Enlarge / In 1900, Charles Stewart Rolls (one of the founders of Rolls-Royce) said, "The electric car is perfectly noiseless and clean. There is no smell or vibration. They should become very useful when fixed charging stations can be arranged." Now, that's happened, and they are indeed very useful. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

A fully electric Rolls-Royce has been some years in the making. Back in 1900, Charles Stewart Rolls proclaimed the electric motor's suitability for automobiles—silent, smooth, and exhaust-free are all great attributes for a luxury car. Back then, the problem was a lack of charging stations, something that appears to be improving 123 years later. That means the world is now ready for the Spectre.

As you might expect of a car wearing the pantheon grille and Spirit of Ecstasy mascot—subtly redesigned here for improved aerodynamic efficiency—there is little shy or retiring about the Spectre, particularly when it's a vivid purple, as was the case for our test car.

My favorite design detail isn't captured well, but the way the spoiler kicks up subtly at the rear is wonderful. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

It's a two-door, four-seat coupe, and big one, too: 215.6 inches (5,475 mm) long, 79.4 inches (2,017 mm) wide, and 61.9 inches (1,573 mm) tall, with a curb weight of 6,371 lbs (2,890 kg). Despite that, the somewhat Art Deco-inspired shape cleaves the air with a drag coefficient of 0.25—the shape spent more than 800 hours being refined in the wind tunnel, which is about twice as much time as F1 cars are currently allowed.

Enlarge (credit: Tesla)

In the past, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has repeatedly claimed that his company's cars are appreciating assets. But this week, Tesla dropped the prices of its cars—and not for the first time this year. As we reported on Monday, despite sales growing by 36 percent globally, the automaker missed its ambitious target and will need to grow even faster in the remaining months of the year to satisfy investors.

Perhaps these cuts will help. The biggest price decreases are for the Model S sedan and Model X SUV. All versions of these electric vehicles are now $5,000 cheaper than they were last week, following similar $5,000 price cuts a month ago and much larger price cuts in January that saw the Model S Plaid shed $21,000 from its MSRP.

Model 3 sedans are now $1,000 cheaper across the board, marking their third price cut in recent months. A rear-wheel-drive Model 3 now starts at $41,990—in January, this version cost $43,990; it then dropped another $500 in February. Tesla notes that the RWD Model 3 will also lose half of the IRS clean vehicle tax credit starting on April 18, although all-wheel drive Model 3s and all Model Ys will still be eligible for the full $7,500 credit.

Enlarge / I mostly recognize this early laptop from its resemblance to a similar-looking computer in the film 2010. It's up for auction along with hundreds of other old Apple computers. (credit: Julien's Auctions)

If you've been thinking your home or workspace is perhaps deficient when it comes to old Apple hardware, then I have some good news for you. Next week, a massive trove of classic Apple computing history goes under the hammer when the auction house Julien's Auctions auctions off the Hanspeter Luzi collection of more than 500 Apple computers, parts, software, and the occasional bit of ephemera.

Ars reported on the auction in February, but Julien's Auctions has posted the full catalog ahead of the March 30 event, and for Apple nerds of a certain age, there will surely be much to catch your eye.

The earliest computers in the collection are a pair of Commodore PET 2001s; anyone looking for a bargain on an Apple 1 will have to keep waiting, unfortunately.

Enlarge / United has chosen its hometown of Chicago for the country's first commercial eVTOL route. (credit: Archer Aviation)

In 2025, United Airlines will fly an air taxi service between the downtown Vertiport Chicago and O'Hare International Airport, using electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft it is purchasing from Archer Aviation. The Archer Midnight eVTOL aircraft will complete the route in about 10 minutes; according to local resident and Ars Managing Editor Eric Bangeman, that journey by car can take over an hour due to road construction.

"Both Archer and United are committed to decarbonizing air travel and leveraging innovative technologies to deliver on the promise of the electrification of the aviation industry," said Michael Leskinen, president of United Airlines Ventures. "Once operational, we're excited to offer our customers a more sustainable, convenient, and cost-effective mode of transportation during their commutes to the airport."

United placed an order for 200 eVTOL aircraft from Archer back in 2021 at a cost of $1 billion. The startup has also raised money from the automaker Stellantis, which has been helping the company with making carbon fiber composites.

Enlarge / In-car subscription services are being pushed on a hesitant customer base, according to a new survey. (credit: Getty Images)

The last decade or so has seen the creeping techification of the auto industry. Executives will tell you the trend is being driven by consumers, starry-eyed at their smartphones and tablets, although the 2018 backup camera law is the main reason there's a display in every new car.

But automakers have been trying to adopt more than just shiny gadgets and iterating software releases. They also want some of that lucrative "recurring revenue" that so pleases tech investors but makes the rest of us feel nickeled and dimed. Now we have some concrete data on just how much car buyers are asking for this stuff, courtesy of a new survey from AutoPacific. The answer is "very little."

AutoPacific asked people looking to buy a new vehicle about their interest in 11 different in-car connected features, starting with a data plan for the car for a hypothetical price of $15/month.

Enlarge / Old car radio in a classic car (credit: Lars Johansson/EyeEm via Getty)

Update, 1:15 pm: Ford reached out to Ars with its explanation for dropping AM from the next Mustang. "A majority of U.S. AM stations, as well as a number of countries and automakers globally, are modernizing radio by offering internet streaming through mobile apps, FM, digital and satellite radio options. Ford will continue to offer these alternatives for customers to hear their favorite AM radio music, news and podcasts as we remove amplitude modulation—the definition of AM in this case—from most new and updated models we bring to market," wrote a Ford spokesperson.

In its December reply to Sen. Markey, Ford also noted that even without an AM receiver, "with FM, satellite radio, mobile data, and others, vehicles and their drivers have numerous alternative sources to receive [FEMA's Emergency Alert System] alerts."

Original story: You have to hand it to AM radio—it has outlasted the 8-track, the cassette, and the compact disc as a way to deliver audio content to a car. This first-generation radio broadcast technology dates back to the dawn of the last century before it was superseded by FM, which has better sound fidelity and is less likely to suffer from interference.

(credit: Tesla)

Tesla is cutting prices for the second time in less than eight weeks. Reuters noticed that the automaker has dropped the prices of its more expensive, aging Model S sedan and Model X SUV yet again.

While these cars were revolutionary at launch in 2012 and 2015, they now face stiff competition from much newer vehicles from the likes of Rivian, Lucid, Mercedes, Porsche, and BMW. As a result, Model S and Model X sales combined represented only 5 percent of Tesla's global sales in 2022.

In 2022, a dual-motor all-wheel-drive Tesla Model S went for $104,990. In January, Tesla chopped about 10 percent off the price, dropping it to $94,990. Today, it's another $5,000 cheaper at $89,990.

Mistorqued bolts may need to be fixed in some Model Y second rows. (credit: Tesla)

Rivian was not the only electric vehicle startup to feature in my weekly recall email from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration this morning. Electra Mecchanica and Lordstown are recalling a small number of EVs, but, more significantly, Tesla has issued yet another recall, and this time there's no software patch that can remedy the problem; affected cars have to be physically inspected.

Tesla is recalling 3,470 Model Y crossovers built between May 2022 and February 2023 to check that the bolts that secure the frame of the second-row seats are properly torqued. Those that aren't could potentially increase the risk of injury to occupants of the second row during a crash.

For owners worried their cars may be affected, Tesla says that a "second-row seat back frame that has this condition may not fold properly or may be loose and rattle during normal vehicle operation."

Enlarge / The recall affects both the Rivian R1S (pictured) and the R1T pickup truck. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

Rivian is in the process of recalling nearly 13,000 R1T trucks and R1S SUVs due to a potential seatbelt problem. It believes that in some vehicles, a sensor within the seatbelt system is missized or "dimensionally out of tolerance," which could prevent the automatic locking retractor from working properly. That, in turn, could lead the front passenger airbag to believe the seat was unoccupied during a crash and fail to trigger.

Last July, Rivian and its supplier were investigating a vehicle displaying a message that the front passenger airbag was off despite having a passenger in that seat. Rivian and its supplier, Autoliv, worked on the problem until January, collecting more potentially suspect parts from other Rivian EVs. In February, the startup determined that vehicles with the suspect parts would not be compliant with federal safety regulations and initiated the recall.

Unlike many problems we see on new EVs, this one is not the sort that can just be fixed with a software patch. Although Rivian thinks that only 1 percent of the 12,716 affected cars have a defective part, it will inspect and, if necessary, replace the passenger seatbelt components in those affected vehicles.

Enlarge / A Formula 2 car on track in Bahrain. The cars are less powerful than an F1 machine, but still tricky to drive. (credit: Joe Portlock - Formula 1/Formula Motorsport Limited via Getty Images)

The 2023 Formula 1 season springs into life this weekend at the Bahrain Grand Prix, the first race of the year. Three days of preseason testing held last week suggest that Red Bull Racing still has the car to beat, although there is the tantalizing prospect of Fernando Alonso and Aston Martin having possibly found a lot of speed in the offseason.

But today's interesting news comes from the lower formulae, F2 and F3, where young drivers cut their teeth. Today, those series announced they are moving to sustainable fuels starting this season.

As we've previously detailed, F1 is moving to carbon-neutral gasoline in 2026, but as single-make formulae with a single fuel supplier (in this case, Aramco), it's possible for F2 and F3 to try something even bolder.

Enlarge / The Ioniq 6 is going to be very keenly priced. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

Hyundai has announced the pricing structure for its next electric vehicle, the Ioniq 6. And it's competitive, especially with the introduction of a smaller battery option. As a result, the curvaceous EV starts at just $41,600, with the price topping out at $56,100.

Hyundai says that the $41,600 Ioniq 6 SE RWD standard range, which will use a 53 kWh battery pack for a range of 240 miles (386 km), will be "available in limited quantities this summer," suggesting it might be hard to track one down.

An EV range of 240 miles is probably enough to evoke range anxiety in many non-EV drivers. But don't fret; the Ioniq 6 SE RWD long range, which uses a 77.4 kWh battery pack to best effect and 361 miles (581 km), is the next-cheapest at just $45,500. Adding a second motor to the long-range Ioniq 6 bumps the price to $49,000 and drops the range to a still-impressive 316 miles (509 km).

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson)

Over the past decade or so, cars have become pretty complicated machines, with often complex user interfaces. Mostly, the industry has added touch to the near-ubiquitous infotainment screen—it makes manufacturing simpler and cheaper and UI design more flexible, even if there's plenty of evidence that touchscreen interfaces increase driver distraction.

But as I've been discovering in several new cars recently, there may be a better way to tell our cars what to do—literally telling them what to do, out loud. After years of being, frankly, quite rubbish, voice control in cars has finally gotten really good. At least in some makes, anyway. Imagine it: a car that understands your accent, lets you interrupt its prompts, and actually does what you ask rather than spitting back a "Sorry Dave, I can't do that."

You don't actually have to imagine it if you've used a recent BMW with iDrive 8 or a Mercedes-Benz with MBUX—admittedly, a rather small sample population. In these cars, some of which are also pretty decent EVs, you really can dispense with poking the touchscreen for most functions while you're driving.

Enlarge / Workers dismantle an EV battery module at Redwood Materials. (credit: Redwood Materials)

Battery-recycling company Redwood Materials announced today that it has a conditional commitment from the US Department of Energy for a $2 billion loan. The money will be used to build out Redwood's recycling campus, which the company says will create jobs for 3,400 construction workers and another 1,600 full-time employees once the site is fully operational.

Redwood was founded in 2017 by former Tesla executive JB Straubel and has received investment in the past from Amazon, among others.

And in 2022, it announced a series of partnerships with OEMs, including Ford, Volvo, and Volkswagen, to recycle electric vehicle batteries. As EV battery packs from those carmakers reach their end of life, dealers and dismantlers will send them to Redwood for recycling. Of course, it will be some time before that happens, given the longevity of EV batteries, but Redwood also works with lithium-ion cells from consumer products like laptops and cellphones as well as cars.

Enlarge (credit: Andrei Stanescu / Getty Images)

Tesla's Autopilot driver-assistance system was cleared by the nation's crash investigator of involvement in a fatal Model S crash. The National Transportation Safety Board has released its final report investigating the incident, which took place on April 17, 2021, in Spring, Texas.

The possible involvement of Autopilot was suggested in the wake of initial reports that one of the two occupants—specifically the driver—was found in the back seat of the car.

But NTSB investigators found that security video footage showed both men entering the car and sitting in the front seats before driving away. Analysis of the wreckage also showed that both front seatbelts were buckled at the time, and the steering wheel was buckled and broken. However, the driver was found in the rear of the car, presumably attempting to escape.

Enlarge / Tesla Model Y electric vehicles in a lot at the Tesla Inc. Gigafactory in Gruenheide, Germany, on Saturday, Jan. 21, 2023. (credit: Liesa Johannssen/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Barely three weeks after slashing its prices in order to qualify for federal tax incentives for clean vehicles, Tesla has increased the prices of some of its best-selling electric vehicles. At the beginning of January, a five-seat Tesla Model Y long-range crossover cost $65,990; on January 12 Tesla dropped this to $52,990. Now, that has gone up by $2,000 to $54,990. And the Model Y Performance saw its price drop from $69,990 to $56,990; today that same EV will cost $57,990.

The original price drops in January allowed the Model Y to qualify for new clean vehicle tax credits introduced in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. Among other changes, the new tax credit regulations imposed a price cap on new EVs in order to qualify, with a larger $80,000 price cap for SUVs, trucks, and vans compared to sedans, which are capped at $55,000 for eligibility.

Originally, the Treasury said it would use the US Environmental Protection Agency's Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency classification to determine what was a car and what was a light truck—a category that includes SUVs and vans but excluded crossovers like the Ford Mustang Mach-E, the Cadillac Lyriq, the Volkswagen ID.4, and yes, the Tesla Model Y. (The seven-seater Model Y was classified as an SUV, however.)

Enlarge / Early VW ID.4s will need to visit a dealership for a software update. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

Volkswagen is the latest OEM to issue a recall for some of its electric vehicles. This time the problem afflicts the MY2021 ID.4, VW's EV crossover. The problem concerns the battery management control module, as well as the pulse inverter control module. This version of the battery management control unit software can be too sensitive and reset itself in some circumstances, and the pulse inverter control module can, under rare conditions, deactivate if there's a software failure.

VW first had an inkling there was a problem in July 2021 when reports started coming in of potential problems with the high-voltage battery management software. By September 2021, VW had concluded there was no unreasonable risk to drivers but continued studying the problem. By January 2022, VW's supplier told it that the pulse inverter software had problems, too.

Last summer VW went through feedback questionnaires from ID.4 owners and found that "some reports from the US market indicated that the battery management software issue could have led to stalling allegations."

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

On Friday the US Treasury Department published an update to the way it implements the new clean vehicle tax credit. Introduced in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, the new rules restrict the number of EVs that qualify for a federal tax credit of up to $7,500 with income and price caps, as well as a requirement for final assembly in North America and, once the Treasury has written some more guidance, a requirement for domestic content and value in the EV battery.

When the new rules came out in January, there were some complaints that some five-seat crossovers—the Cadillac Lyriq, Tesla Model Y, and Volkswagen ID.4—were being counted as sedans, with a $55,000 MSRP cap; anyone buying any of those EVs with a purchase price of more than $55,000 was ineligible for the tax credit, although the seven-seat Model Y was classified as an SUV and therefore only subject to an $80,000 MSRP limit.

The reason for that was the Treasury using the US Environmental Protection Agency's Corporate Average Fuel Economy standard classification, which categorizes light trucks (including SUVs and minivans) differently from passenger cars. But there's a separate EPA fuel economy labeling standard, used in consumer-facing applications, that already counted the Lyriq, Model Y, and ID.4 as crossovers and not sedans.

Enlarge (credit: Electrify America)

Road-tripping in an electric vehicle might be slightly more expensive this year. On Thursday morning, Electrify America informed its user base that starting on March 6, the company will raise its prices.

"We’ve tried hard to maintain our current pricing, but rising operational and energy costs have now made adjusting our pricing necessary," the company wrote in an email to customers. "We shall continue to maintain simple, uniform pricing across the country, and this adjustment ensures we can uphold our commitment to drive electric vehicle (EV) adoption and the future of electric mobility."

Currently, guests (i.e., people without an Electrify America account) and Pass members pay $0.43 per kWh in states that allow billing by unit of energy. That's increasing by 11.6 percent to $0.48 per kWh starting next month.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Tesla | Airplane!)

Tesla filed its annual 10-K report with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday night, and the document confirms that, among the many open federal investigations into the company, the US Department of Justice is looking into the automaker's controversial driver assistance features.

In the section detailing "Certain Investigations and Other Matters," the 10-K briefly describes Tesla being subpoenaed by the SEC following CEO Elon Musk's tweets about taking the company private in 2018. That investigation led to a consent decree with the regulator but did not mark the end of the company's SEC headache; in February 2022, we reported that the SEC was investigating both Musk and his brother for potential insider trading.

"Separately, the company has received requests from the DOJ for documents related to Tesla’s Autopilot and FSD features," Tesla wrote.

Enlarge / The Ioniq 6 will be the next EV to debut using Hyundai's clever new E-GMP architecture. It goes on sale in the US later this year. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

This morning, Hyundai revealed that the US Environmental Protection Agency has finalized an official range estimate for the brand's next electric vehicle, the Ioniq 6 sedan. At 361 miles (581 km), it's certainly impressive, even beating the longest-ranged Tesla Model 3 sedan.

As those familiar with EVs already know, not every version of the Ioniq 6 has quite so much range. You'll need the single-motor rear-wheel drive version, riding on 18-inch wheels, for maximum efficiency. Helpfully, this will be the cheapest version on sale in the US. The company has not announced pricing yet, but expect it to be similar to that of the Hyundai Ioniq 5 crossover.

Adding larger wheels helpfully illustrates the deleterious effect they have on an EV's range efficiency. With 20-inch wheels, the single-motor Ioniq 6's range is 305 miles (491 km).