Motor News

Former Porsche race car engineer who worked more recently with the Apple self-driving group, is heading up the VW Group’s Project Artemis.
Alexander Hitzinger and Project Artemis are tasked with taking on Tesla.
The group will reportedly build an electric SUV from the ground up that is set to be produced in 2024.
Alexander Hitzinger helped develop the hybrid Porsche 919 race car that dominated Le Mans in 2015, 2016, and 2017, and then headed to Apple to help it work on its self-driving-car ambitions. Back with the VW Group, he and the Project Artemis team are going to build a new electric vehicle, and Reuters reports that the team’s goal is to take on Tesla.

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The premium vehicle Hitzinger and the team are working on is set to go into production in 2024 and will take the form of Audi, Bentley, and Porsche EVs based on the group’s PPE (Premium Platform Electric) underpinnings.
Audi, which is tasked with leading research and development, including the PPE EV platform and autonomous-driving technology, will also take the lead in this effort. Those are areas where Tesla leads because of its practice of working in-house. Tesla has a history of developing and fine-tuning its own components from the software that runs the vehicles to the motors and battery pack. This control has allowed it to continue to push its range beyond EV offerings from traditional automakers. It seems that Hitzinger wants to do the same thing at Volkswagen. “At Porsche, I always thought of a vehicle as a comprehensive system. This is a very important point. It is what Tesla does well,” Hitzinger told Reuters.
The Project Artemis name came up in an earlier report by German publication Handelsblatt, which said the high-end electric vehicle Audi and the VW Group is working on is code-named Landjet. It’s unknown if this truly is the internal name of the upcoming vehicle. Besides, it’s very unlikely that the automaker would comment on the report at this early stage.
Of course, it’s not just electrification that sets Tesla apart. Its Autopilot system is an integral part of the vehicles—not to mention a source of additional income, with Tesla owners paying upward of $10,000 for the yet-to-be-released Full Self-Driving feature that CEO Elon Musk says will bring actual autonomous driving to Tesla’s vehicles. That system would also power a fleet of robo taxis that Tesla is expected to put on the roads once it perfects the autonomous-driving setup.
Back in January, Hitzinger announced that VW Autonomy would show off autonomous buses at the World Cup in 2022 as part of a pilot program. It is also aiming for 2025 to have a Level 4 autonomous system (a vehicle with controls for drivers, but able to drive itself in most situations without the need for a human to pay attention or take over). This would be used first for robotaxis and cargo delivery, then likely in the I.D. Buzz Microbus due to its size.
Volkswagen may be investing heavily in electrification with its MEB and PPE platforms, but an EV that also drives itself and is highly efficient thanks to Hitzinger’s experience would help VW take on Tesla not just in this one vehicle but in technology generally.

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A yellow two-door Jeep Wrangler Rubicon Lego Technic model is going to be on sale soon.
The 665-piece model has an articulating suspension, fold-down rear seats, and a working winch.
It’ll cost $49.99 when it goes on sale January 1, 2021.
Lego Technic is adding a two-door Jeep Wrangler Rubicon model to its automotive offerings, which include the Lamborghini Sián and Dominic Toretto’s Dodge Charger from Fast and Furious. The 665-piece set of the yellow off-roader has beefy off-road tires —including a rear-mounted spare (it’s a Jeep, after all)—so you can get through the thickest carpet, gnarliest Cheez-It crumbs, and deepest spilled milk.

Lego

That’s not all. It has a button-operated front steering system and an articulating front suspension to help you traverse scattered toys, dog bones, and TV remotes, and if you find yourself stuck in stray undergarments, you’re in luck, because there’s a working winch mounted to the front bumper. Up front, there’s the classic seven-slot Jeep grille and a “Rubicon” sticker for the hood.

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The 2021 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon, which now has a 470-hp V-8-powered 392 variant, is the ultimate, off-road-equipped Wrangler in Jeep’s lineup. It comes standard with live axles, a two-speed transfer case, locking diffs on both axles, and an electronic front anti-roll-bar disconnect.
The Lego Technic Jeep Wrangler will go on sale on January 1 for $49.99 on Lego’s website and at other authorized retailers.
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The Postal Service has again delayed the awarding of a contract for the replacement for its Grumman LLV.
The USPS has been looking for a company to award a more than $6 billion contract to since 2015.
The Grumman LLVs still in operation cost around $3000 a year to keep running.
The U.S. Postal Service has been searching for a replacement for its legendary, if deteriorating, Grumman Long Life Vehicles for over half a decade now. The decision of which company would be awarded the contract to replace those trucks was slated to happen at the end of this year, but as is the modus operandi of 2020, those plans changed. That contract will be announced early next year, the USPS has announced.

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It’s not the first time the awarding of the contract has been delayed, and now, according to Trucks.com, there are only three remaining companies bidding for the contract to replace the USPS trucks. Those include Workhorse, an Ohio-based startup which is the only company offering an all-electric option; Karsan, a Turkey-based company with a plug-in hybrid design for the truck, and Oshkosh, which is based in Wisconsin and has offered an internal-combustion-engined vehicle.
“Amid continuing COVID-19 concerns, and in order to provide for capital investment activities and required approvals, the program schedule has been revised and a decision is now planned for (January to March 2021),” a statement from the USPS read.
Keeping those Grummans in operation isn’t cheap for the USPS. They were intended to have 24-year life spans. But, since they were manufactured between 1987 and 1994, all have surpassed that age. A 2014 report from the USPS Office of the Inspector General found that each vehicle costs roughly $3000 to keep in service each year. Couple that with trucks that return 10 mpg, and you have vehicles that desperately need to be replaced.
And even though the USPS can keep enough running, currently around 140,000, to deliver mail, some of the trucks are finding their way into irreparable problems. Last year, Trucks.com discovered that in the five years prior, 120 of the Grumman LLVs had lit on fire –and there’s no theory as to why it has been happening.

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Savannah Corps of Engineers via Facebook

It took a year to plan, but the salvage efforts started in earnest in November 2020.
This weekend, the first massive chunk was cut off of the ship and schlepped to shore.
At least one SUV fell off the wreck and into the ocean when the section of the ship, weighing 6000 metric tons, was airborne.
The saga of the Golden Ray continues. Once a simple cargo ship plying the seas, the 656-foot-long vessel made the news in September 2019 when it capsized off the coast of Georgia near Saint Simons Sound with around 4200 new vehicles on board. It’s been sitting on the shallow ocean bed since then while plans to extract the ship and its contents from the scene were developed and, now, finally, implemented.
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That’s why, all through November, salvage workers were getting ready to slice the ship into eight smaller pieces in order to move them back to shore. A giant chain powered by two large engine made the first cut through the keel this weekend. This work required a giant piece of equipment called the Versabar VB 10,000 crane vessel that was first built a decade ago to help with oil rigs damaged in hurricanes.

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This enormous work vessel is made up of two barges with two truss space frames between them and is able to lift heavy wreckage out of the water so it can be loaded onto other ships and carried away. The VB 10,000 can lift 7500 metric tons, and it’s estimated that the first section of the Golden Ray weighed 6000 metric tons, with all sorts of cars and sediment inside.

St. Simons Sound Incident Response

St. Simons Sound Incident Response

Once lifted in the air, the first cut slice of the Golden Ray was placed on the barge Julie B and taken to Port of Brunswick before eventually heading to a recycling center in Louisiana. It wasn’t easy work. During all of the work and commotion this past weekend, an SUV fell into the ocean from the large chunk of the Golden Ray that was lifted in the air. It was not the first to fall, and the salvage team has installed a giant net to catch things like this. Smaller chunks of debris have also washed up on nearby shores and oil-skimming craft prowl the waters around the wreck to clean up any spills.

St. Simons Sound Incident Response

This kind of unusual activity is bringing out the gawkers. There’s a 200-yard safety barrier around the wreck, keeping the sightseeing boats and drones all trying to get good views of the situation a safe distance away. A Saint Simons resident told local news station WJXT that viewers can see distressed vehicles from shore.
“With the binoculars we can see cars and things inside the lifted section,” she said. “The cars are jumbled, right? Some of them look like they’re upside down, some of them look like you’re looking at the roof. The ones we can see are red, white, and black. They’re definitely in all sorts of orientations and not great conditions.”

St. Simons Sound Incident Response

It’s not just locals who are interested in the Golden Ray, which was only two years old when it capsized. The Brunswick News says documentary filmmaker Josh Gilligan is making a movie about the wreck and salvage mission. “The size and scope of it is just unreal,” he told the News. We can’t wait to see his finished work, but at least we have some local news footage to watch until then.

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The electric Pininfarina Battista has finished its first high-speed test at the Nardò test track in Italy.
This is one of nine prototypes being used to tune the car, which has torque vectoring and five selectable driving modes.
Pininfarina will build 150 examples of the 1873-hp Battista, with first deliveries scheduled for 2021.
After completing engineering work on simulators and in wind tunnels, Pininfarina engineers have put the Battista hypercar on a real-world playing field. The electric coupe, with its claimed 1873 horsepower and 1696 lb-ft of torque, whizzed through its first round of high-speed laps on the 7.8-mile-long banked circuit at the Nardò test track in southeastern Italy.
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Pininfarina would have had some insider trading about what to expect on the speed and handling courses there, since Croatian hypercar maker Rimac tested the upcoming—and closely related—Rimac C_Two at the same place almost exactly one year ago. Pininfarina paid Rimac $91 million for the carbon chassis and EV powertrain, the same as the one found in the C_Two.

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Next up is a testing program that puts nine prototypes on more tracks as well as public roads. People in white coats and Balenciaga sneakers need to hone the Battista’s suspension, four-motor torque-vectoring system, brake feel, aerodynamics, and regeneration from the Brembo CCMR carbon-ceramic brakes. There are also five driving modes to tune: Calma, Pura, Energica, Furiosa, and Carattere.
On top of that, the Battista needs its soft luxuries fettled, including the “external soundscape” the hypercar creates while moving slowly. Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2R or Pirelli P Zero tires wrap around a set of 20-inch Prezioso wheels, or staggered 20- and 21-inch Impulso wheels, both in forged aluminum. Pininfarina promises a zero-to-62 mph sprint in less than two seconds, a run to 186 mph in less than 12 seconds, and a top speed of 217 mph. It’s expected to reach customers starting in 2021.
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