Last week we got a load of new information from Volvo, who showed off its Concept Recharge SUV and noted that its next Volvo XC90 flagship (though it will get a name instead of an alphanumeric) will be the home for this new tech. The new car will feature one big computer brain, made up of three other computers, which operate the vision processing, artificial intelligence, general computing and infotainment, in addition to tech from NVIDIA.
We hadn’t heard too much about this range depreciation from autonomous tech, except for Tesla, but it makes perfect sense. Not only do a lot of processors use a lot of power, but they also generate a lot of heat, which also needs to be addressed. We talked to Sam Abuelsamid, principle analyst of E-Mobility at Guidehouse insights, who explained that this is a known issue to automakers. That surprised us considering we talked to GM who said its Super Cruise system in the Chevy Bolt EUV does not itself impact driving range. We didn’t get a response from Ford, and Volvo, who is using some of this stuff, didn’t respond yet either.