Low Power Heads Up Display

If you're into the new lighting technology that's been developed over the last few years.  Then Govee is one provider that has been nailing it recently, and your wallet will appreciate it   --> "I love smart lighting, especially being able to control all of the lights in my house with my voice, but I absolutely do not love paying for them. As convenient and clever as Philips Hue bulbs are, they're crazy expensive. Recently there's been a compelling alternative popping up all over Amazon, called Govee. This company has been producing a ton of new smart LED products which compete directly with many of the more expensive Philips products, and today this popular 32-foot light strip is now only $31."  The 32-foot Govee LED strip offers 300 individual LEDS with a smart controller packed with features. The Govee app will allow you to control the color of multiple sections at once, and the light strip itself has a microphone built in so you can enable a music mode and have your lights dance with the music. The app connects to Alexa and Google Assistant, so you can quickly and easily add both voice control and presets for different times of the day with ease. And for $50 cheaper than the comparable Philips Hue strips, it's much easier to cover your house in these great lights.

Israel’s Defence Ministry and defence contractor Elbit Systems Ltd are developing an airborne laser weapon to shoot down drones and other flying targets, officials said on Monday, predicting a prototype would be ready by 2025.  They said the as-yet unnamed laser weapon could be incorporated in Israel’s multi-tier air defences, which include the Iron Dome system for downing short-range rockets and the David’s Sling and Arrow systems against ballistic missiles.  Preliminary tests of the laser, flown on a light aircraft, were successful against several drones at ranges of around 1 km (half a mile) in recent days, Brigadier-General Yaniv Rotem of the ministry’s research and development section told reporters.  “As far as we know we are the first one (country) - but maybe, for sure we are among the first countries - that have tried and succeeded (at) such an...interception,” he said.  Elbit makes C-Music, a defence system fitted to aircraft which uses a laser to “blind” incoming missiles. Oren Sabag, a senior Elbit official, said the new laser weapon would use tracking technologies similar to C-Music’s but would destroy targets by heating them up so they catch fire in “a few seconds”.  Rotem said a 100-KW prototype with a range of 20 km (12.5 miles) would come out in 3 - 4 years. That suggested an operational version would take longer to roll out.

On Thursday morning, Waymo announced that it is working with trucking company JB Hunt to autonomously haul cargo loads in Texas. Waymo's Class 8 trucks equipped with the autonomous driving software and hardware system called Waymo Driver will operate on I-45 in Texas, taking cargo between Houston and Fort Worth.  However, the trucks will still carry humans—a trained truck driver and Waymo technicians—to supervise and take over if necessary.  Although Waymo is better known for the autonomous taxi service it operates in a suburb of Phoenix, the company started experimenting with adding its autonomous technology to freight haulers several years ago. And in 2018, it began testing those trucks in the Atlanta area. What makes today's news notable is the partnership with a major truck operator.  "This will be one of the first opportunities for JB Hunt to receive data and feedback on customer freight moved with a Class 8 tractor operating at this level of autonomy. While we believe there will be a need for highly skilled, professional drivers for many years to come, it is important for JB Hunt as an industry leader to be involved early in the development of advanced autonomous technologies and driving systems to ensure that their implementation will improve efficiency while enhancing safety," said Craig Harper, chief sustainability officer at JB Hunt.

This isn’t some electric Powerwheels toy – it can fit a couple of adults shoulder to shoulder. It’s more closely comparable to a golf cart in size and power, yet reaches a decent speed of 25 mph (40 km/h).

It’s also much cheaper than golf carts, which cost around $7,000 in the US.  Amazingly, this mini-Jeep is quite affordably priced at a mere $1,280.  But based on my conversations earlier this year with the Chinese factory, the final price shipped to a US port seemed to put it closer to $1,700.  That’s actually pretty close to what Electrek reader Kyle Day found when he set out to order his own electric Jeep.

He originally told me several months ago that he planned to buy one and have it sent to the US. I offered him my customs broker’s contact info (I have a problem and it’s called “buying too much weird stuff from overseas”) and I asked him to keep me updated about how the process went.  The whole exercise was fairly new to Kyle, but ultimately he made it through the purchase, importation, customs clearance, and delivery steps to receive his very own electric mini Jeep. But the adventure wasn’t over there – because it turns out that getting the Jeep assembled was a bit more of a task than any of us had expected.  Read on for my interview with Kyle and to live out his experience vicariously. 

In court in Norway, Tesla was found guilty of throttling charging speed and battery capacity through a software update.  Unless it appeals, Tesla is going to have to pay $16,000 to each of the thousands of owners affected in the country. The fine could be even more significant as other similar legal efforts are on the way in other countries.  According to Norway’s Nettavisen, Tesla didn’t respond to the lawsuit and the 30 owners behind the case were automatically awarded 136,000 kroner (~$16,000 USD) each in compensation unless Tesla appeals to the case, which it has a few weeks to do.  There could be over 10,000 Tesla owners affected by the update in Norway alone, which could make the fine quite pricey for the automaker, but more importantly, it could also set the tone for several other similar lawsuits, including one in the US. 

Tesla received a new patent last week for “estimating object properties using visual image data.” Elon Musk estimated that Tesla would release a version of FSD (Full Self Driving) Beta in April. At the time, he also mentioned that Tesla was going for pure vision and suggested that it would not even use radar sensors in the future.

“According to their patent, this invention aims to address the increasing cost and complexity of vision sensors for mass-market autonomous vehicles. This method enables a vehicle to detect and interpret the distance to its surroundings using the vehicle’s image data and machine learning,” explained law firm Founders Legal to Teslarati.  Tesla’s patent describes an invention using two neural networks to gauge the distances of objects using only image data. The first neural network can determine the distance of objects from images captured by the cameras around a vehicle. The other neural network creates training material in the form of annotated images for the first neural network.

In the end, Shaw makes it clear that there are certainly savings to be had by switching to an EV. However, he also says that a crossover like the Model Y is expensive, and compared to a similarly equipped gas car, you're probably not going to see an overall savings over a short period of time. Perhaps that will change over time, and it's different for each person. Over the longer term, for example, owning an EV for 5 years, you may start to really see the savings add up.

Singapore has built a floating solar power station off its coast in the Johor Strait. The complex with 13,000 panels was completed in January 2021 as part of the land-scarce city state's push to harness more solar energy and lower greenhouse gas emissions. Singapore’s per capita carbon dioxide (CO2) emission rates are among the highest in Asia.

There are four all-electric crossovers but which one is best for you?  The Tesla Model Y, Ford Mustang Mach-E, Volkswagen ID.4, and Hyundai Ioniq 5 are all fantastic electric crossover – at least based on what we know so far – but for different reasons. Each one may satisfy different car shoppers' priorities. The YouTube video may help you decide which one best suits you.   There's the  Tesla Model X, Audi e-tron and Jaguar I-Pace, but are all quite expensive. The Hyundai Kona Electric and Kia Niro EV are both solid options for electric crossover shoppers, but are simply electrified versions of gas-powered platforms.  The Tesla Model Y has become quite popular, but it has multiple competitors. Ford's Mustang Mach-E, which is more similar to the Model Y than any other vehicle thanks to its sleek styling and stellar performance.  The Volkswagen ID.4 as far as we understand is not a performance SUV like the Model Y and Mach-E, but it has a lot to offer, especially for shoppers focusing on comfort, practicality, space, and interior quality. The Hyundai Ioniq 5 is the latest competitor to be unveiled, so not much information is available. However, if the all-electric CUV comes to market offering everything Hyundai suggests it will, it stands to be a home run for the segment.

Amazon is buying up energy production capacity from solar and wind plants around the world in a bid to power all its business activities through renewable energy by 2025.  The Seattle-based e-tailing giant committed to buy 1.5 gigawatts of production capacity — enough to power 500,000 homes — from 14 new wind and solar projects in NA and the EU.  Wednesday’s purchases bring Amazon’s total renewable energy purchases to 10 gigawatts, making the company the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy in the US.  Amazon’s 11 new projects in the US include solar sites in Arkansas, Mississippi and Pennsylvania. The company also announced new solar and wind projects in Canada, Spain and Finland, bringing Amazon’s total global number of renewable energy projects to 232.  But Amazon has a long way to go before it reaches its goal of net-zero emissions. The company had a carbon footprint of about 51.2 million metric tons in 2019, according to its sustainability report — roughly equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions of the entire country of Singapore.  Concerns about Amazon’s environmental impact resurfaced this week after a report alleged that an Amazon warehouse in Scotland destroys millions of unused products each year — including laptops, jewelry and books. A spokesperson for the company said no waste from the warehouse is sent to a landfill.  Amazon had a carbon footprint of about 51.2 million metric tons in 2019 — roughly equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions of the entire country of Singapore.. “Our investments in wind and solar energy in the US and around the world send a signal that investing in green technologies is the right thing to do for the planet and citizens —as well as for the long-term success of businesses of all sizes across all industries everywhere,” he said.  

China, which is home to roughly half of the 7 million passenger EVs on the road as of 2020, has more than 600 (EV battery) swapping stations and is on pace to have 1,000 by year’s end, according to a tally by clean-energy research group BloombergNEF. “They've already made the determination that swapping has to be a significant part of the solution,” says Hassounah, “We don't have enough deployment yet to realize that we need this in the U.S.” Even in China, however, where the swapping industry dwarfs that of the U.S., the technology is still only a small piece of the charging infrastructure.  In the U.S. most investment so far has gone into building faster plug-in stations and batteries that can accept power quickly without overheating.  President Biden has proposed a target of 500,000 public chargers by 2030. His plan, which calls for scaling and improving fast-charging networks, makes no mention of battery swapping. Yet plug-in chargers come with limits that can’t be overcome simply by adding more. They are a burden on the power grid, expensive to build, and, even at their fastest, agonizingly slow compared to gas pumps.

Hassounah and De Souza founded Ample in 2014 and have raised about $70 million to date from investors including the venture arms of oil and gas giants Royal Dutch Shell plc and Repsol SA. They’ve spent the last seven years studying how to swap batteries in a cheap, vehicle-agnostic way and believe they’ve finally cracked it. For now they are focusing on ride-hailing fleets, as professional drivers have the most need for fast charging. Late last year, Ample entered a partnership with Uber to help coordinate with the the fleet management services that provide drivers with cars, insurance, and other services. On June 10, Ample announced a separate partnership with the fleet management service Sally, which specializes in making EVs available to ride-hailing and delivery drivers. The two plan to work to together to deploy EVs and swapping stations in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. Sally aims to have hundreds of Ample-ready Kia Niro EVs running in the Bay Area by the end of this summer and to begin offering swapping to drivers in New York by the fall.

Vertical Aerospace, a UK electric aircraft manufacturer, has won the backing of American Airlines, Virgin Atlantic and Microsoft in its bid to make urban air travel a reality. The startup revealed on Thursday that it has pre-orders for up to 1,000 of its zero-emissions VA-X4 vertical takeoff aircraft, worth as much as $4 billion, as it announced plans to go public in New York via a merger with blank check firm Broadstone Acquisition Corp.  The VA-X4 will travel at speeds over 200 miles per hour and be "near silent" when in flight, according to the company. The aircraft has a range of over 100 miles.  American Airlines has agreed to pre-order up to 250 aircraft, with an option for an additional 100. Dublin-based aircraft leasing company Avolon has pre-orders and options for 500 aircraft, while Virgin Atlantic has a pre-order option for up to 150. Microsoft's venture capital subsidiary and Rocket Internet have also invested in the business.  Vertical Aerospace hopes that partnerships with Rolls-Royce and Honeywell, among others, will allow it to quickly secure the same level of certification as large commercial airliners from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and enable production at scale. It expects commercial operations to begin in 2024.  Pre-orders are subject to certain conditions and milestones being met, including certification by aviation safety regulators.  Vertical Aerospace CEO and co-founder Stephen Fitzpatrick said  "Electrification will transform flying in the 21st century in the same way the jet engine did 70 years ago,".  His mission at Vertical Aerospace is to make air travel "personal, on demand and carbon free" and the startup counts former executives from Rolls-Royce (RYCEF), Jaguar Land Rover and the UK Ministry of Defence among its engineering team.  

A small French company called CILAS has been testing its laser system, downing a number of different drones flying at more than 30 mph and up to 3,300 feet away. It marks the first time in Europe that drones were downed by laser.  Lasers like this have an advantage when it comes to swatting pesky drones out of the sky: they will fry up and burn whatever they have hit. But the beam will go no further, causing no collateral damage. They are very precise, have a long range, and are extremely fast.  Tanguy Mulliez, manager of the innovation and products department at CILAS, which specializes in lasers, tells Popular Science: “It’s like the beam of a flashlight. It stops at whatever object it hits first.” “the great advantage of a laser system is that it can also be used for other missions,” such as neutralizing explosives, destroying electronics, taking out light sensors, and jamming cameras by blinding them. The system is called the HELMA-P, which stands for High-energy Laser for Multiple Application – Power. “These demonstrations made a real impact on the military and they’ve come back with a lot of questions that we’re working on, both for France and other clients,” .

Drone flights generally aren’t remarkable, but this one was for a simple reason—the entire time the Hybrid Tiger was in the sky, it drew power from two distinct systems: solar panels in the wings, and a compact hydrogen fuel cell in the body. The flight marked a major milestone for the program from the US Naval Research Laboratory, a sign that the drone is at least half as capable as intended. Hybrid Tiger’s successful day in the air started November 18, 2020, although the Navy announced the success in mid-April. “The flight was effectively a performance test in worst-case conditions: temperatures falling below zero degrees Celsius, winds gusting to 20 knots, and relatively little solar energy as we approached the solar solstice Dec. 21,” said Richard Stroman, a mechanical engineer from the NRL Chemistry Division, in a release. “Despite all of that, Hybrid Tiger performed well.” A typical long-endurance drone, such as an MQ-9 Reaper, stays aloft for hours and hours by burning hundreds of gallons of jet fuel to power an engine, which in turn drives the Reaper’s pusher propeller. Noise from this engine gives the Reaper its distinctive loud buzz, a sound that is conspicuously absent from the Hybrid Tiger.