I retired from personal blogging in July 2008.
But you can find me over at http://blog.xero.com.
Posted by rod@drury.net.nz in Blogging, Technolust at 9:33 pm on Friday, 20 April 2007
I love what Tesla are doing with their electric car and their communications strategy.
Turns out that reality has set in on their updated prototypes and they have had to add 200lbs of weight which brings the driving range estimates down from the promised 250 miles to (a still excellent) just over 200 mile range.
They front foot the issue with this blog entry: Range Reality
You can tell that they are really passionate and I’m sure their market will forgive them by being up front and communicating the bad with the good.
blog
Elon Musk is doing some great stuff with his Paypal profits. The Tesla car is pretty cool, but SpaceX is even cooler. Their second test flight, exactly one month ago, was extremely sucessful, making it safely past a whole raft of milestones and previously untested danger points:
- max dynamic pressure
- 1st stage burnout
- 1st stage jettison
- 2nd stage ignition
- entry into space
- deployed the payload
An unexpectedly large amount of fuel sloshing which the engine steering system did not manage to damp out (both of which are cheaply and easily fixable) caused the 2nd stage engine to shut down a minute or so early at slightly too low a speed for orbit. If not for that, it would have almost certainly put the payload into orbit.
There is a very good chance that the next flight, with the first paying customer, will be fullly sucessful, and that SpaceX will be the first of a raft of small space companies to start commercial operations, at far lower prices than we’ve seen before. This could be the microcomputer revolution all over again, in a new field.
I’d be interested to know Lotus’ thoughts on this outcome. I wonder if they are no longer involved in the project after handing over what was essentially a re-engineered Elise floorplan. I also wonder if the outcome would have been different if they were still involved (I’m assuming they no longer are).
The great Colin Chapman’s mantra was that the only thing you can add to a car is “lightness”, and this has been the driving philosophy for Lotus Engineering. Mind you, he also said “You won’t catch me driving a race car that I have built.” and “Any car which holds together for more than a race is too heavy.” ;)
Rod, you know about the Air Car?
http://www.theaircar.com/thecar.html
* propelled simply by compressed air. no fuel.
* to recharge, either plug in compressed air, like pumping your tyres, or you can use the compressor by plugging it into the electrical mains. 3-4 mins to recharge.
* 220km/h max speed
* 200-300km range (2000km for a hybrid model)
As far as I can tell, critics complain that it uses a lot of energy to create compressed air, so its only eco-friendly if your power stations are. Let’s assume these critics are preventing wind farms from being made, out of concern for their horses…