Month: January 2023

On Thursday at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the electric vehicle maker Polestar announced that its forthcoming Polestar 3 SUV will be one of the first vehicles in the world to use Google's new high-definition map.

Unlike the Google Maps you might access on your phone, the new HD map is much more accurate, pinpointing your position on the road down to an inch or less instead of several feet. Although that accuracy is not particularly useful to someone on a smartphone, it's vitally important for partially or fully automated driving systems that need to know which lane they're in or exactly where a road obstacle might be.

Google has evidently been building its HD map for some time—in 2017, its Street View mapping cars started sporting lidar scanners. And I'm not entirely surprised that Google is debuting the new map in a Polestar—the young automaker was also the first to use Android Automotive OS, which debuted in the Polestar 2 but can now be found in an increasing number of new vehicles from many different automakers.

Enlarge / Mercedes wants its charging hubs to be safe and well-lit and to offer a charging experience that befits its range of luxury EVs. (credit: Mercedes-Benz)

On Thursday, Mercedes-Benz announced that it is entering the DC fast-charging arena for electric vehicles. The German automaker is in the midst of an electrification push and a plan to be carbon-neutral by 2039, and it evidently doesn't believe that the current charging infrastructure is as good as its new EVs, so it's doing something about the situation. Mercedes says it plans to deploy more than 10,000 fast chargers around the world, starting in North America.

The new network is separate from and independent of Ionity, the European fast-charging network backed by Mercedes, BMW, Ford, and Volkswagen. Here in the US, Mercedes is partnering with the charging company ChargePoint and MN8 Energy, a solar and battery-storage company. Together, they will deploy more than 2,500 DC fast chargers at more than 400 sites around the US by 2027.

"Mercedes-Benz customers deserve a compelling charging experience that makes electric vehicle ownership and long-distance travel effortless, and that’s why we are launching a global high-end charging network that will offer a charging experience to match the extraordinary Mercedes driving experience," said Ola Källenius, chairman of the board of management of Mercedes-Benz Group AG. "We are excited to start right here in North America with two strong and experienced partners, ChargePoint and MN8 Energy."

Enlarge (credit: Cadillac)

The world of Formula 1 got a shock on Thursday morning when General Motors announced it has plans to enter the championship. GM wants to go F1 racing with its Cadillac brand, partnering with a new Andretti Global team, assuming the sport's organizing body accepts the entry.

F1 has been fixed at 10 teams since Haas joined the sport in 2016. Since then, the series has introduced a new budget cap that has reined in some of the crazier budgets and made the prospect of operating an F1 team much less of a financial black hole. The exact amount of the cost cap is adjusted depending on how many races are planned for a year—for 2023, that should be $138.6 million—and even finishing in 10th place earns a team enough money to cover about 70 percent of those costs.

As a result, the sport is now a much more attractive proposition for new entrants than it was the last time we gained new teams in 2010, none of which survived. But there's a snag: You can't just turn up at the start of a season with a couple of cars and expect to go racing. The sport's organizing body, the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), requires that any new team "buy in" to the franchise with a $200 million "non-dilution fee" meant to ensure a new competitor doesn't cost the existing 10 teams any of their income.