Hyperloop's First Real Test is a Whooshing Success

As reported by Wired: YOUR DREAM OF one day zipping from one city to another in a pod in a pneumatic tube just took one more step toward reality. Hyperloop One announced Wednesday that it successfully tested a full hyperloop.

The step into the future occurred in May at the company’s Nevada test track, where engineers watched a magnetically levitating test sled fire through a tube in near-vacuum, reaching 70 mph in just over five seconds.

That is but a fraction of the 700 mph or so Hyperloop One promises, but put that aside for now. What matters here is all the elements required to make hyperloop work, worked: propulsion, braking, and the levitation and vacuum systems that all but eliminate friction and air resistance so that pod shoots through the tube at maximum speed with minimal energy.

“This is integrating all of the pieces,” says Josh Giegel, Hyperloop One’s engineering chief. “It’s the first phase of a test program that will get us to a production unit.”

Hyperloop One also revealed its design for the pod that will carry the people (or cargo) if and when this thing becomes real. The pod, made of aluminum and carbon fiber, is 28 feet long and resembles a bus.

The May test comes just about a year after Hyperloop One publicly demonstrated its propulsion system on a tube-free track. The addition of that full-scale tube—11 feet in diameter and 1600 feet long—and the engineers’ ability to suck nearly all the air out of it, is a big step, but there’s plenty left to do. For one, they need to master the airlock system that will allow pods to move into and out of the tube without wrecking that vacuum, then spending the time and energy pumping all the air back out.

That addition to the system will come soon after the company reaching its next goal, Giegel says: hitting 250 mph. All the while, the tubers will be working to improve reliability and reduce costs, two crucial elements to solving the riddle that will make all this engineering work seem simple: Building and certifying a system the public and regulators believe is safe, then operating it at profit, in a space already dominated by established, efficient competitors like airlines.

Oh, and it has to beat back rivals like Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, which plans to build systems in Slovakia and South Korea in the next few years, and Arrivo, launched by former Hyperloop One lead engineer, Brogan BamBrogan.

All that’s in the future. For now, you can focus on the news that your tubular pipe dream is realer than ever.

Audi Knows Millennials Will have to Deal with Self-Driving Boredom

Chances are, that time will be spent on Facebook.

As reported by Engadget: During Audi's elaborate introduction of its new (Level 3 autonomous) A8 in Barcelona, it also talked about the 25th Hour, a research project it says will "define the premium mobility of the future." Simply put, now that you're not driving, what do you do in an autonomous car?

The automaker teamed up with the Fraunhofer Society to build a "driving" (it's actually more just sitting) simulator to conduct tests on subjects to see how they react to different stimuli. The simulation recreated the feeling of riding in a car while it drives through city streets at night using large projections on the wall while displaying information on the "windows" of the vehicle.

The researchers then studied the brain activity of 30 millennial subjects from Hamburg, San Francisco and Tokyo as they were shown ads and social media updates and asked to perform random tasks. Unsurprisingly, the EKGs of the riders showed increased arousal (get your head out of the gutter) when bombarded with information and asked to execute certain activities.

While this seems like a "well, duh" moment, the reality is that automakers need to figure out what people will do in their car when they stop driving. Both Audi and BMW are already trying to figure that out, because it's not like any other situation we currently encounter. Public transit is, well, public; driving with friends is a social experience. A single rider in an automated vehicle day after day, that's something new.

As a luxury automaker looking toward the future and wanting to continue to sell cars, it's important for Audi to determine what type of environment it'll create -- even if some of those potential customers will never actually be behind the wheel.

Autonomous cars will help us reclaim lost time. Audi said that on average people spend 50 minutes per day behind the wheel. What will we do with that time? Will we watch TV, work, connect to social media or something completely different? That's what Audi's trying to find out and in the process making sure it doesn't create an annoying environment.

During Audi's Tech Summit, I got a chance to do a less intense version of the test conducted on the millennials. I didn't wear a skullcap with wires hanging every which way. Instead a heart rate monitor was attached to my wrists and fingers. I sat in the "car" with a few other journalists, and we went for a short "drive." The demonstration went from relaxed to slightly annoying when I was asked to count the number of times certain letters appeared while being bombarded with ads on the displays.

My EKG readout showed a slight arousal blip during the test. That's not that surprising: My day usually involves dealing with a ton of data and distractions while writing. So I chalk it up to what's normal for me. But I did start to reach for my phone (they asked us not to do that) out of habit. Not doing anything is an odd feeling in our connected world. But doing too much is also not healthy. Audi and other carmakers need to find a happy medium.

Melanie Goldmann, head of culture and trends communication at Audi, said in a statement, "The results show that the task is to find the right balance. In a digital future, there are no limits to what can be imagined. We could offer everything in the car -- really overwhelm the user with information. But we want to put people at the center of attention. The car should become a smart membrane. The right information should reach the user at the right time."

The 25th Hour is a nice marketing term. Audi is planning on making self-driving cars just as luxurious as its current cars, just in a different way. Regardless of what finally ends up in our robot-chauffeured vehicles, carving out more free time in our hectic lives is wonderful. It'll just be interesting to see how we use it.

Hypersonic Aircraft are now More Likely Thanks to a Newly Developed Ceramic Coating

There are a few reasons why you aren't flying across the country in hypersonic aircraft, but the simplest of them is heat: when you travel at speeds over Mach 5, the ultra-high temperatures (around 3,600F to 5,400F) strip layers from metal. How do you protect a vehicle when even the toughest ceramic tiles can't handle those conditions? A team of British and Chinese researchers might have the answer. They've engineered a carbide-based ceramic coating that's about 12 times more effective than current ceramics, making hypersonic aircraft more realistic.

The structural problems are primarily caused by processes called oxidation and ablation. This occurs when extremely hot air and gas remove surface layers from the metallic materials of the aircraft or object travelling at such high speeds. To combat the problem materials called ultra-high temperature ceramics (UHTCs) are needed in aero-engines and hypersonic vehicles such as rockets, re-entry spacecraft and defense projectiles.

The trick was to rely on a different manufacturing technique, reactive melt infiltration, to give the coating a unique structure that's both extremely strong and resistant to oxidization. The next-best conventional coating, zirconium carbide, can withstand heat but is prone to degrading.

Professor Ping Xiao, Professor of Materials Science, who led the study in University of Manchester explains: 

“Current candidate UHTCs for use in extreme environments are limited and it is worthwhile exploring the potential of new single-phase ceramics in terms of reduced evaporation and better oxidation resistance. In addition, it has been shown that introducing such ceramics into carbon fibre- reinforced carbon matrix composites may be an effective way of improving thermal-shock resistance.”

Any commercial use of the coating is a long ways off, if just because the hypersonic vehicles themselves are still a distant prospect. If it works well in practice, though, those extreme speeds would be feasible without compromising safety, especially in the long term. You'd see hypersonic aircraft that could fly you to another side of the planet within a couple of hours, and spacecraft that could return to Earth without needing frequent ceramic tile inspections and replacements. In short, flights that were once extra-risky could become virtually commonplace.

Advanced Materials

Advanced materials is one of The University of Manchester’s research beacons - examples of pioneering discoveries, interdisciplinary collaboration and cross-sector partnerships that are tackling some of the biggest questions facing the planet.

Referecne: "Ablation-resistant carbide Zr0.8Ti0.2C0.74B0.26 for oxidizing environments up to 3,000 °C" Yi Zeng, Dini Wang, Xiang Xiong, Xun Zhang, Philip J. Withers, Wei Sun, Matthew Smith, Mingwen Bai & Ping Xiao Article number: 15836 (2017) doi:10.1038/ncomms15836 

Watch Lucid Air's Electric Vehicle Reach 235MPH on the Track

As reported by Engadget: Electric cars are quick off the line by their very nature (they have gobs of torque available at all times), but what about top speed -- how are you supposed to know how quickly they can go when they're usually capped at an artificial 155MPH ceiling? Lucid Motors is happy to help... sort of. The fledgling electric car maker has posted video of a Lucid Air prototype reaching a whopping 235MPH on a test track after removing its speed limiter, or 18MPH more than it managed in April. That's performance you rarely see from supercars, let alone a luxury sedan. That doesn't mean that it would beat a conventional supercar in a drag race (gas-powered vehicles tend to catch up once they hit their peak torque levels), but it's impressively fast for a company's first car. At least, until you realize that you won't see those numbers on the street.

It's not just public speed limits that will keep the Lucid Air below 235MPH. As with Tesla, Lucid is unlikely to lift that 155MPH software speed limit on production cars lest it anger rival luxury brands who've informally agreed to that restriction in the name of safety. You certainly wouldn't get this kind of breakneck pace from the base-model Lucid Air -- you'd need to pony up for a high-powered variant to achieve this feat even if there were no restrictions. Also, notice how this prototype is both stripped down and includes both a roll cage and a large spoiler? It's going to have a much easier time hitting 235MPH than a production car loaded with creature comforts and no real racing amenities, especially when it's driving on a road instead of the track.

As such, this is more of a theoretical exercise than a representation of what you'll actually get. With that said, it's still useful as a demonstration of how far EVs have come from the days when they were barely quick enough to keep up with traffic.

House Panel Votes to Split Air Force, Create New US Space Corps

As reported by Federal News Radio: As part of its version of the 2018 Defense authorization bill, the House Armed Services Committee voted late Wednesday night to create a sixth branch of the U.S. armed forces: the U.S. Space Corps, which would absorb the Air Force’s current space missions.

You could be forgiven if you haven’t been closely following the debate about creating the nation’s first new military service since 1947. Several members of the panel said they themselves were blindsided by the proposal, and staged an unsuccessful effort to block the change until it could be studied further — or at least until the full committee had held at least one hearing on the subject.

Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio) said he only learned about the proposal last week, when it first came before the subcommittee on strategic forces.

“I chastised my staff and said, ‘How could I not know that this was happening?’ They said, ‘Well, they had a meeting about it and you missed it,’” Turner said. “A meeting is certainly not enough. Maybe we do need a space corps, but I think this bears more than just discussions in a subcommittee. We have not had Secretary Mattis come before us and tell us what this means. We have not heard from the secretary of the Air Force. There’s a whole lot of work we need to do before we go as far as creating a new service branch.”

Rep. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.), a retired Air Force colonel, was similarly surprised by the Space Corps proposal. She said she had not been aware of it until it appeared in the bill the full committee debated on Wednesday.

“This is honestly the first time I’ve heard about a major reorganization to our Air Force,” she said Wednesday evening. “This is sort of a shocking way to hear about a very major reorganization to our military, and I think it deserves at least a couple hearings and discussions on the matter at the full committee level.”

But the measure, which would also establish a new U.S. Space Command and make the new chief of the Space Corps the eighth member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has the support of both Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), the chairman of the full committee, and its ranking Democrat, Adam Smith (D-Wash.) The bill language was developed by Reps. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) and Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), the top Republican and Democrat on the strategic forces subcommittee.

All of them argued Wednesday that the creation of a dedicated service for space had been studied for years, and that the idea’s time had come.

“There’s been nothing shortsighted about this,” Rogers said. “We started working on it vigorously in September, and we’ve had countless meetings with a number of experts who have advised us as to how this should be construed. In fact, this idea for a space corps as one of the solutions to Air Force space came from the Rumsfeld Commission in 2001. GAO has done three studies on this, all of which tell us that you cannot maintain the current organizational construct of the Air Force and solve the acquisition problems and the operational problems that we have. The Air Force is like any other bureaucracy. They don’t want to change.”

Cooper agreed, saying the creation of the new service would properly reflect space’s importance as a new warfighting domain, “whether we like it or not.”

“And space has not been given adequate priority by our friends in the Air Force,” he said. “They do many things wonderfully well, but this is a new area, a new responsibility that a corps would help us address more effectively. We could wake up one morning and be blinded and deafened by adversary powers, because so many of our most precious assets are up in space. The chairman has had countless meetings about this over 10 months. I don’t know where my friend from Ohio has been.”

The bill would order the Defense Department to establish the new corps by January 2019. It would be a distinct military service within the Department of the Air Force, in much the same way the Marine Corps operates as a service within the Department of the Navy. The Secretary of the Air Force would oversee both the Air Force and the Space Corps, but the new chief of staff of the Space Corps would be a new four-star position, co-equal with the chief of staff of the Air Force. DoD would have to deliver reports to Congress in both March and August of next year on the details of how it plans to set up the new service.

Smith, the full committee’s top Democrat, said that schedule left plenty of time to iron out any unanswered questions about the plan.

“I think it’s being done in a deliberate and intelligent manner,” he said. “Space has changed. We’ve already taken for granted for too long that we dominate space, and we don’t anymore. We need to be ready to confront this, and yes, buried deeply within the Air Force, you could do that, but it doesn’t get the priority it deserves, given how important it is and how it impacts everything that we do.”

Although the Air Force’s top leadership has not testified before the House on the proposed reorganization, the service’s secretary and chief of staff have both expressed opposition.

“My sense is that we have an opportunity being placed in front of us right now to take a look at what is the way we fight in the air, on land, at sea, and we take those processes, procedures, tactics, techniques, and actually apply them across the space domain,” Gen. David Goldfein, the Air Force chief of staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee last month. “And so right now, to get focused on a large organizational change would actually slow us down. I think it would actually move us in the wrong direction.”

But Thornberry said opposition from the Air Force is no reason for delay, pointing out that the Pentagon has a long history of fighting changes to its own organizational structures.

“It was Congress that created the Air Force and the Department of Defense in 1947 when it became time to force the Army and the Navy together, it was Congress that did Goldwater-Nichols,” he said. “There are times when an issue becomes ripe and it is our responsibility to act. I believe this is the time for us to act.”

France Considering a Ban on all Fossil Fuel Vehicles by 2040

A bold move by the Macron government.

As reported by The Verge: France is considering banning the sale of all petrol and diesel vehicles by 2040, the country’s environmental minister said Thursday, according to multiple reports. It’s unclear, however, whether this proposal is an official position of French President Emmanuel Macron’s new government, and if so, how it will be implemented. But it’s a sign of France’s desire to be a leader in sustainable energy after the departure of the US from the Paris climate accord.

Nicolas Hulot, who is France’s minister of ecological and solidarity transition, said, “We are announcing an end to the sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2040.” Hulot added that the move was a “veritable revolution,” while acknowledging the move would be tough for France’s automakers. “Our [car]makers have enough ideas in the drawer to nurture and bring about this promise ... which is also a public health issue,” he said, according to The Guardian.

“WE ARE ANNOUNCING AN END TO THE SALE OF PETROL AND DIESEL CARS BY 2040.”

The announcement was praised by environmentalist for going further than previous administrations in France. And automotive experts noted that by giving itself over 20 years to accomplish the goal, France’s government was sending a clear signal to auto manufacturers to accelerate the transition to electric vehicles.

The announcement comes a day after Volvo committed to phase out gas-only car production by 2019. It also puts France in line with some other European countries that have already committed to ending production of fossil fuel-burning vehicles. Norway has set a target for only allowing the sale of electric and plug-in hybrid cars by 2025. The Netherlands and Germany are also considering similar bans.

Electric vehicles will make up 54 percent of all light-duty vehicle sales by 2040, up from the 35 percent share Bloomberg was forecasting just last year, according to a new report by the research group. Some have even argued that France’s proposal will be moot if electric vehicles end up taking over conventional cars more rapidly than most analysts predict.

NVIDIA will Power Self-Driving Cars in China

As reported by Engadget: NVIDIA has already forged self-driving alliances with big car manufacturers like Audi, Toyota and Volvo, but its latest is a particularly big deal -- at least if you live in China. The chip designer has unveiled a partnership with Chinese internet giant Baidu that will see the two work together to boost the use of AI. Most notably, NVIDIA's Drive PX tech will find its way into Baidu's Apollo self-driving car platform and autonomous vehicles from "major" Chinese firms. The automotive pact is important enough that Baidu chief Robin Li traveled to the event in one of his company's driverless rides -- even though it was against the law.

The pact will also make NVIDIA's deep learning Volta GPUs available to Baidu Cloud customers, optimize Baidu's deep learning platform (PaddlePaddle) for those Volta processors and use Baidu's conversational AI, DuerOS, for voice commands on NVIDIA's Shield TV.

It's a business win for NVIDIA, of course, but it'll be particularly important for Baidu and anyone in China eager to take their hands off the wheel. Baidu is determined to catch up to Waymo, GM and other companies that have spent years developing self-driving cars, and creating an open platform with NVIDIA's help (Baidu has announced over 50 partners including Ford, Intel and Microsoft) could help it make up for lost time. This leg up, in turn, could make autonomous driving relatively commonplace in China without needing as much help from foreign brands.

NVIDIA Volta GPU