Monday, October 21st, 2024

Time	Event
4:38a	Cuba's Power Grid Collapses Again. And Then a Hurricane Hit "Millions of Cubans remained without power for a third day in a row Sunday," reports CNN, "after fresh attempts to restore electricity failed overnight and the power grid collapsed for the fourth time — all before the arrival of Hurricane Oscar." A report from Reuters notes it was the fourth power grid failure in 48 hours. "On the forecast track, the center of Oscar is expected to continue moving across eastern Cuba tonight and Monday, then emerge off the northern coast of Cuba late Monday and cross the central Bahamas on Tuesday," the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. The Communist-run government canceled school through Wednesday — a near unprecedented move in Cuba — citing the hurricane and the ongoing energy crisis... Cuba had restored power to 160,000 clients in Havana just prior to the grid's Sunday collapse, giving some residents a glimmer of hope... Energy and mines minister Vicente de la O Levy told reporters earlier on Sunday he expected the grid to be fully functional by Monday or Tuesday but warned residents not to expect dramatic improvements. It was not immediately clear how much the latest setback would delay the government's efforts. Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
7:38a	Europe Automakers Launch Cheaper Electric Cars to Compete With China "Several of Europe's biggest carmakers unveiled low-cost electric vehicles at the Paris Motor Show this week," reports CNBC. The automakers are "seeking to jump-start a demand slump and recapture some of the market share now held by Chinese brands." "It feels like Europe is fighting back," Julia Poliscanova, senior director for vehicles and e-mobility supply chains at the Transport & Environment campaign group, told CNBC at the Paris Motor Show. "There are so many new models on show, and what is really great is that there are a lot of launches that are more affordable. So, Citroen, Peugeot [and] Renault, they are all showing some smaller affordable models," Poliscanova said. "This is exactly what we need for the mass market, for people to buy those vehicles more, and this is also where the competition from the Chinese is also the hardest," she added... "The storytelling is that people have cooled off on EVs and there is no consumer demand, [but] this is really not true," Transport & Environment's Poliscanova said. "This year in Europe, we did not have affordable models, so people are not buying those overpriced premium vehicles. However, as soon as vehicles come in the right price range next year ... people will flock to buy them." Poliscanova said the launch of several low-cost EVs means electric car sales could account for up to a 24% market share next year, up from 14% this year. Chinese-made EVs typically cost less than half the prices seen in Europe and the U.S. last year, according to figures published by data firm JATO, underscoring the challenge for Western automakers to keep pace with Beijing... Pere Brugal, president and managing director of GM Europe, said that the challenges facing Europe's auto industry should be seen as a transitional phase — and not evidence of a crisis. "The adoption of new technologies and new behaviors is never a linear growth story, but the end is full-electric [vehicles]," Brugal told CNBC at the Paris Motor Show. Meanwhile, GM's CEO "says it will start making money on battery-powered models by the end of the year — becoming the only U.S. automaker aside from Tesla to achieve that feat," reports the New York Times (adding that sales are increasing "and the company just introduced a model that sells for less than $30,000 after a federal tax credit.") And GM "is still committed to doing away with combustion engine cars in the United States by 2035." Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
9:22p	Arkansas May Have Vast Lithium Reserves, Researchers Say Researchers at the United States Geological Survey and the Arkansas government announced on Monday that they had found a trove of lithium, a critical raw material for electric vehicle batteries, in an underground brine reservoir in Arkansas. From a report: With the help of water testing and machine learning, the researchers determined that there might be five million to 19 million tons of lithium -- more than enough to meet all of the world's demand for the metal -- in a geological area known as the Smackover Formation. Several companies, including Exxon Mobil, are developing projects in Arkansas to produce lithium, which is dissolved in underground brine. Energy and mining companies have long produced oil, gas and other natural resources in the Smackover, which extends from Texas to Florida. And the federal and state researchers said lithium could be extracted from the waste stream of the brines from which companies extracted other forms of energy and elements. The energy industry, with the Biden administration's encouragement, has been increasingly working to produce the raw materials needed for the lithium-ion batteries in the United States. A few projects have started recently, and many more are in various stages of study and development across the country. Most of the world's lithium is produced in Australia and South America. A large majority of it is then processed in China, which also dominates the manufacturing of electric vehicle batteries. "The potential for increased U.S. production to replace imports has implications for employment, manufacturing and supply chain resilience," David Applegate, the director of the United States Geological Survey, said in a statement announcing the study. "This study illustrates the value of science in addressing economically important issues." Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
10:40p	iFixit's Meta Quest 3S Teardown Reveals a Quest 2 'Hiding Inside' In a new teardown video published last week, iFixit reveals a Quest 2 headset "hiding inside" the cheaper yet enhanced Quest 3S. The Verge reports: The first hint of that is the headset's Fresnel lenses, which iFixit's Shahram Mokhtari writes in a blog post are "100% compatible" with those used by the Quest 2. The headset has the older headset's IPD adjustment mechanism, as well; and it shares the same single LCD panel, rather than using one panel per eye, like the Meta Quest 3. Legacy parts aside, iFixit found that the 3S uses two IR sensors for depth mapping instead of a single depth sensor. That "rare iterative improvement over the Quest 3" performed "exceptionally well in unlit spaces," Mokhtari writes in the blog. And of course, it uses the same Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 SoC as the Quest 3, and works with Meta's newer Touch Plus controllers, which are sold separately. The Quest 3S "costs $299.99, while the Quest 3 is $499.99," notes The Verge. So, not only is the 3S cheaper but replacement parts should be easier to find since the Quest 2 "has already been around for four years." Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)

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