Millions of used cars, vans and minibuses exported from Europe, the United States and Japan to the developing world are of poor quality, contributing significantly to air pollution and hindering efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change, according to a new report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). The... Read more →

A team from KU Leuven and the University of Antwerp in Belgium has developed a new process that is suitable for the distributed, small-scale production of “green” ammonia. The process, called PNOCRA (Plasma Nitrogen Oxidation and Catalytic Reduction to Ammonia), combines plasma‐assisted nitrogen oxidation and lean NOx trap technology, adopted... Read more →

The British premium automobile manufacturer MINI is realigning its model range, with a focus on drivetrain technologies, vehicle segments and services of the future. Core elements of the realignment include the expansion of electromobility; enhanced commitment in the crossover and premium compact segments; and strengthening of the market position in... Read more →

Mercedes-Benz AG and Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings plc announced a new strategic technology agreement and an enhanced partnership. The new agreement will see Mercedes-Benz AG grant access to a range of advanced Mercedes-Benz technologies, including next generation hybrid and electric powertrains, as well as other vehicle components and systems.... Read more →

Audi of America, Applied Information, and Temple, Inc., are collaborating to develop two future connected vehicle applications that can help improve safety in school zones and around school buses when children are present. The first application, using cellular vehicle-to-everything (C-V2X) technology, is designed to warn drivers when they are approaching... Read more →

Porsche has increased the electric range of all its Cayenne plug-in hybrid models. The gross capacity of the high-voltage battery is now 17.9 kWh rather than 14.1 kWh, which boosts the electric range by up to 30%. Measured in line with the WLTP EAER City cycle, the Cayenne E-Hybrid can... Read more →

Many vehicle owners in North America are driving fewer miles in the era of COVID-19, but their opinions of future mobility technology haven’t changed much since the first quarter of 2020, according to the J.D. Power 2020 Q3 Mobility Confidence Index Study fueled by SurveyMonkey. However, many automakers are investing... Read more →

The third installment of a CALSTART-commissioned survey of Tier-1 US automotive suppliers found that a majority (62%) of the suppliers responding to the survey disagreed with the Trump administration’s rollback of national fuel economy standards. Only 15% of respondents agreed with the rollback, and the rest were undecided. The same... Read more →

Daimler Trucks and Waymo have signed a broad, global, strategic partnership to deploy autonomous SAE L4 technology. Their initial effort will combine Waymo’s automated driver technology with a unique version of Daimler’s Freightliner Cascadia to enable autonomous driving. The partnership is Daimler’s second in this area. In March 2019, Daimler... Read more →

Beep, a Florida-based autonomous Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) provider, will deploy the first autonomous shuttles at Yellowstone National Park with the National Parks Service (NPS) in May 2021. The pilot program will test multi-passenger, electric automated vehicle platforms to provide visitors a safe, innovative and eco-friendly transportation alternative while exploring Yellowstone. Beep... Read more →

Representatives from the State of Hesse, RMV (Rhein-Main-Verkehrsverbund), Alstom and Infraserv broke ground for a hydrogen filling station on the site of the Höchst industrial park in Frankfurt that will supply a fleet of 27 passenger fuel cell trains—currently, the world’s largest such. (from left): Dr. Joachim Kreysing, Managing Director... Read more →

Neste and All Nippon Airways (ANA), Japan’s largest and a 5-Star airline, are entering a sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) supply agreement. ANA will become the first airline to use SAF on flights departing from Japan; the agreement also represents Neste’s first SAF supply to an Asian airline. Initial operations will... Read more →

SEAT has created its first multimodal mobility platform as a service through its SEAT:CODE software development center. This platform is the first software product developed and marketed by the company in order to operate and manage vehicle fleets 100% digitally. SEAT MÓ has been the first operator to use this... Read more →

In its fight against COVID-19 and for the protection of bus occupants, Daimler Buses is relying on a high fresh air content, a fast exchange of air and anti-viral high-performance particle filters in its vehicles. The effectiveness of these protective measures has been confirmed by a research report issued by... Read more →

Fisker Inc. has selected Munich as the location for its European headquarters. Munich offers convenient access to key European EV markets and close proximity to Magna’s Graz facility in Austria. Earlier this month, Fisker revealed details surrounding its new global HQ, which is to be located within Continental Park at... Read more →

ROUSH CleanTech, known for its advanced clean transportation solutions, is entering the electric truck market. ROUSH is providing Penske Truck Leasing with all-new Ford F-650 battery electric vehicles later this year for deployment across Southern California. Penske has been expanding its battery electric fleet for the past several years. We... Read more →

On a per capita basis, the transportation sector energy consumption in 2019 was 86 million Btu—a 54% increase from 1950 and about the same level as in 1974. The industrial sector, which had the highest energy consumption, decreased 7% from 1950 to 2019 and decreased 36% from its highest point... Read more →

Four California Community Choice Aggregators (CCAs) from the San Francisco Bay Area and Central Coast of California are funding—in total, with state financial contributions—$65 million in infrastructure to support the rising number of electric vehicles (EV) in the state. This funding will support thousands of new EV chargers. The four... Read more →

PM2.5 pollution was significantly associated with an increased risk of hospital admissions for several neurological disorders, including Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and other dementias, in a long-term study of more than 63 million older US adults, led by researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The study, conducted... Read more →

The Munich Traffic Association (MVG) has deployed 8 new Ebusco buses. From now on, line 144 will be driven entirely electrically with these buses—his is the first fully electric line in Munich. The second line is already on its way; line 100 will also run entirely electrically by the end... Read more →

The first large-scale study of the risks that countries face from dependence on water, energy and land resources has found that globalization may be decreasing, rather than increasing, the security of global supply chains. Countries meet their needs for goods and services through domestic production and international trade. As a... Read more →

The US Energy Information Administration released its annual US Biodiesel Plant Production Capacity report, containing data for all operating US biodiesel plants as of 1 January 2020. The data show a slight decrease in production capacity from 2,563 million gallons per year in 2019 to 2,514 million gallons per year... Read more →

Fairfax County and Dominion Energy have launched passenger service on Relay—the first publicly funded autonomous electric shuttle and test of driverless technology in public transportation in the Commonwealth of Virginia. This pilot project is a public-private partnership between Fairfax County, Dominion Energy, EDENS (Mosaic District developer), Virginia Department of Rail... Read more →

Australia-based natural gas company Santos has successfully injected approximately 100 tonnes of carbon dioxide deep underground into depleted gas reservoirs as part of the final field trial for the Moomba Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) Project. Santos Managing Director and CEO Kevin Gallagher said the successful injection occurred earlier this... Read more →

Star Scientific has been named an Emerging Technology of the Year category finalist in the S&P Global Platts Global Energy Awards, an annual program recognizing innovation, leadership and exceptional performance in the energy sector. Star Scientific is developer of the Hydrogen Energy Release Optimizer (HERO). HERO uses a proprietary catalyst... Read more →

SmartSens, a China-based high-performance CMOS image sensing (CIS) chip design company, launched its SC133GS CMOS 1.3M pixel CMOS sensor with global shutter and fan-out package to further enhance performance in automotive settings. The solution delivers superior signal-to-noise ratio, ultra-high sensitivity, and excellent dynamic range to address growing demand for intelligent... Read more →

Texas A&M University researchers have developed a conceptual model to identify systematically the potential health impacts of self-driving vehicles. They identified 32 transportation-related risk factors that affected health and concluded that 17 could negatively impact public health, while eight could have a positive impact. There were seven areas of uncertain... Read more →

Researchers at the University of Turku in Finland have developed a thin-layer artificial biofilm technology for sustainable and long-term ethylene photoproduction. In the process, described in an open-access paper in the RSC journal Green Chemistry, recombinant Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 cells holding ethylene forming enzyme (Efe) from Pseudomonas syringae are... Read more →

Linde GmbH and Shell announced an exclusive collaboration agreement on ethane-oxidative dehydrogenation (E-ODH) technology for ethylene production. The catalytic process is an alternative route to ethane steam cracking, offering the potential of economic advantages, acetic acid co-production and significantly lower overall carbon footprint through electrification of power input. Ethylene is... Read more →

Celanese Corporation, a global chemical and specialty materials company, added a new GUR ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMW-PE) production line at its Bishop, Texas manufacturing facility to support the significant growth in its high-value GUR engineered materials portfolio. GUR UHMW-PE microporous membranes have multiple applications as separators in lithium-ion batteries,... Read more →