Elon Musk's The Boring Company could be brought in to help the Tesla Factory at Fremont in the manufacturing of the Model 3. In a statement during Wednesday's Q4 earnings call, the Must noted that the company is looking to build a tunnel between its 901 Page Ave.
From article, (Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveiled a novel idea, stating that the California-based electric car maker and energy company would be using The Boring Company tunnels as a way to expedite the transportation of materials from one facility to the next.
“We are looking at building tunnels, using The Boring Company’s thing, because we have, for example, our seats production is at a separate building on Page. And we have a bunch of trucks moving seats back and forth between both the primary Fremont production and the seat factory.
“And we actually get constrained on how many trucks can we dock and undock at the seat factory, which is only, I don’t know, half a mile or a mile away from the vehicle plant. So it’ll be pretty easy to just have a tunnel, do an automated conveyance from seats to the factory,” Musk said.
Overall, Musk is optimistic about the potential of using The Boring Co.’s machines and tunnels as a way to help increase the pace of Tesla’s manufacturing. The Tesla CEO even noted that if the company manages to accomplish this, the optimal pace of the main Fremont facility could improve to 700,000 vehicles per year, comprised of 600,000 Model 3 and 100,000 Model S and X.
“And there are things we can do, where we can build sub-systems and then transport sub-systems to Fremont. These things get increasingly difficult, but they’re all doable. But I can see a path where we get to say 600,000 Model 3 production and 100,000 S and X, so maybe 700,000, which should be like almost 50% more than GM or Toyota got out of the plant. I mean that seems achievable,” Musk said.
Tesla’s Fremont Blvd. and Page Ave. facility are roughly three miles apart by car, which, under normal conditions, would take about 10-14 minutes of travel, according to Google Map estimates. With a tunnel system in place, the time it would take to transport materials between the two factories would be significantly reduced, along with the infrastructure needed to support a high volume of commercial trucks.
Elon Musk did not specify any other details about the idea, though the online community has posted a rough idea of where the tunnel between the main Fremont facility and the Page Ave. factory might run. A link to the possible tunnel between the two plants could be viewed below.)
For More Info
The seven Earth-size planets around the distant star TRAPPIST-1 are "tugging" on each other as they travel around their parent star.By carefully observing those tugs, scientists were able to gather information about the planets' composition, and found that some of the TRAPPIST-1 worlds could have as much as 250 times more water than the amount in all of Earth's oceans, according to a new study.
From article, ("In the TRAPPIST-1 system, the planets are so close together that they perturb each other," Grimm said in a statement from the University of Bern. "This causes a slight shift in the times of each transit." (A "transit" refers to when the planet appears to pass in front of its parent star as seen from Earth. Thousands of exoplanets have been detected and studied using the transit method.) By simulating the planetary orbits of TRAPPIST-1 with an algorithm until the computational model matched what astronomers had observed in the TRAPPIST-1 system, the team could estimate the masses of the planets. From the mass data, the team could then deduce the planets' individual densities and compositions.
Intriguingly, they found that each of the five lightest planets could have about 250 times more water than the amount in Earth's oceans according to a statement from NASA. Up to 5 percent of their composition could be water, whereas only 0.02 percent of Earth is water.
TRAPPIST-1c, d and e lie close to the star's "habitable zone," or the region where a star receives enough radiation that water might be able to exist as a liquid on its surface. TRAPPIST-1b, the innermost planet, and TRAPPIST-1c likely have rocky interiors and atmospheres denser than Earth's, according to the study. Of all the TRAPPIST-1 exoplanets, TRAPPIST-1d is the lightest, at about 30 percent Earth's mass. This may mean it has a large atmosphere, an ice layer or an ocean, but scientists cannot yet discern that. TRAPPIST-1e is likely a rocky planet with a thin atmosphere. TRAPPIST-1f, g and h are so distant from their parent star that their surfaces are probably covered in ice.
"We were able to measure precisely the density of exoplanets that are similar to Earth in terms of their size, mass and irradiation, with an uncertainty of less than 10 percent, which is a first and a decisive step in the characterisation of potential habitability," said Brice-Olivier Demory, a professor at the Center for Space and Habitability and co-author of the study, which was published in late January 2018 in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.
The exoplanet TRAPPIST-1e yielded another interesting finding: It is the most similar to Earth in the amount of radiation it receives from its parent star, its size and its density. And liquid water could exist on its surface.)
For More Info
