And you won’t need an FAA pilot’s license to fly it either, since Opener’s Blackfly is certified as an ultralight aircraft.
Category: transportation – Page 267
In yet another bid to push forward its solar business, electric vehicle maker Tesla has launched a new solar roof tile that has a higher power output while retaining the dimensions of the old one.
Tesla entered the clean energy business when it acquired SolarCity for $2.6 billion in 2016. It makes switching to solar energy sleeker by replacing regular roof tiles with energy-generating solar roof tiles, instead of having to install bulky solar panels. Tesla offers a 25-year warranty on the tiles and takes end-to-end responsibility for installing the new solar roof.
However, the company has so far struggled to make its product mainstream due to fluctuations in pricing, Electrek reported. With variations across house designs, Tesla has found it difficult to create a streamlined product and even introduced a roof-complexity factor, earlier this year to determine cost estimates.
Do you know what the Earth’s atmosphere is made of? You’d probably remember it’s oxygen, and maybe nitrogen. And with a little help from Google you can easily reach a more precise answer: 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen and 1% Argon gas. However, when it comes to the composition of exo-atmospheres—the atmospheres of planets outside our solar system—the answer is not known. This is a shame, as atmospheres can indicate the nature of planets, and whether they can host life.
As exoplanets are so far away, it has proven extremely difficult to probe their atmospheres. Research suggests that artificial intelligence (AI) may be our best bet to explore them—but only if we can show that these algorithms think in reliable, scientific ways, rather than cheating the system. Now our new paper, published in The Astrophysical Journal, has provided reassuring insight into their mysterious logic.
Astronomers typically exploit the transit method to investigate exoplanets, which involves measuring dips in light from a star as a planet passes in front of it. If an atmosphere is present on the planet, it can absorb a very tiny bit of light, too. By observing this event at different wavelengths—colors of light—the fingerprints of molecules can be seen in the absorbed starlight, forming recognizable patterns in what we call a spectrum. A typical signal produced by the atmosphere of a Jupiter-sized planet only reduces the stellar light by ~0.01% if the star is Sun-like. Earth-sized planets produce 10–100 times lower signals. It’s a bit like spotting the eye color of a cat from an aircraft.
Tesla’s head of AI has released new footage of the automaker’s auto labeling tool for its self-driving effort.
It’s expected to be an important accelerator in improving Tesla’s Full Self-Driving Beta.
Tesla is often said to have a massive lead in self-driving data thanks to having equipped all its cars with sensors early on and collecting real-world data from a fleet that now includes over a million vehicles.
Electrify America announced that it has now deployed over 30 MW of battery capacity using Tesla Powerpacks at over 140 charging stations.
In 2019, Tesla and Electrify America, VW’s electric vehicle charging network, announced that they reached a deal for the former to deploy Powerpacks at more than 100 charging stations operated by the latter.
We have been tracking their progress in deploying those battery systems since it appears to be the largest deployment of energy storage at electric vehicle charging stations.
Claims to offer higher resolutions, better image quality, and full auto-focus — for just $18 while crowdfunding and $25 after.
Solar car can be better.
The cost of electric vehicle battery packs has fallen to $132 per kWh – continuing decades of cost improvements. However, it might go up over the next year as increased material prices are catching up to incremental cost improvements.
Price per kWh is the metric used to track the price of batteries. It can be used to talk about the cost of battery packs or battery cells.
For example, if Tesla were achieving a cost per kWh of $150 for its Model S battery pack, it would mean that the battery pack costs $15,000 since it has a capacity of 100 kWh.
And it’s down for tests this year.
Last month, Pantuo Aviation revealed the PANTALA Concept H, a sleek-looking flying taxi concept that has strong similarities to Lilium’s ducted fan eVTOL aircraft at the same time as featuring some key design differences.
As little was announced in the way of specifications or development progress at the time, we reached out to Pantuo, who sent us information on their new concept via a company spokesperson.
According to Pantuo Aviation’s representative, the all-electric PANTALA Concept H has a range of 155 miles (250 km) and will be able to travel at speeds of over 186 mph (300 km/h). The aircraft uses lithium-ion batteries and features 22 large-diameter electric ducted fans rather than open rotors. Much in the same fashion as Lilium’s seven-seater aircraft, which the German company aims to bring into service by 2024, the PANTALA’s fans provide added redundancy, meaning an enhanced level of safety for passengers. One factor that sets the PANTALA Concept H apart from the Lilium flying taxi, however, is the fact that its entire wing tilts to change from vertical to normal flight mode.
Full Story:
The extra juice comes from a secret ingredient…corn starch.
Could a simple materials change make electric car batteries able to four times more energy? Scientists in South Korea think so. In a new paper in the American Chemical Society’s Nano Letters, a research team details using silicon and repurposed corn starch to make better anodes for lithium ion batteries.
This team is based primarily in the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), where they’ve experimented with microemulsifying silicon, carbon, and corn starch into a new microstructured composite material for use as a battery anode. This is done by mixing silicon nanoparticles and corn starch with propylene gas and heating it all to combine.
Using biowaste corn starch is already pretty popular, with products like biodegradeable “corn plastic” cutlery, packaging, and the infamous nontoxic packing peanut. The same qualities that make corn starch attractive in these applications apply to the silicon anode project. Existing lithium-ion batteries use carbon anodes, and scientists know silicon would work better in many ways but have struggled to stabilize the silicon enough for this use to be practical. “To enhance the stability of silicon, Dr. Jung and his team focused on using materials that are common in our everyday lives, such as water, oil, and starch,” KIST wrote in a statement about the paper.
