2020 Tesla Model X Performance on 2040-cars

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Cadillac's Super Cruise — look, Elon, no hands!

Cadillac is about to start selling vehicles with an autonomous driving mode and TechCrunch got an early look at the technology in a production car. "Wait for the green light and let go," the Cadillac engineer instructed. That's it. The car was driving itself. I, the person behind the steering wheel, was no longer the driver. Cadillac's Super Cruise system was driving. The 2018 Cadillac CT6 sped along U.S. 23 under the direction of Super Cruise. Traffic was light and the weather was perfect. The system held the Cadillac sedan in lane and responded appropriately to traffic. I spent an hour on the expressway and touched the steering wheel and pedals only a few times. Super Cruise made the drive boring. I think that's the point. Here's how it works Super Cruise is available once the driver navigates the vehicle onto an expressway. When ready, a little icon is displayed by the speedometer and the driver hits a button on the steering wheel to switch it on. Once the light bar on top of the steering wheel turns green, the driver can let go. Super Cruise is driving.This steering wheel light bar is key to the operation. When green, the driver knows Super Cruise is in control. Blue means the driver interrupted the system to change lanes and red means Super Cruise needs the driver to confirm they're paying attention and not checking Twitter. When active, Super Cruise controls the steering and speed, but again, only on an expressway. This is done through onboard sensors and using GPS and mapping data. GM employed GeoDigital, a startup in GM Venture's portfolio, to map 160,000 miles of expressways in the U.S. and Canada. The car company then used Super Cruise-equipped vehicles to test each mile. This combination of onboard systems combined with map data makes the system feel polished and sophisticated. During my admittedly limited time in the vehicle, the CT6 precisely held its position in the lane and confidently handled sweeping curves at speed. There was no wiggling or squirming — from the Cadillac or myself. The car was in control, and I felt safe. Although the driving conditions were perfect for my test ride, during adverse weather, the system will work normally until one of the key systems is unable to operate.

Lucid Air, VW ID.4 AWD and Polestar 2 Single Motor driven | Autoblog Podcast #704

In this episode of the Autoblog Podcast, Editor-in-Chief Greg Migliore is joined by Senior Editor, Autoblog Green, John Beltz Snyder. Greg's been driving the Volkswagen ID.4 AWD and the Lucid Air, while John has been in the Mini Cooper Hardtop and Polestar 2 Single Motor. They discuss the big Rivian news of the week, its stellar IPO. They take a question from the mailbag about whether to sell a Tesla Model 3, and they help a listener decide whether to buy a Ford Maverick or some other pickup. Send us your questions for the Mailbag and Spend My Money at: Podcast@Autoblog.com. Autoblog Podcast #704 Get The Podcast Apple Podcasts – Subscribe to the Autoblog Podcast in iTunes Spotify – Subscribe to the Autoblog Podcast on Spotify RSS – Add the Autoblog Podcast feed to your RSS aggregator MP3 – Download the MP3 directly Rundown What we're driving2022 Volkswagen ID.4 AWD Pro 2022 Lucid Air 2022 Mini Cooper Hardtop 2022 Polestar 2 Single Motor Rivian's IPO Mailbag: To sell or not to sell a Tesla Model 3 Spend My Money: Ford Maverick FX4 or something else? Transcript Feedback Email – Podcast@Autoblog.com Review the show on Apple Podcasts Autoblog is now live on your smart speakers and voice assistants with the audio Autoblog Daily Digest. Say “Hey Google, play the news from Autoblog” or "Alexa, open Autoblog" to get your favorite car website in audio form every day. A narrator will take you through the biggest stories or break down one of our comprehensive test drives. Related video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

Is Tesla building a new skunkworks facility in Lathrop, California?

Tesla Motors has a secret. The California automaker has leased, and is now renovating, a 431,000-square foot former Daimler-Chrysler distribution facility in Lathrop, CA, but is not saying exactly what it will be using the space for. At least, not yet. About an hour's drive east from its Fremont, CA factory, the property is located just off the north-to-south Interstate 5 (I-5) and has extra acreage to expand the building by another 124,980 sq-ft, if needed. Designed to handle a lot of shipping in and out, one side of the structure is gifted with 32 truck docking bays. With no official word on the type of activities that are planned for the facility, it is only natural that we would want to speculate a bit. There is one clue out there that can aid our hypothesizing. The job section of the company's website lists a number of openings that would indicate manufacturing of some sort is intended for the space. We'll go ahead and rule out serial vehicle production, since the Fremont space still has ample room for that activity to handle the upcoming Model X and the more affordable future vehicle. It's far too small to be a battery gigafactory, so could it be instead a kilofactory ? Probably not. Of course, it could just be a new site for producing components for the Fremont production lines, but that doesn't sound nearly as exciting. It also doesn't seem to be worthy of secrecy. The coolest – though not necessarily most accurate – thing we can come up with is a skunkworks. A secret lair where new concepts are conceived and developed away from the prying eyes of the public. Yeah, we'll go with that. When we contacted Tesla for clues about the facility's purpose we got a boilerplate response, though interestingly, they might have thrown us another mysterious bone in the process. And we quote, "Tesla is continuing to invest and create jobs in California as part of our ongoing infrastructure expansion. In the last two months, we have signed leases for more than 625,000 square feet of Californian real estate, independent of sales and service centers. These recent investments reinforce our commitment to California and will help us continue to bring compelling electric vehicles to market at affordable prices." With a 194,00-sq ft discrepancy between the known Lathrop acquisition and the numbers given by the automaker, it seems that may be yet another decent-sized unknown building in the mix.