Tesla Supercharger network to open up for other EVs in Canada

Tesla is expanding its Supercharger network to other electric vehicle (EV) brands in Canada as part of a government initiative to make EV charging more accessible and convenient. The company will open up some of its existing Superchargers to non-Tesla EVs later this year, starting with a pilot route between Ottawa and Sudbury. By the end of 2025, there will be 750 open Superchargers across the country, including at least 350 high-speed 250kW stations. These will enable long-distance travel for EV drivers, as the open Supercharger route will cover a large portion of the Trans-Canada Highway between Ottawa and Calgary.

The move comes as the Canadian government announced a plan to install nearly 3,000 EV chargers in various locations, such as multi-use residential buildings, offices, public places, and fleets. The government is partnering with various organizations to fund five ongoing projects that will add up to 1,328 EV chargers, including 100 Level 3 fast chargers.

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Ford to transform Oakville, Ontario plant into EV manufacturing hub

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Ford plans to invest CAD 1.8 billion into its Oakville Assembly Complex to turn it into a "high-volume hub of electric vehicle manufacturing" in the country. The campus will be renamed Oakville Electric Vehicle Complex. The carmaker plans to retool and modernize in the second quarter of 2024 in preparation for next-generation EV production. 

This investment allows Ford to repurpose and transform its existing buildings into state-of-the-art facilities. The current 487-acre Oakville site includes three body shops, one paint building, and one assembly building. The transformed plant will feature a new 407,000 square-foot on-site battery plant that uses cells and arrays from BlueOval SK Battery Park in Kentucky. Oakville workers will take these components and assemble battery packs that will be installed in vehicles assembled on-site. This transformation will help increase Ford's global production run rate of two million EVs annually by the end of 2026.

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Google, Ford want to use small radar for more touch-free control, health-tracking

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Radar might play a more significant part in more personal tech soon. Google, Ford, and four other partners have published specs for a Ripple standard to bring small radar to more devices in a "privacy-respecting" fashion. The framework, hosted by the Consumer Technology Association, theoretically lets any device maker use small-scale radar for tasks like touch-free gesture control, occupancy detection, health monitoring, and more.

You can check out the early details through GitHub, focusing on interoperability between radar types. Developers can initially add special use cases through extensions, but the Ripple team hopes to build those add-ons into later versions of the standard. As Engadget pointed out, Google and Ford's involvement makes sense given they ship products with radar in them (Nest Hub for Google and Ford's Co-Pilot 360).

Samsung Galaxy S21 smartphone will find and unlock new cars from Audi, BMW, Ford, and Genesis

One of the more exciting functionality announcement from Samsung's Galaxy S21 line of smartphones is that they will be able to use Ultra Wide Band Bluetooth to find and unlock new vehicles from Audi, BMW, Ford and Genesis. Samsung is expanding its ecosystem by partnering with carmakers to add the convenience so smartphone owners can access and unlock upcoming vehicles.

“With precise distance calculation, Samsung’s UWB-enabled digital key sends short pulses between the mobile device and the paired car, unlocking the door once you reach it,” Samsung explained. “Without UWB, users will be able to use their compatible smartphones as a car key through NFC.” Models like the Galaxy S21 Plus, Galaxy S21 Ultra, and Galaxy Note 20 Ultra support UWB for finer and more accurate location tracking. Turning smartphones into digital key fobs can be very convenient since car owners can possibly share access to their vehicles without turning over their real keys. The feature is expected to roll out later this year pending some standardization.

Source: XDA Developers