That graph floating around on how batteries have changed the electrical grid is super impressive. Batteries have to really start eating into base load power this year.
Like capacity x capacity factor, e.g. if your 100MW site produces power 50% of the time (because of nighttime, clouds, etc) then it would produce, over the course of a year 100,000,000 x 24 x 365 x 0.5 = 438 GWh annually (very simplified).
Yup, typically I just mentally multiply by 1000 (nice round numbers). But obviously a 100MW farm in the Sahara is going to produce more in a year than the same 100MW farm in Germany. It’d be cool to see a list on a global scale that showed a table and maybe generation vs demand curves for the area they serve. Maybe I’ll put it on my “projects I’ll never get to” list.
This is good, and hopefully for micromobility, too.
I want my current car to be my last ICE car. But my ebike has been so much easier than driving for downtown activities, I'm starting to wonder if I will even need to drive much at all.
I'd probably still want an EV for longer distance travel, but that isn't necessary for day-to-day commuting.
Nothing about how viable it will be to bring to market, if ever, just discussing R&D without much content.
Potentially always good to see these sorts of improvements :-) Is just not that impactful until they can make it useful. If it's 50 years away from being producible at scale? Eh. If it's only 6 months away and can drop in to existing pipelines? Hell yeah!
Article says 2 250w motors, so I'm guessing Max 30% input from the rider. I've got a 750w ebike myself and know it struggles to haul my 350lb/150kg butt up steep hills, so I wonder if we'll see any of these going backwards down some hills
Semi-trailers (aka what everyone calls a trailer, but full trailers are rarer now) are GOAT for expanding payload capacity for the same prime mover, and to drop the trailer and pick up a new one, improving operational efficiency. We've known this for a century
The description says "cargo-specific brakes" but I hope that implies brakes on the trailer wheels. 350 kg unbraked would be uncontrollable or hazardous if things go south. Yes, this would require a hydraulic brake coupler from cab to trailer, similar to what big rigs use. But seeing as they have CCTV in the trailer, they're already running lines to the back.
This setup is 5 meters long. Are there no mirrors??
Interesting idea. Seems well-suited to urban distribution (eg restocking convenience stores), or as a suburban mobile distribution point, taking up a position to launch smaller bikes for last-mile delivery.
That's certainly plausible. The typical requirement to keep auxiliary/infotainment systems separate from safety systems in automobiles doesn't really make much sense here, so reusing the cameras might work. Still, though, it's not like the air resistance of some extra mirrors would be a huge problem.
I don't quite follow. These roro boxes fit the description of a standard pallet (2 meters cubed, taller and longer than wide), why not just outright have a single pallet shipping container? Or is this a cheeky reskin of a pallet?
Credit where it's due, as the article has a caption declaring that the image is a DALL-E rendering and not actually related to the article. Disclosure is good. Avoiding gratuitous AI renderings would be even better.
The author makes some interesting observations that people not living in dense cities may have noticed. I think the prediction of autonomous low-speed cargo bikes is a bit far fetched and will be chronically "ten years away", but it does highlight the complexity of logistics, for which global companies like FedEx and UPS have to adapt to in the changing urban environment.
As for standard cargo sizes, the author is very careful with his words, predicting that RORO boxes will be standardized, not that all cargo bikes will adopt this shape and form. That's an important distinction, since national and international shipping rely on fitting things together, like Lego bricks. But consumers? They vote with their feet.
Indeed, you can get cargo bikes and trikes in all shapes and forms, and none so far have won out as the dominant form. Whereas standards that the world has basically adopted through sheer use include: the TEU shipping container; the approximate 4-5 ft wheel gauge for automobile, wagons, and chariots going back to the Roman era; standard gauge rail (1435 mm); the SI units (which the US foot is based on, post 1959); bicycle and motorbike chains on the starboard side.
If international shipping settles upon a pallet or RORO box size for their use, then that'll be entirely separate from what consumers will be riding. Not less your hobby involves buying pallet-sized quantities of goods and hauling them back yourself from the shipping terminal.
Right, just like people could theoretically buy a vehicle that transports shipping containers but they have no reason to. I guess where consumers do start to interact personally with standardized container sizes are things like aluminum beverage cans. Personally I'd love to see more standardization but companies selling to individual consumers have an urge to make their packaging as unique as possible.
I'm racking my brain for any examples where consumer standards followed directly from a container dimensional limitation, and I've come up empty. Obviously, manufacturers and shippers take those considerations seriously so as to maximize volumetric efficiency, but I would think if a consumer good can fit multiple units onto a standard pallet, the shipping system can accommodate it.
Non-standard pallets exist, but I've yet to come across one which was over 2.4 meters (8 ft) on one side, and that was because a leg press is necessarily an odd size.
I'd posit to say that consumer standardization is more focused on components, like Shimano HG-compatible sprockets or USB C. That still leaves room for creating value by combining standardized components into appealing products of different sizes and shapes. But you're right that vendors -- particularly older industries using tech as a differentiator (eg automakers) -- are increasingly diverging from standards to trap people into their ecosystems.
As an aside, I vaguely recall many years ago, a major TV manufacturer announced a flat panel TV -- maybe plasma? -- so large that it had to be shipped by airplane. And only one such TV could fit, because when placed horizontally it would only fit at the widest part of the cabin.
This is, of course, an incredible waste of aircraft hauling capacity, but I suspect it was more of a tour-de-force than meant for sale. And since that stunt many years ago, LCD manufacturing yields have improved remarkably and TVs have never been cheaper and larger. Once these TVs exceed the height of a TEU, then I think that would be an example of a container limitation affecting the consumer, whichever oddball consumer needs an 2.5 meter high TV lol
I’ll be surprised if TVs get much larger. We’re already have Modular wall displays if you want a theater at home, though most still use projectors in that situation.
The problem is that most homes don’t have a big enough room for a TV wider than 60 inches or so.
Agreed. It would have to be something really decadent to warrant larger TVs, like outfitting rooms without windows so that they can still have a floor-to-ceiling "sea view" despite being on the interior of an apartment tower.
And such a thing would be closer to home furnishings rather than what we'd normally consider as consumer goods.
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