Lifeboat Foundation

And it’s a hybrid mix of hydrogen and electric power.

Global mining company Anglo American is experimenting with hydrogen to power the giant mining trucks.

Mining trucks consume 35.3 gallons (134 liters) of diesel per hour with their enormous weight of around 220 metric tonnes and therefore emitting vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Continue reading “A Mining Company Is Using Hydrogen Power in Its Trucks, Cutting CO2 Emissions” »

But could it actually work?

Lighter-than-air spacecraft might one day help explore the clouds of Venus and investigate signs of ancient life on the planet.

Continue reading “Inflatable Planes Could Search for Alien Life in the Clouds of Venus” »

Tesla has launched Free Holiday Supercharging during off-peak hours for the Holiday Season. From December 23 to December 26, Tesla will offer free Supercharging in various locations across the U.S. when charging before 10 AM or after 7 PM.

Tesla will offer the free off-peak Supercharging in eleven states across the U.S.: California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, Florida, and Pennsylvania. All four of Tesla’s vehicles will be eligible for the free Supercharging promotion. 75 Supercharging stations will be online for free Supercharging during the off-peak times.

“Avoid the rush this holiday season and charge for free during off-peak hours at Superchargers along select travel routes in the United States,” Tesla wrote on their website. Charging during off-peak hours is usually a less expensive experience, to begin with, because it puts less stress on the grid. However, the Holidays are a high travel time. Despite Tesla’s expansive Supercharger network with over 25,000 locations globally, things will still get pretty congested, especially as AAA estimates that 109.5 million travelers will hit the road to celebrate the Holidays with family this year.

US sanctions have not only made it harder for Chinese aviation companies to buy technology, but they have made financing more difficult too.

Electric-vehicle and battery startups have turned to an elite group of lawyers to ward off regulatory scrutiny while raising capital. Meet them here.

As the electric car revolution ramps up, so does the need for critical minerals used in batteries, such as graphite. According to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, there will be a global graphite deficit starting in 2022, and demand from the battery sector is expected to rise 30% annually until 2030. The US has no manufacturing plants that can supply automotive-grade graphite at scale. Meanwhile, China controls 84% of the global supply. Electrek spoke with Don Baxter, CEO of Ceylon Graphite, about how graphite is used in EVs, the supply chain issue, and how EV battery manufacturers can successfully source the vital mineral.

Electrek: How is graphite used in battery electric vehicles?

Don Baxter: Processed graphite comprises 95% of the anode (negative electrode) of lithium-ion batteries that power EVs, whereas the cathode (positive electrode) is made up of various materials such as nickel and cobalt.

A group of geologists stumbled on the fossil of the giant creature, known as Arthropleura, during a “social trip” to England’s Northumberland region in 2018. It’s the largest such fossil ever found.

Between a supply chain full of holes, labor shortages across various sectors of the economy, and rising inflation, it’s shaping up to be a somewhat chaotic holiday season. Technology can’t fix all of these problems—or even most of them—but it can help get holiday shipments from point A to point B faster, cheaper, and without as many humans involved. Waymo’s partnership with UPS could mean some of your holiday gifts will be spending time in an autonomous truck on their way to you.

Waymo (which started out as the Google Self-Driving Car Project in 2009 and is still held by Alphabet, but raised $2.5 billion in its first outside funding round in March of 2020) first announced a partnership with UPS in January 2020, in which Waymo Driver was used to help move packages between UPS stores in Phoenix and the UPS hub in Tempe. Waymo’s Chrysler Pacifica minivans drove autonomously, but trained operators were on board to monitor the vehicles.

Last week the two companies announced an expansion of their existing partnership, saying they’ll start autonomous trial runs using Class 8 trucks equipped with the fifth-generation Waymo Driver. They’ll do deliveries for UPS’s North American Air Freight unit between facilities in Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston. Waymo’s initial route for its driverless cargo shipments also ran between Houston and Fort Worth, which the company said is one of the most highly utilized freight corridors in the country. The route is around 260 miles long, much of that a straight shot on Interstate 45.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=RLdt3wgnuDs

AI chips, which are semiconductors designed to accelerate machine learning, have many applications. One of the promising use cases, according to Albert Liu, is using AI chips in autonomous driving vehicles.

That’s why Liu’s AI chipmaking startup Kneron has been quietly racking up investments to march into smart transportation. It recently closed a new round of $25 million funding led by Lite-On Technology, a Taiwanese optoelectronic pioneer, which was a strategic investor in the round. Other investors included Alltek, PalPilot, Sand Hill Angels and Gaingels.

Continue reading “AI chip maker Kneron raises $25M for autonomous driving push” »