Important Innovations

  Elon Musk Says Solar Roofs are His Next Killer Product                                                  Source:  Tesla Tesla Hiring Hundreds of Roofers Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk says the company's next killer product is solar roofs.  He made the announcement during his Q3 2020 conference call.  He says solar roofs will be very hot in 2021. Tesla is hiring hundreds of roofers to get ready.  Musk promises a future of beautiful, tough, resilient solar roofs alive with energy.  Musk feels that is an energy future that we all want and he's building it into a big business.  The Tesla solar roof is composed of solar tiles not solar panels.  It provides the protection of a roof but also generates solar powered electricity. Green Energy Business Ratcheting Up Musk says his solar roof business is accelerating.  Deployments more than doubled in Q3 2020 to 57 MW compared to the previous quarter.  Musk told investors and analysts on the conference call that roof deployments are almo

  Hitting Financial and Sales Targets                                                  Source:  Tesla Rolling Out Full Self-Driving Software With Caution Tesla, the world's largest electric vehicle automaker, and CEO/founder Elon Musk are on a roll.  The company just recorded its 5th quarterly profit and it sold and delivered 139,300 vehicles in Q3 2020.  That puts it on target for selling 500,000 vehicles for the year 2020.  That is a milestone that CEO Musk has been pushing hard to achieve.  Meanwhile, Musk has just started a high stakes rollout of his Full Self-Driving (FSD) software for autonomous driving Teslas. FSD's High Stakes Beta Testing Musk has started limited beta testing of his software architecture re-write of FSD with a small group of selected Tesla customers. This new version of FSD provides more advanced autonomous perception capabilities of stop signs, traffic lights and a higher degree of driver assist on city streets.  It also has another new feature - Navi

  Volta Zero                                                       Source:  Volta Zero Zero Emissions, With Body Made of Flax & Biodegradable Resin Startup Volta Zero of Sweden has innovated an electric truck built for deliveries in cities.  It is a 16 ton, all electric delivery truck that's smaller than a big rig.  It has a range of 125 miles on a charge. The EV is powered by lithium ion phosphate batteries which are modular and allow Volta to customize the vehicles to the customers' specific needs.  Incredibly it is made of sustainably sourced Flax material and biodegradable resin in its exterior body panels.  Volta Zero says it will change the face of road travel. London's Ultra Low Emissions Zone The European delivery service DPD will start testing the Zero in London's Ultra Low Emissions Zone starting in the first quarter of 2021.  The company has forged significant partnerships with another 8 customers.  Experts say Volta Zero could have a significant role in

  Second Launch This Week of Fleets of Satellites Today                                                       Source: SpaceX Promise of Inexpensive, High Speed Internet SpaceX today successfully launched into orbit another fleet of 60 internet satellites.  It was the second Starlink launch this week as SpaceX and CEO Elon Musk continue to build their growing mega-constellation of satellites to deliver inexpensive, high speed internet from space.  Musk now has in orbit more than 800 Starlink satellites. Remarkable Technology The technology that Musk has developed at SpaceX is remarkable.  Today, nine minutes after launch, the Falcon 9 rocket's 1st stage booster that boosted the satellites into space returned to Earth and successfully landed on one of SpaceX's drone ships, known as Just Read the Instructions,  in the Atlantic Ocean.  The precision of the landing is awesome. The 60 satellites continued into space for their low Earth orbits.   This is the 19th launch for SpaceX in

  Invention Could Make Electricity Dramatically Cheaper, Faster, More Powerful Source:  University of Rochester New Discovery - University of Rochester University of Rochester engineers have created a super, superconductor that could save the world billions of dollars in annual electricity costs.  The engineers created a material composed of hydrogen, carbon and sulfur which becomes a superconductor when squeezed between two diamonds.  Superconductors are materials that effortlessly conduct electricity with no resistance and no energy lost.  Until the University of Rochester breakthrough, superconductors only worked at extremely cold temperatures of minus 100 degree Fahrenheit and below.  The new superconductor works at room temperature of 59 degrees.  That opens up the possibility of widespread use. Why This is Such a Big Deal This breakthrough superconductor could usher in an age of dramatically cheaper, faster and more powerful electricity.  According to the research team, widesprea

Switzerland and Sweden Leading the Way                                                                 Source:  Swiss Innovation Council 2020 Global Innovation Index (GII) The 2020 Global Innovation Index ranks Switzerland and Sweden as the #1 and #2 Innovation countries in the world.  For Switzerland, this is the 10th year of ranking number 1.  Europe has clearly become the global epicenter of innovation.  Eight of the top 12 leaders in innovation are European countries:  Switzerland #1, Sweden #2, UK #4, Netherlands #5, Denmark #6, Finland #7, Germany #9, France #12.  The US came in #3 in this year's annual ranking of 131 nations using 80 metrics to evaluate the level of innovation around the world. COVID-19's Impact The GII experts say COVID-19 is "severely pressuring" the long term build-up in global innovation, while it is also accelerating innovation in specific areas, particularly health care.  GII says the leading nations in innovation show year-to-year stabil

  New Travel Innovation: E-Urban Mobility Vehicle                                                  Source:  KOMMA Part Car and Part MotorBike KOMMA is a brand new electric vehicle for city travel from innovators in Switzerland. The startup says it is an alternative to conventional means of city transportation.  The KOMMA Urban Mobility Vehicle (UMV) is a crossover between a conventional car and a motorbike.  It's electric, has the comfort and safety of a car but with a much smaller footprint.  It's being billed as a brand new means of travel around and between urban areas. KOMMA's Approach and Mantra Could Be Transformative KOMMA's mantra is to create better ways to move around cities than by cars and vans.  The approach of their new technology is by blurring the lines between travel vehicles as we know them.  Their brand new KOMMA UMV is planned for production in 2022.  They believe the small size of their vehicle, the light construction, aero design and its electric p