“Residents in a Sunnyvale neighborhood say a secretive Apple facility is changing the face of their neighborhood, for the worse,” Len Ramirez reports for CBS San Francisco. “‘At three in the morning, they have deliveries. It’s very dark, very secretive. We don’t know what’s going on, but almost every night there is noise that wakes the dogs up,’ Joann Porter told KPIX 5’s Len Ramirez. Neighbors on Bartlett Avenue near the facility say security guards tail them when they walk their dogs. ‘You have security guards following you in their cars,’ Porter said.”
“But, it’s the noise that really has neighbors speaking up,” Ramirez reports. “‘You’ll hear like sheets of metal slamming, clanking, almost a grinding sound,’ Jim Porter said.”
“Neighbors say one sound in particular has them wondering,” Ramirez reports. “They say it sounds like motors being tested.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Has to be construction sounds since advanced, market-disrupting fuel cell motors are very quiet. 😉
SEE ALSO:
Apple working on systems for ‘high-end cars’ at California ‘auto testing center’ – February 11, 2016
Loud, late-night ‘motor noises’ emanate from Apple’s secret vehicle testing center – February 11, 2016
Inside Apple’s top-secret ‘Titan’ electric car project – March 13, 2015
Apple Car: Forget ‘electric,’ think hydrogen fuel cells – February 20, 2015
Inside Apple’s top-secret ‘Titan’ electric car project – March 13, 2015
Apple working with Intelligent Energy on fuel cell technology for mobile devices, sources say – July 14, 2014
North Carolina regulators approve Apple’s 4.8-megawatt fuel cell facility at Maiden data center – May 23, 2012
New aerial images of Apple’s planned NC fuel cell, solar farms published – April 7, 2012
Apple’s massive fuel cell energy project to be largest in the U.S. – April 4, 2012
Apple patent application reveals next-gen fuel cell powered Macs and iOS devices – December 22, 2011
Apple patent app details highly-advanced hydrogen fuel cells to power portable devices – October 20, 2011
Area 52
Area 9:41
52.11.3.
It’s Apple…
What is the street address? I am looking on Maps, it is only a couple of blocks long and except for a couple of trash-filled backyards, it looks like a normal residential area,
Oh, I see, it’s behind Bartlett St.
Echo echo echo
I heard it that time, Chief.
The security guys following the dog-walking sounds bad.
But don’t worry, the US government is asking Apple to remove all security because apparently some bad guys once used security too.
At least you won’t have to worry about being mugged!
Send Obama in the back door. He’ll get the lowdown.
I do not understand the idea of it being fuel cell based technology. Fuel cells use some sort of combustible, either hydrogen or a hydrocarbon (like methane).
Fuel cells that use hydrocarbons tend to be incredibly expensive compared combustion motors with very little prospect of performance improvement which is why no one has even looked at this as a possible upgrade to cars.
Hydrogen powered fuel cells do have a number of upsides compared to combustions motors, specifically the output is water vapor, so it is perceived as a much cleaner alternative to hydrocarbons (which still produce CO2).
The problem is, we don’t have natural sources of hydrogen that are sufficient to supply large scale auto transportation, which means that the hydrogen would need to be created (presumably the cleanest way to do this is to use solar power to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen, but we could use any power source to do this). The hydrogen then needs to be compressed and transported to new gas stations with upgrade hydrogen dispensers.
This makes hydrogen a very inefficient and expensive solution per mile. Or, the power used to create hydrogen can be used directly to charge a car battery. It’s cheaper and the grid already exists. The only advantage that hydrogen fuel cells have is a faster refill time. Assuming you can find a station to refill at.
It seems to me Apple is more likely to build a beautiful, high performance, intelligent octane fueled car before a hydrogen fuel cell car.
unless I’m missing something, the problem with hydrogen fuel cells isn’t the fuel cells, it’s the fuel.
I expect you are correct. But, IF Apple is developing a car, there is no reason why they might just go ahead and enter the market either as traditional, hybrid, or electric vehicle and convert later. If any company is able to plan for the future unforeseen by everyone else, it would be Apple.
Stuart Willard. Well I would have agreed with you 6 months ago indeed I argued the same points less than a year ago when MDN suggested it. But recently the Japanese do seem to be committing to hydrogen while making considerable leaps forward and indeed the first mass produce fuel cell car has just been launched there, though sadly as ugly as sin as is the typical Japanese y when trying to be different. As such with Apple still 2 plus years away from launch I do start to wonder if it is indeed a possibility, it certainly would give them a serious head start and potential technical and sales advantage. Yes it will not be cheap at first but then when does Apple do cheap. Indeed as they will have to ramp up over some years from small beginnings and go for the high tech up market sector this might be the ideal solution for them, building while having a jump on the opposition. If so no wonder they need total secrecy.
You ran this story last week (as did everyone else in the tech press)
If they are bringing in essential stuff in the middle of the night, it’s obvious that the drivers are finishing a Pizza run.
Article from yesterday: Joi Scientific receives $5 million Series A funding. They claim to have invented an on-demand hydrogen generation system which will be able to power cars, boats, etc. The have patents pending, so their method is vague. They state the technology is not electrolysis or natural gas. It is possible they could be harvesting hydrogen out of the air, but they do not officially state this in their literature. It is curious that they operate out of Kennedy Space Center (next to Jeff Bezo’s Blue Origin) and the lead investor also was a seed investor in GoPro.
http://www.bizjournals.com/orlando/news/2016/02/16/central-floridas-joi-scientific-lands-5m-venture.html
The following article was published today: A British company has invented a car which gets 250 mpg (equivalent) with a range of 300 miles powered by hydrogen. This car does need to be fueled, but the price of the car includes insurance and the fuel. It looks like something Ive or Newson would design.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/18/brit_hydrogen_powered_car/
That car looks quite interesting, but a range of 300 miles with a top speed of merely 60mph is very off-putting unless the user will only be using it in and around a city.
The author of that story doesn’t know much about other electric vehicles if they think that regenerative braking is a new concept, but I do like the idea of using a super capacitor to store that energy and to use it to help the main battery during acceleration.
And none of the residents (nor the media) have a drone camera to check it out?
And to MDN’s take, it’s not construction. That would put Apple in violation of local code.
It’s a Steve Jobs cloning facility. Apple is working on his resurrection. A Steve for every Continent!
I thought it might be Jesse James noisily pounding out fenders for another one of his West Coast choppers 😄