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#engineering
Category: transportation – Page 231
Tesla is planning to build its new design center in Beijing later this year, according to a new document released by the Chinese government.
Shortly after announcing Gigafactory Shanghai, Tesla made it clear that it not only wants to tap into China’s incredible capacity in manufacturing, but it also wants to take advantage of the country’s incredible engineering and design talent.
In early 2020, Tesla announced plans to establish a new R&D center and a new design center in China to build “a Chinese-style” electric car.
Researchers from Chalmers University of Technology have produced a structural battery that performs ten times better than all previous versions. It contains carbon fiber that serves simultaneously as an electrode, conductor, and load-bearing material. Their latest research breakthrough paves the way for essentially ’massless’ energy storage in vehicles and other technology.
The batteries in today’s electric cars constitute a large part of the vehicles’ weight, without fulfilling any load-bearing function. A structural battery, on the other hand, is one that works as both a power source and as part of the structure – for example, in a car body. This is termed ‘massless’ energy storage, because in essence the battery’s weight vanishes when it becomes part of the load-bearing structure. Calculations show that this type of multifunctional battery could greatly reduce the weight of an electric vehicle.
The development of structural batteries at Chalmers University of Technology has proceeded through many years of research, including previous discoveries involving certain types of carbon fiber. In addition to being stiff and strong, they also have a good ability to store electrical energy chemically. This work was named by Physics World as one of 2018’s ten biggest scientific breakthroughs.
Circa 2021
Nissan and Waseda University in Tokyo have been working together since 2017, and today, they announced that they are starting the testing of a recycling process that recovers high-purity, rare-earth compounds from electric vehicle motor magnets.
First, they heat a used motor to 2,552F (1,400C) to melt it down. Then iron oxide is added to oxidize the rare-earth elements (REEs).
We’re big fans of this big fan.
There’s a new, more fuel-efficient airliner engine on the scene, as Rolls-Royce has started work on its UltraFan aero engine. The gigantic fan engine gets 25 percent better mileage compared with its predecessor, and Rolls-Royce says it will revolutionize passenger and cargo flight around the world.
The first demonstrator engine will be finished by the end of 2021. Rolls-Royce revealed more details in a statement:
“As engine build starts, other key parts are already coming together for delivery to Derby. Work is underway on UltraFan’s carbon titanium fan system in Bristol, UK, and its 50MW Power Gearbox, which is powerful enough to run 500 family cars, in Dahlewitz, Germany.”
Going beyond previous unmanned helicopters that featured “advanced autopilots” or “the beginning of autonomy,” a new DARPA experiment showed off a pilotless Bla… See more.
Software once designed to be a digital co-pilot is taking the wheel.
Tesla has released a quick sneak peek of the paint shop inside Gigafactory Berlin, which the automaker has been taunting as “its most advanced paint shop” yet – and it should enable new colors.
It’s literally has been years since Tesla has launched a new vehicle paint color.
Back in the early days of the Model S, Tesla used to offer a variety of colors, but the automaker decided to streamline options, and it now offers only a handful of color options that have remained the same for the last few years.
Fraunhofer ISE has developed a process for recycling the silicon in old solar panels.
The big knock on new technology like electric cars and solar panels is that they are not recyclable. People haven’t cared a flying fig leaf about recycling stuff for the past 100 years. If they did, citizens would be at the gates of the corporate headquarters of Nestlé, Coca Cola, and Pepsi with flaming torches and pitchforks demanding they stop inundating the Earth with their endless profusion of waste products.
But suddenly, people are all atwitter about what will happen to the batteries of electric cars. Fearmongers on the internet are telling people they will have to drive their old electric cars into lakes and rivers when they stop working. The amazing thing is, people believe that codswallop and repeat it to their friends as if it were carved on the stone tablets Moses brought down with him when he descended the mountain. So much for public education making people smarter.
Another cry you hear from the anti-technology crowd is that millions of old solar panels will be dumped into landfills to fester for centuries. Horse-puckey! Do we need a way to recycle solar panels? Yes, we do. And are responsible adults working on such systems as we speak? Yes, they are. Calm down, people. Everything you read on Twitter or Facebook is not gospel. And let’s not get started on the deliberate misinformation spewed by the talking heads on Faux News 24 hours a day.
Circa 2020
Autopilot has been around longer than you think. Indeed, in 1914, just 11 years after the Wright Brothers first ushered humanity into the aviation age, a fellow named Lawrence Sperry built a gyroscopic self-stabilization system into a Curtiss C-2. It was capable, he claimed, of keeping an aircraft straight and level and pointed in a consistent direction on the compass, and he put on a spectacular public demonstration at the Seine just outside Paris to prove it.
First, he did a pass by the crowd with his hands clearly up in the air. Then, he did the same with an assistant standing on one of the wings, moving about to throw the weight balance off. Then he made a third pass where both pilot and passenger went out and stood on the wings. The crowd went bananas. Those magnificent men and their flying machines!
Is this the future of hypersonic transportation? Russia’s version of Elon Musk thinks so.