Lifeboat Foundation

A Germany-based company, Paravan, is a leader in the electric wheelchair market and related accessories to adapt vehicles for people with disabilities. While they mostly work with vans and trucks, their latest product makes almost any car with enough trunk space extremely practical for someone using a wheelchair.

They installed it in a Tesla Model S to illustrate the functionalities of the product and the range of vehicles it can be installed on.

A robotic arm, called Robot 3000, can automatically lift a wheelchair (up to 25 kg – 55 lbs) from the trunk of a vehicle, then it moves the chair to the driver’s side and extends it all the way to the driver’s door.

Continue reading “A Tesla Model S equipped with a robotic arm for your wheelchair [Video]” »

In less than two minutes, Tesla employees were able to take off their gas masks.

Seed bombing is a method for repairing deforested land.

And that means dropping *a lot* of seeds from the sky.

Nice

Mark L. Clifford on China, renewable energy, and economic growth.

By young china watchers for the diplomat.

Continue reading “China Quest for Clean Tech” »

LeEco is known as the “Netflix of China” due to its very popular video streaming service, but the conglomerate also has interests in a much wider range of sectors including smartphones, TVs and electric vehicles.

Ding Lei, LeEco’s auto chief and a former top official at General Motors’ China venture with SAIC Motor, says part of LeEco’s advantage in tomorrow’s auto industry is that it carries no baggage from today’s.

This, the man said, is the future of cars, and the Chinese consumer electronics company LeEco is going to make that future a reality.

Continue reading “China's Jia Yueting intends to outmuscle Musk — Taking on Tesla” »

File this under definitely not good: global warming is depleting the oceans of oxygen. You know, that little molecule that we, along with all other complex life forms, require in order to breathe and therefore live.

The reason is simple. According to basic thermodynamics, cold water can hold more dissolved gases than warm water. As our ever-warming atmosphere heats the surface of the ocean, the oxygen content starts to fall. Also, as water warms, it expands and gets lighter. This makes it less likely to sink, which in turn reduces the transport of oxygen from the atmosphere into the deep ocean.

All of this is well-established science. It’s also understood that the oxygen content of the ocean varies all the time due to changes in weather, seasons, latitude, and longer-term climate patterns like El Niño. But a study published this week in Global Biogeochemical Cycles is the first to show that the oxygen content of the world’s oceans is now falling thanks to climate change.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=HaJAF4tQVbA

Turns out the Model 3 isn’t going to be Tesla’s most affordable model.

Teslas can cheaper?

Continue reading “Tesla planning cheaper EV that ‘most people can afford’” »

‘Zero-energy’ buildings — which generate as much power as they consume — are now much closer after a team at Australia’s University of New South Wales achieved the world’s highest efficiency using flexible solar cells that are non-toxic and cheap to make.

Until now, the promise of ‘zero-energy’ buildings been held back by two hurdles: the cost of the thin-film solar cells (used in façades, roofs and windows), and the fact they’re made from scarce, and highly toxic, materials.

That’s about to change: the UNSW team, led by Dr Xiaojing Hao of the Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics at the UNSW School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering, have achieved the world’s highest efficiency rating for a full-sized thin-film solar cell using a competing thin-film technology, known as CZTS.

Continue reading “At last: Non-toxic and cheap thin-film solar cells for ‘zero-energy’ buildings” »