
Eric Walz
Originally hailing from New Jersey, Eric is a automotive & technology reporter covering the high-tech industry here in Silicon Valley. He has over 15 years of automotive experience and a bachelors degree in computer science. These skills, combined with technical writing and news reporting, allows him to fully understand and identify new and innovative technologies in the auto industry and beyond. He has worked at Uber on self-driving cars and as a technical writer, helping people to understand and work with technology.
Articles
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Baidu CEO Believes That SAE Level-4 Autonomous Driving Systems Will the First to Enter Commercial Use After L2, Skipping Over L3
Oct 09, 2022 12:00 PM WSTRobin Li, the co-founder and CEO of Chinese internet technology company Baidu Inc, said it’s more likely that Level-4 autonomous vehicles (AVs), not Level-3 AVs, will be the first to enter commercial use as robotaxis. While automakers will continue to develop L2 systems for passenger vehicles. Li shared his thoughts on the industry in a speech at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference 2022 (WAIC 2022) this week in Shanghai.
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Volvo’s Electric Vehicle Brand Polestar Reports $1 Billion in Revenue in the First Half of 2022, Adds 6 New Global Markets
Oct 08, 2022 1:00 PM WSTElectric-performances brand Polestar is off to a strong start for the first half of 2022 following a strong Q1 with brisk sales of the Polestar 2 EV. In the first four months of 2022, customer reservations also more than tripled to nearly 23,000 vehicles compared to the same period in 2021.
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Toyota is Investing an Additional $2.5 Billion to Expand its North Carolina Factory to Boost EV Battery Production
Oct 07, 2022 9:45 AM WSTToyota Motor Corp announced on Wednesday that it will invest an additional $2.5 billion at its newest U.S. facility, “Toyota Battery Manufacturing North Carolina” (TBMNC), to produce more batteries for electrified vehicles. Battery production is scheduled to begin in 2025. The latest investment brings Toyota’s total investment in North Carolina to $3.8 billion.
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Nexar Releases its ‘Driver Behavioral Map Data’ That Can Help Autonomous Vehicles Operate More Like Human Drivers
Oct 06, 2022 12:00 PM WSTComputer vision company Nexar, which developed a dash cam application that seeks to rid the world of car crashes, has released its Driver Behavioral Mapping data that can be used to create maps to train autonomous vehicles to operate more like human drivers. This crowdsourced map data, which is collected anonymously by Nexar’s AI-powered dash cams, provide additional insights on how human drivers behave on different road segments and in various weather and road conditions.
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Honda and LG Energy Solutions to Build a $4.4 Billion Joint Venture EV Battery Plant in the U.S.
Oct 05, 2022 10:30 AM WSTJapan’s Honda Motor Co and battery maker LG Energy Solutions (LGES) are investing $4.4 billion to build a joint venture electric vehicle battery factory in the U.S. The factory will produce lithium ion batteries for Honda and Acura vehicles for the North American market. The battery plant aims to have an annual production capacity of approximately 40GWh, which is enough batteries to power up to 500,000 vehicles.
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Mercedes-Benz Begins Production of the Highly Anticipated EQS Electric SUV in Alabama
Oct 02, 2022 10:30 AM WSTMercedes-Benz has officially started production of the highly anticipated EQS electric SUV at its assembly plant in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The EQS SUV is the third electric model in the automaker’s EQ lineup, following the launch of the EQE and EQS sedans. The plant uses state-of-the-art digital, sustainable, efficient and flexible production methods and represents the future of automotive production for Mercedes-Benz.
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Toyota is Working With the U.S. Dept of Energy to Advance ‘Megawatt-Scale’ Fuel Cell Powered Stationary Energy Generators
Sep 30, 2022 11:00 AM WSTToyota Motor North America is collaborating with the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to build, install and evaluate a 1-megawatt (MW) fuel cell power generation system at NREL's Flatirons Campus in Arvada, Colorado. Toyota said it leveraged its over 25 years of fuel cell development experience in designing the 1-MW fuel cell system, expanding on its expertise from the light duty fuel cell electric vehicle market.
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Mercedes-Benz Signs MoU With the Government of Canada to Source the Raw Materials for Electric Vehicle Batteries
Sep 29, 2022 10:00 AM WSTMercedes-Benz has signed an MoU with the Government of Canada that will help ensure that the automaker has a reliable supply for raw materials such as lithium to produce all of the electric vehicle batteries its will need by the end of the decade. The MoU is part of the automaker's efforts to set up an entire automotive value chain for the responsible production and recycling of EV batteries.
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Ford Motor Co is Cutting 3,000 Jobs as it Transitions to Electric Vehicles, Software and Digital Services
Sep 28, 2022 12:00 PM WSTFord Motor Co is undergoing one the biggest transitions in the company’s history with plans of building more software-defined electric vehicles. The automaker plans to sell 600,000 electric vehicles by 2023 and 2 million by 2026. But to reach its electrification targets over the next several years, Ford plans to reduce costs and become a much leaner company.
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Lucid Launches New Performance Brand ‘Sapphire’ with a 1,200 Horsepower, Tri-Motor Version of the Lucid Air Sedan
Sep 25, 2022 11:15 AM WSTLuxury electric automaker Lucid Group has launched a new ultra-high performance brand named Sapphire with the unveiling of a sport-focused, yet luxurious tri-motor version of the Lucid Air sedan dubbed the Sapphire. The 1,200 horsepower Lucid Air Sapphire made its public debut at the Quail Lodge as part of Monterey Car Week in California. Additional Sapphire models will be available for all of Lucid's EVs moving forward, including for the company’s upcoming SUV.