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Archive for the ‘transportation’ category: Page 145

Jan 28, 2023

Electric vehicles more expensive to fuel than gas-powered cars at end of 2022: consulting firm

Posted by in categories: economics, sustainability, transportation

It was cheaper to fuel a gas-powered car for 100 miles than it was to charge a comparable electric vehicle in late 2022, according to Anderson Economic Group.

Jan 28, 2023

Toroidal propellers: A noise-killing game changer in air and water

Posted by in categories: innovation, transportation

It’s rare to hear a new invention that has this much impact potential and doesn’t really need any more work to go commercial.


These strangely-shaped twisted-toroid propellers look like a revolutionary (sorry) advance for the aviation and marine sectors. Radically quieter than traditional propellers in both air and water, they’re also showing some huge efficiency gains.

Jan 27, 2023

Elon Musk kills hope of Tesla retrofitting new Autopilot/Self-Driving hardware

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, robotics/AI, transportation

Elon Musk has killed the little hope some had for Tesla in offering a retrofit to the new Autopilot/Self-Driving hardware (HW4) to current Tesla owners.

Tesla is expected to announce a new Autopilot/Self-Driving hardware suite, which has been referred to as Hardware 4.0 (HW4), any day now.

There have been quite a few indications that some major changes are coming. For example, after famously removing radar sensors from its hardware suite, we learned in December that Tesla is planning to add one as soon as this month.

Jan 27, 2023

Elon Musk reiterates his belief that Tesla will ‘be the most valuable company on earth’ amid record quarter for the EV maker

Posted by in categories: business, Elon Musk, sustainability, transportation

Musk also teased that new products are under development, which presumably could be a new car model. Wall Street analysts expect a lower-cost EV that they have dubbed the “Model 2.”

“I should also say that we have other products in development. We’re not going to announce them obviously but they’re very exciting and I think we’ll blow people’s minds when we reveal them,” Musk said.

Other areas of growth for the company include Tesla insurance, which is currently at an annual premium run rate of $300 million. “We’re growing 20% a quarter so it’s growing faster than the growth in our vehicle business,” CFO Zachary Kirkhorn said.

Jan 26, 2023

Underground dome house of the family who led geese to fly home

Posted by in categories: existential risks, transportation

Paula and Bill Lishman spent many winters in a poorly-insulated A-frame cabin before realizing they needed to go underground to use the earth’s energy to stay warm, so they knocked the top off a hill, dropped in ferro-cement domes, and covered it up again with dirt.

Thanks to skylights cut into every dome and the white-powdered marble that covers the interior, their earth-sheltered home is naturally well-lit despite being below the frost line.

Continue reading “Underground dome house of the family who led geese to fly home” »

Jan 25, 2023

DARPA enters a new phase in creation of an aircraft with no exterior moving parts

Posted by in category: transportation

@AuroraFlightSci will design a full-scale X-plane that relies solely on changes in air flow for in-flight maneuvers. #ActiveFlowControl #XPlane More: https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2023-01-17

Jan 25, 2023

Second Flight of Kızılelma

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, transportation

Baykar is moving forward in Kızılelma Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle (UCAV) programme. The first prototype of the aircraft has completed the second flight from facilities based at Çorlu Atatürk Airport without issue.

Jan 25, 2023

Tesla Plans $3.6 Billion Factory Expansion in Nevada

Posted by in categories: business, sustainability, transportation

The EV maker said it would keep growing its lithium-ion battery and electric-truck businesses and employ 3,000 additional workers.

Jan 25, 2023

Recycling lithium-ion batteries from electric vehicles

Posted by in categories: energy, health, sustainability, transportation

Year 2019 face_with_colon_three


For high-cobalt cathodes such as lithium cobalt oxide (LCO) conventional pyrometallurgical (see section ‘Pyrometallurgical recovery’) or hydrometallurgical (see section ‘Hydrometallurgical recovery’) recycling processes can recover around 70% of the cathode value11. However, for other cathode chemistries that are not as cobalt-rich, this figure drops notably11. A 2019 648-lb Nissan Leaf battery, for example, costs US$6,500–8,500 new, but the value of the pure metals in the cathode material is less than US$400 and the cost of the equivalent amount of NMC (an alternative cathode material) is in the region of US$4,000. It is important, therefore, to appreciate that cathode material must be directly recycled (or upcycled) to recover sufficient value. As direct recycling avoids lengthy and expensive purification steps, it could be particularly advantageous for lower-value cathodes such as LiMn2O4 and LiFePO4, where manufacturing of the cathode oxides is the major contributor to cathode costs, embedded energy and carbon dioxide footprint95.

Direct recycling also has the advantage that, in principle, all battery components20 can be recovered and re-used after further processing (with the exclusion of separators). Although there is substantial literature regarding the recycling of the cathode component from spent LIBs, research on recycling of the graphitic anode is limited, owing to its lower recovery value. Nevertheless, the successful re-use of mechanically separated graphite anodes from spent batteries has been demonstrated, with similar properties to that of pristine graphite96.

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Jan 24, 2023

World’s first hydrogen-powered train built in China, reports claim

Posted by in category: transportation

According to Chinese media sources, the world’s first urban hydrogen powered train has just rolled off the production line in Chengdu, Sichuan Province.

According to Chinese media, the world’s first urban train powered by hydrogen has been produced via a joint venture between the CRRC Changchun Railway Company and Chengdu Rail Transit. While other hydrogen-powered trains exist, this is the first specifically developed for an urban environment.

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