This Week in Engineering

A new set of Biden administration restrictions on foreign sourced EV raw materials and components may constrain production growth just as the need for zero emission vehicles to meet EPA requirements increases.

With China controlling several key minerals, the race is on to develop alternate sources, but current tax credit regimes have MSRP restrictions, putting engineers in a classic bind: increased input costs, without the ability to pass those costs on to the consumer.

The regulatory regime will be a pivotal factor in the rate of EV adoption in America, and the 2024 election will greatly determine where those EV batteries will be made.

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Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

Two Québec, Canada-based companies, Limosa and Airmedic, have announced a partnership to develop an electric VTOL medevac aircraft that combines the benefits of helicopters and fixed wing aircraft for this time critical mission profile. The aircraft, made by Limosa, is called Limomedic and will be operated by medevac service provider Airmedic for emergency services in Québec. Canada has many isolated communities which are difficult to access with fixed wing aircraft and an electric VTOL solution with fixed wing speed could save lives in remote areas. 

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Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

The rapid, global push toward electric vehicles has put a premium on extraction of several critical minerals. Lithium is the most important, but others such as copper, cobalt, nickel and other metals will be needed in large quantities to facilitate large-scale battery production. Caterpillar and Freeport McMorRan have announced a project to automate the company’s fleet of ore hauling heavy equipment at the Baghdad, Arizona copper mine. A first in U.S. mining, the fleet of 33 CAT 793 machines will be converted, with electrification expected in the future. 

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Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

Numerous government-supported and private launch providers are in the market today, and from a cost perspective, the current leader is SpaceX. But, on November 2nd, China’s iSpace launched and landed their Hyperbola-2 test stage in a successful hop that demonstrated the company’s throttleable engine technology and precision landing capability.

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Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

NASA is adding a fourth crewed spacecraft for ISS transportation with Sierra Space's Dream Chaser. Why? It’s part of a long-range NASA goal to increase competition in the commercial space industry and to provide redundancy to ensure uninterrupted station resupply and operations.

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Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

Robotics maker ABB has announced a collaboration with Porsche Consulting to create a pilot project to develop new techniques for modular housing manufacturing. The market is wide open, with construction lagging other engineering sectors in the use of automation. 

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Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

Blended wing body airframe design has long been known to be a high-performance solution to the traditional limits on payload, range and endurance in large aircraft. The USAF ordered flying wing bombers just after World War II, and while performance benefits were demonstrated, blended wing body designs have not been applied to large transport aircraft.

This may be changing, as the USAF are leading a NASA and industry team to develop a blended wing body transport prototype to be built by Long Beach, California based JetZero. 30% improvements in performance are anticipated, and the program will be accelerated, with a projected first flight of 2027.

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Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

Artificial intelligence algorithms are incredibly complex, needing the enormous power of supercomputers to operate. OpenAI’s ChatGPT runs on a Microsoft-built supercomputer powered by 10,000 Nvidia GPU’s. It’s expensive, and power-hungry, and the company is aiming to improve performance and reduce reliance on a single chip supplier. The result may be a new in-house semiconductor design unit at the company, or possibly an acquisition of an existing chipmaker. OpenAI has also announced that they are open to a collaborative effort with existing suppliers, including Nvidia. 

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Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

The electrification of aviation is a difficult challenge. The high weight of batteries, and the resulting short range and limited payload that results, have limited applications of electric drive to smaller, propeller-driven general aviation aircraft. But flight training, which typically uses smaller, short range piston powered aircraft, is ideal for electrification.

Denver-based Bye Aerospace has created a purpose-built two-seat electric trainer called the eFlyer2, which is in the FAA certification process right now. Four flight training companies have ordered 340 aircraft, a production run that may nucleate the first sustained mass production of electric light aircraft in America. 

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Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

Critics of the transition from the internal combustion engine to electric vehicles point out that many obstacles remain to full adoption. These include high costs, unknown electrical grid capacity and, importantly, access to the critical minerals necessary to create the all-important battery packs.

With car battery technology, lithium is the key metal, and like other strategic inputs, most of the world supply is a long way away from America’s auto manufacturers. That, however, may be changing, as Albemarle Corporation and Caterpillar have announced a deal to collaborate on zero emissions battery-powered mining equipment for deployment at Albemarle’s Kings Mountain North Carolina lithium mine. 

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Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.