IEEE spectrumtraffic coverage in 2024 attracted almost half a million visitors. Readers come to learn the latest news on advances in electric vehicles and battery technologies, sustainable energy alternatives, transit infrastructure and logistics, artificial intelligence and emerging risks. One of our more popular articles reported on a problem at the intersection of technology and athletics. Read on to see our roundup of our most read transport articles of 2024.
Engineers at ZF Friedrichshafen AG, one of the world’s leading automotive parts suppliers, have figured out how to make a compact, powerful electric motor that has high power density but lacks rare-earth permanent magnets. The result: The innovation could neutralize China’s market position, which is based on the fact that 95 percent of the world’s rare earth supply is mined there. Concerns about the difficulty of continuing to decarbonize transport if China decides no one else has the rare earths could be dispelled if the ZF engine goes mainstream.
Brightline West
The new rail venture aims to transport passengers between Las Vegas and suburban Los Angeles faster, more efficiently and with less environmental impact than those trips by car. The new corridor, which its developer says should be ready in time for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, will become only the third rail line in the United States to ever reach 200 kilometers per hour — unofficially. the minimum speed at which a train is considered high-speed rail. In the US, even trains built for speed are slowed to a relative crawl as they must yield to slower freight trains on shared rail infrastructure. But perhaps Brightline West, a purpose-built line from LA to Las Vegas, could be a vehicle for a larger effort to get Americans off the road and onto rail.
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Nuclear power may be suitable for the behemoths that carry the weight of global trade on their decks, and should be a welcome alternative to the diesel that currently keeps their engines running. Now that the International Maritime Organization has set a target of net zero emissions for the shipping industry to reach by 2050, diesel will have to be phased out. Some industry players are looking at ammonia, batteries and hydrogen among other options to power ships. But there are growing voices in favor of nuclear power, a zero-emissions technology that already roams the oceans. Advantages: Nuclear-powered ships can fly without refueling; they don’t need giant fuel tanks, which opens up more space for cargo and passengers; and the reactors themselves become safer and easier to operate with each new generation.
QuantumScape
Solid-state batteries are expected to bring serious performance improvements once they are introduced to the market and eventually replace today’s lithium-ion batteries. But the development cycle of such innovations usually involves a long period during which progress hits a plateau and hopes of a rapid transition from laboratory to commercial production are dashed. A quote that sums it up came from Bob Galyen, owner of Galyen Energy and former CTO of Chinese battery giant Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd. (CATL), the world’s largest battery manufacturer. “Solid-state is a great technology. But it will be the same as lithium-ion in terms of time to market. And lithium-ion took a long time to get there.”
Joe DelNero/NREL
A consortium of US federal agencies has pooled their funding and a wide range of expertise to reinvent the rescue vehicle. The hybrid electric box truck they came up with is carbon neutral. And in the wake of a natural disaster, such as a tornado or wildfire, the vehicle, called the H2Rescue, can deliver electricity and drinking water to survivors while acting as a temperature-controlled command center for rescuers.
Michal Červený/AP
It’s no shock that the technology’s reach is extending to athletic competition. Officials at the world’s leading cycling events fear that racers looking for any edge they can get over their rivals will go overboard in upgrading their bodies or their bikes, now looking for two-wheelers with cleverly hidden electric motors. The illegal tactic, referred to as “motor doping”, threatens the sport’s legitimacy in the same way that performance-enhancing drug scandals do. At the Paris Olympics this summer, officials deployed electromagnetic scanners and X-ray imaging to combat it. Cleverly hidden motors can be hard to spot – they only need to generate about 30 extra watts of power to illegitimately propel riders to 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 silicon anodes such as silicon-polyacrylonitrile (SiCPAN) and silicon nanowire (SiNW) cells, solid-state cells, and lithium-sulfur cells—Polytechnic University researchers in Turin, Italy, found that lithium-sulfur cells would likely have the least environmental impact if scaled up to an industrial scale.
ZF
A trio of experts from Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee wrote for IEEE spectrum Othe interconnected web of dilemmas looming over electric cars. The fight against climate change requires humanity to break its dependence on fossil fuels. Achieving this goal will require an almost complete transition from internal combustion engines to electric traction motors for transportation. But because almost all such engines 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 avoid this vulnerability? The authors continue here to describe a massive effort to design and test advanced electric motors for electric vehicles (EVs) that do not use (or use relatively few) rare earth elements.
Qilai Shen/Bloomberg/Getty Images
BYD, the Chinese battery giant and newcomer to the automaker ranks, is taking steps to hit its competitors at the high and low ends of the market where they are most vulnerable. BYD’s new electric supercar, the $236,000 U9, boasts performance that rivals hypercars like the Bugatti Rimac Nevera, even though the Bugatti’s sticker price is an order of magnitude higher. BYD’s sleek, money-saving use of lithium-iron-phosphate battery cells enables the 947-kilowatt (1,287-horsepower) U9 price point, and also allows the company to sell a plug-in hybrid that undercuts devotees at the economy end. market including the Toyota Corolla. What’s more, a commuter in the US$11,000 Qin Plus DM-i can travel 55 kilometers on battery power only before the vehicle switches to gasoline power.
Alecsandra Drǎgoi/DSIT
Azeem Azhar, founder of the research group Exponential View, does not consider industry analysis in this article. He says: “I have long argued that self-driving cars are metaphorically miles away from reality. For years I’ve tried to offer a tonic to the rah-rah hype that the car companies have been throwing at us with marketing. He recalls that he wrote in an article published in MIT Technology Reviewthat “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 overcoming real-world obstacles will still take some time, even with friendly city regulators. None will be shipped to the public in 2018.”
But the pessimist turned. Azhar now says, “That was then and this is now… I’m changing my mind about self-driving cars. Far from being an “unnecessary distraction”, they are almost ready for prime time. And robotaxis is leading the charge.” And he goes on to back up this new claim with solid statistical analysis.
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