Otherwise, drivers will get mad. “The mainstream manufacturers have to be a little careful because they don’t want to create customer dissatisfaction by making the system too twitchy,” says Brannon, at AAA. Tesla drivers, for example, have proven very tolerant of “beta testing” and quirks. Your average driver, maybe less so.

Based on its own research, IIHS has pushed automakers to install AEB systems able to operate at faster speeds on their cars. Kidd says IIHS research suggests there have been no systemic, industry-wide issues with safety and automatic emergency braking. Fewer and fewer drivers seem to be turning off their AEB systems out of annoyance. (The new rules make it so drivers can’t turn them off.) But US regulators have investigated a handful of automakers, including General Motors and Honda, for automatic emergency braking issues that have reportedly injured more than 100 people, though automakers have reportedly fixed the issue.

New complexities

Getting cars to fast-brake at even higher speeds will require a series of tech advances, experts say. AEB works by bringing in data from sensors. That information is then turned over to automakers’ custom-tuned classification systems, which are trained to recognize certain situations and road users—that’s a stopped car in the middle of the road up ahead or there’s a person walking across the road up there—and intervene.

So to get AEB to work in higher-speed situations, the tech will have to “see” further down the road. Most of today’s new cars come loaded up with sensors, including cameras and radar, which can collect vital data. But the auto industry trade group argues that the Feds have underestimated the amount of new hardware—including, possibly, more expensive lidar units—that will have to be added to cars.

Brake-makers will have to tinker with components to allow quicker stops, which will require the pressurized fluid that moves through a brake’s hydraulic lines to go even faster. Allowing cars to detect hazards at further distances could require different types of hardware, including sometimes-expensive sensors. “Some vehicles might just need a software update, and some might not have the right sensor suite,” says Bhavana Chakraborty, an engineering director at Bosch, an automotive supplier that builds safety systems. Those without the right hardware will need updates “across the board,” she says, to get to the levels of safety demanded by the federal government.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/11/automatic-braking-systems-save-lives-now-theyll-need-to-work-at-62-mph/

Over the past decade, spurred on by series like Formula 1 and the World Endurance Championship, the world of motorsport began to embrace hybrid powertrains. In addition to being a sport and entertainment, racing also serves as a testbed for new vehicle technologies, having pioneered innovations we now take for granted, like seat belts, windshield wipers, and rearview mirrors. But that dalliance with electrification may be nearing its end as two high-profile series announce they’re ditching batteries and electric motors starting next year in favor of sustainable fuels instead.

Formula 1 first officially allowed hybrid power in 2009, and by 2014, the series’ rules required every car to sport a pair of complex and costly energy-recovery systems. The more road-relevant discipline of sports prototypes also began dabbling with electrified powertrains around the same time, with the first win for a hybrid car at Le Mans coming in 2012.

The budgets involved for those programs were extravagant, though. Until it instituted a cost cap, F1 team budgets stretched to hundreds of millions of dollars a year. In endurance racing, Audi and Porsche spent comparable amounts on their hybrid WEC campaigns, and while Toyota managed to make do with much less, even it was spending more than $80 million a year in the mid-2010s.

As the technology has matured, it made its way into other series—in 2022, both the World Rally Championship and the British Touring Car Championship adopted standardized hybrid systems with spec components that each team had to use. North America’s IMSA WeatherTech series followed suit in 2023 by introducing the new GTP class—cars built to the LMDh regulations similarly use spec batteries, transmissions, and electric motor/generator units.

But the addition of hybrid systems in those series had more to do with making it socially acceptable for automakers to participate in them rather than with any great improvement to the racing. Indeed, at the 2023 Rolex 24 at Daytona, team principals told me for a fact that automakers like Acura and Cadillac would never have greenlit their IMSA prototype programs were it not for the hybrid aspect.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/11/racing-turns-its-back-on-heavy-expensive-hybrids-for-sustainable-fuel/

This is not egregious behavior, at least on the scale of garage door opener firms. And Aladdin’s app works with Google Home and Amazon Alexa, but not with Home Assistant or my secondary/lazy option, HomeKit/Apple Home. It also logs me out “for security” more often than I’d like and tells me this only after an iPhone shortcut refuses to fire. It has some decent features, but without deeper integrations, I can’t do things like have the brighter ceiling lights turn on when the door opens or flash indoor lights if the garage door stays open too long. At least not without Google or Amazon.

I’ve seen OpenGarage passed around the Home Assistant forums and subreddits over the years. It is, as the name implies, fully open source: hardware design, firmware, and app code, API, everything. It is a tiny ESP board that has an ultrasonic distance sensor and circuit relay attached. You can control and monitor it from a web browser, mobile or desktop, from IFTTT, MQTT, and with the latest firmware, you can get email alerts. I decided to pull out the 6-foot ladder and give it a go.

Installing the little watching owl

You generally mount the OpenGarage unit to the roof of your garage, so the distance sensor can detect if your garage door has rolled up in front of it. There are options for mounting with magnetic contact sensors or a side view of a roll-up door, or you can figure out some other way in which two different sensor depth distances would indicate an open or closed door. If you’ve got a Security+ 2.0 door (the kind with the yellow antenna, generally), you’ll need an adapter, too.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/11/i-too-installed-an-open-source-garage-door-opener-and-am-loving-it/

Ending the tax credit is not something the incoming administration can do via executive action—Congress controls government spending, and this would require new legislation. But the budget reconciliation process results in bills that cannot be filibustered, and Reuters says that the Trump transition team will likely use this route as part of a larger revamp of tax laws.

Tesla was a major beneficiary of the new clean vehicle tax credit; under the previous scheme, an OEM was only eligible until it sold its 200,000th plug-in vehicle, at which point the credit available to its customers began to sunset. Tesla—which exclusively sells plug-in vehicles—was unsurprisingly the first to reach this threshold, at which point its EVs became more expensive than competitor cars. But the sales cap was eliminated under the new rules.

One might expect the company would be up in arms over this proposal. But according to Reuters, that’s not the case—Tesla is in favor of ending the clean vehicle tax credit, and CEO Elon Musk has previously said such a move would be far more damaging to rival companies than to Tesla.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/11/trump-team-puts-ev-tax-credit-on-the-block-tesla-is-on-board-report/

The holiday season is fast approaching, and with it, all manner of uncomfortable conversations with relatives who think they know a lot about a lot but are in fact just walking examples of Dunning-Kruger in action. Not going home is always an option—there’s no reason you should spend your free time with people you can’t stand, after all. But if you are headed home and are not looking forward to having to converse with your uncle or parent over heaped plates of turkey and potatoes, we put together some talking points to debunk their more nonsensical claims about electric vehicles.

Charging an EV takes too long

The No. 1 complaint from people with no experience with driving or living with an electric car, cited as a reason for why they will never get an EV, is that it takes too long to recharge them. On the one hand, this attitude is understandable. For more than a century, humans have become accustomed to vehicles that can be refueled in minutes, using very energy-dense liquids that can be pumped into a fuel tank at a rate of up to 10 gallons per minute.

By contrast, batteries are not at all fast to recharge, particularly if you plug into an AC charger. Even the fastest fast-charging EVs connected to a fast DC fast charger will still need between 18–20 minutes to go from 10 to 80 percent state of charge, and that, apparently, is more time than some curmudgeons are prepared to wait as they drive from coast to coast as fast as they possibly can.

The thing is, an EV is a paradigm shift compared to a gasoline-powered car. Yes, refueling for that gas car is quick, but it’s also inconvenient, particularly if you live somewhere where all the gas stations keep closing down.

Instead of weekly trips to the gas station—or perhaps more often in some cases—EV owners plug their cars in each night and wake up each morning with a full battery.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/11/heres-how-to-survive-your-relatives-ignorant-anti-ev-rant-this-thanksgiving/

Tesla has issued yet another recall for the angular, unpainted Cybertruck. This is the sixth recall affecting the model-year 2024 Cybertruck to be issued since January, and it affects 2,431 vehicles in total. And this time, there’s no fix being delivered by a software update over the air—owners will need to have their pickup trucks physically repaired.

The problem is a faulty drive unit inverter, which stranded a Cybertruck at the end of July. Tesla says it started investigating the problem a week later and by late October arrived at the conclusion that it had made a bad batch of inverters that it used in production vehicles from November 6, 2023, until July 30, 2024. After a total of five failures and warranty claims that the company says “may be related to the condition,” Tesla issued a recall.

Tesla is often able to fix defects in its products by pushing out new software, something that leads many fans of the brand to get defensive over the topic. Although there is no requirement for a safety recall to involve some kind of hardware fix—20 percent of all car recalls are now software fixes—in this case, the solution to the failing inverters very much requires a technician to work on the affected trucks.

Tesla says that starting on December 9, it will begin replacing the faulty inverters with new ones that have components that won’t malfunction.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/11/tesla-recalls-cybertrucks-for-faulty-inverter-the-6th-recall-this-year/

Polestar’s range expands a little more today. The Swedish spinoff announced that it is opening its order books for a cheaper, longer-range version of the Polestar 3 electric SUV that rather impressed us when we drove it earlier this year. The Polestar 3 Long Range Single Motor will cost $67,500—well under the price cap for the IRS clean vehicle tax credit, for which it qualifies, as it is built in South Carolina.

Dropping the front motor/generator unit means that the Polestar 3 LRSM is a good deal less powerful than the Long Range Dual Motor version we’ve driven, but 296 hp (220 kW) and 361 lb-ft (489 Nm) should ensure that while it isn’t as fast, it shouldn’t be any kind of slouch.

And the boost in range should more than make up for any increase in 0-60 times. The Polestar 3 LRSM can go 350 miles (563 km) on a single charge of the 111 kWh battery, compared to 315 miles (507 km) for the Polestar 3 LRDM.

Since the battery packs are identical, so are charging stats: 30 minutes from 10-80 percent when DC fast charging at up to 250 kW, or 11 hours using a level 2 charger to fully recharge the pack.

“I’m very proud of what our team has accomplished and look forward to the Long Range Single Motor Polestar 3 SUV rolling off the assembly line in South Carolina very soon and into customer hands in early 2025,” said Anders Gustafson, head of Polestar North America.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/11/new-single-motor-polestar-3-suv-starts-at-67500-orders-open-now/

The CX-50 Hybrid is also quite well equipped in its base Preferred trim. Opting for the $37,400 Premium trim adds a panoramic-powered moonroof, some small styling tweaks, leather seats, and a better sound system, including satellite radio. Our test CX-50 Hybrid was the $40,050 Premium Plus, which adds powered folding side mirrors, 19-inch wheels, ventilated front seats, and a rather crisp full-color head-up display that not only shows turn-by-turn directions from Apple Maps in CarPlay or Google Maps in Android Auto. It also works well even with polarized sunglasses.

Jonathan Gitlin

Jonathan Gitlin

It’s possible to exceed the EPA mileage on short trips in the city.

Jonathan Gitlin

It’s possible to exceed the EPA mileage on short trips in the city. Jonathan Gitlin

Jonathan Gitlin

It’s possible to exceed the EPA mileage on short trips in the city. Jonathan Gitlin

The back seat might not be quite as roomy as some electric SUVs we’ve sampled recently, but it’s not cramped in the back, even with the traction battery taking up room underneath. And with the moonroof shade retracted, there’s plenty of natural light. The cargo area is pleasantly roomy, with 29.2 cubic feet (827 L) with the rear seats in use, expanding to 56.3 cubic feet (1,594 L) with the rear row folded flat.

Sadly, the ride is not as refined as the interior. Like the steering, Mazda says that all CX-50s have had recalibrated dampers from the second half of this year, but at 4,008 lbs (1,818 kg) the Hybrid is the heaviest CX-50, and you feel every bump and bounce along the way.

Mazda says that in 2025 it expects to build about 40,000 CX-50 Hybrids at the joint factory it operates with Toyota in Huntsville, Alabama, and while a base CX-50 Hybrid is a little more expensive than the RAV4 alternative, the extra ~$2,000 goes a long way in terms of a nicer environment to surround yourself with while commuting to work or doing a grocery run. The vastly improved fuel efficiency means this is a Mazda I don’t mind recommending, but I wish the company could bring back the jinba ittai.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/11/mazda-gives-the-2025-cx-50-a-big-efficiency-boost-to-38-mpg-with-hybrid-power/

Cadillac has another new electric vehicle on the way. It’s the 2026 Vistiq, a three-row SUV that fills the gap in the American automaker’s lineup. It will be the fifth Cadillac to use what until now has been called the Ultium battery platform.

Although parent company General Motors has caught a case of EV regret this year, it has also ironed out the problem it encountered when assembling battery cells into packs and expects to sell at least 200,000 EVs this year. Cadillac’s Ultium journey began with the midsize Lyriq, which has since been joined by the compact Optiq, the hand-built, highly exclusive Celestiq, and imminently, the Escalade IQ, which rivals the Hummer EV in weight as a result of its whopping 450-mile range.

The Vistiq conforms to the design language started by the Lyriq.

Cadillac

The Vistiq conforms to the design language started by the Lyriq. Cadillac

If you’re picturing an electric XT6 you’ve got the right idea.

Cadillac

If you’re picturing an electric XT6 you’ve got the right idea. Cadillac

The Vistiq conforms to the design language started by the Lyriq. Cadillac

If you’re picturing an electric XT6 you’ve got the right idea. Cadillac

The $77,395 Vistiq drops in between the Lyriq and Escalade IQ, filling the same niche—but electric—as the XT6 does in the gas-powered lineup. The Vistiq has a virtually identical wheelbase to the gas Escalade at 121.8 inches (3,094 mm), but it’s a few inches shorter at 205 inches (5,207 mm) long. Yes, this is a large SUV, but it’s a three-row Cadillac—what else do you expect?

Inside the car, between the axles, the battery pack has a usable capacity of 102 kWh. Cadillac says that the Vistiq will get at least 300 miles (482 km) on a single charge, and that DC fast charge will add “up to 79 miles (127 km) of range in about 10 minutes.” While Cadillac didn’t say, we expect a native NACS (J3400) charge port, as the Vistiq will debut as a model-year 2026 vehicle when it goes into production next year in Tennessee.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/11/smaller-than-an-escalade-iq-bigger-than-a-lyriq-the-2026-cadillac-vistiq/

Before the powertrain was ready for the CLA, it needed testing, which Mercedes did with an elegant concept called the EQXX. It’s capable of almost 750 miles on a single charge. We tested this silver arrow in 2022, learning quite a bit about how Mercedes’ EV engineers think in the process.

As impressive as the 7.44 miles/kWh (8.35 kWh/100 km) I managed in the EQXX was, when I tried the same powertrain in a boxy, unaerodynamic EQB, it returned 5 miles/kWh (12.5 kWh/100 km), an 80 percent improvement over the production EQB.

To prove its chops, Mercedes took a CLA prototype to the Nardo test track in southern Italy, where it covered 2,309 miles (3,716 km) in 24 hours, beating a record set by Porsche in 2019 by 181 miles (291 km). The test used Nardo’s high-speed bowl, a 7.8-mile (12.5 km) circle of track, averaging 95 mph (153 km/h), including 10 recharging stops that saw the car stationary for a total of almost seven hours.

A new gasoline version?

The sneak peek included something of a surprise: A new gasoline version of the CLA is on the way as well. As we detailed back in February, Mercedes no longer believes that the world is ready for it to go all-electric by 2030, even in Europe. As such, it wants to be able to offer customers more “electrified” models as well as EVs.

The gas CLA will use a 48 V mild hybrid powertrain, but the internal combustion engine will actually be made by Horse Powertrain Limited, a Chinese joint venture between Geely and Renault.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/11/mercedes-benz-previews-next-cla-breaks-ev-distance-record-in-testing/