey might play video games using a brain implant — after all, a paralyzed man has already used a robotic arm and a non-Neuralink brain implant to drink beer. Pong is a classic of brain-machine interfaces — in 2006, Matthew Nagle did a similar feat with four days’ worth of training.

In July 2019, Musk said that a monkey had already been able to control a computer with its brain and the Neuralink implant. Since then, we’ve seen demonstrations of the Neuralink technology in pigs. Today, Musk tweeted that Neuralink might let a paralyzed person tweet faster than a person using their thumbs on a smartphone. A later goal, he said in a follow-up tweet, will be to send signals from Neuralinks in the brain to Neuralinks in major body neural clusters, “thus enabling, for example, paraplegics to walk again.”