Toronto, Ontario – In today’s EV/AV report, fully automated vehicles achieve legality in the United States, a partnership to integrate 5G technology into autonomous vehicles, KIA and Hyundai design electric vehicles (EVs) that go brrrrr, and David Suzuki gives his thoughts on SUVs.
Textbook design
On March 14, Rogers Communications announced a partnership with Sheridan College’s Centre for Mobile Innovation (CMI) to integrate 5G technology into autonomous vehicles.
This project will involve students and researchers, preparing autonomous vehicle roadmaps operating over 5G networks, developing non-driving systems like navigation and diagnostics.
In addition to commercial vehicles, this research applies to driverless public transport, taxis, delivery and vehicles and assisted driving systems for people with disabilities.
For more details, click here to read Rogers’ announcement.
Good vibes all round
According to a U.S. patent filed by Hyundai and KIA, the two companies may be designing EVs that mimic combustion vehicle vibrations.
Patent no. 2022/0072960 A1 is a document patenting possible wavelengths and operating patterns to make an EV feel as much like a combustion vehicle as possible. This involves motors connected to a virtual internal combustion engine, creating vibrations at different intensities and speeds to mimic the sound of turning, reversing and more.
“For drivers who enjoy driving, the absence of vibrations of the engine can make them bored,” the patent discloses.
The future of vibrating cars will make driving fun again.
Suzuki on SUVs
Canadian scientist David Suzuki is not a fan of SUVs–electric or otherwise.
“Cars spew enormous amounts of polluting, climate-altering emissions to mostly transport just one or two people,” wrote Suzuki in March 17 column published by the Georgia Strait. “SUVs consume about 20 percent more energy globally than medium-sized cars over the same distance.”
He added that in the U.S.–“where they like them big”–SUVs consume about 30 percent more energy than regular passenger cars.
A recent study for the David Suzuki Foundation by the Sustainable Transportation Action Research Team (START) and Navius Research examined this destructive demand for SUVs: “From 1990 to 2018 in Canada, the number of cars on the road went up by 10 percent, while the number of light-duty trucks went up by a factor of three (from 3.4 million to 13 million).”
That added about nine megatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere over the same period, said Suzuki.
He said, while vehicle electrification will help the problem, SUVs and trucks require more raw materials and considerably more battery power over standard cars.
“It will never be environmentally sound to use two or more tonnes of materials to transport less than a hundred kilos of human.”
