Тhe Boring Company’s first tunnel under L.A. will open December 10th
Elon Musk has recently announced on Twitter that his tunnel, designed to ultimately avoid Los Angeles traffic, will open on December 10 and free rides will be offered to the public the following day.
The two-mile rapid transit tunnel carved out underneath SpaceX’s Hawthorne headquarters, is part of a concept for an underground public transportation system, which aims to transport passengers and vehicles beneath congested roadways on autonomously driven electric platforms called “skates.” The skates will carry 8 to 16 passengers, or one passenger vehicle, along with magnetic rails at speeds of up to 155 mph, according to Musk. More »

Power, Cell Phone Service Starting to Be Restored.
Michael is the fourth most intense storm on record to hit the United States mainland and the worst since Hurricane Camille in 1969. In addition, it is “the worst storm” that area has ever seen and the first Category 4 hurricane to ever make landfall on the Florida Panhandle, according to Florida Gov. Rick Scott.
While it was moving offshore, Michael left behind scenes of mass devastation. The devastation left by Hurricane Michael is in several states: coastal Florida cities destroyed beyond recognition, and also homes, businesses, and agriculture from Georgia to Virginia.
More than 1 million customers were left without electricity. Emergency officials had no access to many towns.
The US death toll from Hurricane Michael has risen to at least 17 — including five in Virginia and eight in Florida — and it’s expected to climb. About 1,700 total search and rescue personnel are in Florida and so far have checked 25,000 homes statewide.
Scott spoke with reporters Saturday after meeting with emergency responders in the Panama City area. He says the state is helping distribute food and water to affected areas.
In the meantime, more than 17,000 utility workers are busy restoring power to 245,000 Florida homes and businesses still without electricity.

According to ABCNews.

World’s first flying car that can turn into a plane and can fly at 100mph is going on sale in the US next month.

The two-seat hybrid electric vehicle is manufactured by Terrafugia, owned by the parent company of Volvo. It can switch between driving and flying modes in less than a minute.

The price has not yet been determined but preliminary sales for the first of the pioneering models will begin next month, according to China’s news agency.

According to manufacturer Terrafugia, which belongs to Volvo, the Transition can fly up to 400 miles. The aircraft has fold-out wings and weighs roughly 1,300 pounds. It has fixed landing gear and can fly to a maximum altitude of 10,000 feet. More »

Volvo Cars unveiled a fully electric robot-taxi a few days ago, as the Swedish company races to meet an ambitious target for driverless vehicle sales with its Uber supply deal on hold.

Volvo’s self-driving ambitions have been closely linked with Uber for a long time. Ride-hailing company was operating a fleet of autonomous Volvo XC90s until a fatal collision occurred with a pedestrian which brought the program to a halt.

Continue reading here.

Tesla stock drops after Musk smokes joint on live web show.

The billionaire CEO Elon Musk Friday lit up a cigarette described as containing tobacco and marijuana during a chat on “The Joe Rogan Experience,” a popular YouTube talk show.

The two-and-half-hour chat on the streamed podcast late on Thursday touched upon a wide range of topics, including the Boring Company, artificial intelligence, Musk’s plan to use SpaceX’s yet-to-be-built BFR rocket for suborbital travel, and his idea for an electric-powered supersonic airplane that takes off vertically.
Just hours after the interview, two of Tesla key executives quit and the electric car maker’s share prices fell as much as 10 percent to reach a five-month low on Friday morning. The company’s head of accounting, Dave Morton, and head of human resources, Gaby Toledano, said they were leaving the company.

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Two-person, 110mph electric craft made by Google co-founder’s drone company begins regulatory approval process in New Zealand

Kitty Hawk is the “flying car” company that is financially backed by Google founder Larry Page. The firm has announced that it will begin the regulatory approval process required for launching its autonomous passenger-drone system in New Zealand. Kitty Hawk has already conducted secret testing under the cover of another company called Zephyr Airworks.

The all-electric craft, called Cora with a wingspan of 36ft has been eight years in the making. It can fly autonomously up to 3,000ft above ground.
The two-person craft is a 12-rotor plane-drone hybrid that can take off vertically like a drone, but then uses a propeller mounted at the back to fly at up to 110 miles an hour for around 62 miles at a time.

The story continues here.

China’s Geely buys a $9 billion stake in Daimler.

Li Shufu, the founder of Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co. has acquired a nearly 10 percent stake in Daimler AG, the German company said in a regulatory filing Friday.

The stake, which is worth just over $9 billion at the current market price for Daimler shares, makes Li Shufu the biggest single shareholder in the maker of Mercedes Benz cars, trucks and vans and marks the biggest investment in a global automobile manufacturer by a Chinese company. More »

The autonomous cars and robots will lead to mass unemployment.
Аccording to Dr. Subhash Kak, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and a leading expert from Oklahoma University, artificial intelligence, and self-driving cars could put a third of all people out of work.
Vehicles that transport people using artificial intelligence are increasingly becoming a part of our everyday life. Dr. Subhash Kak believes a third of jobs will be lost.

Dr. Kak also warns that as robots are taking control of the world, humans are heading for a dystopian future with mass unemployment. Autonomous cars and artificial intelligence are making an impact in all business sectors. Dr. Subhash Kak says that as one-third of the people in any advanced economy are engaged in transportation, those employees will lose their jobs as soon as self-driving cars become widely adopted. Kak predicts a world where robots replace humans and machines will work at a cheaper price and longer hours without getting tired. More »

Tesla has installed the world’s largest battery storage system in South Australia.

The world’s biggest lithium-ion battery was plugged into an Australian state grid at Hornsdale Wind Farm, near the outback town of Jamestown, about 120 miles north of the state capital, Adelaide. The news was announced by officials two days ago.

Musk signed the contract at the end of September and promised to build the 100-megawatt battery within 100 days or the company would hand it over to Australian state government for free.

The battery began dispatching power into the state grid, providing 70 megawatts, announced South Australia Premier Jay Weatherill Thursday afternoon when temperatures topped 86 degrees. The world’s biggest lithium-ion battery came on the first day of the Australian summer — the season when power usage increases significantly due to air conditioning use. More »

Fisker has filed patents for a radical ‘solid-state battery’ and technology that will slash charging times and improve range. Officials for the company claim the battery would be able to power a car for 500 miles and recharge in just a minute.
Fisker is a very small company that makes luxury electric cars. The technology will be on display at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. Along with the battery module equipped with advanced thermal management, the company will also be launching its Fisker EMotion luxury electric sedan at the show.

According to the firm, its batteries deliver 2.5 times the energy density of typical lithium-ion batteries and is estimated to cost one-third of the 2020 projected price for those batteries, due to advances in materials and manufacturing.

Solid-state batteries would charge very quickly and should not have the fire issues with lithium-ion batteries. However, they are known to have a number of drawbacks, such as low power and low rate capability as a result of the layered electrode structure.

Dr. Fabio Albano, vice president of battery systems at Fisker Inc. commented that this breakthrough “marks the beginning of a new era in solid-state materials and manufacturing technologies”.

According to Autoblog.