The dream sure to come true: on one charged battery to Munich – and after just 5 minutes of charging back home

In our Sunday newsletter, we, as editors, reflect on the past seven days. We do this on the initiative of our cartoonist Albert Jan Rasker. He chooses a subject, draws a picture, and we take it from there.

Albert Jan gets it: not everything possible must be on our wish list immediately. It’s like with AI: it starts with the need, and only then do you start looking at how to realize it with all these new artificially intelligent tools. And not, as some now think, the other way around: the possibilities are there, “and so we have to use them.”

And yet… what I keep hearing as an electric rider (bike and car) from the owners of a combustion motor: “Yes, but that range; yes, but that lack of charging spots…” So an occasional bit of nuance is welcome: we are transitioning, but the future looks bright. Indeed, from anywhere in the Netherlands, we can soon drive to Munich without recharging in between – or, if you don’t like that, with equal ease to Lyon, Berlin, or Prague. And after a recharge of at most 5 minutes, the same distance back (or just further on…).

What Ewout Lubberman, head of product at LeydenJar, showed it very convincingly during his presentation at the Automotive Campus in Helmond: it’s just a matter of time. With his company, he is happy to contribute to that. Thanks to LeydenJar’s extremely thin anode, those currently unthinkable distances and charging powers will come within reach.

Yes, it’s a dream, but one that will surely come true.

Read his full story here

What else caught our eye

Then last week’s highlights. Again, there were many. What caught our eye?

How Fred Roozeboom made the pacemaker so small that it could be inserted through the groin – he won the Gordon Moore Medal with it

Could small modular reactors be the next green energy source?

Can you make professional soccer climate-neutral? Dordrecht shows how

Next-generation batteries, large-scale production in Europe and the cash cow of recyclers

This start-up makes textiles from human hair. ‘Why should we let animals suffer when we throw away 150 million kilos of hair every year?’

The Netherlands may soon have a lithium plant

Revolution in the dairy industry: the stainless steel cow

Harsh AI judgments: the impact of training data

First cultured burgers from Mosa Meat next year in Singapore’s better restaurants

The next solar revolution: everything becomes a solar panel

And here’s the rest – Make it a great, innovative week!