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Category: transportation

New physical model aims to boost energy storage research

Engineers rely on computational tools to develop new energy storage technologies, which are critical for capitalizing on sustainable energy sources and powering electric vehicles and other devices. Researchers have now developed a new classical physics model that captures one of the most complex aspects of energy storage research—the dynamic nonequilibrium processes that throw chemical, mechanical and physical aspects of energy storage materials out of balance when they are charging or discharging energy.

The new Chen-Huang Nonequilibrium Phasex Transformation (NExT) Model was developed by Hongjiang Chen, a former Ph.D. student at NC State, in conjunction with his advisor, Hsiao-Ying Shadow Huang, who is an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the university. A paper on the work, “Energy Change Pathways in Electrodes during Nonequilibrium Processes,” is published in The Journal of Physical Chemistry C.

But what are “nonequilibrium processes”? Why are they important? And why would you want to translate those processes into mathematical formulae? We talked with Huang to learn more.

Elon Announces MOST Powerful FSD Update Ever

Questions to inspire discussion.

🛣️ Q: What specific improvements can we expect from the new FSD model? A: The new model will see and avoid potholes, drive better in parking lots, find parking spaces more efficiently, figure out pickup and drop-off zones for robotaxis, and handle high chaos situations like crowded areas more effectively.

Safety and Regulations.

🚦 Q: How does FSD’s safety compare to human drivers? A: Tesla’s FSD technology is already much safer than humans with the current Version 4, which has 8 cameras and 10x better parameters than previous versions, and it’s expected to improve further with future updates.

📊 Q: How significant are the improvements in the new FSD model? A: While the model has 10x better parameters, the features may not be 10x better, but improvements could be greater than 10x due to hard-to-measure benefits like reduced driving stress and increased safety.

🚫 Q: What’s limiting FSD’s full potential? A: Regulations currently hold FSD back from reaching its full potential, despite its ability to drive faster and handle high chaos situations more effectively.

Continue reading “Elon Announces MOST Powerful FSD Update Ever” | >

Maximizing direct methanol fuel cell performance: Reinforcement learning enables real-time voltage control

Fuel cells are energy solutions that can convert the chemical energy in fuels into electricity via specific chemical reactions, instead of relying on combustion. Promising types of fuel cells are direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs), devices specifically designed to convert the energy in methyl alcohol (i.e., methanol) into electrical energy.

Despite their potential for powering large electronics, vehicles and other systems requiring portable power, these methanol-based fuel cells still have significant limitations. Most notably, studies found that their performance tends to significantly degrade over time, because the materials used to catalyze reactions in the cells (i.e., electrocatalytic surfaces) gradually become less effective.

One approach to cleaning these surfaces and preventing the accumulation of poisoning products produced during chemical reactions entails the modulation of the voltage applied to the fuel cells. However, manually adjusting the voltage applied to the surfaces in effective ways, while also accounting for physical and chemical processes in the fuel cells, is impractical for .

Friction that cools: Threshold effects enable self-stopping robot swarms

How can a horde of active robots be automatically brought to a standstill? By arresting their dynamics in a self-sustained way. This phenomenon was discovered by physicists at Heinrich Heine University Dusseldorf (HHU) and La Sapienza University in Rome. The threshold principle of static friction with the ground plays a decisive role here: it removes the kinetic energy of two robots after a mutual collision so efficiently that they can no longer set themselves in motion.

The researchers describe in the journal Nature Communications that this fundamental effect can also be used to construct controllable moving systems.

Friction creates heat, as anyone knows who has rubbed their hands together in winter weather. And costs energy. Road friction on vehicle tires, for example, will cause a moving car to steadily slow down unless the accelerator is used.

Israeli-made flying cars may be floating into our future

For nearly 60 years, the dream of flying cars that many Baby Boomers grew up on while watching TV’s George Jetson jet around the skyways has remained unfulfilled.

But the dream is still alive. A dozen startups around the world are developing VTOLs (“vertical takeoff and landing”) – the technical term for flying cars.

One of the most intriguing of those companies is right here in Israel. Yavneh-based Urban Aeronautics is developing CityHawk to be an eventual “Uber of the air.”

Packed particles power up: Physicists discover particles that accelerate when crowded

What if particles don’t slow down in a crowd, but move faster? Physicists from Leiden worked together and discovered a new state of matter, where particles pass on energy through collisions and create more movement when packed closely together.

We all know crowds of people, or cars in a traffic jam—when it gets too crowded, all you can do is stand still. Until now, scientists have mainly studied cases of large groups just like this, which slow down when they get too close to each other.

But what if the opposite happens? What if could start moving more when packed together? That question hadn’t been studied much—until now. Physicists Marine Le Blay, Joshua Saldi and Alexandre Morin from Leiden University do research in the field of active matter physics—they observe and analyze the collective behaviors that emerge when large groups of particles are packed together.

Transportation @ PNNL: Eliminating Critical Materials in Batteries

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory draws on its distinguishing strengths in chemistry, Earth sciences, biology and data science to advance scientific knowledge and address challenges in energy resiliency and national security. Founded in 1965, PNNL is operated by Battelle and supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit the DOE Office of Science website. For more information about PNNL, visit PNNL’s News Center. Follow us on X, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.

“Unlimited range” stealth ebike never needs plugging in

:3year 2019

If e-bikes tend to look a little ungainly for your tastes, check out this thing from Barcelona’s Nua Bikes. With the motor, sensors and battery built into a discreet hub unit, the Nua Electrica is barely distinguishable from a regular fixie, and its innovative “self-charging” mode means you can get away without ever charging it.

Weighing in at just 13 kg thanks to a full titanium frame, the Nua Electrica is the stealthiest single-speed e-bike we’ve seen to date. It uses a very cool motor/battery combo unit that we suspect we’ll be seeing a lot more of in the coming months and years.

The Zehus Bike+ is an all-in-one hub unit that weighs just 3 kg (6.6 lb) and fits into any frame with a rear wheel dropout 120 mm (4.7 in) or wider. It contains a 250-watt motor, a 160-watt-hour battery, several sensors, a Bluetooth communications system and all the electronics required to run an e-bike.

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