Tesla Motors, Inc. Has a New $9 Billion Ally

As reported by The Motley Fool: Tesla Motors is roaring ahead with electric vehicle innovation -- but it's not the only one. EV's need infrastructure, and Tesla Motors has found an unlikely new ally with the power to push electric vehicle feasibility to the next frontier. Here's what you need to know.

Recharge RevolutionNRG Energy isn't an auto manufacturer. Not even close. With close to a $9 billion market cap and 53,000 MW of nuclear, fossil, wind, and solar generating facilities spread across 3 million customers in 47 states, NRG Energy, is an electric utility through and through.

But utilities aren't the power-producing stalwarts they used to be. With decentralizing grids, smart meters, and increasingly volatile power portfolios, electric companies are looking for ways to stabilize and diversify their earnings. For NRG Energy that means taking a page out of Tesla Motors' book and building out an enviable electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

Dubbed "eVgo," NRG Energy, currently has charger stations in 10 national markets, with plans to expand to more than 25 markets in the next two years. From San Francisco to Houston to Atlanta, NRG Energy's already entrenched national presence gives it an advantage over Tesla Motors' start-from-scratch expansion. But it doesn't take more than a glance to realize NRG Energy is employing a different growth model:

The eVgo charging stations provide approximately 40 miles of range in just 15 minutes of charging. Source: NRG Energy, Inc.

Source: Tesla Motors, red = open now, grey = opening soon. 

While Tesla Motors' 171 current stations in North America have a significantly wider spread, NRG Energy's 150 stations provide easy electric accessibility within its municipal markets. And more importantly for NRG Energy, its stations aren't an amenity -- they're profit-pulling investments. Owners can pay for individual plans, or hop in on pre-arranged partnerships NRG has with several of America's 13 electric vehicle manufacturers. NRG's "Recharge for No Charge" special offers are available to Ford Motor Co., General Motors Company , Porsche, Nissan, and BMW electric vehicle owners in select markets. In their latest quarterly statement, NRG Energy noted that these and other partnerships "have resulted in significant increases in customer count."

Small Drone Found on White House Grounds: Law Enforcement Sources

As reported by ABC News: A small drone was found on the White House grounds overnight, the United States Secret Service confirmed on Monday, but White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said the situation “does not pose any sort of ongoing threat.”

Secret Service spokesman Brian Leary issued the following statement Monday morning:

"On 1/26/15, at approximately 3:08 a.m., a Secret Service Uniformed Division officer posted on the South Grounds of the White House complex heard and observed a 'quad copter' device, approximately two feet in diameter, flying at a very low altitude and ultimately crashing on the southeast side of the complex. There was an immediate alert and lockdown of the complex until the device was examined and cleared.

"An investigation is underway to determine the origin of this commercially available device, motive, and to identify suspects. As additional information becomes available we will update our statement." 

President and Michelle Obama are currently in India, with a stop planned in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday. It was unclear whether or not the president's daughters were at home at the time of the incident.

Police, fire and other emergency vehicles swarmed around the White House in the pre-dawn hours, with several clustered near the southeast entrance to the mansion. The White House was dark and the entire perimeter was on lockdown until around 5 a.m., when pass holders who work in the complex were allowed inside. 

Beam Me Up Scotty: German Scientists Invent Working Teleporter, of Sorts

Star Trek’s transporter sold the idea of teleportation to the masses, but now German scientists have invented a real-life working system that ‘teleports’ objects from one location to another using 3D printers.

As reported by The Guardian: Teleportation has been the holy grail of transport for decades, ever since Mr Scott first beamed up Captain Kirk and his crew in the 1966 opening episode of Star Trek. Now the technology may have been cracked in real life … sort of.

Scientists from the Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam have invented a real-life teleporter system that can scan in an object and “beam it” to another location.

Not quite the dematerialisation and reconstruction of science fiction, the system relies on destructive scanning and 3D printing.

An object at one end of the system is milled down layer-by-layer, creating a scan per layer which is then transmitted through an encrypted communication to a 3D printer. The printer then replicates the original object layer by layer, effectively teleporting an object from one place to another.

“We present a simple self-contained appliance that allows relocating inanimate physical objects across distance,” said the six person team in a paper submitted for the Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction conference at Stanford University. “Users place an object into the sender unit, enter the address of a receiver unit, and press the relocate button.”

The system dubbed “Scotty” in homage to the Enterprise’s much beleaguered chief engineer, differs from previous systems that merely copy physical object as its layer-by-layer deconstruction and encrypted transmission ensures that only one copy of the object exists at any one time, according to the scientists.

Real-world applications are pretty short for this kind of destruction and reconstruction. But the encryption, transmission and 3D printing objects could be key for companies wishing to sell goods via home 3D printers, ensuring only one copy could be made per purchase – effectively digital rights management for 3D printed objects.

Those looking to cut their commute by simply beaming into the office will have to wait at least another decade or two.

If a Car Is Going to Self-Drive, It Might as Well Self-Park, Too

As reported by NDTV: Technology may soon render another skill superfluous: parking a car. Sensors and software promise to free owners from parking angst, turning vehicles into robotic chauffeurs, dropping off drivers and then parking themselves, no human intervention required.
BMW demonstrated such technical prowess this month with a specially equipped BMW i3 at the International CES event. At a multilevel garage of the SLS Las Vegas hotel, a BMW engineer spoke into a Samsung Gear S smartwatch.

"BMW, go park yourself," and off the electric vehicle scurried to an empty parking spot, turning and backing itself perfectly into the open space. To retrieve the car, a tap on the watch and another command, "BMW, pick me up," returned the car to the engineer.

The i3 was equipped with laser scanners, including two mounted in the front right and left quarter panels. No GPS was used. Instead, the car relied on a map of the parking garage and an onboard cellular data connection.

No smartphone was needed. The Samsung watch includes its own cellular connection, so commands are sent to a BMW server, which then relays the instructions to the car, said Yves Pilat, one of BMW's engineers developing the feature. BMW calls it fully automated remote valet parking.

Several other companies have demonstrated similar self-parking cars, including Toyota, Valeo and Volkswagen. In many ways, the development is an extension of existing parallel parking assist technologies. In such systems, the driver remains behind the wheel, but with a push of a button, the vehicle measures the parking space and then swings backs into it without any input from the human operator.

"Now, the concept is you can do any kind of parking spot," Pilat said, and without a driver.
Aside from preventing Ferris Bueller-like joy rides by garage attendants, the advantage of introducing autonomous car features to handle parking has several benefits, foremost being to win over skeptical consumers.

Parallel parking was "the first step in getting drivers to understand that there are some tasks the car might be able to do better than you," said John Hanson, Toyota Motor Sales USA's national manager for advanced technology and business communication.

Letting the company's electronic park assist do the tricky maneuvering can eliminate dings, wrinkled fenders and embarrassing scrapes. But cars that park themselves without a driver in the front seat are still research projects, which may face more regulatory than technological hurdles.

Valeo says consumers will see its self-parking technology introduced in a production vehicle within the next 12 months. To overcome possible regulatory objections, Valeo includes one additional piece of technology: a 360-degree, bird's-eye view video camera.

The live video view is displayed on the owner's smartphone, and the user must keep a finger on the screen until the car is finished parking. If the finger is lifted, the car will stop automatically.

"So the driver remains in control of the operation to conform to current regulations," said Guillaume Devauchelle, Valeo's vice president for innovation and scientific development.

The camera is also used to recognize blue lines demarcating handicapped zones and other restricted parking spots.

That sense of control may seem like a mere technicality when standing 100 feet away from the car. But not being behind the wheel does have one distinct advantage: There is no trepidation about being trapped inside a robotic car that might crash.

Then there is the matter of simply finding an available spot.

Several companies, like Parkopedia and ParkMe, have been working for the past couple of years to collect that information in real time. There are smartphone apps to help drivers find a spot, and last year Volvo began offering a feature that enables drivers to find the closest available space and pay for it.

Parkopedia has parking information including real-time availability and prices for 6,000 cities in 52 countries, said the company's chief executive, Eugene Tsyrklevich. He said that drivers could even set preferences, like selecting the nearest available spot or least expensive space.

Gathering the information has presented some challenges. Garage owners were initially reluctant to share their pricing information online, but more operators are realizing that if they are not included in apps or on dashboards, they may lose business.

"Right now we have close to 15 percent of all parking lots across the nation with refreshed information," said Mark Pendergrast, director of product management at the traffic firm Inrix. "Two years ago that number was zero."

Inrix uses information from Parkopedia and ParkMe and says that in metropolitan areas the percentage of garages covered is closer to 30 to 40 percent. But there is still the issue of including available street parking. Several municipalities, like San Francisco and Washington, have worked on trying to solve the problem using sensors and networked payment systems to deliver real-time information on availability.

Simply tracking payment information is not enough to guarantee accuracy, however, because some drivers will park illegally or exceed their allotted time. So cameras with software intended to recognize open spaces may have to be used.

Even the cars themselves, peppered with sensors and connected to the Internet, could report on available spots near them, Pendergrast said, much in the way that cars can automatically report their location and speed to provide information about traffic conditions.

Indeed, BMW is working with another company, Parkmobile, and is considering integrating parking location and payment features with its robotic valet in the future. It would mean that drivers would never have to worry about finding a spot or learning how to parallel park.

Such parking nirvana may still be years away, however, said Devauchelle of Valeo. The reason: The real challenge for autonomous car technology isn't pulling into an empty spot in a garage; it's pulling out of a space on the street into traffic.

"And the difficulty is to do it 100 percent of the time," he said. "It would be a disaster to put something on the market that works 95 percent of the time."

The Rise of Fake Engine Noise

As reported by the Washington Post:  on the gas in a new Ford Mustang or F-150 and you'll hear a meaty, throaty rumble the same style of roar that Americans have associated 
with auto power and performance for decades. It's a sham. The engine growl in some of America's best-selling cars and trucks is actually a finely tuned bit of lip-syncing, boosted through special pipes or digitally faked altogether. And it's driving car enthusiasts 
insane.

Fake engine noise has become one of the auto industry's dirty little secrets, with automakers from BMW to Volkswagen turning to a  sound-boosting bag of tricks. Without them, today's more fuel-efficient engines would sound far quieter and, automakers worry, seemingly less powerful, potentially pushing buyers away.

Softer-sounding engines are actually a positive symbol of just how far engines and gas economy have progressed. But automakers say they resort to artifice because they understand a key car-buyer paradox: Drivers want all the force and fuel savings of a newer, better engine but the classic sound of an old gas-guzzler.

Enhanced engine songs have become the signature of eerily quiet electrics such as the Toyota Prius. But the fakery is increasingly finding its way into beefy trucks and muscle cars, long revered for their iconic growl.

For the 2015 Mustang EcoBoost, Ford sound engineers and developers worked on an Active Noise Control system that amplifies the engine's purr through the car speakers. Afterward, the automaker surveyed members of Mustang fan clubs on which processed sound concepts they most enjoyed.

Ford said in a statement that the vintage V-8 engine boom has long been considered the mating call of Mustang, but added that the newly processed pony-car sound is athletic and youthful, a more refined growl with a low-frequency sense of powerfulness.

Among purists, the trickery has inspired an identity crisis and cut to the heart of American auto legend. The aural experience of a car, they argue, is an intangible that's just as priceless as what's revving under the hood.

For a car guy, it's literally music to hear that thing rumble, said Mike Rhynard, 41, a past president and 33-year member of the Denver Mustang Club. He has swayed between love and hate of the snarl-boosting sound tube in his 2012 Mustang GT, but when it comes to computerized noise, he's unequivocal: "It's a mind-trick. It's something it's not. And no one wants to be deceived."

That type of ire has made the auto industry shy about discussing its sound technology. Several attempts to speak with Ford's sound engineers about the new F-150, a six-cylinder model of America's best-selling truck that plays a muscular engine note through the speakers, were quietly rebuffed.

Car companies are increasingly wary of alerting buyers that they might not be hearing the 
real thing, and many automakers have worked with audio and software engineers to make their cars synthesized engine melody more realistic.

Volkswagen uses what's called a 'Soundaktor', a special speaker that looks like a hockey puck and plays sound files in cars such as the GTI and Beetle Turbo. Lexus worked with sound technicians at Yamaha to more loudly amplify the noise of its LFA supercar toward the driver seat.

Some, including Porsche with its 'sound symposer', have used noise-boosting tubes to crank up the engine sound inside the cabin. Others have gone further into digital territory: BMW plays a recording of its motors through the car stereos, a sample of which changes depending on the engine's load and power.

Orchestrated engine noise has become a necessity for electric cars, which run so quietly that they can provide a dangerous surprise for inattentive pedestrians and the blind. Federal safety officials expect to finalize rules later this year requiring all hybrid and electric cars to play fake engine sounds to alert passersby, a change that experts estimate could prevent thousands of pedestrian and cyclist injuries.  

That said, Tesla representatives have indicated they have one of the highest safety ratings in the industry (5 stars), and they do not have a system in place to generate noise for their luxury electric vehicles; they feel the road noise that the vehicle makes is loud enough to alert the pedestrians and cyclists around them.

With traditional engines, some boosters have even celebrated artificial noise as a little added luxury. Without it, drivers would hear an unsettling silence or only the kinds of road racket they would rather ignore, like bumps in the pavement or the whine  of the wind.

Yet even drivers who appreciate the accompaniment have questioned the mission. A SlashGear reviewer who otherwise enjoyed the new F-150 said the engine sound was piped in arguably pointlessly.

Which raises a more existential question: Does it matter if the sound is fake?  A driver who didn't know the difference might enjoy the thrum and thunder of it nonetheless. Is taking the best part of an eight-cylinder rev and cloaking a better engine with it really, for carmakers, so wrong?

Not everyone is so diplomatic. Karl Brauer, a senior analyst with Kelley Blue Book, says automakers should stop the lies and get real with drivers.

"If you're going to do that stuff, do that stuff. Own it. Tell customers: If you want a V-8 rumble, you've gotta buy a V-8 that costs more, gets worse gas mileage and hurts the Earth," Brauer said. "You're fabricating the car's sexiness. You're fabricating performance elements of the car that don't actually exist. That just feels deceptive to me."

Google to Sell Wireless Service in Deals With Sprint, T-Mobile

As reported by the Wall Street Journal: Google Inc. is preparing to sell wireless service directly to consumers after striking deals with Sprint Corp. and T-Mobile US Inc., a move likely to prod the wireless industry to cut prices and improve speeds, according to people familiar with the matter.

It isn’t clear how widely the Internet search giant plans to offer wireless service, how much it will cost or when it will go on sale. Google might start small by limiting the new service to certain U.S. cities or to users of its Google Fiber broadband Internet service.

The move is one of the strongest signals yet that Google, based in Mountain View, Calif., is stretching its ambitions far beyond YouTube videos and the Gmail email service. Google executives also want the company to have a major role in how those services are delivered to consumers.

Sprint, of Overland Park, Kan., is the third-largest wireless carrier, while T-Mobile, of Bellevue, Wash., ranks fourth. Under separate agreements with each carrier, Google will resell service on the Sprint and T-Mobile networks, according to people familiar with the plans. Such wholesale agreements are common, essentially allowing sellers such as Google to pitch wireless service under their own brand names.

Google’s entry into the mobile-phone business would create a new headache for an industry already struggling with a price war and soaring costs for wireless spectrum. Sprint executives are betting that the boost from an influx of new Google customers outweighs the risk that the Internet search giant will learn too much about the ins and outs of the wireless business.

Still, Sprint is hedging its bet by putting a volume trigger into the contract that would allow the deal to be renegotiated if Google’s customer base swells, said one person familiar with the matter.

Google executives first approached Sprint more than 18 months ago about a potential resale deal, known as a mobile virtual network operator agreement, or MVNO. MVNO agreements are a standard, high-margin business for carriers, which get to sell excess capacity on their networks and gain customers without having to bear the costs of marketing to them or signing them up.

The decision to sign an MVNO agreement with Google wasn’t a normal deal, however. Google’s reputation as a potential disruptive force worried executives that Sprint might be letting a rival into the gates, according to people familiar with the matter. The decision went all the way up to Sprint’s chief executive at the time, Dan Hesse, and the company’s chairman, SoftBank Corp. chief Masayoshi Son .

The arrangements with Sprint and T-Mobile would give Google a way to offer wireless service without taking on the daunting, expensive burden of building and maintaining a network. Google still would have to wrestle with the tasks of customer service and billing that it has generally avoided by offering its advertising-supported services free.

A number of other companies already operate as virtual wireless carriers. Most are small, but Tracfone Wireless, a unit of Mexican carrier America Movil, has grown into the fifth-largest wireless carrier in the U.S. by offering cheap service carried on other companies’ networks.

Google already has a strong position in wireless through its Android software, which powers more than half of the smartphones sold in the U.S., and the Google-branded Nexus phone, made by a variety of manufacturers. Carrier support helps Google sell those products, and the company will have to be careful not to upset those relationships as it moves into wireless service.

Google’s plans were reported earlier by The Information, a publication covering technology industry news.

Google officials have been working on the wireless project, led by company veteran Nick Fox, for more than a year, one of the people said. The preparations are part of a broader effort to increase Internet coverage. As more people get better and cheaper access to the Internet, Google benefits because they are more likely to conduct searches, stream YouTube videos, send emails through Gmail or text using an Android smartphone.

Separately, Google has been lobbying the Federal Communications Commission to free up vast amounts of low-quality wireless spectrum that could be used to provide cheaper wireless access. The airwaves aren’t much use to wireless carriers, because the airwaves can’t transport wireless signals across long distances.

But they could be useful in cities and handle a lot of the traffic that now gets carried and billed by big companies like Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc.

Google hinted at its wireless ambitions in a letter to the FCC last week, which said higher-frequency spectrum might be used for “the next generation of unlicensed broadband services,” including complements to Wi-Fi networks, “or entirely new technologies and innovations.”

“We are helping to make Internet bandwidth more abundant,” Google executives told an FCC commissioner during a September meeting in Mountain View, Calif., according to an FCC filing. “The broadband ecosystem will be well-served by a policy environment that removes barriers to investment, discourages monetization of scarcity, and empowers consumers.”

That spectrum could figure into a Google wireless offering, which could give priority to cheap or free Wi-Fi networks, one of the people said. Under that model, calls and data would be routed over Wi-Fi networks if available and fall back to the cellular network only when Wi-Fi is out of reach.

“It’s probably an attempt to put pressure the carriers to improve their own products by showing new ways of offering service,” said Jan Dawson, an analyst at Jackdaw Research. “When Google enters existing markets it tries to do things differently, rather than just doing something slightly better or cheaper.”

Second Wayward Galileo Satellite Moving Higher in Orbit

As reported by GPSWorld: At a press conference on Jan. 16, Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain of the European Space Agency (ESA)  announced that the second errant full-operational capability (FOC) satellite, launched in August, had started its orbital change maneuver the previous day. He anticipated that the orbital change would be completed and the final orbit — “albeit somewhat lower in height than the one into which it was supposed to go” — achieved in “a few weeks.” He confirmed that both in-orbit FOCs are working well, fully operational, and providing excellent “on specification” positioning data.

Two more FOC satellites are ready for launch, and a third has undergone thermal vacuum testing at ESA’s European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) facility in the Netherlands. Dordain said four would be available to launch soon, and he anticipated up to six FOCs being ready for launch during 2015.

Jean-Jacques Dordain

The previous plan had called for four for 2015, but the year’s anticipated total now includes the two that were held back from launch during a December 2014 window, so the total number is the same. The actual launch schedule and launch vehicles are still under discussion, according to Dordain, and he said the European Commission (EC) would make a decision at the end of January on this issue. He refused to be drawn out on what ESA would recommend to EC on this front.

“As you know, Soyuz did not place the first two FOC satellites in the right orbit. They only achieved very low orbits. This led and is still leading to delays in the deployment of the Galileo constellation. However, it’s not all bad news, because the two FOC satellites are working perfectly,” Dordain said.

“One of the two has already had its orbit changed, last November, and once in its new orbit, we ran all the new payload tests, and all the data that we have show that the FOC payload is the best in orbit today of the Galileo satellites. We were able to achieve on-spec positioning with the first FOC and the IOV satellites. It provides us with highly accurate positioning data,” Dordain said.

“Once we have both FOCs in their final orbits, not their nominal orbits, it’s true, but they are orbits that mean they will be usable for a long time, because they no longer go through the Van Allen belts.”

A video of the news conference is available here. The Galileo portion of the 2-hour video begins at 11:45. The event took place at ESA-HQ, Paris, France.