Toggle light / dark theme

How true?


This video is about driverless cars and why China could be ahead of the world in self-driving car technology. We talk about how they are the biggest adopters of autonomous vehicles and how one day Chinese companies could be giving us a future of true autonomous travel. We also look at the issues that may set China back. Let’s take a look at why.

Subscribe for weekly videos on transhumanism tech:

What do the loopy straws that children like to sip drinks through have in common with cutting-edge science? Ask Ryan Murphy and his colleagues at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), where the team has thought up a creative way to explore the properties of fluids under extreme conditions.

The team invented a device that can push fluids through a narrow tube at the velocity of a car hurtling down a rural interstate — about 110 km per hour. This might not sound overly fast to a road tripper, but the tube’s inner diameter is typically 100 micrometers — about the thickness of a human hair. Scaled up, that would be like a train hurtling through a subway tunnel about 100 times faster than a rocket blasting its way into orbit.

To add to the fun, the meter-long tube is coiled up like a spring, so the fluid careens around loop after three-centimeter-wide loop, as though that rocketing subway were a blindingly fast roller coaster that turns somersaults from start to finish.

During the second quarter earnings call, Elon Musk called on miners to efficiently mine more nickel. According to Musk, nickel miners could be assured of massive contracts with Tesla, provided that their mining practices are efficient and environmentally conscious. If recent reports are any indication, it appears that a Canadian mining company has recently answered the CEO’s call.

In a statement to Bloomberg, Toronto-based Canada Nickel Co. stated that it is poised to build a facility that has the capability to process zero carbon nickel. The need for such a product was highlighted by Canada Nickel Chief Executive Officer Mark Selby to the publication. “The electric vehicle chain and broader market in general is crying out for zero-carbon product,” he said.

Goodbye gas stations.


During the second quarter earnings call, Elon Musk tentatively confirmed that Tesla would be making a compact car and a vehicle with high capacity. Granted, it would probably take a few more years before such vehicles are produced, but one thing seems certain. Considering Tesla’s speed and pace, it would not be surprising if Tesla’s compact car and high capacity EV causes the extinction of the internal combustion engine.

Tesla’s current lineup of vehicles, which comprise the Model S, Model 3, Model X, and Model Y, are great EVs, but they are still fairly large for their class. This includes the Model 3 and the Model Y, Tesla’s “smaller” vehicles in its lineup. This, together with the vehicles’ premium price, end up blocking the company from reaching its full potential in the auto market. With a compact car and a high capacity vehicle, however, things could drastically change for Tesla.

Compact and High Capacity EVs

Interesting.


Audi has announced that it is testing out bidirectional charging technology for electric cars, this would incorporate the electric car into the domestic power grid and could provide additional power to the grid when not in use.

What this would do is make electric vehicles a storage unit for energy to be drawn on by the grid or the owners house when needed, for example when a vehicle was parked overnight or not in use.

Apple, the world’s largest technology company by revenue, is already carbon neutral for its corporate facilities, a goal achieved in April 2020. However, the consumer electronics giant now intends to make every product and its entire supply chain – from manufacturing to transportation to end-of-life material recovery – net zero by 2030.

Skeptics like to point out that most EV drivers live in single-family homes that make charging easy. And they point to the current lack of charging stations at condos as an impenetrable obstacle to EV adoption. But this viewpoint reflects a lack of understanding of how daily EV charging works. I recently chatted with Jason Appelbaum, chief executive of EverCharge — the biggest EV charging network you never heard of.


Several hundred electric cars, all parked in the same condo garage, can easily get their daily dose of electricity. It requires a smart load-balancing system.