Tesla launches first all-electric 'Giga Train' – and it's free to ride

If it had been made by Tesla, they would have hyped it into the ground, tried to put it underground, and inspectors would notice a suspicious amount of hacks done just to keep it running. And Elon would have promised a self-driving mode that inexplicably doesn't work with a vehicle that only goes forward and backwards.

Instead, let’s talk about what Elon promised would be better than trains: The χLoop (formerly Hyperloop).

The train has to have an inverter anyways to vary its rpm, and I assume that the motor runs on less than 15 kV anyways. So it could conceivably be done without a separate DC-DC step-up converter, but I wouldn't know for sure.

It's a nice service to provide, and nice that the electric car factory is served by an electric train, but Tesla isn't launching any new product or technology here.

More recently, these have become somewhat commonly used on partially electrified lines. There are at least three types in use in Germany: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_electric_multiple_unit... (the ‘Tesla’ one is the third type listed.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Electric_Railway

What's really crazy is I've told people this while in the park right outside the museum with one of the electric railroad cars and people still didn't have a clue despite being able to see the old railroad stop and living there a generation.

https://web.archive.org/web/20240821173050/https://www.tesla...

That isn't how that works. If each carmaker is required to sell 20% EVs (or whatever) and then Tesla sells 100% EVs and Chrysler sells 0%, the overall average is still at least 20% and you're still buying an EV. It's not any less "buying an EV" than it would be to buy a Chrysler EV which also allows Chrysler to sell more ICE SUVs. Moreover, the number is the lower limit -- if Tesla sells 100% EVs and Chrysler sells 0% and they each sell the same number of vehicles, you'd then have 50% EVs even if the law only required 20%.

Note that the alternative to Chrysler paying Tesla is Chrysler paying a fine to the government. If they chose the alternative then only one half of the above statement would be true.

man you are going to be angry when you find out where American and European nuclear companies buy their enriched uranium from

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-us-europe-nucl...

> How would passengers, crew, even people standing on station platforms be protected from the deadly rays generated in the core? Most reactors have tremendous concrete walls surrounding them, but such a shield could not possibly be squeezed onto a locomotive frame. The X-12 shielding would weigh 200 tons, measure 10 by 15 by 15 feet, and be four feet thick. It would consist of several steel tanks nestling one inside another. The steel would stop the X-ray-like gamma radiation. To confine neutrons, the spaces between steel tanks would be filled with hydrogen-rich material like water, paraffin, or plastic.

> The big gain from atomic fuel, as Dr. Borst sees it, is likely to be an economic one. Despite the high cost of an engine like the X-12 — around $1,200,000, twice the price of a comparable diesel — its almost negligible fuel requirement (eleven pounds of uranium per year) could make it cheap to operate. This would be particularly true if it could be kept in operation nearly continuously, pulling high-speed expresses over long hauls and wasting little time turning around for the return trip. And in due course, the comparatively high cost of making these engines would likely be reduced as the actual problems of design, manufacture, and operation were further researched.

https://archive.org/details/peacetimeusesofa00mann/page/58/m...