An anonymous reader quotes CNET’s Roadshow: The Tesla Cybertruck will have a solar charging option that can extend its driving range 15 miles a day, Chief Executive Elon Musk said Friday. On top of that, “fold-out solar wings” could increase that extra range to 30 to 40 miles per day, he said. “Would love this to be self-powered,” Musk tweeted of…
Tag: trucks
Why the Electric-Car Revolution May Take a Lot Longer Than Expected
New submitter magzteel shares a report from MIT Technology Review: A new report from the MIT Energy Initiative warns that EVs may never reach the same sticker price so long as they rely on lithium-ion batteries, the energy storage technology that powers most of today’s consumer electronics. In fact, it’s likely to take another decade just to eliminate the difference in…
Waymo’s Driver-Less Cars Will Also Deliver Parts To Repair Shops
“Waymo said that its autonomous vehicles will be used to help shuttle car parts between several AutoNation locations and other repair shops in the Phoenix, Arizona area,” reports the International Business Times: While the expanded partnership may not seem like a big deal at first blush, it’s important for investors to know that the move is yet another step for Waymo…
13-Year-Old Scientist Designs Alternative To Hyperloop
dryriver shares a report from CNN: Several rival companies may be hard at work trying to get Elon Musk’s Hyperloop concept off the ground, but hurtling across country — maybe even across continents — at 600 miles per hour in a low-pressure steel tube still feels far from reality. But 13-year-old New York student Caroline Crouchley may have invented a more…
How DARPA Trucked Its Massive Radio-Frequency Testbed Across the United States
IEEE Spectrum describes how the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) partnered with Pivot Technology Services to help them relocate their massive radio-frequency emulation testbed, called “Colosseum.” The testbed was built for the agency’s Spectrum Collaboration Challenge (SC2) — a three-year competition to demonstrate the validity of using AI to work together in order to use wireless spectrum more efficiently…
School Field Trips: Amazon Warehouses Are the New Smithsonian
theodp writes: On Thursday evening, Amazon is hosting a national field trip of sorts, inviting kids and teachers to take part in a Twitch livestream tour inside an Amazon robotics fulfillment center with the goal of inspiring students to learn about robotics and to “illustrate the importance of a computer science education.” From the press release: “On the tour, students will…
The Most Detailed Map of Auto Emissions In America
The New York Times published findings from an analysis of new data released through Boston University’s Database of Road Transportation Emissions. The map embedded in the report shows a year’s worth of CO2 from passenger and freight traffic on every road in the United States. From the report: The database provides the most detailed estimates available of local on-road CO2 over…
New Research Promises Electric Car Batteries That Last For a Million Miles
A team of battery researchers from Halifax, Nova Scotia’s Dalhousie University believes it has come up with a recipe that can make electric car batteries last for a million miles. Gizmodo reports: In a paper published in the The Journal of the Electrochemical Society earlier this month, battery researchers describe a new lithium-ion battery that could potentially power an electric vehicle…
The Next Hot Job: Pretending To Be a Robot
“As the promise of autonomous machines lags the underlying technology, the growing need for human robot-minders could juice the remote workforce,” reports The Wall Street Journal. An anonymous reader shares excerpts from the report: Across industries, engineers are building atop work done a generation ago by designers of military drones. Whether it’s terrestrial delivery robots, flying delivery drones, office-patrolling security robots,…
Astronomy ambassadors to Chile: ALMA radio telescope
Robert Pettengill’s final report on his recent trip to Chile with the Astronomy in Chile Educator Ambassador Program. Thank you, Rob! Source: https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/aceap-2019-alma-chile-pettengill…