A team at Ford Research and Advanced Engineering has explored the integration of traffic simulation and vehicle propulsion modeling to estimate energy consumption—and hence range—for battery electric vehicles (BEV) to better assist BEV owners in route planning. A paper on their work, initially presented at the SIMULTECH 2011 conference in... Read more →

The Houston-Galveston Area Council (H-GAC) has partnered with the Center for Transportation and the Environment (CTE) and Smith Electric Vehicles Corporation (Smith Electric) to reduce vehicle emissions from delivery trucks in the Houston-Galveston region. As part of a US Department of Energy sponsored effort, local fleets will replace existing diesel... Read more →

The staff of the California Air Resources Board (ARB) has posted for public comment three new Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) pathway applications for landfill gas to compressed natural gas (CNG) and liquefied natural gas (LNG). Clean Energy. Clean Energy has applied for three landfill-gas-to-biomethane fuel pathways. The landfill gas... Read more →

The California Air Resources Board (ARB) is holding a public workshop on 17 September 2013, in Diamond Bar, California, to discuss updates to the Zero Emission Bus (ZBus) regulation and to explore the status of, and future developments to, ZBus technology and related systems. In February 2000, ARB established a... Read more →

Ford has begun a three-year three-year research partnership with the telematics department of St. Petersburg Polytechnic University in Russia in its association with that country’s space industry. The goal of Ford’s relationship with the university is to analyze space-based robotic communications systems, with potential for developing vehicle mesh networks to... Read more →

HERE, a Nokia business, introduced a connected driving offering including HERE Auto, HERE Auto Cloud, and HERE Auto Companion. In addition, HERE has improved its Traffic product, HERE Traffic, by building a new system to process data even faster and more accurately than before. The HERE Connected Driving offering will... Read more →

Researchers at Wakayama University in Japan have produced a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide gas by irradiating a mixture of carbon powder and distilled water with intense nanosecond laser pulses at room temperature. Electrodes or any other photocatalysts were not used to produce the hydrogen. Photographs of a bottled... Read more →

Sandia National Laboratories and Arizona State University have signed a formal partnership agreement on renewable energy challenges. The goals of the memorandum of understanding are to encourage collaborative research, build educational and workforce development programs and inform policy endeavors. The agreement enables the two institutions to more easily work together... Read more →

Grafting molecular cobalt-containing hydrogen production catalysts to a visible-light-absorbing semiconductor exploits the UV-induced immobilization chemistry of vinylpyridine to p-type (100) gallium phosphide (GaP). Credit: ACS, Krawicz et al. Click to enlarge. Researchers with the US Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) working at the Joint Center... Read more →

Tesla Motors introduced the first elements of its European Supercharger network—a set of fast charging stations across Norway. With locations in Lyngdal, Aurland, Dombås, Gol, Cinderella and Lillehammer, Norway’s most vital and commonly used roads and highways are covered by Tesla Superchargers. Model S customers can drive routes such as... Read more →

Nissan Motor Company is targeting becoming world’s leading manufacturer of light commercial vehicles (LCV) by fiscal year (FY) 2016. Light Commercial Vehicles include several classes of vehicles that are designed and developed primarily for work use. Nissan offers one of the widest ranges of LCVs, from mini-LCVs up to 7.5-ton... Read more →

Blue Marble Biomaterials, a specialty biochemical manufacturer (earlier post), has closed on the purchase of the former GTC Oats Inc. facility in Missoula, Montana. The site, previously a wet extraction processing plant for the creation of food ingredients, will become Blue Marble’s first large-scale commercial biorefinery. Blue Marble uses novel... Read more →

Alcoa broke ground on a $275-million expansion of its Tennessee Operations to meet growing aluminum demand for auto production. Demand for aluminum, already the number two material used to build cars, is expected to nearly double by 2025. The previously announced expansion will convert some of the plant’s can sheet... Read more →

Conceptual design of a water-based flow battery GE scientists are researching as part of ARPA-E’s RANGE program. This battery could be one-fourth the cost of current car batteries, and could nearly triple the distance electric vehicles could travel on a single charge. Click to enlarge. Researchers from GE and Lawrence... Read more →

The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has patented a catalyst that reforms tar into syngas, a development that can accelerate the process of getting biomass ready for fuel synthesis and use as a drop-in fuel. The process also can help reduce greenhouse gases because the biomass that is used... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) will award $16 million for 17 projects to help sustainably and efficiently capture energy from waves, tides, and currents. The Department’s latest nationwide wave and tidal energy resource assessments identify up to 1,400 terawatt hours of potential generation per year. One terawatt-hour of electricity... Read more →

Integer Research predicts the European and North American markets will dominate sales of selective catalytic reduction (SCR)-equipped off-highway equipment, with these regions accounting for more than two thirds of the machine parc using SCR after-treatment by 2023. Depending on the timing of Tier 4-equivalent legislation, China has the potential to... Read more →

The new 4-cylinder Gen 3 1.8 EA888 TSI engine (red) delivers its peak 250 N·m of torque as early as 1,400 rpm, and maintains the strong and flat torque curve through 4,750 rpm—far outpacing the performance of the 5-cylinder 2.5-liter engine (blue) it replaces. The resulting boost in driving performance... Read more →

Annual average concentrations of fine particulates from US sources of combustion emissions from (a) electric power generation; (b) industry; (c) commercial and residential sources; (d) road transportation; (e) marine transportation; (f) rail transportation; (g) sum of all combustion sources; (h) all sources. Source: MIT. Click to enlarge. Researchers from MIT’s... Read more →

E.ON has inaugurated commercial operations at its Power-to-Gas (P2G) facility in Falkenhagen, Germany. (Earlier post.) The plant uses wind power and Hydrogenics’ electrolysis equipment to transform water into hydrogen, which is then injected into the existing regional natural gas transmission system. The hydrogen, as part of the natural gas mix,... Read more →

The compact Bosch SMG (“separate motor generator”) 180/120 (180 millimeters in diameter, 120 millimeters long) electric motor is used as the traction motor in the Fiat 500e and smart fortwo electric drive EVs. The 32 kg (70.5 lb) permanent magnet synchronous motor can be used in hybrids as well—one example... Read more →

Volvo unveiled the new Volvo Concept Coupé, the first of a series of three concept cars that reveal the design possibilities created by the company’s new Scalable Product Architecture (SPA). (Earlier post.) The concept car features a two-liter high-performance Drive-E gasoline engine (earlier post) with a supercharger and turbo. The... Read more →

In Detroit, Honda demonstrated two experimental safety technologies based on Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) aimed at reducing the potential for collisions between automobiles and pedestrians and between automobiles and motorcycles. These new technologies Vehicle-to-Pedestrian (V2P) and Vehicle-to-Motorcycle (V2M) technologies, while still in the research and testing phase, are part... Read more →

The Detroit News reports that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is extending the major connected vehicle pilot project in Ann Arbor (earlier post) by another six months, but won’t change its timetable for deciding whether to move forward with the new technology. Conducted by University of Michigan’s Transportation... Read more →

Statoil has made a third discovery of crude oil in the Flemish Pass Basin, offshore Newfoundland. The discovery was made on the Bay du Nord prospect (EL1112), located approximately 500 kilometers (311 miles) northeast of St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. This discovery is the second discovery for Statoil offshore... Read more →

Toyota’s next-generation Prius will deliver significantly improved fuel economy in a more compact package that is lighter in weight and lower in cost, according to Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) Managing Officer Satoshi Ogiso. Ogiso—who earlier in his career had been the chief engineer for the Prius, chief engineer for the... Read more →

Integral Technologies, Inc. and wholly owned subsidiary ElectriPlast Corp. (earlier post) signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) with BASF Corporation jointly to explore the North American market for ElectriPlast’s conductive thermoplastics. BASF and ElectriPlast will jointly explore the potential to utilize ElectriPlast materials as a lightweight solution for applications requiring... Read more →

Delphi’s integrated RACam (RAdar Camera) system will be introduced on the new Volvo SPA platform at the end of 2014. The system incorporates radar sensing, vision sensing and data fusion into a single module to enable a suite of active safety systems including full speed range adaptive cruise control; adaptive... Read more →

The 2014 Chevrolet Malibu arriving in dealerships this fall will offer fuel-saving stop/start technology as standard on its 2.5L base model—the first midsize sedan sold in the US to do so. (Earlier post.) The Malibu delivers an EPA-estimated 25 city and 36 highway mpg (9.4 l/100 km and 6.5 l/100... Read more →

Airbus and RT-Biotekhprom (Rostec Group) signed a cooperation agreement to launch a large-scale analysis of Russian feedstock, and to evaluate how to speed up the development and commercialization of Sustainable Fuels for aviation. This agreement was signed at the International Aviation and Space Salon MAKS-2013. The partnership is aimed at... Read more →

The air suspension system. Click to enlarge. Continental has developed its first air suspension system for an all-electric vehicle. Following a shortened development phase, the first series delivery of the air suspension system started in spring 2012 to a manufacturer of electric vehicles. Continental’s experience of air suspension systems goes... Read more →

General Motors and its joint ventures in China have sold their 2 millionth vehicle in 2013. This is the fourth consecutive year that GM’s sales in China have reached 2 million units and the earliest in the company’s history. Last year, GM sold its 2 millionth vehicle on September 21.... Read more →

The first fully active and regenerative suspension is based on a pioneering electrohydraulic functional unit fitted to the exterior of the damper. Photo: ZF. Click to enlarge. ZF Friedrichshafen AG has entered into a partnership with Levant Power Corp. to build the first fully active suspension system with energy recovery... Read more →

In-cylinder pressure (on the left) and heat release rate (on the right) as a function of the CAD and ozone concentration injected in the intake of the engine for PRF40. The results show that ozone seeding improves combustion and advances phasing. The same trends were observed for the other fuels... Read more →

Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. announced that the company will be ready with multiple, commercially-viable autonomous drive (AD) vehicles by 2020. Nissan said that its engineers have been carrying out intensive research on the technology for years, alongside teams from universities including MIT, Stanford, Oxford, Carnegie Mellon and the University of... Read more →

Strategic Vision’s New Vehicle Experience Study (NVES), using a rapidly growing sample of Tesla buyers, finds what it calls “significant” differences between Tesla owners and the rest of the electric vehicle market. Creating complete buyer experience profiles, NVES gathers more than 400 variables to provide comprehensive views of the new... Read more →

New Flyer Industries has selected BAE Systems’ HybriDrive HDS300 propulsion system to power a fleet of new 60-foot, low-floor rapid transit buses for the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) in San Jose, California. New Flyer Industries will provide up to 29 articulated hybrid buses for the transit agency, with... Read more →

PowerGenix, developer of high performance Nickel-Zinc (NiZn) batteries, announced that its batteries have achieved certification for start-stop applications by China National Laboratory’s Tianjin Automotive Test Center. Over the past several months, Tianjin Automotive Test Center completed a test matrix covering all aspects of advanced micro-hybrid vehicles to validate NiZn’s potential... Read more →

IHS Automotive forecasts that the cumulative number of fast-charging stations installed worldwide will expand by a factor of more than 100 times from 2012 to 2020. Total fast-charging stations for EVs are set to reach 199,000 locations globally in 2020, up from just 1,800 in 2012. The number of these... Read more →

Cool Planet Energy Systems, a developer of small-scale biorefineries which convert non-food biomass into gasoline, jet fuel, and soil-enhancing biochar, has completed a joint vehicle road test with Ventura County, CA. Officials there ran a 5% blend of Cool Planet’s renewable, low-carbon gasoline for six weeks during their normal operations.... Read more →

e-up! and e-Golf. In a dual world premiere, Volkswagen will present two EVs at the International Motor Show (IAA) in Frankfurt: the e-up! (earlier post) and e-Golf (earlier post). The e-up! is highly efficient, with energy consumption of 11.7 kWh of electricity per 100 km (117 Wh/km) on the European... Read more →

HYbrid FE concept. Click to enlarge. At the Frankfurt Motor Show, PEUGEOT and Total will unveil the hybrid 208 HYbrid FE concept. Based on a production 208 hatchback, the HYbrid FE accelerates from 0 to 62 mph in 8 seconds, with CO2 emissions of 49 g/km (NEDC combined cycle). The... Read more →

Toyota in introducing a new LE Eco grade with the updated MY 2014 Corolla compact sedan. The all new Corolla LE Eco trim level offers enhanced fuel economy due to a 140 hp (104 kW) Valvematic-equipped engine, improved aerodynamics, and unique CVTi-S (continuously variable transmission) tuning. The Corolla LE Eco... Read more →

The world’s consumption of gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, heating oil, and other petroleum products reached a record high of 88.9 million barrels per day (bbl/d) in 2012, as declining consumption in North America and Europe was more than outpaced by growth in Asia and other regions, according to the... Read more →

Mazda Motor Corporation is enhancing production capacity for SKYACTIV-G gasoline engines and SKYACTIV-D diesel engines at its Hiroshima Plant. (Earlier post.) Capacity, currently 800,000 units annually, will be increased to one million units by the end of 2014. The move is made in response to increasing sales of SKYACTIV vehicles... Read more →

Bio-isobutanol producer Gevo, Inc. held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for its demonstration-scale paraxylene (p-xylene) plant in Silsbee, Texas. The paraxylene facility is located adjacent to Gevo’s existing jet fuel plant in Silsbee, and establishes the site as a biorefinery that will serve the renewable chemicals and drop-in biofuels markets. Gevo has... Read more →

Top 15 LEAF market year-to-date in 2013. Source: Nissan Click to enlarge. Nissan provided a list of the top 15 markets in the US for the Nissan LEAF battery-electric vehicle. Nissan LEAF sales in the United States are up by 335% year-over-year since the launch of the enhanced 2013 model... Read more →

A new Energy Department study conducted by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) indicates that by 2025 wind and solar power electricity generation could become cost-competitive without federal subsidies, if new renewable energy development occurs in the most productive locations. The cost of generation includes any needed transmission and integration... Read more →

UD Trucks, part of the Volvo Group, launched Quester, a new heavy-duty truck range developed specifically for growth markets. Quester will address new market segments and marks a milestone for the Volvo Group in line with the Group’s truck strategy to increase sales by capturing profitable growth opportunities in fast... Read more →

A new study published in the journal Nature Materials has found a way to suppress the thermal conductivity in sodium cobaltate so that it can be used to harvest waste energy, with potential applications such as automotive waste heat recovery. The need for both high electrical conductivity and low thermal... Read more →