A luxury car brand once hailed as Spain’s equivalent to Rolls Royce or Bentley and a favourite of the royal family is wowing critics with a new design that it hopes will restore the brand's global reputation.

Hispano Suiza's 'Carmen' is a lightweight supercar that's largely built from carbon fibre and powered entirely by electricity.  The supercar costs £1.3m, has 1,005 bhp and can accelerate to 62 mph in under three seconds with a top speed of 155mph.  Currently at the concept stage, it would be the first production vehicle from the firm - who rose to popularity in the Roaring Twenties - since its original incarnation went bust in 1968.

According to its makers, the 4.7m-long, two-seater Carmen is aimed at the emerging 'hyperlux' market, which combines hypercar performance with top-end levels of luxury.

The Carmen uses batteries used in Formula E, a motor racing division that uses only electric-powered cars -  to produce all the  of energy in its rear wheels, with the speed electronically limited at 155mph.  'We limit the top speed because we don't think there's sense in any more', said Technical director Luci Marti who spoke to top Gear.

The car weighs in at just 1,690kg, made possible by lightweight material in the interior and carbonfibre in its frames.  According to Hispano Suiza, the new model is said to be one of the most 'carbonfibre-intense cars in the world'.

Miguel Suqué Mateu, the great grandson of the founder and current president of Hispano Suiza Fábrica de Automóviles S.A. talks called the making of the new model: 'Succeeding in realising a dream we had for years, seeing once again the Hispano Suiza on the road, all around the world.'  He said: 'Back in 1900, when Hispano Suiza started, it built the first electric car in the world, but the prototype was never industrially manufactured.  Now, 119 years later, in March 2019, Hispano Suiza has its first 100% electric car, offering great performance and manufactured in Barcelona, the realisation of my great grandfather's dream.'

Mr Luci, who spent three years at Koenigsegg, which has produced the world's first 300mph car, said: 'Even though I came from Koenigsegg this is a dream job.  There, we had the old chassis and engine and suspension, here I was given a white sheet of paper and told 'create the car'.  I was like 'really, I can put everything I've learned in this chassis?  I don't want to compete with the performance of a Koenigsegg or a Rimac'.

The Carmen has been entirely designed and built by QEV Technologies, a company based in Barcelona that researches and develops electric vehicles which also manages the Mahindra team in Formula E, a racing series for electronic cars.

The Hispano Suiza has been owned by four generations of the Suqué Mateu family, which is trying to revive its brand as a luxury supercar.  The brand has however not produced any new models for 70s years, as after World War II, the company moved into aerospace design and manufacture and today it exists as a subsidiary of French manufacturing giant Safran.

The full name of the model is Carmen Mateu, named after the current president's mother, who was the granddaughter of the firm's original founder.

The annual production run of the Carmen will be seven cars and the total production number will be limited to 19, say its makers.  Back in the Twenties and Thirties, the brand was renowned as top of the range in luxury vehicles that put it on par with the likes of Rolls-Royce and Bugatti today.  It was supposedly a favourite of the Spanish monarchs, as well as members of the Rothschild family, and even Picasso.

Asked who the car is aimed at, Mr Marti explained that it is definitely the same luxury market that appreciates the classically inspired designs of the brand, but hopefully with a fewer additions.  He said: 'We are after a new market; collectors mainly and perhaps fewer young people, and instead those who know what Hispano Suiza is.  The styling is heavily inspired by the 1938 Hispano Suiza Dubonnet Xenia, so they really won't be young if they remember that.  The teardrop shape, covered rear wheels and round headlamps are all a direct nod to a car from 81 years ago, a unique attitude in the electric car segment.'

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Vegetable patches are moving from back gardens to the front of people’s homes so they can show off to their neighbours.

No longer are gardeners hiding muddy vegetable patches at the bottom of their gardens with an abandoned spade and some slug-ravaged lettuce leaves.  Urban gardeners, who often do not even have a back garden, are instead growing fashionable vegetables like chillis and sweet potatoes in hanging baskets and plant pots.

Experts say they are doing so to impress other people, as the ‘grow-your-own’ trend has seen fruit and vegetable seed sales outstrip flowers in Royal Horticultural Society garden centres.

Wyevale Garden Centres has reported that 40 per cent of homes now have hanging baskets, with the fashion for growing vegetables in them driving the trend.

Mark Sage, head of horticulture at Wyevale Garden Centres, said: ‘Gone are the days when gardeners need vast amounts of space and traditional Peter Rabbit-style veg patches to grow their own.  Impressive displays of fruit and vegetables are guaranteed to gain the attention of neighbours when they are near the front door.  Aside from keeping up with the Joneses, Brits are taking their displays one step further so they can put pictures of them on social media.’

Millennials are mixing up fresh produce and ornamental flowers in hanging baskets near their front doors, according to experts.

Favourites for ‘miniature vegetable patches’ in hanging baskets include tomatoes, strawberries, lettuce, pak choi and peas.

Wyevale Garden Centres’ Garden Trends report, based on survey data from more than 27,000 British gardeners, says a gardening project to create a ‘mini kitchen garden in a pot’ was one of its most popular social media items last year.  The report says sales of hanging baskets have doubled between 2012 and this year.

Mr Sage added: ‘The nation’s space squeeze is moving the veg patch away from its typical spot in the corner of the back garden and into the spotlight by the front door.  Innovative modern vegetable patches can fit into containers as small as hanging baskets, window boxes or pots by the front door or on the kitchen windowsill.’

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A stunning series of images released recently has captured the moment two supersonic planes break the speed of sound to produce simultaneous sonic booms with interacting shockwaves.  The breathtaking photos mark the first time this effect has ever been imaged, according to NASA.

It comes more than 10 years in the making, relying on an advanced air-to-air photographic technology that could help the space agency collect the data it needs to develop its ‘quiet’ supersonic plane.

Physical Scientist J.T. Heineck of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View said: ‘We never dreamt that it would be this clear, this beautiful.  I am ecstatic about how these images turned out.  With this upgraded system, we have, by an order of magnitude, improved both the speed and quality of our imagery from previous research.’

The team captured the incredible images during the fourth phase of Air-to-Air Background Oriented Schlieren flights, or AirBOS, at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California.

With the upgraded imaging system, scientists were able to document the moment shockwaves ripple out from each of the two planes as they exceed the speed of sound.

The tests used a pair of T-38 aircraft from the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base flying just 30 feet apart, with an altitude difference of just 10 feet.

In the images, the shockwaves can be seen eventually merging together as they ripple through the atmosphere.

Neal Smith, a research engineer with AerospaceComputing Inc. at NASA Ames’ fluid mechanics laboratory said: ‘We’re looking at a supersonic flow, which is why we’re getting these shockwaves.  What’s interesting is, if you look at the rear T-38, you see these shocks kind of interact in a curve.  This is because the trailing T-38 is flying in the wake of the leading aircraft, so the shocks are going to be shaped differently.  This data is really going to help us advance our understanding of how these shocks interact.’

NASA has been working to develop its own supersonic craft with a quieter sonic boom, with hopes to enable supersonic flights over land.  The X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology X-plane, or X-59 QueSST, will produce more of a sonic ‘rumble.’

With the new imaging system, NASA will be able to capture crucial data for the design of its craft, enabling shockwaves that don’t give off the characteristic boom.

Dan Banks, senior research engineer at NASA Armstrong said: ‘We’re seeing a level of physical detail here that I don’t think anybody has ever seen before.  Just looking at the data for the first time, I think things worked out better than we’d imagined.  This is a very big step.’

The new images were captured from a NASA B-200 King Air using an upgraded camera system.  The team also developed a new installation system to slash the time it takes to fit the aircraft with the upgraded cameras.

But, getting the shot wasn’t easy.  The King Air flying a pattern around 30,000 feet had to be in the exact right spot as the two T-38s passed supersonic speeds roughly 2,000 feet below.

Heather Maliska, AirBOS sub-project manager said: ‘The biggest challenge was trying to get the timing correct to make sure we could get these images.  I am absolutely happy with how the team was able to pull this off.  Our operations team has done this type of maneuver before.  They know how to get the maneuver lined up, and our NASA pilots and the Air Force pilots did a great job being where they needed to be. They were rock stars.’

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A human being has controlled a robot hand from more than 5,000 miles away in a world first that could revolutionise the world of robotics.  The robot successfully transmitted the feeling of touch across the Atlantic, from California to London, allowing for instantaneous and lifelike remote control.

A demonstrator - equipped with a special glove - picked up balls, typed words on a keyboard and played chess in real time.  Three tech firms joined forces on the project which simulates touch and allows for long-distance control of robots.  Future applications, experts say, include bomb disposal, space exploration and breakthroughs in methods of communication.

SynTouch and HaptX in California watched alongside Shadow Robot Company in London and Madrid when a demonstration proved the concept works.

A California-based operator used a haptic glove to control a dexterous robotic hand in London and typed 'Hello, World!' on a keyboard in the British capital, more than 5,000 miles away.  The so-called Telerobot was also able to play Jenga, build a pyramid of plastic cups and move chess pieces.

Rich Walker, Managing Director of Shadow Robot Company said: 'This teleoperation system lets humans and robots share their sense of touch across the globe - it's a step ahead in what can be felt and done remotely.  We can now deliver remote touch and dexterity for people to build on for applications like safeguarding people from hazardous tasks, or just doing a job without having to fly there!  It's not touch-typing yet, but we can feel what we touch when we're typing!'

Its developers say the 'Shadow Telehand' is capable of remote handling of materials from afar and not endangering human life.  It would also be able to replace physical interactions with humans and sensitive subjects, such as in the developing of pharmaceuticals and avoiding contamination.

Jake Rubin, Founder and CEO of HaptX said: 'Touch is a cornerstone of the next generation of human-machine interface technologies.  We're honored to be part of a joint engineering effort that is literally extending the reach of humankind.'

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Scientists may finally have cracked the code to using DNA to pinpoint a specific individual from a set of identical twins.

Since it was first introduced to the courts in the 1980s, DNA analysis has transformed the way we approach criminal investigations.  But, despite more than 30 years of advancements since, there’s still one scenario that can stand in the way of nailing down the right suspect even when DNA is present: identical twins.

Identical twins arise from the same fertilized egg, and standard DNA tests are so-far unable to pinpoint the minute differences.  That means in cases where one twin commits a crime, it sometimes ends up that both walk free, as prosecutors are unable to conclude which of the two really did it.

The identical twin problem has stood in the way of both criminal investigations and paternity tests, researchers explain in a new study published to the journal Plos One.

With their new test based on DNA sequencing, however, the team may finally have broken ground.  Instead of looking at hundreds or even thousands of mutated segments to spot the differences between twins, researchers behind the new study propose comparing their entire genomes.

The current techniques are ‘hampered by the fact that the two individuals usually coincide for the genetic markers tested,’ the researchers explain.  But thanks to recent advances in genome sequencing, it’s now possible to assess DNA in much greater detail than ever before.

Identical twins – or monozygotic (MZ) twins – may start out from the same egg, but each take on their own mutations as they develop.  It’s these mutations that could help to reveal who in a pair is tied to a given DNA sample.  Doing this accurately would require ‘a genome-wide search for those few mutations that occur during early embryonic development and hence allow distinguishing between MZ twins in later life,’ the researchers say.

Lead author Michael Krawczak has been investigating the possibility of comparing twins’ unique mutations for years, and published a set of initial calculations in 2012 to settle a hypothetical paternity dispute.  A team at Eurofins Scientific in Brussels then picked up on the research and tested it out themselves using DNA from a pair of identical twin volunteers, and the wife and child of one of the men, according to the New York Times.  And in a proof of concept for the technique, the researchers were able to distinguish between the child’s father and uncle by comparing their whole genomes.

Krawczak’s team has now published a general mathematical framework to back up the method, in a step toward its use in forensic investigations.  But, it’s still in the early stages and will require much more testing before it can be adopted by the courts, experts note.

Steven A. McCarroll, a Harvard Medical School geneticist who was not involved in the study, told NYT, ‘It would be really nice to know that we could do this kind of analysis over and over and over again and never get it wrong.’

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China and India have planted so many trees that the world is now greener than it was 20 years ago, a counterintuitive new study claims.  The superpowers are two of the world's top three most polluting nations and the increase in foliage is mostly a result of 'ambitious tree planting programs'.

NASA research discovered there is five per cent more greenery every year compared to the 2000s, resulting in more than two million square miles of extra greenery - the equivalent of more than the Amazon rainforest.  But researchers say this increase in vegetation is not enough to offset the damage of deforestation.

Chi Chen from Boston University, who led the research, said China and India ‘account for one-third of the greening, but contain only 9 per cent of the planet's land area covered in vegetation’.

The greening on the planet was first detected in the mid-1990s and from images provided by NASA'S MODIS tool which orbits the Earth on two satellites and provides high resolution images of Earth's surface.

China is responsible for a quarter of the overall increase in green leaf area but has only 6.6 per cent of all the world's foliage.  Forty-two per cent comes from forests and a further 32 per cent comes from farmland.

India has contributed a further 6.8 per cent rise in green leaf area.

Scientists say it is important to factor in this latest finding into future climate change prediction models.

Rama Nemani, a research scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center, and a co-author of the work said: 'This long-term data lets us dig deeper.  When the greening of the Earth was first observed, we thought it was due to a warmer, wetter climate and fertilisation from the added carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, leading to more leaf growth in northern forests, for instance.  Now, with the MODIS data that lets us understand the phenomenon at really small scales, we see that humans are also contributing.'

The research was published in the journal Nature Sustainability.

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Boeing has unveiled a new autonomous fighter jet plane that's designed to be a sidekick for piloted planes and could take to the skies as soon as 2020.

The unmanned drone, dubbed the 'Loyal Wingman,' is 38 feet long, has a 2,000 nautical mile range and is equipped with onboard sensors that enable it to conduct intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions, as well as electronic warfare.  It's particularly suited for long-distance surveillance missions that humans can't typically perform, according to the firm.

Wingman may also be able to carry missiles or bombs at some point in the future.  Boeing hopes to sell the planes to customers around the world, though for now it remains a prototype design.

The aerospace giant revealed the drone, which it says is part of a new unmanned platform, called the Boeing Airpower Teaming System, at the Australian International Airshow on 26 February.  It's being developed in Australia as part of a classified program and marks the country's first domestically developed combat aircraft since World War II.

Boeing claims that the fighter jet will cost a 'fraction' of a typical manned fighter, but declined to share what it will be priced at, noting that the number will vary depending on the jet specifications chosen by each buyer.

Kristin Robertson, vice president and general manager of Boeing Autonomous Systems, said: 'It is operationally very flexible, modular, multi-mission.  It is a very disruptive price point.  Fighter-like capability at a fraction of the cost.'

She declined to specify whether it could reach supersonic speeds, common for modern fighter aircraft.

Robertson described the Wingman as a 'force multiplier' for military units around the world that may need the extra manpower.

'With its ability to reconfigure quickly and perform different types of missions in tandem with other aircraft, our newest addition to Boeing's portfolio will truly be a force multiplier as it protects and projects air power,' she said.

Four to six of the new aircraft can fly alongside a F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, said Shane Arnott, director of Boeing research and prototype arm Phantom Works International.

Not only can the jets fly for longer periods than humans, but they're also capable of withstanding higher g-forces and have high-powered computers that can process large amounts of data quickly.

'To bring that extra component and the advantage of unmanned capability, you can accept a higher level of risk.  It is better for one of these to take a hit than for a manned platform, ' he said.

Further details of the 'Loyal Wingman' project remain scant but it's understood the primary purpose of the drone is to conduct electronic warfare and reconnaissance missions in 'risky' terrain.

The UAV is said to be capable of flying up to several thousand kilometres, and can also carrying sensors or electronic warfare equipment on its underside.

The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies in the United States said last year that the US Air Force should explore pairing crewed and uncrewed aircraft to expand its fleet and complement a limited number of 'exquisite, expensive, but highly potent fifth-generation aircraft' like the F-35.

The policy paper said: 'Human performance factors are a major driver behind current aerial combat practices.  Humans can only pull a certain number of G's, fly for a certain number of hours, or process a certain amount of information at a given time.'

The precise amount of investment the US firm has pumped into the endeavor remains unknown but it's believed to be the largest investment in UAVs outside the US.

The Australian government is investing $28.75 million (A$40 million) in the prototype program due to its 'enormous capability for exports,' Minister for Defence Christopher Pyne told reporters at the Australian International Airshow.

The drones could be used alongside existing Royal Australian Air Force aircraft such as the P-8A Poseidon.

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People tend to feel strongly about matters of sexual morality, such as premarital sex or gay marriage.  Some sources of these differences are obvious.  Religion, media portrayals and parents and peers are big social forces that shape attitudes about sex.  But could something as innocuous as the way we look spark these different outlooks, too?  In a recently published article, I studied this question.

Beauty and opportunity

Compared with the rest of us, most beautiful people lead charmed lives.  Studies show that pretty people tend to get favorable treatment.  They secure better jobs and earn higher salaries.  Others are friendlier toward them.

With this extra money and social support, they’re better equipped to fend off any consequences of their actions.  For instance, the better-looking can get more benefit of the doubt from juries.  Their lives are most charmed, though, in matters of sex and romance.  While many benefits of beauty are small – a slightly higher salary offer here, a better performance evaluation there – the romantic benefits are larger and more consistent.

Good-looking people on average have more sexual opportunities and partners.  Could this create a sense, among attractive people, that anything goes when it comes to sex?  Could it make them less inclined to value sexual purity?

And might sexually experienced people belittle the moral costs of sex in order to feel better about their own past conduct?  If so, we would expect good-looking people to be the most tolerant ones where sex is concerned.  They would have less restrictive views on issues like premarital sex, abortion or gay marriage.

A link to conservatism?

But you could also argue the opposite.  Higher salaries and greater success in the job market might pull good-looking people toward more conservative views when it comes to taxes or economic justice.

Since conservatives, on average, dislike sexual freedom more than liberals do, identifying with conservatives for economic reasons – or simply moving in conservative social circles – might make the beautiful less, not more, tolerant where sex is concerned.

Along these lines, studies have found that good looks are associated with conservatism among politicians.  Attractiveness could then plausibly associate with higher or lower standards for what sexual activities are morally acceptable.  Or the two arguments could cancel each other out, as one study of college students suggested.

Digging into the surveys

To further explore this issue, I turned to two large, prominent surveys of Americans’ views: the General Social Survey from 2016 and the American National Election Studies from 1972.

Both surveys were administered face-to-face.  And, unusually, both studies asked the person administering the survey to evaluate the respondent’s looks on a one-to-five scale.

(The respondent doesn’t see the score.  The study’s designers weren’t that heedless of social awkwardness.)

This measure of beauty isn’t rigorous.  But it does resemble quick personal judgments made in everyday life.  Moreover, the decades-long gap between the studies gives some sense of whether effects persist across a generation’s worth of cultural change.

The surveys also asked about legal and moral standards relevant to sex, such as how restrictive abortion laws should be, whether gay marriage should be legal and about the acceptability of premarital, extramarital and gay sex.

In both studies, the better-looking seem more relaxed about sexual morality.  For instance, in the data from 2016, 51 per cent of those whose looks were rated above average said a woman who wants an abortion for any reason should legally be allowed to have one.

Only 42 per cent of those with below-average looks said the same.  This nine-point difference increases to 15 points when accounting for factors like age, education, political ideology and religiosity.

This pattern repeated for almost all questions.  The one exception was a question that asked when adultery was morally acceptable.  Almost all respondents said “never” to that, washing out differences between the more and less attractive.

Are morals opportunistic?

If past experience is what makes beautiful people more tolerant toward issues like abortion and gay marriage, we would not expect them to be notably more tolerant about matters in which looks don’t apply.  This proves to be true.  Good-looking respondents in these surveys aren’t detectably more open, for example, to a legal right to die or to accepting civil disobedience.

These results are consistent with other findings showing that getting away with violating norms can make you more casual about those norms in the future.

Whether in white-collar crime or police violence or international human-rights violations, those who pull off one questionable action often become more willing to justify doing the same, or perhaps even a little more, in the future.

The same could be said for sex.  If you’ve have a lot of sexual experiences in the past, it may color your attitudes toward the vast range of sexual possibilities – even those that don’t directly apply to your own sexuality or personal experience.

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If you crave peace and quiet, it could be the ultimate destination.  Deep within Microsoft’s Redmond campus is the quietest place on the planet – and Dailymail.com was able to step inside.

The record-breaking room is used by the tech giant to do everything from tuning its headphones to making your mouse clicks sound perfect.  However, the firm has found is it too quiet for most people - and nobody has been able to spend more than 45 minutes inside.

The few outsiders who have entered it have complained of everything from becoming disturbed by the loudness of their own breathing to ringing in the ears and deafening stomach gurgles.

Hundraj Gopal, Microsoft’s principal human factors engineer, and the man who led the team that built the anechoic chamber, told Dailymail.com: ‘Some people come in for a minute and want out immediately.  People cannot handle it, it rattles their brains, it is sensory deprivation.’

Gopal said the record for staying in the room, recognized by the Guinness Book of Records as the quietest on Earth, is short.

‘This is the quietest place on the planet, and the most someone has been able to stay in is 45 minutes.  Just the chamber cost us $1.5m, which shows you how serious we are about audio.’

Known as an anechoic chamber, it is a small room measuring 21ft (6.36m) in each direction.  It is designed to be as perfectly quiet as possible, to allow engineers to tune audio devices and sound in perfect conditions.

The chamber is within six concrete layers, each up to 12 inches thick, which help to block out sounds from the outside world.  The walls, floor and ceiling are covered in giant wedges of fiberglass foam to eradicate any echoes.  The chamber floats on 68 vibration damping springs and is mounted on its own separate foundation slab to cut it off from the rest of the building.

Inside the chamber, the floor is made from the same steel cables used to stop fighter jets as they land on aircraft carriers, arranged like a net above the foam wedges underneath.

Gopal said: ‘This chamber blocks 120db, so if you had a jet engine taking off just outside, you would barely hear it.  We work with engineers on everything from mouse clicks to the sound your laptop makes when the latch closes, those sounds are very important to us.  We obsess over these minutiae other companies ignore.  We have seven sound chambers in this building, and over 25 in the company.'

Chris Kujawski, Principal Designer in Microsoft’s Device Team, said the audio chamber was crucial to the firm’s hardware, and it showed ‘the level of craftsmanship and nuance in our products very few people know about.’

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Tesla has finally added a $35,000 sedan to its Model 3 line-up.

CEO Elon Musk has been promising the mass market price tag since the firm first unveiled the Model 3 back in 2016, but has struggled to hit that goal in the time since.  But, just last month Musk said he hoped the lowest price version would be here before the end of the year.

After the CEO teased an announcement in a series of cryptic tweets earlier this week, the electric car-maker quietly added a Standard Range Model to its online shop, starting at $35,000 before savings.  The firm suspended orders on its website ahead of its mysterious announcement this evening, and promised 'great things are launching.'

And just yesterday, the company’s eccentric CEO sent his Twitter followers into a frenzy when he posted that he would be sharing ‘some Tesla news’ on Thursday.  Rather than a well-publicized announcement, however, Tesla simply re-opened its Model 3 orders at 5 p.m. ET to reveal a new option: a $35,000 standard range vehicle, which tops out at about 220 miles.  With the standard interior, this works out to be just $24,950 after savings, according to the firm.  The base model will achieve a top speed of 130 miles per hour, with 0-60mph acceleration in 5.6 seconds.  Pre-orders are now open.

Tesla is also offering the Model 3 Standard Range Plus, which boasts a 240-mile range and a top speed of 140mph.  It will also include ‘most premium features,’ starting at $37,000 before incentives.

‘Although lower in cost, it is built to achieve the same perfect 5-star safety rating as the longer-ranged version, which has the lowest probability of injury of any car ever tested by the U.S. Government,’ the firm said in the announcement Thursday evening.

Tesla has been working to get the price of the Model 3 down to the promised $35,000 since its 2016 reveal.  In effort to keep costs low, the firm now says it will be shuttering many of its US brick-and-mortar locations.  Instead, all orders will be taken online.

Tesla said: ‘Shifting all sales online, combined with other ongoing cost efficiencies, will enable us to lower all vehicle prices by about 6% on average, allowing us to achieve the $35,000 Model 3 price point earlier than we expected.  Over the next few months, we will be winding down many of our stores, with a small number of stores in high-traffic locations remaining as galleries, showcases and Tesla information centers.’

In addition, the firm had some news for its existing customers.  Tesla on 28 February unveiled firmware upgrades that will bring the range of the Long Range Rear-Wheel Drive Model 3 to 325 miles and increase the top speed of Model 3 Performance to 162 mph.  The updates will add roughly 5 per cent peak power to all Model 3 vehicles.

Tesla also says it’s beefing up its service system, ‘with the goal of same-day, if not same-hour service, and with most service done by us coming to you, rather than you coming to us.’

The Model 3 announcement followed a series of cryptic tweets from CEO Elon Musk this week, along with unusual changes to his profile, including a brief tweak to his display name in which he became Elon Tusk, and a short-lived cameo from an alien emoji.

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