AI at the race track, plus thoughts on the Lightning Flash
AI at the race track, plus thoughts on the Lightning Flash
Would you pit when the robot says it's time to pit?
Hello, dear readers, writing you again from the home front, where I’m trying to keep the editorial furnace hot enough to power through the impending holiday news lull. Here are a few highlighted publications from yours truly from the past week, hand-picked just for you.
Better racing through AI?
I've been following the AI-empowered racing thread as closely as I can over the past year or so. It's something that I know is exploding, yet most teams really don't want to talk about it. When I wrote about Neural Concept for TechCrunch, which uses AI-related techniques to quickly provide aerodynamic optimizations, getting any of the teams that use it to go on the record was a struggle.
Unsurprisingly, things were a little easier when I went to Abu Dhabi to check out the fully autonomous A2RL, which pitted man vs. machine. The AI was the full story, after all.
For my latest entry following this theme, I spoke with experts at General Motors to find out what they're up to regarding AI at the track in everything from endurance racing to NASCAR. They were pretty open on most themes, but there were a few things they weren't particularly keen to discuss. Still, I got a great look into how they're using AI, ML, image processing, and many other advanced techniques to make their cars run faster and more efficiently.
Ford's Lightning Flash
It hasn't exactly been a smooth road for the Ford F-150 Lightning. A genuinely very good electric truck had a remarkably quick launch onto the scene after its unveiling in mid-2021 (18 months after the Cybertruck’s splashy unveil) and entrance into production in mid-2022 (18 months before the Cybertruck stumbled into production). That was all good.
Since then, though, things have been a little more uneven. Demand was initially strong, enough that Ford felt justified in dramatically raising the price. Once the initial hand-raisers got their deliveries, though, that demand leveled out, and the Lightning also found itself embroiled in the middle of the current wave of often politically motivated anti-EV rhetoric.
Add to that excellent competition from the recently refreshed Rivian R1T and the Chevrolet Silverado EV, and the Lightning needs to evolve. Is the latest trim, Flash, really bright enough to change its fortunes? I have not one but two reviews for you that answer that question:
Read the first here at Capital One
Read the second here at JD Power
That's all from me for now. Have great weeks. If you're in the US of A, try not to get too caught up in the news cycle. But, please, do go vote.