Gotion High Tech has announced its new L600 lithium-manganese-iron-phosphate (LMFP) Astroinno battery that can provide class-leading efficiency figures. The announcement comes shortly after the firm obtained a procurement letter from Volkswagen and became a designated supplier of batteries for the automaker’s overseas markets.
Apple’s digital car key feature for iPhone and Apple Watch is expanding to Mercedes-Benz, with changes to Apple’s back-end configuration files for the feature having been updated today with references to the automaker, as noticed by Nicolás Álvarez (via @aaronp613).
Only a handful of brands including BMW, BYD, Genesis, Hyundai, and Kia have so far introduced support for the feature on select models, which allows you to add a digital car key to the Wallet app on your iPhone and Apple Watch and then lock, unlock, and start your car without needing a physical key. Just a month ago, Lotus appeared in Apple’s configuration files as another upcoming brand that will support the feature.
Elon Musk informed the audience via video link at the Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council event in London: “I will strongly consider England for a future location of a gigafactory.”
Mount Etna enjoyed its first major eruption in 30 years on Sunday, and footage of the busy volcano’s spewing and flowing orange lava against the black and white billowing smoke is stunning. (See video caught by Massimiliano Salfi, posted by Earth42morrow, below).
Europe’s most active volcano caused Sicily’s Catania airport to shut down yesterday after ash covered its runways, according to CNN, but has mostly reopened as of Monday.
People in nearby towns reportedly heard loud booming sounds at the time of the eruption, but no injuries have been reported. Mount Etna’s last eruption of this size was in 1992.
A team of researchers at Duke University and their collaborators have uncovered the atomic mechanisms that make a class of compounds called argyrodites attractive candidates for both solid-state battery electrolytes and thermoelectric energy converters.
The discoveries—and the machine learning approach used to make them—could help usher in a new era of energy storage for applications such as household battery walls and fast-charging electric vehicles.
The results appeared online May 18 in the journal Nature Materials.
Seattle-based startup Jetoptera is designing vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) vehicles with bladeless propulsion systems — potentially making the future of urban flight quiet, safer, and faster.
The challenge: The proportion of the global population living in cities is expected to increase from 50% today to nearly 70% by 2050, meaning our already crowded urban streets are likely to become even more congested.
The Solar powered Aptera can replenish up to 40 miles a day with built in solar panels all over the exterior. Get $30 dollars off your Aptera pre-order with this link: https://lz953.isrefer.com/go/preorder/a107820 The Aptera has a top speed of 110mph and a 0–60 of 4 seconds — the future is going to be fun.
Self-driving vehicle companies Waymo and Cruise are on the cusp of securing final approval to charge fares for fully autonomous robotaxi rides throughout the city of San Francisco at all hours of the day or night.
Amid the city’s mounting resistance to the presence of AVs, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) published two draft resolutions late last week that would grant Cruise and Waymo the ability to extend the hours of operation and service areas of their now-limited robotaxi services.
The drafts are dated for a hearing June 29, and there’s still room for public comments, which are due May 31. Based on the CPUC’s drafted language, many of the protests raised by the city of San Francisco have already been rejected.
An exhibition dedicated to the work of British architect Norman Foster has opened at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, showcasing drawings and original models produced by the architect over the last six decades.
The exhibition, which according to the Norman Foster Foundation is the largest-ever retrospective display of Foster’s work, features around 130 of the architect’s projects including the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Headquarters, Hong Kong International Airport and Apple Park.
Designs that informed Foster’s work are also exhibited, including works by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, French painter Fernand Léger, Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi and Italian painter Umberto Boccioni, and even cars, which the architect is passionate about.
New TSA screening methods will allow passengers through security without showing their boarding passes or by simply taking a picture.
