A team at Imperial College London has examined the relative costs of carbon mitigation from a lifecycle perspective for 12 different hydrogen production techniques using fossil fuels, nuclear energy and renewable sources. An open-access paper on their work is published the RSC journal Energy & Environmental Science. As with all... Read more →

The University of Bath and SAIC Motor UK Technical Centre are collaborating on a project to identify the most efficient conditions for the optimum performance of gasoline particulate filters (GPFs), to help minimize vehicle impact on the environment. The ‘GPF Burn rate and Low Temperature Reactivity’ project will last 14... Read more →

Rosenbauer Deutschland, a company of the Rosenbauer Group, and the Berlin Fire Department plan jointly to develop a hybrid electric fire engine in the next two years. The two have formed an “innovation partnership” which will be responsible for carrying out the project “eLHF” (German equivalent for “eRFF”/ electric rescue... Read more →

An IIHS study of General Motors vehicles with optional front crash prevention systems found that GM vehicles with autobrake and forward collision warning had 43% fewer police-reported front-to-rear crashes of all severities and 64% fewer front-to-rear crashes with injuries than the same vehicles without any front crash prevention technology. For... Read more →

The Colorado Air Quality Control Commission (AQCC) approved new low emission vehicle (LEV) standards for new light-duty and medium-duty motor vehicles sold in Colorado beginning in the 2022 model year. (Earlier post.) The new standards are estimated to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 2 million tons annually by 2030.... Read more →

Over the coming five years to the end of 2023, the Volkswagen Group will be spending almost €44 billion alone on the e-mobility, autonomous driving, new mobility services and digitalization in its vehicles and at its plants. This represents approximately one-third of total expenditure for the 2019-2023 planning period and... Read more →

Schaeffler has begun volume production of transmissions for the electric drive in the Audi e-tron, marking a milestone for its E-Mobility business division. Developed and produced in plants in Herzogenaurach and Bühl, the product promises maximum driving pleasure while providing a high level of comfort and optimum noise performance. The... Read more →

The US Department of Energy announced $98 million in funding for 40 new projects as part of OPEN 2018, the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy’s (ARPA-E) latest open funding opportunity. OPEN solicitations are an open call to scientists and engineers for transformational technologies across the entire scope of ARPA-E’s energy mission.... Read more →

For the first time in the United States, Toyota will offer the Corolla in hybrid form. Details on the 2020 Corolla Hybrid for the US will be announced during Toyota’s press conference at the LA Auto Show in less than two weeks. Toyota unveiled new sedan models in the Corolla... Read more →

The California Air Resources Board adopted a new emissions tracking program that will help regulators identify vehicles with excess smog-related and greenhouse gas emissions. Real Emissions Assessment Logging (REAL) is part of the amendments to the OBD (On-board Diagnostic) Regulations approved by the Board at Thursday’s hearing. OBD systems mainly... Read more →

New Flyer of America Inc., a subsidiary of NFI Group Inc., the largest transit bus and motor coach manufacturer and parts distributor in North America, announced that New Flyer’s 60-foot articulated heavy-duty transit bus has become the first and only sixty-foot battery-electric bus to complete the Federal Transit Administration (FTA)... Read more →

A team at Penn State has developed a three-dimensional, cross-linked polyethylenimine lithium-ion-affinity sponge as the lithium metal anode host to mitigate the problem of dendritic growth of the metal anode. A paper on their work is published in Nature Energy. Using metals as anodes in metal batteries is considered as... Read more →

The introduction of the low emission zone (LEZ) in London, UK, has only contributed to modest reductions in exposure to NOx from diesel vehicles, and these improvements appear to have little effect on the lung health of children, according to an open-access observational study published in the journal The Lancet... Read more →

The NYC Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) will expand use of renewable diesel fuel, a 99% petroleum-free alternative to traditional diesel fuel. The fuel reduces CO2 emissions by 65% compared to the petroleum-based version. This move is part of the City’s efforts to phase out its use of regular... Read more →

Renewable diesel net supply to California’s fuel market has increased since the state’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) program went into effect in 2011, reaching 100 million gallons during the second quarter of 2018, or 10.1% of the total diesel supplied to California that quarter, according to the US Energy... Read more →

A team at the Clean Combustion Research Center, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia has shown that burning fuel at high pressure can significantly increase the size of the soot particles that are produced. A paper on their work is published in the Proceedings of... Read more →

Daimler plans to build the Research and Development Tech Center China with a total investment of more than 1.1 billion RMB (approximately €145 million). This marks the further expansion of the company’s footprint in its single largest market and will be its second major R&D site in Beijing, following the... Read more →

Following Zwickau, Volkswagen intends to change its plants at Emden and Hanover in Germany over to the production of electric vehicles. After Zwickau, Volkswagen is therefore establishing its second e-mobility center in Germany in Lower Saxony. At a works meeting held on Wednesday in Emden, HR Board Member Gunnar Kilian... Read more →

Nissan’s e-POWER electrified powertrain (earlier post), available in the Serena minivan (earlier post), has been named Technology of the Year for 2019 by the Automotive Researchers’ and Journalists’ Conference of Japan (RJC). The Nissan Serena became the second model equipped with e-POWER in February 2018, following the Nissan Note e-POWER,... Read more →

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has launched the Cleaner Trucks Initiative (CTI) to further decrease NOx emissions from on-highway heavy-duty trucks and engines. The CTI will include a future rulemaking that will update the existing NOx standard which was last set in 2001 while also streamlining compliance and certification... Read more →

Ballard Power Systems has successfully closed a strategic collaboration transaction with Weichai Power Co., Ltd., initially announced in August. (Earlier post.) This strategic collaboration with Weichai—a leading automotive equipment manufacturer specializing in the production of powertrains, automobiles, intelligent logistics, automotive parts and components—underscores our high conviction in the opportunity for... Read more →

The European Parliament approved binding 2030 target for renewables (32%) and an indicative target on energy efficiency (32.5%) that will play a crucial role in meeting the EU’s climate goals. Parliament on Tuesday confirmed the provisional agreement reached with the Council in June on energy efficiency (434 votes to 104... Read more →

AP&C—a GE Additive company— will begin production of aluminum alloy F357 powder in Q1 2019 with customer deliveries expected from April 2019. Aluminum F357 alloy is increasingly in demand from customers particularly from the aerospace and automotive sectors. It is known to have good weldability with high strength and toughness... Read more →

The European Parliament has backed plans for trucks to cut CO2 emissions by 2030. MEPs adopted a higher target (35%) than the European Commission (30%) for new trucks to reduce the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, with an intermediate target of 20% by 2025. Manufacturers will also have to... Read more →

The Country Hills Shopping Plaza in Torrance, California will be the site of the first DC fast charging station to open in the state as part of Electrify America’s plan to install approximately 160 charging stations in California by June 2019. Through its Cycle 1 California ZEV Investment Plan, Electrify... Read more →

Alliance Ventures, the strategic venture capital arm of Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi, has invested in the latest round of funding in Enevate Corporation, an advanced lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery technology company based in Irvine, California. (Earlier post.) The investment reflects the capability of Enevate in advanced Li-ion batteries capable of extreme fast charging with... Read more →

The Volkswagen Group has selected South Korea-based battery manufacturer SK Innovation (SKI) as the fourth major supplier of battery cells for electric vehicles based on the Modular Electric Toolkit (MEB). SKI will supply the batteries for North America and a share of the batteries for the production of Volkswagen Group... Read more →

Mercedes-Benz has handed over the first GLC F-CELL (earlier post) vehicles to selected customers in the German market. The Mercedes-Benz GLC F-CELL (combined hydrogen consumption: 0.34 kg/100 km, combined CO2 emissions: 0 g/km, combined electrical consumption: 13.7 kWh/100 km) features both fuel cells and a battery drive which can be... Read more →

Eaton will supply a TVS (Twin Vortices Series) air pump to manage airflow in the demonstration of the Achates Power two-stroke opposed-piston engine (OP Engine) at the upcoming Internal Combustion Engine Fall Technical Conference in San Diego. The Eaton device for the opposed piston two-stroke device is a scavenging pump,... Read more →

BASF has introduced a product for the production of methanol on the basis of renewable raw materials according to the biomass balance approach. The product name is EU-REDcert-methanol. The company replaces fossil raw materials with second-generation renewable raw materials and uses waste as well as residual materials. As a result,... Read more →