Author: peterjang73

Many have accused Toyota of dragging its feet on EVs, but the company is not treating battery electrics like a foregone conclusion. Like a college freshman who’s just dumped their high school sweetheart, it’s keeping its options open. It’s been campaigning a hydrogen combustion race car (note that it’s not a fuel cell vehicle but a conventional piston engine that burns H2), and the first road car derived from that technology has entered the prototype stage.

The Toyota Corolla Cross H2 Concept is powered by a version of the turbocharged 1.6-liter three-cylinder found in the GR Yaris and GR Corolla. That means it still has pistons, rods and a crankshaft. And instead of using hydrogen in an electrochemical process to power a car electrically, the engine employs a modified fuel delivery system, injectors and ignition setup to burn the element.

It adopts the hydrogen storage technology put forth by the Mirai, but can be built easily using traditional ICE manufacturing methods. Toyota says the system has quicker refueling times than charging a BEV and reduces dependency on precious metals like nickel and lithium, both required for electric vehicles. 

In one year of campaigning what is essentially a GR Corolla that runs on hydrogen in Japan’s Super Taikyu endurance series, Toyota has been able to markedly improve efficiency of the hydrogen combustion engine. By the end of the season, Toyota says it upped horsepower by 24% and torque by 33%, putting it on par with gasoline engines. The race car didn’t have the range of an equivalent petrol car, but engineers managed to increase the distance covered on a tank of H2 by 30% over the season. Similarly, refueling time was greatly reduced, from about 5 minutes to just 90 seconds.

The race Corolla had four tanks of hydrogen stuffed in the cargo area, but the Corolla Cross H2 will test real world practicality. It can carry five occupants and their luggage. It will soon begin winter testing in Japan.

Toyota estimates that the Corolla Cross H2 is only 40% of the way to commercialization, and doesn’t yet know if it can bring it to market. The prototype’s reveal took place at the same EU conference where the company announced an EV manual transmission and an expansion to six electric vehicles in the BZ family, so Toyota isn’t under any illusions that EVs will be a big part of the future.

On the other hand, Toyota sells cars in 170 countries with very different infrastructures and driving habits. Toyota believes that with a multi-technology approach — which includes battery electrics, hybrid-electrics, plug-in hybrid electrics, hydrogen fuel cells and hydrogen combustion cars — they have a better chance of achieving zero emissions.

Simultaneously Toyota is working with companies researching green hydrogen production and transport so that it has many avenues to get to carbon neutrality. The race cars are fueled with hydrogen fuel created from renewable energy. If nothing else, the firm is proving that even in a non-gasoline future, motorsports is still an important crucible for developing technology that can filter down to road cars.

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DETROIT — Tesla delivered its first electric semis to PepsiCo Thursday, more than three years after Elon Musk said his company would start making the trucks.

The Austin, Texas, company formally delivered the trucks in a “delivery event” at a factory near Reno, Nevada. The event was livestreamed, including on Twitter, which Musk now owns.

Musk drove one of three Tesla Semis in front of a crowd inside the factory. One was white, one was painted with a Pepsi logo, and another with Frito-Lay colors.

PepsiCo, which is based in Purchase, New York, is taking part in a zero-emissions freight project at a Frito-Lay facility in Modesto, California. That project is being funded by a $15.4 million clean-freight technology grant from the California Air Resources Board that includes 15 Tesla battery-electric tractors and other electric- and natural-gas powered trucks.

Electric semis also would be eligible for a federal tax credit of up to $40,000.

At an event in November of 2017 unveiling the Tesla Semi, Musk said production would begin in 2019 and the trucks would be able to follow each other autonomously in a convoy. But during Tesla’s third-quarter earnings conference call in October he said the company’s “Full Self Driving” system is not quite ready to be driverless.

“It’s been a long journey, a long five years,” Musk said, “but this is going to really revolutionize the roads.”

Musk said the truck has a tri-motor powertrain, based on the same one in the Model S/X Plaid. Two of the drive units would free-spin at times on the highway for maximum efficiency, while the other two units would engage when torque and acceleration is called for, say when tackling a grade. A video clip shown during the event (above) showed the truck pulling a 6% grade on Donner Pass, and passing traffic.

The truck’s regenerative capabilities capture energy on a downhill grade, preventing the threat of brake failure and a runaway truck, Musk said — “a significant safety improvement for the truck driver and the other people on the road.”

Of the motors, Musk said, “One of them is more powerful than the diesel engine on a semi truck.” (The drive unit in a Tesla Model S Plaid has an output of 1,020 horsepower and 1,050 pound-feet of torque. A diesel semi typically has around 500-600 horsepower, but its torque can range from 1,000 to 2,000 pound-feet.)

Musk said that when the tractor is being driven without a trailer, it’s “like an elephant moving like a cheetah.”

Musk said the truck has a range per charge of 500 miles (800 kilometers) when pulling an 82,000-pound (37,000-kilo) load. The normal load limit for a semi is 80,000 pounds, but Musk said an extra 2,000 pounds is allowed for an electric truck.

Musk said the company successfully completed a 500-mile test of the Semi‘s driving range on Nov. 15 between Fremont and San Diego. The company plans to ramp up Semi production to make 50,000 trucks in 2024 in North America.

To service the Semi, Musk said Tesla has developed a “megawatt-class” V4 DC Supercharger that’s “next-generation liquid-cooled,” allowing a user to “shove a megawatt” through a typically sized charging cable — “it’s going to be used for Cybertruck, too.” The charger is promised for next year.

Competitors working on hydrogen-powered semis say battery-powered trucks won’t work for long-haul carriers because it will take too long to recharge the huge batteries. Musk said hydrogen isn’t needed for heavy trucking. Musk said Tesla’s interest in the Semi was based in the fact that commercial trucking amounts to 20% of transportation greenhouse emissions, and 33% of particulates.

Tesla said its other vehicles would used the powertrain in the Semi, and that the company will use the truck in its own supply chain to ship auto components.

As part of its goal to have zero-emission aircraft enter service by 2035, Airbus has announced the development of a hydrogen fuel cell designed for airplanes. Unlike Rolls-Royce’s recently announced jet engine that burns hydrogen directly, it would use an electric motor just like fuel-cell cars, while emitting only H2O. It could eventually be employed in commercial aircraft that could carry up to 100 passengers around 1,000 nautical miles (1,150 miles), the company said.

Airbus plans to test the engine by the middle of the decade on its A380 MSN1 aircraft, “currently being modified to carry liquid hydrogen tanks.” However, the technology appears to be designed for smaller, regional aircraft that use more efficient propeller, rather than jet, engines. As you can see on the rendering above, the fuel cell and propeller motor are attached to an A380 for testing, not necessarily as full propulsion for the large airliner. 

“Fuel cells are a potential solution to help us achieve our zero-emission ambition, and we are focused on developing and testing this technology to understand if it is feasible and viable for a 2035 entry-into-service of a zero-emission aircraft,” said Airbus VP for zero-emission aircraft, Glenn Llewellyn. 

The company didn’t provide any more details, but fuel cells are a well-known technology for cars. They’re far less efficient than battery electric vehicles (BEVs) if you count fuel production and conversion to electricity. However, they have more range, are faster to refuel and lighter — with the latter, of course, being essential for aircraft.  

As mentioned, Rolls-Royce just announced the successful test of a jet engine powered by burning hydrogen directly, another possible technology for future air transport. The company converted a Rolls-Royce AE 2100-A, a regional aircraft engine used in turboprop commuter planes, to work with the novel fuel source. However, the tech could theoretically be scaled up for larger planes.

There are still some major hurdles to overcome before hydrogen could ever be used to power airplanes. It takes four times as much hydrogen as regular fuel by weight for the same range, and the fuel must be kept under pressure. Still, it might be the only option available for aircraft in the near future, as battery technology is still much too heavy unless used for very short flights.

Money is tight these days. Holiday shopping, ballooning inflation, and a looming recession have forced people to more carefully consider their finances. Those factors might help explain the explosion of “buy now, pay later” services. BNPL plans offered by companies like Affirm, AfterPay, and Klarna let you spread the cost of a purchase—anything from a Peloton bike to a basket of groceries—over multiple installments, without the fees or interest rates of most credit cards. Of course, free money always comes with a catch.

This week on Gadget Lab, we dig into the buy now, pay later phenomenon and what it means for the future of shopping.

Show Notes

Read Lauren’s interview with Max Levchin. Check out more of WIRED’s reporting about buy now, pay later programs. Follow our coverage of all things ecommerce.

Recommendations

Michael Calore is @snackfight. Lauren is @LaurenGoode. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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From all the web browsers to choose from these days, Chrome is still the most popular for some reason. Practially everyone uses it, and as such, everyone knows it’s a battery hog—and the more tabs you open and the more extensions you use, the worse the energy drain becomes. While we’ve tried to help you out in the past with workarounds to limit Chrome’s energy use, they’re no longer necessary. Google finally has implemented an official “low power mode” solution you can enable in one step.

As reported by How-To Geek, Google dropped the new “Energy Saver” feature alongside the release of Chrome 108. When you enable the option, Chrome will preserve your battery by minimizing background activity, visuals, and frame rates. You will likely notice a change in performance when browsing with those three components limited. Animations and scrolling may feel choppy, and Chrome’s overall speediness may be diminished. But I’ll take it if it means I can actually get a full day’s work done without staying tethered to my charger.

That said, at this point it’s unclear how much battery Energy Saver will actually preserve, since the feature is so new. Still, it seems worth trying, even to squeeze an extra few minutes of juice from my MacBook.

How to enable Low-Power Mode in Chrome 108

The first step is to update Chrome to at least version 108. If it hasn’t updated automatically, you can force an update ton Windows, Mac, or Linux by clicking the three dots in the top-right corner, choosing Help > About Google Chrome. Hit “Relaunch” once Chrome loads the update.

Then you’ll have to do a little digging, because Google hasn’t (yet) made the new option user-facing—there’s no obvious battery-saver setting; instead, the feature is hidden behind a feature flag. (Google launches experimental new features as flags it doesn’t consider ready for the general public, but which are good enough for tinkerers to try out. The company warns that enabling flags can mess with your browser and its data, but Energy Saver seems like a relatively safe one to try.)

If you want tinker with Energy Saver, type chrome://flags into the address bar, then hit enter. Here, click the “Search flags” field and type “battery” to pull up “Enable the battery saver mode feature in the settings” (it’s identifying flag is “#battery-saver-mode-available”). Click “Default,” change the setting to “Enabled,” then hit “Relaunch” to reboot the app. Once Chrome opens back up, head to Settings, then click on the new “Performance” tab to see “Energy Saver.”

From here, you have two options. You can either have Energy Saver kick on when your laptop hits 20% battery, or you can choose to keep the feature on anytime your laptop is unplugged. I didn’t bring my charger to work today, so I know which option I’m picking.