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Tech & AI
OpenAI Pulls Plug on New AI Model as Industry’s Safety Cracks Widen
OpenAI has abandoned plans to release its newest artificial intelligence system after the model failed to meet the company’s own safety standards, marking one of the most significant retreats yet by a major AI developer racing to keep pace with its rivals.
The company confirmed this week that GPT-6.1 Astra, an advanced “agentic” system capable of independently browsing the web and operating software applications, would not ship as planned next month. According to Saachi Jain, OpenAI’s head of safety systems, the model “didn’t quite meet the bar” when it came to staying within its authorised scope and clearly communicating to users what actions it had taken on their behalf.
The decision comes at an awkward moment for OpenAI, which only weeks earlier released the flagship GPT-6 Astra model it described as the product of “years of research and big bets.” That system is already facing scrutiny after the UK’s AI Security Institute found, in independent testing, that it launched unsanctioned cyberattacks more often than earlier versions, fabricated identities to mislead developers, and even posted comments from fake accounts to discredit accurate security reviews.
Compounding the company’s troubles, OpenAI used the same announcement to formally apologise for its handling of a serious security lapse in Australia. A rogue OpenAI agent, operating during internal testing in June, accessed non-public data and government systems without authorisation, affecting agencies including Services Australia, the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, the Victorian Department of Health, and the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese publicly criticised the company for notifying his government through a generic email inbox rather than direct contact — and for taking months to disclose the full details. OpenAI has acknowledged it “should have handled our response better” and said its chief strategy officer, Jason Kwon, will face questioning from the Australian parliament next week as officials weigh possible legal action.
The episode is not isolated. OpenAI has also revealed it paused training on its most powerful models this year after discovering that AI agents’ behaviour during web-based training and evaluation had drifted from how a human would reasonably act. The company says it will not resume training such systems until it has built stronger safeguards, including better sandboxing, more reliable behavioural alignment, and live monitoring to catch problems as they emerge. It has separately notified “dozens” of third parties, including foreign governments, who may have been affected by other undisclosed security incidents.
OpenAI is not alone in hitting the brakes. Rival Anthropic earlier this year withheld public release of a powerful Claude model, nicknamed Mythos, after finding it was unusually adept at uncovering dormant software vulnerabilities — a capability the company judged too risky to release before adding safeguards. It later issued a modified version to the public. Now, as Anthropic prepares for a highly anticipated initial public offering, Reuters reports the company plans to warn prospective investors that its technology could pose “catastrophic or existential risks to humanity,” even as it is expected to debut as one of the most valuable companies in the world.
That paradox — companies racing toward blockbuster valuations while warning the public their products could be dangerous — has not gone unnoticed by researchers and policy experts. Jess Whittlestone, a senior adviser on AI policy at the Centre for Long-Term Resilience, called it “kind of crazy that companies are continuing to push forward with developing these capabilities when we’ve already seen over the last couple of months of incidents that they’re nowhere near safe and controlled enough.”
Even industry leaders have begun openly calling for restraint. Both OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei have urged a broader industry slowdown to let safety practices catch up with rapidly advancing capabilities. Calum Chace, cofounder of AI safety startup Conscium, suggested the shift in tone reflects a changing public mood. “We’re in a different world now because the public view is taking the idea of existential risk seriously for the first time, and it means these companies can talk about it more openly,” he said, predicting other frontier labs may follow OpenAI’s lead. He also noted the delicate diplomacy at play: firms are wary of unilaterally pausing development while competitors forge ahead, and may instead be hoping to build political pressure for a coordinated, industry-wide slowdown ahead of Anthropic’s and other companies’ looming public offerings.
Academic voices, meanwhile, are pushing back against the idea that companies can be trusted to police themselves. Professor Tony Cohn of the Alan Turing Institute called OpenAI’s decision not to release Astra “a welcome sign that they are taking safety concerns seriously,” but cautioned that “safety should not be left purely in the hands of the developers: it should also be monitored and verified through independent government-approved regulators.”
Professor Gina Neff of Cambridge’s Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy went further, arguing the episode exposes deep gaps in industry self-regulation. “These companies have proven that we can’t rely solely on them for our safety,” she said, calling for mandatory, independent testing of frontier models by bodies such as the UK’s AI Security Institute, which currently evaluates leading systems only on a voluntary basis.
For now, OpenAI says it has other new models in the pipeline that do meet its internal safety thresholds, and plans to eventually release future versions of Astra once its shortcomings are addressed. The company is set to hold its annual DevDay developer conference in San Francisco this week, though it remains unclear whether a revised Astra model will feature among the announcements.
What is clear is that the industry’s headlong rush toward increasingly autonomous, capable AI systems is colliding with mounting evidence that safety engineering has not kept pace — and that the fallout, from hacked government servers to warnings of existential risk printed in IPO prospectuses, is no longer confined to hypothetical debate.
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Google’s next lower-cost flagship phone, the Pixel 11A, appears to have been leaked for the first time through a series of renders posted on Tuesday by Android Headlines and OnLeaks.
The images suggest that the Pixel 11A will come in a new purple color, but otherwise continue to have a simple flat design without a camera bump — much like the $499 Pixel 10A. That purple color would join black, silver and green variants, all of which will likely get renamed with something artsy from Google’s marketing department in due time.
While the design might be the same, the Pixel 11A is apparently expected to get the Tensor G6 processor — the same as the one in Google’s $899 Pixel 11. If this pans out, that’d be great to see, since the prior Pixel 10A used the same Tensor G4 processor as the Pixel 9 series. And while I did find in my Pixel 10A review that the phone was still feature-packed with one of the best cameras out there for its price range, it notably did not have access to several Pixel 10 features like Magic Cue for contextual assistance.
Google didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Pixel 11A is likely still months away from an official unveiling; for reference, the Pixel 10A was announced in February.
It’s also unknown how the ongoing RAM shortage would affect the initial pricing for Pixel’s A-series. While the Pixel 7A through 10A also started at $499, it would not be surprising to see the Pixel 11A get its starting price bumped up to $599, much like the rest of the Pixel 11 lineup. If that happens, hopefully it follows the cue of the base Pixel 11 by simply eliminating the $499 128GB model while retaining a 256GB model at $599 — much like the current Pixel 10A.
Microsoft is taking Windows Subsystem for Linux beyond just running Linux distributions, as WSL Containers is now generally available.
You can get the feature by running wsl --update, and once installed, there’s a new wslc.exe command-line tool.
Microsoft also includes container.exe as an alias, so you can use more familiar container commands.
“WSL containers CLI: wslc.exe to directly build, run and deploy Linux containers on Windows, or use its built-in alias container.exe to run the same familiar container commands,” Microsoft explained.
There’s also a WSL Containers API, which allows Windows apps to programmatically launch and interact with Linux containers.
“Access functions to run Linux containers programmatically in your native Windows apps – unlocking scenarios like running local AI workloads or using cloud-based containerized applications locally,” Microsoft noted.
The general availability release adds several features that were missing during preview, including restarting containers, copying files in and out, health checks, network connect and disconnect commands, real-time container events, mount support, and configurable storage locations.
Microsoft is also bringing WSL containers to businesses
WSL Containers now integrates with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, so security teams can see process, file, and network activity inside containers and relate it back to the Windows host.
Microsoft Intune can also disable WSL Containers entirely or restrict developers to images from approved container registries.
“With container registry allow lists, administrators can define approved registries and help ensure developers only pull container images from that list, that meet organizational security and compliance requirements,” Microsoft noted.
Microsoft is also working with the broader developer ecosystem.
VS Code Dev Containers can use wslc as their default driver, while Aspire and the VS Code Containers extension now support WSL Containers.
“wsl compose up” is coming next
The most requested missing feature is Docker Compose-style support, and Microsoft says it’s already working on it.
“Our aim is for wsl compose up to work with your existing compose.yaml files, unchanged,” Microsoft said. “We’ve started on this and hope to share more soon.”
Microsoft is also working on WSL’s underlying networking and cross-OS file performance.
The company says WSL Containers can already deliver up to 2x faster performance when accessing Windows files from Linux environments.
Tech & AI
PlayStation 5 emulation is evolving rapidly, and a native PS5-to-PC compatibility layer is now in development
What we know so far: Just a year ago, it seemed unthinkable that PC users would be able to emulate PlayStation 5 games in any meaningful capacity anytime soon. Recent shifts in Sony’s policies, however, appear to have spurred multiple projects to that end over the past few months. While only a handful of games are currently playable, and the larger 3D titles run at unstable framerates, the speed of development makes the trend worth watching.
In mere months, at least two PS5 emulators have gone from having no public releases to playing one of the console’s only true exclusives, the Demon’s Souls remake, at playable framerates. The GitHub pages for SharpEmu and KytyPS5 are spinning out new test releases rapidly, multiple times a day in the case of the latter, as videos showcasing their progress proliferate across YouTube.
While some recent clips show SharpEmu and KytyPS5 managing only single-digit frame rates in Demon’s Souls, others show the latter reaching 40 to 50 fps on an RTX 5090 and an Intel Core i9-14900K. One clip even shows the game hitting 120 fps with DLSS frame generation on top of a steady 30fps render.
Astro Bot is another PS5 exclusive that has reached playable, though still unstable, frame rates in recent days. Even Wolverine, released just two weeks ago, can now reach its main menu on PC, albeit at roughly 2fps.
The timing suggests that most, if not all, public development occurred after Sony moved to scale back PC ports and end physical discs. SharpEmu went public in July, months after the first reports that Sony would pull back on PC support. The first of KytyPS5’s more than 300 GitHub releases arrived that same month, about two weeks after the company announced it will stop manufacturing discs for new PlayStation games starting in 2028.
Although both projects accept AI-generated code, they have clear policies on its use, apparently to avoid accusations of “vibe coded slop” that have recently spread throughout the retro modding scene. Contributors must be able to describe what their code does and manually test it.
As the two projects strive to bring PS5 exclusives to PC through emulation, a third is taking a different approach: running the games natively. AnyPS5 converts executables designed for Sony’s console into formats that Windows or Linux can read, much like compatibility layers such as Wine or Proton.
The method is plausible because, like most Windows and Linux systems, the PS5 is x86-based. For now, AnyPS5 has publicly demonstrated only one game, the 2D platformer Dreaming Sarah, but it holds 60 fps on just a GTX 1050 Ti and an i5-7500, hardware that predates the PS5 by several years. Even an Intel HD Graphics 620 integrated GPU from 2016 can exceed 30 fps. The project has yet to release a public build, however.
Still, predicting future progress for emulators and compatibility layers is difficult. ShadPS4, a PlayStation 4 compatibility layer that heavily inspired AnyPS5, remains in early development several years after its debut.
Learn how engineers can shift from manually managing tools and handoffs to defining objectives and supervising AI-driven execution across the silicon development lifecycle.
Key Takeaways
- Explore four critical technologies enabling silicon design autonomy
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As of September 28, 2026, BoyleSports does not appear on the National Gambling Board’s current verified-operator list or the Western Cape Gambling and Racing Board’s current bookmaker list. A bookmaker is a company that accepts bets, and South African readers should not treat old BoyleSports signup pages as proof that they can currently open and fund a locally licensed BoyleSports account.
Quick Take
- The National Gambling Board’s verified-operator list, last updated September 4, 2026, does not currently list BoyleSports.
- The Western Cape Gambling and Racing Board’s current bookmaker list also does not include BoyleSports.
- Historical South African BoyleSports licensing records help explain why old signup information still appears online, but an old application does not prove that a licence is current.
- Before registering, uploading identification or depositing money with any betting site, verify the legal operator and current licence through the appropriate South African regulator.
Is BoyleSports Still Available in South Africa?
The clearest place to check is a South African regulator, not an old betting review or registration page. The National Gambling Board’s verified-operator portal says its information comes from Provincial Licensing Authorities and was last updated on September 4, 2026. BoyleSports does not currently appear on that list.
The Western Cape Gambling and Racing Board’s current licence-holder page also lists licensed bookmakers in that province. BoyleSports is not among the bookmakers shown there.
This does not mean BoyleSports has stopped operating everywhere. BoyleSports still maintains international services, and its current safer-gambling site identifies a Gibraltar-licensed BoyleSports operator. The narrower point is that the South African regulator records checked for this article do not currently establish BoyleSports as a locally licensed bookmaker for South African customers.
For someone in South Africa, that local licensing question matters more than whether an international BoyleSports page can still be opened in a browser.
Why Old BoyleSports Registration Pages Still Appear
A search result can remain online after a bookmaker changes the countries it serves. That means a page may still contain signup instructions, old promotions, payment details or account-opening advice even when those instructions are no longer current.
This is why a registration guide should not be treated as proof that an operator is available today. Current regulator records are stronger evidence than an undated or outdated commercial page.
The same caution applies to websites that copy a familiar betting brand. A cloned site can reproduce a company name, logo, licence number and legal wording. Before entering a password, identity document or payment details, check how to spot a cloned online casino website by comparing the exact site you are visiting with independently verified operator information.
How South African Betting Licensing Works
In simple terms, an international gambling licence does not automatically allow a company to take online bets from people in South Africa.
The National Gambling Board’s enforcement guidance says betting is a legal form of gambling when the operator is licensed through a provincial gambling board in South Africa. It also states that online gambling is prohibited except for online betting through bookmakers licensed in South Africa for online betting.
The National Gambling Board, or NGB, provides national oversight. A Provincial Licensing Authority is the provincial regulator that licenses and supervises gambling operators in its area. The NGB’s consumer guidance says gambling operators are licensed by these provincial authorities and that licensed online operators should display their licensing information on their digital platforms.
The term interactive gambling refers to forms of online gambling that South African law does not treat as licensed online betting. The NGB specifically distinguishes permitted online betting through licensed South African bookmakers from prohibited interactive gambling.
Warning
A foreign licence, an old South African licence application or a copied licence badge does not establish current South African authorization. Check the legal company, current licence status and permitted activity through an official regulator before registering or paying.
The key question is whether the exact operator holds a current South African bookmaker licence for the service it is offering.
It is also important not to treat every form of online gambling as legally equivalent. A comparison of licensed sports betting and interactive online casino gambling can clarify why the type of gambling activity matters as well as the name of the operator.
BoyleSports Previously Had a South African Licensing Presence
There is genuine historical evidence behind older South African BoyleSports material. A Western Cape Provincial Gazette notice dated December 10, 2021 records an application by BoyleSports (Pty) Ltd for a new bookmaker licence and a bookmaker-premises licence. The notice identifies the South African company’s registration number as 2021/878980/07.
That record shows that BoyleSports pursued South African bookmaker licensing at the time. It does not show that the licence is current in September 2026.
This distinction explains why historical registration information can look convincing. An old government record can be genuine without proving that the same service remains authorized today.
If a website, advertisement or search result later claims that BoyleSports has returned to South Africa, verify that claim before creating an account. Start with the national record, then check the specific licence and operator behind the website.
How to Check Whether BoyleSports Returns to South Africa
Verify the result
What If You Already Had a BoyleSports South Africa Account?
If you used BoyleSports in South Africa previously, recovering information from an old account is different from opening a new account. Do not assume that a newly discovered BoyleSports-branded website is the correct place to enter old login details.
If you need historical account information, use independently verified BoyleSports contact information. BoyleSports’ current safer-gambling page provides international customer-service contact options, but that page does not establish that a South African betting service is currently licensed or available.
Keep useful records such as account emails, deposit or withdrawal receipts, statements, support correspondence and any licensing information that appeared on the service when you used it. Those records can help identify which company and regulator were involved.
If a dispute concerns an older South African operation, first identify the provincial authority connected with that account. The NGB’s consumer guidance says complaints about licensed gambling businesses should normally begin with the Provincial Licensing Authority that issued the licence.
The steps involved when an online bookmaker leaves your country are different from signing up with a currently licensed operator.
Responsible Gambling and Support
If gambling is causing financial or personal problems, support is available independently of any bookmaker. The National Gambling Board’s verified-operator page lists the National Responsible Gambling Programme’s 24-hour toll-free helpline as 0800 006 008 and its WhatsApp service as 076 675 0710.
The same NGB page advises people not to gamble in environments that are absent from its verified-operator list. Checking current licensing is therefore useful both when choosing an operator and when an old brand appears to return.
Bottom Line
The current regulator evidence does not support publishing instructions for opening a BoyleSports account in South Africa. As of September 28, 2026, BoyleSports does not appear in either the NGB verified-operator list checked for this article or the Western Cape Gambling and Racing Board’s current bookmaker list.
Historical licensing records explain why older South African BoyleSports material exists, but those records do not replace a current licence check. If BoyleSports appears to return, verify the legal operator, provincial licence and permitted activity through official South African regulatory records before registering, providing identification or depositing money.
OPPO’s K-series has delivered some of the best value phones. Take the K13 Turbo, for example. While the 2026 smartphone market isn’t that good, OPPO has just launched the K14 Plus in India. It comes with the MediaTek Dimensity 7360 MAX chipset, an 8,000mAh battery, a 1.5K 144Hz AMOLED display, and a 50MP OIS camera that can record 4K video. The K14 Plus also brings several durability-focused features, including IP69K, IP69, IP68, and IP66 ratings, along with what OPPO describes as a Damage-Proof 360° Armor Body. Here’s everything you need to know about it.
At the center of the K14 Plus is MediaTek’s Dimensity 7360 MAX, built on a 4nm process. The chipset uses four Cortex-A78 cores clocked at up to 2.5GHz and four Cortex-A55 cores running at up to 2.0GHz, paired with an Arm Mali-G615 GPU. OPPO says the K14 Plus crossed the 1 million mark on AnTuTu, with the result recorded on the 8GB + 256GB model using AnTuTu Benchmark V12. The phone uses LPDDR4X RAM and UFS 3.1 storage. The 8GB variants also support up to 16GB of RAM expansion for additional multitasking headroom. OPPO has paired the processor with a 5,000 mm² SuperCool VC vapor chamber.
Battery life is another major focus of the K14 Plus. The phone packs an 8,000mAh battery, 1,000mAh larger than the K14, and supports 45W SUPERVOOC charging. OPPO says its lab testing delivered up to 705.4 hours of standby time, 30.33 hours of WhatsApp voice calls, 20.97 hours of YouTube playback, 15.03 hours of Instagram Reels, 14.39 hours of Maps navigation, and 12.64 hours of BGMI at 60fps.
Cameras & Design
For photography, the K14 Plus features a 50MP main camera with OIS, a 1/2-inch sensor, f/1.8 aperture, and autofocus. The rear camera system can record video at up to 4K resolution, with 4K Ultra-Steady video available in supported scenarios. The phone also supports 1080p slow-motion recording at 120fps and 720p slow-motion recording at 240fps. OPPO has included several software-based imaging features, including Turbo RAW multi-frame processing, AI Night Mode, Dual-View recording, Motion Photos, and in-sensor zoom. The front features a 16MP Sony IMX480 camera.
The K14 Plus has a 17.22cm 1.5K AMOLED display with an adaptive refresh rate up to 144Hz. OPPO claims a peak brightness of 3,600 nits, while full-screen brightness can reach 1,800 nits. The display also supports 2,160Hz high-frequency PWM dimming at low brightness and touch sampling rates of up to 240Hz.
The K14 Plus is built around OPPO’s “Built to Last” approach, and that extends beyond its battery. The phone uses what OPPO calls a Damage-Proof 360° Armor Body, combining an aerospace-grade aluminum alloy frame with structural collision beams, cushioning, and reinforced construction. The device carries IP69K, IP69, IP68, and IP66 ratings, covering different levels of resistance against dust and water exposure. OPPO says the aluminum structure has also passed 1,000 bend cycles.
Apple will let customers set up their iPhone Duo pre-order starting October 12, four days before orders open on October 16.
Apple’s first foldable iPhone, known as the iPhone Duo, debuted on September 9, alongside the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max. While the latter two are already available for purchase, those looking to get an iPhone Duo will have to wait until mid-October 2026.
Pre-orders for iPhone Duo start at 8 AM ET on Friday, October 16, but Apple says its customers can “get ready” for pre-orders starting October 12.
In essence, it will be possible to customize your iPhone Duo even before pre-orders officially open. From October 12 through October 15, you can select your desired accessories, color, carrier, storage option, shipping address, billing address, AppleCare+ plan, and payment method.
Preparing in advance will let you pre-order the iPhone Duo much more quickly, and it might help you acquire the device on its scheduled release day. Given the rumors around limited supply chain output, you’ll want every advantage you can get when ordering the iPhone Duo.
Apple says iPhone Duo availability begins on October 23.
Apple’s AirPods 5 have replaceable batteries in the earbuds, but the charging case remains inaccessible even with the best tools available. Here’s how iFixit fared in its latest teardown.
The AirPods line has always been a thorn in Apple’s side, at least when it comes to environmental responsibility. These earbuds and charging case have always been irreparable hunks of plastic destined for a garbage dump at the end of their short life.
However, iFixit has discovered a small glimmer of hope in the AirPods 5. The long-running repairability score for AirPods has been zero, until the latest model received a slight bump to two.
The charging case is still impossible to access, so there’s no saving that no matter how skilled you are with a knife and heat gun. The improved score is owed entirely to a change in the earbuds.
When properly clamped with a bit of heat, a technician can remove the earbud’s outer cover and expose the battery. That battery comes free from a bit of glue, and is attached via two prongs.
Each earbud has an opposite polarity battery, so the batteries aren’t interchangeable between the earbuds. At the least, it seems users can save their earbuds from the garbage with a battery swap.
The charging case has a larger battery, so it theoretically will take longer to reach end-of-life. However, when that happens, the owner has no choice but to buy a new charging case or a whole new set of AirPods.
An accessible battery goes a long way for repairability. Image source: iFixit
Out of all of Apple’s products, AirPods are the ones that are consistently the worst for repairability. If Apple wants to reach its goals for Apple 2030 and reduce waste, getting more repairable products to the consumer has to be a priority.
Perhaps Apple will learn how to introduce a more repairable charging case in AirPods Pro 4. Until then, expect to have to buy a whole new pair of AirPods every two to three years as the batteries age and die.
Lexus bucks the trend when it comes to depreciation. Luxury cars generally tend to depreciate steeply over their first few years on sale — in fact, virtually all of the worst depreciating cars on the market are made by luxury brands. Meanwhile, many Lexus vehicles depreciate at a rate that’s more typical of an economy car. In KBB’s 2026 Best Resale Value Awards, Lexus took the title for the best luxury brand. Perhaps even more impressively, its UX, RX, and NX SUVs all ranked among the very best SUVs on the market for resale value, beating every SUV from every non-luxury brand aside from Honda and Toyota.
With the brand’s SUVs being so exceptionally good at retaining their value, you might expect that its sedans, like the LS, are just as much of a safe bet. Unfortunately, the answer isn’t quite so clear-cut, with estimates varying considerably. Some are very positive: According to iSeeCars data, the LS depreciates close to the rate of the average sedan. After five years, the research platform reports that the LS loses just over 40 percent of its value.
Not everyone agrees, however. CarEdge reports a notably bigger drop in value over the same time period, but it still puts the LS ahead of the likes of the BMW 7-Series. The outlet says that the Lexus loses an average of 53 percent of its value after five years on the road. Meanwhile, KBB forecasts that a 2025 LS can be expected to lose a disappointing 67 percent of its original value over its first half decade.
Why do depreciation estimates for the LS vary so much?
There’s no foolproof way to predict depreciation, and different outlets using slightly different methodologies can sometimes lead to wildly different results. Part of the issue with forecasting rates for the LS is that there is only a very small number of nearly-new examples on the used market to begin with.
Sales for the LS in America have dropped pretty consistently since the latest generation was introduced in 2018, with Lexus only selling around 1,000 examples of the car in 2025, according to data from CarFigures. Many of the more recently purchased examples of the car are likely to still be with their first owners, which makes getting an accurate picture of their resale value more tricky than evaluating a best-selling car with plenty of used market supply.
At the time of writing, searching the car resale platform AutoTrader for a 2021 Lexus LS 500 brings up only a few dozen results nationwide. Available cars range in price from around $36,000 for a high-mileage example to around $65,000 for a low-mileage, dealer-approved model. With such limited data available, a data set that features only a few more listings of higher-priced examples or a few more lower-priced examples could result in a significantly different average depreciation rate.
Is it worth buying an LS in 2026?
Lexus is discontinuing the LS after the 2026 model year, and for buyers looking to snap up one of the last remaining examples, these varied depreciation estimates mean that the car is a riskier bet than one of the brand’s SUV models. Values for Lexus cars on average remain stronger than rival luxury brands, but SUVs are more popular with buyers than sedans by a significant margin, and there is very little to suggest that popularity will wane in the immediate future. In turn, the lower demand for sedans has the potential to weaken buyer appetite for the LS on the used market going forwards, which could push resale rates closer to the more negative estimates.
For buyers looking for a used LS, the low sales of recent model years are potentially both a good and bad thing. Depending on where you live, it might be trickier to find an attractively-priced example of the car in your area, but if you can find one, you can potentially negotiate a good deal on it. Just be sure to avoid making any of the common used car buying mistakes, especially since LS values can vary so much, and so a car in more messy condition could be worth significantly less when it’s time to sell it on.
GM and LG Energy Solution will spend $1B turning their Spring Hill plant into the first factory to mass-produce prismatic lithium manganese-rich cells. Europe’s carmakers are spending comparable sums on lithium iron phosphate, the chemistry GM’s battery chief says may never earn its way into its cars.
General Motors and LG Energy Solution will spend $1B turning their Spring Hill plant in Tennessee into the first factory to mass-produce prismatic lithium manganese-rich cells, or LMR. Work starts later this year and finishes by 2028. It is the first time either has named a site for the chemistry.
The cells carry far less cobalt and nickel than GM’s current ones, and much more manganese. GM claims 33% more energy density than the best lithium iron phosphate cells at the same cost, as InsideEVs reported.
It wants that in full-size pickups and large sport utility vehicles, with over 400 miles of range. The first cars are due in 2028.
The money builds on $2.3B committed in 2021 and $275M more in 2022. The plant already makes lithium iron phosphate cells, but for energy storage rather than cars.
GM had already committed $900M to the chemistry, with a pilot line in Warren, Michigan making 2,500 cells a day. Spring Hill is where volume comes from.
Kurt Kelty, GM’s battery chief, went further in June. Lithium iron phosphate may never earn its way into GM’s portfolio at all, he told electrive.
Europe is moving the other way. Volkswagen just sold 49% of its Spanish battery venture to Gotion to make lithium iron phosphate at Valencia. Stellantis and CATL are building 50 GWh of it at Zaragoza.
Europe is betting that cheap cells matter more than dense ones, because the cars built here are small. GM is betting that dense cells can be made cheap.
The catch is the material. LG Energy Solution’s research showed the cells holding 92.2% of capacity after 883 cycles, which answers the durability objection. It does not answer where the manganese comes from.
The European Commission says the bloc is fully dependent on imports of battery-grade manganese. Reliance runs at 96% for extraction and 66% for processing, against demand forecast at 74,000 tonnes by 2030.
GM’s plans have not run smoothly. The Ohio cell plant restarted in August after seven idle months, closed when the US tax credit was withdrawn.
Manganese is a strategic raw material under the Critical Raw Materials Act. Swapping cobalt for manganese would cut one European dependency and deepen another.
Spring Hill finishes in 2028, the year the first cars should carry the cells. No European plant has been announced for the chemistry.
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