Redwood partners with GM joint venture Ultium to recycle battery scrap | Ars Technica
Cars
NPR
Why Are People Worried About Automotive ‘Kill Switch’ Mandates? | The Truth About Cars
Shots – Health News : NPR
Policing expenses mount quickly: $25,000 for a law enforcement conference about fentanyl in Colorado; $18,000 for technology to unlock cellphones in Southington, Conn.; $2,900 for surveillance cameras and to train officers and canines in New Lexington, Ohio. And in other communities around the country, hundreds of thousands for vehicles, body scanners, and other equipment.
In these cases and many others, state and local governments are turning to a new means to pay those bills: opioid settlement cash.
This money — totaling more than $50 billion across 18 years — comes from national settlements with more than a dozen companies that made, sold, or distributed opioid painkillers, including Johnson & Johnson, AmerisourceBergen, and Walmart, which were accused of fueling the epidemic that addicted and killed millions.
This EV smashed the world record for distance on a single charge | Ars Technica
Why Tesla cars get totaled so easily – Autoblog
Crash your shiny new Tesla?
You may be in for a surprise when you get an estimate from your insurance company about getting it fixed.
Insurers are increasingly writing off — or "totaling" — a Tesla even after light damage because of their complexity and cost for repairs, according to the market-watchers at Kelley Blue Book.
Because there are so many tech features like sensors and cameras in the car — on top of highly-specific parts that can only be fixed by Tesla or one of its approved body shops — it's often cheaper to simply declare the whole vehicle destroyed and send it to the scrapyard instead of getting it back in working order.
Luckily, many elements of an electric car's drivetrain can be salvaged. In some cases, parts might find themself powering a classic conversion by a small handful of enthusiasts making some of the most famous cars ever made run on electricity.
To make matters even more complicated, Tesla's new "structural" battery packs — those that are integrated with the car's body — have "zero repairability," according to manufacturing expert Sandy Munro.
"A Tesla structural battery pack is going straight to the grinder," Munro, who's known for his vehicle teardowns, told Reuters earlier this year.
A study by two major salvage companies found that of the over 120 Model Ys declared totaled, "a vast majority" had less than 10,000-lifetime miles, Reuters reported at the time.
Tesla is acutely aware of the high insurance costs of its vehicles, with CEO Elon Musk in January saying they were "unreasonably high." He also noted that the company had implemented design changes, specifically in the bumper, to make some repairs easier and was working to ensure spare parts availability.