Oh Hi!
I’m glad you’re here. Thank you for reading.
Check out my latest podcast episode.
I chat with my friend Aimée Morrison. Aimée is a professor at the University of Waterloo. Her area of research “focuses on popular reception and remediation of computer technologies, as well as on social media as a platform for biography and activism.”
We had a wonderful chat about her opinions of AI, the nature of learning, and general reminiscing about life when we were in university together. It can be found on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon Music, and other places where you might get your podcasts.
-Growdy
The Electric Vehicle Tipping Point
Thirty-one countries have crossed over the 5% electric vehicle sales tipping point. yahoo.com
Why is the 5% mark significant?
“Once enough sales occur, you kind of have a virtuous cycle,” said Corey Cantor, an EV analyst at BloombergNEF. “More EVs popping up means more people seeing them as mainstream, automakers more willing to invest in the market, and the charging infrastructure expanding on a good trajectory.” bnnbloomberg.ca
The EV Tipping Point
China’s Automotive Expansion
IM Motors, a subsidiary of SAIC Motor Corp, is now taking pre-orders for their new L6 model, an electric vehicle with a 1,000 km range and a starting price of $31,800 USD. carnewschina.com
GAC Aion's Hyper brand said it will put 1,000 km solid-state batteries in all their vehicles by 2026. reuters.com
BYD launches a new commercial energy storage solution. cnevpost.com
BYD starts road-testing their EV pickup in Mexico (it looks like the bastard love child of a Rivian and an older model Honda Ridgeline). carnewschina.com, youtube.com
BYD has sold a shit-tonne of Seagull EVs. electrek.co
CATL is holding strong as the world’s largest producer of electric vehicle batteries. BYD loses second place to LG. cnevpost.com
China will likely amass the world’s largest fleet of car carriers to deliver their EVs worldwide. reuters.com
Must Know Musk News
Elon says that Tesla will invest $10 Billion in self-driving tech this year. teslarati.com
Elon is looking to his “friends” to raise $3 Billion to grow xAI and compete with OpenAI, Anthropic and others. finance.yahoo.com
Tesla drops the price on Full Sell Driving to $99 a month in the US. techcrunch.com
A future space station, the Vast Aerospace Haven-1, will use StarLink for space-bound internet access. pcmag.com
Boring Company almost took down the Las Vegas monorail last year. fortune.com
SpaceX prepares for global cellular network integration testing. pcmag.com
Watch a drone fly through Giga Factory Berlin. youtube.com
Energy
The respiratory system in plants may give us the knowledge we could use as the basis for water-activated paper batteries. prnewswire.com, pubs.rsc.org, finance.yahoo.com
GridLab “advanced reconductoring.”
We need more electricity to power our AI and EV future. Part of the solution to upgrade power grids is to use a different cable. The technique is called “advanced reconductoring.” Most power lines consist of steel cores surrounded by strands of aluminum. If we switch to lighter updated cores such as carbon fibre that could hold more aluminum, power lines could carry up to twice as much current without changing anything else. nytimes.com, cleantechnica.com
Calpine's billion-dollar Nova Power facility, capable of powering nearly 700,000 homes, will be among the world’s largest battery banks when it comes online later this year in California. reuters.com
The City of Liverpool plans to build the world’s largest tidal power generator on the River Mersey. electrek.co
But Wait, There’s More
Helixx Electric Van
Southeast Asian start-up Helixx launches $6 a-day electric van subscription service. newatlas.com, helixx.tech, cbtnews.com
Mercedes adds a bigger battery to the EQS. canada.autonews.com
Ford to resume F-150 Lightning deliveries. cnbc.com
Volkswagen plans to drop $2.6B into Chinese production expansion. reuters.com
BMW plans to bring nearly 40 new or revised models to market. autonews.com
Electric car driver Alison Chilton loves her kerbside charge point
Street-level EV charging is starting to show up across the UK. bbc.com
Cruise is back on the road, but now with people driving. techcrunch.com
A Canadian ride-share start-up is working to bring Uber-like services to smaller communities. canada.autonews.com
Rise Of The Machines
Magna partners with Sanctuary AI for their humanoid robot in their manufacturing facility. techcrunch.com, theglobeandmail.com
Walmart partnered with Fox Robotics to deploy 19 robotic forklifts in its distribution warehouses. techcrunch.com
Tesla issued new patents for their humanoid Optimus robot. electrek.co
NASA is training a robot dog to walk on the moon. futurism.com
Toyota is training robots by letting them watch how the humans do it. wired.com
Amazon is deploying over 750,000 robots to work alongside its employees. finance.yahoo.com
ICYMI
Canada’s Ministry for Energy and Natural Resources predicts another "catastrophic" wildfire season. reuters.com
Watch the YangWang U9 dance in the streets. youtube.com
Other Interests
Max Space Inflatable Space Station Concept
Max Space, a startup, plans to develop inflatable balloon-like modules that can turn into “stadium-sized” space stations. interestingengineering.com
A “car-sized” digital camera, the largest digital camera ever made, is going to be pointed at space and will “soon revolutionize our grasp of the cosmos.” mashable.com
Kick Out The Jams
Some entirely unnecessary links to music for your listening pleasure. Enjoy.
You can watch Coachella Live on YouTube this weekend. youtube.com/@Coachella
The Deftones did a great cover of the Smiths on the Outdoor Stage. youtube.com
Lana Del Rey brought Jon Batiste and Billie Eilish out on stage for her set. youtube.com
You may need to poke around the live streams a bit to find those moments.
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