The EV industry is about to get a big boost in the United States. House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming Chairman Ed Markey (D-MA) and Rep. Judy Biggert (R-IL) will introduce today the Electric Drive Vehicle Deployment Act of 2010, legislation that aims to advance the widescale deployment of electric vehicles and [...]
CODA, a California-based electric car and battery company, announced today its plans to build an automotive-grade lithium ion battery system manufacturing facility in Ohio. CODA is considering several sites within Ohio for the facility, which could employ more than 1,000 skilled manufacturing workers initially. Construction of the facility is contingent upon finalizing an incentive package [...]
Chemists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory have received three patents for developing catalysts to accelerate chemical reactions in fuel cells. The newly patented catalysts, as well as a method for making a particular type of catalyst with a thin layer of platinum, could greatly reduce the cost and increase the use [...]
Moving the global economy towards environmentally-friendly, clean technologies will increasingly hinge on rapid improvements in the recycling rates of so called “high-tech” specialty metals like lithium, neodymium and gallium.
Such metals, needed to make key components for wind turbines and photovoltaics to the battery packs of hybrid cars, fuel cells and energy efficient lighting systems, exist [...]
The Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE, a $10 million competition to inspire a new generation of viable super-efficient vehicles capable of achieving 100 MPGe (miles per gallon or its energy equivalent), announced 22 teams representing 27 vehicles survived Shakedown – the first of three on-track testing stages – and will now move on to the [...]
Navistar, Inc. announced during a web conference with the U.S. Department of Energy and FedEx, that it will deliver to FedEx the first full-production eStar™—Navistar’s all-electric commercial truck. The company is currently taking orders for the eStar and intends to deliver 400 units by the end of 2010.
The eStar all-electric truck is the first medium-duty commercial [...]
Cover of Angewandte-Chemie
Understanding the key elements of biofuel combustion is an important step toward insightful selection of next-generation alternative fuels. And that’s exactly what researchers at Sandia and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories are doing. The journal Angewandte Chemie devotes its May 10 cover to a paper co-authored by Sandia’s Nils Hansen and Lawrence Livermore’s [...]
The 11th International Conference on Present and Future Engines for Automobiles will take place from May 30th to June 3rd, 2010 in Shanghai, China. The US and Europe should take note that events such as this highlight the fact that the Chinese are committed to becoming the world leader in automobile design and manufacturing. Bob [...]
(BUSINESS WIRE)–Planar Energy, the developer of large-format, solid-state, ceramic-like batteries at half the cost and triple the performance of lithium-ion batteries, today received a $4,025,373 award from the U.S. Department of Energy, as part of its Advanced Research Project Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) initiative to accelerate transformational energy research projects.
The Department of Energy announced today the closing of a $528.7 million loan with Fisker Automotive for the development and production of two lines of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV). The loan will support the Karma, a full-size, four-door sports sedan, and a line of family oriented models being developed under the company’s Project NINA [...]
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