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Category: transportation – Page 53

Artificial Intelligence is making its presence felt in thousands of different ways. It helps scientists make sense of vast troves of data; it helps detect financial fraud; it drives our cars; it feeds us music suggestions; its chatbots drive us crazy. And it’s only getting started.

Are we capable of understanding how quickly AI will continue to develop? And if the answer is no, does that constitute the Great Filter?

The Fermi Paradox is the discrepancy between the apparent high likelihood of advanced civilizations existing and the total lack of evidence that they do exist. Many solutions have been proposed for why the discrepancy exists. One of the ideas is the ‘Great Filter.’

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The first full-size prototype of Manta Ray, an advanced uncrewed underwater vehicle (UUV) produced by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), has been revealed in new photos.

The images were released on Monday by Northrup Grumman, one of two prime contractors DARPA selected in late 2021 to produce unique full-scale demonstration vehicles for the program.

Manta Ray is an extra-large glider UUV designed to carry out long-range and long-duration missions in undersea environments while limiting the need for human logistics on-site. The next-generation UUV will demonstrate a range of technologies that will enable greater energy efficiency and propulsion capabilities, as well as increased payload capacity.

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Tesla is bringing back its Full Self-Driving transfer program as an incentive to buy this quarter despite Elon Musk’s claim that it would be a “one-time offer.”

For years, Tesla owners who bought the up-to-$15,000 Full Self-Driving Capability package were asking for the capacity to transfer it when trading-in their vehicles for a new one.

The logic was sound: Tesla never delivered the self-driving capacity as promised. It only makes sense to allow owners to transfer the package to a new car for those who still believe that Tesla could eventually deliver through a software update.

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While researchers have encountered major headwinds in turning the Hyperloop into a reality, the European Hyperloop Center is still hoping to open the first functional tube by the end of the decade.

The nonprofit foundation has opened a new quarter-mile test tube made out of white steel segments, running alongside a railroad track in the northern Netherlands. It even includes a lane switch that splits the tube into two, an early experiment that could eventually inspire a way to connect a network of tubes.

The concept, as dreamed up by Tesla CEO Elon Musk over a decade ago, involves ferrying passengers and cargo through low-pressure tubes at roughly twice the speed of high speed rail, greatly cutting down the time to travel between cities.

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Like a certain Pixar movie come to life, Nio — China’s answer to Tesla, basically — has unveiled in a video that its flagship electric car can literally shake snow and ice off itself in seconds, like a Siberian Husky who’s done running the Iditarod Race.

In a video posted to Weibo this past weekend and spotted by Business Insider, Nio showcased this cool ability in its upcoming, ultra-luxurious ET9, which is set to be delivered in early 2025.

The premium four-door electric vehicle, which will cost an eyewatering $112,000, is able to do this doggy snow shake due to its advanced suspension system, dubbed Sky Ride, which includes independent hydraulic pumps for each wheel.

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A new study from UC Berkeley confirms what EV fans already know: EV adoption does, in fact, make the air cleaner. Perhaps even more importantly, the study offers some quantifiable, granular data about how much electric vehicles are impacting emission rates in the here and now, not just in the foreseeable future.

Not that these numbers will blow you away, mind you, but still, it’s good news.

Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, found that between 2018 and 2022, CO2 emission from all sources (industries, homes, traffic) across the San Francisco Bay Area dropped around 1.8% per year – a difference the researchers attribute to widespread EV adoption in the area. For vehicle emission rates, those numbers dropped 2.6% annually. EVs made up nearly 40% of new auto registrations in San Jose and 34% in San Francisco last year.

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A solid-state battery developer in China has unveiled a new cell that could help change the game for electric mobility. Tailan New Energy’s vehicle-grade all-solid-state lithium batteries offer energy density twice that of other cells in the segment, empowering the Chinese battery maker to hail the cells as a record-setter in the industry.

Tailan New Energy, aka Talent New Energy, is a private solid-state battery developer founded in Beijing, China, in 2018, where it remains headquartered in its research.

Per its website, it was “co-founded by lithium battery R&D experts and a senior domestic industrialization team, focusing on the technological development and industrialization of new solid-state lithium batteries and key lithium battery materials.”

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The upcoming entry-level Mercedes-Benz EV dubbed the “one-liter car” for its long-range capabilities, was finally caught out in the wild. In a new video, the electric Mercedes CLA was spotted testing near the Arctic Circle. The new EV is Mercedes-Benz’s answer to the Tesla Model 3.

Mercedes unveiled the electric CLA Concept in September, the first model in a new series of entry-level EVs.

The EV is expected to feature over 466 miles (750 km) driving range based on Mercedes’ next-gen MMA platform. Nicknamed the “one-liter car,” the electric CLA concept has an energy consumption of around 5.2 mi/kWh (12 kWh/ 100 km).

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