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A key component of NASA’s X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology (QueSST) aircraft is undergoing vibration tests at the space agency’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. The eXternal Vision System (XVS) is a special camera system that the pilot of the X-plane will use to see forward while the experimental supersonic craft is in flight.

When the X-59 takes to the skies in 2021, the pilot will be faced with a problem not often encountered since the Concorde fleet of supersonic passenger jetliners was retired. The X-59 is meant to test new technologies to build a new generation of supersonic commercial aircraft and, while it promises to overcome some of the drawbacks of Concorde, it will still share some of its difficulties.

One is that the ideal design of a long-range supersonic liner is essentially that of a needle-nosed dart. The annoying thing is that, though this shape may be fine from an aerodynamic point of view, it makes it extremely difficult for the pilot to see forward without a lot of complex mechanics, like Concorde’s droop nose and special sliding windscreen.

Most of the pieces of Elon Musk’s Master Plan, Part Deux are already in place. Tesla’s mass-market cars, the Model 3 and Model Y, have already been released. The Solar Roof is finally seeing a ramp. And the release of a feature-complete version of the company’s Full Self-Driving suite seems to be drawing closer.

For Tesla’s Full Self-Driving suite to be feature-complete, the electric car maker would need to master inner-city driving. FSD already works for highway driving with Navigate on Autopilot with automatic lane changes. But when it comes to inner-city streets, Full Self-Driving still has some ways to go. Fortunately, if Tesla’s v10.2 2020.12.5 release is any indication, it appears that more and more aspects of city driving are becoming recognized by the company’s neural networks.

Designer Michal Bonikowski’s concept is probably four or five generations ahead of the current mode of thinking, but Bonikowski told Robb Report that he was inspired by the recent Maveric concept by Airbus. “That aircraft’s unique design helps reduce drag while providing more cabin space,” he said. “I have been thinking a lot about this lately, and wondered what could happen if a big company would like to create an electric plane.”

The Airspeeder vehicle, which weighs about 550 pounds, uses a battery pack that can be swapped out during the race. The packs are expected to last for about 15 minutes. Four 32-horsepower electric motors propel the cars to a top speed of about 125 miles per hour. The vehicle tears through the air between about 15 and 130 feet off the ground.

Matt Pearson, founder of Alauda and the Airspeeder series, said:

In economic terms, the eVTOL (Electrical Vertical Take Off and Landing) sector has the potential to be worth €1.37 trillion ($ 1.5 trillion) by 2040. It is backed by some of the biggest names in aviation, technology, and automotive.

German company Nanoflow Cell unveiled a sleek looking fully electric Quant 48Volt at the Geneva Motor Show this year with the goal of the company bringing the first production car in the world to be powered by saltwater. The Quant 48Volt has two tanks of liquid with dissolved metallic salt which gives them opposite charges. The liquid is separated by a membrane where positively charged ions lose an electron generating electricity.

One fill up of the tanks are good for 621 miles (1,000 km) which astonishingly is greater distance our gasoline vehicles can take us. However, to fill up the tank which has the 3x capacity of large SUV will take quite a bit of time but certainly not hours.

The salt water powered vehicle generates 560kW (760HP) and goes 0-60mph in 2.4 seconds.