Toronto, Ontario – In this weekly electric and autonomous vehicle report, German students from the Technical University of Munich break EV range records; and Tesla updates its Autopilot visualizations.
Going the distance
Students at Munich, Germany’s Technical University have recently eclipsed the world record for automotive electric range via a one-off, self-made vehicle dubbed the Muc022.
The vehicle successfully traveled 2,573 km on a single charge of a 15.5 kWh battery.
The EV ran for a total of 99 hours and passed the world record for range on day four of six of its test drive.
To accomplish this success, the Muc022 utilized a 400W permanent-magnet synchronous motor and achieved a drag coefficient of just Cd=0.159, compared to previous records of Cd=0.197.
The German team noted that the incorporation of solar panels could help raise the range of the vehicle even further.
The average speed of the Muc022 during its test run was an average of 25.7 km/h.
With these low speeds, the test shows off the potential for EVs, but the vehicle itself remains largely impractical for consumer use.
Optimizing optics
In a recent move, Tesla has announced that they have improved its Autopilot Visualizations by incorporating some Full Self-Driving (FSD) Beta Visuals into their 2023.32 update.
In order to achieve FSD, Tesla’s vehicles will need to create a 3D representation of the real world–similar to technical engines used in videogames–to create a clear picture of surroundings.
In March 2022, Tesla introduced dynamic vehicle resizing for FSD Beta.
Recent visualization updates mean that vehicles will now be able to determine the width, height and length of each vehicle in its surroundings and size the 3D model appropriately in the visualization.
Tesla has yet to add these new visualization features in Canada yet, however they have incorporated the ability to display when a vehicle has its door open to assist in avoiding door and pedestrian-related accidents and collisions.
