Elon Musk is not the only EV pioneer who’s been inspired by Nikola Tesla. Just a few hours’ drive from the small village where Tesla was born, a Croatian company is building a 1,088-horsepower beast called the Rimac Concept_One. Like Musk, Mate Rimac, the 26-year old founder of Rimac Automobili, has plans that extend far… Read more »
In the past few decades, the automotive industry has seen a shift from traditional mechanical systems to a world dominated by electronics, chips and software. If you go to a car show and look in the engine compartment of an older vehicle, you’ll see only a handful of connections from the cockpit. Modern vehicles, however,… Read more »
Wireless charging pioneer WiTricity has announced an intellectual property license agreement with TDK Corporation, which will enable the Japanese firm to commercialize WiTricity’s patented technology to create wireless charging systems for carmakers. TDK may be most familiar to (older) US readers for its high-quality cassette tapes, but in fact its forte is the manufacture of… Read more »
Mercedes-Benz has dribbled out a few more details about its eagerly-awaited B-Class Electric Drive, which is scheduled to arrive in eight US states this summer. The latest news: MSRP will be $41,450, almost exactly the same as that of the BMW i3. The Beemer, which went on sale in the US this month, appears to… Read more »
Tesla isn’t fooling around about getting its Gigafactory up and running quickly. It plans to select sites in more than one state, and move forward with the building process at both simultaneously, just to be double sure that one is ready to supply battery packs in time to bring the mass-market Tesla into production without… Read more »
Global plug-in vehicle sales are projected to grow at an eye-opening rate – according to a new report from Navigant Research, the market for light-duty plug-in electric vehicles (LD PEVs), will expand at an annual rate of 24.6%, while the overall market for light-duty vehicles will grow at only 2.6%. But where will most of… Read more »
A team at Toyota Central R&D Labs is developing a prototype Free Piston Engine Linear Generator (FPEG), which they described at the recent SAE 2014 World Congress in Detroit. Unlike a traditional ICE, which propels a drive shaft, the FPEG is designed to generate electricity directly. It consists of a two-stroke combustion chamber, a linear… Read more »
The California Energy Commission has approved two major investment plans, one for clean energy research, and one for an annual clean transportation investment plan. The Alternative and Renewable Fuel and Vehicle Technology Program provides funds every year for projects intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and create jobs in California. To date, investments total over… Read more »
California adds $25 Million to it Clean Vehicle Rebate Program wait-list With fiscal year 2013-14 rebate funds depleted, California’s Clean Vehicle Rebate Program (CVRP) started accepting rebate reservations. On Friday, April 26, the California Air Resources Board authorized another $25 million for the wait-list, bringing the total to $30 million. The Board expects this additional funding to… Read more »
Researchers at the DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a unique battery chemistry that promises to greatly extend battery life by making the electrolyte serve two functions. In a study, Pushing the Theoretical Limit of Li-CFx Batteries: A Tale of Bi-functional Electrolyte, which was published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, ORNL… Read more »
