Tag: the-mainstream

Tesla makes its first Model 3 (update: picture!)

After months of waiting and no shortage of hype , Tesla’s first Model 3 is finally rolling off the production line. Elon Musk has revealed that the initial production unit is ready (not pictured as of this writing) pending a “final checkout.” Musk will get the first car, as he has with earlier models, but he didn’t call dibs — while Ira Ehrenpreis was the first to plunk down a full deposit, he gave that spot to Musk as a birthday present. It’s safe to say that either would be part of an exclusive club given that a mere 30 Model 3s will reach buyers by the end of July. It’s not certain just how much has changed on the Model 3 since it was unveiled back in 2016. You likely won’t get the full scoop on that until a handover party scheduled for July 28th. However, Musk has already hinted that there shouldn’t be any dramatic changes versus the release candidate prototypes that appeared in March. The past few months have largely been spent tweaking and testing components to ensure the Model 3 is ready for the road. It’s a largely symbolic announcement when most Model 3 pre-order customers won’t even get their vehicles until 2018. Production is only slated to ramp up to 20, 000 cars per month by December, which hardly puts a dent in the hundreds of thousands of reservations made since last spring. With that said, you really are looking at the start of Tesla’s next chapter. Musk and crew can now say they’re producing EVs aimed at the mainstream (albeit the higher end), not just a subset of the luxury car crowd. Production unit 1 of Model 3 is now built and going through final checkout. Pics soon. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 9, 2017 Update (7/9): As promised, Musk just tweeted the above picture of the first production Model 3. First Production Model 3 pic.twitter.com/TCa2NSUNI3 — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 9, 2017 Source: Elon Musk (Twitter) , (2)

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Tesla makes its first Model 3 (update: picture!)

McDonald’s has re-engineered drinking straws

Of all the tech innovations coming out of McDonald’s, we never would have expected the humble drinking straw needed a redesign. But that’s exactly what a team of robotic and aerospace engineers did as part of a marketing push for the burger chain’s new Chocolate Shamrock Shake. For those who aren’t familiar: the new menu item is a layered fifty-fifty combination of McDonald’s standard chocolate milkshake with the minty seasonal favorite on top. The Chocolate Shamrock has actually enjoyed secret menu status for a while now, but Mickey D’s is bringing it to the mainstream for the minty green shake’s yearly St. Patrick’s Day appearance. The redesigned STRAW — short for “Suction Tube for Reverse Axial Withdrawal, ” of course — is meant to alleviate the most basic of problems: having to wait for your shake to melt a bit before you can get the perfect mix of chocolate and mint flavors. While a conventional straw will only slurp up one part of the shake at a time, engineers from JACE Engineering and NK Labs carefully engineered the STRAW’s J-shaped snorkel design and side openings to suck in both layers at once. According to McDonald’s, their new tubular sipping device required some fairly complex computational fluid dynamics simulations to get the flow right and make sure it works just as well at the bottom of your shake as it did on the first sip. The Chocolate Shamrock Shake was released alongside a couple other new minty, Shamrock-infused beverages earlier this month, but the STRAW itself will get a nationwide release next Tuesday.

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McDonald’s has re-engineered drinking straws