TAUNTING TESLA
In its move to electrification, Ford Motors has looked to Tesla on how it’s done things and specifically with designing its new battery vehicle for the Mustang Mach-E. However, Ford’s CEO Jim Farley took a swipe at Tesla using the social media platform, Twitter to prove that Ford does things differently.
In a new tweet marketing Ford’s upcoming hands-free highway driving system, Jim Farley said: “BlueCruise! We tested it in the real world, so our customers don’t have to.”
It was an obvious connotation to Tesla’s FSD Beta testing that was rolled out to certain customers. The few select who purchased the FSD option got access to the Beta version to test out the latest features being added to the system. Tesla rolled out the testing program to an estimated 2,000 drivers before revoking access to some of the tester who weren’t paying proper attention on the road.
Earlier this month, Tesla’s Technoking Elon Musk tweeted an update about its FSD saying, “Almost ready with FSD Beta V9.0. Step change improvement is massive, especially for weird corner cases & bad weather. Pure vision, no radar.”
Full-Self Driving is not yet reality, and Tesla has faced criticism using the term as an overstatement of Tesla’s vehicles. Over and above that, there were several crashes involving Tesla cars, which prompted federal investigations by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to ascertain if driver assistance technology is safe.
Ford’s BlueCruise system is due for release in a few months in the Ford F-150 and 2021 Mustang Mach-E. The system won’t have as many capabilities as Tesla’s such as not requiring the driver to touch the steering wheel every now and then. Instead, the manufacturer is using a camera-based system inside the vehicle to keep track of the driver’s attentiveness. It is also restricted to some pre-mapped highways in the US and Canada.
THE TESLA TOY
If you’ve been waiting forever to get your hands on the Tesla Roadster, you fill the temporary void by getting yourself a dinky car version. Mattel manufactures the Matchbox toy cars and yesterday the company announced it will start selling a 1:64-scale Tesla Roadster next year. The miniature electric Roadster might just hit the market before the real deal.
The new die-cast Roadster is part of Mattel’s plan to make all its cars and accompanying packaging out of recycled or bio-plastic materials. In this way, the company is joining the move to environmental sustainability while also launching several other toy versions of the different electric vehicles. The toy EVs will also be able to get an EV charge-up at its fuel station play sets.
The Roadster toy was made out of 99% recycled materials and it got certified as a carbon-neutral product by purchasing carbon offsets. The adult version Roadster was unveiled in 2017 and was due for production last year but a number of factors have played a part in its delay, along with the Cybertruck and Semi.
Production has now been set back to 2022, although Tesla is still due to give an update on when customers can expect to get their hands on the super sports car. It will come with a price tag of about $200,000 but with that, you will get some super impressive specs. The Roadster will be able to accelerate to 161km/h in 4.2 seconds and travel 998km on a single charge, which is more than any EV currently on the market. Musk has also ‘joked’ about adding rocket boosters and getting the Roadster to hover – although we can’t be sure if Musk is serious or was really joking.
So, if you can’t afford the real Roadster or anxious to get one in your garage, there’s always the alternative from Matchbox!
