Lifeboat Foundation

Solar power is on the rise. You can see the evidence on rooftops and in the desert, where utility-scale solar plants are popping up. The picture is not all rosy, but if the recent past is any indication, solar power is going to help lead the transition to a carbon-free future, and it might do it faster than we all expected.

Elon Musk and Tesla promised solar roof tiles in 2016, but the industry might not need an upgrade as its grown significantly with the solar panels currently available. You can see the evidence both on individual rooftops and in the utility-scale solar plants increasingly popping up in deserts across the country. In the United States, of all about 30% of the new power capacity added to the grid in 2018 was from solar.

Continue reading “The Rise Of Solar Power” »

Saudi Arabia has called its giga-project Neom, a new city 33 times the size of New York City, “the world’s most ambitious project” — and it sounds it.

Houston Mechatronics (HMI) unveiled Aquanaut at the NASA Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, one year after the announcement of the platform concept.

Aquanaut is a revolutionary multi-mode transforming all-electric undersea vehicle. The vehicle is capable of efficient long-distance transit and data collection in ‘AUV’ (autonomous underwater vehicle) mode.

After transforming into ‘ROV’ (remotely operated vehicle) mode the head of the vehicle pitches up, the hull separates, and two arms are activated so that Aquanaut may manipulate its environment.

The i-CoBat project, operating under the UK government’s Faraday Battery Challenge, aims to create an electric vehicle (EV) battery pack which is cooled through immersion using MIVOLT, a biodegradable cooling fluid developed by specialist manufacturer M&I Materials, the project’s leader. Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG), the manufacturing research arm of the University of Warwick, along with engineering consultancy Ricardo plc, are partnering with M&I to optimise the EV battery cooling technology for a longer lasting, safer battery product.

A UK consortium is developing new EV battery cooling technology, with the aim of minimising range anxiety for electric vehicle users.

Daimler has just announced that it is halting all future development of gasoline engines. The automaker will solely focus on electric cars from here on out. This implies that Mercedes-Benz is taking the same approach.

The future is electric. We all know that and so too does Daimler now with this move to electric-drive only for future vehicles.

If you are a lover of all things auto, you should celebrate Tesla’s leadership on the Nürburgring track, and I am going to explain why I think this to be so.

Image courtesy Tesla

September 16th, Tesla Plaid Model S finished the Nürburgring in a hand stopped 7:23 minutes.

Continue reading “Tesla’s Leadership At Nürburgring Is A Win For Everyone” »

With pollution a major issue for Paris and the city’s public transport bursting at the seams, one start-up has a solution involving the River Seine.

The Bubble, a “flying taxi”, is powered by electricity and lifts out of the water on “wings” – and boasts green credentials such as being noise and pollution-free. It costs around €200,000 to build and can reach speeds of up to 18 knots (20.7mph). Test voyages in Paris are limited to a maximum speed of 18.6mph.

The service could launch as early as spring next year, according to a press release from the Paris mayor’s office. The Seabubbles start-up launched a four-day test run on the Seine on Monday.

Self-driving vehicles will lead to a rise in car sex, according to a new study.

People will be more likely to eat, sleep and engage in on-the-road hanky-panky when robot cars become the new normal, according to research published in the most recent issue of the journal Annals of Tourism Research.

“People will be sleeping in their vehicles, which has implications for roadside hotels. And people may be eating in vehicles that function as restaurant pods,” Scott Cohen, who led the study, told Fast Company magazine.

Volocopter, an electric air taxi startup backed by Daimler, had its urban flight debut during a presentation at the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart.

We previously reported on Volocopter in 2017 when they received a €25 million ($30 million) investment led by Daimler, Mercedes-Benz’s parent company, and a few other investors.

Continue reading “Watch all-electric air taxi ‘Volocopter’ make debut urban flight in Stuttgart” »