Month: May 2018

Jonathan Gitlin

FLAT ROCK, MICH.—If I were to tell you about an electric vehicle with 125kWh of batteries, 590hp (440kW), and a 0-60mph time of 3.5 seconds, you'd probably think "Tesla." But this EV is something a little more esoteric and one that can go places a Tesla would fear to tread. It's called the Nikola NZT, and it's a UTV, or utility task vehicle; think ATV but with four seats, pedals, and a steering wheel. The vehicle is still in development—Nikola is targeting next year as the on-sale date—but it was one of the highlights we saw showcased at the Bosch Mobility Experience USA event this week.

You might be more familiar with Nikola for its heavy-duty fuel cell trucks; Anheuser-Busch recently placed an order for 800 of those, and the company is embroiled in a lawsuit with Tesla over the later's electric Semi, which Nikola claims infringes its patents. Like Tesla, Nikola uses Bosch components in its vehicles, although in this case the relationship is quite a close one, with the tier 1 supplier being deeply involved in the development of both the long-haul truck as well as the NZT.

Jonathan Gitlin

FLAT ROCK, MICH.—If I were to tell you about an electric vehicle with 125kWh of batteries, 590hp (440kW), and a 0-60mph time of 3.5 seconds, you'd probably think "Tesla." But this EV is something a little more esoteric and one that can go places a Tesla would fear to tread. It's called the Nikola NZT, and it's a UTV, or utility task vehicle; think ATV but with four seats, pedals, and a steering wheel. The vehicle is still in development—Nikola is targeting next year as the on-sale date—but it was one of the highlights we saw showcased at the Bosch Mobility Experience USA event this week.

You might be more familiar with Nikola for its heavy-duty fuel cell trucks; Anheuser-Busch recently placed an order for 800 of those, and the company is embroiled in a lawsuit with Tesla over the later's electric Semi, which Nikola claims infringes its patents. Like Tesla, Nikola uses Bosch components in its vehicles, although in this case the relationship is quite a close one, with the tier 1 supplier being deeply involved in the development of both the long-haul truck as well as the NZT.

Enlarge / NTSB officials inspecting the vehicle that killed Elaine Herzberg in a March crash in Arizona. (credit: NTSB)

Uber is shutting down testing of self-driving cars in Arizona after one of its cars killed a pedestrian in a March crash. In an internal email, Uber executive Eric Meyhofer wrote that Uber would be shifting its focus to Pittsburgh, where the company has been testing self-driving cars since 2016, and San Francisco, where Uber is headquartered.

Uber's testing program has been grounded nationwide since the March crash, but until now it wasn't known how long it would take to get back up and running. Uber hopes to resume testing in Pittsburgh this summer.

Meyhofer also indicated that Uber would be changing how it tested its driverless cars. "When we get back on the road, we intend to drive in a much more limited way to test specific use cases," Meyhofer wrote. "Taking this approach will allow us to continually hone the safety aspects of our software and operating procedures. We have also used the past two months to strengthen our simulation capability, which will allow us to be more efficient with our use of road miles."

iFixit

The OnePlus 6 is starting to trickle out to consumers, and the phone brings you flagship-class specs in a package that only costs $529. OnePlus made a number of changes to the 6 over last year's OnePlus 5T, and in our full review, we found most of the changes to be, well, bad. The two big ones were the back—which swapped out the 5T's durable metal for a fragile glass slab—and the fingerprint reader, which is smaller and more finicky than last year. All this for $29 more than the 5T certainly doesn't paint a clear picture of progress.

iFixit has torn down the OnePlus 6, and it seems that you can add "harder to repair" to the list of downgrades brought on by this year's update. The screwed-on metal back of the OnePlus 5T has been replaced with glass and glue, and iFixit has dinged it two points from last year's design, down to a "5" repairability score.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | erhui1979)

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has repeatedly claimed that it was unable to access data on nearly 7,800 encrypted devices in fiscal 2017, but the FBI now admits the number is far lower. In reality, there were just 1,000 to 2,000 devices that the FBI couldn't unlock last year, The Washington Post reported yesterday.

The FBI apparently counted individual phones multiple times, an error related to the agency's use of three separate databases. The FBI used the inflated number as evidence that companies like Apple should weaken smartphone security in order to help the agency access encrypted devices. For example, FBI Director Christopher Wray said the following in a January 2018 speech:

In fiscal year 2017, we were unable to access the content of 7,775 devices—using appropriate and available technical tools—even though we had the legal authority to do so. Each one of those nearly 7,800 devices is tied to a specific subject, a specific defendant, a specific victim, a specific threat... Being unable to access nearly 7,800 devices is a major public safety issue. That's more than half of all the devices we attempted to access in that timeframe—and that's just at the FBI.

Wray said the 7,800 locked devices illustrate the scope of the "Going Dark" problem, in which criminals benefit from the standard smartphone security features that protect consumers at large. But the FBI's transcript of Wray's speech now carries a correction saying that "Due to an error in methodology, this number is incorrect. A review is ongoing to determine an updated number."

Enlarge / United States Consulate General Guangzhou, China, where an employee reported experiencing unexplained sounds and pressures that led to a brain injury. (credit: US Dept of State)

The US government issued an alert Wednesday following reports that a government employee stationed in southern China experienced “subtle and vague, but abnormal, sensations of sound and pressure” and sustained a brain injury.

The case draws clear and eerie parallels to mysterious health problems that affected US diplomats in Cuba, who also experienced unexplained episodes of unusual sounds and pressure followed by diagnoses of traumatic brain injury.

Responding to an email from the New York Times, a spokesperson for the United States Embassy in Beijing said that the unnamed employee was working in the US consulate in the city of Guangzhou, just northwest of Hong Kong, and experienced a variety of symptoms from late 2017 until April of this year. In statements to the BBC, she noted that the employee had been sent back to the US. Last Friday, the 18^th of May, “the embassy was told that the clinical findings of [an] evaluation matched mild traumatic brain injury,” she wrote.