Cutting the weight of fuel tanks and continuing advances in fuel-cell technologies are key to making hydrogen competitive in aviation.
Category: transportation – Page 266
Japan-based startup unveils its flying car at CES 2022, plans to enter market by 2025
The vehicle showcased at the event was Model SD-03, which was a demonstration for the autonomous SD-05 which is currently under development. The company is aiming to kickstart its business with the latter after unveiling it as a flying taxi at the World Expo 2025 in Osaka. It is worth mentioning that SkyDrive has been tested for manned flights and recently got certified by the Japanese government. “SkyDrive recently advanced toward commercialization with the Japanese transportation ministry’s acceptance of its type certificate application, a major milestone that no other flying vehicle developers have reached in Japan”, the company said in its statement.
READ | Flying car completes first 35-minute inter-city flight test in Slovakia
The model released by SkyDrive at the CES 2022 is a driver-only vehicle that runs on electricity and is equipped with eight propellers. As per SkyDrive’s description of the vehicle, it can carry a maximum weight of 400 kg and is capable of cruising at 40–50 kilometres per hour for five to ten minutes. The company had revealed the first prototype of its eVTOL in 2018 and conducted the first manned flight in 2020. According to a report by Interesting Engineering, more companies such as Lilium and Volocopter are also planning to kickstart their flying car business this decade.
ISun Wins Contract For 1,780 Solar Canopies At EV Charging Stations
iSun has won a massive solar canopy order. But who’s buying?
There are not many things I love more than a solar power canopy that charges an EV charging station. It’s all right there — transferring sunlight into electricity and then using that electricity to power a modern electric car; driving on sunshine.
So, it’s quite exciting to see that iSun (NASDAQ: ISUN) has been awarded a contract to provide 1,780 solar power canopies for EV charging stations. The problem is: we don’t have much more detail than that. We don’t know where these charging stations are and don’t know who is procuring the solar canopies.
Tesla raises Full Self Driving software price to $12,000 in U.S., Musk says
Jan 7 (Reuters) — Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk tweeted on Friday that the electric carmaker will raise the U.S. price of its advanced driver assistant software dubbed “Full Self Driving” to $12,000 on Jan. 17.
The 20% price rise comes less than two years since Tesla raised Full Self-Driving (FSD) prices to $10,000 from $8,000 in 2020.
“Tesla FSD price rising to $12k on Jan 17. Just in the US.” Musk tweeted.
Ambarella launches 16-core CV3 AI chip for autonomous vehicles
Ambarella launched its latest CV3 AI domain controller family to power autonomous vehicles.
The Santa Clara, California-based maker of AI chips made the announcement at the CES 2022 tech trade event in Las Vegas.
The chip family is another addition to the scalable, power-efficient CVflow family of system-on-chips for the automotive industry.
BMW debuts its new color-changing paint technology at CES: E Ink
At the touch of a button, the car changes colors.
The surface coating of the BMW iX Flow featuring E Ink contains many millions of microcapsules, with a diameter equivalent to the thickness of a human hair. Each of these microcapsules contains negatively charged white pigments and positively charged black pigments. Depending on the chosen setting, stimulation by means of an electrical field causes either the white or the black pigments to collect at the surface of the microcapsule, giving the car body the desired shade.
Just don’t expect to see this at your local BMW dealership anytime soon: the automaker says this is just an “advanced research and design project.”
The innovative paint scheme can be triggered at the touch of a button. Right now, the colors are limited to white, black, and grey. But despite the constrained palette, BMW says it could have implications for the efficiency of its electric vehicles.
Toyota’s First Solid State Battery Will Equip A Hybrid, Not An EV
Even though solid state batteries are seen as technology that could drastically improve today’s fully-electric vehicles, it seems the first vehicles to feature one won’t actually be EVs. This is at least true in Toyota’s case since the manufacturer has now confirmed that its first solid state-equipped vehicles will be hybrids expected to debut in two or three years’ time.
The news comes from Gill Pratt, Toyota’s chief scientist and head of the Toyota Research Institute, who made the announcement during an interview for Autoline. He also mentioned that the manufacturer has made progress with its solid state project and that development is on schedule.
He did not say which hybrid Toyota will get a solid state battery, but he did go on to explain why it won’t immediately offer solid state EVs. The main reason has to do with the size of the battery pack, which for a hybrid vehicle that still has an internal combustion engine, is considerably smaller than what you see in pure EVs.
This Tesla Model S P85 Just Surpassed 1,500,000 Kilometers
On January 6, 2022, a Tesla Model S P85 (the oldest performance version) reached an impressive mileage milestone of 1,500,000 km (932,256 miles).
The car is used in Germany by Hansjörg von Gemmingen — Hornberg, who is known in the EV world for setting the highest mileage records in Tesla cars.
Scientists reduce all-solid-state battery resistance
All-solid-state batteries are now one step closer to becoming the powerhouse of next-generation electronics, as researchers from Tokyo Tech, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), and Yamagata University introduce a strategy to restore their low electrical resistance. They also explore the underlying reduction mechanism, paving the way for a more fundamental understanding of the workings of all-solid-state lithium batteries.
All-solid-state lithium batteries have become the new craze in materials science and engineering as conventional lithium-ion batteries can no longer meet the standards for advanced technologies, such as electric vehicles, which demand high energy densities, fast charging, and long cycle lives. All-solid-state batteries, which use a solid electrolyte instead of a liquid electrolyte found in traditional batteries, not only meet these standards but are comparatively safer and more convenient as they have the possibility to charge in a short time.
However, the solid electrolyte comes with its own challenge. It turns out that the interface between the positive electrode and solid electrolyte shows a large electrical resistance whose origin is not well understood. Furthermore, the resistance increases when the electrode surface is exposed to air, degrading the battery capacity and performance. While several attempts have been made to lower the resistance, none have managed to bring it down to 10 Ω cm2 (ohm centimeter-squared), the reported interface resistance value when not exposed to air.