Science
Lost Highway
![](https://upliftedstories.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/VRG_VST_Hydrogen_Highway.jpg)
![Background is a purple map of California and foreground center image is of a hydrogen fuel pump](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/sNCq_ut6kPz1PogkCj5_LM8t5FM=/0x0:2040x1360/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73532504/VRG_VST_Hydrogen_Highway.0.jpg)
In 2004, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced plans for a “hydrogen highway.” It called for a new kind of fuel station, built to support a new kind of electric vehicle. Cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells could help clean up the air and free the US from foreign oil — and California could lead the way.
That’s not what happened. Twenty years later, the American auto industry is shifting overwhelmingly to electric vehicles… but they run on batteries, not hydrogen. The hydrogen highway is littered with shortages, high prices, and faulty equipment. Thousands of drivers across the state are left wondering whether they bet on the wrong future.
We wanted to find out what happened to California’s hydrogen dream.
So, we hit the road.
Our mission: a roughly 450-mile trip across California in a Toyota Mirai, the most popular hydrogen-powered car on the market today. We planned to drive around the Bay Area, down through Central California, and into Los Angeles, visiting as many stations and meeting as many drivers as possible along the way.
Bay Area
Milpitas
We rented a Mirai on Turo — it was one of only two available hydrogen-powered cars on the platform in the Bay Area. The car’s owner, Salman, told us he was concerned about our itinerary.
Cupertino
Manideep and Rupesh were the first fuel cell drivers we met. They’ve been driving their Mirai for about four months, and while they love the car, the fuel situation is wearing on them. They also had some advice for our road trip.
Sunnyvale
All the hydrogen pumps we saw were co-located at traditional gas stations; the hydrogen distributor leases the space from station owners. At some stations, hydrogen pumps were sandwiched between gas pumps.
Palo Alto
One pump we visited in Palo Alto has been offline for two years. The pump’s operator, FirstElement Fuel, told us that it took the pump over from a different hydrogen supplier but that systems issues have prevented it from bringing the station online.
South San Francisco
Earlier this year, Shell closed nearly all of its hydrogen stations across the state; there are no longer any active stations in the city of San Francisco. It’s put additional strain on the remaining Bay Area stations.
Oakland
Another Mirai driver we met, Rebecca, was committed to her car and more optimistic about the future of hydrogen.
San Jose
We needed to top off the tank before leaving the Bay Area. The final station we visited was online — but actually getting fuel was another story.
Along the I-5 corridor between San Francisco and Los Angeles, there are hundreds of battery EV charging plugs — and one hydrogen pump. It’s at a place called Harris Ranch, a rest stop deep in California’s Central Valley. Since our Mirai wasn’t likely to make it all the way to SoCal on one tank, we stopped at Harris Ranch to refuel and see whether other hydrogen road trippers showed up.
Harris Ranch
Harris Ranch Resort
The Harris Ranch Resort is massive. In addition to a Shell gas station, Tesla Superchargers, and a hydrogen pump, it also boasts a Spanish hacienda-style hotel, multiple restaurants, and a gift shop with its own butcher counter.
Tesla Supercharger
The Harris Ranch Supercharger station is reportedly the largest bank of chargers ever built by Tesla. While waiting for hydrogen cars to show up, we wandered over and asked Tesla drivers about life with their battery-electric cars.
James Sweet Bonsai
James Kim has been selling bonsai trees for 23 years. His van is parked just across the street from the exit to Harris Ranch, and he says he gets customers from all over. His largest trees are more than 30 years old.
Hydrogen Fuel Station
After four hours of waiting, another Mirai finally showed up. Billy Chen has made the trip between LA and San Francisco several times — he’s the only driver we found who has.
Since September of 2023, 13 hydrogen stations in the Los Angeles area have been largely offline due to problems with a regional fuel supplier. The shortage has been a major headache for fuel cell drivers in LA — and there are more here than anywhere else in the state.
Los Angeles
San Fernando
The first station we reached in Southern California had four fuel pumps and was unaffected by the hydrogen shortage. Unsurprisingly, it was the busiest station we visited.
Sherman Oaks
There’s a concentration of hydrogen-powered cars here in LA, but the ecosystem is still exceptionally niche. In the first half of 2024, about 322 fuel cell cars were sold in California. At many stations, Mirai sightings were rare.
Burbank
We heard a similar story from lots of drivers: they were considering a battery-electric car but were talked into a Mirai. Many regretted the choice.
Studio City
Like in the Bay Area, there are very few stations in Southern California outside of Greater Los Angeles. So, road trips farther afield are risky.
Hollywood
As of publication, there is no estimate for when the hydrogen supply shortage in Southern California will be resolved, leaving stations like this one offline indefinitely. The shortage will hit the one-year mark in September.
Even if California’s hydrogen highway falls apart, fuel cell technology may still find its niche in a decarbonizing world. The Verge’s Andrew Hawkins dove into the world of hydrogen-powered trucks, boats, planes, and a lot more.
Science
Neon’s 2073 paints a bleak picture of the future in new trailer
![](https://upliftedstories.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Screen_Shot_2024_09_03_at_11.16.46_AM.png)
Director Asif Kapadia is best known for his documentaries chronicling the lives of entertainment icons whose work left indelible marks on the worlds of music and sports. But his next feature looks like a nightmarish vision of a future that feels all too possible.
Though 2073, Kapadia’s new film, features plenty of archival news footage from our present, it’s also a sci-fi thriller set in a distant future where years of climate-related disasters and the rise of authoritarianism have transformed the world into a dystopian hellscape. To people like Ghost (Samantha Morton) — a woman barely surviving in an apocalyptic San Francisco by keeping off the grid — it’s all too clear how societies across the globe descended into chaos. But rather than fully dramatize those moments in history, 2073 buttresses its story with real-world newsreels and interviews with journalists about how the gradual erosion of democracy in the past paves the way for a terrifying new world order.
Along with shots of various political strongmen like Vladimir Putin, Narendra Modi, Kim Jong Un, and Donald Trump, 2073’s trailer also emphasizes how Silicon Valley titans like Mark Zuckerberg play key roles in fostering the spread of fascism. And while the film doesn’t yet have a release date, as time-specific as 2073’s story seems to be, it probably won’t be long until it’s playing in theaters.
Science
EcoFlow launches four new batteries for phones, homes, and RVs
![](https://upliftedstories.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/KV_1.png)
EcoFlow just launched four new battery products designed to power everything from your home appliances in the event of a blackout to your Qi2-compatible phone to RVs.
Going from most powerful to least, there’s the second-generation Power Kit to power your off-grid vanlife fantasies, the midrange Delta 3 and compact River 3 solar generators, and the Rapid Qi2 wireless power banks for phones that can also charge your laptop in a pinch.
The Power Kit v2 is a follow-up to its original all-in-one power management system I reviewed 18 months ago. The kits are designed to power everything from an off-grid cabin to a small campervan, without the complexity of having to cobble together all the required components and wiring yourself. EcoFlow says the new 5kVA 48V Power Kits are improved for RVs, quieter — a recurring complaint with the original — and offer even more storage capacity. The expanded 45kWh battery limit is enough to boondock for a week or longer if your rig is big enough to store nine hulking 5kWh LFP batteries.
The Power Hub at the heart of the system can output up to 4000W (with 8000W surge), which is more than enough to power multiple appliances simultaneously like a high-pressure espresso machine, induction cooktop, and air conditioner. It also supports a variety of inputs that can be combined to quickly charge those batteries from sources like the vehicle’s primary (or secondary) alternator, shore power, and gobs of solar.
EcoFlow’s improved Power Kits can now monitor and provide the status of water tanks and temperature sensors when configured with a new Power Link information hub. This and other changes like a larger 10-inch dedicated console display and support for more fused AC and DC circuit branches should make EcoFlow’s plug-and-play Power Kits a more capable system for even the largest land yachts.
The Delta 3 series is a medium-size solar generator that comes slathered in ports, including a pair of 140W USB-C outputs. The base model has 1kWh of storage capacity and produces up to 1800W of output while accepting up to 500W of solar input. The Delta 3 Plus model can be expanded to 5kWh with stackable battery add-ons and supports 1,000W of solar input. The Delta 3 series runs at a very quiet 30dB when producing 600W or less.
EcoFlow says the Delta 3 series can power a typical fridge for “at least five hours” in the event of a blackout. It also has a 10ms cutover feature when used as a UPS for your PC or NAS that’ll receive an HID signal to save data before shutdown.
The River 3 series is a small solar generator available in two models. The base River 3 model has 245Wh of fixed capacity with support for 110W of solar input, while the more interesting River 3 Plus has expandable capacity which starts at 286Wh and up 220W of solar charging support. The based model can produce just 300W while the Plus model doubles that to 600W — enough to power things like small space heaters and drip coffee machines. Capacity for the Plus model can be expanded to 858Wh by adding two stackable batteries that quickly attach via pogo pins. The River 3 devices also have a 140W USB-C port and can serve as a UPS for your PC.
Last but not least, EcoFlow is expanding into power banks for the first time with the Rapid series of 15W Qi2 magnetic chargers with kickstands. They also feature a built-in USB-C PD 3.0 cable to charge laptops at up to 65W. It comes in 5,000mAh or 10,000mAh models, in a choice of silver, light blue, or black.
Unfortunately, the all-important pricing information won’t be available until the official release date of each product, per the following schedule for North America:
EcoFlow says the European releases are expected a bit later in Q4.
Science
Boeing’s Starliner started making a repeating ‘pulsing’ sound yesterday
![](https://upliftedstories.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/starliner_spacecraft_boeing.jpg)
US astronaut Barry Wilmore called NASA ground crew on Saturday, asking for help with a repetitive knocking sound that was coming from the Boeing Starliner craft. The interaction was captured by a NASA Space Flight forum member, who included a recording of it in a post that was spotted by Ars Technica.
In the recording, Wilmore asks NASA crew in Houston to configure their call so that he could show them the noise, which he says is coming from the speaker inside Starliner. Then, a repetitive clanging sound with slight there’s-something-on-the-wing vibes can be heard. The Earthside crew member describes it as sounding “almost like a sonar ping.”
The mysterious sound could very well have a very mundane explanation, like the very specific type of feedback loop one person on Reddit compared it to. At the very least, neither Wilmore nor the NASA ground team member he spoke with seemed particularly concerned (even if it does sort of resemble the unnerving Ganado theme from Resident Evil 4).
Boeing’s Starliner is currently scheduled to undock on September 6th for an automated, uncrewed return to Earth, leaving its original intended passengers, Wilmore and fellow astronaut Sunita Williams, behind on the ISS until early next year.
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