The US DOE has announced up to $30 million in funding for R&D that focuses on extraction, separation, processing, validation and demonstration technologies for critical materials, including rare earth elements, which are essential to high-strength magnets used in EVs and wind turbines. The DOE is working toward reducing both the costs of critical materials and… Read more »
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Trump administration guts air pollution standards
As expected, the Trump administration has announced a rollback of federal fuel economy regulations, a move that some estimate will increase annual US carbon emissions by as much as 25 percent, as well as increasing fuel costs for consumers and putting the US auto industry at a competitive disadvantage. The administration says weakening the standards… Read more »
New York State pledges $24 million in VW settlement funds for electric transit buses
New York State’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) have announced that over $24 million is available to replace diesel-powered transit buses with new all-electric buses. As part of the state’s $128-million allocation from the federal Volkswagen Settlement, NYSERDA will invest $18.4 million to fund… Read more »
Adopt a Charger helps to get EV charging installed at public amenities
Public chargers are popping up at more and more locations. The sites are usually chosen for practical and/or financial reasons – areas of high traffic that are convenient to businesses such as restaurants and shopping centers. That’s a good thing, but there’s also a need for charging stations at public places such as parks, museums… Read more »
Michigan offers up to $70,000 in grants to install EV fast chargers
The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) is offering grants of up to $70,000 for the installation of DC fast chargers. Successful applicants must be registered in a local utility-sponsored charging program, and can use their grant money for charger site preparation, equipment installation, networking fees, and signage. Part of the more… Read more »
California to ban time-based billing for EV charging
California’s Office of Administrative Law has approved amendments to its Electric Vehicle Fueling Systems Specifications that will eventually ban public charging operators from billing by the minute in the state. The ban will apply to new Level 2 chargers beginning in 2021, and to new DC fast chargers beginning in 2023. Chargers installed before 2021… Read more »
Zeal puts workplace and residential MUD chargers on autopilot
Nikhil Bharadwaj was sitting in his office, pondering his personal mission in life: to solve climate change “without bothering people.” After graduating as an energy engineer from Penn State University, that mission brought him to California, where he led the Transportation Innovation Team for Schneider Electric’s Energy and Sustainability Services department. For the umpteenth time… Read more »
Lamborghini and MIT patent a new material for supercapacitors
Lamborghini and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have patented a new synthetic material that the carmaker hopes will serve as the technological base for a new generation of supercapacitors. The two organizations began working together in 2017, when they produced the Terzo Millennio concept car. With support from Lamborghini’s Concept Development Department, a research… Read more »
Continuous Solutions upgrades its electric motor lab to military grade
Continuous Solutions, a Portland, Oregon-based engineering firm that specializes in the research and development of ultra high-efficiency electric motors, now functions with military grade environmental testing standard. The company has added a thermal chamber (-160º to 160º C), a dust-exposure chamber and a water-submersion testing tank to its laboratory. The facility has also added a… Read more »
New front in the war against EVs: ferreting out erroneous tax credit claims
Governments often use selective law enforcement to blunt the effects of unwanted policies instituted by previous administrations. Is this what’s going on with an audit of federal EV tax credit claims? The Wall Street Journal reports that the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), an arm of the Treasury Department and thus of the… Read more »