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Archive for the ‘transportation’ category: Page 206

Apr 27, 2022

Invesco is launching an ETF tied to metals used in electric vehicles as prices for key materials soars

Posted by in categories: sustainability, transportation

Money manager Invesco on Wednesday launched an exchange-traded fund aimed at providing exposure to industrial metals needed to make electric vehicles, as commodity prices have surged and the market for EVs continues to expand.

The Invesco Electric Vehicle Metals Commodity Strategy No K-1 ETF began trading Wednesday under the EVMT ticker and is the first of its kind, with the non-equity fund offering investors access to key metals needed by all EV manufacturers, the company said in a press statement.

EVMT will invest in derivatives and other instruments financially linked to exposure to aluminum, cobalt, copper, iron ore, nickel, and zinc. EVMT is the “only ETF that considers metals necessary for whole car production, rather than a focus on battery production,” said Jason Bloom, head of fixed income and alternatives ETF strategy at Invesco, in the statement.

Apr 26, 2022

Mini Cooper maker launches four new electric bicycles with regenerative braking

Posted by in category: transportation

Cooper Bikes, the company behind the Mini Cooper car, has just unveiled four new electric bicycle models that comprise the brand’s second generation e-bikes.

Cooper Bikes is the two-wheeler division of Cooper Car Company, which was the original designer of the Mini Cooper, itself a segment of BMC’s iconic Mini.

But while the Mini Cooper helped create a name for the company as far back as 1961, today it is Cooper Bikes that is stealing the headlines with four interesting new models.

Apr 26, 2022

After years of failure, Elon Musk’s Boring Company claims it will finally test a full-scale Hyperloop this year

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, transportation

Despite nearly a decade of effort, no one has been able to design a working prototype.

Apr 25, 2022

Northern Virginia Highway Plans Would Fuel a Massive Increase in Driving

Posted by in categories: energy, transportation

North Virginia will make multi-billion dollar decisions this year on the region’s transportation future—decisions that are only going to induce more driving.

Apr 25, 2022

HyPoint extends hydrogen flight range with new ultra-light fuel tanks

Posted by in categories: energy, transportation

BHL Cryotanks have demonstrated a 75% mass reduction compared to existing state-of-the-art aerospace cryotanks (metal or composite), enabling hydrogen aircraft and eVTOL makers to store as much as 10 times more liquid hydrogen fuel without adding mass. As a result, aircraft can travel longer distances without refueling.

GTL has fabricated and tested multiple BHL Cryotanks at a range of scales and has been demonstrated to be leak-tight even after repeated cryo-thermal pressure cycles. This technology has achieved TRL 5+ and is compatible with a variety of cryogenic propellants, including liquid oxygen, liquid methane, and liquid hydrogen.

The BHL Cryotank pictured here measures 2.4 meters long with a 1.2-meter diameter and weighs 12 kilograms (roughly 26 pounds). With the addition of a skirt and vacuum dewar shell, the total system weight is 67 kilograms. This particular tank system can hold over 150 kilograms of liquid hydrogen, giving it a hydrogen storage ratio of at least 50% (the weight of stored hydrogen fuel relative to total system weight), which is as much as 10 times greater than current state-of-the-art fuel tanks. HyPoint estimated that an aircraft equipped with GTL dewar tank technology could achieve as much as four times the range of a conventional aircraft using aviation fuel, cutting aircraft operating costs by an estimated 50% on a dollar-per-passenger-mile basis.

Apr 25, 2022

Your Future Car

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, transportation

Click on photo to start video.

This adorable looking bot can park your car for you.

Apr 25, 2022

This superjumbo is the biggest plane Airbus has tested on sustainable fuel

Posted by in categories: sustainability, transportation

Apr 25, 2022

Volkswagen designed an adorable robot that can charge your electric vehicle on its own

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, sustainability, transportation

Apr 24, 2022

Hackers could sabotage 4D printed objects to cause malicious failures

Posted by in categories: 4D printing, transportation

Attackers could gain access to printers and manipulate designs of parts such as aircraft propellers in ways that are difficult to detect.

Apr 24, 2022

Nissan and NASA Are Teaming Up to Make a Metal-Free Solid-State Battery

Posted by in categories: computing, transportation

Crucially, the Nissan-NASA partnership is also focusing on batteries that don’t rely on rare metals, like cobalt (of which more than half the global supply is in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as highlighted in an episode of the New York Times Daily podcast last month), nickel, or manganese.

But getting rid of those metals means finding materials with comparable properties to replace them, which will be no simple task. Here’s where NASA’s computing chops will lend the partnership a much-needed hand. They plan to create an original material informatics platform—that is, a massive database that runs simulations of how various materials interact with one another. When the platform narrows countless options and combinations down to a few prime candidates, researchers can then start testing them.

Nissan has targeted 2028 as the year to roll out its proprietary solid-state batteries. How realistic that timing turns out to be remains to be seen (Toyota is even more ambitious, aiming to have its own vehicles with solid-state batteries on the market by 2025), b ut Nissan is putting its money where its mouth is with plans to open a pilot plant in Japan in 2024. How this plays out will be revelatory, as scaling up manufacturing of solid-state batteries has produced unexpected complications in the past. Encouragingly, startup Solid Power ha s also targeted 2028 for comm ercializing its solid-state batteries.