Lifeboat Foundation

Canada’s newly announced $5,000 incentive for electric vehicles is officially going into effect on May 1st next month and the federal government has released the list of eligible vehicles.

Tesla vehicles are officially ineligible for the incentive.

As we reported last month, the Canadian federal announced a new $5,000 incentive for electric cars with a $45,000 price limit, which virtually excluded Tesla vehicles.

Continue reading “Canada’s $5,000 EV incentive starts next month, Tesla officially disqualified” »

The first of the TTC’s zero-emission electric buses arrived today.

According to TTC spokesperson Stuart Green, the new vehicle must undergo testing and commissioning first before it can enter regular service later this spring.

The first of the #TTC ‘s zero emission electric buses arrived today! This @newflyer vehicle (#3700) will undergo testing and commissioning before it enters regular service later this Spring. We’ll have 60 e-buses by year end, making the TTC a national clean-tech fleet leader. pic.twitter.com/voobFV8JEM

Continue reading “The first of the TTC’s zero-emission electric buses rolled into town today (PHOTOS)” »

Lidar, the radar-style detection system which works by bouncing laser light, is most commonly associated with self-driving cars. However, it may have another useful, albeit morbid, application: Helping find bodies which have been buried in unmarked graves.

Sound like something out of an episode of CSI? In fact, it’s a new piece of research coming out of Tennessee’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where scientists have been investigating how lidar could be used a forensics tool to find missing murder victims — potentially even from an aircraft.

“Missing persons investigations pose a significant societal challenge, as well as a time-sensitive technological challenge,” Dr. Katie Corcoran, one of the researchers on the project, told Digital Trends. “Of the millions of missing persons worldwide who are unaccounted for, some are thought to be deceased and buried in unmarked graves. A gravesite can go unnoticed because of natural processes, where the site becomes covered with grass or leaves, for instance. Or the site could have been deliberately masked by a perpetrator trying to hide the body. In either case, the longer the gravesite goes unnoticed, the more difficult it is to locate.”

Continue reading “Self-Driving Car Tech Will Help Forensic Scientists Find Murder Victims” »

Creating a lithium-ion battery that can charge in a matter of minutes but still operate at a high capacity is possible, according to research from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute just published in Nature Communications. This development has the potential to improve battery performance for consumer electronics, solar grid storage, and electric vehicles.

Step aside, reindeer — robot dogs are hauling this load.

In an ominous video titled “Mush, Spot Mush!” posted on YouTube Tuesday, robot maker Boston Dynamics showed off the sheer strength of its SpotMini quadripedal robot dog. The clip shows 10 specialized Spotmini derivatives called Spotpower hauling a box truck across a parking lot — and at a one degree incline.

Continue reading “Watch a Pack of Boston Dynamics’ Creepy Robot Dogs Pull a Truck” »

After years of development in the desert north of Los Angeles, a gigantic, six-engined mega jet with the wingspan of an American football field flew Saturday morning for the first time.

“We finally did it,” said Stratolaunch Systems CEO Jean Floyd at a news conference from the hangar at Mojave Air & Space Port. “It was an emotional moment to watch this bird take flight.”

Stratolaunch, the company founded in 2011 by the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, conducted the first test flight of the world’s largest plane.

Continue reading “The world’s largest plane just flew for the first time” »

Istanbul New Airport, which is now opened for business, will be able to handle 200 million passengers a year and has a massive duty free area as well as on onsite Yotel.

A special blend of concrete that can de-ice roads and pavements without the need for chemicals uses electricity to melt away snow and sleet – and it could be coming to an airport near you soon.

The conductive concrete, developed by researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, is for the most part the same as regular concrete, but 20 percent of its ingredients aren’t exactly standard: steel shavings and carbon particles, which give the mix enough conductivity that it can melt ice and snow while remaining safe to the touch.

Designed by civil engineer Chris Tuan, the conductive concrete is currently being assessed by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which is looking into the possibilities of incorporating the snow-melting surface into the tarmac of at least one major airport as part of a trial.

Continue reading “This Electrically Conductive Concrete Melts Snow Without Chemicals” »

Tesla announced today that it is launching a lease program for Model 3 and interestingly, it won’t let people buy the cars after the leases come to term as it plans to use them in its planned self-driving Uber-like service dubbed ‘Tesla Network’.

Along with a series of changes to its lineup today, Tesla also announced that it is launching its lease program for Model 3 today:

Continue reading “Tesla launches Model 3 leases, will keep cars for autonomous Uber-like service after term” »