VW’s US Innovation Hub just announced four breakthroughs in electric mobility and sustainable transport – here’s what the research center has achieved.
Volkswagen’s Innovation Hub opened in 2020 at the University of Tennessee (UT) Research Park at Cherokee Farm in Knoxville. The federally funded Oakridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is there too. VW collaborates with UT and ORNL scientists on its EV research. Here’s what the VW Innovation Hub has been up to:
AI-optimized EV battery pack frame
Volkswagen researchers are working on new material structures to reduce vehicle weight, which in turn helps to increase the range of EVs. The aim of the first pilot is to replace the steel frame that houses the EV battery pack with something lighter.
The team used artificial intelligence (AI) with millions of parameters on UT’s high-performance computer cluster to develop a modular repeating structure in the shape of tiny pyramids (main photo). The structure can be 3D-printed from liquid resins and can hold 30K times its own 0.15 lb weight (68g). So this frame would be up to 60% lighter than the steel frame. The researchers found that the resin frame absorbs more energy than the steel frame (they’re testing its durability in the photo above), which means it’s robust.
Electrek’s Take:Intriguing. As VW is claiming that its resin frame is lighter and stronger – and we’re going to assume it’s made sustainably – I hope to see this progress beyond the pilot stage and will keep an eye on it.
EV interiors made of paper
Scientists at UT’s Center for Renewable Carbon are using paper as a recyclable alternative to plastic parts and foils for EV interiors. The team has patented a method of preforming and hot-pressing cellulose fiber-reinforced thermoplastics into durable interior parts.
The recyclable paper-based composites can be transformed into various interior shapes and sizes, and different textures and colors can be added.
VW says it’s “checking opportunities” to include paper-based interior parts in future models and “work to support industry-scale production.”
Electrek’s Take: Any move toward recyclable materials and away from plastics can’t come fast enough. No timeline is given here from VW on industry-scale production plans; it’d be great to see this material used by VW in mass-produced EVs.
Lightweight fiber composite body parts
Researchers re-created the liftgate of a 2020 Volkswagen Atlas using sheet molding compound, a type of fiberglass-reinforced plastic. The new liftgate was 13 pounds lighter than the metal one, resulting in a weight savings of more than 35%. That would help increase the range of EVs.
VW says that the fiber composite liftgate doesn’t need changes in assembly sequence compared to metal liftgates, so the former can be produced in high volumes.
Researchers have recently further refined molding processes and ways to optimize durability, quality, and design options.
Electrek’s Take: Fiber composite body parts are already in production at Bentley and Lamborghini, which are part of the Volkswagen Group. They’re using the new materials and the molding process for the Bentley Continental and the Lamborghini Aventador. Those are luxury cars, so it’s not exactly mass production, but researchers are also exploring fiber composite pickup truck beds and other components.
Wireless EV fast charging
VW’s team has patented a coil and charging pad design with silicon-carbide materials. In early trials, the automaker says that the prototype silicon-carbide inverter system has proven to be highly efficient. The research team has been able to increase the charging power level up to 120 kW with this prototype from an earlier 6.6 kW prototype, and their goal is to reach 300 kW.
Electrek’s Take: There’s no further elaboration from VW on what’s next for its wireless EV fast charging project, so I’m guessing this is still in early stages. It’d really need a lot of finessing to be viable on a widespread scale. Still, to progress from 6.6 kW to 120 kW is an achievement. It’d be nice to just pull up over a charging pad in a parking spot and start charging, especially when it’s extremely hot – that’s you down south – or when it simply won’t stop raining, like us up here in the Northeast.
I hope at least half of these projects go into mass production and become cost-effective. But seeing how VW has implemented a short-term spending freeze, it’s probably not going to happen soon.
Photos: Volkswagen
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk threw shade at Waymo for having “rookie numbers” amid Tesla’s own disappointing autonomous-driving performance, raising the question: Is Elon Musk delusional or simply lying about Tesla’s Full Self-Driving?
Every year since 2018, Musk has alternately claimed that Tesla would solve self-driving “by the end of the year” or “next year.”
It never happened.
Tesla claimed a sort of victory this year with the launch of its “Robotaxi” service in Austin, Texas, but even that has been misleading since the service only operates a few vehicles in a geofenced area, something Musk has criticized Waymo for in the past, and unlike Waymo, Tesla has in-car supervisors with a finger on a killswitch to stop the vehicle in case of a potential accident.
Now, Musk called Waymo’s 2,500 fully autonomous vehicles currently in operation “rookie numbers”:
To put the comment in perspective, Tesla is believed to have about ~30 “Robotaxis” in its Austin fleet. In addition, Tesla claims to be operating “robotaxis” in the Bay Area with just over 100 cars, but it is officially considered a ride-hailing service because drivers are in the driver’s seat, and Tesla hasn’t even applied for an autonomous driving permit in California.
Tesla has also been pushing increasingly more misleading claims about its “Full Self-Driving” system being safer than humans.”
In the last few weeks, Tesla has repeatedly shared this misleading data as “proof” that its system is safer than humans:
This dataset is based on Tesla’s quarterly “Autopilot safety” report, which is known to be misleading.
There are three major problems with these reports:
Methodology is self‑reported. Tesla counts only crashes that trigger an airbag or restraint; minor bumps are excluded, and raw crash counts or VMT are not disclosed.
Road type bias. Autopilot is mainly used on limited‑access highways—already the safest roads—while the federal baseline blends all road classes. Meaning there are more crashes per mile on city streets than highways.
Driver mix & fleet age. Tesla drivers skew newer‑vehicle, higher‑income, and tech‑enthusiast; these demographics typically crash less.
With the new chart on the right above, Tesla appears to have separated Autopilot and FSD mileage, which gives us a little more data, but it still has all the same problems listed above, except the road-type bias is less pronounced, since FSD is also used on city streets.
However, many FSD drivers choose not to engage FSD in potentially dangerous or more difficult situations, especially in inclement weather, which contributes to many crashes – crashes that are counted in the human driver data Tesla is comparing itself against.
Lastly, it is unfair to say that the data proves FSD is safer than human drivers, as even with the flawed data, Tesla should claim that FSD with human supervision is safer than human drivers. It’s not FSD versus humans, it’s FSD plus humans versus humans.
It leads us to this.
With Tesla and Musk being undoubtedly wrong and misleading about the performance and the very nature of its current autonomous driving offering, I wanted to know your opinion about the situation through this poll:
Electrek’s Take
Personally, I think it’s a little of both.
I think he sometimes really believes Tesla is on the verge of solving autonomy, but at the same time, he is perfectly willing to cross the line and mislead people into thinking Tesla is further ahead than it actually is.
For example, I believe I can explain this comment about Waymo having “rookie numbers” despite the Alphabet company having about 10x more “robotaxis” than Tesla – even with Tesla’s very loose definition of a robotaxi.
Based on job listings across the US and his recent ridiculous comment that Tesla will magically cover half of the US population with robotaxis by the end of the year, I think Tesla is hiring thousands of drivers. Soon, it will put them in Model Ys with ‘Robotaxi’ stickers on them and have them drive on FSD and give rides in the Robotaxi app in several US cities.
Musk will claim that Tesla’s Robotaxi is now bigger than Waymo, even though it will basically be the equivalent of Uber drivers in Tesla cars with FSD, which is already the case. Just this week, I took an Uber from the Montreal airport, and it was in a Model Y with FSD. Has Tesla launched ‘Robotaxi’ in Montreal?
It’s either that or he counts consumer vehicles with FSD, which is even dumber.
In short, he is delusional, and when he realizes that he was wrong, he is willing to lie to cover things up.
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Solar and wind are growing fast enough to meet all new electricity demand worldwide for the first three quarters of 2025, according to new data from energy think tank Ember. The group now expects fossil power to stay flat for the full year, marking the first time since the pandemic that fossil generation won’t increase.
Solar and wind aren’t just expanding; they’re outpacing global electricity demand itself. Solar generation jumped 498 TWh (+31%) compared to the same period last year, already topping all the solar power produced in 2024. Wind added another 137 TWh (+7.6%). Together, they supplied 635 TWh of new clean electricity, beating out the 603 TWh rise in global demand (+2.7%).
That lifted solar and wind to 17.6% of global electricity in the first three quarters of the year, up from 15.2% year-over-year. That brought the total share of renewables in global electricity – solar, wind, hydro, bioenergy, and geothermal – to 43%. Fossil fuels slid to 57.1%, down from 58.7%.
Renewables are beating coal
For the first time in 2025, renewables collectively generated more electricity than coal. And fossil generation as a whole has stalled. Fossil output slipped slightly by 0.1% (-17 TWh) through the end of Q3. Ember expects no fossil-fuel growth for the full year, driven by clean power growth outpacing demand.
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China and India are partly driving that shift. In China, fossil generation fell 52 TWh (-1.1%) as clean energy met all new demand, resulting from a structural change in its power system. India saw fossil generation drop 34 TWh (-3.3%), thanks to record solar and wind growth and milder weather.
Solar is leading the charge
Solar is doing the heavy lifting. It’s now the single biggest driver of change in the global power sector, with growth more than three times larger than any other electricity source in the first three quarters of the year.
“Record solar power growth and stagnating fossil fuels in 2025 show how clean power has become the driving force in the power sector,” said Nicolas Fulghum, senior data analyst at Ember. “Historically a growth segment, fossil power now appears to be entering a period of stagnation and managed decline. China, the largest source of fossil growth, has turned a corner, signaling that reliance on fossil fuels to meet growing power demand is no longer required.”
Electricity demand rose 2.7% in the first three quarters of 2025, far slower than the 4.9% jump seen last year when extreme heatwaves pushed up cooling demand in China, India, and the US. This year’s milder weather helped take some pressure off the grid, making it easier for clean energy to close the gap.
A turning point for the global power system
For the first time outside of major crises such as the pandemic or the global financial crash, clean energy growth has not only kept up with demand but surpassed it. The next big question: can solar, wind, and the rest of the clean power sector keep up this pace consistently? If they can, 2025 may be remembered as the year global fossil generation plateaued.
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Genesis is taking luxury to the next level with its new flagship SUV. The GV90 is shaping up to be the brand’s most lavish vehicle yet, offering ultra-premium features like coach doors.
Genesis GV90 caught with coach doors in real life
After unveiling the Neolun Concept at the New York Auto Show last March, Genesis said it was a preview of its first full-size SUV.
The “ultra-luxe, state-of-the-art SUV,” as Genesis describes it, will be the brand’s largest and most luxurious vehicle yet, slotted above the GV80.
It wasn’t the stunning design or the over-the-top interior that caught most people’s attention, but the B-pillarless coach doors.
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Although we were worried that some of the ultra-premium features, like the coach doors, wouldn’t make it to the production model, new spy photos reveal otherwise.
A GV90 prototype was spotted out in public with the coach doors wide open, giving us our closest look at the setup. The new spy photos, courtesy of SH Proshots (via TheKoreanCarBlog), show the hinged door system in action and offer a glimpse of the interior.
Earlier this year, Hyundai Motor filed several patent applications with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, detailing new door latching devices.
Two patents, titled “Cinching Device For Door Latches in Vehicle” and “Door Latch Device for Vehicles,” offer a better idea of how the Genesis GV90’s coach doors will work.
Genesis has previously said that B-pillarless coach doors are now a reality in production vehicles. It looks like the GV90 will be the first to debut it.
Yes, the Genesis GV90 will be available with coach doors, but it likely won’t be standard on all trims. It could be a premium feature reserved for higher-priced variants. The GV90 has been spotted out in public several times now with a traditional door design. We’ve also caught a glimpse of other premium features it will offer, like adaptive air suspension.
The Genesis Neolun electric SUV concept (Source: Genesis)
Genesis has yet to reveal prices or final specs. We could see the GV90 debut by the end of the year, with sales expected to start in mid-2026.
One thing is for sure: The Genesis GV90 won’t be cheap. It’s expected to start around $100,000, but higher trims could cost upwards of $120,000.
Genesis Neolun electric SUV concept interior (Source: Hyundai Motor)
Earlier this week, a production version of the GV90 was caught for the first time driving in South Korea. It was still covered in camouflage, but from what’s shown, it looks nearly identical to the Neolun concept.
Reports suggest the flagship SUV could debut on Hyundai’s new eM platform. Hyundai claims the platform will deliver a 50% improvement in driving range per charge compared to its current EVs. It’s also expected to offer Level 3 autonomous driving and other advanced driver assist capabilities.
The flagship electric SUV will serve as a tech beacon, showcasing Hyundai’s latest tech and software. It’s expected to feature a massive 24″ curved infotainment as part of a digital cockpit design.
Genesis is also launching its first hybrid, the GV80, next year, and an extended-range electric vehicle (EREV) in late 2026 or early 2027. The luxury brand will also introduce a new off-road SUV as it expands into new segments.
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