Maxwell Technologies has introduced a new addition to its K2 family of ultracapacitor cells. A 3-volt, 3,000-farad cell is now available in sample quantities. The new cell offers 31% higher power than Maxwell’s existing 2.7-volt, 3,000-farad cell, and is packaged in the same industry-standard 60 mm cylindrical form factor. Maxwell points out that customers can… Read more »
Saab AB, the Swedish aerospace company that owns the Saab brand, won’t allow its name or logo to be used on cars produced by National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS), the Chinese-backed firm that bought the assets of bankrupt Saab Automobile in 2012. “We have revoked their right to use the brand name,” and the matter… Read more »
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has published a new report that found that Proterra’s battery-electric buses are nearly four times more fuel-efficient than comparable compressed natural gas (CNG) buses. The study focuses on a pilot project for California’s Foothill Transit, in which 12 Proterra e-buses logged nearly 400,000 miles of on-road testing. The NREL… Read more »
Five months after Volkswagen’s emissions cheating scandal came to light, the German carmaker is still in talks with the EPA about finding a technical fix for almost 600,000 affected diesel cars that were sold in the US. The German newspaper Welt am Sonntag (via Reuters) reports that the EPA has asked Volkswagen to provide a… Read more »
The business of prospecting for lithium is still tiny compared to the worldwide oil exploration industry, but some companies are already buying up tracts of land that may contain motherlodes of the light white stuff. The lithium exploration and development company Lithium X Energy has announced its acquisition of the CVL Lithium Property in Nevada’s… Read more »
Evatran’s Plugless has been offering a wireless charging system for the Nissan LEAF and the Chevy Volt since 2013. The company is now taking orders for a Model S version, for delivery in April. At the moment, the system is only compatible with the rear-wheel-drive Model S, but the company says that a solution for… Read more »
The good news: EV sales are growing steadily. The bad news: They’ve now grown enough to attract the attention of Big Oil, which is planning a multi-million-dollar counterattack. Citing “refining industry sources,” the Huffington Post reports that a consortium of fossil fuel interests is making plans to form a new advocacy group that hopes to… Read more »
The DOE’s Office of Technology Transitions has issued a solicitation for proposals that help bring advanced energy technologies to market. The office’s Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF) has $20 million in new funding available. Proposals solicited from all 17 of DOE’s national laboratories will be submitted for review this spring, and TCF will match 50% funding… Read more »
Much research in the battery world focuses on finding a replacement for graphite as an anode material. One candidate is hard carbon, which can be formed in various morphologies to deliver the desired properties. But in fact, there are already millions of tiny factories around the world, cranking out as many carbon particles as could… Read more »
Every week brings another example of how EVs will fit in as an integral part of the distributed, smart energy system of the future. The latest news comes from Renault. Europe’s leading EV-seller has partnered with energy storage company Connected Energy to develop a modular storage product called E-STOR. E-STOR uses second-life EV batteries to… Read more »
