I grew up a short bicycle ride from UC Davis - we jokingly called it the communist republic of Davis. VERY left leaning even 30 years ago when all the farm communities around were very conservative and liberal (classical). I would expect no less from that university, their ideals are usually short sighted or highly polarized to specific view point. BTW - located 20 minutes from California state capitol. While overt or excessive consumerism is bad, I think we can come up with a different solution other than everyone live in apartments like Bruce Willis in 5th element. I think alternative battery chemistries, PHEV, FEV, etc all working together will be short to medium term. Maybe a longer term solution is combination of public transport (train) and charge in motion (inductive road way). A lot of people drive 400 miles (about 650km) on I5 between north and south of California. Adding an inductive charge lane (modern version of electric gantry for buses) would allow for down sized battery and eliminate charging stops.

So we get battery that will accept a charge super fast, like filling a gas tank for an ICE car. But we already have problems with enough fast chargers for the BEVs that exist, and grid infrastructure can barely keep up with current chargers. Some locations are installing storage to help, but we are already projecting shortages in battery capacity for the legislated BEV requirements. Where is the additional storage capacity coming from? In saying 100 miles in 5 minutes also implies we also need much higher charge rates from the charger now that the battery can accept it. So now the prior mentioned short comings in charging infrastructure are going to further stressed if manufacturers switch to this, and more importantly, when consumers expect the convenience of 5 minute fill ups daily. People are too used to how ICE cares work. I work in car business and that's what people are want. This is an important step in improving the performance of BEV, but it is only one tool in the tool box. Without the rest of the tools and a lot of education, this has the potential to do as much harm as good on public perception of BEV short comings.

I have one of the tested vehicles and can confirm the extreme rain down pours that Florida see a lot can temporarily disable these systems. Even radar cannot reliably see through the really heavy rain we get. I also service one of the brands in question. Many customers come in with some complaint of the system and often I find faults "system disabled to to limited visibility" stored. In reality the problem is two fold - 1) we continue driving in bad weather when we really should have pulled over and not continue driving. 2) once drivers get used to a new DAS they depend on it to take over and save them from their bad driving, instead of driving safely and DAS helping only as the backup safety it was designed for. (Tesla drivers - I'm looking at you sleeping and watching movies behind the wheel) Jason

I have been playing around with an idea for Hybrid electric turbo fan engine. Use the combustion turbine for max power situations IE: take off and climb. Decouple the engine section and use the motor/generator to run the turbo fan for cruise and decent. Maybe also for taxi if the hub motors don't get sorted out. Big part of my idea is to run the jet turbines on hydrogen. The idea is same fuel could also run through FC to produce electricity. The electric motors would be combined into the turbo fan with the jet turbines. So you could remove the APU engine and use the FC to power on board systems and propulsion motors with a small contingent of supplement batteries. Jason

If they think diesel generators are bad, they should see how nasty a gasoline generator is. By backup I take it they mean commercial installations of many kw or even mw units? For a unit that is at a constant RPM and consistent load point emissions controls should be easier to monitor and implement. I would be more concerned about home owner gensets that are barely out of the '80s in regards to emissions controls Jason

I know efficiency is not there yet, but a dream here is this; fill tank with water and plug in to electricity (solar, grid, etc.) and produce the Hydrogen/oxygen to fill tanks. Use the "fuel" I just produced in a FC to power my electric car. Capture the water vapors for potable consumption or to return to electrolyzer to produce more "fuel" Could in theory be a closed loop with only inputs being top off water and electricity. Maybe a more realistic use case would be to install a system in your house and use the excess installed solar to produce Hydrogen/Oxygen during day, then switch over to FC mode to power home at night. Excess H/O could be used for car FC or just charge BEV car. Side benefit is using Hydrogen for heating and cooking gas in the home and pure H2O source for drinking water. Jason