What ever happened to that Swiss space junk net? I feel like we could just go around and hoover up all the Russian satellites they seem to be using for target practice.
From the little I've followed on this topic, any kind of kinetic space junk cleanup (meaning physically touching or capturing the junk) is going to be very very limited in effectiveness for the majority of the junk. For really large things, like an entire satellite still intact, it can make sense, but these are very few of the space junk pieces in orbit today.
The problem is two fold: Space is huge and the junk is very far apart. There are hundreds of thousands of pieces of space junk (mostly small).
The most promising approach to address the majority of the junk is a "directed energy" method. This would be using something like a laser to slightly push space junk into lower orbits where the thin air will slow it over time and it would fall back to Earth.
A laser? Mount it on ISS and expand the solar panels and install a battery/capacitor. It might be slow.. but for the smaller stuff burning it up might work, or not?
Not because of Kessler syndrome, just your run of the mill space debris reentering the atmosphere and increasing the amounts of certain metals up there that contribute to ozone depletion. In other words, that may well happen even if we're lucky and avoid Kessler syndrome.
Wait… I thought Apple left China because of slave(ish) labor reasons. But are still using Foxconn which is a Chinese company?
Ah found this:
“Like many of its competitors, Apple has relied on China for assembling its products for years. But political and economic factors have forced the company, as well as the broader tech sector, to rethink that approach by seeking partners from across the region.”
(Link
You can take the production out of China, but not China out of production…all for ‘optics’.
Ah, my bad- so it is. To be honest all I’ve ever heard about the Foxconn iPhone factories in china is them using Chinese semi slave labor run by Chinese people.
I guess taiwan number one China is still a bit shady at times...
I saw one in person for the first time like a week ago, and as much as it looks like something out of tron in photos, it looks like a spray-painted cardboard larp truck in person.
The majority don't learn that the only reason we have a weekend, 38 hour work week, maternity leave, sick leave, annual leave, severance, OHS, etc etc is because workers fought, and died, for all of them.
The state and corporations worked together to crush labor movements, using both the police and military, right up until they were passed into law. Apple won't do shit about this unless it impacts image/profitability.
This is why it is important we aren't divided and that our anger is directed at least in the general direction instead of at each other. If Blair Mountain happened today half the miners would fight the other half.
Well that's the neat part, it's by design. It's not a coincidence that now when we are more connected to each other than ever, now that instant communication would make it possible to coordinate globally, the powers that be instead focus on divisiveness above all else, on misinformation and contrarianism above all else. A nation divided is too busy fighting each other to realize they can make it over the mountain.
I'd like to think that I have a reasonably decent understanding of economics for a laymen, but in this case I'm a bit stumped.
Seems to me that for 5 billion dollar (+however much VW spent on their own software) you should be able to develop a good operating system for your own cars. But I guess VW somehow failed and now would rather license Rivians through this joint venture?
Is a car OS really that expensive and complex to develop? Especially when android auto and Apple car play will do a lot of the heavy lifting for most people.
Even with losses of nearly $40,000 for every vehicle it delivers, Rivian has been on a steadier footing than other EV makers that have been forced to slash prices to stimulate demand or file for bankruptcy protection.
Rivian's cash and short-term investments fell by about $1.5 billion in the first quarter to just under $8 billion.
Nearly 40k loss per vehicle? That seems insane. How has that company been going on until now? They also say that they even before this deal they had enough reserves to last until their next models release and things were moving up, but still that is seems like an absurd rate to burn cash.
I get that it sometimes makes sense for companies to burn through heaps of cash to scaley capture market share or drive out competition, but is the car manufacturing market at this point in time one where this play still makes any sense?
I don’t think that includes things like the Amazon delivery vans that Rivian produces. Since they aren’t really sold in the same way.
I think that has been a big part of their revenue/investment so far.
From mid 2023:
On Tuesday evening, the company issued its second-quarter earnings report, which showed that gross loss per unit delivered between April 1 and June 30 came out to $32,595. That's an improvement over the first quarter's loss of $67,329 per delivered vehicle, and a huge gain over the same period a year ago, where per-unit losses were as high as $157,600.
Competitors in the EV space have been slashing prices this summer in an ongoing price war, but Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe said on the company's earnings call Tuesday that Rivian wouldn't be following suit, citing "continued strong demand."
In fact, Rivian has increased its total production guidance for 2023 to 52,000 vehicles from 50,000.3 Last month, Rivian shares surged after beating out analyst expectations for second-quarter delivery numbers. In April, CFO Claire McDonough said the company would turn a profit in the final quarter of 2024.
For comparison, gross profit per delivered unit for the second quarter of 2023 sits at around $9,700 for Tesla Inc. (TSLA), a more mature EV company.5 For fellow EV up-and-comer Lucid Group Inc. (LCID), gross losses per unit came out to nearly $138,900 over the same period.
It would make sense if at least the vans would make some profit, otherwise it looks like madness (kinda still does to me) to spend this much money on getting into an industry that is actually imo not that attractive.
Even with the switch from combustion to EV, car manufacturing is still a capital intensive and low margin business. And they don't seem to go for the potential jackpot that is autonomous driving
This answer depends heavily on the internal structure and politics around software development at Volkswagen. It could very well be an impossible task for Volkswagen to undertake such a huge development process without buying it.
From my understanding, ist rivian Kind of a Truck company?
I think it's split between delivery vans and SUVs. Amazon has a stake in them aswell. I think at some point they owned like 20%? Not sure how much they currently hold.
Software has to be the main draw. I am not sure how interested they are in the delivery vans, and one has to think that they have enough SUVs themself.
Well, Volkswagen AG has always been strong in commercial vehicles. Think about the First Taxi car in China (forgot That Name..), huge company car fleets in Europe, so small Delivery Trucks could.make Sense as well.
This strikes me as a way to bring in the thing to the dealership to address other more important issues like the accelerator while playing it down as “only a wipers issue”. They must be scared by oncoming lawsuits that they decided this was the best course of action.
Most of the countries that are deciding to join recently are getting absolutely eviscerated by the dollar when it comes to foreign exchange, they all have very weak currencies because the dollar is just so incredibly strong relative to everywhere else.
It's a lot more complicated than just that, but that definitely seems to be a catalyst at the moment
I finally saw one in real life. On the highway. It's shocking how aggressively dumb they look in person. Photos don't do it justice. It seriously looks like a giant unrendered N64... thing.
I was walking to the grocery store when I saw a neighbour polishing his in front of his house. I said "Wow, a Cybertruck," and he replied, "Cool, isn't it?"
I said, "No, it's a $120,000 go-kart made of scrap metal that will rust in a month."
Edit: sounds fake but I do have a picture of the car in question, but I took it on a different day—
I don’t commute to work daily but see them once in a while. I’d be lying if I didn’t say they scare me as the driver of a compact car. I’m just hoping whomever gets sliced by colliding (or being collided by) those monstrous things goes quickly. I can’t imagine what the scene will look like if we have a pedestrian near by while their stupid accelerator gets stuck again.
They literally can't sell them in Europe because of the angles are too dangerous for pedestrians. It's only legal in the good old US of A because we didn't bother having safety regulations for pedestrians. The edge is literally a knife that will slice a person on impact. Absolutely moronic vehicle.
Just saw a Wankpanzer for the first time last Friday and I agree. It is ugly and anyone who fell for this scam deserves every ounce of derision they receive.
I guess it vaguely looks like this one in terms of the large flat plane in the front. Though it's blade runner, so it's all grungy like pieces are falling off and it's all rusted and junk. Wait maybe cyber truck was inspired by bladeunner.
reuters.com
Newest