Lifeboat Foundation

Boston-based company Regent has taken US$465 million in pre-orders for its super-fast electric “Seaglider.” Using the wing-in-ground effect, this 180-mph (290-km/h) beast promises twice the range of an electric aircraft, and a revolution in coastal transport.

“The speed, comfort, and navigation systems of an aircraft with the convenience, maneuverability, and affordability of a boat,” reads the Regent press release, marking approximately the first time boats have ever been called affordable or maneuverable.

Continue reading “Regent to build high-speed electric ground-effect ‘seagliders’” »

For a long time fixed wing VTOL drones were tricky to work with, but with the availability of open source flight control and autopilot software this has changed. To make experimentation even easier, [Stephen Carlson] and other researchers from the RoboWork Lab at the University of Nevada created the MiniHawk, a 3D printed VTOL aircraft for use a test bed for various research projects.

Some of these project include creating a longer wingspan aircraft by combining multiple MiniHawks in mid-flight with magnetic wing-tip mounts, or “migratory behaviors”. The latter is a rather interesting idea, which involves letting the craft land in any suitable location, and recharging using wing mounted solar panels before continuing with the next leg of the mission. With this technique, the MiniHawk could operate on mission almost indefinitely without human intervention. This is a departure from some other solar planes we’ve seen, which attempt to recharge while flying, or even ditch batteries completely, which limits operation to sunny weather conditions.

Continue reading “3D Printed VTOL Craft Can Land And Recharge Itself, And Team Up With Other Drones” »

And it’s not a Tesla.

Swiss multinational company ABB a reputed name in the power and automation sectors has formally launched its electric vehicle charger, Terra 360 which is not only the fastest but can also power up to four vehicles at a time, said a company press release.

A solar farm in Spain has commissioned a series of iron-flow batteries to store excess energy. This could be the beginning of the end for lithium-ion.

The automobile industry has recently been inclining towards electrical vehicles and governments are doing everything to support this transition. Tesla has been a pioneer and an example in this field. It has launched smart vehicles and maintained the standard. However, no, the company has a rival, and it might be a threat to Tesla’s models.

Lucid Motors is another automobile company making electric vehicles. It just earned a rating of 520 miles (837 km) from the Environmental Protection Agency for the firm’s model of Air Dream Edition. This makes the Lucid Air the longest-range EV the EPA has ever rated, according to a recent press release.

However, EPA has very specific and low context settings for trials. Hence, the speed and other specifications will perform differently in real road scenarios. This model is the longest-range production EV so far. The company’s CTO and CEO Peter Rawlinson has scored a win as the Air Dream Edition exceeds Tesla’s longest-range vehicle, the Model S Long Range Plus, by a staggering 100 miles (161 km).

Honda builds much more than cars and trucks — power equipment, solar cells, industrial robotics, alternative fuel engines and even aircraft are all part of the company’s production capacity. On Thursday, Honda announced that it is working to further expand its manufacturing portfolio to include Avatar-style remote telepresence robots and electric VTOLs for inter-and intracity commutes before turning its ambitions to building a fuel-cell driven power generation system for the lunar surface.

For its eVTOL, Honda plans to leverage not only the lithium battery technology it’s developed for its EV and PHEV vehicles but also a gas turbine hybrid power unit to give the future aircraft enough range to handle regional inter-city flights as well. Honda foresees air taxis as a ubiquitous part of tomorrow’s transportation landscape, seamlessly integrating with both autonomous ground vehicles and traditional airliners (though they could soon be flown by robots as well). Obviously, the program is still very much in the early research phase and will likely remain so until at least the second half of this decade. The company anticipates having prototype units available for testing and certification by the 2030s and a full commercial rollout sometime around 2040.

Honda will have plenty of competition if and when it does get its eVTOLs off the ground. Cadillac showed off its single-seater aircar earlier this year, while Joby (in partnership with NASA) already has full-scale mockups flying. In June, Slovakian transportation startup, Klein Vision, flew from Nitra and to the Bratislava airport in its inaugural inter-city flight — and then drove home after the event. But building a fleet of flying taxis is no easy feat — just ask Bell helicopters — and we’re sure to see more companies drop out of the sector before eVTOLs become commonplace.

But the global effort to fight climate change is also causing problems. Europe’s wind farms haven’t seen a good breeze in months, and droughts in China and South America have dried up power generation from hydro dams. Meanwhile, surging prices for carbon pollution credits in Europe have made fossil alternatives even more expensive, and Chinese grid operators have come under mounting political pressure to help the country meet its carbon emissions targets by burning less coal.

The energy crisis could imperil political support for climate policies, just as the COP26 climate summit approaches in Glasgow in November. But there are steps governments can take to prevent energy market turmoil leading to sky-high electric bills and breakdowns in the global supply chain.

“What we’re seeing is an unfortunate set of circumstances during a period of transition where we haven’t fully moved from one system to another,” says James Henderson, director of the Energy Transition Research Initiative at Oxford University. “During that period, market risks are enhanced. It’s impossible to envision a world where there won’t be more volatility.”

“DeepGreen is offering a false or dystopian choice,” Deep Sea Conservation Coalition cofounder Matthew Gianni told The Guardian.

Dangling the possibility of widespread electric vehicle adoption by securing the resources necessary to manufacture more and better batteries is certainly tantalizing. But scientists told The Guardian that getting those metals from the seafloor — especially with machines that would cause a poorly-understood environmental impact in an area that’s nearly impossible to monitor and regulate — would come at too great a cost.

“There are some very significant questions being raised by scientists about the impacts of ocean mining,” University of California, Santa Barbara researcher Douglas McCauley told The Guardian. “How much extinction could be generated? How long will it take these extremely low-resilience systems to recover? What impact will it have on the ocean’s capacity to capture carbon?”

China’s new rules on auto data require car companies to store important data locally.

Cars today offer high-tech features and gather troves of data to train algorithms. As China steps up controls over new technologies, WSJ looks at the risks for Tesla and other global brands that are now required to keep data within the country. Screenshot: Tesla China.

Continue reading “What China’s New Data Rules Mean for Tesla and Other Auto Makers | WSJ” »