What did you miss? #WDYM Week 29 2024

? Elon Musk says SpaceX and X headquarters moving to Texas, blames California trans student privacy law.

??♂? Tesla is looking to hire 800 new employees 3 months after Elon Musk ordered mass firings of thousands.

???? Donald Trump vows to “end the electric vehicle mandate on day one.” The move would result in “saving the US auto industry from complete obliteration, which is happening right now, and saving US customers thousands and thousands of dollars per car,” Trump said at the. Republican National Convention.

?? Kia has already started testing a native North American Charging Standard (NACS) charge port, after a pair of camouflaged Kia electric vehicles (EVs) were spotted at a Supercharger without an adapter.

???? MG Thailand announces an extended lifetime warranty for High-Voltage Battery, Electric Drive Unit, and Power Electronic Bloc being the first and only brand with the guarantee of confidence for EV owners.

?? Lucid says it has set a new record with its 2025 Lucid Air Pure as the world’s most efficient car: 5 miles per kWh. This efficiency not only reduces the size of the battery pack needed but also minimizes the environmental impact by requiring fewer raw materials and placing less demand on public power grids during recharging.

?? GM CEO Mary Barra says the company will not meet its 1 million EV capacity target by 2025: "We're seeing a little bit of a slowdown right now. We won't get to 1M because the markets not developing, but we'll get there."

?? The BMW Group sold 190,622 battery-electric cars in the first half of the year. In Q2, 17.4% of all vehicles delivered (618,826, -1.3%) were purely electric, a significant increase compared to Q2 2023 (14.1%), but also compared to the first quarter of 2024 (13.9%).

?? Mercedes delivered 45,800 EVs in Q2 2024, down -25% YoY, the company announced. EVs now make up 9.2% of all their cars sold, down from 12% in Q2 2023.

?? Despite high sticker prices, EVs had a cost advantage over gasoline counterparts in 48 U.S. states. EV owners in Colorado, Illinois, Nevada and New Jersey will save more than $8,000 on their vehicle versus a comparable gasoline vehicle.

???? U.S. EV adoption appears to be on pace to reach 50 percent by 2030.

?? The U.S. Commerce Department plans to issue proposed rules on connected vehicles next month and expects to impose limits on some software made in China and other countries deemed adversaries, a senior official said Tuesday.

???? The UK government will create a company to own and operate clean energy assets in a bid to inject more public money into the shift away from fossil fuels.

???? Elon Musk has directed SpaceX employees to drill into the design and details of a Martian city One team is drawing up plans for small dome habitats, including the materials that could be used to build them. Another is working on spacesuits to combat Mars’s hostile environment, while a medical team is researching whether humans can have children there. Elon has volunteered his sperm to help seed a colony.

???? The Polaris Dawn crew recently completed a series of spacesuit acceptance tests in preparation for the mission’s extravehicular activity, or spacewalk, marking the final significant developmental and test milestone for SpaceX’s newly-developed EVA spacesuit.

?? NASA published the source selection statement document regarding the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle, which will be used to deorbit the International Space Station around or after 2030. The contract, with a total value of $843,256,689.85, was awarded to SpaceX. The document shows that Northrop Grumman also submitted a bid. "While both Offerors provide Strengths in their proposals, only SpaceX’s proposal offers Significant Strengths. The Weakness identified in SpaceX’s proposal relates to potential risk to schedule, and based on the specific nature of this Weakness, I find that the concerns can be addressed and resolved during routine contract administration. NG’s seven Weaknesses create both technical and schedule risks, that when viewed [holistically], impact reliability and increase risk of successful contract performance."

?? Neuralink plans a 112,000-square-foot facility in Austin. The $14.7 million operation includes a machine shop and cleanroom for device manufacturing.