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Volkswagen Renames Itself Voltswagen

Volkswagen commitment to an electric vehicle-centric future, with the company rebranding its United States operations to “Voltswagen of America,”
volkswagen-is-really-serious-about-ev-foray-to-make-that-clear-its-renaming-us-entity-to-voltswagen

Comments

  • edited March 2021
    Watts in a name? :)

    Wonder how many people know the origin of Tesla‘s name? It was named after Serb inventor Nicola Tesla who pioneered the first AC electric motor - a vast improvement in durability and efficiency over the DC motors in use up to that time.

    image
  • Actually, Tesla was responsible for much more than just AC motors- he championed the entire concept of Alternating Current (AC) as being greatly more efficient than Direct Current. This included generation, distribution, and end use, motors or otherwise. His commercial nemesis was Thomas Edison and General Electric, who initially promoted DC power transmission.

    One of the major benefits of AC over DC is that it can be easily and cheaply "transformed"- that is, the transmission voltages can be easily and efficiently raised or lowered depending upon the needs at any given point in the power transmission system. This allows, among other things, high voltage transmission lines to be much thinner, saving on expensive copper and making the overall system much lighter, less clumsy, and greatly more efficient.

    It should be noted that with advances in science and technology it is now possible to convert DC to very high transmission voltages also, and there are many such lines in present use worldwide. The conversion equipment is elaborate and expensive, but special circumstances can make them more efficient than AC in some transmission applications.
  • [Tesla thread drift]
    In 2012, some may recall, when the building (or ?land) housing Tesla's last lab, on Long Island, was put up for sale, the founder of the satirical site The Oatmeal decided it was worth saving, darn it, and started an Indiegogo campaign that raised $1.4 million in record time. (A few of those dollars were mine.)
    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/oatmeal-tesla-museum-matt-inman-fundraiser-success-donations-14-million-_n_1948954
    Scroll to the end for some interesting images and what the campaign originator planned to do with leftover funds.
    [end thread drift, back to Volty]
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