The Tesla Model 3 has raised its own benchmark by winning the 2024 Drive Car of the Year Best Urban Electric Vehicle under $100K.
CIGS solar cells can also be used a bottom layer in the tandem solar cell design helping reduce production costs.
Researchers at Uppsala University in Sweden have created a new world record by designing a CIGS solar cell with 23.64 percent energy conversion efficiency.
Elon Musk has shared a new video on X of Tesla’s incredible Optimus robot taking a casual stroll around Tesla’s laboratory. Since being published on Saturday, February 24, the 1-minute and 18-second clip has garnered much attention, with almost 79 million views in a few days (at the time of writing).
The clip shows Optimus in a more complete aesthetic than previously released videos. It also shows how mobile the robot truly is. However, as other commentators have said, Tesla’s Optimus’ progress would have been impressive only a few years ago but lags behind other efforts like those by Boston Dynamics.
Tesla took half the awards for brand loyalty in the automotive industry in S&P Global Mobility’s new study.
Once you go electric, you don’t go back.
Studies have shown that electric vehicle buyers generally don’t go back to gasoline vehicles.
When analyzing the all-electric vehicle (EV) market, we have noticed that the segment shifted towards all-wheel-drive (AWD) powertrains. The front-wheel-drive (FWD) and rear-wheel-drive (RWD) models are in the minority.
It wasn’t always like that though. Between 2010 and 2013, there were only single-motor FWD and RWD models on the market. Things changed in the 2014 model year when Tesla introduced a dual-motor AWD version of the Model S (85D).
In the 2015 model year, Tesla expanded the dual-motor family to a few versions (about a quarter of all versions on the market, at the time), and then doubled the AWD lineup with the newly launched Model X in the 2016 model year.
Uppsala University is the new world record holder for electrical energy generation from copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) solar cells. The new world record is 23.64% efficiency. The measurement was made by an independent institute, and the results are published in Nature Energy.
The record results from a collaboration between the company First Solar European Technology Center (formerly known as Evolar) and solar cell researchers at Uppsala University.
“The measurements that we have made ourselves for this solar cell and other solar cells produced recently are within the margin of error for the independent measurement. That measurement will also be used for an internal calibration of our own measurement methods,” says Marika Edoff, Professor of Solar Cell Technology at Uppsala University, who is responsible for the study.
Tesla has built several charging posts into a parking lot at its Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg, and the company says they’re free and open to the public.
A new study by researchers at University of Limerick in Ireland has revealed a sustainable method of efficiently converting waste heat into electricity using Irish wood products, while minimizing costs and environmental impact.
The study, led by researchers at UL in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Valencia, has demonstrated a method of generating electricity using low-grade heat recovered from lignin-derived membranes.
Lignin, typically overlooked, is a sustainable byproduct derived from wood in paper and pulp production. The study shows that these membranes can convert waste heat into electricity by utilizing the movement of charged atoms (ions) within the material.
Physicists at Paderborn University have enhanced solar cell efficiency significantly using tetracene, an organic material, based on complex computer simulations. They discovered that defects at the tetracene-silicon interface boost energy transfer, promising a new solar cell design with drastically improved performance.
Physicists at Paderborn University have used complex computer simulations to create a novel solar cell design that boasts substantially higher efficiency than existing options. The enhancement in performance is attributed to a slender coating of an organic compound named tetracene. The results have recently been published in the renowned journal Physical Review Letters.
“The annual energy of solar radiation on Earth amounts to over one trillion kilowatt-hours and thus exceeds the global energy demand by more than 5,000 times. Photovoltaics, i.e. the generation of electricity from sunlight, therefore offers a large and still largely untapped potential for the supply of clean and renewable energy. Silicon solar cells used for this purpose currently dominate the market, but have efficiency limits,” explains Prof Dr Wolf Gero Schmidt, physicist and Dean of the Faculty of Natural Sciences at Paderborn University. One reason for this is that some of the energy from short-wave radiation is not converted into electricity, but into unwanted heat.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk is expanding its SpaceX Starbase office in Texas. Here’s what we know.
Musk already claims Austin as headquarters for Tesla, and now he’s expanding his SpaceX facility in Brownsville.
Brownsville is currently home to a landing pad, launch facility, launch control center and tracking station. A 40-minute drive along Highway 4 will take you to the unincorporated community of Boca Chica.
