It's just branding, because it's a shuttle service between a mainline stop in a nearby village and their Gigafactory outside Berlin.
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The best part is that this train isn't made by Tesla, it's just them leasing battery trains from Siemens, and they don't even operate them:
Tesla plans to switch to operating battery-electric trains from the Mireo Smart family, manufactured by Siemens, replacing diesel trains currently transporting employees to their factory near Berlin.
[...]
The trains will be leased from the newly established leasing company, Smart Train Lease, founded by Siemens in early 2024. The operation of the trains will continue to be managed by the passenger transport operator Niederbarnimer Eisenbahn (NEB).
Source: https://www.railway.supply/en/tesla-is-transitioning-to-environmentally-friendly-trains/
According to German Natopedia it's a shuttle that Tesla pays for and is allowed to operate only until the regular train station is moved by a few hundred meters closer to the factory (in 2026). So I guess in this case it absolutely makes sense to lease a battery powered train for the trainsition period.
But yeah, the reporting is pure brain worms for an entirely mundane regional public transport process.
I didn't know that. That makes this train a little less absurd, at least.
They're not even putting Tesla-brand batteries in the train which could kind of make sense? Lol
It's a train ffs what is the point of using fucking batteries that will run out you can just run electricity through the track jfc
I think it is the same liberal self-reliance brainworms that makes them hate trains in the first place where having to rely on external resources you share with others is considered bad by definition. Riding a car is better than riding a train that you share with others and where you depend on others. Riding a self-powered battery train is better than riding one that is dependent on an external power source that is shared with other trains.
It's pure ideology.
God I hate this style of tech reporting that's just advertising in disguise
Given how old battery-powered electric cars are, I doubt this is actually new.
Edit:
Experiments with accumulator railcars, as they were originally called, were conducted from around 1890 in Belgium, France, Germany, and Italy. Full implementation of battery trains were undertaken with various degrees of success. In the U.S., railcars of the Edison-Beach type, with nickel-iron batteries were used from 1911. In New Zealand, a battery-electric Edison railcar with a range of 160 km (99 mi) operated from 1926 to 1934 on the 34 km (21 mi) long Little River Branch line. The Drumm nickel-zinc battery was used on four 2-car sets between 1932 and 1946 on the Harcourt Street Line in Ireland. British Railways used lead-acid batteries in a British Rail BEMU from 1958 to 1966 on the 38 mile long Aberdeen to Ballater line in Scotland.
There's a company called SunTrain that's actually doing something kinda useful in this field by creating battery cars.
The idea is that you charge them up in one place then roll the energy to where it's needed. So you can spool up remote solar and wind without needing to run transmission lines or drop them in areas where there was a natural disaster and the rail lines are functional before power distribution.
Giga Train
That's false advertising for a perfectly normal-sized train.
Mind blowing passenger capacity
Looks like it has about the same passenger capacity as any other train. Is this the bazinga crowd discovering how effective trains are?
Battery powered
Just build catenaries! It's the superior technology. We figured that out more than a century ago.
It's pretty sad that
cyberpunkerino became just an aesthetic, even if it's admittedly a good one. Guess it's not that surprising considering William Gibson is a massive lib.The irony of Musk co-opting cyberpunkerino is funny though, because he doesn't even realize he's the Tessier-Ashpool.
