Kalakshar US

Tesla has unveiled its EV delivery and production figures for 2023, and the company had another banner year — but it has Chinese rival BYD close behind. Elon Musk’s company produced 1.846 million EVs last year and delivered 1.809 million, besting 2022 deliveries by a wide 38 percent. Those figures include 494,989 EVs produced last quarter and 484,507 delivered.

Tesla’s originally projected it would sell 2 million vehicles in 2023, but revised that figure downward in its October 2023 earnings call. It did exceed analyst expectations for Q4 2023, though, according to CNBC. 

Tesla built 476,777 Model 3 and Model Y EVs last quarter and delivered 461,538 of them. Those include sales of the refreshed “Highland” Model 3. While Elon Musk predicted last quarter that the Model Y would become “the bestselling car on Earth,” the company didn’t break down sales between its two most popular models. The company sold 18,212 “other models” consisting of Model S and Model X EVs. There are no sales figures yet for the Cybertruck. 

Tesla has battled some negative press with its EV lineup, particularly around its Autopilot system, which has seen regulatory scrutiny in the US and other countries. EV sales no doubt received a boost from several price drops over the last year as well, with the Model 3 and Model Y most recently dropping to $38,990 and $45,990, respectively. Tesla chalked up the price drops to “economic uncertainty, higher interest rates, and shifting consumer sentiment” in its October earnings call. 

One of Tesla’s biggest markets is China, but the company is facing stiff competition there from another EV giant, BYD. That company announced sales of 3.02 million electrified vehicles in 2023, including 1.6 million were fully electric cars and 1.4 million hybrids. Most of BYD’s EVs sell at significantly lower price points that Tesla’s cars, however. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/tesla-says-it-delivered-a-record-18-million-evs-in-2023-082906995.html?src=rss 

In the US, Montana and North Carolina have been leading the list of states with the highest number of searches for “VPN” over the past few days. That’s most likely because their new age verification laws have gone into effect on January 1, and adult websites are now either requiring a copy of visitors’ government IDs or have blocked access in the regions altogether. As 404Media reports, Pornhub has chosen to block people in both states from accessing its website instead of asking for verification. The other websites owned by its parent company Aylo (formerly MindGeek), including Brazzers, Redtube and YouPorn, are also no longer accessible. 

If anybody in Montana and North Carolina tries to access an Aylo website, they’ll see a video message from performer Cherie DeVille, explaining that giving a copy of their ID to adult platforms puts their children and their privacy at risk. “We believe that the best and most effective solution for protecting children and adults alike is to identify users by their device and allow access to age-restricted materials and websites based on that identification,” DeVille added. 

That’s the same video message users from other states with similar age verification laws see when they visit Pornhub. Montana and North Carolina are but the latest states to require adult platforms to verify visitors’ ages: Louisiana started the trend in early 2023, and since then, Utah, Arkansas, Mississippi, Virginia and Texas have passed their own versions. In North Carolina’s case, the rule was approved as part of legislation that requires high school students to take computer science classes. 

Other adult websites not owned by Aylo are using third-party providers to authenticate users’ ages in lieu of blocking whole regions altogether. Pornhub uses Louisiana’s digital driver’s license wallet app to verify local users’ identities, but not all states have ID apps that work with its system. The website told us that its traffic in Louisiana dropped by 80 percent when the state started enforcing its age verification law. That makes this new development another potential blow to Aylo after it was slapped with a $1.8 million fine in December for hosting and profiting from pornographic content that featured sex trafficking victims.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/pornhub-blocks-montana-and-north-carolina-as-their-age-verification-laws-take-effect-033830719.html?src=rss 

Samsung’s Unpacked event is coming early this year, so set your calendar for January 17 at 1PM ET. Typically, these events drop the first week of February, so this is an interesting switch-up, given the proximity to CES 2024. This will be an in-person event, at the SAP Center in San Jose, but will also be live streamed across Samsung’s various channels, including YouTube.

This is Samsung, so it’s not advertising any details regarding this year’s Unpacked. We do, however, have some ideas. It’s highly likely the company will not only announce the arrival of the Galaxy S24 flagship smartphone series, but will open up pre-orders immediately following the event. To that end, the company has already started a “pre-reserve” program in which you plop down your name and email address to pre-order, well, something.

You won’t know what you’ve pre-ordered until January 17. Thankfully, there’s no commitment here and you even get a $50 credit toward whatever devices Samsung has got cooking up. The company made a similar offer last year, so it must have worked out.

Speaking of last year, we got the Galaxy S23 line in all of its glory. The Galaxy S23 and S23+ were minor refreshes, so perhaps the S24 will up the ante a bit. In 2022, Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S22 smartphone line. Are you seeing a pattern? Just like Apple tends to use September for new iPhone announcements, Samsung drops new Galaxy smartphones at Unpacked.

That doesn’t mean, however, that the presentation will just be Galaxy S24 smartphones. Samsung tends to also announce new laptop iterations at the first Unpacked each year, so we could get the Galaxy Book4 or something similar.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/samsungs-first-unpacked-event-of-2024-will-take-place-on-january-17-230040664.html?src=rss