Five months after announcing its partnership with the Dragon Racing team, American electric vehicle startup Faraday Future has released the specs for its Formula E race car.
Faraday Future Dragon Racing Team, as it will be now be called, has broken down the nitty-gritty details of its first Formula E vehicle. The 1,940.1 pound vehicle will be able to hit 0 to 62 mph in 2.95 seconds and have a top speed of 150 mph.
Its maximum power output will be 200kW equating to 270 horsepower and the vehicle will have a max regenerative capacity of 150kW, powered by the brakes as drivers enter corners and chicanes. For comparison, Formula One cars are capable of achieving roughly 750kW, for 1,000 horsepower, and Tesla’s street vehicles only regenerate 60kW.
Power is pushed through Michelin Pilot Sport EV2 tires via a permanent magnet motor and driven by a two-speed paddle shift sequential transmission. The front suspension relies on steel wishbones with pushrod-operated dampers and torsion bars, while the rear suspension adds coil springs to the torsion bars.
Faraday Future Dragon Racing Team expects each vehicle to cost approximately $350,000. Drivers switch out of vehicles midway through each race, meaning at least $700,000 is needed to compete in any given race.
Formula E doesn’t have near the reach of other motorsports, but more manufacturers are becoming interested in the electric-only racing series. Audi, Jaguar, Renault, Mahindra, and others are already participating in the series and legendary automobile manufacturer Ferrari recently hinted at the possibility of making its way to Formula E in the near future.
BYD has launched the third-generation Qin Plus DM-i in China, and the first thing that caught my eye is its price. According to CarNewsChina, the plug-in hybrid sedan starts at 79,900 yuan, which is about $11,980. That’s an incredibly low price for a brand-new car, especially by US standards.
What’s even more impressive is the range. The Qin Plus DM-i can drive up to 137 miles on electricity alone, which should cover most people’s daily commutes without using a drop of gas. Once the battery runs out, the 1.5-liter engine takes over. Thanks to its 17-gallon tank and roughly 91 mpg with a drained battery, the combined range reaches up to 1,423 miles.
Apple won the PC market’s worst quarter, but that’s not the entire story. It won the race by stumbling less than everyone else.
PC makers shipped just 57 million computers worldwide in Q3, which might look good, but it’s a 21% year-over-year plunge (via Counterpoint Research). And despite Apple’s Mac shipments falling by 11%, to 5.6 million, its market share rose from 8.7% to 9.8%. How did that happen?
Update (October 22 23:54 PT): In response to our query, GM clarified that offline recording support is already available on eligible vehicles. Like Tesla's Sentry Mode, it requires owners to connect a USB drive to save incident recordings, which can be viewed on the vehicle's infotainment screen. The upcoming Connected Cameras feature will build on this by giving owners remote access to these recordings via the revamped OnStar app, allowing them to check footage without walking out to their car.
General Motors has announced plans to add a new Connected Cameras feature to its OnStar service starting next year, giving drivers a way to monitor parked vehicles remotely and capture footage of certain incidents.