News

Toyota says the 2021 Mirai will have a 400-mile range thanks to a more efficient fuel-cell stack.
This second-generation Mirai is a rear-wheel-drive sedan with a near 50/50 weight distribution but isn’t powerful enough to be classified as a sports sedan.
Toyota is lowering the price 20 percent compared to the current Mirai and hopes to increase sales of the FCEV tenfold globally.
Toyota’s Mirai hydrogen fuel-cell electric vehicle (FCEV), like all vehicles powered by the most abundant chemical substance in the universe, is a bit of a curveball in what we’ve come to expect from the future of driving. While gas-powered vehicles dominate the here and now, EVs are expected to grow market share and eventually become the dominant means of transporting ourselves around town. FCEVs do offer the best of both of those worlds, plus quick refueling and a much smaller carbon footprint, but the refueling infrastructure hasn’t materialized.

Toyota Reveals More 2021 Mirai Details

Toyota’s 2021 Mirai Could Run on Cow Manure

The U.S. and the Global Hydrogen Fuel-Cell Game

But Toyota and other automakers including Hyundai aren’t about to give up, so here we have the stylish 2021 Toyota Mirai, a vehicle with improved range, a bit more horsepower, near 50/50 weight distribution, and now rear-wheel drive. Toyota is hoping that all these updates will lead to a tenfold increase in global sales of the vehicle and is also promising it will be 20 percent cheaper than the 2020 model, which starts at $59,545, although Toyota hasn’t announced specific numbers yet.
The 2021 Mirai is built on Toyota’s GA-L platform. It’s 2.6 inches lower and 2.8 inches wider than the current Mirai, giving it a sleeker and sportier stance. A more compact fuel-cell stack resides under the long hood. Fuel-cell cylinders are situated under the cabin and below the trunk. A bigger change is the switch from front- to rear-wheel drive, although that decision was based more on available room for all the vehicle’s powertrain components than on making it more exciting to drive.
The new smaller fuel-cell stack where hydrogen is turned into power is more efficient, producing 128 kW compared to the current Mirai’s 114 kW. The single motor in the back produces 180 horsepower and 221 lb-ft of torque. So, although it looks quick, Toyota claims its zero-to-62-mph time is about 9.2 seconds.
Still, Toyota says the vehicle’s near 50/50 weight distribution and low center of gravity should give it a sporty feel while driving. What’s important is that the time behind the wheel has been increased to about 404 miles, according to chief engineer Yoshikazu Tanaka, compared to the 2020 model’s EPA-estimated 312 miles. That’s important for a vehicle using a refueling infrastructure that’s still in its infancy.
Hydrogen refueling stations are out there but are mostly concentrated in California and parts of New England, limiting the areas where the Mirai and other fuel-cell vehicles can be operated. The 2020 model is only sold in California and Hawaii. Still, the 2021 Mirai looks much better than its predecessor, and its increased range does make it more compelling for potential buyers. But that infrastructure will have to catch up if Toyota wants to see a massive sales increase among U.S. buyers.
This content is imported from {embed-name}. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io More

The idea of self-driving cars being used for crime has been suggested, but a car-hacking expert told us success for autonomous drug mules or other criminal endeavors is not that likely.
The systems will surely be exploited at some point, experts told Car and Driver, but likely not for high-level crimes due to the expense, time, and knowledge it would take to pull it off.
However, it’s those working at ride-hailing companies and service providers for automakers will be the ones with the access needed for such schemes.
While we’re still years and years away from truly autonomous veicles, it’s important for automakers, ride-share companies, and security researchers to figure out how these robot vehicles might be hacked or used in ways not intended by the manufacturers. After the OnStar hack of a few years ago where someone could take over a vehicle from the comfort of their own home, companies involved in transportation realized that if there’s a security issue with a vehicle or system connected to a vehicle, someone will exploit it.
Among the more far-fetched claims was one by the late drug kingpin Pablo Escobar’s brother to a U.K. publication last year. He told Metro UK that drug smugglers routinely use Tesla Autopilot to deliver illegal drugs with no people behind the wheel. “I heard a lot of people use it especially for countries within South America and that many people can hack nowadays the systems also to make it the way they want it,” he said, providing no evidence whatsoever.

What’s Going on with Autonomous Trucking?

Michigan to Build Lane for Self-Driving Cars

Rewritten Autopilot Is Coming in a Few Months

The theory behind using a self-driving vehicle as a crime surrogate seems to be that people are fallible, untrustworthy, and not always working in the best interest of their criminal overlords. If you remove a person from a criminal enterprise, you lower your risk of being caught. But that doesn’t mean a robot on wheels is going to help bolster crime syndicates. If anything, they could be worse than people with loose lips.
“These anonymous vehicles, they’re gonna know where they’re coming from and where they’re going,” Robert Leale, president of CanBusHack and co-founder of the Car Hacking Village, told Car and Driver. The Village is part of the annual Def Con hacking conference. Leale noted that these vehicles leave a digital bread crumb everywhere they go. While a criminal might think twice about talking to the police if they’re caught, an autonomous car “doesn’t care if it rats you out,” said Leale.
It’s not just the fact that autonomous vehicles will hold a treasure trove of data about its movements that could lead right to any criminal. Part of what will help them succeed is a connection to the infrastructure they’ll be driving through. Sensors on traffic lights, signs, and between other vehicles, as well as cellular signals that ping off local towers, all are ways to pinpoint a vehicle’s exact location. You know how in crime shows the baddies always turn off their phones so the cops won’t trace their movements? This is essentially the same thing but with wheels.
These scenarios involve personally owned vehicles. They don’t even get into the data gold mine associated with using a ride-sharing service. Those will likely have cameras both inside and out of the cars keeping an eye on passengers and sharing all that data directly with a company’s servers. They will also likely be monitored by humans if the car detects something is a bit weird. So if the computers don’t rat out the criminals, humans sitting potentially hundreds of miles away will.
“It’s not an ideal situation if you want to do illegal activities,” Leale told Car and Driver. “There’s a huge cost and expense,” he added. The amount of work needed to circumvent all of these systems far outweighs the benefits. That’s not to say it won’t happen. Targeted attacks against the vehicles of individuals are still a possibility and tweaking the software of an autonomous vehicle to do things like drive through the desert or other environment where tracking is difficult is a possibility. But it’ll require a lot of work and like any exploit to a system, once discovered it will be fixed by the security researchers working for automakers, suppliers, and ride-sharing companies. So these types of exploits will be used sparingly.
A larger issue is employees with access to these systems using them for either their own gain or to track and stalk individuals. There are multiple instances of people using their positions in law enforcement and at tech companies for that purpose.
Self-driving robotaxis are still in their infancy stage and relegated to predetermined areas, while personal autonomous cars won’t be on the market for a very long time and will likely be far too expensive at the outset to risk using for crime. In other words, sure, you could use a self-driving car for crime, but it’s not going to be better and in most cases worse than doing crimes the old-fashioned way, with people.
This content is imported from {embed-name}. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io More

With no new federal aid on the horizon and the pandemic ongoing, experts think many more vehicles could be repo’d. If that’s you, start talking to your lender now. More