Electric Vehicles

General Motors is partnering with LG to develop lithium manganese-rich (LMR) batteries, which are safer, denser, and cheaper than current EV battery tech. The automaker aims to begin U.S. production by 2028 and become the first to deploy LMR cells in electric vehicles. Ford also announced it would start adopting LMR batteries for its EVs, but not until 2030.

The Verge reports:

GM's current crop of electric Chevys and Cadillacs use high-nickel batteries, which supply enough energy for around 300-320 miles of range. The new LMR batteries are denser, with greater space efficiency due to their prismatic shape, enabling up to 400 miles of range, GM says. Prismatic cells are packed flat in rigid cases and are generally thought to be less complex to manufacture than cylindrical cells. Less complexity and cheaper materials will hopefully lead to lower-cost EVs, which has been a significant challenge for the auto industry's shift to electric vehicles.

"The EV growth rate is really dependent on how quickly we can bring the costs down over time," says GM's VP for batteries Kurt Kelty. "And this is the biggest lever we have. Batteries make up roughly 30 to 40 percent of the cost of vehicles. And if you can drop that down significantly like we're doing here, then it ends up being a lower cost to the consumer."

On a recent episode of The Big Podcast, his own show, Shaq finally shared the real reason why he gave up his Teslas. 

He said it’s all about how far the Cybertrucks can go on one charge. 

For someone who drives a lot and doesn’t like waiting, that was a major issue. He literally said, “I was into Cybertrucks, but they don’t give enough charge mileage.”

So basically, he’s saying if he drives to the city and comes back, the battery’s almost dead. So he’d have to keep stopping to charge, which is super annoying if he’s in a hurry.

And it’s not just about finding a charger, sometimes he has to wait for one to be available, then waste like 20 more minutes just charging.

Shaq decided to go with a different electric car, the Cadillac Escalade IQ, which is also a luxury electric SUV. He said that while he was in Las Vegas, he didn’t need to charge the Escalade IQ for four whole days, that’s a big deal.

cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/30250632

Thought this was interesting. A little gaming history intermixed with EVs, Off grid living, Hydrogen and a bunch of other things.

High in the hills of Hawaii’s Big Island, Henk Rogers—best known for bringing Tetris to the world—is taking on a new kind of challenge: building a fully off-grid life. On his 32-acre Pu‛uwa‛awa‛a Ranch, he’s growing his own food, producing his own energy, and working to protect Hawaii’s future.

In 2019, Tesla set out to lower insurance rates for owners of its electric cars. The goal was simple, at least in theory: fix the broken cost of car insurance. Instead, Tesla may have broken its own calculator trying to make sense of repair costs.

See, Musk's vision of Tesla's insurance product was that traditional companies just didn't "get it." Tesla's data claims that its Full Self-Driving software has fewer accidents than a human driver. Plus, its cars are rolling computers that can collect copious amounts of data on its drivers and adjust risk based on their driving. So why wouldn't drivers get a lower rate for putting around with FSD enabled if they also happen to be a safe driver? Tesla quickly found out that despite these assumptions, it's still taking a bath on claim-related losses.

The data comes from S&P Global and shows that the automaker's insurance subsidiary took a loss ratio of 103.3 in 2024. The loss ratio, for those who don't know, is the amount of money that Tesla pays out per claim versus the money it takes in from premiums. The lower the number, the better, and break-even is a flat 100. In 2024, the rest of the industry averaged 66.1.

Archive link: https://archive.is/G4Kvj