Transportation – Lifeboat News: The Blog

Mar 1
2022

The Porsche- and Lamborghini-Carrying Cargo Ship Has Sunk in the Atlantic Ocean

Thousands of cars—including Porsches, Volkswagens, and Lamborghinis—have gone down with the giant cargo ship Felicity Ace, which had been on fire in the Atlantic Ocean for nearly two weeks. A salvage operation was underway to take the roll-on-roll-off car carrier to a safe area off the Azores when it sank on Tuesday morning. The fire was out by the time the ship went under the waves.

The weather had been rough at the time, a spokesperson for Felicity Ace’s Japanese operator, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines transportation company, told Bloomberg. The ship sank after listing to starboard around 220 nautical miles off the Portuguese Azores archipelago at around 9 a.m. local time on March 1. Salvage craft remain posted at the site of the sinking to monitor the situation, according to a press release from the Felicity Ace Incident Information Centre.

Mar 1
2022

The first electric car with solid-state battery announced has pack with the energy density of a regular one

The Dongfeng E70 electric sedans were announced as the world’s first commercially available electric vehicles with a solid-state battery when they were delivered as part of a taxi fleet. Now the energy density of the E70’s battery pack and its range on a charge have been outed, and they are pretty run-of-the-mill.

Mar 1
2022

A solar charging station for electric aircraft

At the secluded British airfield of Old Buckenham, an electric light aircraft is now being charged with solar power. After all, electric aircraft are a robust, low-maintenance alternative to fossil fuel-powered ones.

Mar 1
2022

15th century futurism: Leonardo da Vinci’s famous helicopter design finally takes flight

Da Vinci dreamed up a helicopter 400 years before they actually existed. Now, engineers have brought his design to life, but with a twist.

Mar 1
2022

Self-Driving Trucks Start to Propel Land Rush Near Major Cities

Alterra Property and Embark are forming an alliance to create autonomous-trucking hubs across the U.S.

Mar 1
2022

Tesla shares rally on expectations that German factory will open in March

Tesla reportedly aims to produce at least half a million cars annually at its “Gigafactory Berlin,” along with batteries for them.

Feb 28
2022

Panasonic to begin mass producing new Tesla battery

TOKYO, Feb 28 (Reuters) — Panasonic Corp (6752.T) said on Monday it will begin mass production of a new lithium-ion battery for Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) before the end of March 2024 at a plant in Japan.

Unveiled by the Japanese company in October, the 4,680 format (46 millimetres wide and 80 millimetres tall) battery is around five times bigger than those currently supplied to Tesla, meaning the U.S. electric vehicle (EV) maker will be able to lower production costs.

The new powerpack is also expected to improve vehicle range, which could help Tesla lure more drivers to EVs.

Feb 28
2022

Entirely New, Inexpensive Catalyst Speeds the Production of Oxygen From Water

The material could replace rare metals and lead to more economical production of carbon-neutral fuels.

An electrochemical reaction that splits apart water molecules to produce oxygen is at the heart of multiple approaches aiming to produce alternative fuels for transportation. But this reaction has to be facilitated by a catalyst material, and today’s versions require the use of rare and expensive elements such as iridium, limiting the potential of such fuel production.

Now, researchers at MIT and elsewhere have developed an entirely new type of catalyst material, called a metal hydroxide-organic framework (MHOF), which is made of inexpensive and abundant components. The family of materials allows engineers to precisely tune the catalyst’s structure and composition to the needs of a particular chemical process, and it can then match or exceed the performance of conventional, more expensive catalysts.

Feb 28
2022

Hackers attack train network to stop Putin’s troops moving to Ukraine

The hackers claimed that the attack was to “slow down the transfer” of troops moving from Belarus to northern Ukraine, saying that they had put the trains in “manual control” mode which would “significantly slow down the movement of trains, but will not create emergency situations.”

An ideological aversion to high-stakes situations has been expressed by other hacking groups. Anonymous, which has claimed a number of attacks on Russia’s banks and services, the websites of the President of the Russian Federation and Russia’s Ministry of Defence, has said that critical infrastructure is a “no-go” due to the risk of exacerbating the already tumultuous situation in eastern Europe.

Sergei Voitehowich, a former employee of Belarus’s state-owned Belarus Railway company, said that the Cyber Partisans had damaged the train traffic control system and that while it has been restored, other systems were experiencing issues and making it “impossible to buy tickets”, according to Bloomberg.

Feb 28
2022

Tesla Gigafactory Berlin is expected to finally receive approval for production this week

Tesla is reportedly finally going to receive final approval to start production at Gigafactory Berlin this week after months of delays.

Gigafactory Berlin, a critical new factory for Tesla’s plans to expand in Europe and improve its manufacturing and distribution efficiency, has been in limbo for months.

The automaker has yet to secure the needed environmental permit to start producing vehicles for customer deliveries.