Trade News

LOS ANGELES — Hyundai's first EV on a dedicated platform, the Ioniq 5 compact crossover, will come to the U.S. market in the fall with an extended-range battery targeting 300 miles of range.

The retro-styled vehicle will also come with two years of free charging at Electrify America stations and an optional subscription ownership model. It will face rivals such as the Ford Mach-E, Volkswagen ID4, Tesla Model Y and Kia EV6 from Hyundai's corporate sibling next year.

The global premiere of the Ioniq 5 came in late February, but Hyundai released details on U.S.-bound versions on Monday. Trim specifications and pricing are expected closer to the U.S. launch date. Hyundai said there will be a "pre-reservation" program with unique perks but did not offer details.

Unlike the two battery options that will be offered at launch by the EV6, the Ioniq 5 will initially be offered only with the larger 77.4 kilowatt-hour battery.

The Ioniq 5 will initially be s…

Uber Technologies Inc. and rival Lyft Inc. on Monday launched COVID-19 vaccine ride programs in partnership with the White House, offering Americans free rides or discounts for their trips to and from a vaccination site.

Customers who have booked a vaccine appointment can request a ride through the Uber app and either incur no charges if the trip costs less than $25, or receive a $25 discount for their journey, the company said.

With two of the three COVID-19 vaccines available in the United States requiring two separate shots, Uber would pay a maximum of $100 per passenger under the program. A company spokesman said Uber does not have an estimate for the number of vaccine rides it expects to provide.

Lyft said it would provide a $15 discount for one round trip, for a total discount of $30 per passenger.

Drivers will receive the full payment for the trip, the companies said.

U.S. President Joe Biden two weeks ago announced the partnership…

A former employee of Tesla Inc.’s massive battery plant outside of Reno, Nev., claims in a lawsuit that he was fired from his $18,000-a-month job because the company, and CEO Elon Musk, wanted to cover up rampant theft of copper wire at the site.

Lynn Thompson said in the complaint that he noticed millions of dollars worth of copper wire being measured and cut, put on pallets and hauled off site. He said that on multiple occasions, starting in April 2018, he reported the theft of the copper wire to Tesla’s senior management, including Musk, and contractor ONQ Global.

In June 2018, Thompson said he witnessed some people loading copper wire onto a truck and reported it to Tesla security, who called local law enforcement. A few days later, Thompson was told by Tesla management that he wasn’t allowed back at the Gigafactory, according to the complaint, filed Friday in federal court in Nevada.

“Since this time, Mr. Thompson has learned that Tesla and Musk pre…

When does a car deserve special treatment from the government? That's the question at the heart of last week's White House summit on the semiconductor shortage that's impacted everything from smartphones to tractors, factory equipment and, yes, passenger vehicles.

The confab is unlikely to yield any immediate solutions. The Biden administration's infrastructure spending proposal includes $50 billion to incentivize domestic chip manufacturing and research, but all the money in the world can't produce semiconductors out of thin air overnight. There is no easy fix for the mismatch in chip supply and demand as the economy bounces back from the doldrums of the pandemic and products of all shapes and sizes become more high-tech. Rather, this is largely an opportunity for political maneuvering and an airing of grievances.

U.S. automakers want chips for cars to be prioritized in any government funding that's thrown at the problem. This is about more t…

Tesla Inc., whose boss Elon Musk says he can develop a fully self-driving car without using laser-sensor technology, has a contract to use such sensors from Luminar Technologies Inc. for testing and development, according to people familiar with the matter.

A photo of a Tesla Model Y with a roof rack of lidar sensors posted to Twitter on Thursday stoked speculation that the companies were working together, sending Luminar’s shares up more than 10 percent that day. While similar images of Teslas with lidar sensors have popped up before on social media, it was unclear until now what the relationship is between Tesla and Luminar.

Luminar sold Tesla the sensors on that Model Y as part of an agreement between the companies, some of the people said, requesting anonymity because the information is private. In addition, Bloomberg News confirmed with the California Department of Motor Vehicles that the manufacturer’s license plate on the photographed vehicle belongs to…

Enterprise Holdings CEO Chrissy Taylor discusses what's hot and what's not among rental customers as the summer travel season approaches. Plus, Taylor explains how digital tools are enhancing the client experience.

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Journalists are trained skeptics. In our newsroom, few topics draw as much healthy skepticism as aerial mobility. “Nothing but glorified helicopters,” the response might go when the subject turns to electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. Don’t even mention the rare, but very real, bona fide flying car, which can zoom through in the sky then drive on the road.

It’s easy to understand why people are reluctant to believe in such technologies. Depending on your generation, the notion of flying cars may evoke memories of a certain future-themed cartoon series from the 1960s (I promised myself I wouldn’t mention it in this issue) or a popular time-travel film that co-starred a flying DeLorean — one with vertical landing ability to boot. 

But the new developments we’re seeing in air mobility are not works of fiction. Something has to be motivating automakers and entrepreneurs to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in research projects and to form part…

As Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 descended toward Miami Inter-national Airport on the night of Dec. 29, 1972, the flight crew noticed a light that should have confirmed the nose gear's position failed to illuminate as expected.

Instead of proceeding with the approach, the three-person flight crew leveled the aircraft at 2,000 feet, activated the new autopilot system installed in the 5-month-old jet and immersed itself in troubleshooting the landing-gear problem. Six minutes passed before they realized something else was amiss.

"We did something to the altitude," said the first officer, according to cockpit voice recorder transcripts. "We're still at 2,000, right?" Captain Robert Loft then responded: "Hey, what's happening here?"

Five seconds later, the L-1011 TriStar jet crashed into the Everglades, killing 99 of the 176 people aboard. National Transportation Safety Board investigators cited the pilots' inattention and distraction …

Airbus is exploring the potential of using technology from lidar tech company Luminar to augment the sensing capabilities of aircraft.

The companies are starting with a helicopter demonstrator project unveiled in April.

The collaboration with Airbus UpNext, the future-looking subsidiary of the aviation giant, marks Luminar's first effort beyond the automotive industry.

While there are no plans for production yet, Airbus believes the sensors may provide pilots with a better understanding of nearby obstacles.

For Luminar, Airbus represented an established partner.

For Airbus, the lidar maker represented a chance to inject innovation at startup speed.

"It's an industry that has been working with legacy technology from a sensing standpoint," Luminar CEO Austin Russell said.

"They haven't seen any kind of breakthrough in decades. If you can leverage all the stuff we're doing for the auton…

General Motors co-developed the Lunar Roving Vehicle used in the Apollo 15, 16 and 17 missions.

A Toyota Tundra tows the space shuttle Endeavor to a California museum in 2012.

Elon Musk sent a Tesla Roadster, "piloted" by a mannequin dubbed Starman, into space in 2018.

Chrysler's alternative space shuttle idea: a "single-stage Earth-orbital reusable vehicle" that could carry a separate crew module.

Chrysler's Space Division built the first stage of the Saturn 1B rocket used in early Apollo missions. The automaker also built Redstone ballistic missiles.

GM's dexterous Robonaut 2 went to the International Space Station.

What if one German electric aircraft company told you that industrywide goals to "go greener" could translate from the road to the sky?

Lilium is developing a seven-seat personal electric vertical takeoff and landing jet, or eVTOL (EE'-vee-tole), in the hopes of spearheading the future of electric aircraft.

It's also developing its own high-tech vertiport landing strips in Florida — and that's just the start.

"Our vision is to create a sustainable and accessible mode of high-speed travel and bring this to every community," Lilium CEO Daniel Wiegand said in a statement. "Transport infrastructure is broken. It is costly in personal time, space consumption and carbon emissions."

Lilium is pursuing the electric jet technology because it will bring more capability to aircraft "with lower cost per seat mile while delivering low noise and low emissions," Wiegand said.

Lilium, founded in 2015, announced in Marc…

Given that the heart of the auto industry lies in Michigan, it's no surprise that the state wants to be considered a springboard of another form of transportation: air mobility.

Michigan is working to be a launchpad for aerospace and aerial development, bolstered by its strong manufacturing core and robust automotive supply chain.

The state has invested in air mobility technologies over the past several years. Consulting firm PwC named Michigan the eighth-most friendly place for aerospace manufacturing attractiveness last year. Add to that, Michigan has been drawing more software engineering talent that once flew — no pun intended — to Silicon Valley.

But there's still progress to be made, said Trevor Pawl, who leads the state's Office of Future Mobility and Electrification.

"There are a lot of different assets that we have that we just need to begin to stitch together and communicate more frequently," Pawl told A…