Volkswagen just announced a $14B battery deal, Daimler is on the record saying it’s stopping ICE development, and the Mustang, Hummer, and F150—the Holy Trinity of red-blooded macho vehicles—have all gone electric; it’s easy to say that EVs are inevitable.

This wasn’t the case at all in 2007 when Milo Werner joined strange little company called Tesla as a manufacturing engineer, where over the course of nine years she ended up running New Product Introduction for Powertrain and Vehicles including the Model S and X. She’ll be joining me in next week’s interview to talk about the challenges along the way!

The most popular post this week was a video of a CT scanner’s interior. I spent a lot of time trying to identify this model, and based on the bed design and enclosure shape, I believe it’s the CT 6000 iCT or the CT 5000.

MachinePix @MachinePix

Interior of a Philips CT scanner.

March 11th 2021

410 Retweets1,761 Likes

I’m always looking for interesting people to interview, have anyone in mind?

—Kane

The Week in Review

Closing the loop on the (more) popular scrap rebar straightening machine.

MachinePix @MachinePix

G2L32E-2 rebar bender by TJK Machinery.

March 12th 2021

44 Retweets328 Likes

When I see something like this it feels hard to overstate how much efficiency solid-state and digital systems have added to ~everything~. These can be had at auction for a few hundred dollars.

MachinePix @MachinePix

Panwriter Mac M-45 typewriter by Nippon Typewriter Company has ~2,200 characters.

March 10th 2021

110 Retweets465 Likes

It never ceases to amaze me how much nuance exists in masonry.

MachinePix @MachinePix

Making split face blocks with a hydraulic splitter.

March 9th 2021

34 Retweets296 Likes

This is a fun whimsical machine—the true scale of industrial potatoes is wild.

MachinePix @MachinePix

Potato digger attachment on a TZ-4K-14 tractor.

March 9th 2021

54 Retweets499 Likes

Postscript

There’s a little tune I’ve hummed to myself for as long as I can remember, and it’s from a Buddhist chant box my grandmother had. I finally tracked one down, and it’s a quirky little single-purpose device:

Kane @kane

Here’s a quirky artifact of modernity: a tinny lo-fi device that plays Buddhist chants on loop. My grandmother had one for the home shrine in Taiwan, and I tracked one down. I find it soothing.

March 15th 2021

46 Likes

If you enjoyed this newsletter, forward it to friends (and interesting enemies). I am always looking to connect with interesting people and learn about interesting machines—reach out.

—Kane