If you own a perfectly fine conventional automobile but want to join the EV revolution, you have two choices. Engineer an electric drivetrain swap yourself, which involves hours and hours of lying on you back on a creeper in your garage, or buying a new electric car. Now, if you live in France, there’s a third way. Transition One will take your current car, remove the existing internal combustion engine, replace it with batteries and an electric motor, and give it back to you in about 4 hours.
A friend went to assess the situation for her, but the car was gone.
So Ms Brett turned straight to her Tesla car app to find out what was going on.
Circa 2019
NASA’s X-Plane Program has been around for 70 years. Over the course of those decades, the agency has developed a series of airplanes and rockets to test out various technologies and design advances. Now NASA has cleared the newest one, the X-59, for final assembly.
The X-59 is a supersonic aircraft design. Its full name is the X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology (QueSST) aircraft. Rather than pushing for greater speeds or higher altitudes like some previous X-Plane’s, the X-59 is designed to break the sound barrier without the sonic boom. The X-59 will produce no more than a loud thump, if anything at all, when it passes the sound barrier.
Preliminary design for the X-59 began in February 2016. NASA wanted to develop a supersonic aircraft that eliminated the sonic boom. Supersonic aircraft have been around for a while, and have served as commercial airline aircraft. The Concorde was in service until 2003, but the tell-tale sonic boom that the Concorde created is problematic: the Concorde was only allowed on ocean-crossing flights as the noise was too much for populated areas.
This craft uses laminar flow 😃
Aviation startup Boom Supersonic has unveiled a fully assembled version of its demonstrator aircraft, taking an important step forward in its efforts to build the world’s fastest airliner. The company’s XB-1 is a sleek, one-third-scale prototype of its Overture passenger plane, and is designed to break the sound barrier itself with test flights due to kick off next year.
Boom Supersonic is one of a number of aviation companies working to make supersonic air travel a part of the civilian transport mix, with Virgin Galactic, Aerion and Spike Aerospace all sharing similar visions. The startup only emerged in 2016, with the lofty ambition of one day flying passengers from London to New York in 3.6 hours on a US$5,000 return ticket.
A key part of its roadmap is the XB-1 prototype, which was also announced in 2016 with claims that it could fly 10 percent faster than the Concorde with a cruising speed of Mach 2.2 (1,675 mph, 2,700 km/h). Boom Supersonic had originally targeted 2017 for the first subsonic flights of the XB-1, so it is a little behind schedule, but today showed off the fully-assembled demonstrator for the first time.
Austrian company Cyclotech is planning to begin flight-testing an 80-kg (176-lb) demonstrator of its unique electric VTOL airframe, which uses Voith-Schneider propellers instead of rotors for exceptional agility and control in the air.
The prop design, which looks a bit like it belongs on the back of an 1850s paddle steamer, was patented nearly 100 years ago but hasn’t made it into a production aircraft yet. Each prop is a spinning cylinder whose walls are formed by a number of wing blades.
The secret to the agility of this “Cyclogyro” arrangement is analogous to the way helicopter blades work, continuously altering the angle of the blades as they spin to adjust and direct lift using a “swashplate.” In the Cyclogyro arrangement, a mechanical linkage – conrods connected to a central hub – is able to tilt and angle the wing blades as they spin around the cylinder, tilting them gradually into the wind as they reach a certain point in their rotation, and then gradually back to flat as they pass the peak point.
Tesla is arguing that there’s actually no defect with its Model S/Model X suspension and that China is basically forcing an unnecessary recall.
Earlier today, we reported on Tesla recalling almost 30,000 Model S and Model X vehicles that were shipped to China over an alleged issue with its suspension.
As we stated in the report, there were a few things that were strange about this report — primarily the fact that it only affected Model S and Model X vehicles sent to China between 2013 and 2017 even though those vehicles were produced in the US, and Tesla used the same suspension as all other Model S and Model X produced during that period.
(Reuters) — India’s richest state Maharashtra has invited U.S. electric-car maker Tesla Inc, weeks after its Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk suggested entering the country next year.
In a tweet here on Thursday, state tourism and environment minister Aaditya Thackeray said he and industries minister Subhash Desai held a video call with Tesla executives earlier in the day to invite them to the state.
Earlier this month, Musk said “Next year for sure” on Twitter in reply to a post with a photograph of a T-shirt with the message: “India wants Tesla”.
The planes of the future may have flapping wings. 😃
Is it a bird, is it a plane? Well, this new Airbus prototype aircraft is kind of both.
The plane manufacturer has unveiled a scale model aiplane that actually flaps its wings during flight. The model, named AlbatrossONE, has been going through various stages of testing since last year, and recently hit a new milestone by completing a successful ‘gate-to-gate’ proof of concept flight.
While the AlbatrossONE fuselage looks more or less the same as the aircraft we’re used to flying on, the model is equipped with longer-than-normal wings that are able to bend backwards and forwards at the tip, which Airbus says will allow for more efficient flight.
Tesla owners who are part of the limited Full Self-Driving rollout have started sharing some images and videos of the advanced driver-assist features in action. Based on videos and the Release Notes of the limited beta, it appears that Tesla is heavily emphasizing safety.
Among the lucky Tesla owners who received the update were @brandonee916 and the @teslaownerssv group, both of whom shared a images and short clips of the limited Full Self-driving beta in action.
Overall, the UI of the limited beta seems to be quite rough in its current state. With this in mind, there seems to be a good chance that the visuals of FSD will be more refined by the time it gets a wider release.
