It’s not a trick question, but if you have been following headlines for months, even years now, they have been filled with talk of new ‘Gigafactories’ to power the next generation of Tesla’s electric vehicles, hydrogen powertrains for Toyotas and hybrids over at Porsche (and others), and fracking.
The short story of Tesla Motors has been more about exciting cars and stellar share price performance than other more mundane manufacturing news, but next week the company will be revealing its plans for the much less exciting or innovative key to its long term future. Yes, it would appear that Tesla is almost all grown up now as it is to announce the plans for that essential component for all electric vehicles, a huge new lithium battery factory that has already been dubbed the “Gigafactory” by Tesla’s founder, Elon Musk.
Sounds (or rather, smells) promising.
This brings recycling to an entirely new level. Somewhere in a waste facility in California, bio-solids are being processed to create electricity and hydrogen. Although hydrogen is an abundant element on earth (and the universe! Space travel fuel, maybe?) but is still very costly to process. Critics of hydrogen vehicles will also argue that the production of hydrogen emits as much carbon dioxide as conventional petrol-powered cars.
Cars are bursting into flames again, and this time they are not Teslas. MAC reports on the spontaneous combustions.
Guest writer, SUE, finds another useful feature in the oddly named, Kuga.
For years, Jeremy Clarkson of the famed BBC hit series Top Gear has bemoaned the quality and sophistication of American muscle cars, claiming that whilst Americans can build jet fighters and space shuttles, they should leave the design and manufacturing of cars to others (read a great Clarkson rant at Clarkson on: the Corvette).