Just wow… So if you look closely at the picture, you can barely see the number ‘563’ on the train. If you have a look at list of locomotives and railbuses iof DB on Wikipedia, you can see that this train is a Siemens Mireo.
Now, let’s take the headline apart. Is it the first all-electric trai… no! Is it the first accumulator train? Also no, as you can see in the list above, the class 515 exists and the Stadler Flirt Akku has been used on a line since October 2023, Is it the first Siemens Mireo Plus B being used? You guess what, nope. As an example, SWEG is using some of them to bridge non-electrified parts of the track since April 2024.
So finally, what is special about the Gigatrain (gosh, I actuay hate that name)? In February 2024, the subsidary ‘Smart Train Lease GmbH’ of Siemens Mobility has been announced. There you can also lease two Siemens Mireo Plus Bs. Tesla is their very first client. That’s it
Whoops, got longer as expected. In case I made small mistakes, feel free to point it out
drdabbles@lemmy.world 8 months ago
It’s also just an outright lie. But, I guess that doesn’t matter anymore.
Greg@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
Yeah, it’s not all electric, some of the train is just regular matter
NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 8 months ago
Wait until you learn how molecular bonds work…
jaybone@lemmy.world 8 months ago
So it does matter?
Thrashy@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I did a little digging and it seems like there’s a tiny kernel of fact at the core of this giant turd of a hype-piece, and that is the fact that they electrified this little spur line from Berlin to the new German Tesla factory by using a battery-electric trainset. Which is not a terrible solution for electrifying a very short branch line that presumably doesn’t need frequent all-day service, even if it’s a bit of a janky approach compared to overhead lines. But hand that off to the overworked, underpaid twenty-two-year old gig worker they’ve got doing “editing” at Yahoo for two bucks an article, and I guess it turns into “world-first electric wonder train amazes!”
For a second, though, I read the headline and wondered if Musk and co. had finally looped all the way around to reinventing commuter rail from first principles after all these years of trying to “disrupt” it with bullshit ideas like Hyperloop and Tunnels, But Dumber, And With A Marketing Department.
fuzzy_feeling@programming.dev 8 months ago
it’s the Mireo Plus B from siemens. it’s already in use in the north of germany since march of this year.
nordbahn.de/…/der-norden-begruesst-die-akku-zuege…
there’s nothing elon about this train, just that it’s driving to his factory.
they are great for short distances that are difficult to electrify.
drdabbles@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I guess if by a kernel of truth you mean an existing train was used on an existing track, then you could almost make it make sense? But since all of this existed before, it’s just a lie.
I’ll also point out that anybody introducing battery electric trains instead of just electrifying the remaining parts of rail is making an astoundingly bad choice, but that’s almost certainly Germany and not Tesla.
Quik@infosec.pub 7 months ago
Honestly, I’d be more than happy if they just invented regular trains (even if their version would probably worse in ways not even imaginable as of now), because that would mean more money in train infrastructure.
So… yeah, you did it! You built something really cool and completely new! And don’t look over there, that’s just… copycats?
cheddar@programming.dev 8 months ago
I laos looked into this and it seems you are right. This article which is such a mess.
Carighan@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Yeah but it’s also far from new technology. Germany is mostly electrified rail, and having BE sets to bridge areas is not uncommon (in southern Germany you also get diesel electric combo units).
lurch@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
It’s yahoo news. It’s pure clickbait. Idk why they do this they have some decent other services.
TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Yahoo! News is an aggregator like MSN (and has very few original articles), and thus the quality varies widely based on the source. Here it’s some outlet called TCD.