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Sparks

The Year’s Biggest Gadget Conference Is All About Electric Cars Now

Automakers are showing out at CES.

New EVs.
Heatmap Illustration/Kia, Honda, Vinfast, Getty Images

The consumer electronics show in Las Vegas formally known as CES has evolved beyond a showcase for ever-larger screens, laptops, and niche gadgets looking to make it into big box retailers. CES is now, among other things, a full-fledged auto show, with the world's largest automakers announcing ambitious products alongside — and sometimes in partnership with — their tech counterparts.

In recent years, new electric concepts from Chevrolet, BMW, and Ram have each captured attention. This year, it was Honda’s turn to make a splash.

After two decades of dipping its toes into the electric vehicle market, the Japanese carmaker announced the new 0 Series (as in zero emissions) with two concepts that show what Honda wants to bring to the U.S. market in 2026.

The flagship Saloon sedan’s sleek, swept-back design is a material manifestation of what Honda calls its man maximum/machine minimum packaging concept (in case you’re looking for an acronym, it’s M/M*1), which boils down to making the car’s footprint as small as possible while still keeping passengers comfortable. On the other end of the svelte-practical spectrum is the Space-Hub, which applies the venerable minivan concept in an EV format with extra space and seating that swivels to create a rolling lounge.

Honda was also at CES in partnership with Sony, which showed the latest iteration of its Afeela prototype, the electronics company's first foray into the automotive world. Sony's Playstation division clearly got its hands on the concept, which means augmented reality displays built on the game development platform Unreal Engine that feature eye-popping 3D graphics. If you want, you can have a monster magically appear on the roadway as you’re driving. You can also visualize yourself driving underwater. On stage at least, the car could be steered with a Playstation controller.

Kia was back in Las Vegas to announce its hyper-modular, commercial-focused Platform Beyond Vehicle strategy. Showing five models in three sizes all based on the platform, the new lineup will begin with the PV5 and focus on delivery, ride-hailing, and smaller commercial work (think your local electrician) thanks to its Lego-like “life modules” and powertrains.

This being 2024, AI is everywhere at CES, even in car world, with Volkswagen incorporating ChatGPT into its Ida voice assistant, Mercedes updating its MBUX Virtual Assistant with a new “empathetic” AI, and Intel designing a new family of AI-infused systems-on-chips to monitor drivers and passengers in an autonomous future.

While most CES concepts aren’t headed for roads anytime soon, one thing you might be able to buy is the latest offering from Vietnamese EV maker VinFast. While its U.S. launch is off to a rocky start, the ultra-compact VF3 might be cute enough to keep the critics at bay, with its bulldog stance and incredibly diminutive size. Measuring in at just a little under 10.5 feet, the VF3 is nearly two feet shorter than the new Fiat 500E or about the same size as a Smart car. Coupled with its off-roader looks and a claimed 125-mile range, the VF3 could be the smallest, affordable, and most adorable EVs for sale in the U.S.

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Sparks

After Trump Phone Call, DOE Cancels $5 Billion for Grain Belt Express

The Department of Energy announced Wednesday that it was scrapping the loan guarantee.

A cut wire.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The Department of Energy canceled a nearly $5 billion loan guarantee for the Grain Belt Express, a transmission project intended to connect wind power in Kansas with demand in Illinois that would eventually stretch all the way to Indiana.

“After a thorough review of the project’s financials, DOE found that the conditions necessary to issue the guarantee are unlikely to be met and it is not critical for the federal government to have a role in supporting this project. To ensure more responsible stewardship of taxpayer resources, DOE has terminated its conditional commitment,” the Department of Energy said in a statement Wednesday.

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Meta’s Major AI Energy Buildout

CEO Mark Zuckerberg confirmed the company’s expanding ambitions in a Threads post on Monday.

Electrical outlets and a computer chip
Justin Renteria/Getty Images

Meta is going big to power its ever-expanding artificial intelligence ambitions. It’s not just spending hundreds of millions of dollars luring engineers and executives from other top AI labs (including reportedly hundreds of millions of dollars for one engineer alone), but also investing hundreds of billions of dollars for data centers at the multi-gigawatt scale.

“Meta is on track to be the first lab to bring a 1GW+ supercluster online,” Meta founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg wrote on the company’s Threads platform Monday, confirming a recent report by the semiconductor and artificial intelligence research service Semianalysis.

That first gigawatt-level project, Semianalysis wrote, will be a data center in New Albany, Ohio, called Prometheus, due to be online in 2026, Ashley Settle, a Meta spokesperson, confirmed to me. Ohio — and New Albany specifically — is the home of several large data center projects, including an existing Meta facility.

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Trump Says He’s Going to Slap a Huge Tariff on Copper

“I believe the tariff on copper — we’re going to make it 50%.”

Donald Trump.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

President Trump announced Tuesday during a cabinet meeting that he plans to impose a hefty tax on U.S. copper imports.

“I believe the tariff on copper — we’re going to make it 50%,” he told reporters.

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