Fairly early in the development of the automobile, pioneer inventors seized upon the steering wheel as an ideal method of controlling a vehicle. (They were borrowing from the marine world, we presume.) But it wasn’t long until creative variations on the theme began to appear—square, rectangular, ovoid shapes. None of them ever caught on, but these unusual forms continue to appear occasionally to this day. Here are just a few examples.
The world of battery electric vehicles might seem like black magic. Electricity turns into motion with the help of controllers and inverters. However, as John Kelly from the WeberAuto YouTube channel explains, EV's are sometimes mechanically simple. Well, at least that's the case for the Chevrolet Bolt. Kelly tackles the Bolt EV’s brilliantly simple drivetrain in the latest video for his WeberAuto YouTube channel.
Electric cars are the future just because they will eventually prove much simpler to build and maintain. Gas motors with their cam shafts and transmissions are such a throw back to an earlier era of pre computers. It's so much easier to manipulate a 3 phase sine wave than have a series of gears and cam shafts to manipulate a gas motor.
“MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY” Clipper 214 out of control. Here we go.” These were the final words of a “resigned” pilot of Pan Am flight 214 on the evening of December 8, 1963.
In his 22 years with Pan Am, Captain George F. Knuth had 17,049 hours total flying, with 2,890 hours flying a Boeing 707 but there was nothing he could do after a bolt of lightning struck the plane and triggered an explosion resulting in catastrophic damage. The event was a tragedy indeed but there were more tragedies exposed in the days and months following the crash.
IF YOU HAVE EVER WORKED in an old building, the chances are you will have at some point walked past a small mysterious brass box . Located about halfway up the wall, it is notable for a flat length of glass leading both into and out it, disappearing into the ceiling and the floor below. Often painted over, ignored and unused, they are a relic of the golden age of early skyscrapers called the Cutler mail chute.
The Cutler mail chutes flourished during the advent of the first multi-story buildings in the turn of the 20th century. The invention was fairly simple: the glass chutes would run internally the length of the building, with a mailing slot on each floor. Rather than having to make the trek downstairs to find the nearest mail box or post office, you would simply pop your letter into the chute from whichever floored you worked on, and gravity would swiftly carry your letter to a mailbox in the lobby, for daily collection from the postman. In an era when people were sending handfuls of letters each day, the convenience of the Cutler mail chute was a godsend.
The project is a first in Germany. In the beginning of 2021, its aim is to implement a 100-meter section of road featuring an inductive charging system, with 90 meters of dynamic charging and 10 meters of static. Later, a larger section, of around 600 meters, will be deployed. Electric buses in Karlsruhe will use this special section of road to recharge their batteries a bit, all while driving. This test phase will serve to determine the extent to which this kind of system might be effective.
This technology offers many potential advantages. First, it promises to boost the battery life of electric vehicles, potentially helping to keep buses on the road for longer. Moreover, seeing as batteries would be charged more regularly, each time the vehicle uses an inductive charging road, this kind of system could allow for smaller batteries, cutting the weight of vehicles while gaining space. Finally, it could also help avoid the need to build extra charging stations for buses.
Of the 1,000 electric buses newly registered from January to September 2020, nearly a quarter were produced by Solaris. In Poland, 96% of the 114 newly registered electric buses bear the Solaris logo. Solaris's share of newly delivered electric buses amounted to 83% in the Italian, and 43% in the German market. The company has a market share of about 18% across Europe.
Solaris's Mateusz Figaszewski told DW that MAN's move into Poland and the electric bus sector was not a great surprise. "It is great that Poland is being seen as a sophisticated place to make such products and will for sure help the supply chain in the country, but we have a much more international outlook than others, so it doesn't affect us much." Solaris, he added, is also looking closely at expanding its hydrogen-powered electric bus production, having already seen 69 roll off the production line.