General Motors is fighting to retain the $7,500 federal tax credit for plug-in vehicle purchases, but the company’s recently announced layoffs and plant closings may make it a tough sell in Washington. As GM nears the 200,000-vehicle cutoff point after which the tax credit will be phased out, the incentive’s very existence is uncertain. One… Read more »
Belching cows aren’t the only source of CO2 emissions in the dairy industry. When tanker trucks collect milk from farms, they use their diesel engines to drive the pump that fills the tank. Now Swedish technology company Semcon has partnered with Enova and Tine, a Norwegian milk distributor, to develop an electric milk pump. By… Read more »
Under a project sponsored by the German Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, Daimler and the Fraunhofer Institute, together with German conglomerate thyssenkrupp and engineering firm IAV, are co-developing the design and production of bipolar batteries. Bipolar batteries are still in the laboratory stage and have not moved past pilot scale. The project, named EMBATT-goes-FAB,… Read more »
Thanks to Volkswagen’s former bad habits, Electrify America has $2-billion to invest in EV infrastructure, $800 of that earmarked for California. In order to future-proof its network, EA has wisely divided its investment into four phases. The company is now beginning to announce plans for its second $200-million round of investment in the Golden State,… Read more »
DENSO, an enormous automotive supplier with headquarters in Japan and 220 facilities in 35 countries, plans to produce a next-generation inverter for US OEMs at its plant in Maryville, Tennessee. The Maryville location will be the site of one billion dollars of new investment in electrification, connectivity and safety products over the next few years…. Read more »
Battery manufacturer Amprius is supplying lithium-ion cells to Airbus’s Zephyr program. Using Amprius’s cells, which contain a 100% silicon anode, the Zephyr S solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) recently flew more than 25 days, setting a new record for stratospheric flight. The Zephyr S is a high-altitude pseudo-satellite (HAPS), which combines the persistence of a… Read more »
The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has unanimously approved a rule that will move the state towards the goal of a 100-percent zero-emission bus fleet by 2040. Like most government programs, CARB’s Innovative Clean Transit (ICT) regulation has a long timeline – the process of proposals, meetings and workshops that led to this week’s final… Read more »
UK-based fuel cell specialist Ceres Power and Chinese automotive manufacturer Weichai Power have agreed to create a joint venture to manufacture fuel cells for the Chinese bus, commercial vehicle and stationary power markets. The two companies have agreed to create a £9-million fuel cell manufacturing JV in China, accelerating development of the 30 kW SteelCell… Read more »
Alliance Ventures, the venture capital arm of Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi, has joined heavyweights LG Chem and Samsung in investing in Enevate, a battery technology company based in Irvine, California. Enevate licenses its HD-Energy technology, which is designed to offer fast charging times, superior low-temperature operation and low cost, to various battery and EV manufacturers and suppliers worldwide…. Read more »
The Victor Valley Transit Authority (VVTA), which serves Barstow and surrounding areas of San Bernardino County, California, has ordered seven 40-foot New Flyer Xcelsior CHARGE electric buses. The agency has set a goal of converting its fleet to 100% electric by 2040. VVTA has partnered with local electric utility Southern California Edison (SCE) on its… Read more »
