Toyota’s second-gen hydrogen car is here, Cyber Monday, and more tech news

Your tech information digest, by the use of the DGiT Daily tech newsletter, for Monday, 30 November 2020.

1. Mirai 2021: Toyota’s second-gen Gasoline Cell Electrical Car

Toyota’s Miria is now a second-gen hydrogen Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle (FCEV) (Engadget), and opinions are out suggesting the 2021 mannequin is vastly improved.

• The Mirai, which means future in Japanese, is Toyota’s ninth FCEV, having began on them again in 1992, and solely its fourth that has been in the stores.
• The primary Mirai you may’ve missed completely. First out in 2015 it bought round 11,000 fashions, simply over 1,000 within the UK and Europe, and some thousand within the US.
• The most recent Mirai gained’t transfer the needle for Toyota, with the Japanese big aiming to promote round ten occasions extra from the newest technology automobile.
• Nevertheless it’s a giant play at working in the direction of one thing a bit of greater.

What’s new? 

• With a extra elegant, Lexus-inspired design, the Mirai is now not one of many really ugly vehicles.
• I imply, actually, have a look — apparently, airflow for the chemical response was a giant drawback, the rear was thicc, the internals have been odd, and efficiency wasn’t nice.
• The brand new Mirai actually exhibits why second-gen merchandise are significantly better.
• The 2021 mannequin has improved to a 400-mile vary, with a much bigger hydrogen tank, refueling time of round 5 minutes, and higher acceleration. That’s 400 miles in all climate, in contrast to EVs.
• The gas cell that does all of the chemical reactions to generate energy nonetheless wants sturdy airflow, however it’s now smaller: it drops all the way down to taking on 24 liters of capability, from 33L of area beforehand required. Regardless of the scale fall, it’s extra environment friendly: 128kW of energy, up from the earlier 114kW unit.
• And with that dimension saving, the carbon-fiber-reinforced gas tank is now greater, now carrying 5.6kg of hydrogen, for an general 30 % vary enhance.
• There’s a good sufficient explanation of how it works from Toyota here, too.
• It ought to be cheaper, too, down from the unique’s ~$60k to ~$50k.
• The brand new Mirai nonetheless carries a 1.24kWh “buffer battery,” which gives extra horsepower on demand, and is used throughout regen.

• Count on the water-emissions-only*-car someday in 2021.

*99 issues and two of them are H:

• Okay a horrible H2 joke however in fact you want entry to hydrogen to refuel your Mirai, and the rooster/egg drawback of hydrogen infrastructure hasn’t been cracked but, nor the carbon footprint issues.
• In response to h2stations.org, there are solely 45 H2 refueling stations within the US, practically all in California. There’s one in Hawaii close to Honolulu too, which appears helpful for that island?
• The H2stations map present a bunch extra by the US however they’re principally analysis services so I don’t know for those who can precisely pull up and cargo up.
• Germany has 87, the UK has 13. Japan has a extra wholesome 137, aiming for 900 by 2030.
• And whereas the carbon footprint drawback of hydrogen is just not but solved, important investments in renewable hydrogen and carbon-neutral approaches are taking place (The Guardian), especially by China (Clear Vitality Wire).
• What could also be, by 2030 and past is that we see on the roads a mixture of EVs, FCEVs, petrol-electric hybrids, and conventional vehicles, vans, and vans.
• A combination is at the least an opportunity in a posh future.

2. Okay, Cyber Monday means extra purchasing for those who haven’t already grabbed a deal. Big hub of deals here, best smartphone deals here, Chromebook deals, tablet and iPad deals, Best Buy Cyber Monday deals, Cyber Monday Walmart deals, and UK deals here. Phew!  (Android Authority).

3. Korean media is reporting Samsung might launch one last Galaxy Note before putting the series to bed, after preliminary studies that we’d’ve seen the final Be aware already. A remaining Be aware 21 in 2021 could also be potential however anticipate extra focus than ever on the Fold (Android Authority).

4. On that Be aware, Samsung’s Galaxy Note 20 and Z Flip 5G now come in festive purple and white choices as restricted editions (Android Authority).

5. Xiaomi may launch the Mi 11 series earlier in 2021, too: January might be a busy month? (Android Authority).

6. Black Friday online shopping comes in $9B, with $3.6B spent on smartphones, up 25%, by way of Adobe. Predictions are for Cyber Monday to beat these numbers, too. In 2019, Adobe tracked $7.4 billion in on-line gross sales (TechCrunch).

7. Right here’s an interesting Twitter thread delving into the detail or “tricks” of what Apple has done with the M1 processor to make it run Intel code so effectively. No “magic,” only a collection of attention-grabbing choices (Twitter).

8. Tesla owners are going to be able to remotely view what their Autopilot cameras can see (Electrek).

9. Web, prepare to go looking: Utah’s Mystery Monolith has disappeared (Gizmodo).

10. Earth is orbiting faster and 2000 light-years closer to a black hole in a new map of our galaxy: our orbit pace is 227 km/s, up seven from earlier calculations (phys.org).

11. The world’s loneliest elephant is lastly going dwelling (BBC).

12. “Do astronauts need to clean the outside of space station windows?” No bugs in area, however micrometeoroids (area mud) aplenty (r/askscience).

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