Researchers at Tohoku University in Japan, with a colleague at the University of Tsukuba, have devised a process to convert squalane, a C30 algae-derived branched hydrocarbon, to smaller hydrocarbons—without skeletal isomerization and aromatization—over ruthenium on ceria (Ru/CeO2). A paper on their work appears in the journal ChemSusChem. The products were... Read more →

GM officially opened its new $14-million, 52-acre Active Safety Test Area at its Milford Proving Ground near Detroit. GM’s brands—Chevrolet, Buick GMC and Cadillac will offer 22 different active safety technologies across their 2016 model year US lineups, ranging from driver alerts to those that automatically intervene and assist the... Read more →

Following a competitive proposal process, the California Air Resources Board (ARB) has offered $1.6 million to the City of Los Angeles to set up a pilot carsharing program for electric vehicles in disadvantaged communities. The grant will fulfill a key mandate of SB 1275, the Charge Ahead California Initiative, enacted... Read more →

Lexus is entering the 2016 model year with a three model strategy for its IS sport sedan: IS 200t, IS 300 AWD, and IS 350. The former IS 250 and IS 250 AWD are discontinued. The new IS 200t, available as RWD only, features a 2.0-liter twin-scroll turbocharged inline four-cylinder... Read more →

A team led by researchers at Georgia Tech has developed a new fabrication technique to produce platinum-based hollow nanocages with ultra-thin walls that could significantly reduce the amount of the costly metal needed to provide catalytic activity. Use of these nanocage structures in fuel cell electrodes could increase the utilization... Read more →

Bill Moore, the publisher of EV World and longtime electric bike enthusiast, has spunoff a company, QuikByke, that will rent top-quality electric bicycles in tourist markets on a seasonal cycle: winter in the tropics, summer in the north. The e-bikes are housed in mobile solar-powered rental shops based on 20... Read more →

The safety-related technologies with which manufacturers are increasingly equipping their new vehicles are making those vehicles more appealing to their owners, according to the J.D. Power 2015 US Automotive Performance, Execution and Layout (APEAL) Study. The APEAL Study, now in its 20th year, examines how gratifying a new vehicle is... Read more →

A team at South China University of Technology has developed a one-pot process to convert the diesel distillate and residual oil fractions in bio-oil into high-quality fuels by catalytic hydrocracking with combined CoMoS/Al2O3 and HZSM-5 catalysts. A paper on their process is published in the journal Fuel. Bio-oil—the end product... Read more →

https://opoli.com , a ridesharing service and app based in San Diego, has partnered with China-based BYD Motors Inc, which will provide 50 e6 EVs to the Opoli fleet as part of a green initiative. The BYD electric crossover will join Opoli’s natural gas airport shuttles late summer 2015. Opoli has... Read more →

According to a new technology briefing paper on hybrid system technologies by John German at the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), the costs of full-function hybrid systems are likely to drop to half the cost of their 2010 counterparts before 2025. Combined with the development of mild-hybrid systems (belt-alternator... Read more →

International Truck (Navistar’s flagship vehicle brand) has invited each of its Class 8 competitors to participate in an open performance testing to compare fuel economy and drivability of their new trucks during the week of 31 August at the Navistar Proving Grounds in New Carlisle, Indiana. Competitors will have the... Read more →

High-performance aircraft turbine engine manufacturers are facing unprecedented increases in the amount of heat that must be released in order to maintain acceptable temperatures in supersonic engines that is required for the aircraft to operate at optimum levels. A professor in Purdue’s School of Mechanical Engineering has developed a heat... Read more →

Honda officially opened its new Silicon Valley R&D facility, using the occasion to unveil a refreshed 2016 Accord featuring Honda’s first application of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Honda also announced a new open innovation R&D initiative—Honda Xcelerator—which will provide resources to breakthrough technology innovators to help rapidly develop prototypes... Read more →

Researchers at North Carolina State University and Carnegie Mellon University have shown that passing wireless power transfer through a magnetic resonance field enhancer (MR-FE)—which could be as simple as a copper loop—can at least double transfer efficiency as compared to transferring through air alone. MR-FE use could potentially boost transfer... Read more →

In a new report, Navigant Research forecasts that the total number of global NGV refueling stations is expected to grow from 23,001 in 2015 to 38,890 in 2025, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.4%. More than 80% of these stations are expected to be CNG stations to... Read more →

Federal-Mogul Powertrain, a division of Federal-Mogul Holdings Corporation (NASDAQ: FDML), will exhibit its newly acquired engine valve technology for the first time at the 2015 IAA show in Frankfurt in September. Among the components produced by the company’s Global Valvetrain business are sodium-cooled valves with exceptionally small stem diameters that... Read more →

The German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) and the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy (Wuppertal Institut für Klima, Umwelt, Energie GmbH; WI) have published results of their STROMbegleitung (electricity evaluation) comprehensive study to analyze technologies; market outlook; policy support; infrastructure; and life-cycle assessments for... Read more →

Researchers at the University of Tehran (Iran), with colleagues at Isfahan University of Technology and Iran University of Science and Technology, are proposing a new intelligent control strategy for the energy management of hybrid powertrains based on the driving cycle type. As described in a paper in the Proceedings of... Read more →

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) and University of Western Australia (UWA) researchers have developed a new process to develop few-layer graphene for use in energy storage and other material applications that is faster, potentially scalable and surmounts some of the current graphene production limitations. Graphene is a thin atomic... Read more →

Nanoporous silicon is considered an attractive next-generation anode material in lithium-ion batteries due to its much higher theoretical capacity and lower operating voltage than the commonly used graphitic carbon materials. However, one challenge ia finding a suitable low-cost strategy to employ an appropriate nano-structured silicon material that would compensate for... Read more →

DNV GL announced the completion of the LNGreen joint industry project, which worked to develop a state-of-the-art next-generation LNG carrier. (Earlier post.) The LNGreen joint industry project brought together experts from DNV GL and industry specialists from GTT (cryogenic membrane containment systems for LNG); shipbuilder Hyundai Heavy Industries; and shipowner... Read more →

Lacks Wheel Trim Systems LLC, a business unit of Lacks Enterprises, Inc., announced that its Chromtec lightweight composite wheels will be featured on a 2016 full-size pickup truck. (Earlier post.) Shipments have begun. Lacks will provide two new 20-inch versions of its innovative Chromtec composite wheel technology for this 2016... Read more →

The new Gen 8 Volkswagen Passat (earlier post) features a new head-up display, which projects relevant trip data and alerts onto a high-quality slide-out pane positioned directly in the driver’s field of vision. At the press of a button, the transparent display rises from its position behind the dashboard into... Read more →

Researchers at the University of Manchester (UK) have shown that the thermal operating window of the thermoelectric material lanthanum strontium titanium oxide (LSTO) can be expanded down to room temperature by addition of a small amount of graphene. Applications of LSTO-based thermoelectric materials are currently limited by their high operating... Read more →

Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC), Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC), and SPARX Group Co., Ltd. have signed a memorandum of understanding to consider the establishment of a new investment fund aiming to encourage innovation and support the spread of advanced technologies, focusing on focus on the fields of intelligent technology, robotics,... Read more →

DEINOVE, a biotech company developing innovative processes for producing biofuels and bio-based chemicals by using Deinococcus bacteria, says it has completed conclusive proof-of-concept for the production of muconic acid by a Deinococcus bacterium and has decided to launch a new R&D platform in this field. (Earlier post.) Using proprietary metabolic... Read more →

Argonne scientists have used the Mira supercomputer to identify and to improve a new mechanism for eliminating friction, which fed into the development of a hybrid material that exhibited superlubricity—a state in which friction essentially disappears—at the macroscale—i.e., at engineering scale—for the first time. A paper on their work was... Read more →

Continental Structural Plastics (CSP), a global provider of lightweight composite solutions, announced that its Tough Class A (TCA) Ultra Lite material, introduced in September 2014, is now in production on the 2016 Chevrolet Corvette. The use of TCA Ultra Lite, a Class A body panel material, results in a 20... Read more →

MTU Friedrichshafen GmbH, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of large diesel engines and complete propulsion systems, has formed a close development partnership with AKASOL GmbH, a Darmstadt-based subsidiary of Schulz Group (Tettnang) and a leading manufacturer of Li-ion battery systems for high performance applications. The partnership aims to develop... Read more →

Navistar Inc. paid $250,000 in penalties to the California Air Resources Board (ARB) for failing to follow proper testing procedures for one of its diesel exhaust filters, as required by state law. Companies that are in the business of providing pollution control technology for vehicles must make sure that their... Read more →

San Francisco Mayor Edwin M. Lee announced that the city will phase out the use of petroleum diesel in the municipal fleet and replace it with renewable diesel by the end of this year. Switching to renewable diesel will accelerate the progress San Francisco has made in cleaning its diesel... Read more →

By Gaurav Agnihotri for Oilprice.com With the recently concluded nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1 countries, oil prices have already started heading downward on sentiments that Iran’s crude oil supply would further contribute to the already rising global supply glut. The economic crisis in Greece, OPEC’s high production levels... Read more →

Global Bioenergies has adapted its bio-isobutene process, first developed with glucose as a resource, for the use of sucrose, the main component of sugar cane and sugar beet. The adaptation of the process to sucrose was one the first technical milestones set as part of “IBN-One”, the Joint-Venture between Global... Read more →

In the next stage of development for their jointly-developed fuel cell bus (earlier post), Toyota Motor Corporation and Hino Motors, Ltd. will carry out field tests in Tokyo from 24-30 July, hoping to accelerate technological development of the bus with the aim of bringing it to market. The new bus... Read more →

The California cities of Stockton and Porterville have each placed orders with Proterra for its new Catalyst battery-electric bus with funding from the San Joaquin Valley Unified Air Pollution Control District. Four new Proterra buses will replace diesel buses in a concerted effort from the Valley to enable the proliferation... Read more →

Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and Cella Energy have been awarded industrial research and development funding by Space Florida, the State of Florida’s aerospace and spaceport development authority, and MATIMOP, Israel’s Industrial Center for Research and Development. IAI, a global leader in the development and production of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS)... Read more →

BorgWarner is providing its award-winning regulated two-stage (R2S) turbocharging technology for Volkswagen's new high-performance 2.0L diesel engine. Engineered to comply with the Euro 6 emissions standard, the four-cylinder engine is the most powerful diesel engine in its class. Providing an output of 240 hp (176 kW) and a maximum torque... Read more →

Bosch and TomTom have agreed to collaborate on innovative mapping technology for automated driving. Under this agreement, TomTom is designing the necessary maps, while Bosch, on the basis of its systems engineering work, is defining the specifications these maps have to meet. The maps are already being used in the... Read more →

Red Rock Biofuels LLC will produce approximately three million gallons of low-carbon, renewable jet fuel per year for FedEx Express, a subsidiary of FedEx Corporation. The agreement runs through 2024, with first delivery expected in 2017. FedEx joins Southwest Airlines, which signed a purchase agreement with RedRock in November 2014... Read more →

Voltabox of Texas, the US subsidiary of German automotive supplier paragon AG, officially opened of its new plant in Cedar Park where Voltabox is now operating one fully automated assembly line for Li-ion battery packs. Further lines are set to follow. Alongside Voltabox, parts of the same building will also... Read more →

Researchers at the Advanced Batteries Research Center of the Korea Electronics Technology Institute have developed lithium-ion batteries with a self-extinguishing capability for improved safety by integrating temperature-responsive microcapsules containing a fire-extinguishing agent in the cell. The microcapsules release the extinguisher agent upon increased internal temperature of a battery cell, resulting... Read more →

Ford has introduced a new air filtration system in some of its vehicles in Europe that blocks almost all nitrogen dioxide—a key trigger of asthma—up to 99% of pollen, and gaseous pollutants and odors. The new filter is 50% more effective than its predecessor at blocking ultra-fine particles that are... Read more →

A team at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), with a colleague at EcoEngineering, has explored the potential of blending ethanol with natural gasoline (condensate) to produce flex-fuels (ASTM D5798-13a) and high-octane, mid-level ethanol blends (MLEBs). A paper on their work is published in the ACS journal Energy & Fuels.... Read more →

Pipelines to carry hydrogen cost more than other gas pipelines because of the measures required to combat the damage hydrogen does to steel’s mechanical properties (e.g., hydrogen embrittlement, HE) over time. Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have now calculated that hydrogen-specific steel pipelines can cost... Read more →

Gas Technology Institute (GTI) has acquired the assets of Aerojet Rocketdyne’s (AR’s) energy systems portfolio. Included in the transfer of assets are patents and intellectual property (IP), physical assets, and technologies across the spectrum of gas and oil production, gasification, gas-to-liquids, power generation, and hydrogen generation. GTI has worked closely... Read more →

Liquid Light has signed a technology development agreement with The Coca-Cola Company. The objective of the agreement is to accelerate the development of Liquid Light’s technology which can make mono-ethylene glycol (MEG) from CO2. (Earlier post.) For example, a bio-ethanol production facility could make bio-MEG from the CO2 byproduct that... Read more →

Several Xerox transportation solutions and analytics innovations are being demonstrated at Mcity, the University of Michigan’s new test environment for connected and automated vehicles. (Earlier post.) Xerox demonstrations include: CloudParc technology guides drivers to available parking spots using cameras and small computers mounted on traffic poles to track the availability... Read more →

The University of Michigan has opened Mcity, the first large controlled environment specifically designed to test the potential of connected and automated vehicle technologies that will lead the way to mass-market driverless cars. Mcity was designed and developed by U-M’s interdisciplinary Mobility Transformation Center (MTC), in partnership with the Michigan... Read more →

Bio-based chemical company GFBiochemicals has started commercial production at its 10,000 MT/a capacity levulinic acid plant in Caserta, Italy. GFBiochemicals is the first company to produce levulinic acid at commercial scale directly from biomass. The company made the announcement at the BIO World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology, Montreal. Levulinic acid... Read more →

Buick introduced the 2016 Encore Sport Touring crossover, a more sporty take on the brand’s popular crossover. (Encore sales increased 29% for the first six months of 2015, logging 30,549 units.) The new model is equipped with an exclusive, all-new 1.4L turbocharged engine with direct injection and stop/start technology. The... Read more →