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Amazon now has more than 1000 Rivian delivery vans on U.S. roads and they’ve been used to deliver more than 5 million packages since their launch in July.The online retailer has placed an order for 100,000 electric delivery vans with Rivian, a figure it hopes to achieve by 2030. The company plans to have multiple thousands on the road by the end of 2022. Amazon began rollout of its new electric delivery vans last summer to a dozen major metropolitan areas, with that figure growing to roughly 100 cities now. While the rest of us are overindulging on cheap Halloween candy and starting to think about all that gravy we’re going to have to try not to drink at Thanksgiving, Amazon is already listening to Bing Crosby Christmas albums and going through its gift list. The retail/delivery giant is quickly expanding its fleet of electric delivery vehicles, from the dozen cities it started with to over 100 cities today. Since they started delivering packages in July, the Rivian-built vans have delivered more than five million Amazon packages, the online sales giant said.Now, with the uptick of online shopping that is expected this time of year, Amazon is not only expanding the size of the fleet but the reach as well. Among the newest cities to receive the vans are Austin, Boston, Denver, Houston, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Madison, Newark, New York, Oakland, Pittsburgh, Portland, Provo, and Salt Lake City. More on RivianAmazon has invested a lot of money in Rivian over the past few years, led by a $700 million investment in 2019. That investment came with an order for 100,000 custom delivery vans by 2030. According to Amazon, there are now more than 1000 of the delivery vans on the road, with the hope of having multiple thousands by the end of the year. The custom vans are built exclusively for Amazon, though Rivian offers a similar-looking fleet van on its website. The current Amazon delivery fleet consists of Mercedes-Benz Sprinters, Ram ProMasters, and Ford Transit vans. This content is imported from poll. 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 imported from poll. 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. More

The 2023 Honda Pilot has been redesigned with a more rugged look, a roomier interior, and increased capability. The Pilot also has a new powertrain, a redesigned 285-hp 3.5-liter V-6 and a 10-speed automatic transmission.The TrailSport trim makes the Pilot truly capable off-road thanks to all-terrain tires, steel skid plates, and a lifted suspension.Ever since the original Honda Pilot debuted back in 2003, it has basically been a minivan dressed up as a three-row mid-size SUV. However, its shared bloodline with the sliding-door-toting Honda Odyssey wasn’t outwardly obvious until the outgoing third generation. That’s when the Pilot showed its true colors, with a bulbous shape and bland bodywork that deviated from its boxier predecessors. That’s also one reason it failed to stand out in a competitive segment full of more interesting alternatives. Well, Honda has flipped the script, with the new fourth-generation 2023 Pilot getting bigger, brawnier, and better at doing off-road stuff.New Above and Below the HoodLet’s start with the obivous. The 2023 Honda Pilot no longer looks like a lifted minivan. Along with being a lot squarer than before, it has an upright front end and front roof pillars that sit farther back, giving it a longer dash-to-axle ratio. The Pilot is also 3.4 inches longer from stem to stern, and its wheelbase stretches by 2.8 inches, too. Its front and rear tracks are also wider, growing by up to 1.2 and 1.5 inches, respectively.The increased dimensions are part of a new platform, which makes the Pilot the most rigid it’s ever been, according to Honda. The company also says its new chassis includes a stiffer suspension, a quicker steering ratio, and other changes intended to make the Pilot handle and ride better. A set of larger front brake rotors (13.8 versus 12.6 inches) and a shorter overall pedal motion are improvements in the braking department. The addition of extra sound-deadening materials should also make for a quieter interior.It would’ve been easy for Honda to take the 280-hp SOHC 3.5-liter V-6 and nine-speed automatic transmision from the outgoing Pilot and plug it into the new one. Instead, the automaker completely redesigned its venerable engine, keeping the same displacement but making myriad improvements. In a nutshell, the new DOHC V-6 has better packaging. While the 3.5-liter makes the same 262 pound-feet of torque, horsepower rises to 285. A cylinder-deactivation system also joins the party in pursuit of better fuel economy. However, Honda hasn’t yet announced EPA estimates. All Pilots now have a 10-speed automatic transmission (paddle shifters included).TrailSport: A Truly Rugged TrimThe 2023 Pilot won’t be the first with a TrailSport-badged trim, it’ll just be the first one where it actually meant something. That’s because, unlike the glorified appearance package that came before, the new TrailSport model is truly capable on most trails—as we learned during a prototype drive.Equipped with all-terrain tires and steel skid plates, the off-road-oriented Pilot can go places its predecessors couldn’t. Adding to its capabilities are a 1.0-inch lift that increases ground clearance and provides better angles front and back for clearing obstacles. The TrailSport’s suspension has also been revised to do more than regular models. What if it gets a flat? There’s a full-size spare tire. What if it gets stuck? There are sturdy tow hooks built into the front bash plate and one on the standard trailer hitch.To help the TrailSport avoid getting stuck, Honda fits it with a specially calibrated all-wheel-drive system. We won’t get too complicated, but when the Trail drive mode is activated, the setup effectively manages traction to the appropriate wheels. Also useful in this mode is the aptly named TrailWatch camera system, which provides four different angles otherwise not viewable by the driver. It can be manually turned on or display it on its own at speeds below 15 mph. Speaking of low speeds, when combined with sloped surfaces, every 2023 Pilot has hill-descent control for the first time. An Inside JobSure, a model that can shuttle the whole family into the wilderness is cool, but that’s not the Pilot’s full-time job. It’s a people mover. And moving said people is much easier when the space inside is big and comfortable. Well, Honda says the second row has an extra 2.4 inches of legroom and the third row adds a half-inch of leg space. For those sitting in the middle row, those seats recline farther.The 2023 Pilot still has room for up to eight people, and the middle seat in the second row is removable. However, instead of having to leave that seat behind, there’s now room for it under the rear cargo area. The latter is also bigger than ever, measuring 22 cubic feet behind the third row and a massive 114 cubes with the second and third rows stowed. Honda improves small-item storage, too, with the return of a useful parcel shelf built into the dashboard. No one should have a problem finding a cupholer, either, as the Pilot has up to 14 of them.Overall, the inside of the new Pilot looks ritizier. The materials appear to be more upscale and the design is undeniably more mature. The standard gauge cluster is part digital, part analog (as seen in other Honda models). Those who opt for the top-of-the-line Elite trim exclusively get a 10.2-inch digital cluster and a head-up display. Apart from the base-level Sport, which features a 7.0-inch touchscreen, every Pilot has a 9.0-inch touchscreen infotainment system with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.Availability and PricingHonda hasn’t yet told us how much it’ll charge for the 2023 Pilot, which will be offered in Sport, EX-L, TrailSport, Touring, and Elite trim levels. The previous generation ended with starting prices between about $39k—$53k, and we expect to see those costs rise by a couple thousand dollars across the board. We’ll likely know the exact MSRPs before the new Pilot goes on sale next month.Supplemental Pilot StoriesThis content is imported from poll. 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 imported from poll. 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Women are more likely to die or be injured in a crash, and one reason might be that we’ve been using crash test dummies based on the average male (as shown above).When crash test companies wanted to represent women, sometimes they used a scaled-down male dummy, but soon they may be able to use a new, better-designed dummy, thanks to the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute.Crashes do different things to the average male and female bodies, given size and muscle differences.You can learn a lot from a dummy, especially if it’s a better representation of the average woman. For decades, crash test dummies were based on the average male body size, leaving the average woman less protected in crashes. We’ve known about this since at least 2013 when the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration published a safety report that found that women were more likely to be killed or injured in a crash and were especially “susceptible to neck and abdominal injuries.” The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) published a report with similar findings in 2019.More to KnowOne of the researchers whose name was on all of those papers is Astrid Linder, director of traffic safety at the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute (known as VTI). Linder recently told the BBC about the work she and her team have done to develop a dummy that accurately mimics the average female body. This is not the first female-based dummy. IIHS has been using female crash test dummies since 2003, for example, and some crash test sites use scaled-down male dummies that represented women inaccurately. Linder said the one VTI developed is more than just a better size at five feet, three inches tall and weighing 97 pounds; the way it moves better represents how female bodies move in a crash, given their different muscle strengths.Automotive safety engineers have worked on solutions for the past decade, too. In 2012, researchers published a paper on neck injuries in crash tests using “a new female dummy prototype.” Work continued on crash dummies that better represented female bodies. European researchers, for example, explored how better-designed dummies could help with whiplash injuries (2017) and quickly moved on to a broader discussion of how more representative “occupant models” would help more people in society (2019). “We have differences in the shape of the torso and the center of gravity and the outline of our hips and pelvis,” Linder told the BBC.This content is imported from youTube. 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.First crash test dummy designed to protect women – BBC NewsWatch onJust because we now have a better way to test the impact of crashes on both male and female bodies does not mean that vehicle safety features will change tomorrow. No laws anywhere require crash tests to use male and female dummies, and engineers can’t fix problems they can’t identify. Some automakers are already using gendered dummies in their crash tests, but Linder said she hopes their use becomes much more widespread. After all, she said, all parts of the population deserve to be safer in vehicles.This content is imported from youTube. 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. More

Clocks across the U.S. will be set back an hour this weekend, and one unintended consequence is that more deer will probably be struck by a vehicle next week.New research published in Current Biology found that the week after the fall time change sees an average of 16 percent more deer-vehicle collisions.How much more dangerous dusk driving will be in the coming week depends on where you are. Counties on the eastern edge of a time zone are likely to see more deer being struck than those on the western side.Criticisms of how the United States handles daylight saving time are about as old as the practice itself. We now have one more reason to think about not switching the clocks every six months: more roadkill.A new study published in Current Biology by researchers from the University of Washington found that the week after the annual shift back to standard time sees a 16 percent increase in deer-vehicle collisions each year. Without falling back out of daylight saving time, the U.S. would see 36,550 fewer of these collisions—including 33 human deaths and over 2000 human injuries—and save $1.2 billion in collision costs each year, the researchers estimated. On average, around 2.1 million deer-vehicle collisions happen in the U.S. each year. These incidents are responsible for over $10 billion in economic losses as well as 59,000 human injuries and 440 human deaths.The reason there are more collisions when the clocks fall back is relatively easy to understand. The researchers found that deer-vehicle collisions are 14 times more frequent in the two hours after sunset than before sunset. Animals, of course, stick to their pattern no matter what human clocks say, going about their lives even as traffic patterns shift to an hour “earlier” and causing more driving at dusk. Moving our clocks in November increases the amount of low-light traffic, which puts more deer and vehicles at risk. The potential for deer-vehicle interactions is already increased in November because that’s when white-tailed deer (and some other ungulates) have their short breeding season.Deerly DepartedThe study’s authors also found that there is a difference between eastern and western areas within a given time zone. Counties on the eastern edge (which have earlier sunrises and sunsets compared to the western side and a correspondingly higher amount of low-light dusk driving) had an average of 1.4 times more collisions than counties on the western side of a time zone. These findings extend to the expected changes in deer-vehicle collisions should the U.S. permanently move to daylight saving time (as the U.S. Congress is considering), with some states, like Kansas, seeing an expected 2.5 percent increase in such collisions. In comparison, Maine would see an 8.3 percent decrease. If the U.S. got rid of biannual clock shifts and instead shifted to using only standard time, researchers estimate, deer-vehicle collisions would increase all across the country by an average of 5.2 percent, resulting in an expected additional 66 human fatalities and more than $2 billion of economic loss each year. This content is imported from poll. 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 imported from poll. 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. More

If you didn’t watch the replay of Ross Chastain’s last lap at Martinsville Speedway last week at least twice, you may be the only one.We interviewed the NASCAR driver ahead of this weekend’s championship runoff and got him to tell us what it was like to make such a bold move, and what he was thinking before, during, and after.Chastain will go up against Joey Logano, Chase Elliott, and Christopher Bell in the NASCAR Cup Series Championship race at Phoenix Raceway Sunday, Nov. 6, at 3 p.m. ET. We’d watch if we were you.Even if you don’t know NASCAR from the Nasdaq, you saw Ross Chastain make history at the 2022 Xfinity 500 on Martinsville Speedway last week. Down the points needed to progress into the Championship runoff at the final race, the driver of the TrackHouse Racing #1 Camaro had to pass at least two cars on the final lap of the race. Unlike in a Fast and Furious movie, you can’t just downshift 47 gears in a stock car, hit the NOS, and blow past the competition. How It HappenedInstead, Chastain took the car up the track and slid it against the wall around the final two turns of the race. Like a little sibling flung off a merry-go-round, Chastain’s car went flying past the drivers who took the turn on the standard line, and he finished the race in fifth place, one spot in front of his nearest rival, Denny Hamlin, whom he bumped out of the championship running. It’s been nicknamed a “Hail Melon” pass (since Chastain’s nickname is Melon Man, a nod to his family’s long history of watermelon farming). This content is imported from youTube. 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.Ross Chastain’s video game move to advance to the Championship 4 | NASCARWatch onThis weekend we’ll see if Chastain can turn that bold move into his first Cup championship, but even if he doesn’t lead the pack at Phoenix Raceway this Sunday, he has already raced his way into NASCAR history. We managed a quick chat with Chastain about the move, and what he was thinking—or rather, not thinking.C/D: Is this something it that’s always been in your mind as a possible move, or did you just come up with it during that race last weekend?RC: It popped into my head on the final lap when we took the white flag. My spotter, Brandon McReynolds, was telling me we needed two spots and it was the white flag, last lap. The only option was to run the outside and I had a clear path to the corner and so I did it. I had not put any thought into it or any practice or simulation work. I mean, the last time I really did that move would’ve been playing Nintendo Game Cube with my brother. That was the 2005 game, so it’s pretty wild that it worked then and it worked now.So it’s not something you guys talk about over beers, like, “Wouldn’t it be crazy? Do you think this would work?” No. I mean, look, we’ve seen other guys do it. I saw Carl Edwards do it years ago and I saw Kyle Larson try it, and that I saw from the driver’s seat last year at Darlington. He was second, trying to pass Denny for the win. I watched those guys try it, but I never thought I would do it. I never thought that I would be in an opportunity where it would work or be worthwhile, but for this to transfer to Phoenix, it was worth the risk and the reward is really sweet.So, Talk Us through It . . .Okay, so talk us through it You’re in the car, you see the white flag, you’re talking to the spotter and physically what are you doing? What are you thinking? You don’t have a lot of time to make this decision, this is all happening very fast. Top speed at Martinsville is normally 105, maybe 110 [in the straights]. The whole track is a half mile long. So I was a little more than a quarter mile away from where I decided to do it. It just popped in my head and then I had less than an eighth of a mile on the back stretch climbing from, I don’t know, somewhere around 75 miles an hour to the normal 105. And then at that point where I normally would’ve slowed back down to 75, I grabbed another gear up to fifth and went 130 and got against the wall and it didn’t slow down. It all happened in the span of about 10 seconds, maybe 12 seconds from the time it first popped into my head to when I grabbed fifth gear and kept going instead of slowing down.Stacy Revere|Getty ImagesWhat did it feel like? Could you tell how fast you were going? Did it feel radically different?It did. Before I even hit the wall, I realized I’m moving fast and then I hit the wall and it’s not pleasant. I mean the walls and the cars are built to protect us, but hitting each other, they don’t like it. So, it’s something that I don’t really want to ever experience again. There’s a lot of talk right now about, “Where else will we do it? Will everybody be doing it?” I can speak from experience, I’m not looking to do that ever again. But yeah, the sensation of speed was high before I hit the wall. Once I got against the wall, I realized I’m not slowing down, which is a good thing. I was really happy and then I got about halfway around the corner, the whole time the thing is violently hitting the wall, and I know I’m still going at a pretty good speed, but I couldn’t see anything.Did you do anything in the car at that point, or just hold on?[Coming up to the last turn] I remembered that the crossover gate off turn four is there for the semi haulers to get in and out and I’m about to hit it with the side of the car. So, I took my hands off the wheel and the wheel was violently shaking and I just stayed in the gas and as soon as I felt it hit, it pushed me on the straightaway and when I knew I wasn’t hard against the wall anymore, I grabbed the wheel and held it up high across the line and tried not to crash anybody else.Was anybody mad at you afterward?I don’t think [Denny Hamlin’s] happy that it happened, but I don’t think he’s . . . He’s been a lot madder at me earlier in the year anyway.What kind of damage was done to the car? Were you hurt at all?I’m fine. Everything’s good here, but the car is hurt. All of the suspension on the right side is either bent or broken. The right front upper control arm is broken, but we’ve not actually taken the car apart to really see. It finished the race and it’s up at TrackHouse near the front lobby on display for fans and people to come see it. Do you think it’s going to go in the NASCAR Hall of Fame?I don’t know. They’ve asked. It’s up to Justin and Pitbull [Justin Marks and Armando Christian “Pitbull” Perez, owners of the TrackHouse Entertainment Group team]. They can decide, it’s their car. I’m definitely all for keeping it as a little token of history. But the thing is we only have seven cars total to work with. We’ll be racing these same cars again next year, so we might need to race this again. There’s so much concern that we’ll see this tried all the time, but it sounds like it’s really a last-lap Hail Mary, not something that we’re going to see a bunch, because you’re just going to wreck a car.Right. Yeah. As soon as I got on the straightaway, it was obvious something was broken. The brakes are gone. The brakes don’t work. So it was one corner and that was it.”Wait a Minute, [That] Guy Is Me”Have you absorbed how radical this move was? I don’t think so. I mean, no, I haven’t. We didn’t physically celebrate together right after the race, because we didn’t actually win the race, we still only finished fifth and ultimately fourth. I’ve probably watched the video 15 times. Watch it, replay it, watch it. Trying to physically, in my brain, comprehend what I’m watching and then also say, “Wait a minute, the guy in the car doing that wild move is me.”Look, if I wasn’t driving these race cars on Sunday, I would be farming with my family and then watching the race on the weekend. I’m a fan of this sport and always have been and always will be. The fact that I get to do this and do something that’s never been done before is really meaningful to me. So now we get to go to Phoenix and fight for a championship with TrackHouse. To be the one, as I watch the video, be the one doing it is mind-blowing. I really cannot comprehend it.Watch Chastain go up against Joey Logano, Chase Elliott, and Christopher Bell in the NASCAR Cup Series Championship race at Phoenix Raceway Sunday, Nov. 6, at 3 p.m. ET.This content is imported from youTube. 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. More