Dude awesome. I mean you gotta hand it to them. Killing it with affordable electric cars, solar panels and now this. It’s a step in the right direction, and that’s more than you could say about UK
this post was submitted on 01 May 2024
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To be fair, most of their technological advances come through intellectual property theft from companies from other countries that did the design and problem solving leg work and were dumb enough to exploit cheap Chinese labor. China could then easily copy their products. The workmanship and safety/quality of a Chinese product should be highly scrutinized.
I care little about that at this point to be honest with you ...
The alternative is that these innovating companies would have milked the IP and/or shelved it if it means more money, fuck the people, fuck the environment, etc etc etc
If China's IP theft brings the green revolution we knew we needed 50 years ago but the innovators sabotaged for profit, I'd consider China the robin Hood of the story
The "Chinese steal everything and are expert copy-cats" is an orientalist trope with a few hundred years of history. White supremacists are still repeating it to this day, and in this thread.
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China files more patents than the next nine countries combined: https://www.wipo.int/en/ipfactsandfigures/patents
China is first country to hold over 4 million domestic patents
The number of China's domestic valid patents does not include those held in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.
Wow I had no clue.... Thanks for sharing that info
Sucked in, frankly.
R&D is cheap when you steal it from western companies!
As other people have said, it doesn't really matter as long as it helps solve climate change. Boo hoo, western corporations didn't get to overcharge for stuff, big deal.
Didn't get to continue to over charge us until the world literally ends for humans...
I agree however there is only 1 but and that’s the fact that the labor costs are much lower in China than in the West. Still a great job by China.
That’s not so true nowadays. Skilled factory workers already make a good salary in China nowadays. Like better than any other “global south” country at least. And by cost of living, better than the US probably tbh.
don't need to be paying nearly as much for a skilled employee when cost of living is much lower
Batteries and salt water mix poorly, so I’m concerned about that aspect for crew safety. I would actually be glad if they limited battery size, hoping to augment with solar, to reduce that hazzard.
That battery isn’t all that big…. Oh wait that’s a capitalized M!
Having seen some spicy pillows in my times… I’d hate to be onboard if any of the battery containers becomes a bouncy castle.
Using standard container sizes as battery modules is kind of genius. That way they can be swapped out when they get older and newer technology comes along, they could even be swapped between ships.
Why not an electric train? There is contiguous land between the two cities, and then you don't have to carry your fuel with you or build giant batteries out of rare earth minerals, while risking run-away shorts that will surely endanger everyone on board, and ensure the cargo is lost.
Plus the distance is <300kms.
Probably because trains are limited in both weight and volume compared to ships and also less efficient. If you have this short route and know it'll need this amount of cargo shipped it likely makes sense.
This single ship can carry more containers than any train could be expected to pull, likely by at least one order of magnitude.
All in all I'd guess the advantages are roughly:
- Reduced staff
- reduced energy use (land based shipping is less efficient almost by default)
- no need for infrastructure except ports (if you assume there is no train line or this shipping would move existing lines over capacity building this ship is likely cheaper or at least in line with 300km of rail)
- simpler logistics (loading / unloading)
Disadvantages:
- Speed (a train would likely move at 3-5x the speed)
I would also not expect the risk for catastrophic fires to be all that high. This ship has the batteries be containers. So once you've designed a container that is a large battery, you've already spent so much that a proper BMS including proper battery fire suppression as well as proper breakers/contractors are things you've built into it without even thinking about cost. The separation provided by building containers as the battery is the next line of defence if one container fails spectacularly, it also allows the batteries to be maintained on land, much cheaper than if they were part of the ship.
Why make trains when we have horses
360 km or 194 nautic miles is the inter-port distance.
COMMON
CHINA
W
I can see lots of disappointed shipping magnates going to the shops on Boxing Day to get the batteries that weren’t included in the box.
Pirates in 3... 2...