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An employee in a branded helmet is pictured at Saudi Aramco oil facility in Abqaiq, Saudi Arabia October 12, 2019.

Maxim Shemetov | Reuters

U.S. crude oil declined more than 4% on Monday after Saudi Arabia slashed its prices, raising renewed worries that the market is oversupplied at the same time as demand is weakening.

The West Texas Intermediate futures contract for February lost $3.57, or 4.84%, to trade at $70.24 a barrel Monday afternoon. The Brent futures contract for March shed $3.08, or 3.91%, to $75.68 a barrel.

The sell-off comes after Saudi Aramco on Sunday sharply lowered the price of Arab Light Crude to Asian customers by $2 per barrel.

The Saudi price cut comes amid persistent market weakness due in large part to record U.S. crude production and softening demand in China. OPEC and its allies are cutting their production by 2.2 million barrels per day this quarter in an effort to balance the market.

“While it is possible that the price reduction was to maintain market share in the face of production cuts, the market is taking it as a clear sign that the economy is slowing. Maybe the landing might not be so soft,” Phil Flynn of The Price Futures Group wrote on Monday.

U.S. crude and Brent, the global benchmark, both ended the first week of 2024 more than 2% higher on mounting tensions in the Middle East, but supply and demand concerns have persistently overshadowed geopolitical risks in the market.

“The market seems to feel that geopolitical risk will not impact supply and if it does, demand is weak so it will not matter,” Flynn wrote.

Repeated attacks by Houthi militants, who are allied with Iran, on commercial vessels in the Red Sea have forced shipping giant Maersk to avoid the crucial waterway for the foreseeable future. The situation is also deteriorating in Lebanon, where a Hezbollah commander was killed Monday in an apparent Israeli airstrike.

Analysts say a regional war that draws in Iran could lead to a disruption in the Strait of Hormuz which would have a material impact on the market. So far, however, rising tensions in the region have not led to a problem in crude supplies.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is on a diplomatic tour of the region in an effort to reduce tensions.

Though geopolitical risk is rising, the global oil market remains well supplied. The U.S. pumped an estimated 13.2 million barrels per day of crude in the last week of 2023, and its inventories of gasoline and distillate both soared by more than 10 million barrels.

U.S. crude exports also rose by more than 1 million barrels per day to 5.2 million barrels per day in the same period. Saudi Arabia is slashing prices to stop customers from buying U.S. crude as well as to undercut cheap Iranian and Russian barrels, said Bob Yawger, energy futures strategist at Mizuho.

“Obviously they’re hitting the panic button a little,” Yawger said of Riyadh. The question is what happens if the Saudi strategy does not work, he said.

“You’re getting closer and closer to a 2020 situation here where they try to claw back market share by cutting everything to bare bones minimum and sparking a price war,” Yawger said.

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London is getting 570 ‘flat and flush’ sidewalk EV chargers

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London is getting 570 'flat and flush' sidewalk EV chargers

EV drivers in the Borough of Camden in London will soon see a major boost in sidewalk chargers, thanks to a new partnership between Camden Council and Scottish charge point company Trojan Energy.

The council awarded Trojan Energy a contract to install over 570 on-street Level 2 EV chargers by 2026. The project kicks off with an initial rollout of 70 chargers in July 2025, with the rest coming as suitable locations are identified. This expansion builds on a successful trial from 2022, which received positive responses from local EV owners.

Photo: Trojan Energy

Trojan’s 22 kW chargers have a clever design—they sit “flat and flush” with sidewalks, meaning no bulky units cluttering up the pavement. Residents without driveways can easily “plug and play” using personal adapters, connecting their EVs to points linked via underground cables to a nearby cabinet. The chargers are grouped in clusters, increasing availability and convenience for drivers. Trojan launched an app last month that enables drivers to find chargers, check availability, and check charging history.

The sidewalk EV chargers won’t just help individual EV owners in the London borough; it’ll also support car-sharing programs, helping Camden reduce unnecessary car ownership and encourage more people to walk, bike, or take transit. Funding for the project comes from the UK government’s On-street Residential Chargepoint Scheme (ORCS).

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Councillor Adam Harrison, cabinet member for Planning and a Sustainable Camden (pictured above left) said, “By promoting active travel such as walking and cycling and facilitating this shift to electric vehicles with convenient charging points, we hope to improve air quality, reduce emissions, and support environmental resilience across the borough.” 

Read more: New York awards $60M to Revel to install 267 DC fast chargers


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Turing AI and “bulletproof” EV batteries arrive with 2025 Xpeng G6 SUV

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Turing AI and

The Xpeng G6 all-electric SUV has received a raft of 81 updates for the 2025 model year – and chief among these is a new, “bulletproof,” ultra-fast 5C charging “A.I. battery” that can go from 10 to 80% charge in just twelve minutes.

Sized and priced to put the best-selling Tesla Model Y firmly in its crosshairs, the Xpeng G6 SUV has been substantially upgraded for 2025 with three trim levels starting at “just” 176,800 yuan ($27,620, as I type this). Meaning that, despite the improved range, ADAS offerings, and charging speed, the 2025 model’s starting price is nearly 11% lower than last year’s already popular model.

For that money, G6 buyers will get the Xpeng-developed Turing AI intelligent driving system – an advanced ADAS system powered by the company’s 40-core “Turing chip” processor that promises to deliver the power of three high-performance chips in one.

The Turing chip is the basis for Xpeng’s Canghai neural network, which the company claims will eventually support full-scale L4 autonomous driving with enhanced safety features that have 33x the bandwidth, and 12x faster camera image processing than its main competitors, creating a foundation for full-scenario AI-enabled driving experiences that probably won’t smash your car into a Wile E. Coyote-style mural.

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Turing AI launch

Xpeng Turing chip launch; NOV2024.

The newsworthy specs don’t stop there, however. The new 2025 Xpeng G6 also offers the company’s new “bulletproof” 5C AI batteries.

For those of you not in the know, the “5C” there refers to “five cycles,” and basically means that the battery can go from 10 to 80% full five times in an hour. 60 minutes in an hour, 12 minutes to go from 10-80%, that’s 1/5th of an hour, so it’s 5 cycles … or: 5C. A 6C battery would do the trick in 10 minutes, a 4C in 15, etc.

As for what makes the Xpeng AI batteries “bulletproof,” the company claims the battery is wrapped in a sort of armor that can withstand more than 1,000 degrees C of heat, up to 80 tons of collision force in a side-impact scenario, and more than 2000 joules of impact from the bottom.

2025 Xpeng G6 available models

2025 Xpeng G6 in Dark Night Black trim; via Xpeng.
  • 625 Long-range Max Technology Edition: 176,800 yuan (~ $24,400)
  • 625 Long-range Max Ultimate Edition: 186,800 yuan (~ $25,800)
  • 725 Ultra-long-range Max Ultimate Edition: 198,800 yuan (~ $27,500)

The 625 models get 625 km of range on the CLTC (China Light-Duty Vehicle Test Cycle), which translates to about 275 miles of EPA range. The 725 model adds another 100 km (60 miles) of range. The AI batteries in all three models go from 3C to 5C charging speed and ship with the Turing AI self-driving system as standard equipment.

Other upgrades for 2025 include a 9-inch streaming rearview mirror, updates to the soft-touch rubber and plastic materials in the cabin, and Xpeng’s new “cloud-sense” seats that support heat, ventilation, and (up front) even massage.

Two new body colors have also been added to the G6′ pallette: Starry Purple and Cloud Beige (shown, below), bring the total of available colors to six.

Xpeng went to Weibo to announce that it took the redesigned 2025 G6 just seven minutes to log 5,000 firm orders, on its first day of availability.

Electrek’s Take

I don’t always agree with Ford CEO Chris Jim Farley, but he’s absolutely right about Chinese EVs setting the standard for range, performance, and technology. It seems like every new EV that emerges from China’s tech-forward car brands makes EVs from Ford and Tesla look the level-three generic offerings from whatever the automotive equivalent of Dollar Tree is.

The only problem with that analogy is that the American offerings often cost consumers twice as much. And, before you jump into the comments and write about government subsidies and federalized healthcare costs and other supposed Chinese advantages – remember that we could do those things, too, if we wanted.

What would our excuse be then?

SOURCE | IMAGES: Xpeng, via CarNewsChina; CNEVPost.

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Tesla Autopilot drives into Wile E Coyote fake road wall in camera vs lidar test

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Tesla Autopilot drives into Wile E Coyote fake road wall in camera vs lidar test

Tesla Autopilot drove into Wile E. Coyote-style fake road wall in the middle of the road in a camera versus lidar test.

While most companies developing self-driving technologies have been using a mix of sensors (cameras, radar, lidar, and ultrasonic), Tesla insists on only using cameras.

The automaker removed radars from its vehicle lineup and even deactivated radars already installed in existing vehicles.

The strategy has yet to pay off as Tesla’s systems are still stuck at level 2 driver assist systems.

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CEO Elon Musk claims that Tesla’s advantage is that once it solves autonomy, it will be able to scale faster than competitors because its vision plus neural net system is designed to work like a human driver and, therefore, will be able to adapt to any road.

Critics have pushed back against those claims, especially since Musk mentioned Tesla achieving “level 5 autonomy”, which means “in any conditions,” and cameras have limitations on that front that are fixed by lidar sensors.

A new video by engineering Youtuber Mark Rober has provided a very interesting demonstration of that very problem:

In the video, Rober puts a Tesla Model Y on Autopilot against a vehicle using a lidar system in a series of tests in different conditions.

The Tesla on Autopilot managed to stop for a kid mannequin in the middle of the road when statics, moving, and blinded by lights, but it couldn’t stop in fog or heavy rain:

It’s not surprising that the lidar, a laser-based system, is capable of detecting better in heavy fog than a camera system.

The heavy rain was a bit more surprising, but to be fair, the level of rain was quite spectacular.

The last scenario of a Wile E. Coyote-style wall with a fake road painted on it was obviously not realistic, but it serves to illustrate the issue with cameras versus radar or lidar sensors: they rely on the perception of potential obstacles rather than hard data about potential obstacles.

In simple words, the lidar sensors didn’t care what was painted on the wall, they only cared that it was a wall, while cameras can be tricked.

Electrek’s Take

I think it’s clear that no Tesla vehicle currently available will be capable of level 5 autonomy as Elon claimed.

Level 4 is also questionable.

I think you can accomplish a lot with cameras, but I think it’s undeniable that adding radars and lidars can make systems safer.

In DMs with us during Tesla’s transition to vision only, Elon even admitted that “very high-resolution radars would be better than pure vision”, but he claimed that “such a radar does not exist”:

“A very high-resolution radar would be better than pure vision, but such a radar does not exist.”

When we pointed one out to him, he didn’t respond. Also, while they use light rather than radio waves, lidars are basically high-resolution radars, but the problem is that Musk has taken such a strong stance against them for so long that now that they have improved immensely and reduced in prices, he still can’t admit that he was wrong and use them.

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