Tesla Unveils Its Model X, Complete With A 'Bioweapon Defense' Button

As reported by NPR: Tesla unveiled its much-anticipated Model X on Tuesday night after nearly two years of delays.

CEO Elon Musk took the wraps off the all-electric SUV at an event near the Tesla factory in Fremont, Calif. As an added bonus, he gave keys to a handful of lucky customers who can now call themselves owners of one of the most sought-after vehicles.

Let's go over some of the vitals.

Tesla's website says the "Model X is the safest, fastest and most capable sport utility vehicle in history." It can seat seven adults and go from zero to 60 miles per hour in 3.8 seconds — 3.2 seconds with what the automaker calls "Ludicrous Speed Upgrade." It's also equipped with a 90 kilowatt-hour battery, which in layman's terms means the SUV can drive some 250 miles before its next charge.

But its most visually striking feature is the rear-seat "Falcon Wing doors" that lift upward instead of swinging outward. USA Today notes that one reason for the vehicle's delay was that Tesla wanted to ensure the doors worked properly. The newspaper adds:

Tesla CEO Elon Musk speaks during an event in Fremont, Calif., to launch the new Tesla Model X Crossover SUV.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

"It also comes with what Tesla describes as one of the largest windshields ever put on a vehicle. The windshield extends all the way past the top of the driver's head. Front passengers will get not only a panoramic view of the road, but of the trees and sky passing by."

Musk played up the Model X's safety features, saying it received a five-star rating from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Automatic emergency braking and side-collision avoidance systems are standard. And then there's what Tesla calls "bioweapon defense mode," should drivers find themselves cruising along the highway in the midst of an Armageddon-type scenario.

Musk claims the bioweapon button really does work, The Verge reports:

"The button should come in handy 'if there's ever an apocalyptic scenario of some kind,' [Musk] said. All you apparently have to do is push the button and the Model X's air filter — which is about 10 times larger than a normal car's air filter — should be able to keep you safe. The company claims it's 300 times better at filtering bacteria, 500 times better at filtering allergens, 700 times better at filtering smog, and 800 times better at filtering viruses."

But is the Model X — with a price upward of $130,000 — something that people will really want to drive? Here's how Wired answers that question:

"Although the X shares much of its DNA with the impressive Model S P90D sedan, in many ways it eclipses that phenomenal car. It's not just the design, which is futuristic without being weird. It's not just the performance, which is holy s [—-] fast. And it's not even the dramatic "falcon" doors that lift like the wings of a bird.

It's how all of those features come together in a vehicle that somehow makes an SUV not just cool, but desirable."

Wired also says this vehicle is intended to show that the luxury automaker is more than a one-hit wonder.

Production is expected to kick into overdrive next year when Tesla ramps up production of both the Model X and S vehicles, according to the Los Angeles Times.

"Tesla expects sales to grow now that it has entries in what amounts to about 3% of the U.S. auto market. The electric car company expects to deliver about 50,000 vehicles this year — including sales in overseas markets.

...

"But Tesla anticipates that production will ramp up quickly next year. It projects manufacturing roughly 85,000 to 90,000 Model X and S vehicles next year. Analysts will be looking at the mix of vehicle sales to see if the Model X eats into sales of the flagship Model S."

T-Mobile Expands Simple Global Coverage to All of Europe and South America

As reported by MacRumors: T-Mobile has announced the expansion of its Simple Global coverage to an additional 20 countries to now cover all of Europe and South America. Simple Global is now available in the Bahamas and 145 total countries worldwide, covering more than 90% of the areas that Americans travel abroad each year. 

Simple Global provides Simple Choice postpaid customers with unlimited low-speed data and texting at no extra cost, and flat-rate calls for 20 cents per minute, outside of the United States. It is complemented by Mobile Without Borders, which allows full talk, text and 4G LTE data usage in Canada and Mexico at no extra cost.

“We’ve just made your traveling even easier in 20 more destinations around the world, expanding Simple Global to cover all of Europe and all of South America,” said John Legere, president and CEO of T-Mobile. “The carriers have made billions overcharging consumers who just want to stay connected overseas, and we’ve changed all that! Today, we made it even simpler to text, search or keep up on social media in a total of 145 countries and destinations, all at no extra cost!”

Simple Global is now available in these additional countries and destinations: 

• Caribbean: Bahamas, Haiti
• Europe: Albania, Belarus, Bosnia, Liechtenstein, Macedonia, Monaco, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia, Guernsey, Alderney, Jersey, Sark, Isle of Man
• Others: Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan

Simple Global provides a standard data speed of 128 Kbps. No tethering is allowed.

The Air Traffic Control Tower Of The Future Doesn’t Include Humans

As reported by Americans.org: Sweden is trying to make flying safer by testing an unmanned control tower that will remove some of the human element out of guiding airplanes.

At the Ornskoldsvik Airport, one control tower has nobody inside. However, the tower continues to perform its job of guiding planes to the ground safely. The person who controls the landing is in another complex, roughly 90 miles away. That individual has access to cameras which reportedly function better than the average human eye.

The system was developed by Saab, best known for its sporty cars and even sportier fighter planes.

Experts in the industry are thrilled about the recent technology upgrade. Searidge Technologies representative Pat Urbanke says, “There is a lot of good camera technology that can do things that the human eye can’t.”

This camera technology can supposedly see better than humans in troubling conditions, such as in the dark and in fog.

There are still legal hurdles that must be crossed before this technology can be fully put into place. However, the Ornskoldsvik Airport is serving as a useful testing ground.

Utilizing this technology is expensive, as it costs an average of $175,000 per year for one controller. It would cost six times this amount to put it to use full-time at Ornskoldsvik, which still mostly uses traditional manned control towers. After the initial cost the operating expenses are minimal relative to their human counterparts.

The 80 foot tall unmanned tower at the airport houses 14 high-definition cameras. Video from the cameras is transmitted to Sunvsal Airport, where a controller guides the planes.

Potential future plans include grouping every airport controller together at distant facilities in order to save costs of running multiple air traffic control towers.

According to experts at the LVF Group, computers are quicker than humans at recognizing differences in the transmission by about one second, a critical amount of time in the high stakes world of passenger aviation. Saab representative Niclas Gustavsson thinks that “eventually there will be no (manned) towers built at all.”

The cameras include microphones which transmit the sound of the airplane yet air traffic controllers testing the equipment are still getting used to the lack of real airplane sounds at the distant facility.

High-pressure wind is pumped over the lenses of the cameras in order to keep them clean of debris, such as insects and dust. The cameras are able to withstand extreme temperature shifts as well.

Saab, the company responsible for this technology, says that the company plans to expand this program beyond Sweden, eyeing Norway and Australia next. The United States will also become a testing ground, as Leesburg in Virginia already has an unmanned tower in place. Trial runs at Leesburg began early last month.

Meanwhile, Searidge Technologies, a rival of Saab, has goals of building an unmanned tower for Hungary’s main airport in Budapest. This airport has around 8.5 million customers on an annual basis. Searidge hopes to have the tower constructed and operating by 2017.

Why The LAPD's Tesla Model S Might Not Be A Great Police Car (Yet)

As reported by IBTimes: The Tesla Model S may be one of the fastest cars on the road, but its speed doesn't automatically make it a good cop car.

The Los Angeles Police Department recently acquired two electric vehicles for its enforcement fleet: a BMW i3 and a Tesla Model S. The i3 will handle light duty like traffic enforcement and neighborhood patrols, but the Tesla has been painted as the ultimate destroyer of police pursuits; vehicle pursuits are one of the LAPD’s greatest challenges, but the Tesla Model S won’t eliminate car chases. In fact, it really shouldn’t even be involved.

Now, don’t get me wrong. The Model S is a fantastic car by just about all accounts -- the P85D version recently broke Consumer Reports’ grading scale -- but it doesn’t belong as a police pursuit vehicle. Just because the Model S is faster than most things on the road, that doesn’t make it fit for police pursuits.

The Price

First and foremost, the Tesla Model S is a luxury car. This is by no means a cheap vehicle, even at its cheapest civilian price ($70,000). Add to that all of the specialized equipment and systems a police cruiser requires, and you’ve got a very, very expensive tool, with equally pricey repair costs; by way of comparison, a fully loaded Dodge Charger Police Package when new typically cost about $45,000 a few years ago.

The quickest Tesla Model S, the one that would “end all pursuits,” starts north of $100,000 and that’s without any police equipment. Will the LAPD really want to put such a prominent vehicle in harm’s way, knowing the enormous repair cost? It would become a PR nightmare, once the local press discovers the costs (which would be paid with public funds, after all).

The Ability
Yes, the Model S is extremely fast. In P85D and P90D guise, it’ll rocket to 60 mph in under three seconds, and it would continue to outpace and outrun most conventional vehicles well into triple-digit speeds. But should a criminal pursuit become a high-speed battle of attrition, the Model S would lose some of its quick-acceleration advantage. Prolonged acceleration heats the battery systems of the Model S, and the car automatically reduces power. Unlike the traditional highway patrol cars, the Model S can’t be fast for the entire pursuit.

Not that it will be allowed to reach those speeds very often. Extremely high speed pursuits are already spearheaded by law enforcement helicopters, to give fast-moving suspects breathing room for an inevitable mistake. Never mind that there’s not much out there that can outrun a basic LAPD helicopter (the Eurocopter AS350B2, with a top speed of 178 mph).

The Procedure
Typical high-speed freeway chases usually end with a cavalcade of LAPD Ford Crown Victorias or Dodge Chargers following the suspect from a distance. Through the streets, pursuing officers often have to get aggressive, charging over medians and physically pushing suspects into submission. The Tesla Model S is a fantastic car, but it’s just not built to withstand the kind of abuse that police vehicles typically see.

Old Ford Crown Victorias, new Ford Tauruses, Dodge Chargers, Chevrolet Impalas and Caprices were built specifically to handle these law enforcement duties, en masse and (comparably) inexpensively. When one is broken, it’s not a particularly complicated matter to fix it or replace it, but despite Tesla’s popularity surge, they’re rare and expensive vehicles.

It’s good that the LAPD has added a couple of EVs to its fleet, but this doesn’t spell the end for police pursuits. Not yet.

Horses aren't great police pursuit vehicles either, but the NYPD keeps mounted units for visibility and public relations. So think of the LAPD's Model S as the Los Angeles equivalent: a community relations tool or statement about a more efficient car-based society.

New York is Getting Wired With Traffic Signals That Can Talk to Cars

As reported by The Verge: Behind self-driving, vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication is one of the biggest sea changes in transportation technology on the horizon — it could have an enormous impact on driving safety, if it's implemented quickly and correctly. The concept is pretty simple: cars, signs, and traffic signals all communicate to one another over Wi-Fi-like airwaves, so that drivers (and automatic safety systems built into cars) have more information about the traffic and environment around them. (Here is a compelling demo of V2V tech put on by Ford at CES a couple years ago, and I can say that the promise is pretty huge.)

There's no federal rule in place for requiring V2V yet, but the US Department of Transportation is hoping to get those rules in place by the end of this year — and in the meantime, it's rolling out huge new pilot programs to put the technology to the test. In the New York City boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn, traffic signals will be equipped with V2I hardware, while up to 10,000 city-owned vehicles will be outfitted with V2V. (It's unclear whether drivers of these vehicles will have access to the data through instrumentation, or whether it's just being collected as part of the DOT's ongoing V2V research.)

As part of the same announcement, the DOT is awarding $17 million to Tampa to try to alleviate rush hour congestion with V2V tech and "to protect the city's pedestrians by equipping their smartphones with the same connected technology being put into the vehicles," while the state of Wyoming will be spinning up a pilot program to track heavy-duty trucks along Interstate 80. 

The promise of V2V is pretty huge: imagine being warned of a chain-reaction collision several cars in front of you that you can't see, for instance, or a disabled truck that can let you know to stay clear of the right lane ahead. And it might not be that far off — even though the rules aren't set in stone yet, GM has already committed to starting its roll-out to production cars sometime in 2016. In fact, the DOT's press release is even more optimistic, saying we could see V2V in "early 2016."

Google's Latest Hire Could Take Its Driverless Cars To Market

As reported by Gizmodo: Google just hired a man who’s worked in the automotive industry for 25 years, John Krafcik, to lead the company’s self-driving vehicle project as Google Auto’s CEO. This hire is big. Why? Because it’s the first major hire from the automaker side of the road.

Picking Krafcik to lead Google Auto is a sign that Google may be preparing to push the driverless car project outside the Google X safety bubble eventually. There have been other signs too, like the aggressive testing Google’s done on the streets of California. Plus the project was recently given the green light to test in Texas.

It’s no cross-country trek, but these tests do prove just how serious the company is about getting these driverless cars ready for mass production. It’s still not clear whether or not Google will be doing the actual producing, but the company is setting up an infrastructure to lead its experiment into the realm of a real company: Krafcik used to be the CEO for Hyundai Motor America and was with Ford before that. Currently he’s the president of a auto sales and pricing site called TrueCar. He’ll be joining the Google Auto later in September.

The company has said it doesn’t plan on taking its driverless cars out on their own anytime soon. But Krafcik’s hire definitely means the project now has the option to do so when the time is right.