fahrbot-bot shares a report from Reuters: BYD on Monday unveiled a new platform for electric vehicles (EVs) that it said could charge EVs as quickly as it takes to pump gas and announced for the first time that it would build a charging network across China. The so-called "super e-platform" will be capable of peak charging speeds of 1,000 kilowatts (kW), enabling cars that use it to travel 400 km (249 miles) on a 5-minute charge, founder Wang Chuanfu said at an event livestreamed from the company's Shenzhen headquarters.

Charging speeds of 1,000 kW would be twice as fast as Tesla's superchargers whose latest version offers up to 500 kw charging speeds. The new charging architecture will be initially available in two new EVs -- Han L sedan and Tang L SUV priced from 270,000 yuan ($37,328.91) and BYD said it would build over 4,000 ultra-fast charging piles, or units, across China to match the new platform. "In order to completely solve our user's charging anxiety, we have been pursuing a goal to make the charging time of electric vehicles as short as the refuelling time of petrol vehicles," Wang said.

"This is the first time in the industry that the unit of megawatt (charge) has been achieved on charging power," he said.

Cities in Europe "are dramatically scaling back their relationship with the car," reports the Washington Post: They are removing parking spaces and creating dedicated bike lanes. They are installing cameras at the perimeter of urban centers and either charging the most-polluting vehicles or preventing them from entering. Some are going so far as to put entire neighborhoods off-limits to vehicles. In Norway, Oslo promotes "car-free livability." Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo touts the "end of car dependence." And while those ideas might sound radical to car-loving Americans, they are fast becoming the norm across the Atlantic, where 340 European cities and towns — home to more than 150 million people — have implemented some kind of restrictions on personal car usage...

[V]irtually every major European city is imposing some kind of rule. Milan has a system similar to New York's, charging for access to the city core — while entirely banning older, highly polluting vehicles. London charges vehicles that don't meet emissions standards, in what it calls the "largest clean-air zone in the world." The programs are not just the purview of liberal Western Europe: Warsaw, Poland, and Sofia, Bulgaria, recently adopted similar schemes. Even little Italian villages have added vehicle restrictions to reinforce their historic feel. And the Netherlands just broke ground on a 12,000-person neighborhood that will be entirely car-free. The neighborhood, known as Merwede, will be connected by public transport to Utrecht, a medium-size city that — perhaps no surprise — has a low-emissions zone of its own...

Perhaps the most elaborate and transformative effort has come in Paris, where Anne Hidalgo was elected mayor in 2014. Since then, Paris has banned the most-polluting vehicles from the city, eliminated 50,000 parking spaces and added hundreds of miles of bike lanes. It turned a bank of the Seine from a busy artery into a pedestrian zone, and closed off the famed Rue de Rivoli to traffic... Journeys by car in Paris have dropped by about 45 percent since 1990. The city has now become a source for striking before-and-after photos: of clogged streets that have transitioned into tree-lined areas where people can walk and play.
In London government officials say inhalable particular matter has fallen, according to the article, while combustion-produced nitrogen dioxide "is 53% lower than it would have been without the restrictions."

"Alphabet's Waymo autonomous vehicles are programmed to follow the rules of the road..." notes the Washington Post. But while the cars obey speed limits and properly use their turn signals — they also "routinely violate parking rules." Waymo vehicles driving themselves received 589 tickets for parking violations in 2024, according to records from San Francisco's Municipal Transportation Agency... The robots incurred $65,065 in fines for violations such as obstructing traffic, disobeying street cleaning restrictions and parking in prohibited areas... [Waymo is responsible for 0.05% of the city's fines, according to statistics from the article.]

Parking violations are one of the few ways to quantify how often self-driving companies' vehicles break the rules of the road... Some parking violations, such as overstaying in a paid spot, cause inconvenience but do not directly endanger other people. Others increase the risk of crashes, said Michael Brooks, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety. Anytime a vehicle is obstructing the flow of traffic, other drivers might be forced to brake suddenly or change lanes, he said, creating risks for drivers, pedestrians or other road users...

San Francisco transit operators lost 2 hours and 12 minutes of service time in 2024 because of Waymo vehicles blocking or colliding with transit vehicles, according to San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency records. Autonomous vehicles have obstructed firefighters responding to emergency scenes in San Francisco, triggering city officials to ask for tougher oversight from state regulators.
The article adds that driverless Waymo vehicles in Los Angeles received 75 more tickets in 2024 — "with $543 in fines still outstanding, according to records from the Los Angeles Department of Transportation."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Last week, Aix Marseille University, France's largest university, invited American scientists who believe their work is at risk of being censored by Donald Trump administration's anti-science policies to continue their research in France. Today, the university announced that it is already seeing great interest from scientists at NASA, Yale, Stanford, and other American schools and government agencies, and that it wants to expand the program to other schools and European countries to absorb all the researchers who want to leave the United States. "We are witnessing a new brain drain," Eric Berton, Aix Marseille University's president, said in a press release. "We will do everything in our power to help as many scientists as possible continue their research. However, we cannot meet all demands on our own. The Ministry of Education and Research is fully supporting and assisting us in this effort, which is intended to expand at both national and European levels."

The press release from the university claims that researchers from Stanford, Yale, NASA, the National Institute of Health, George Washington University, "and about 15 other prestigious institutions," are now considering "scientific exile." More than 40 American scientists have expressed interest in the program, it said. Their key research areas are "health (LGBT+ medicine, epidemiology, infectious diseases, inequalities, immunology, etc.), environment and climate change (natural disaster management, greenhouse gases, social impact, artificial intelligence), humanities and social sciences (communication, psychology, history, cultural heritage), astrophysics."

"The current Executive Orders have led to a termination of one of my research grants. While it was not a lot of money, it was a high profile, large national study," one researcher who has reached out to Aix Marseille University in order to take advantage of the program told me. 404 Media granted the researcher anonymity because speaking about the program might jeopardize their current position at a leading American university. "While I have not had to lay off staff as a result of that particular cancellation, I will have to lay off staff if additional projects are terminated. Everything I focus on is now a banned word." The program, called "Safe Place for Science," initially will fund 15 researchers with 15 million Euros. Aix Marseille University says that it is already working closely with the regional government and France's Chamber of Commerce and Industry "to facilitate the arrival of these scientists and their families in the region, offering support with employment, housing, school access, transportation, and visas." "We are doing what is necessary to provide them with the best living environment. We are ready to welcome them and will make them true children of the country!" Renaud Muselier, President of the Regional Council of Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur, said in a statement.

Several Asian airlines have tightened restrictions on portable battery chargers amid growing concerns about fire risks, following a January blaze that destroyed an Air Busan aircraft in South Korea. South Korean airlines now require passengers to keep portable chargers within arm's reach rather than in overhead bins, a rule implemented March 1 to ease public anxiety, according to the Transportation Ministry. Taiwan's EVA Air and China Airlines have banned using or charging power banks on flights but still allow them in overhead compartments.

Thai Airways announced a similar ban last Friday, citing "incidents of in-flight fires on international airlines." Battery-related incidents on U.S. airlines have increased from 32 in 2016 to 84 last year, with portable chargers identified as the most common culprit, according to Federal Aviation Administration data. The International Civil Aviation Organization has banned lithium-ion batteries from cargo holds since 2016, though no industry standard exists for regulating power banks.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Washington Post: An Amazon-backed self-driving taxi failed to meet vehicle safety standardsbecause it lacks basics like a brake pedal and rearview mirrors, according to a report by federal inspectors that raises questions about the industry's plans to put a new generation of autonomous vehicles on U.S. roads. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report was produced as part of a review last year of an unusual vehicle by Amazon subsidiary Zoox that, without a steering wheel or other human controls, has no way for a person to drive. Zoox has asserted that the vehicle's technology, backed by artificial intelligence, complies with the agency's standards. But the NHTSA report documents "apparent noncompliances" with eight safety rules.

The contents of the previously undisclosed review suggest that rules written when autonomous vehicles were the stuff of futuristic musings pose a legal impediment to the industry's ambitions, even as plans for self-driving vehicles accelerate. Zoox has a small pilot fleet on the roads in California and Nevada and says it has completed thousands of trips carrying employees and guests. It is finalizing plans to launch public service in Las Vegas this year. [...] By documenting the apparent noncompliances of the Zoox, NHTSA could be setting the table for a recall, under agency procedures. It is unclear whether the Trump administration will attempt a change in course. The agency said it remains in discussion with Zoox and was "considering all options."

Zoox could have sought an exemption from the safety rules, but NHTSA has never granted one to an autonomous passenger vehicle. Instead, the company self-certified that its vehicle complied with the rules as it raced to be the first company to put a purpose-built robotaxi on the road and claim a share of what could become a multi trillion-dollar market. Zoox's vehicle bears little resemblance to a normal car. The plan is for customers to summon a ride using an app, much like a regular ride-hailing vehicle, getting in through bus-like doors and sitting facing one another. The vehicle navigates itself, seeing the world through a set of cameras and laser-based sensors. It largely relies on its own abilities to drive, but the company says teams of remote operators can seize control to help handle unusual situations. Passengers can call for assistance via a touch screen and open the doors using an emergency release. "We will continue to support transportation technology innovation while maintaining the safety of America's roads," NHTSA said in a statement.

"Our recent discussions with NHTSA are about mirrors, windshield wipers, a defroster, and a foot-activated brake pedal -- equipment that makes sense for vehicles with human drivers, but not for the Zoox purpose-built robotaxi," Zoox said in a statement. "Our purpose-built design means that the robotaxi can never be operated by a human driver, and our AI driver doesn't rely on this equipment to view the world."

Southwest Airlines boasts that its passengers' "bags fly free" -- but not for long. From a report: Starting May 28 -- just in time for the busy summer travel season -- only Southwest's most elite Rapid Rewards A-List Preferred members and passengers who book their top-tier Business Select fares will receive two free checked bags. Frequent flyer A-List Members, Southwest-branded credit card holders and other select customers will be allowed one checked bag.

Everyone else will be charged for their first and second checked bags on flights booked on or after May 28, the carrier says. It's a break with Southwest's 54 year history -- one that could undermine customer loyalty to the carrier, according to experts. "This is how you destroy a brand. This is how you destroy customer preference. This is how you destroy loyalty. And this, I think, is going to send Southwest into a financial tailspin," airline industry analyst Henry Harteveldt, of Atmosphere Research Group, told CBS News senior transportation correspondent Kris Van Cleave. "Southwest, with these changes, becomes just another airline."

smooth wombat writes: In what can only be described as a no-brainer, Volkswagen has announced it will have once again have physical buttons in all its vehicles. As Andreas Mindt, design chief at the company said, removing buttons was "a mistake".

"From the ID 2all onwards, we will have physical buttons for the five most important functions -- the volume, the heating on each side of the car, the fans and the hazard light -- below the screen," he explained, adding: "It's not a phone: it's a car."

This doesn't mean touch screens are set to disappear on new Volkswagens, just that drivers will now have the option of physical controls for their most used day-to-day tasks. The new controls are set to make their debut in the ID.2all, a small, budget EV set to debut in Europe.

gdm (Slashdot reader #97,336) writes: A study published in Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives investigates how ants avoid traffic jams.... Quoting the abstract: "The results show that ants adopt specific traffic strategies (platoon formation, quasi-constant speed and no overtaking maneuvers) that help avoid jam phenomena, even at high density." "Researchers are now studying these insects' cooperative tactics to learn how to program self-driving cars that don't jam up," writes Scientific American: "We're maximizing the interests of individuals, [which] is why, at a given point, you start to have a traffic jam," says study co-author Nicola Pugno, who studies sustainable engineering at the University of Trento in Italy. But self-driving cars, if they one day become ubiquitous, could have more cooperative programming. In one vision of this future, autonomous vehicles would share information with nearby cars to optimize traffic flow — perhaps, the researchers suggest, by prioritizing constant speeds and headways or by not passing others on the road...

Today's drivers can learn at least one thing from ants to avoid causing a traffic jam, says Katsuhiro Nishinari [a mathematical physicist at the University of Tokyo, who studies traffic]: don't tailgate. By leaving room between their car and the one ahead of them, drivers can absorb a wave of braking in dense traffic conditions that would otherwise be amplified into a full-blown "phantom" traffic jam with no obvious cause. "Just keeping away," he says, can help traffic flow smoothly.
In the article the researchers admit there are differences between humans stuck in traffic and ants. "Unlike cars, ants don't crash; they can literally walk over one another." And if they're backed up in a tunnel, "they'll find a way to walk on the ceiling!"

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Many of us have been guilty of binning a mushy, overripe banana -- but now scientists say they have a solution with the launch of a genetically engineered non-browning banana. The product is the latest in a series of gene-edited fruits and vegetables designed to have a longer shelf life. Scientists say the technology is emerging as a powerful new weapon against food waste, which occurs globally on an epic scale. The banana, developed by Tropic, a biotech company based in Norwich, is said to remain fresh and yellow for 12 hours after being peeled and is less susceptible to turning brown when bumped during harvesting and transportation.

The company has also developed a slow-ripening banana that has been approved in several countries, which it plans to launch later in the year. Other research teams are working on lettuce that wilts more slowly, bruise-resistant apples and potatoes and identifying the genes that determine how quickly grapes and blueberries shrivel. [...] The company worked out how to disable a gene responsible for the production of an enzyme called polyphenol oxidase, which causes browning. The same gene is silenced in Arctic apples, a genetically modified variety, which has been sold in the US since 2017, and blocking the production of polyphenol oxidase has been shown to work in tomatoes, melon, kiwifruits and mushrooms. In the bananas, Tropic made precise changes to existing genes without introducing foreign genetic material. The report notes that an estimated 33% of the produce that is harvested worldwide is never consumed due to the short shelf-life of many fruit and vegetable products. Bananas are among the most thrown-away foods, with some 5 billion bananas tossed in the U.S. each year.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A 37-year-old Tennessee man was arrested Thursday, accused of stealing Blu-rays and DVDs from a manufacturing and distribution company used by major movie studios and sharing them online before the movies' scheduled release dates. According to a US Department of Justice press release, Steven Hale worked at the DVD company and allegedly stole "numerous 'pre-release' DVDs and Blu-rays" between February 2021 and March 2022. He then allegedly "ripped" the movies, "bypassing encryption that prevents unauthorized copying" and shared copies widely online. He also supposedly sold the actual stolen discs on e-commerce sites, the DOJ alleged.

Hale has been charged with "two counts of criminal copyright infringement and one count of interstate transportation of stolen goods," the DOJ said. He faces a maximum sentence of five years for the former, and 10 years for the latter. Among blockbuster movies that Hale is accused of stealing are Dune, F9: The Fast Saga, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Godzilla v. Kong, and, perhaps most notably, Spider-Man: No Way Home. The DOJ claimed that "copies of Spider-Man: No Way Home were downloaded tens of millions of times, with an estimated loss to the copyright owner of tens of millions of dollars."

Chinese electric vehicle maker BYD is rapidly gaining market share in Australia, with sales rising 65% last year as nearly one in four EVs sold in the country was a BYD, according to EVDirect CEO David Smitherman. Chinese EVs now comprise roughly one-third of electric vehicles sold in Australia, which has no domestic auto industry to protect with tariffs, unlike the United States where both Trump and Biden administrations have effectively blocked Chinese EV imports.

The Biden administration imposed a 100% tariff on Chinese EVs to shield U.S. automakers from what it termed unfair competition. U.S. officials also blocked Chinese vehicle software over security concerns that Beijing could use internet-connected cars for surveillance. Australian authorities are monitoring U.S. developments but remain noncommittal despite security experts urging restrictions on Chinese connected car technology.

A fully driverless Maserati MC20 Coupe set a new autonomous land speed record, reaching 197.7 mph at the Kennedy Space Center. The Verge reports: The Maserati was running self-driving software developed by Politecnico di Milano, Italy's largest scientific and technological university. The team also worked with the Indy Autonomous Challenge, which most recently ran at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway during CES 2025. In the shadow of NASA's iconic Space Shuttles, the race car flew down the 2.8-mile runway at record-breaking speeds, surpassing the 192.2mph record that was also held by Indy Autonomous Challenge and PoliMOVE, set by an IAC AV-21 race car in April 2022.

The Maserati MC20 is a stylish -- and expensive -- choice for the autonomous run. Retailing for at least $239,000, the race car sports a mid-mounted, twin-turbocharged 3.0-liter V-6 that Maserati calls the Nettuno. The engine makes serious power: 621 horsepower and 538 pound-feet of torque, which is sent through an eight-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission to the rear wheels.

"Tesla is taking steps to launch a ride-sharing service that could compete directly with Uber, Lyft and Waymo," reports Axios, noting that Tesla "has filed for a transportation charter-party carrier permit from the California Public Utilities Commission, Bloomberg reported Thursday." "That classification means Tesla would own and control the fleet of vehicles," Bloomberg reported... "In its communications with California officials, Tesla discussed driver's license information and drug-testing coordination, suggesting the company intends to use human drivers, at least initially," Bloomberg reported. The company is seeking the same type of permit that Waymo uses to run its robotaxi business.Uber is gearing up to begin offering autonomous vehicle services in partnership with Waymo in Austin and Atlanta later this year.
The article also adds that Musk "told investors in January that 'I'm confident that we will release unsupervised FSD in California this year,' referring to the company's Full Self-Driving system." But "Tesla has yet to apply for a permit to operate driverless vehicles..." notes the EV blog Electrek, adding "This is just a step for Tesla to test ride-hailing services ahead of autonomy."

Reuters also points out that "Earlier in October, Tesla revealed the Cybercab, a robotaxi concept that had no steering wheel or control pedals... He has said the Cybercab will go into production in 2026 and will also be available for customers to buy for less than $30,000."

Apple is facing a class action lawsuit alleging it misled consumers by falsely claiming certain Apple Watches were carbon neutral, as the carbon offset projects it relied on did not effectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Verge reports: Apple said in 2023 that "select case and band combinations" of its Apple Watch Series 9, Apple Watch Ultra 2, and Apple Watch SE would be the company's first carbon neutral devices. The suit was filed on behalf of anyone who bought those watches. It alleges that the products were not really carbon neutral because they relied on faulty offset projects that didn't actually reduce the company's greenhouse gas pollution. [...]

The company's carbon neutral claims were false, and the seven plaintiffs would not have purchased the Apple Watches or paid as much for them had they known that, the lawsuit alleges. "Apple's false advertising may lead [consumers] to choose its products over genuinely sustainable alternatives," the complaint (PDF) filed in a California federal court on Wednesday says.

Apple is standing by its assertions. "We are proud of our carbon neutral products, which are the result of industry-leading innovation in clean energy and low-carbon design," Apple spokesperson Sean Redding said in an email. Redding says the company reduced Apple Watch emissions by more than 75 percent. The company focused on cutting pollution from materials, electricity, and transportation used to make the watches, in part by getting more of its suppliers to switch to clean energy. To deal with the remaining pollution, Redding says Apple invests in "nature-based projects to remove hundreds of thousands of metric tons of carbon from the air." That's where the new lawsuit finds problems.

To offset their emissions, many companies buy carbon credits from forestry projects that represent tons of planet-heating carbon dioxide that trees and soil naturally trap. Apple primarily purchased credits from the Chyulu Hills project in Kenya and the Guinan Project in China, the suit says. It alleges that neither of the projects met a basic standard for carbon offsets, which is that they capture additional CO2 that would not otherwise have been sequestered had Apple not paid to support the project.

New York City's Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Google have successfully tested technology that uses smartphone sensors to detect subway track defects, the MTA said Thursday. The four-month experiment, dubbed TrackInspect, mounted six Google Pixel phones on four A train subway cars traversing Manhattan and Queens. The phones' accelerometers, magnetometers, gyroscopes and external microphones collected 335 million sensor readings and 1,200 hours of audio data, which were processed through 200 prediction models.

The system identified 92% of defects later confirmed by human inspectors, including broken rails and loose bolts. "The goal with this [project] is to find issues before they become a major issue in terms of service," said Demetrius Crichlow, the agency's president. Following the successful trial, the MTA plans to expand to a full pilot where Google will build a production version for track inspectors.

Sophisticated electronic devices used by criminals to steal cars are set to be banned under new laws in England and Wales. From a report: More than 700,000 vehicles were broken into last year -- often with the help of high-tech electronic devices, including so-called signal jammers, which are thought to play a part in four out of 10 vehicle thefts nationwide.

Until now, police could only bring a prosecution if they could prove a device had been used to commit a specific offence, but under new laws in the Crime and Policing Bill the onus will be on someone in possession of a device to show they had it for a legitimate purpose. Making or selling a signal jammer could lead to up to five years in prison or an unlimited fine.

Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson has stepped down, with COO Marc Winterhoff taking over as interim CEO. The company also announced its fourth-quarter financial results and revealed plans to more than double vehicle production to 20,000 units in 2025. CNBC reports: Winterhoff told CNBC on Tuesday that it was Rawlinson's decision to resign as of Friday, however he declined to elaborate on any additional details. "It was Peter's decision after 12 years of, let's say, daily grind or daily activities and bringing the company where it is today ... that it is time to step aside and pass the baton," said Winterhoff, who joined Lucid from Roland Berger in December 2023. In a statement posted Tuesday on LinkedIn, Rawlinson said he decided it was "finally the right time" to step down after "successfully" launching the company's second product, a three-row SUV called the Gravity. He did not elaborate further on the decision in the lengthy post.

The CEO change and production target were announced in conjunction with the automaker's fourth-quarter financial results. For the period ended Dec. 31, the company reported a net loss attributable to common stockholders of $636.9 million, or a loss of 22 cents per share, on revenue of $234.5 million. Analysts surveyed by LSEG expected a loss of 25 cents per share on revenue of $214 million. During the same period last year, Lucid reported a net loss attributable to common stockholders of $653.8 million, or a loss of 29 cents per share, on revenue of $157.2 million. The production target for 2025 announced Tuesday is compared with production of 9,029 vehicles and deliveries of 10,241 reported for 2024. Winterhoff said production of the Gravity SUV will gradually build during the year. He declined to speculate on what percentage of the 20,000-unit production target the vehicle would represent.

A massive blackout has hit Chile, leaving millions without power and disrupting transportation, businesses, and essential services across 14 of the country's 16 regions. The Associated Press reports: The National Electrical Coordinator, Chile's grid operator, said a disruption had occurred in a high-voltage transmission line that carries power from the Atacama Desert of northern Chile to the capital of Santiago in the country's central valley. It did not say what actually caused the disruption that pushed much of the country's power grid into shutdown, from the northernmost Chilean port of Arica to the southern Los Lagos agricultural region.

Interior Minister Carolina Toha said hospitals, prisons and government buildings were switching on backup generators to keep essential equipment operating. In a press conference, Toha urged the public to stay calm and said officials were racing to put the grid back in operation and restore electric service across the country of some 19 million people. "It's affecting the entire electrical system of the country," she said of the breakdown in the 500-kV backbone transmission line. Toha said if all areas didn't return to normal by sunset the government would take emergency measures to avert a crisis. [...]

Videos on social media from all over Chile, a long ribbon of a country stretching 4,300 kilometers (over 2,600 miles) along the southern Pacific coast, showed chaos at intersections with no functioning traffic lights, people having to use their mobile phones as torches in the underground metro and police dispatched to help evacuate office buildings.

Our World in Data: To decarbonize road transport, the world must move away from petrol and diesel cars and towards electric vehicles and other forms of low-carbon transport.

This transition has already started. In fact, global sales of combustion engine cars are well past the peak and are now falling.

As you can see in the chart, global sales peaked in 2018. This is calculated based on data from the International Energy Agency. Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimates this peak occurred one year earlier, in 2017.

Sales of electric cars, on the other hand, are growing quickly.