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Category: transportation – Page 81

During the most recent excavations, archaeologists stumbled on a system of secret underground passageways. They found six intersecting tunnels that functioned as a hidden transportation network.

A photo shows a partial map of the passageways. Other photos show a tunnel entrance and a view inside the well-preserved arched tunnels.

Archaeologists said the tunnels were between about 5 feet and about 20 feet down. Inside, the tunnels were between 3 feet and 6 feet tall and roughly 4 feet wide. Several tunnels passed under the city’s defensive walls and opened to the outside.

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Tesla’s FSD V12 wide release has started, with plans to reach higher capability by next year, including the ability to drive through fog and potentially achieve true robot taxi capabilities.

Questions to inspire discussion.

What is Tesla’s FSD V12?
—Tesla’s Full Self-Driving version 12 is a new end-to-end neural network that allows the system to teach itself and learn on its own, with plans to reach higher levels of capability by next year.

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An AI chatbot deployed by a car dealership went off the rails after mischievous users discovered a cheeky exploit, in some cases tricking the bot into offering them the deal of a lifetime: brand new cars for chump change. It’s an amusing but cautionary tale on relying on AIs for front-of-house interactions.

The dealership, Chevy of Watsonville in California, used the chatbot to handle customers’ online inquiries, a purpose it was expressly tailored for.

Chris White, a software engineer and musician, was one such customer. He innocently intended to shop around for cars at Watsonville Chevy — until he noticed an amusing detail about the site’s chat window.

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Tesla recorded $500M+ in gross profit from its Energy and Services (Supercharging) segments in Q3 2023. Elon Musk noted how strong energy gross margins were on the call, and insinuated strength in these businesses will continue. I think this is a super exciting development for Tesla investors as the company can smooth out cyclicality in it’s automotive business with consistent profits from its Energy and Services.

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JAC Motors, a Volkswagen-backed Chinese automaker, is set to launch the first mass-produced electric vehicle (EV) with a sodium-ion battery through its new Yiwei brand. Although sodium-ion battery tech has a lower density (and is less mature) than lithium-ion, its lower costs, more abundant supplies and superior cold-weather performance could help accelerate mass EV adoption. CarNewsChina reports that the JAC Yiwei EV hatchback deliveries will begin in January.

Yiwei is a new brand in 2023 for JAC. Volkswagen has a 75 percent stake in (and management control of) JAC and owns 50 percent of JAC’s parent company, Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Group Holdings (JAG). The Chinese government owns the other half of JAG, making for one of the auto industry’s stranger pairings.

The Yiwei EV appears to be a rebranded version of the Sehol E10X hatchback (above), announced earlier this year. CarNewsChina describes the Sehol model as having a 252 km (157 miles) range with a 25 kWh capacity, 120 Wh / kg energy density, 3C to 4C charging, and a HiNa NaCR32140 cell. When JAC revealed the Yiwei brand in May, it said it would drop the Sehol label and rebrand all its vehicles to either JAC or Yiwei, leading us to this week’s EV reveal. JAC hasn’t yet said whether the Yiwei-branded model will keep the E10X moniker.

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Tesla Giga Shanghai plans to release 2024 Model Y refresh as competition heats up in China.

People familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that Gigafactory Shanghai is already preparing to produce the 2024 refresh Model Y. Mass production on the new Model Y is expected to start by mid-2024.

The new Model Y units will be produced in the new phase of Gigafactory Shanghai. Production in the second phase of Tesla China’s factory will be suspended during New Year’s for upgrades. More updates to the Model Y assembly line will be made after the holidays.

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