Month: June 2022

Enlarge / This is the Cadillac GTP Concept, which is our first look at what will become Cadillac's endurance racing car in North America and at Le Mans. (credit: Cadillac)

This weekend saw the annual running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans in France. It was hardly a race for the ages—don't worry, no spoilers here—but with any luck, that will change next year with the introduction of a new class of hybrid race cars (known as LMDh cars, for Le Mans Daytona hybrid) from manufacturers like Acura, BMW, Porsche, and others.

We've seen a teaser of the Acura ARX-06, and BMW showed off a semi-camouflaged version of its new M Hybrid V8 earlier in June. Porsche's car, which started testing at the start of the year, will be formally unveiled and named later this month at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in the UK.

And on the eve of Le Mans, Cadillac released the first public images of the Project GTP Hypercar, which the company says previews the design of the car that will contest the North American IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship and the global FIA World Endurance Championship (which includes the 24 Hours of Le Mans).

Enlarge (credit: Getty)

Google is working to make the use of multiple windows in Chrome OS a bit more flexible. While Chromebooks are currently limited to two windows, each taking up 50 percent of the screen, it appears users will soon have the option to have one window occupy two-thirds of the screen while the second window uses the remaining third.

As first spotted by the Chrome Story blog and noted by Chrome Unboxed on Sunday, a code change in the Chromium Gerrit points to a developing feature meant to "add partial split." This is just an experimental flag, so its release, while likely, isn't guaranteed.

The feature as currently being developed would reportedly still limit Chrome OS users to viewing two windows on a Chromebook screen but add greater flexibility. Potential use cases include using the smaller window for a social media feed or using one window for pulling information from and another for taking notes and writing on.

Enlarge / Toyota's new home storage system will let an EV power a house. (credit: Toyota)

The Toyota Motor Corporation has decided to get into the home battery sector. Earlier this month, the automaker announced its O-Uchi Kyuden System, a home energy store that provides "long service life, high quality, good value for price, and high performance," according to the company.

It's a surprising move from the world's largest OEM, given that its supply of lithium-ion batteries is so constrained that it has to use battery packs from different suppliers for its new bZ4x electric crossover, depending on whether the EV is configured as a single or twin-motor variant.

The O-Uchi Kyuden system is more than just a battery pack for your house; there is also a DC-DC converter, which feeds into a power conditioner that can use energy from the battery pack or the house's photovoltaic cells, it if has them. The pack has a capacity of 8.7 kWh and a maximum rated output of 5.5 kW.