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Category: transportation – Page 357

The Hunt for New Batteries — with Serena Corr

Serena Corr looks at the science behind batteries, discusses why we are hunting for new ones and investigates what tools we use to pave this pathway to discovery.
Watch the Q&A: https://youtu.be/lZjqiR0czLo.

The hunt is on for the next generation of batteries that will power our electric vehicles and help our transition to a renewables-led future. Serena shows how researchers at the Faraday Institution are developing new chemistries and manufacturing processes to deliver safer, cheaper, and longer-lasting batteries and provide higher power or energy densities for electric vehicles.

Serena Corr is a Chair in Functional Materials and Professor in Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Sheffield. She works on next-generation battery materials and advanced characterisation techniques for nanomaterials.

This event was generously supported by The Faraday Institution.

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Iran Insists That Its Nuclear Scientist Was Killed by a “Satellite-Controlled Machine Gun”

Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Iran’s top nuclear scientist, was killed on November 27 by a “smart satellite-controlled machine gun” that used AI, the country’s Revolutionary Guards commander Brig-Gen Ali Fadavi told local media, as the BBC reports.

The scientist was allegedly killed by a weapon mounted to a pickup truck, which shot Fakhrizadeh inside a vehicle from a distance — but spared his wife sitting right next to him.

The weapon “focused only on martyr Fakhrizadeh’s face in a way that his wife, despite being only 25cm [10 inches] away, was not shot,” Gen Fadavi, Revolutionary Guards deputy commander, told a ceremony on Sunday, as quoted by the BBC.

Aptera is back with a new EV it says doesn’t need charging

The three-wheeled, two-person vehicle is curvy and lightweight.

Aptera, the company that shuttered in 2011 after failing to secure funding for its three-wheeled electric car, is back with a new solar electric vehicle it claims never needs charging, at least, for most drivers. And it predicts its top model, with a battery of 100 kWh, can get up to 1,000 miles of range.

The new three-wheeled, two-person (or two adults plus pet, as its specs suggest) vehicle has a solar roof array that can provide up to 45 miles of range per day, so if you have that top model and add the charge from the solar panels while it’s parked, then the 1,000 range seems … possible. Although, as Car and Driver points out, the vehicle doesn’t run just on solar power while driving.

“With Aptera’s Never Charge technology, you are driven by the power of the sun. Our built-in solar array keeps your battery pack topped off and anywhere you want to go, you just go,” Aptera co-founder Chris Anthony said in a press release. “Never Charge is built into every Aptera and is designed to harvest enough sunlight to travel over 11,000 miles per year in most regions.”

China Tests Sodramjet Jet Engine With Mach 16 Speeds to Reach ‘Anywhere on Earth in 2 Hours’

China has made tall claims after testing an advanced aircraft engine prototype. The claim is that the ‘sodramjet’ (short form for ‘standing oblique detonation ramjet)’ jet engine could power an aircraft to such speeds that it can reach anywhere on Earth in two hours.

The engine prototype, tested in hypersonic wind tunnel simulating flight conditions, came off clocking test speeds nine times the speed of sound, the Chinese engineers said, according to the South China Morning Post. The test was conducted in Beijing the report adds.

Aptera Announces First “Never Charge” Electric Vehicle

Today, Aptera announced a solar electric vehicle that will not need to be plugged in for most regular uses, and it sports a 1,000 mile range on a full charge.

“With Aptera’s Never Charge technology, you are driven by the power of the sun. Our built-in solar array keeps your battery pack topped off and anywhere you want to go, you just go,” says co-founder Chris Anthony. Aptera says they will achieve this by making the vehicle as efficient as possible, allowing the relatively low amount of energy one can get from solar panels to do a lot more than it could for other electric vehicles.

The biggest thing Aptera does that others don’t is optimize the vehicle for low drag. With an airplane-like design and only three wheels, the car has a drag coefficient of just 0.13. To put this in perspective, a Tesla Model S has a drag coefficient of 0.24. With less “wind resistance,” travel at all speeds requires less energy, with the effect of saving more energy compared to normal cars increasing as the car goes faster. Aptera plans to do this while still having a 100 kWh battery pack, so the car will have great range.

Luminar’s 25-year-old founder Austin Russell becomes billionaire after IPO

The founder of a startup that helps cars drive themselves just became a billionaire — and he’s barely old enough to rent a car on his own.

Luminar Technologies CEO Austin Russell, 25, secured a hefty fortune after his company’s stock market debut this week. The Florida-based firm — which he founded when he was just 17 — makes so-called lidar scanners that use lasers to give autonomous cars a three-dimensional view of the road and what’s around them.

Luminar’s share price surged nearly 28 percent on its Thursday debut to close at $22.98, giving the company a market value of about $7.8 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Elon Musk’s Boring Company teases first passenger station of the Las Vegas Loop

Elon Musk’s Boring Company has released the first images teasing the first passenger station of the Las Vegas Loop ahead of its launch.

A Boring Company Loop system consists of tunnels in which Tesla autonomous electric vehicles travel at high speeds between stations to transport people within a city.

The first system is being deployed at the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCVA), which is paying $50 million for the system, but we recently learned that the Boring Company plans to connect the convention center’s Loop to casinos on the strip in order to eventually create a city-wide Loop in Las Vegas.

All About Electric Transportation

This Week in Engineering is multi-segment show that explores the latest innovations and tech trends across many engineering disciplines from academic institutions, government agencies and industry.

EPISODE SEGMENTS:
0:14 GM Unveils Massive Investment in EV’s.
2:30 UK’s Kar-go Autonomous Delivery Vehicle.

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Read more about the topics discussed in this video on engineering.com:

Kar-go Autonomous Vehicle Begins Contactless Delivery to Care Homes:

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