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Tesla has bought and sold a lot of the cryptocurrency bitcoin, and was also taking it in payment for EVs but suddenly stopped earlier this month.CEO Elon Musk’s cited reason was that mining bitcoin is too hard on the environment; he said Tesla would not accept it for EV purchases until the production of the coin becomes more environmentally friendly.Musk claimed he wouldn’t be selling off the company’s own bitcoin, and it’s likely at least some form of cryptocurrency will be accepted again to buy a Tesla eventually. Meanwhile, there are dealerships around the country that are accepting bitcoin now for other brands.UPDATE 5/16/2021, 9:30 p.m.: Elon Musk, Tesla CEO, has hinted that he may sell off the company’s bitcoin holdings—in classic Musk fashion, via a Twitter response to a post by @CryptoWhale, as Bloomberg reported this evening. The tease caused a sharp drop in the value of the cryptocurrency.
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Like most activity in the modern stock market, Elon Musk’s sudden reversal to stop accepting bitcoin as payment for Tesla has little basis in reality—except for speculators in cryptocurrencies and Tesla stock.It was a short-term bet that paid off handsomely for Tesla: buy $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin at the close of 2020 when it sold for under $20,000; sell off 10 percent of it during the first quarter of 2021 as bitcoin neared $50,000; reap a $101 million profit. That profit accounted for almost a quarter of Tesla’s $438 million net income that quarter. At the end of March, either before or after the sale, Tesla began accepting bitcoin on its website for crypto customers who could fire off a digital deposit or an entire car’s worth of coin. Then, on May 12, Tesla yanked it.”Cryptocurrency is a good idea on many levels and we believe it has a promising future, but this cannot come at great cost to the environment,” Musk said that day in a formalized statement on Twitter. “Tesla will not be selling any bitcoin and we intend to use it for transactions as soon as mining transitions to more sustainable energy.”Bitcoin’s price, which had crested to nearly $60,000 in the days before Musk’s tweet, was already dropping heavily all day before it sank below $48,000 in the hours that followed. Thousands of people and bot accounts replied to Musk, as they usually do, but this time offering lesser-known cryptocurrencies hoping that a tweet from Musk—an endorsement, by any measure—would send their bank accounts soaring.”Working with Doge devs to improve system transaction efficiency. Potentially promising,” Musk tweeted the next day. That was days after he was on Saturday Night Live on May 8 and said, “Yeah, it’s a hustle” when asked about dogecoin, the joke that turned into serious cryptocurrency after Musk popularized it with tweets in April. As expected, his comments on the TV show sent dogecoin on a downward slope—more than 35 percent, according to Coindesk. Lo and behold, after Musk’s tweet on May 13, it’s going back up. Tesla’s stock also dipped sharply to below $600—one of the lowest dips of this year—and already in after-hours trading this weekend, it’s trending upward.Tesla’s experiment with bitcoin didn’t help customers, who were warned they could overpay for their cars if the currency’s exchange rate changed and that Tesla couldn’t pay them back if it did, that hackers could steal currency, that bitcoins could be “lost or destroyed,” and that if they entered the wrong wallet code, the bitcoin might go anywhere other than Tesla. Not problems that ever happen to people using real currency. Although you won’t be able to buy a Tesla (for now) using bitcoin, there are dealers around the country that have already started to accept the cryptocurrency. Two examples, located by Reuters and CNBC, are the Houston luxury-car dealership Post Oak—which displays a shiny bitcoin on its homepage—and the Alabama and Georgia Kia dealer Carriage Auto Group. Post Oak’s owner told CNBC earlier this year that the dealership has already sold 17 cars using bitcoin. Carriage will take it only if buyers can pay the entire cost of the vehicle purchase with the currency. So as long as you realize it’s still an unregulated, complex marketplace, and arguably still a bit shady, it’s still possible to purchase a vehicle in some places using bitcoin. As for Tesla, it’s to be expected that cryptocurrency will become a medium of exchange there again sooner or later.
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BMW has released details of the new 2022 2-series coupe, along with photos of a camouflaged prototype.It will be available in 230i and M240i forms, both with either rear- or all-wheel drive.The new model will start production this summer, with the RWD 230i and AWD M240i xDrive arriving first and the AWD 230i xDrive and RWD M240i to follow.One of our favorite BMW models is entering a new generation soon. Even as new front-wheel-drive sedan variants crop up around it, the new 2022 2-series will continue to offer a rear-wheel-drive coupe model with either an inline-four or an inline-six engine. BMW has confirmed that the M240i model will offer a more powerful turbo 3.0-liter inline-six with 382 horsepower, while we expect the 230i to continue with a turbo 2.0-liter inline-four with around 250 hp.

These photos of a camouflaged prototype don’t show much but do hint that the 230i and M240i will avoid the polarizing kidney grille treatment seen on the 4-series coupe. Earlier leaked photos showed the new model’s rear end, which has modern-looking taillights. We’ve heard that the convertible won’t return for this generation, but the even higher-performance M2 will.
So far BMW has only shared details about the M240i’s eight-speed automatic transmission, which has us worried that the more powerful 2er might drop its manual-transmission option. We sincerely hope that a six-speed manual will still be offered at least on the 230i. Both engine choices will be offered with either rear- or all-wheel drive.More information is coming in late July or early August and the 2-series should arrive at U.S. dealerships by this fall. The rear-drive 230i and M240i xDrive will go on sale first, with the 230i xDrive and rear-drive M240i arriving later, possibly for the 2023 model year.
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SWSD stands for shift work sleep disorder, a chronic condition related to the hours workers keep. People with this condition need to be extra careful when sleepy if they need to drive.Researchers at the University of Missouri looked through real-world data and discovered that people with SWSD are 300 percent more likely to be in a crash (or a “near crash”). Others with sleep troubles, like people with sleep apnea or insomnia, have a 30 percent greater risk.One of the study authors told Car and Driver that, if possible, it’s best to rest after work before getting behind the wheel or to rely on other drivers, like with public transportation or a taxi.For centuries, people have been working through the night. But in the 21st century, people who work the “graveyard” shift—or any overnight job—may have to contend with an impact that people in the long-ago past did not: a much, much higher chance of crashing their car. Much higher.Pretty much by definition, shift work sleep disorder (SWSD) commonly affects people who don’t work a traditional nine-to-five job and have to work through the night. According to the Cleveland Clinic, around 20 percent of the full-time workforce in the U.S. is required to do some sort of shift work, and of those people, 10 to 40 percent may suffer from the sleep disorder. On the low end, that means at least 2.5 million people are potentially affected with SWSD. The disorder “causes difficulties adjusting to a different sleep/wake schedule, which results in significant issues with falling asleep, staying asleep, and sleeping when desired,” the Clinic said on its website.Researchers at the University of Missouri wanted to understand what happens to people’s ability to drive when their internal body clocks get turned around by SWSD. U of M Civil and environmental engineering professors Praveen Edara and Carlos Sun looked at data collected in a real-world driving study that was part of the second Strategic Highway Research Program, which was established by Congress and ran from 2006 to 2015. Their findings, in short, are that people with SWSD are three times more likely to crash (or be in a near crash) than people without this condition. Other sleeping problems, specifically sleep apnea or insomnia, resulted in a 30 percent greater chance of crashing (or nearly crashing).”The magnitude of the crash risk increase for drowsy drivers is concerning, both to them and other motorists on the road,” Edara told Car and Driver. As the report noted, in 2017 the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) recorded 91,000 “police-reported crashes” involving drowsy drivers, involving 50,000 injuries and close to 800 deaths. It is still unclear exactly why SWSD was found to have a larger impact on safety than other sleep disruptions, he said, but there are some strategies night shift workers can take to minimize their risk of a crash. Unsurprisingly, these involve getting some rest or avoiding getting behind the wheel.

“Due to the heightened safety risk experienced by drivers with SWSD, late-shift workers are encouraged to use non-driving transportation modes, such as taxi, transportation network companies, and public transit, when available,” Edara said. “Resting before driving back to home after completing their shift is another option to mitigate the risk. This is consistent with the Hours of Service guidelines established for long-haul commercial drivers by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration that include rest periods to increase driver alertness.”The National Transportation Safety Board releases a list of its top 10 most wanted safety improvements each year. While the 2020–2021 list doesn’t include any mention of drowsy drivers, their 2019–2020 list includes “screening and treating obstructive sleep apnea” as well as “reduce fatigue-related accidents.”Now that a link has been established between SWSD and an increased chance of crashing, Edara said in a statement that the next move should be to work with medical professionals to figure out exactly why the risk is higher in people with SWSD. Seems like there is an obvious answer here, but Edara said a better understand will help them “develop and test to improve the overall safety of these drivers and the other motorists around them.”The study’s name is “Sleep Disorders and Risk of Traffic Crashes: A Naturalistic Driving Study Analysis,” and it was published in Safety Science.
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