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New “Silence” EV Has Swappable Batteries Like It’s 1947 Again

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Years ago I pointed out how the Japanese air force, under occupation by America after WWII, transitioned its engineers into designing EV cars for the 1950s. A natural result was the “bomb bay” doors that allowed hot-swap of battery packs on wheeled trolleys.

Nissan’s car making origin story is this electric vehicle from 1947 with “bomb bay” rapid battery replacement doors on the sides.
During the 1940s’ switch to a peacetime economy, around 200 Tachikawa Aircraft employees moved to the newly established Tokyo Electro Automobile Co., Ltd., which embarked on the development of an electric car. One reason for this was the extreme shortage of gasoline at the time. In 1947, the company succeeded in creating a prototype 2-seater truck (500-kg load capacity) with a 4.5-horsepower motor and a new body design. It was named “Tama” after the area where the company was based.

What a cool car even for today that absolutely nobody gets to drive, and most people never knew existed.

Fast forward and the Chinese have announced a “Silence” EV design called the S04, with basically the same concept. In addition, they have a two-wheel option as well as the four-wheel.

Can you tell the design features that signal it’s from China?

The Silence S04 even has a wheeled cart that takes the battery out of the side so it can be easily maneuvered for swapping or charging.

Worst parking job ever? It just occured to me these should be called a “battmobile” instead of EV.

You may also remember Tesla announced it would do battery swap technology so good it would be better than anyone else. It infamously took a huge handout from the US government and (perhaps obvious to anyone familiar with South African apartheid) stuffed hundreds of millions of dollars in their pockets and then claimed the project lacked enough “support” and had to be cancelled.

A decade ago, Tesla announced it would build out a network of battery swapping stations that could change out Model S’s battery pack in 90 seconds.

Journalists now tend to say out loud that Tesla fails at engineering because without fraud there would be no Tesla.

Tesla Motors has earned more than $295 million in green subsidy emission credits during the past three years for a battery-swapping technology customers weren’t getting, a Watchdog investigation reveals. In fact, the electric car company, owned in part by billionaire Elon Musk, may have earned credits up to nearly half a billion dollars in value…

Imagine if 500 million dollars of taxpayer money had gone into actual technology companies instead of the Tesla advanced fee fraud.

Meanwhile in companies where actual engineers do actual work…

Chinese EV maker Nio has been offering battery swapping for its vehicles since 2019. Nio now claims to be the world’s largest operator of battery swapping technology having performed over 32 million battery swaps since then at more than 2,100 stations.

People often talk about the need to swap in terms of range anxiety, but that’s probably false hype and overlooks reasons for developing Tama “bomb bay” doors in 1947. I mean only 2% of trips in America are over 50 miles, right?

Having obsession with designing giant long range cars is about as logical as America insisting everyone needs drums and banana clips for their assault rifle collection at home. Anxiety isn’t a proper market.

History, Security

Fighting Nazis With Nature: “when it was raining, I knew I was safe”

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As the extreme far-right AfD party repeatedly gets called out in German court for crimes including trying to diminish horrors of Nazism, the Guardian has posted a new first-person account with incredible detail of the pain and suffering from fascism.

Maxwell Smart still feels at his safest when it rains. The 93-year-old first learned this as a boy of 10, alone in a forest, lying on a bed of leaves in a makeshift bunker, waiting out the Nazi occupation of Poland. For two years he hid in the forest, evading hunters. Detection meant likely death.

“It was a sport to kill a Jew,” he says. “[Your typical Nazi] is not going to go in the mud and get dirty and filthy; he is doing it for happiness, for enjoyment. So when it was raining, I knew I was safe.”

When Elon Musk jokingly pals around with his AfD contacts and other extremist far right-wing hate groups and accounts on social media, one has to wonder if it brings him happiness, or enjoyment. Here’s what lies just behind such droll exchanges.

One day a notice was given for all Jewish men aged 18-50 to register for labour. Smart’s father was ordered to the town square along with 350 others. His father told him he’d be right back. On the square, the men were separated into two groups: one for professional workers (doctors, lawyers, teachers); one for skilled tradesmen. The professionals, including Smart’s father, were taken to a nearby hill and shot. Smart did not find this out until many years later.

The families were told that their men would be released if they relinquished their assets. “I remember my mother went to borrow money to pay them off,” he says. “It was all just a story. They were already dead. They collected the money but I never saw my father again.”

It’s extremely harrowing tales like this that beg the question why Elon Musk on Twitter (and with orchestrating the purchase of Twitter) has generated a reputation of being heavily and personally involved in promoting extreme right platforms around the world. Here’s what that really means.

In one Gestapo raid at the apartment his family shared with others in the ghetto, his grandfather was shot in the head right in front of him. “I could not really associate myself, a nine-year-old boy, with death,” he says. “I knew old people died, but I didn’t even think that it was possible to kill. It’s only when I saw that in front of my eyes I realised they were murderers.”

The family were imprisoned and the next day, they were violently herded into trucks. His mother told him to run.

“I was angry,” says Smart. “I said: ‘What do you mean you don’t want to take me? You are my mother.’” He followed her until she pushed him away and boarded the truck. “This saved my life,” he says.

Smart knew he would be shot if he ran, so he removed his Star of David armband and walked away until he reached a bridge, where he saw a German officer walking towards him. “He takes out the gun, points it at my head and he says to me: ‘Tell me the truth, are you a Jew?’” Smart denied it and somehow the officer believed him. “I am not a religious man,” he says. “But I believe it was a miracle.” He never saw his mother and sister again.

There is so much more to his story, one that obviously needs to be told again and again especially given recent AfD news.

…of the 8,000 Jews who lived in Buczacz, fewer than 100 survived. “I am one of the 100 and I kept it a secret,” he says. “I should remember. I have to remember. I have to tell it to the world.”

Security

New “Data-Driven” Nissan LEAF Coming Soon in UK

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Nissan “Chill Out” concept the 2026 LEAF is expected to move into production.

The best EV in history, including being the first mass-produced and best-selling, is getting a major refresh. But perhaps most notable is how Nissan talks about the changes it is making to LEAF manufacturing and why.

…Nissan is ramping up efforts to source renewable energy locally. Currently, 20% of the factory’s energy usage – which totals around 350MW a week – comes from on-site wind and solar farms. The firm wants to boost this to 100%, but has not given a timeframe for achieving that.

Asked why Nissan chose to stick with Sunderland in light of the increased costs, Johnson said: “We are here. We’ve got an asset here. That’s not just facilities. That’s also the people. Therefore, it is in our interest to get the best out of the assets that we have.”

There’s an independence and science behind this car company, which could be why the LEAF turns in close to 100% owner satisfaction in Norway where people only drive EV.

…a data-driven efficiency push – as a key factor in the factory’s ongoing viability…

Data-driven humanists, as if to say they are practicing social science. It’s the future.

People love this car and the maker clearly loves people.

Security

Unmasking Rhetorical Manipulation: The Far-Right and Elon Musk’s Feigned Ignorance

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The divergence between the right and the far-right is stark, perhaps exemplified most vividly in France by Marine Le Pen and the extremist party Rassemblement National.

…from 2015 to 2017, [Jordan Bardella, the 28-year-old president of the far-right Rassemblement National party] used the pseudonym “RepNat du Gaito” on Twitter, now X, to share racist messages and celebrate Jean-Marie Le Pen, co-founder of the RN’s ancestor party the Front National (FN). The last post from that account, dated February 2017, is an obscene image mocking Théo Luhaka, a young Black man who suffered severe anal injuries from a police baton that year, in an assault for which three policemen are now on trial.

Twitter. Hold that thought.

On the right of center, one expects conservatism rooted in values unlikely to be changed, embracing open markets and closed nationalism. However, the far-right, epitomized by Le Pen’s party, takes a drastic step away from holding on to traditions towards permanent improvisation and disregard for law and order. It champions stringent immigration policies and exclusivity rhetoric that veer sharply away from democratic norms and towards dictatorship.

Here lies the chasm: while leaning right in politics means democratic principles are adhered to, the far-right threatens to end democracy, often advocating for exclusionary measures meant to harm marginalized groups and destroy regulatory integrity.

Le Pen’s Rassemblement National tries to blur lines with political camouflage in a fusion of conservative ideals and far-right nationalism, yet there’s no room for ambiguity with her love of dictatorship. It’s a reminder of the unmistakable contrast between upholding democratic values and venturing into the realm of extremism.

Back in 2022, someone in particular seemed to understand this bright line of extremism, the need to maintain the line, and tweeted about it without reservation.

And yet in 2024, after extensive evidence has surfaced of Elon Musk in communication with Nazi politicians in Germany, he now plays dumb by claiming suddenly to not understand what extreme or “far” right means.

Playing dumb in this context is rhetorical manipulation and deflection. False ignorance about what makes Le Pen “far” right means Elon Musk is downplaying and sanitizing her anti-democracy political positions.

It deflects attention away from the obviously controversial aspects of her extreme ideology, trying hard to make her appear less radical or alarming than she really is.

France’s Assemblée Nationale has banned a far-right MP from parliament for two weeks for a racist outburst after he shouted “Go back to Africa” when a black member of the lower house was speaking about migrants. Grégoire de Fournas, a member of the far-right Rassemblement National (RN), or National Rally, will also lose half his salary for two months… the most severe sanction available to the house. [House speaker] Braun-Pivet ordered the MP to leave the lower house on Friday. “We must not weaken our democracy,” she said.

Elon Musk’s tactic aims to create doubt or confusion, undermining the legitimacy of criticisms leveled against Le Pen and her party. By feigning ignorance, Musk wants the conversation to move away from substantive issues and towards minute technicalities in semantics, thereby avoiding a proper deeper examination of Le Pen’s horrible political beliefs and their dangerous implications.

  1. Xenophobia and Racism: Le Pen and her party, Rassemblement National, are known for xenophobic and racist rhetoric. Their immigration hate speeches, often portrayed in terms of purity in French identity, are classified as discriminatory and exclusionary. Critics argue such rhetoric fosters division, intolerance and violent conflict within French society.
  2. Authoritarianism: Another significant criticism of Le Pen is authoritarian tendencies. Her stance on security and law enforcement veer towards prioritizing control over individual liberties. Additionally, her advocacy for measures like the dissolution of certain institutions and the concentration of power in the executive branch are meant to erode democracy.
  3. Economic Protectionism: Her party is characterized by protectionism and economic nationalism. Her proposals, such as withdrawing from the European Union and imposing trade barriers, would seriously harm the French economy by reducing international competitiveness and disrupting global trade relations. Moreover, her proposals to prioritize French companies and workers over foreign competitors are viewed as shortsighted and detrimental to long-term economic growth.

In contrast, Giorgia Meloni (leader of Fratelli d’Italia) has allegedly distanced her party from fascism and emphasized instead a commitment to democracy and rule of law. That being said, building ties with Le Pen undermines all of that. And the Financial Times looked at her and found “Meloni takes Italian far-right back to 1930s roots“, not to mention her open association with far-right extremist groups in America.