The US Department of Defense has awarded EaglePicher, a company with a long history in the defense industry, $22 million in funding for Phase II of the Lithium-Ion Battery for Military Applications (LIMA) project. The program’s goal is to assure the affordable production of items deemed essential for national defense. “This award assures EaglePicher will… Read more »
The US Advanced Battery Consortium (USABC) has awarded $2.68 million to San Diego-based Maxwell Technologies for the development of a hybrid energy storage system for automotive stop-start applications. The competitively bid contract award is co-funded by the DOE. The 19-month program will focus on the technological and economic feasibility of adapting a 12-volt hybrid energy… Read more »
The BMW i3 has proven pretty popular with US drivers since it went on sale here six months ago, selling over 4,000 units so far. At home in Germany however, sales have been less than wunderbar, according to the business newspaper kfz-betrieb. German sales total about 1,900 units after nine months, far short of the… Read more »
[UPDATED 11/25/14 2:00 PM EST to correct mistranslated quotes and include Tesla’s response.] In an interview with the German weekly Der Spiegel, Elon Musk said that the German auto industry should devote “much more energy to the development of batteries,” perhaps an allusion to Daimler’s recent decision to shut down Germany’s only cell manufacturing facility. He… Read more »
Not ready to buy a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle yet? Would free fuel tip the balance? Both Hyundai and Toyota are offering free hydrogen fuel with their FCVs. According to Toyota, buyers of the new Mirai sedan will receive “complimentary hydrogen fuel for up to three years.” While free fuel may indeed be an enticement… Read more »
Utility industry bigwigs joined Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz at the White House to announce two initiatives to promote electric transportation technologies. More than 70 investor-owned electric utilities will increase investment by about $250 million over 5 years to add more electric vehicles to their fleets, starting in 2015. Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) and the… Read more »
A team from Delft University in the Netherlands and the University of Waterloo in Canada has used operando X-ray diffraction to show that oxidation of electrochemically generated lithium peroxide (Li2O2) in high-energy-density Li-air batteries occurs in two stages, but in only one step for commercial (crystalline) Li2O2. In a paper published in the Journal of… Read more »
Chevrolet has been dribbling out details of the next-generation Volt ahead of its debut at the Detroit Auto Show in January. Last week the company released the details of some new charging features. “Chevrolet used the real-world experiences of today’s Volt owners to make the charging process simpler and more convenient in the next-generation Volt,” said… Read more »
Elon Musk, always quick to respond to any perceived slight against Tesla, has posted a detailed rejoinder to a recent Fortune article that told the story of how the company selected a Nevada site for its Gigafactory. The article didn’t accuse Tesla of doing anything wrong, much less illegal. On the contrary, as befits a… Read more »
Outsiders to the auto industry they may be, but Elon Musk and his merry band of Teslanauts are masters at working the system to get what they want. A recent article in Fortune tells the tale of how Tesla skillfully played the state tax-incentive game, and scored a sweet deal on its Gigafactory site in… Read more »
