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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 17th, 2023

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  • Growing crops to make ethanol is not particulatly green. In fact, in most existing production loops we would be better off environmentally to just burn pure gasoline than produce the ethanol to mix into it, unfortunately. Too much water, too many tractors and trucks, and way too much electricity into ethanol production to be worth what we get out of it. And the bit of carbon the crops sequester doesn’t overcome it. Electric vehicles are by far the greenest option right now.



  • I am not any kind of expert either, but I have been following this company for a couple of years. If it makes it to market and is at all price competitive i can’t see it not being a big deal. Granted, that is an if, not when, but they seem to be further along than most battery tech you read about.

    No rare earth metals or even nickel or copper, has a very flat degradation curve even at charge rates up to 30C (testing stopped at 3k cycles in the coin cell tests), non flammable and non toxic. The only thing you would wish for is better capacity, but it is already better than any mass produced Li ion cell, and it has a theoretical maximum a couple times that of Li ions.







  • Well, as far as crash safety, I would think it would almost always safer to be facing backwards. That’s the way infant car seats are. Facing backward would mean your whole body would absorb the inertia change against the seat and your head would be supported. Better than seat belt bruises and a bobble head imitation, seems like.

    That’s assuming the forward facing people in the back row are buckled of course. 60 mph headbutt would be…bad. Turn those seats around too maybe?


  • I believe they are kei cars. I looked up the safety ratings on them when I heard about them, and the D.O.T. equivalent board that rated them gave them 5 stars. But it could be that was a kei car specific rating. It did show diagrams with front and side air bags, and all the electronic crash avoidance systems. It’s bigger and seems like it would be safer than a smart car. I honestly think the hold up is that if we had options like that in the US fewer bigger, more expensive, cars would be sold. Maybe not a lot fewer, but enough fewer that it is overall more profitable not to offer them.