Spectrum’s Take on Transportation Tech—Year in Review

Brightline West

A new rail venture aims to ferry passengers between Las Vegas and the suburbs of Los Angeles faster, more efficiently, and with less environmental impact than making those trips by car. The new corridor, which its creator says should be ready in time for the 2028 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles, will become only the third rail line in the United States whose trains ever reach the 200-kilometer-per-hour mark—the unofficial minimum speed at which a train is considered to be high-speed rail. In the U.S., even trains built for speed are slowed to a relative crawl because they must yield the right of way to slower freight trains on shared rail infrastructure. But perhaps Brightline West, the purpose-built L.A.-to-Las Vegas line could be a bellwether for more efforts to get Americans off the roadways and onto railways.

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Nuclear power may be suitable for the behemoths that carry the weight of global commerce on their decks, and it should be a welcome alternative to the diesel fuel that currently keeps their engines running. Now that the International Maritime Organization has set a net-zero emissions goal that the shipping industry must reach by 2050, diesel will have to be phased out. Some industry players are looking to ammonia, batteries, and hydrogen, among other options for powering ships. But there’s a growing chorus of voices pushing for nuclear power, a zero-emissions technology that already plows the oceans. The benefits: Nuclear-powered ships can go years without refueling; they do not need giant fuel tanks, which opens up more space for cargo and passengers; and the reactors themselves are becoming safer and simpler to operate with each new generation.

QuantumScape

Solid-sate batteries are expected to bring serious performance improvements once they’re commercialized and eventually replace today’s lithium-ion batteries. But the development cycle for such innovations usually includes a lengthy period during which progress hits a plateau, and hopes for a quick transition from lab to commercial production are dashed. A quote that sums it up came from Bob Galyen, owner of Galyen Energy and former chief technology officer for the Chinese battery giant Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd. (CATL), the world’s largest battery manufacturer. “Solid-state is a great technology. But it’s going to be just like lithium-ion was in terms of the length of time it will take to hit the market. And lithium-ion took a long time to get there.”

Joe DelNero/NREL

A consortium of U.S. federal agencies pooled their funds and wide array of expertise to reinvent the emergency vehicle. The hybrid electric box truck they’ve come up with is carbon neutral. And in the aftermath of a natural disaster like a tornado or wildfire, the vehicle, called H2Rescue, can supply electric power and potable water to survivors while acting as a temperature-controlled command center for rescue personnel.

Michal Cerveny/AP

It’s no shocker that technology’s reach extends to athletic competition. Officials at the world’s premier cycling events, fearing that racers seeking any advantage they can gain over their rivals will go overboard in enhancing their bodies or their bikes, are now on the lookout for two-wheelers with cleverly concealed electric motors. The illicit tactic, referred to as “motor doping,” is threatening to taint the sport’s legitimacy as much as performance-enhancing drug scandals have. At the Paris Olympics this past summer, officials deployed electromagnetic scanners and X-ray imaging to combat it. The cleverly concealed motors can be hard to spot—they need to generate only about 30 watts of extra power to illegitimately propel a rider onto the medal stand.

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After weighing the pros and cons of several different types of EV battery cells—lithium-ion, those with ilicon in their anodes such as silicon-polyacrylonitrile (SiCPAN) and silicon nanowire (SiNW) cells, solid state cells, and lithium-sulfur cells—researchers at the Polytechnic University of Turin, in Italy, found that lithium-sulfur cells would likely have the least environmental impact if scaled up to industrial levels.

ZF

A trio of experts from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee wrote for IEEE Spectrum aboutan interconnected web of dilemmas looming over EVs. Combating climate change demands that humanity kick its addiction to fossil fuels. Achieving that will require a near total shift from internal combustion motors to electric traction motors for transportation. But because nearly all such motors rely on magnets that contain rare earth elements—90 percent of which come from China—automakers outside of China are staring down the barrel of supply chain instability. What can be done to sidestep that vulnerability? The authors pick up there, describing massive efforts underway aimed at designing and testing advanced electric-vehicle (EV) motors that do not use rare earth elements (or use relatively little of them).

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BYD, the Chinese battery giant and new entrant into the ranks of automakers, is making moves in order to strike its competitors at the highest and lowest ends of the market, where they’re most vulnerable. BYD’s new electric supercar, the $236,000 U9, boasts performance rivaling hypercars such as the Bugatti Rimac Nevera, though the Bugatti’s sticker price is an order of magnitude higher. BYD’s elegant, money-saving use of lithium iron phosphate battery cells makes the 947-kilowatt (1,287-horsepower) U9’s price point possible and also allows the company to sell a plug-in hybrid that undercuts the prices of stalwarts at the economy end of the market including the Toyota Corolla. What’s more, a commuter in the $11,000 Qin Plus DM-i can drive for 55 kilometers on battery power alone before the vehicle switches to gasoline propulsion.

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In this industry analysis piece, Azeem Azhar, founder of the research group Exponential View, pulls no punches. He says “I have long argued that self-driving cars are metaphorically miles away from being a reality. For years, I’ve tried to offer a tonic to the rah-rah hype that carmakers were foisting upon us through marketing. He recalls having written, in an article published in MIT Technology Review, that, “KITT, the car from [the TV show] Knight Rider, will remain the gold standard for autonomous vehicles. Autonomous vehicle pilots will become increasingly ambitious, but the real-world hurdles will still take time to navigate, even with friendly city regulators. None will ship to the public in 2018.”

But the pessimist has been converted. Azhar now says, “That was then, and this is now…I’m changing my mind about self-driving cars. Far from being a “pointless distraction,” they’re nearly ready for prime time. And robotaxis are leading the charge.” And he proceeds to back up this new assertion with solid statistical analysis.