Transportation

GM Brings CarPlay Back to Its Trucks, and This Time It Shares the Screen

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Google, Transportation,

Three years ago GM decided it was done with phone projection. Today it announced the opposite. Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are coming back to its cars, though they no longer get the whole screen.

The new interface debuts on the 2027 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 and GMC Sierra 1500, with other GM models to follow. CarPlay and Android Auto now run in a window alongside GM's own software, so the map, the trailering readouts and the truck's settings stay visible while your phone's apps do their thing next to them.

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Kia’s Electric Hot Hatch Has Fake Gears, and Americans Can’t Buy It

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Corporate News, Transportation,

Kia's new EV4 GT has paddles behind the steering wheel that do not shift anything. Pull one and the car staggers the torque coming out of its motors to imitate a gearchange, with a synthesized engine noise to match. Kia calls it Virtual Gear Shift. The idea is that electric cars are so smooth your brain stops registering how fast they are, so the fix is to put the interruptions back in on purpose.

The EV4 GT is one of three GT-badged EVs Kia put on sale in Europe this week, alongside the EV3 GT and the EV5 GT. All three get dual-motor all-wheel drive, electronically controlled suspension, 20-inch alloys, and neon-green brake calipers, because a performance badge apparently requires a caliper color. Two of the three are never coming to the United States.

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Audi’s A2 e-tron Starts at €38,200 With Up to 646 km of WLTP Range

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Design, Transportation,

Audi has spent the last few years selling big, heavy, expensive electric cars. The A2 e-tron is the correction. It's a compact hatchback about the size of a Volkswagen ID.3, it starts at €38,200 in Germany, and its best trick is how little electricity it uses. The efficiency champ of the lineup needs 12.8 kWh to cover 100 km on the WLTP cycle, which Audi says makes it the most efficient production car the company has ever built.

Pricing went public this week, and it splits into four versions, all built in Ingolstadt. The 125 kW car with a 52 kWh LFP pack is €38,200. The 140 kW car with 61 kWh of LFP is €41,900. Step up to the 84 kWh NMC pack and you pay €48,900 for 170 kW or €51,200 for 240 kW. Order books open September 10, with first deliveries in December.

Click to continue reading Audi’s A2 e-tron Starts at €38,200 With Up to 646 km of WLTP Range

Tesla’s FSD Can Now Take the Wheel While You’re the One Driving

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Software, Transportation, Artificial Intelligence,

You're driving your Tesla. Yourself, hands on the wheel, Full Self-Driving switched off. A car ahead stops short, and the wheel turns without you.

That is what Tesla added in FSD (Supervised) v14.3.9, detailed in release notes that went out Friday afternoon. Tesla's wording: "FSD Supervised can now activate on your behalf when an imminent collision is detected and Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) may not be enough." It can also switch itself on, Tesla says, if the car decides you're heavily distracted or that you disengaged FSD by accident. The feature is called Automatic Collision Evasion, and as of Friday it was "starting to roll out shortly."

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RivianOS 2 Reaches Every R1, But Gen 1 Owners Miss the New Graphics

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Software, Transportation, Artificial Intelligence,

If you are driving a first-generation R1T or R1S, Rivian did not leave you behind. The 2026.31 update that started going out on September 4 brings RivianOS 2 to your truck too. It just will not look quite like the version running on the newer vehicles.

RivianOS 2 is the biggest rework of Rivian's in-car software since the R1 first shipped, and R1 and R2 now run on one foundation instead of two. That means Rivian builds a feature once and ships it to everyone, rather than maintaining separate versions and letting one lineup drift a year behind. Hardware still gets a vote, though, and that is where the split shows up.

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Tesla Said the Cybercab Is Legal. NHTSA Wants to See the Homework.

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Corporate News, Editorial, Transportation,

Tesla put its first production Cybercabs on public streets in Austin this week. Federal safety regulators opened a file on them before the next day was over.

The probe is an audit query, AQ26002, from NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation, and it covers roughly 1,000 vehicles. No crash set it off. The agency is asking about paperwork, specifically the paperwork Tesla filed on itself.

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BYD’s Sealion 08 Is the $33,000 Long-Range SUV You Can’t Buy

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Transportation,

Picture a three-row electric SUV longer than a BMW X7, one that charges from nearly empty to almost full in about nine minutes and claims to travel 559 miles on a charge. Now picture it costing about what a loaded Toyota Highlander does. That car is real. BYD launched it on September 2, and unless you live in China, you cannot buy it.

The Sealion 08 is the new flagship of BYD's Ocean lineup, and it is a lot of vehicle for the money. Prices run from 229,900 to 279,900 yuan, or roughly $33,000 to $41,000, across eight versions. For that you get a 5,115mm body, a choice of five or six seats, and a spec sheet that reads like a wish list an American automaker would quietly file under "someday."

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VW’s first electric California camper skips the kitchen and the pop-top

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Misc. Tech, Transportation,

The camper van fantasy usually falls apart at the sink. You picture waking up at a trailhead with the doors thrown open, and then you remember the plumbing, the gas bottle, and the cabinetry you haul around all year and use four weekends of it.

Volkswagen's answer is to leave most of that out. The ID. California Cruise, shown today at the Caravan Salon in Düsseldorf, is the first fully electric van to wear the California badge, and it's built on the ID. Buzz Pro. You get a bed for two, blackout blinds on every window, two camping chairs, a table, and a 2,000-watt socket. You don't get a kitchen, and going by what VW has announced, you don't get a pop-top roof either.

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Spatial Audio in CarPlay Reaches the Volvo EX90, With a 25-Speaker Catch

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Portable Audio / Video, Transportation,

The car is where a lot of people still listen to music on purpose. Alone, on a highway, with nobody interrupting and nothing else competing for the speakers, you hear the bass line in a way you never do at your desk. It's the closest thing most of us have to a listening room, and audio companies have been circling it for years.

Volvo is pushing Spatial Audio in CarPlay, powered by Dolby Atmos, out to the EX90 through a software update, and confirmed it in a press release this week. Back in July it named the EX60, EX90 and ES90 as the three models getting it. There's a catch, and it's an expensive one. The feature needs the optional Bowers & Wilkins sound system.

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Xpeng Raised $900 Million to Build Humanoid Robots on a Car Assembly Line

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Misc. Tech, Transportation, Artificial Intelligence,

Xpeng's robotics business just raised more than $900 million at a valuation above $6.3 billion, in what the company says is the largest single private round China's embodied AI sector has seen. IDG Capital led it, Gaorong Ventures joined, and Tencent and Alibaba came in as strategic investors.

The money goes toward one machine: a humanoid robot called IRON, which Xpeng expects to enter mass production by the end of 2026.

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