Tag: Tesla

The Future is Here… and Badass: The Electric Harley

harley_livewireThe Harley Davidson enjoys a rather unique place in American culture, one that is characterized by images of the open road, a sense of freedom, and the sound of a deep, earthy growl. Which is why, when the company released a teaser video earlier this month showcasing Project Livewire, many people were understandably nervous. After all, electronic vehicles seem just fine when it comes to the Toyota Prius, the Nissan Leaf, or anything in the Tesla catalog. But this is Harley Davidson, right?

In this case, the challenge arises from the fact that electric engines are usually silent. In the case of a Harley Hog or a Chopper – or any other classic brand names that scream Hell’s Angels, leather jackets and anarchy – the engine is an iconic part of the brand. They also didn’t want to fake the roar of the engine. Instead, the engineers carefully tweaked the arrangement of the motor and the gear box until it created a sound that’s a little like a jet flying by.

harley_livewire1Jeff Richlen, the chief engineer for the new prototype bike, explained:

When we went into this, we had to consider all of our products are grounded in three things–look, sound, and feel. The sound is the most important, and we didn’t want to lose that. We didn’t want a silent product… The first time we spun up the gears and ran the motorcycle we knew we had something special. It really was defining another sound of Harley Davidson. We’re certainly not forgetting our past and what is our product legacy, it’s just something brand new. And it kind of sounds like the future.

When addressing the reason for the project, Richlen admitted that the company’s main motivation wasn’t trying to improve the sustainability of their bikes, even though motorcycles produce more tailpipe emissions than cars. In the end, he claims that the company is looking to the possibilities of the future, and electronic engines are at the forefront of that. And while cars are well represented, the potential for motorbikes remains largely unexplored. Going green was merely a biproduct of that.

harleyIn the teaser video, things open up on historic route 66. A Harley drives by, only it doesn’t sound like a Harley. It’s quieter, more like the jet engine of a very small plane. Over the summer, Harley-Davidson will take the new LiveWire bike on a 30-city tour of the U.S. to get customer feedback. Richlen has extended an invite to anyone who doubts the power of the bike to come on out try the bike for themselves. The real test, he says, is in the twist of the throttle:

There are some limitations of the EV space right now, and we understand that, and that’s why we’re looking for feedback–what do customers expect out of the product, what would their tradeoff points be? There may be people who get on this thinking ‘golf cart’ and get off it thinking rocket ship.

So if you happen to live in a city where the Harley tour is stopping, and have a love of bikes that borders on the erotic, go check it out. And be sure to check out the teaser video below:


Source: fastcoexist.com, cnet.com

Build Your Own Electric Car

https://i0.wp.com/f.fastcompany.net/multisite_files/fastcompany/imagecache/1280/poster/2014/06/3031851-poster-model-s-photo-gallery-01.jpgIt’s official: all of Tesla’s electric car technology is now available for anyone to use. Yes, after hinting that he might be willing to do so last weekend, Musk announced this week that his companies patents are now open source. In a blog post on the Tesla website, Musk explained his reasoning. Initially, Musk wrote, Tesla created patents because of a concern that large car companies would copy the company’s electric vehicle technology and squash the smaller start-up.

This was certainly reasonable, as auto giants like General Motors, Toyota, and Volkswagon have far more capital and a much larger share of the market than his start-up did. But in time, Musk demonstrated that there was a viable market for affortable, clean-running vehicles. This arsenal of patents appeared to many to be the only barrier between the larger companies crushing his start-up before it became a viable competitor.

electric_carBut that turned out to be an unnecessary worry, as carmakers have by and large decided to downplay the viability and relevance of EV technology while continuing to focus on gasoline-powered vehicles. At this point, he thinks that opening things up to other developers will speed up electric car development. And after all, there’s something to be said about competition driving innovation.

As Musk stated on his blog:

Given that annual new vehicle production is approaching 100 million per year and the global fleet is approximately 2 billion cars, it is impossible for Tesla to build electric cars fast enough to address the carbon crisis. By the same token, it means the market is enormous. Our true competition is not the small trickle of non-Tesla electric cars being produced, but rather the enormous flood of gasoline cars pouring out of the world’s factories every day…

We believe that Tesla, other companies making electric cars, and the world would all benefit from a common, rapidly-evolving technology platform.

https://i0.wp.com/media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2011/10/tesla-roadster-ev-rendering01.jpgAnd the move should come as no surprise. As the Hyperloop demonstrated, Musk is not above making grandiose gestures and allowing others to run with ideas he knows will be profitable. And as Musk himself pointed in a webcast made after the announcement, his sister-company SpaceX – which deals with the development of reusable space transports – has virtually no patents.

In addition, Musk stated that he thinks patents are a “weak thing” for companies. He also suggested that opening up patents for Tesla’s supercharging technology (which essentially allows for super-fast EV charging) could help create a common industry platform. But regardless of Musk’s own take on things, one thing remains clear: Tesla Motors needs competitors, and it needs them now.

https://i0.wp.com/www.greenoptimistic.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Siemens-electric-car-charging-stations.jpgAs it stands, auto emissions account for a large and growing share of greenhouse gas emissions. For decades now, the technology has been in development and the principles have all been known. However, whether it has been due to denial, intransigence, complacency, or all of the above, no major moves have been made to effect a transition in the auto industry towards non-fossil fuel-using cars.

Many would cite the lack of infrastructure that is in place to support the wide scale use of electronic cars. But major cities and even entire nations are making changes in that direction with the adoption of electric vehicle networks. These include regular stations along the Trans Canada Highway, the Chargepoint grid in Melbourne to Brisbane, Germany’s many major city networks, and the US’s city and statewide EV charging stations.

Also, as the technology is adopted and developed further, the incentive to expand electric vehicle networks farther will be a no brainer. And given the fact that we no longer live in a peak oil economy, any moves towards fossil fuel-free transportation should be seen as an absolutely necessary one.

Sourees: fastcoexist.com, fool.com

Work Begins on Successor to Large Hadron Collider

CERN_upgradeIn 2012, scientists working for the CERN laboratory in Switzerland announced the discovery of the Higgs Boson. After confirming this momentous discovery, CERN scientists indicated in April of 2013 that the Large Hadron Collider was being taken offline in order to upgrade its instruments for the next great project in its ongoing goal of studying the universe. And this past February, work began in earnest on planning for the LHC’s successor.

This massive new marvel of scientific instrumentation, which has been dubbed the “Very Large Hadron Collider”, will measure some 96 km (60 mile) in length – four times as long as its predecessor – and smash protons together with a collision energy of 100 teraelectronvolts (which is 14 times the LHC’s current energy). All of this will be dedicated to answering the questions that the first-time detection of the Higgs Boson raised.

Peter Higgs (who proposed the Higgs boson), hanging out at LHC’s CMS detector
Peter Higgs (who proposed the Higgs boson), hanging out at LHC’s CMS detector

While this discovery was a watershed moment, its existence poses more questions than it answers; and those answers probably can’t be answered by the LHC. Thus, to keep high-energy physics moving forward, the international team of scientists at CERN knew they needed something more accurate and powerful. And while the LHC is slated to remain in operation until 2035, it is the VLHC that will addressing the question of how the Higgs get’s its mass.

Basically, while the discovery of the Higgs Boson did prove that the Standard Model of particle physics is correct, it raised some interesting possibilities. For one, it suggests that particles do indeed gain their mass by interacting with a pervasive, ubiquitous Higgs field. Another possibility is that the Higgs boson gains its heaviness through supersymmetry — a theory that proposes that there’s a second, “superpartner” particle coupled to each and every Higgs boson.

CERN_LHCScientists have not yet observed any of these superpartners, and to discover them, a stronger collider will be necessary. It is hoped that, when the LHC powers up to 14 TeV by the end of 2014, its scientists will discover some signs of supersymmetry. This will, in turn, inform the creation of the LHC’s successor, which still remains a work in progress. And at this point, there are two groups presenting options for what the future of the VLHC will be.

One group consists of Michael Peskin and a research group from the SLAC accelerator in California, who presented an early VLHC concept to the US government back in November. This past February, CERN itself convened the Future Circular Collider study at the University of Geneva. In both cases, the plan calls for a 80-100km (50-62mi) circular accelerator with a collision energy of around 100 TeV.

large_hadron_colliderAs the name “Very Large Hadron Collider” implies, the plans are essentially talking about the same basic build and functionality as the LHC — just with longer tunnels and stronger magnets. The expected cost for either collider is around $10 billion. No telling which candidate will be built, but CERN has said that if it builds the successor, excavation will probably begin in the 2020s, so that it’s completed before the LHC is retired in 2035.

In the shorter term, the International Linear Collider, a 31-kilometer-long (19.2 mile) particle accelerator, is already set for construction and is expected to be completed in or around 2026. The purpose of this device will be to conduct further tests involving the Higgs Boson, as well as to smash electrons together instead of protons in order to investigate the existence of dark energy and multiple dimensions.

center_universe2The future of high-energy physics is bright indeed, and with all this research into the deeper mysteries of the universe, we can expect it to become a much more interesting place, rather than less of one. After all, investigating theories does not dispel the mystery of it all, it only lets you know where and how they fell short. And in most cases, it only confirms that this thing we know of as reality is beyond what we previously imagined.

Sources: extremetech.com, indico.cern.ch

The Future of Transit: Elon Musk’s Hyperloop

hyperloopThe high-speed transit tube. It’s been a staple of science fiction for many years. Remember the tubes cars in Logan’s Run, the elevators in the Jetsons, or the tubes that shoot people around New New York in Futurama? Much like flying cars, they are a feature of a futuristic society that people have been waiting on. And thanks to Elon Musk, it might finally be coming true.

Yes, the same man that brought us the Tesla electric car, PayPal, and SpaceX is now working on a design for a high-speed transit system that works the same way as the pneumatic tube. In a series of statements and documents released yesterday, the billionaire entrepreneur unveiled his concept for a tube that could whisk passengers between Los Angeles and San Francisco in just 30 minutes – half the time it takes an airplane.

hyperloop1In the newly released documents, Musk outlined the basic design, which would consist of a low-pressure steel tube that houses capsules which move back and forth. The aluminum capsules (or pods) would have skis on the bottom containing holes that pump out air, creating an air cushion. They would be propelled forward with magnets found on the skis as well as an electromagnetic pulse generated by a series of electric motors.

Linear electric motors placed at each destination would slow the pods down by absorbing their kinetic energy. That energy would then be put back into battery packs and used to accelerate the next pods, or stored for future use. Solar panels on top of the tubes would also provide energy. The pods, which have room for 28 people each, could leave every 30 seconds – transporting up to 7.4 million people on each route (SF to LA or vice versa).

hyperloop2At 1290 kilometers per hour (800 mph) the above ground Hyperloop system would be dramatically faster than a bullet train or even an airplane. Alongside boats, planes, trains and automobiles, Musk claims that the train would constitute a “fifth form” of transportation. And of course, safety would be paramount, with each pod being spaced apart by 8 km (5 miles), and the system would have an emergency brake.

The system would also be designed to deal with seismic shifts, which are common in California. In order to mitigate earthquake risk, the system would be built on pylons (the tube wouldn’t be rigidly fixed at any point). Adjustable lateral and vertical dampers would be placed inside the pylons to “absorb the small length changes between pylons due to thermal changes, as well as long form subtle height changes.”

hyperloop3What’s more, Musk was sure to play up the comfort value of the ride:

Once you’re traveling the speed you wouldn’t notice the speed at all. It would be really smooth, like you’re riding on a cushion of air. Maximum G-force of about half a G, comparable to what you might feel in an airplane but far less than what you would feel in a rollercoaster. Really quiet.

Musk estimates that price tag per ride would be $20 per person, making the Hyperloop more reasonably priced than train, plane, or automobile. The whole project would cost an estimated $6 billion if it contained “people-only pods,” but would be priced at $10 billion if it had pods for both people and cars.

As it stands, its not entirely clear when the Hyperloop would be up and running. What’s more, its unclear what tole Musk would play in its creation. Since he is currently occupied with developing things like a nationwide Supercharger network for Tesla and launching satellites with SpaceX, he thinks it could be three to four years before a demo could be finished. As for a full system that would run from LA to San Francisco, that could take between seven to ten.

hyperloop4In any event, the concept is open-source, and Musk is calling on inventors, engineers and investors to get involved. Given that it is a rather elegant solution to the problem of transit, such an idea is not likely to remain idle for too long. Originally inspired by the sad state of $70 billion California’s high-speed rail initiative, the Hyperloop could easily prove to be another transportation initiative that is never completed. At the same time, it might prove to be a “leapfrog maneuver”, bypassing lightrail completely and ushering in something better.

It might sound like a fantasy, but Musk has a reputation for making the impossible a reality. What’s more, engineers from both Tesla and SpaceX have been working on the concept for close to a year and some are now dedicated to it full-time. And given that nations like China, India, Russia and the EU are in need of expanded transit systems, don’t be surprised if we see something similar emerging overseas.

And be sure to enjoy this video of the concept, courtesy of Elon Musk and CBC news:


Sources: cbc.ca, fastcoexist.com