Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: transportation – Page 280

Porsche is about to turn its 718 lineup fully electric, diverging from the 911 which won’t go EV in this decade or maybe ever.

A few months ago, we speculated on Porsche’s plans to turn the 718 into a fully electric car. Now we have gathered additional material from different sources within and outside the company. Not only did we get confirmation that it will be a full battery-electric vehicle, we also gathered that it will be fundamentally detached from the 911—which, we learned, will retain its combustion engine beyond 2030 and may not even become hybridized.

Read more | >

Working with electric utilities is one of the more time consuming parts of building new charging stations, as quite a lot of infrastructure work and planning goes into building an EV station, as the local grid has to be taken into account in such projects.

But what if electric utilities weren’t involved at all, and a station could just be delivered on a flatbed truck with a forklift?

That’s the promise of a fast-charging station dubbed Drive Booster, developed by E.ON and Volkswagen that was just opened for use in Essen, Germany. The concept behind it is quite simple: Instead of drawing power directly from the grid, the charger has its own integrated battery, and draws power from a normal power connection found in any supermarket, like a soda machine or other large appliance. The charger can juice up two EVs at once at speeds of up to 150 kW, giving them enough range in 15 minutes to travel 124 miles.

Read more | >

Hyundai has already achieved this feat emphatically with the brilliant and much-loved Ioniq 5. It’s a car with more charm than just about every Hyundai ever made before it, and now comes Kia’s response. And I won’t waste your time: It’s absolutely brilliant.

Everything we admire about Kias of old remains with the new EV6: The pricing is competitive, the standard equipment is ample, the range, while perhaps no longer segment-leading, is more than enough for any use case, and the car is littered with small, thoughtful touches designed to make your life a little easier. But on top of that, and unlike the brilliant e-Niro, it looks fantastic, it’s enjoyable to drive, and the interior is exquisite. It’s comparable more to high-end e-SUVs like the I-Pace and EQC than the ID.4s and Mustang Mach-Es that it’s closer to in price.

Kia says that 10 years from now, we’ll look back at the EV6 as the car that transformed the brand. And having spent a day with one, I wholeheartedly agree.

Read more | >

Israel’s Urban Aeronautics is the latest to enter the growing Electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing (eVTOL) airspace with an aircraft that, at the very least, has a pretty cool name.

The “CityHawk” has been referred by Autoevolution as the “world’s first wingless” eVTOL vehicle. The rotors of other flying EVs like the Volocopter 2X and New Future Transportation ASKA protrude from body. But the CityHawk’s “Fancraft” system features two, counter-rotating ducted rotors partially enclosed behind and in front of the cockpit.

Read more | >

FedEx Corp. and self-driving vehicle startup Aurora Innovation Inc. are launching a pilot program for autonomous-truck shipments between Dallas and Houston, with the companies announcing Wednesday what they called a first-of-its-kind partnership involving the two companies and a truck maker.

“This is an exciting, industry-first collaboration that will work toward enhancing the logistics industry through safer, more efficient transportation of goods,” said Rebecca Yeung, vice president of advanced technology and innovation at FedEx FDX,-9.12% 0 in a news release.

Read more | >

UK startup Fering is gearing up to build electric vehicles for cross-continental explorers. It’s starting out with the Pioneer, a go-anywhere brick outhouse of a thing designed for monster range figures under the most extreme circumstances on Earth.

Cybertrucks may be all well and good for your average camping trip, but they’re not designed for the kinds of extreme treatment the Pioneer wants to take on as a low-emissions alternative for explorers, adventurers and emergency services teams.

For starters, the lithium-ion batteries found in most EVs can’t handle extreme temperatures, so instead Fering has gone with a lithium-titanate-oxide (LTO) battery pack. These have advantages and drawbacks; they’re renowned for extremely long life cycles, they can charge quickly and they work from-40 to 60 °C (−40 °F to +160 °F), so they can handle just about anything shy of an Antarctic winter.

Read more | >

GM has unveiled its latest series of new electric motors that will power its future electric vehicles, starting with the Hummer EV.

With the Bolt EV coming out in 2,016 GM has been selling electric vehicles for a long time, but the automaker has also been stuck on older EV technology.

GM is finally starting to release its latest EV technology, Ultium, in a series of new electric vehicles.

Read more | >

The new artificial intelligence tool has already led to the discovery of four new materials.

Researchers at the University of Liverpool have created a collaborative artificial intelligence tool that reduces the time and effort required to discover truly new materials.

Reported in the journal Nature Communications, the new tool has already led to the discovery of four new materials including a new family of solid state materials that conduct lithium. Such solid electrolytes will be key to the development of solid state batteries offering longer range and increased safety for electric vehicles. Further promising materials are in development.

Read more | >