05-28-2014, 11:08 PM
Straubel spoke of challenging the internal combustion engine on its "home turf of racing vehicles" with the Roadster. "The Roadster was the biggest battery pack in a vehicle and people were terrified by a 50-kilowatt-hour battery pack. Now, that seems like old technology; it has improved a lot since then." He noted that in the five years between the launch of the Roadster and the Model S, battery performance had improved by 40 percent. He said that battery energy density has doubled over the last ten years and that the curve is not starting to plateau.
Tesla CTO on Energy Storage: ‘We Should All Be Thinking Bigger’ : Greentech Media
The Richmond Fed paper wades into the debate. Andreas Hornstein and Marianna Kudlyak, both economists at the regional reserve bank, and McGill University economist Fabian Lange compared the official jobless rate with a broader “non-employment index” that measures unemployed workers available for employment, both in and out of the labor force. The two measures follow roughly the same trend over time, and both now are about halfway back to their pre-recession levels. That similarity, they wrote, suggests the traditional unemployment rate isn’t unusually off base in terms of measuring slack. “In particular, our index does not suggest that the standard unemployment rate understates how much slack there is in the current labor market,” the economists wrote.
The 1982 World Cup semi-final between France and West Germany at Sevilla’s Estadio Ramón Sánchez-Pizjuán is remembered – not solely, but mainly – for the most outrageous and notorious foul in World Cup history.... an infamous act of brutal cynicism to this day casts a long, dark shadow across a match which really should be principally remembered as one of the greatest, most dramatic and entertaining World Cup encounters of all time.
World Cup: 25 stunning moments … No20: Patrick Battiston loses his teeth | Football | The Guardian
“Flow is an optimal state of consciousness, when you feel and perform your best,” he says. “It’s the moment of total absorption. Time speeds up or slows down like a freeze-frame effect. Mental and physical ability go through roof, and the brain takes in more information per second, processing it more deeply.”
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles CEO Sergio Marchionne has gone even further, stating that he’d rather you not buy a 500e at all. "I hope you don't buy it because every time I sell one it costs me $14,000," said Marchionne. "I'm honest enough to tell you that."
DailyTech - Fiat CEO: Don’t Buy a 500e EV, You’re Costing Me $14,000 Each
The U.S. economy is recovering from its winter freeze and the Fed is pursuing a path to normalize monetary policy, yet the 10-year Treasury yield has fallen to 2.6%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average recently reached an all-time high, yet the small-cap Russell 2000 Index is at its low for the year, and year to date more than 8 out of 10 U.S. stocks are down by an average of almost 14%. The U.S. and European economies are accelerating, but China appears vulnerable. In fact, the global economy looks more fractured than it has in some time.
Three Market Paradoxes - Fidelity Investments
China's slowing property market poses the most substantial macro risk to its economy in the coming quarters, analysts at JP Morgan said. If real estate investment were to slow another 5 percent, it could shave 0.6 percentage points from China's already-flagging gross domestic product growth rate, according JP Morgan analysts. However, the risk of an actual house-price collapse remains limited as the authorities still have room for policy adjustment, they added.
Here's the biggest macro risk China faces
Bond yields have stymied widespread expectations they would rise this year and analysts seeking a reason may not need to dig any deeper than simple supply and demand. "On the supply side, bond issuance plummeted, down 19 percent year-to-date. Amidst short supply, a surge in positioning and bond inflows has pushed yields lower," Deutsche Bank said in a note last week.
This is what is keeping bond yields low
Enter James Tour of Rice University. Along with his colleagues, he's developed an electrochemical capacitor that's thinner than paper, bendable, and capable of storing enough electric energy to charge your phone — they say it could power the next generation of electronic devices.
Breakthrough Flexible Power Thinner Than Paper - Business Insider