A UAE company with big ambitions to rival Tesla on the global stage of production of autonomous vehicles and humanoid robots unveiled its latest off-road hybrid military vehicle in Abu Dhabi.
The Eneron Magnus border patrol vehicle has been built from scratch in the UAE in under three months and is a marker for autonomous electric military vehicles of the very near future.
The concept car is the latest project from government owned Kintsugi Holding, that specialises in autonomous ground transport and the development of humanoid robots that can perform laborious, and dangerous tasks currently completed by humans.
The speciality vehicles have been developed in partnership with the UAE National Guard, and were on show at the Idex defence and security conference in Abu Dhabi on Monday, which was attended by President Sheikh Mohamed, as well as Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, and Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed, Crown Prince of Dubai, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence, who were briefed on a number of the defence systems on display.
What sets the Magnus aside from other autonomous transport is its sleek muscular looks, bulletproof Kevlar shell and 800km range thanks to an electric battery and on board diesel generator.
Composite panels on either side of the vehicle are engineered to pair with ballistic steel and a composite chassis, providing level two ballistic protection from landmines and other incendiary devices.
Its six-seater cabin is similar in size to the Tesla Cybertruck, which is also electric, and can be brought for about $81,000. Kintsugi would not reveal how much the Magnus cost to develop or how much it would retail at, if it becomes commercially available.
More than 20 cameras offer a 360 degree of the outside, while ladar and radar sensors have the vehicle ready for autonomous driving, and an escape hatch in the roof allows for a quick emergency exit.
A futuristic interior features a high-tech digital cockpit design, purpose-built for border patrol operations, while a multifunctional steering wheel and a 10.4-inch central touchscreen with hotkeys is designed for intuitive accessibility.
Sean Teo, managing director of Kintsugi Holding, said common problems with using electric batteries to power heavy armour plated vehicles has been the drain on power, and resulting short range.
“We wanted to completely reinvent the military vehicle,” Mr Teo, told The National. “People said it was crazy to design a vehicle like this because one of the biggest challenges was generating enough torque. When you're going uphill, after a while the electricity becomes too hot. So we’ve had to refine the entire design to overcome the heat issue by adding a diesel generator.”
Electric power
An electric motor provides 800KW of power, generating a top speed of 130kph and acceleration from a standing start to 100kph in just seven seconds.
Abu Dhabi police has commissioned a smaller version of the Magnus, the Magnum, that can be used for motorway patrols, and emergency response, while Civil Defence is also said to be interested in adding the vehicle to its fleet.
Michael Robinson, a design consultant for Kintsugi, brought his 45 years of experience in the Italian car market to develop the Magnus’s eye-catching looks.
“It's a giant vehicle, much larger than anything I've ever worked on before, so it's already in a different class,” he said. “I wanted to bring in a new architecture into this industry which tends to be very boxy, with flat, vertical windshields. The entire body is done in Kevlar, so it's very structurally robust and gives the possibility to do muscular, aggressive shapes.
"It is 100 per cent EV hybrid, with one electric engine in the front axle and one in the rear axle, but the diesel just charges the battery up so we can do 800km which is amazing in such a big beast. We did this in record time, six months to do the engineering on this thing and then three months to build it.”
Robo taxis
Kintsugi said it is in talks to fill the gap in the autonomous taxi market left behind by the issues faced with Cruise, the US self-driving vehicle manufacturer that was trialling routes for its driverless cars in Dubai.
In 2023, regulators in California ordered Cruise – a subsidiary of General Motors – to stop its driverless taxi service in San Francisco after a near fatal incident with a pedestrian who was dragged several metres by the autonomous vehicle.
Mr Teo said the failure of others to develop safe driverless vehicles had created an opportunity for robotaxis built in the UAE by Kintsugi.
“This (Cruise incident) made it all the more important to make sure that we manufacture these vehicles locally, so we can control the availability and quality of services,” he said. “By the end of June you should see about 20 of these vehicles running around the island (Abu Dhabi).”
Disclaimer
Director: Alfonso Cuaron
Stars: Cate Blanchett, Kevin Kline, Lesley Manville
Rating: 4/5
UK’s AI plan
- AI ambassadors such as MIT economist Simon Johnson, Monzo cofounder Tom Blomfield and Google DeepMind’s Raia Hadsell
- £10bn AI growth zone in South Wales to create 5,000 jobs
- £100m of government support for startups building AI hardware products
- £250m to train new AI models
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Schedule
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Libya's Gold
UN Panel of Experts found regime secretly sold a fifth of the country's gold reserves.
The panel’s 2017 report followed a trail to West Africa where large sums of cash and gold were hidden by Abdullah Al Senussi, Qaddafi’s former intelligence chief, in 2011.
Cases filled with cash that was said to amount to $560m in 100 dollar notes, that was kept by a group of Libyans in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
A second stash was said to have been held in Accra, Ghana, inside boxes at the local offices of an international human rights organisation based in France.
Desert Warrior
Starring: Anthony Mackie, Aiysha Hart, Ben Kingsley
Director: Rupert Wyatt
Rating: 3/5
Earth under attack: Cosmic impacts throughout history
- 4.5 billion years ago: Mars-sized object smashes into the newly-formed Earth, creating debris that coalesces to form the Moon
- 66 million years ago: 10km-wide asteroid crashes into the Gulf of Mexico, wiping out over 70 per cent of living species – including the dinosaurs.
- 50,000 years ago: 50m-wide iron meteor crashes in Arizona with the violence of 10 megatonne hydrogen bomb, creating the famous 1.2km-wide Barringer Crater
- 1490: Meteor storm over Shansi Province, north-east China when large stones “fell like rain”, reportedly leading to thousands of deaths.
- 1908: 100-metre meteor from the Taurid Complex explodes near the Tunguska river in Siberia with the force of 1,000 Hiroshima-type bombs, devastating 2,000 square kilometres of forest.
- 1998: Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 breaks apart and crashes into Jupiter in series of impacts that would have annihilated life on Earth.
-2013: 10,000-tonne meteor burns up over the southern Urals region of Russia, releasing a pressure blast and flash that left over 1600 people injured.
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Panipat
Director Ashutosh Gowariker
Produced Ashutosh Gowariker, Rohit Shelatkar, Reliance Entertainment
Cast Arjun Kapoor, Sanjay Dutt, Kriti Sanon, Mohnish Behl, Padmini Kolhapure, Zeenat Aman
Rating 3 /5 stars
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%3Cp%3EYe%20%E2%80%94%20the%20rapper%20formerly%20known%20as%20Kanye%20West%20%E2%80%94%20has%20seen%20his%20net%20worth%20fall%20to%20%24400%20million%20in%20recent%20weeks.%20That%E2%80%99s%20a%20precipitous%20drop%20from%20Bloomberg%E2%80%99s%20estimates%20of%20%246.8%20billion%20at%20the%20end%20of%202021.%3Cbr%3EYe%E2%80%99s%20wealth%20plunged%20after%20business%20partners%2C%20including%20Adidas%2C%20severed%20ties%20with%20him%20on%20the%20back%20of%20anti-Semitic%20remarks%20earlier%20this%20year.%3Cbr%3EWest%E2%80%99s%20present%20net%20worth%20derives%20from%20cash%2C%20his%20music%2C%20real%20estate%20and%20a%20stake%20in%20former%20wife%20Kim%20Kardashian%E2%80%99s%20shapewear%20firm%2C%20Skims.%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
How to wear a kandura
Dos
- Wear the right fabric for the right season and occasion
- Always ask for the dress code if you don’t know
- Wear a white kandura, white ghutra / shemagh (headwear) and black shoes for work
- Wear 100 per cent cotton under the kandura as most fabrics are polyester
Don’ts
- Wear hamdania for work, always wear a ghutra and agal
- Buy a kandura only based on how it feels; ask questions about the fabric and understand what you are buying
More coverage from the Future Forum
US PGA Championship in numbers
1 Joost Luiten produced a memorable hole in one at the par-three fourth in the first round.
2 To date, the only two players to win the PGA Championship after winning the week before are Rory McIlroy (2014 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational) and Tiger Woods (2007, WGC-Bridgestone Invitational). Hideki Matsuyama or Chris Stroud could have made it three.
3 Number of seasons without a major for McIlroy, who finished in a tie for 22nd.
4 Louis Oosthuizen has now finished second in all four of the game's major championships.
5 In the fifth hole of the final round, McIlroy holed his longest putt of the week - from 16ft 8in - for birdie.
6 For the sixth successive year, play was disrupted by bad weather with a delay of one hour and 43 minutes on Friday.
7 Seven under par (64) was the best round of the week, shot by Matsuyama and Francesco Molinari on Day 2.
8 Number of shots taken by Jason Day on the 18th hole in round three after a risky recovery shot backfired.
9 Jon Rahm's age in months the last time Phil Mickelson missed the cut in the US PGA, in 1995.
10 Jimmy Walker's opening round as defending champion was a 10-over-par 81.
11 The par-four 11th coincidentally ranked as the 11th hardest hole overall with a scoring average of 4.192.
12 Paul Casey was a combined 12 under par for his first round in this year's majors.
13 The average world ranking of the last 13 PGA winners before this week was 25. Kevin Kisner began the week ranked 25th.
14 The world ranking of Justin Thomas before his victory.
15 Of the top 15 players after 54 holes, only Oosthuizen had previously won a major.
16 The par-four 16th marks the start of Quail Hollow's so-called "Green Mile" of finishing holes, some of the toughest in golf.
17 The first round scoring average of the last 17 major champions was 67.2. Kisner and Thorbjorn Olesen shot 67 on day one at Quail Hollow.
18 For the first time in 18 majors, the eventual winner was over par after round one (Thomas shot 73).
Greatest Royal Rumble results
John Cena pinned Triple H in a singles match
Cedric Alexander retained the WWE Cruiserweight title against Kalisto
Matt Hardy and Bray Wyatt win the Raw Tag Team titles against Cesaro and Sheamus
Jeff Hardy retained the United States title against Jinder Mahal
Bludgeon Brothers retain the SmackDown Tag Team titles against the Usos
Seth Rollins retains the Intercontinental title against The Miz, Finn Balor and Samoa Joe
AJ Styles remains WWE World Heavyweight champion after he and Shinsuke Nakamura are both counted out
The Undertaker beats Rusev in a casket match
Brock Lesnar retains the WWE Universal title against Roman Reigns in a steel cage match
Braun Strowman won the 50-man Royal Rumble by eliminating Big Cass last
The specs: 2018 BMW X2 and X3
Price, as tested: Dh255,150 (X2); Dh383,250 (X3)
Engine: 2.0-litre turbocharged inline four-cylinder (X2); 3.0-litre twin-turbo inline six-cylinder (X3)
Power 192hp @ 5,000rpm (X2); 355hp @ 5,500rpm (X3)
Torque: 280Nm @ 1,350rpm (X2); 500Nm @ 1,520rpm (X3)
Transmission: Seven-speed automatic (X2); Eight-speed automatic (X3)
Fuel consumption, combined: 5.7L / 100km (X2); 8.3L / 100km (X3)
