The Volvo motor-car company confirmed in 2017 the strategic decoupling of their vehicles from the internal combustion engine, supplementing all vehicles from 2019 with electric motors.
We are committed to electrification, so from 2019 all new Volvo car models will include an electric motor. [ Hakan Samuelsson – President & CEO ]
It will launch five fully electric cars between 2019 and 2021, three of which will be Volvo models and two of which will be high performance electrified cars from Polestar, Volvo Cars’ performance car arm.
The announcement by Elon Musk of his proposed electric semi-truck and new roadster almost broke the internet last week.
Perhaps missed in the hype, cheering and very loud music accompanying a very, very, very fast red car, was a small, but potentially profound announcement about the truck “mega-chargers” and the flat-priced provision for charging these trucks.
Innovations in this sector are highly focussed on the elephant in the room. Running costs. The famous UPS “don’t turn left” innovation saves millions, but Musk’s numbers look like he might genuinely change the face of the industry and address some of the drivers of climate change at the same time.
This is potentially the single biggest disruption in the transport and logistics industry; ridiculously cheaper, fixed cost “fuel”. This truck is a “day-tripper”, with no sleeping/overnight cabin.
Musk suggests a flat-price of electricity at the mega-chargers of 7 cents Kwh. Powered by their own solar photovoltaics.
He detailed that at 7 cents per kilowatt-hour, assuming a diesel fuel price of US$2.50 per gallon, coupled with insurance and maintenance costs, a Tesla Semi driven at 60 miles per hour with an full load on a 100-mile route would cost about $1.26 a mile to operate, compared to $1.51 per mile for a diesel truck.
Design
The truck’s drag coefficient is 0.36, which is actually less than the 0.38 coefficient of the Bugatti Chiron, one of the world’s fastest sports car. A diesel truck, by comparison, has a coefficient of between 0.65 and 0.7. [Think of a brick versus a bullet]
Platooning [ Investment multiplier]
As mentioned in presentations and on my WhaleSongServices blog, “platooning” will [and is] already changing the face of transport planning. Musk said that Tesla Semis will be capable of platooning, and in that configuration a diesel truck will be twice as expensive. The ability to digitally link trucks together for greater efficiency makes it
“not just economic suicide to use one diesel truck; it’s economic suicide for rail”
The sun-powered plane, [ Solar Impulse 2 ] piloted by veteran Swiss aviator Andre Borschberg, took 118 hours — about five days — to make the voyage from Japan to Hawaii and landed shortly after dawn at Kalaeloa Airport on the main Hawaiian island of Oahu.
Approach to Hawaii – Source: solarimpulse.com
Swiss explorers Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg are the founders, pilots and driving force behind Solar Impulse, the first airplane of perpetual endurance, able to fly day and night without a drop of fuel. By attempting the first Round the World Solar Flight, they want to demonstrate that clean technologies and renewable energies can achieve the impossible. For the Solar Impulse team, pioneering spirit and innovation can change the world.
The Round-The-World flight started from Abu Dhabi, on March 9. The route includes stop-overs in Oman, India, Myanmar and China. After trying to cross the Pacific Ocean via Hawaii, Si2 should fly across the U.S.A. and over the Atlantic Ocean, heading back to Abu Dhabi.
