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Category: transportation

The rover will dig deeper into Mars than any previous mission in search of ancient life.

The rover, set for launch in 2,022 will bring to a head a decades-in-development program that has suffered a series of setbacks. If all goes well, the Rosalin Franklin rover may be scientists’ best shot at getting a definitive answer about whether there was ever life on Mars and what its fate can tell us about our own planet.

What is the Rosalind Franklin rover?

The Rosalind Franklin rover is an astrobiology lab on six wheels. It’s the mobile component of the joint ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars mission that also includes the Kazachok lander vehicle. Kazachok will land and release the rover on Mars’s Oxia Planum, an area believed to have once contained liquid water and may have been hospitable to early life.

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We’ve seen a lot of electric vehicle growth and success stories in the past several years, but one area that’s been a bit of a letdown has been the semi truck market. Unfortunately, we still don’t have the Tesla Semi, and it was recently delayed until 2,022 and a big side area of that market that “futurists” have long been excited about is potential self-driving trucks. Platoons of self-driving semi trucks are especially exciting since tight, train-like caravans of semi trucks would use far less energy than the current system, and those trucks could much more easily be cost-competitive electric trucks with zero tailpipe emissions. Anyway, though, we’re getting ahead of ourselves again.

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Last month, Indiana’s Department of Transport (INDOT) announced a collaboration with Purdue University and German company Magment to test out whether cement with embedded magnetized particles could provide an affordable road-charging solution.

Most wireless vehicle charging technologies rely on a process known as inductive charging, where electricity pumped into a wire coil creates a magnetic field that can induce an electric current in any other nearby wire coil. The charging coils are installed at regular intervals under the road, and cars are fitted with a receiver coil that picks up the charge.

But installing thousands of miles of copper under the road is obviously fairly costly. Magment’s solution is to instead embed standard concrete with recycled ferrite particles, which are also able to generate a magnetic field but are considerably cheaper. The company claims its product can achieve transmission efficiency of up to 95 percent and can be built at “standard road-building installation costs.”

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Although we expect the Ford Mustang Mach-E will be a hit, the reality that Ford emblazoned its all-electric crossover with a pony logo and the historic Mustang brand has turned off many fanatics. The answer is still out on whether the Mach-E will be a long-term plus or bad for the Mustang. Lichen Zhang, who regularly shares some cool-looking vehicle designs, has created this futuristic Ford Mustang EV. As a result, this design lacks the classic style we’ve come to anticipate from Mustangs in previous generations, while there are some clues of the past, notably in the front end. With a steeply sloped roof, huge haunches, and the kind of visage that reinforces the idea it’s after our lunch money, this 2,030 Ford Mustang EV “prototype” is surely a head-turner. The shape has a prominent beltline that leads to a somewhat narrow cockpit, making it difficult to seat two people side by side. Moreover, the rear end features an entirely new take on the Mustang’s renowned tri-bar taillights, which appear as if a wild animal has just scratched them somewhat. Nonetheless, this futuristic 2,030 Ford Mustang EV drawing signals a whole new trend in Mustang aesthetics, and we have to question if it’s a viable possibility. Anything is possible, considering The Blue Oval’s bravery in calling a battery-electric crossover a Mustang and the intrepid design of the current, third-gen Ford GT.Returning to reality for a moment, there is already a Ford Mustang EV in the form of the Mach-E, and we’re convinced that a hybrid will follow in the coming years. The hybrid, which will appear with the next-generation Mustang in 2,023 will, nevertheless, probably dominate much, if not all, of its gas-powered sibling’s appearance. We wouldn’t count out a major shift in automobile design as the industry switches to battery electric power.

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Tesla has started updating its Autopark feature with its new Tesla Vision computer vision system, which now powers Autopilot and its Full Self-Driving Beta.

Like many other premium (and even non-premium) vehicles, Tesla vehicles have been equipped with an autonomous parking feature called ‘ Autopark.

Tesla’s Autopark has been relying on ultrasonic sensors around the vehicles.

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A newly described species of wild tobacco that scientists found growing next to a highway truck stop in Western Australia is covered in sticky glands that trap and kill small insects, including gnats, aphids and flies.

While a range of carnivorous plants are known across the plant kingdom, this is the first wild tobacco plant discovered to kill insects. Dubbed Nicotiana insecticida, it was uncovered by a project looking for tobacco plants across Australia.

The team, which included Mark Chase of London’s Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, collected seeds from the insecticidal plant at a truck stop on the Northwest Coastal Highway, and then cultivated them at Kew, where the plants went on to develop the same sticky glandular hairs and to kill insects inside the greenhouses.

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Public transportation just got way cooler. Premium Swedish electric boat maker Candela has just unveiled the new Candela P-12, an electric hydrofoil water taxi.

Designed to replace traditional diesel-powered ferries, the Candela P-12 uses an electric powertrain combined with a carbon fiber hull and hydrofoils to create a super-efficient drive system.

The 8.5 meter (28 foot) water taxi can fit up to 12 passengers in its panoramic-view cabin.

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This axion insulating state was realized, Bansil says, by combining certain metals and observing their magnetoelectric response. In this case, researchers used a solid state chip composed of manganese bismuth telluride, which were adhered together in two-dimensional layers, to measure the resulting electric and magnetic properties.

Researchers note that such a finding has implications for a range of technologies, including sensors, switches, computers, and memory storage devices, among many others. The “storage, transportation, and manipulation of magnetic data could become much faster, more robust, and energy-efficient” if scientists can integrate these new topological materials into future devices, the researchers write.

“It’s like discovering a new element,” Bansil says. “And we know there’s going to be all sorts of interesting applications for this.”

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CHINA’S NEW 600 KM PER HOUR LEVITATED TRAIN is the next step in its system of 38,000 km of high speed rail lines covering the nation. China’s land area is almost exactly the same as the USA’s, but, by contrast, the USA has ZERO km of high speed rail. China is financing this and other massive infrastructural networks in the same way that the US formerly financed all its major infrastructure— with governmental financing. Every highway, every railway system, every waterway, etc., etc., in the USA was built in the same way, but we stopped building such systems.

It’s fast, very fast.

In fact, it is the fastest train the world.

Capable of speeds up to 600 km/h ((373 mph), China’s high-speed Maglev electric bullet train could very well close the gap between rail-based trains with a maximum speed of 350 km/h and aircraft with a flight speed of 800 to 900 km/h.

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Energy storage ideas.

Mateo Jaramillo sees the future of renewable energy in thousands of iron pellets rusting away in a laboratory in Somerville, Massachusetts.

Jaramillo is chief executive of Form Energy, a company that recently announced what it says is a breakthrough in a global race: how to store renewable energy for long periods of time.

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