French firm has designed an airplane with removable wings.
It’s presenting plane to Boeing, Asia to cut Europe dependence.
It sounds like something Q, the tech guy in James Bond movies, would create: A plane that lands on a runway, shrugs its wings off, turns into a train and rolls on to rails to drop you off at your local station.
Continue reading… “Flying trains could be coming your way”
Uber has unveiled its “flying car” concept aircraft at its second annual Uber Elevate Summit, which showcases prototypes for its fleet of airborne taxis.
The flying cars, which the company hopes to introduce to riders in two to five years, will conduct vertical takeoffs and landings from skyports, air stations on rooftops or the ground. Ultimately, company officials say these skyports will be equipped to handle 200 takeoffs and landings an hour, or one every 24 seconds. At first, the flying cars will be piloted, but the company aims for the aircraft to fly autonomously.
Continue reading… “Uber shows its flying car prototype, which looks like a giant drone”
Elon Musk’s Boring Co. is the winner in a bid to build a multibillion-dollar high-speed express train to Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. The result gives the young company a big boost in legitimacy as it tries to get transportation projects underway in Los Angeles and Washington.
The company beat out a consortium that included Mott MacDonald, the civil engineering firm that designed a terminal at London’s Heathrow Airport, and JLC Infrastructure, an infrastructure fund backed by former basketball star Earvin “Magic” Johnson, people with knowledge of the matter said. The city is expected to announce the news as soon as Thursday, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.
Continue reading… “Elon Musk’s Boring Company wins Chicago airport high- speed train bid”
An optical illusion popular in the 19th century could make trips on the Hyperloop appear to take place in a transparent tube. Regularly spaced, narrow windows wouldn’t offer much of a view individually, but if dozens of them pass by every second an effect would be created like that of a zoetrope, allowing passengers to effectively see right through the walls.
It’s an official concept from Virgin Hyperloop One and design house Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), and in fact was teased back in 2016. Now the companies have shared a video showing how it would work and what it would look like for passengers — though there’s no indication it would actually be put in place in the first tracks.
Continue reading… “Zoetrope effect could render Hyperloop tubes transparent to riders”
Kitty Hawk, the mysterious flying-car startup funded by the Google cofounder Larry Page, unwrapped its updated vehicle on Wednesday.
The Flyer is now open for test flights for prospective customers, and the CNN reporter Rachel Crane was the first journalist allowed to pilot the vehicle.
Kitty Hawk promises to get people in the air in less than an hour because of the Flyer’s simple control system, which comprises just two joysticks.
The startup’s CEO said that securing public acceptance for the Flyer is its biggest priority and that he hopes to learn a lot from the test flights.
“HUMAN inventiveness…has still not found a mechanical process to replace horses as the propulsion for vehicles,” lamented Le Petit Journal , a French newspaper, in December 1893. Its answer was to organise the Paris-Rouen race for horseless carriages, held the following July. The 102 entrants included vehicles powered by steam, petrol, electricity, compressed air and hydraulics. Only 21 qualified for the 126km (78-mile) race, which attracted huge crowds. The clear winner was the internal combustion engine. Over the next century it would go on to power industry and change the world.
The big end
But its days are numbered. Rapid gains in battery technology favour electric motors instead (see Briefing ). In Paris in 1894 not a single electric car made it to the starting line, partly because they needed battery-replacement stations every 30km or so. Today’s electric cars, powered by lithium-ion batteries, can do much better. The Chevy Bolt has a range of 383km; Tesla fans recently drove a Model S more than 1,000km on a single charge. UBS, a bank, reckons the “total cost of ownership” of an electric car will reach parity with a petrol one next year—albeit at a loss to its manufacturer. It optimistically predicts electric vehicles will make up 14% of global car sales by 2025, up from 1% today. Others have more modest forecasts, but are hurriedly revising them upwards as batteries get cheaper and better—the cost per kilowatt-hour has fallen from $1,000 in 2010 to $130-200 today. Regulations are tightening, too. Last month Britain joined a lengthening list of electric-only countries, saying that all new cars must be zero-emission by 2050.
Continue reading… “The death of the internal combustion engine”
Less than a month after Uber’s fatal accident in Arizona, California regulators issue a proposal for a pilot test of passenger-carrying autonomous vehicles.
California may start allowing self-driving cars, like this one for Lyft, to carry passengers without a human driver behind the wheel.
Regulators in California are moving closer to allowing driverless cars to carry passengers, even without a backup driver present.
Continue reading… “California eyes driverless car testing with passengers”
The original Volkswagen microbus went out of production in 2013 due to safety concerns. Volkswagen
Volkswagen is revamping its iconic microbus with the I.D. Buzz.
The vehicle will be fully electric and hit dealerships in 2022.
It will feature a customizable interior and tech features that will eventually move the car toward autonomous driving.
Employees work on the assembly line of the electric bus at a BYD’s production base on January 23, 2018 in Xi’an, China. China’s largest electric carmaker BYD sold 113,669 new energy vehicles in 2017, up 13.4 percent year-on-year. (Photo by VCG/Getty Images)
Projections have suggested that the advent of electric vehicles will have a dramatic impact on oil demand and now its starting to show. With China adding the equivalent of London’s bus fleet every 5 weeks, that’s 279,000 barrels of oil a day removed from demand.
Continue reading… “Electric vehicles begin to bite into oil demand”
Didi suspended its ride-sharing service after a 21-year-old woman was murdered. Carlos Jasso/Reuters
Didi Chuxing, the Chinese ride-sharing giant, said it would remove creepy passenger ratings from its app after a woman was allegedly murdered by her driver.
Didi’s Hitch service lets people share rides, but was suspended last week after the murder.
Didi said it would also remove passenger photos and was even considering voice recording every trip to resolve passenger disputes.
The ride-sharing service has 450 million users, and has little competition after Didi acquired Uber’s Chinese business in 2016.
The tech company’s self-driving program continues to flourish.
Apple has more than doubled the number of its self-driving cars, the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) has confirmed. Since obtaining a permit to test autonomous vehicles, Apple’s fleet size has steadily risen — from a scant three test cars, to 27 in January, and now, 55 intelligent machines. Should the program remain on course, consumers could be chilling out in the driver’s seat by 2019.
Continue reading… “Apple now has more than 50 autonomous cars on the road”
The cameras, which have been rolled out in 40 cities, work by capturing a two-second film of a honking car.
The police analyze the footage to determine whether drivers who honked had a fair reason to do so — if not, they could receive a $16 fine.
This may be the first step to link car honking with further penalties for drivers.
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.