Connect with us

News

Faraday Future will live stream its car unveiling on January 3 at 6pm PST

Published

on

Faraday Future announced that it will live stream the unveiling of its much-talked-about first production car on January 3, 2017 at 6pm PST. The company revealed a newly redesigned website which prominently displays a countdown clock to the unveiling scheduled to take place at CES 2017 in Las Vegas, NV.

The website uses what the company calls particle imagery — a series of points that are combined by computers to represent how the car’s advanced LiDAR scanning and mapping systems view the physical world surrounding the vehicle. The website makes no specific reference to radar. It is well known that Elon Musk is cool to the idea of using LiDAR sensors because of their inability to “see” through fog, rain, snow, and mist.

Between now and the the actual reveal, the website image will add more graphic points to flesh out what the car will look like in silhouette. For the moment, the chassis of the car is viewable to show what the car’s platform looks like.

Anyone interested in information about reserving a Faraday Future automobile may use the Create Account link at the bottom of the home page. Those who create an account will be notified immediately when more information about how to reserve a car comes available. According to a press release from the company, “Both the desktop and mobile sites were developed to share exact functionality and parity between the two. As a mobility company, this parity speaks to FF’s mission to create universal interactivity in the digital space.”

Digging a little deeper into the Faraday Future website, the company says it is “planning to launch a brand new, state-of-the-art automotive production plant” in North Las Vegas “in the very near future.” People familiar with company know that work on that factory has been suspended, reportedly because Faraday Future has run out of money. In fact, Dan Schwartz, treasurer of the state of Nevada, has said publicly that Jia Yueting, the principal financial backer of the company, “[is] out of money. Could he get more money? My sources in China say the government there isn’t financing him. I wonder where and how they’re going to continue this project.”

Last week, Faraday Future renewed its contract with the city of Vallejo, California to explore the feasibility of building a second, smaller factory on North Mare Island in San Francisco Bay. Taking a page from Tesla Motors, Faraday Future is also using videos posted to YouTube to build interest in itself. The most recent video shows the company’s crossover SUV lining up against a Ludicrous Tesla Model X P100D in a drag race. Although the Faraday car is draped in camouflage, it appears to have a shape similar to a crossover or sport utility vehicle. The fact that it is pitted against a Model X contributes to the impression that the Faraday will be an SUV  type vehicle.

Advertisement
-

"I write about technology and the coming zero emissions revolution."

Advertisement
Comments

Elon Musk

SpaceX will perform Starship double catch attempt with Flight 15

Published

on

Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX plans to attempt what will be a defining moment in rocket reusability on Starship Flight 15.

As Elon Musk announced in a recent X post, SpaceX will attempt to catch both the Super Heavy Booster and the Starship upper stage during the upcoming orbital flight. If successful, it will mark the first time that all parts of an orbital rocket return to Earth intact, a breakthrough Musk has called essential to making life multiplanetary.

Advertisement
-

Previous flights have demonstrated the tower-catch technique with Super Heavy. SpaceX has successfully caught V1 boosters three times (on Flights 5, 7, and 8), with some even reflown. The Ship upper stage has never been caught.

Returning from orbital velocity after deploying payload makes it a significantly harder challenge due to higher energy, heat loads, and the need for precise belly-flop reentry, a flip maneuver, and a final landing burn to settle between the Mechazilla tower’s chopstick arms.

Flight 15, using Booster 22 and Ship 42 (both Block 3 vehicles), is targeted for no earlier than Friday, November 13, 2026, from Orbital Launch Pad 2 at Starbase, Texas. The 75-minute window opens at 4:45 p.m. CT, pending regulatory approval. After hot staging and separation, the booster is planned to return for a catch roughly 6 minutes and 35 seconds after liftoff.

The Ship will insert into a roughly 275 km orbit, deploy 26 advanced Starlink V3 satellites, complete about 14 orbits over more than 22 hours, and—if systems check out—perform a deorbit burn, reentry, flip, and landing burn for a tower catch at approximately T+22 hours 32 minutes.

SpaceX confirms Starship 15 launch window with massive ambitions

A simulation shown during SpaceX’s October earnings call depicted the Ship descending in a belly-flop attitude, flipping upright with a short engine burn, and being captured by the arms:

Advertisement
-

Contingency splashdown zones exist in the Gulf of Mexico (booster) and Pacific (Ship) if a catch is not viable. SpaceX has stressed rigorous health checks before committing the Ship to a return-to-launch-site trajectory.

Musk has described the odds of success on this first dual-catch attempt as “more likely than not,” noting a steady stream of additional flights is already scheduled if needed. Full recovery would enable rapid inspection, refurbishment, and reflight—slashing costs and supporting the high launch cadence required for Starlink expansion, lunar missions, and eventual Mars settlement.

As Musk put it, this is “the critical breakthrough needed to make life multiplanetary.”

Advertisement
-
Continue Reading

Elon Musk

Tesla Cybercab is set to get some massive improvements

Published

on

Credit: TechOperator | X

Tesla Cybercab is going to get some pretty substantial updates, including improvements to efficiency and a new color.

CEO Elon Musk said in a post on X on Saturday that Tesla would be working to refine the Cybercab even more, following the announcement during the week that the company would eliminate the Cybertruck lines within Giga Texas for more Cybercab manufacturing capacity.

“There are efficiency improvements coming that will allow for a 40kWh Cybercab pack,” Musk posted on X. “We will make this in liquid silver, so the colors are not too monotonous.”

A new, more efficient model of the Cybercab will be engineered, which will only help Tesla’s profitability and margins, and it also boosts the argument for why the Cybertruck should be discontinued, at least from a business perspective.

The current Cybercab that operates in the Robotaxi platform in Austin, Texas, has a 48 kWh pack, and it sounds like Musk believes Tesla is on its way to introducing a version that has fewer cells but can manage the same workload thanks to engineering efficiencies.

Credit: Tesla

Musk also doubled down on the decision to prioritize Cybercab production over Cybertruck, which is a decision that has been extremely polarizing within the community, and many fans have made it abundantly clear that they are not particularly pleased with the plans.

“If we have to maintain a complex production line, supply chain, and allocate engineering for Cybertruck, we can’t use those people or factory space and machinery for scaling Cybercab, which is the vehicle that will PROFOUNDLY transform the world of terrestrial transport,” Musk said.

Cybercab is obviously Tesla’s path forward in an automotive sense. It seems that Tesla is less concerned about catering to the passenger vehicle market and is more prone to focus on transforming passenger transportation in a way that prioritizes autonomy. However, this requires some sacrifice on Tesla’s end, and the Cybertruck is unfortunately a victim of this.

Cybercab holds an extremely crucial part of Tesla’s future. With the company already revolutionizing passenger transportation once, this is the next phase, and Cybercab is the path forward.

Continue Reading

News

Tesla Robotaxi app update now tells riders if Cybercab is the better choice

Tesla’s Robotaxi app now shows ETAs, wait times and availability for Cybercab and Model Y.

Published

on

By

Concept art of a Tesla Cybercab in Las Vegas Strip as rendered via Grok

Tesla has rolled out a new vehicle selection screen in its Robotaxi app, and it puts the numbers riders care about most in front of them before they book.

Version 26.11.0 of the app shows the estimated arrival time, the expected wait and current availability for each vehicle option on a single screen, according to a video shared by @gheeunit  on X on November 7. Riders deciding between a Cybercab and a Model Y Robotaxi can now compare those figures side by side instead of picking a car first and learning how long it will take afterward.

Tesla first gave riders that choice on September 3, the day paid Cybercab rides began in Austin. The original version of the screen listed the Cybercab, which seats two, next to the Model Y, which seats four. A later build, 26.8.2, added a seating capacity indicator so groups knew which car would fit them. What it did not show was whether choosing the Cybercab meant standing on the curb a few extra minutes.

That question matters more now than it did two months ago. Tesla had 45 Cybercabs on the Texas DMV roster when rides started. By late October the state listed 573, alongside 631 Model Ys, and community trackers logged a record 1,576 Cybercab sightings across Austin on Halloween alone. With two large fleets sharing one service area, the closest car and the quickest pickup are not always the same vehicle.

Advertisement
-

Inline availability also changes what happens when demand spikes. If no Cybercab is free nearby, the rider sees that on the selection screen rather than after trying to book one.

For now the comparison is mostly an Austin feature. Riders in Dallas, Houston, Fort Worth and the Florida markets are still matched with Model Y vehicles, though Tesla said on its third quarter earnings call that Cybercab rides would launch in Dallas this month.

The update follows a steady run of smaller changes to the rider experience. Late last month Tesla brought a quiet mode that blacks out the cabin screen to Model Y Robotaxis after first testing it in the Cybercab, and it has stretched Austin service to run from 6 a.m. to 2 a.m.

The Cybercab side of that selection screen is about to get much busier. Elon Musk said this week that Tesla will wind down Cybertruck production at Gigafactory Texas around the middle of 2027 to make room for more Cybercab output, and Tesla has said it is aiming to get Cybercabs to customers by the end of this year.

Tesla has not published official release notes for version 26.11.0.

Advertisement
-
Continue Reading