It was quite a fascinating journey to see the French inventor Franky Zapata as he zoomed on his hoverboard and crossed over the English Channel. The Flyboard Air is what he calls the jet-powered hoverboard that had a previous mishap when he couldn’t complete the journey back in July.
The hovering journey kick-started from Sangatte, France and arrived in Dover, England. Zapata took 22 minutes to reach his destination. The hoverboard sped across the English Channel at 106 miles per hour for a distance of 22-miles trip. On completion of the journey, Zapata called the journey “crazy”. After he landed, he said that the machine was “made three years ago and now, we’ve crossed the Channel, it’s crazy.”
The crossover also stands as an important landmark in the history of mobility. The entire crossover wasn’t a continuous one as Zapata carried fuel that lasted for 10 minutes only. Because of this, he had to make a pit stop to refuel halfway through the journey. It was at this refueling station where Zapata fell into the water the first time that marked an unsuccessful crossover.
Zapata’s invention has been in the news since 2011 when he first manufactured Flyboard- a mobile vehicle that used water jet propelling the ride through the air behind a boat. Next came along the Flyboard Air that is powered with four turbojet engines allowing the rider to ‘fly’ without any tethers. Instead, a computer stabilizes the entire hoverboard.
Do you know what this means? It means that you won’t need a smartphone to play music! With an in-built Apple Music app, you can access music streaming from the service’s library of songs, curated playlists, and Beats 1 radio station on your Porsche Taycan.
Additionally, this car marks as the first electric vehicle from the German manufacturer. Features like built-in Music is something that Porsche plans to offer three years of complimentary in-car data to customers. With Apple Music, the automobile giant is going to offer up to six months of Apple Music free to new and existing Porsche owners.
Coming to Apple Music, you could listen to it using CarPlay for compatible cars. But having it in-built inside a car is the first time for Apple. Even when it comes to automobiles, they were made to be compatible with various music streaming services. This is the first time to have a vehicle with an in-built music link.
In addition to this news, Apple also announced that iTunes will now be coming to Samsung TVs. This is a remarkable announcement as Apple is providing its services and apps to other non-Apple devices. With Apple venturing out in video streaming services, more and more such compatibility will be expected.
Earlier it was discovered that there’s a software bug found in the ‘Dog Mode’ of Tesla cars. The purpose of the Dog Mode is to keep your dogs or pets cool and chilled when your Tesla is parked. However, a bug was discovered when a Tesla owner Rahul Sood manually adjusted his car’s fan settings after switching on the Dog Mode.
He found that the Dog Mode stopped working when he adjusted the settings and he immediately notified the e-vehicle manufacturer. Sood was shocked when he realized that he had left his dogs in scorching heat of 85 degrees. Noting the issue, CEO Elon Musk said that it would be fixed soon. The latest report tells us that Tesla has fixed the bug.
The updated mode says that it “will now restrict any manual climate adjustments except for temperature.” This means that the owners/drivers won’t be able to deactivate it, even accidentally. Happy with the update, Sood posted a picture saying “Dog Mode Improvements”. The fast rollout of the bug fixes has earned the praise of Tesla owners. Twitter was also galore with Tweets saying that “Every other car manufacturer should be worried!”
Here’s a new rental option from Tesla, the e-vehicle maker. You can rent its solar panels! That’s right, you can rent solar panels in Arizona, California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New Mexico. In an attempt to revive its slumping solar panel business, Tesla has come up with this new idea.
To rent out solar panels, it’ll cost you $50 per month plus taxes. There won’t be any additional installation costs or other long-term contracts with Tesla. When you pay $50 a month, it also includes support and maintenance. However, if the renter gets any tax incentive or other rebates from Tesla, they’ll need to give it up.
Recently, Tesla cut the price of its solar panels. And now, here comes the news of Tesla renting out its solar panels. The combined decisions show how Tesla is trying to rejuvenate its home solar panel business, which has declined in the three years since the company acquired SolarCity. The slow sales have resulted in Tesla sliding down to the third position from being number one.
The option to rent out solar panels might indeed be a good decision for the company. the sales might improve as the rental prices are cheaper and the process is faster. Moreover, homeowners can use the solar panels until they live in that place and stop the service if they move.
The free, unlimited charging for buyers of Tesla Model S and Model X is back, the company announced. The announcement comes right after the sales of both these models slowed down. In a Tweet, Tesla said that the ” All new Model S and Model X orders now come with free unlimited Supercharging.”
This means that buyers of Model S and Model X have access to numerous supercharging stations across the country. Considering that the company is suffering from a loss that was “greater than anticipated”, Tesla is making a few of these perks to spike the sales.
Back till 2017, Model S and Model X buyers had access to the supercharging stations for free. However, in 2017, CEO Elon Musk pulled back the feature calling it “not sustainable” for the company. Instead, the perk was twisted to give the users about 400 kWh of power a year that roughly amounts to a thousand miles. Once the limit was reached, users had to pay for their next charge. Even after this, the unlimited charging benefit was re-introduced and revoked a couple of times.
And now, it’s back again! Along with the unlimited charging offer, Tesla is looking for other ways to lure customers to buy the e-vehicle.