The Hermeus jet has a projected top speed of Mach 5.5—or 4,219 mph—making it the fastest reusable jet on the planet.
Magnets, typically using rare earth metals like neodymium, are found at the heart of most electric vehicle motors. It’s nice to have a permanent source of powerful rare earth magnetism in your rotor, because using powered coils instead means you have to somehow transfer electricity from the battery through to the coils in a spinning rotor. That means you’ll need a sliding point of contact, and sliding points of contact develop wear and tear over time.
Permanent magnets, though, come with their own baggage. Ninety seven percent of the world’s rare earth metal supply comes out of China, and state control over such a crucial resource across a number of high-tech industries has been a serious issue in the past. Official accounts differ about why China decided to restrict rare earth exports back at the start of the decade, as official accounts tend to do, but the result either way was a 750-percent leap in neodymium prices and a 2,000-percent leap in dysprosium prices.
Could these metals be produced elsewhere? Yes. They’re not as rare as the name might suggest. But wherever they’re mined, the only way to economically turn them into magnets is to send them to China for processing – nowhere else in the world is set up for the task, and nobody can compete against China’s minimal labor costs and environmental regulations.
DSEI 2021: #Rheinmetall experiments with quadripedal UGVs #DSEI2021 #UGVs
Rheinmetall presented a Q-UGV nicknamed Lassie that it is experimenting with at DSEI 2021. (Janes/Nicholas Fiorenza)
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Is Elon right Eric Klien?
It’s been nearly five years since Musk first announced the full self driving feature and very little progress has been made on it.
Get ready.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the company will use personal driving data to determine whether owners who have paid for its controversial “Full Self-Driving” software can access the latest beta version that promises more automated driving functions.
Musk tweeted late Thursday night that the FSD Beta v10.0.1 software update, which has already been pushed out to a group of select owners, will become more widely available starting September 24.
We haven’t seen many bikes that combine as many disruptive tech ideas as the WMC250EV electric land speed record challenger that was revealed in June, and now that machine has shown it’s for real. The bike has flown through its first testing stage to prove it’s on target for the goal of hitting more than 250 mph during a record attempt next year.
White Motorcycle Concepts’ radical 250EV land speed racer is hitting its testing goals with flying colors, and is on track to attempt a world record in 2022.
GM Defense, a subsidiary of General Motors, was recently awarded a contract to develop next-generation SUVs for the government’s fleet.
This specific contract was awarded by the US Department of State, and the vehicles will be built to support the Diplomatic Security Service. Diplomatic Security is a federal law enforcement agency charged with securing diplomatic assets and personnel. In 2,020 GM Defense also got the contract to build the army’s new infantry squad vehicle based on the Chevrolet Colorado ZR2. That particular contract was more extensive and, at the time of writing, valued at $213.4 million. The eventual goal was 2,065 vehicles.
Microsoft on Wednesday announced a new passwordless mechanism that allows users to access their accounts without a password by using Microsoft Authenticator, Windows Hello, a security key, or a verification code sent via SMS or email.
The change is expected to be rolled out in the coming weeks.
“Except for auto-generated passwords that are nearly impossible to remember, we largely create our own passwords,” said Vasu Jakkal, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for Security, Compliance, and Identity. “But, given the vulnerability of passwords, requirements for them have gotten increasingly complex in recent years, including multiple symbols, numbers, case sensitivity, and disallowing previous passwords.”
A new electric solar car project with a living extension and expandable solar panels is giving us a glimpse into what the future might hold for RV/van life.
Solar Team Eindhoven, a group of engineering students from the Technical University of Eindhoven (Netherlands), is probably the most famous team that has competed in the World Solar Challenge, a competition to create super-efficient solar cars.
The people behind Lightyear came up from that team, and now they are trying to use the knowledge acquired through the creation of the original Stella and Stella Lux solar cars to bring to market a road-legal solar car.
