Ferrari’s Digital Transformation with Snapdragon/Qualcomm

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon logo made its debut on Ferrari’s single-seater F1-175 racing model on February 17, 2022. Earlier in February, both companies announced their partnership to bring a high-tech driving experience through the Snapdragon Digital Chassis which will connect Ferrari to the 5G technology. Ferrari’s new CEO Benedetto Vigna said that working with the Snapdragon processor will …

Electric Truck Brands Are Surprisingly Numerous

More people drive cars than trucks, but there are a lot of new truck manufacturers. Why is that? Here are some possible reasons: There are more small businesses than in the past It is stylish to drive a pickup Men like the macho aura Trucks don’t require the fancy trim that cars do

2022 Tesla, Mercedes Benz Start Marketing Level 2 Self-Driving Cars

In the United States, only Level 2 semi-automated cars are approved so far. Tesla and Mercedes now offer full Level 2 semi-automated cars with driver assist. Tesla’s price does not include the Level 2 option; however, if customers want cars with semi-automated features, Tesla offers the option to add full level-2 driver-assist software for an …

First Steps for Driverless Vehicles

For at least the last two decades people (almost always male) have been tinkering with a wide variety of designs of self-driving cars that they have been dreaming of starting at least two decades earlier. Tinkering continues to be a very challenging pursuit. Finally, in early 2020 there was a modest step forward, in the form of an autonomous …

MINI Cooper S. Owner’s Manual

We love our MINI Cooper S. But we don’t love their documentation. The main OWNER’S MANUAL was bad enough. And it took us many months just to get the supplement to its OWNER’S MANUAL, NAVIGATION, ENTERTAINMENT, COMMUNICATION. (Finally, a kind woman at the Santa Clara CA MINI dealer got a copy and sent it to …

Electric Cars are Revolutionizing the Automobile Industry

Although there has been some form of electric cars for several decades, recently the quest for lower-cost transportation and—for environmentalists—the pursuit of alternatives to fossil fuel has led to the growing popularity of electric cars. The leader today is Tesla, and its founder Elon Musk, who has just campaigned using the medium of “Battery Day”. He …

Our Unsuccessful Attempt to Buy an Electric Mini Cooper

Electric cars have been around since 1902 when the Studebaker Brothers started production of their Studebaker Electric. More than 100 years later, we were impressed with the Tesla electric car. We love our Mini Cooper S. When we bought it in 2019, we wanted to buy one that was powered by electricity instead of gasoline, …

Self-Driving Cars Need More Development

There have been enough crashes, including ones that killed people (sometimes the drivers and passengers), that there needs to be improvements in the technology. For example, a woman driving a Tesla on May 11, 2018, was using its “Autopilot” feature crashed into the back of a fire truck in Utah. Unfortunately, autonomous vehicles won’t make …

First Steps for Driverless Vehicles

For at least the last two decades people (almost always male) have been tinkering with a wide variety of designs of self-driving cars that they have been dreaming of starting at least two decades earlier. Tinkering continues to be a very challenging pursuit. Finally, in early 2020 there was a modest step forward, in the form of an autonomous …

Las Vegas visitors had 100,000+ robotaxi rides from Aptiv / Lyft

A 2020 Lyft blog post lists the advantages of the partnership between Lyft, Dublin-based Aptiv, a self-driving vehicle firm. Through 2020, Lyft and Aptiv provided 100,000 commercial ‘robotaxi’ rides in Las Vegas. This partnership runs through Aptiv’s Command Center, and has been very successful with the Vegas customers. Lyft reports that is Vegas riders became Aptive advocates …