When we first covered the high-power Delfast TopCop electric bicycle, the company was still pitching its bikes to various police departments around the world. Now we’re hearing some of the first feedback from actual cops who have incorporated the e-bikes into their daily service.
Tesla has made even more battery improvements on its new ‘million-mile battery’ now with less cobalt, which could result in lower cost and even more energy density.
Last year, we were the first to report on Tesla’s battery research partner, Jeff Dahn and his team at Dalhousie University, unveiling the impressive results of tests on a new battery cell that could last over 1 million miles in an electric vehicle.
The new battery tested is a Li-ion battery cell with a next-generation “single crystal” NMC 532 cathode and a new advanced electrolyte, which they patented.
Scaling Up
There’s a long way to go between a proof-of-concept prototype and installing an engine in a real plane. But the prototype was able to launch a one-kilogram steel ball 24 millimeters into the air. That’s the same thrust, proportional to scale, as a conventional jet engine.
“Our results demonstrated that such a jet engine based on microwave air plasma can be a potentially viable alternative to the conventional fossil fuel jet engine,” lead researcher and Wuhan University engineer Jau Tang said in a press release.
Some big M&A is afoot in Israel in the world of smart transportation. According to multiple reports and sources that have contacted TechCrunch, chip giant Intel is in the final stages of a deal to acquire Moovit, a startup that applies AI and big data analytics to track traffic and provide transit recommendations to some 800 million people globally. The deal is expected to close in the coming days at a price believed to be in the region of $1 billion.
We have contacted Nir Erez, the founder and CEO of Moovit, as well as Intel spokespeople for a comment on the reports and will update this story as we learn more. For now, Moovit’s spokesperson has not denied the reports and what we have been told directly.
“At this time we have no comment, but if anything changes I’ll definitely let you know,” Moovit’s spokesperson.
Adapting the architecture for small city cars in a cost-efficient way is proving to be challenging because of the need to strip out a third of the costs compared with the ID.3.
Engineers have looked at everything from smaller electric motors to different battery module configurations to give the small EVs the high standard of crash protection that will be expected by customers.
Going back to March 2019, VW Group CEO Herbert Diess said it would use a new brand, likely the Spanish Seat marque, for electric versions of its small city cars – the VW Up, Skoda Citigo, and Seat Mii. The goal was to make “a great step toward an even more affordable electric mobility.”
The US firm, known for its electric vehicles, also has operations in battery energy storage and solar panel manufacturing.
The JLTV is the successor to the Humvee, and the Army plans to buy at least 50,000 in the coming decades.
The Army, concerned that civilian adoption of electric vehicles could leave it vulnerable, is looking into making the JLTV itself an EV.
An electric JLTV would reduce the need for diesel fuel at remote outposts, with power provided by solar or nuclear energy.
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Elon Musk tweeted a complaint about Tesla’s share price that wiped $14bn off the company’s stock market value on Friday morning.
The seven-word tweet was the latest controversial outburst from the outspoken chief executive, whose outpourings on Twitter have landed him in hot water before. An incorrect claim in the middle of 2018 that he was close to a buyout of Tesla led to a complaint from the US Department of Justice and a settlement that involved Mr Musk agreeing not to issue market-moving tweets in future without first clearing them with his company’s legal department.
Tesla did not immediately confirm whether Mr Musk’s tweet had been given legal clearance, and did not respond to a question about whether the company currently has a general counsel. Tesla lost three general counsels last year, one of them quitting after only two months.
A cherry-red pickup truck in Carmel, Indiana runs on hydrogen without carrying any fuel cells. The engineer who developed this “hydrogen-on-tap” system hopes it can someday power cargo trucks and cruise ships worldwide.
The city of Carmel, Ind., has trucks for plowing snow, salting streets, and carrying landscaping equipment. But one cherry-red pickup can do something no other vehicle can: produce its own hydrogen.
A 45-kilogram metal box sits in the bed of the work truck. When a driver starts the engine, the device automatically begins concocting the colorless, odorless gas, which feeds into the engine’s intake manifold. This prevents the truck from guzzling gasoline until the hydrogen supply runs out. The pickup has no fuel cell module, a standard component in most hydrogen vehicles. No high-pressure storage tanks or refueling pumps are needed, either.
Instead, the “hydrogen-on-tap” device contains six stainless steel canisters. Each contains a 113-gram button of an aluminum and gallium alloy. A small amount of water drips onto the buttons, causing a chemical reaction that splits the oxygen and hydrogen contained in the water. The hydrogen releases, and the rest turns into aluminum oxide, a waste product that can be recycled to create more buttons. Back in the garage, the driver can replace spent canisters with news ones to replenish the hydrogen supply.
Tesla has confirmed that it will offer its Full Self-Driving package (FSD) as a subscription service, but you should brace yourself for the price.
We reported earlier this week that Tesla is working on a pay-as-you-go subscription for its self-driving package based on some code that leaked in Tesla’s in-app purchase system.
During a conference call following Tesla’s Q1 2020 results, CEO Elon Musk and CFO Zachary Kirkhorn that Tesla plans to offer the package as a subscription service by the end of the year.
