Latest news with #Charger
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
NY transit authority orders nation's first battery-electric passenger locomotive
This story was originally published on Smart Cities Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Smart Cities Dive newsletter. Dive Brief: The New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority ordered 13 battery-electric passenger locomotives to serve trains on its Metro-North lines, marking the first use of the technology in North America. Siemens Mobility will manufacture the locomotives in its Sacramento, California, facility and expects they will go into service in 2029, the company's interim CEO, Tobias Bauer, said in an interview. The dual-mode locomotives, which can draw electric power from overhead wires and switch to battery power where those are not available, could avoid passengers having to change trains from Manhattan to some destinations in Connecticut, Bauer said. Dive Insight: Transit agencies in the U.S. are exploring alternatives to diesel-powered locomotives, which impact human health and the environment, and electric locomotives, which require expensive infrastructure such as overhead wires. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority; Caltrain, a commuter rail line that serves the San Francisco Peninsula; Southern California's Metrolink system; and the Chicago-area Metra commuter railroad are planning for battery-electric or hydrogen-powered trains. The Siemens battery-electric locomotive is an adaptation of its Charger locomotive, which is available powered either by diesel engines or external electric infrastructure. More than 400 such locomotives have been sold to date in North America. The new battery-electric locomotive will seamlessly transition from overhead power to battery power. 'The locomotive itself knows where it is and when it has to switch,' Bauer said. The MTA said the locomotives will bring trains from its New Haven, Connecticut, line to Penn Station, a project that includes four new train stations in the Bronx borough of New York City. 'What better way to inaugurate this new service than with cutting edge battery-electric locomotives that will set a new standard for environmental friendliness and overall reliability?' Metro-North Railroad President Catherine Rinaldi said in a statement. Siemens Mobility also provided a map that shows other destinations the battery-electric locomotive could serve, including Danbury and Waterbury, Connecticut, which are on non-electrified lines. Commuter trains from Croton-Harmon, New York, which now go to Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan, could also go to Penn Station using the battery-electric locomotives. The battery-electric locomotives provide 'a lot of flexibility,' Bauer said. The locomotives can operate up to 125 mph and run on battery power for up to 100 miles. Recommended Reading Where battery and hydrogen-powered trains are coming to US commuter rail
Los Angeles Times
11-07-2025
- Automotive
- Los Angeles Times
Charger Investment Partners Acquires Versa-Drill
Los Angeles-based Charger Investment Partners has completed the acquisition of Versa-Drill, a market-leading designer and assembler of premium drilling rigs used in water well, geothermal and cathodic protection applications. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, Versa-Drill is recognized as the leading manufacturer of mid-sized drilling rigs in North America. With significant market share in its target segment and a growing installed base, Versa-Drill has built a reputation for innovation, superior performance and customer service. The company's rigs are critical to supporting water infrastructure and renewable energy development across the U.S. 'Versa-Drill exemplifies the type of business Charger seeks to partner with, an essential infrastructure platform with a legacy of engineering excellence and clear opportunities for growth,' said Chris Boyle, co-founder and partner at Charger. 'We're excited to support Versa-Drill as it accelerates new product development, expands its aftermarket parts and service offering, and drives continued innovation in the drilling rig market.' Charger is partnering with Versa-Drill's leadership team, including Marcus Laibe and Marty Wright, who will continue to lead the business and maintain significant ownership alongside Mark Laibe, the company's original founder. In addition, Kent Wartick, former vice president of Layne Christensen's Water Resources Division, will join the board to support Versa-Drill's next phase of growth. 'We are proud of the company we've built and are thrilled to partner with Charger to help Versa-Drill reach new heights,' said Laibe. 'This partnership allows us to accelerate our strategic initiatives while maintaining the culture and values that have made Versa-Drill successful. My family and I, along with Marty, are deeply invested in the future of the business and excited about what's ahead.' Versa-Drill is well-positioned to benefit from macro tailwinds, including increased investment in water infrastructure, domestic re-shoring initiatives and growing demand for geothermal energy solutions. Utilizing growth capital from Charger, the company plans to introduce multiple new products in the near term, including a track-mounted rig specifically targeting the geothermal end market and a light-weight rig that does not require a commercial driver's license. The acquisition aligns with Charger's strategy of investing in founder-led, industrial businesses serving mission-critical markets. Versa-Drill joins Charger's growing portfolio of infrastructure-related and engineered product companies. Information was sourced from Businesswire. To learn more, contact pjw@
Chicago Tribune
07-07-2025
- Chicago Tribune
Man injured by hit-and-run driver after street-racing argument
Round Lake Beach police are looking for the public's help in identifying the driver of a truck who hit a man and drove away. The incident happened Saturday at about 8:45 p.m. in the 1200 block of Lotus Drive. According to police, a white Dodge Charger and a red Chevrolet pickup truck were street racing, which prompted a 57-year-old resident to confront the truck driver. As the man stood behind the truck, yelling at the driver, the driver reversed his vehicle, police said. The man was struck by either the side mirror or the front of the truck and was thrown to the ground. The victim initially declined medical treatment, but later went to a hospital with knee and foot pain, police said. Video of the incident has been circulating on social media, police said. Anyone with information about the truck, the Charger, or video of the incident is urged to contact the Round Lake Beach Police Department at (847) 270-9111.
Wales Online
05-07-2025
- Wales Online
Review: UGREEN 500W 6-Port GaN Fast Desktop Charger is a real beast
Review: UGREEN 500W 6-Port GaN Fast Desktop Charger is a real beast Fed up of juggling charging cables? UGREEN has the answer UGREEN 500W 6-Port GaN Fast Desktop Charger The more devices you have in your home, the more chargers you have hanging around. If you're like me you are drowning in cables and plugs - and there's never any around when you need it the most. Or if you do, the sockets are all full! UGREEN has come up with a solution that will charge a bunch of devices at the same time, crucially at high power. The UGREEN 500W 6-Port GaN Fast Desktop Charger (try saying that three times quickly) is targeted at pros, gamers and tech enthusiasts, but I'll tell you if you've got a family this is going to solve a few arguments! I'll admit that UGREEN is fast becoming one of my favourite tech brands. Everything I've tested so far feels really rock solid and the desktop charger is no different. This compact yet hefty (in a good, reassuring way) device comes in a familiar shade of dark grey and allows you to charge six devices at the same time from a single wall socket. It can deliver some 500 watts - to give you an idea what that means, this is enough to support high-performance gaming laptops and even electric bikes. It can charge a 16ins Macbook Pro from 0 to 70% in just one hour. Essentially this could be a great solution for your home office or gaming room, but it wouldn't look too out of place in your living room either. One end of 'the brick' plugs into the wall and then on the other end you have five USB-C and one USB-A ports to play with. Not all those USB-C ports are created equal, however, with one having the ability to pump out 240W on its own so you can power something far beyond your average mobile phone. The remaining USB-C ports offer up to 100W each, while the USB-A port delivers up to 22.5W, all while allowing simultaneous charging of multiple devices at full speed. I'm always a little bit suspicious of the typical multi-socket extension cords that, admittedly, I have scattered around my home. Every so often I spy one and immediately think to myself 'I really hope that is safe'. In this regard, UGREEN has gone all out. The charger monitors the temperature 100 times per second, making real-time adjustments to maintain optimal operating conditions. While an orientation sensor adds another layer of safety, reducing power output if the charger is tipped over to prevent overheating and protect connected devices. UGREEN says the charger has 11 protection protocols, including safeguards against over-current, overload, and over-temperature, all housed within a V-0 rated flame-retardant casing. That's pretty cool. I also found the charger to be cool itself, no matter how many things I had plugged in. This gave me much peace of mind and is probably down to the six embedded GaN chips that deliver an energy conversion rate of up to 95%. While it's not light, the charger is small enough that you can probably take it away on a family trip. I'd imagine it would be a godsend in a hotel. Now all this technology doesn't come cheap. It's a high-end charger and is priced accordingly at £219.99. However, at the time of writing you can pick it up on Amazon for £175.99. Still pricey but if you have the need and the money, you can't do much better at the moment. What users say "Wowsers this thing is an absolute MONSTER of a charger Let's not mess around, this is a seriously powerful charger with a price tag attached for a reason. If you need to charge multiple power-hungry devices simultaneously then look no further." "If I had to make any criticisms or suggestions, it would be useful to have LED charging indicators next to the sockets, just a basic LED that lights up when power is bing passed. This would be a useful and quick way to see if your device had finished charging. As it is, the whole body is lacking any kind of illumination, which is kind of odd in a modern device." Alternatives Article continues below Glitfix 600W USB C Charger Station- 8 Port GaN III Safe USB Multi Charger FINIBO 570W USB C Charging Station
The Drive
04-07-2025
- Automotive
- The Drive
I Want To Believe in the New SRT, but I Just Can't Get There Yet
The latest car news, reviews, and features. From the very core of my being, I want SRT to thrive. I grew up with Viper posters on my walls, a Viper wallpaper on my PC, Viper die-cast models on my dresser, and Viper-inclusive racing games on whatever platform I could scrape money together for. I even watched the awful Viper TV show. Of course it was bad. It debuted when I was ten, and even I figured that out pretty quick. Suffice it to say, the trickle-down marketing worked wonders on my impressionable young mind. I automatically liked anything R/T. Neons? Durangos? Not for me, maybe, but still neat. And when R/T became SRT and rumors began swirling of a revived Hemi V8, I was all ears. Dodge showed the new Charger in New York that year. I still have magazines with the coverage in a bin someplace in the basement. On its face, it was proof that Dodge had a future selling something other than Chrysler re-badges with bright red paint. But it was more than that. It was big. It was bad. It was different . In a showroom full of four-door soap bars and bulbous pickup trucks, the 6.1-liter Charger's big nostrils made it look every bit as sinister as the Viper. I should be hyped beyond belief by this week's announcement that Stellantis is reviving SRT. But I'm not; in fact, I'm struggling to feel anything at all. Don't get me wrong, I see the parallels with the early 2000s. Much like today, Chrysler (at the time, half of DaimlerChrysler) was in a weird place. The 'Merger of Equals' with Daimler was already starting to fray, but the two companies had already crossed streams with quite a bit of their development. The Dodge/Chrysler LX platform was a product of that intermingling—a Chrysler-derived chassis altered to fit several key Mercedes-Benz components, including front and rear suspension elements along with its five-speed automatic transmission. But despite its new European backers, Chrysler was somehow broke. The Charger, 300, and Magnum looked great on the road, but their interiors were low-rent even by the standards of cars costing a third less. That cost savings extended to other key components, too. Not a single one of the company's first-generation SRT-8 models shipped with a mechanical limited-slip differential. It wasn't until the second year of Dodge Challenger SRT-8 production (2009, for the record) that one finally showed up. The Charger had to wait for its 2011 redesign. The 300's performance variant was simply killed off instead, and the Magnum was gone entirely by the time things started to get interesting. But what the big Mopars lacked in capability, they made up for in pure vintage charisma. And the timing couldn't have been better. Everywhere you looked, baby boomer nostalgia was at its peak. Every old fart with a rusting '60s muscle car seemingly expected to cash it in for a down payment on a retirement home. It didn't hurt that gas was still relatively cheap, and the truck boom had American engineers all fizzed up over what else they could put big engines into. What's the saying? History may not repeat itself, but it often rhymes? But despite those harmonizing threads, that sense of excitement is missing. And maybe that's because what Dodge is proposing this time around isn't new or different. In fact, if anything, it's the literal opposite. The 2006 Dodge Charger was a melding of a new chassis with old components to create something that stood out in the showroom. This time around, it's plainly obvious that they're desperate to have anything in a showroom at all. To be fair, if I'd struck gold with the Hemi the way Mopar did with the last generation of SRTs, I'd want to tap that vein again, too. But I'm concerned there's not nearly as much left there to mine as SRT hopes. A brand-new V8 Charger was far too rich for my blood back in 2006; I had to wait 10 years for my turn at Hemi ownership. My Plum Crazy 392 was a gently-used 2013 SRT8 with the pistol-grip six-speed. It was everything I wanted it to be—big, dumb, loud, and yet somehow completely invisible to law enforcement. It was a great car, all things considered, but once the novelty wore off, my interest faded quickly. I ended up selling it to Carvana in what was effectively a break-even deal during the height of Covid. Less maintenance and insurance—money I would have spent no matter what—I only paid about $1,500 out of pocket for four-and-a-half years of ownership. But despite my fondness for it, I have no desire to repeat the experience. I get why this strategy is appealing to Stellantis; simply put, it was the last thing that worked, and there are still some within the company who remember how. And there are many out there like me who would love to see it succeed. So why not? The ramp-up of the old SRT line was so accidentally perfect that I don't think they'll be able to replicate that success. It was the right idea for the moment, and a strong enough one that it managed to survive the relentless succession of not-so-ideal moments that followed it. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the appetite is still there. As for me? Wake me up when there's a new Viper. Do you also like two-door sports coupes with big, dumb engines? Share your feelings with the author at byron@
