China Wants One Thousand Y-20 Transport Aircraft

During a 1-7 June technology innovation exhibition in Beijing, an official from the state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) told the People's Daily newspaper that China required "more than 1,000" Xian Aircraft Corporation (XAC) Y-20 heavy strategic transport aircraft and that the country also plans to build transport aircraft comparable in size to that of the Antonov An-225 Mriya.

"More than 1,000 Y-20s will be needed," Zhu Qian, head of AVIC's Large Aircraft Development Office, told reporters, referring to the 200-tonne, 50- to 60-tonne cargo capacity, four turbofan-powered transport aircraft that first flew in January 2013.

While Zhu stated that this estimate "was based on the experience of the United States and Russia", he did not provide any further details. In 2014 the People's Liberation Army (PLA) National Defence University issued a report stating that China might require up to 400 Y-20 transport aircraft.

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Russia Claims to Have Started PAK-TA: a Supersonic Transport Carrying 200+ Tons

A state-run Russian news site is reporting that the country has ambitions to build a huge, supersonic cargo plane capable of transporting tanks to the field in a matter of hours. While there's plenty of reason to be skeptical that transporting such heavy loads at high speeds is even feasible, let alone realistic, Russia's military is reportedly giving itself roughly the next decade to figure it out.

Russia's RT reports that the heavy transport craft, dubbed the PAK TA (Perspective Airborne Complex of Transport Aviation), could fly at supersonic speeds of up to 2,000 km/h (1,243 mph), carry up to 200 tons (181 tonnes) and have a range of 7,000 km (4,350 mi). The program could call for the construction of a fleet of 80 of the new craft to be built by 2024, giving the Russian military the capability to deliver 400 Armata heavy tanks or 900 more lightly armored vehicles to a battlefield in quick fashion.

The specs are sourced to an apparent anonymous leaker who claims to have attended a closed-door meeting with Russian military leaders and passed on details to the Russian language site, Expert Online.

According to the website Russian Aviation, Ilyushin Aviation Complex – an aircraft engineering outfit dating back to the early years of the Soviet Union – is handling the project. CEO Viktor Livanov is quoted as saying "Today it is just a project that may be implemented by 2030." He added that the exact specifications are still subject to negotiations and that the Russian Ministry of Defense is just one of several potential customers.

Whatever the real status of the PAK TA is at the moment and whatever their reasons, someone certainly seems to want the wider world to know that such an ambitious concept is being discussed.

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China, Russia Considering Moscow-Beijing High Speed Rail Link

China and Russia are considering building a high-speed rail line thousands of kilometres from Moscow to Beijing that would cut the journey time from six days on the celebrated Trans-Siberian to two, Chinese media reported Friday.

The project would cost more than $230 billion and be over 7,000 kilometres (4,350 miles) long, the Beijing Times reported -- more than three times the world's current longest high-speed line, from the Chinese capital to the southern city of Guangzhou.

The railway would be a powerful physical symbol of the ties that bind Moscow and Beijing, whose political relationship has roots dating from the Soviet era and who often vote together on the UN Security Council.

They have strengthened their relationship as Western criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin mounts over Ukraine and other issues.

The two signed a memorandum of understanding earlier this week during Premier Li Keqiang's visit to Moscow in which Beijing expressed interest in building a fast rail link between the Russian capital and Kazan in the oil-rich Tatarstan region, state broadcaster China Central Television reported.

The 803-kilometre line would be the first stage of the route to Beijing, CCTV said.

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Silicon Valley Startup Aims to Make Trucks into Hybrids

Ian Wright designed what may be one of the coolest street-legal cars of all time: the electric X1 looked like a Formula 1 racecar and went from zero to 60 in a breathtaking 2.9 seconds. Now, though, all Wright wants to talk about is trucks, especially the workaday delivery trucks and garbage trucks that ply city streets.

Why the excitement? Wright is the founder of Wrightspeed, a San Jose, CA-based startup that’s designed electric powertrains for medium- and heavy-duty trucks. “Garbage trucks are the perfect driving cycle for us: they get two or three miles per gallon, drive 130 miles a day with 1,000 hard stops that chew on the brakes. They’re just perfect,” he says.

Wright was among the founders of Tesla Motors. But despite his background in working on luxury performance cars, he’s come around to thinking that the biggest opportunity for electric vehicle disruption is where most of the fuel is burned—that is, big trucks. Cars may go through a few hundred gallons of gas a year but a commercial truck will burn through thousands of gallons or more. That means there’s a better financial incentive in terms of fuel savings to go electric.

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London Mayor Briefly Supports the Robopocalypse for London Bus Drivers

Replacing London's driver-operated buses with driverless vehicles would provide large cost savings as part of a "paradigm shift" in the way people travel, according to a controversial passage in a document published by Boris Johnson this week.

However, the loosely worded job-cutting suggestion had to be swiftly disowned by the mayor's office on Thursday, even though the document in which the futuristic idea was aired was published in support of Johnson's 2050 transport plan the day before.

Discussing trends in transport, the document supporting the plan heralded a future in which buses might glide around the capital with no drivers – there are currently 22,500 of them – a generation after conductors largely disappeared across most of London's bus routes.

It said that driverless technology of the type being developed by Google would provide "large cost savings for buses while delivering a faster more efficient service," and added that it would become possible to provide what it called "taxi like" services "at reduced costs".

A day after the document was published, the mayor's office moved to distance itself from the remarks.

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China's High Speed Rail Plans at Home & Abroad

Since serious Chinese planning of high-speed rail (HSR) networks began in the 1990s under the guidance of the Ministry of Railways (MoR), rail planners have sought to create independently trademarkable Chinese brands capable of competing in global markets in addition to confronting domestic transport inefficiencies and improving air pollution. This success of this effort to absorb foreign technology has implications for world railway markets, but also serves a case study of China’s approach to technology acquisition.

Previous Chinese participation in the world HSR market was limited due to the inferiority of its technology relative to established Western and Japanese manufacturers despite lower labor and resource costs and favorable government financing. However, China appears to have pursued a “technology for market access” strategy to enhance the global competitiveness of domestic HSR companies. These policies and the modus operandi of the Chinese government are explicitly stated in official documents and state media which detail the use of technology transfer agreements as a key component in realizing technology development goals.

Poorly formulated technology transfer agreements may constitute more of a threat to the competitiveness of Western enterprises (particularly ones reliant on high-technology which consume significant amounts of capital and resources in research and development) than that from Chinese cyber economic espionage. The latter is primarily associated with obtaining knowledge such as patents and technical schematics, whereas the former often involves training the receiving party in how to skillfully exploit the knowledge. This not only potentially accelerates rival product development but also reduces financial and time costs of process optimization.

Chinese train-makers and civil engineering companies are now building, participating in or contemplating bidding for HSR construction projects in South America, the US, Saudi Arabia and Russia.

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EU Caps 7% of Transport Fuels can be Food-derived BioFuels

EU energy ministers agreed on Friday to limit production of biofuels made from food crops, responding to criticism they stoke inflation and do more environmental harm than good.

The ministers' endorsement of a compromise deal overcomes a stalemate hit late last year, when European Union governments failed to agree on a proposed 5 percent cap on the use of biofuels based on crops such as maize or rapeseed.

Friday's agreement would set a 7 percent limit on food-based biofuels in transport fuel.

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415 Mission Rendering...Video

How to Redesign a Living City. or at least its

Ford, Nissan, and Tesla Get Gov Dev Loans

The Energy Department said Tuesday it would lend $5.9 billion to Ford Motor Co. and provide about $2.1 billion in loans to Nissan Motor Co. and Tesla Motors Inc., making the three automakers the first beneficiaries of a $25 billion fund to develop fuel-efficient vehicles.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced the loan recipients at Ford's Research and Innovation Center in Dearborn. The loans to Ford will help the company upgrade factories in five Midwest states to produce 13 fuel-efficient vehicles.

Nissan was receiving $1.6 billion to retool its plant in Smyrna, Tenn., to build advanced vehicles and build a battery manufacturing facility. Tesla would get $465 million in loans to build electric vehicles and electric drive powertrains in California.

I have to wonder if Tesla is on the slow climb into becoming one of the big auto producers in the country. I have to admit that I am a little surprised that Nissan got the loan though. Not really objecting, just surprised.