What the EV gods taketh away in Georgia, they reneweth in Pennsylvania. The Keystone State’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has announced the continuation of the Alternative Fuel Vehicle Rebate Program, which provides rebates of up to $2,000 to buyers of plug-in vehicles. Under the program, which is supported by a gross receipts tax on… Read more »
Zero Motorcycles has been awarded a grant of $1,009,220 from the California Energy Commission (CEC). Zero will match these funds, providing over two million bucks to be invested in expanding production capacity through improvements in the manufacturing line, production efficiency and engineering processes. All Zero models are designed and built in California. “We thrive at… Read more »
Korean battery-maker LG Chem has made a deal with China’s Great Wall Motor to supply lithium-ion batteries for the carmaker’s upcoming plug-in hybrid SUVs, which are scheduled to go into production in 2017. LG Chem has extended its cooperation with Chinese carmakers in recent years, and with the Great Wall deal, the company says that… Read more »
Parker Hannifin, the manufacturer of motion and control systems, is sponsoring Victory Motorcycles in the 2015 Isle of Man TT Zero Challenge on June 10. Victory Racing’s prototype electric race bikes use Parker’s Global Vehicle Motor (GVM) electric motors. “In order to improve [Victory’s] chances of winning, we needed to focus on delivering the power… Read more »
While some plug-in vehicle owners steer towards hard-wired wall-mounted charging stations, other drivers find that portable “trunk chargers” offer a sufficient and convenient solution. Volvo has announced that its 2016 XC90 T8 will include AeroVironment’s portable TurboCord Dual (120 V/240 V) charger as standard equipment when the new PHEV goes on sale in the US later this year. This marks the first time… Read more »
The British firm Faradion is working on sodium-ion batteries, which show promise as a successor to Li-ion technology. In collaboration with Williams Advanced Engineering, which provided batteries for the Formula E electric race car, Faradion has built a sodium-ion-powered electric bike to prove the concept. Sodium-ion intercalation batteries use the same process of ion insertion… Read more »
One more state turned Tesla-colored this week, as Maryland governor Larry Hogan signed a bill that will allow Tesla to expand its direct sales model to the Ocean State. Unlike dealer groups in other battleground states, the Maryland Automobile Dealers Association actually supported the bill, probably because automakers covered by the new law are limited… Read more »
The iCar is still just a rumor, but Apple surely has been showing a lot of interest in EV-related technology, including large-format batteries. This week, the Cupertino computer-maker agreed to settle a lawsuit alleging that it had been showing a little too much interest in engineers working for Massachusetts battery-maker A123. In February, A123 filed… Read more »
Graphene, a two-dimensional hexagonal lattice of carbon atoms, has great potential in a number of EV-related applications, including anodes, lithium-sulfur batteries and ultracapacitors. With current technology, however, it’s impractical to use on a large scale, and researchers have been limited to using small flakes of the material. Now a team of researchers at the DOE’s… Read more »
Tesla has announced that it will fully support China’s charging standards, modifying its vehicles to ensure that they are compatible. This is surely a wise and necessary policy, as concerns about charging infrastructure are widely considered to be the main reason that EV sales in the world’s largest auto market have been slow to take… Read more »
