Tesla’s new Superchargers might be so insanely fast that topping off a tank of gas will look slow in comparison.
In a Twitter exchange, Tesla CEO Elon Musk teased that the new Supercharger V3 will be coming soon, and that it will make the old V2 Superchargers look like child’s play.
A mere 350 kW … what are you referring to, a children's toy?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 24, 2016
One of the things holding back electric car adoption has been “range anxiety.” It’s the very real feeling a driver gets when they know their car is going to run out of power soon without a charging point nearby. Not only that, knowing that an electric car will take 40 minutes to get an 80 percent charge has also made making the jump from gasoline a challenge. It’s the main reason why the Toyota Prius and the Chevrolet Volt (among others) have been slow to make the shift to all-electric.
It seems that the charging problem has definitely been on the minds of Tesla engineers. If Musk’s tweet is to be believed, that means consumers are about to see a major jump in charging technology.
The current Superchargers max out at 150kW, but when Musk was asked about 350kW, he scoffed.
What Musk is alluding to isn’t some unheard-of shift in charging technology. In Geneva, the government is currently working on a “flash-charging” network that will potentially charge busses in seconds. It will give busses a blast of energy at 600kW, completely usurping Tesla’s current supercharging rate. If Tesla is able to deploy similar technology for its supercharging network, it could mean that charging a car will take seconds, compared to the minutes it takes to top off a tank of gas.
With the Tesla Model 3 set to hit consumers sometime in 2017, ensuring that Supercharging stations aren’t completely packed with drivers will be an absolute imperative.
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.