The Federal Transit Administration FTA recently distributed $55 million in grants to 10 transit agencies as part of a program to deploy US-made electric transit buses. More than half of that money will be going to South Carolina-based Proterra, the Greenville News reported. Six transit agencies in five states will buy a total of 28… Read more »
Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) has asked state regulators for permission to build an estimated 25,000 EV chargers, using $654 million in ratepayer dollars, at sites across its service area in Northern and Central California. The project would represent the largest deployment of EV charging stations in the country. The chargers are to be located at the usual… Read more »
Tesla is very much a product of the 21st century, so perhaps it’s fitting that, while there are loads of videos and online articles about the company, its cars and its colorful leader, so far there is not a lot in print. There are two good new books about Model S, and both make good… Read more »
A group of eleven German partners, including the Fraunhofer Institute, is developing an integrated axle module for commercial vehicles that promises high performance and reduced production costs. ESKAM, which stands for Electric Scalable Axle Module, includes a motor, gearbox and power electronics in a single compact housing. Advantages of the axle module include high power… Read more »
Once in a while a book comes along that makes you see a familiar issue in a whole new light (call it a “paradigm shift” if you must). Such a book is Tony Seba’s Clean Disruption. Not only is it a well-researched and well-thought-out work, but it makes a gripping read, and is the most… Read more »
The city of London has ambitions to be an EV capital. Under the leadership of Mayor Boris Johnson, a proponent of electromobility, the capital of Cool Britannia is sponsoring trials of electric buses and cabs, and began building a public charging network in 2011. Public charging is especially important in London, as three quarters of… Read more »
The latest advance in lithium-sulfur technology comes courtesy of a research team from Samsung and the University of Rome, who have built a solid-state Li-S battery with a capacity (∼1600 mAhg−1) approaching the theoretical value and Coulombic efficiency approaching 99%. In a paper published in the Journal of The Electrochemical Society, the team concludes that… Read more »
Tesla is hoping for great things in China, but sales seem to be materializing more slowly than expected. TSLA stock took a dive in January, after Musk said that Chinese sales were down in Q4 2014. It may have nothing to do with the sales slowdown, but the head of Tesla’s Chinese operations, Veronica Wu,… Read more »
EVs and the smart grid are a powerhouse combination that enables a host of useful capabilities. However, being connected also entails security risks. EVs present unique cybersecurity challenges, because they can be attacked both electronically and physically. In a paper published in the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, Jianying Zhou and Aldar Chan… Read more »
Disruptive technology in an elegantly designed package that sells itself – that’s the formula that’s been working wonders for two American companies. The parallels between Tesla and Apple, and the fact that quite a few employees have made a move from the computermaker to the carmaker, isn’t news, but a recent Bloomberg article puts some… Read more »
