SpaceX took in $1.9 billion in new funding and plans to raise more, capping off a busy period that includes its first successful human spaceflight, a launch for a satellite-based Internet service and work on a massive ship slated to carry people to Mars fortune.com/2020/08/18/elo…
The company founded by Elon Musk sold the bulk of its planned $2.07 billion offering to investors starting Aug. 4, according to a regulatory filing Tuesday
SpaceX plans to sell another $165 million in equity and preferred stock
Seventy-five investors have participated in the latest round of funding, which will value the company at $46 billion, Bloomberg News reported last week
That would rank SpaceX as one of the most valuable venture-backed U.S. companies
SpaceX’s fundraising comes during a fertile period, both for the Tesla sister company and capital markets more broadly
Technology companies and Tesla in particular have been especially favored as the stock market flirts with a record high
The filing came on the same day that SpaceX made a record sixth flight for one of its Falcon 9 rocket boosters
The company delivered 58 of the company’s Starlink satellites to orbit, along with three SkySat satellites for Planet Labs Inc
SpaceX has said that the latest version of the Falcon’s first stage can fly at least 10 times without major refurbishment
The Florida launch also marked more than 50 successful landings for the rocket’s first stage
The company has launched more than 600 satellites for Starlink, a high-speed Internet network that could begin commercial service late this year for customers in northern North America
On 2 August SpaceX successfully returned two astronauts from the International Space Station after a 64-day mission
The SpaceX Dragon demonstration trip, which began 30 May, was the first time a private contractor had flown National Aeronautics and Space Administration personnel aboard a private spacecraft
SpaceX’s first regular taxi flight for NASA, scheduled for mid-October, will take four astronauts to the space station
Meanwhile SpaceX is constructing prototypes in Boca Chica, Texas, of its heavy-lift Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket
The company plans in 2023 to fly Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and his guests on the first private space-tourism jaunt around the moon
On 4 August a Starship prototype called SN5 flew to a height of about 500 feet before landing successfully
A similar craft called SN6 may perform a similar test this month
SpaceX ultimately plans to fly as many as 100 people aboard the 394-foot 120-meter tall Starship back and forth to the moon and Mars
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
Nissan President and CEO Makoto Uchida says the automaker will "take advantage of the scale of the alliance" with Renault and Mitsubishi Motors in electrification technology, which he sees as a source of future revenue
He also says electrification may drive a restructuring in the auto industry and didn't deny the possibility of expanding the alliance
Porsche, Ferrari Cars Face $59,000 Gas-Guzzlers Tax in France
A draft budget law weaving its way through France’s parliament may force car shoppers to reconsider purchases of Porsche, Ferrari or Lamborghini models that guzzle gasoline bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
The government in Europe’s second-largest auto market is planning to more than double the “malus” -- or penalty -- consumers must pay based on cars’ carbon-dioxide emissions to as much as 50,000 euros ($59,000) in 2022
The proposal would increase what already are the continent’s costliest taxes on polluting passenger vehicles
1. Ball milling a mixture of transition metal oxides can produce homogeneous Ni,Mn,Co-oxide precursors, even to the extent of atomic mixing, so that previously unobserved (Ni, Mn, Co)O solid solution rock salt phase precursors can be formed
2. The final crystallite size of SC-NMC is only related to the heating conditions and has no relation to the precursor particle size, as previously believed
Nissan Motor will equip all future vehicles with basic automated driving functions, aiming to release more than 20 such models by fiscal 2023
The technology will enable Nissan's more expensive models to be operated hands-free on the highway asia.nikkei.com/Business/Autom…
Low to midprice cars will be able to track vehicles in front of them
To make this happen Nissan will have to navigate complex safety issues as advanced automated driving systems will put the car itself in charge of most of the vehicle's operation
The Japanese automaker plans to use its cars' operational data to develop more advanced functions
It will therefore place priority on encouraging wide takeup of the technology
“LiNi0.6Mn0.2Co0.2O2 (SC-NMC) is used as a specific example”
“It was found that a SC-NMC precursor in the form of a previously unobserved rock-salt (Ni, Mn, Co)O solid solution phase can be made phase pure by ball milling”
“This demonstrates that precursors with atomic scale mixing can be achieved by dry methods”
“It is furthermore shown that large precursor particle sizes are not necessary to form large SC-NMC particles as is commonly believed”
Mercedes has revealed it is developing a new prototype electric car that it claims will have the longest ‘electric range’ and ‘highest efficiency’ of any battery-powered vehicle
Called the Mercedes Vision EQXX, the prototype was teased during the brand’s 2020 strategy update
No technical information or targets have been issued, but a presentation slide teased “Beijing to Shanghai on one charge ?”