The US Department of Energy’s Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) released its new strategic plan, titled Strategic Plan for a Thriving and Sustainable Bioeconomy. The strategic plan—with a vision for 2040—lays out BETO’s mission to accomplish its vision in a dynamic setting that realizes changes in the energy landscape, advances in... Read more →

Luxury EV developer Lucid Motors and Mobileye N.V. announced a collaboration to enable autonomous driving capability on Lucid vehicles. Lucid will launch its first car, the Lucid Air (earlier post), with a complete sensor set for autonomous driving from day one, including camera, radar and lidar sensors. Lucid chose Mobileye... Read more →

Infiniti will stage the world premiere of the QX50 Concept mid-size premium SUV at the 2017 North American International Auto Show in Detroit; the concept showcases the brand’s vision for a next-generation mid-size premium SUV and also demonstrates a potential application for Infiniti’s production-ready VC-Turbo variable compression ratio engine (earlier... Read more →

LanzaTech has been selected by the Department of Energy’s Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) to receive a $4-million award to design and plan a demonstration-scale facility using industrial off gases to produce 3 million gallons/year of low-carbon jet and diesel fuels. The LanzaTech award was one of six totaling $12.9 million.... Read more →

SAIC-GM has officially launched the newest member of the Cadillac CT6 American luxury sedan family—the CT6 Plug-In (earlier post)—in China. It is available in two variants priced at RMB 558,800 (US$80,400) and RMB 658,800 (US$94,700). Built on GM’s all-new intelligent rear-wheel electric drive platform, the CT6 Plug-In offers steady, robust... Read more →

Symbio, the French producer of hydrogen fuel cell systems for transportation, reports that it has delivered 150 commercial hydrogen-electric vehicles which have now travelled a combined 220,000 miles (350,000 km). The company will be showcasing its solutions at CES 2017 next week. The Kangoo ZE-H2 is based on the Renault... Read more →

At CES 2017 in Las Vegas next week, Rinspeed will unveil its Oasis autonomous electric concept vehicle. The two-seat runabout—somewhat reminiscent of a modern interpretation of famous Star Wars icon R2D2—can turn on its wheels with almost a zero radius due to a special steering angle, two in-wheel electric motors... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) will award up to $7 million to projects at eight universities to accelerate the introduction of affordable, scalable, and sustainable high-performance fuels for use in high-efficiency, low-emission engines. Under the Co-Optimization of Fuels and Engines (Co-Optima) initiative (earlier post), DOE’s Bioenergy Technologies Office and... Read more →

Researchers in China have developed an integrated two-bed continuous flow reactor process for the direct synthesis with high carbon yields (~70%) of dodecanol (C12H26O) or 2,4,8- trimethylnonane (C12H26O2)—a jet-fuel-range C12 branched alkane—from methyl isobutyl ketone (MIBK), which can be derived from lignocellulose. The dodecanol as obtained can be used as... Read more →

High-definition (HD) mapping company HERE and Mobileye, developer of computer vision and machine learning, data analysis, localization and mapping for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems and autonomous driving, plan to enter a strategic partnership that links their respective autonomous driving technologies into an enhanced industry-leading offering for automakers. Under the partnership,... Read more →

Volvo Cars will introduce Skype for Business, Microsoft’s collaborative productivity app, to its new 90 Series cars. Volvo Cars is the first carmaker to launch such an in-car productivity tool. Skype for Business is actively used by millions of people at work around the globe. In Volvo’s 90 Series cars... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has selected six projects—entitled, “Project Definition for Pilot- and Demonstration-Scale Manufacturing of Biofuels, Bioproducts, and Biopower”—-for up to $12.9 million in federal funding. These projects, required to share the cost at a minimum of 50%, will develop and execute plans for the manufacturing of... Read more →

The oil discharged into the Gulf of Mexico following the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) rig in 2010 contaminated more than 1,000 square miles of seafloor. The complexity of the event has made it difficult for scientists to determine the long-term fate of oil in this ocean... Read more →

Runoff from pavement with coal-tar-based sealant is the primary source of toxic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) to streambed sediments in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, according to a US Geological Survey and Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District open-access study published in the journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. Pavement sealant is a black, shiny liquid... Read more →

Brazil’s Petrobras closed two asset sales for the total sum of US$587 million. Petrobras subsidiary Petrobras Biocombustível (PBio) sold to Tereos Participations—a company in the French Tereos group—its entire stake in Guarani, representing 45.97% of the company’s equity capital, for US$202 million. The Petrobras Board of Directors also approved the... Read more →

Automotive Grade Linux (AGL) has released the latest version of its infotainment platform. Developed through a joint effort by dozens of member companies, the AGL Unified Code Base (UCB) 3.0 is an open-source infotainment platform positioned as a de facto industry standard. The goal of the UCB infotainment platform is... Read more →

Volkswagen Financial Services AG, the financial services division of Volkswagen Group, has acquired PayByPhone, a leading parking payment provider. The deal positions Volkswagen Financial Services AG solidly in the mobile payments and parking sectors, while providing the foundation for future PayByPhone growth globally. Volkswagen Financial Services AG has already acquired... Read more →

A team at the University of California, Irvine has discovered that the iron protein (the reductase component) of the natural enzyme nitrogenase can, independent of its natural catalytic partner, convert CO2 to carbon monoxide (CO)—a syngas used to produce useful biofuels and other chemical products. The team, led by Professor... Read more →

Over the next three years, the Volkswagen Group will recruit more than 1,000 IT specialists; half of these people will be employed in Wolfsburg. They will work in the core IT organization at the company’s headquarters as well as in IT labs in Wolfsburg, Berlin and Munich. These labs are... Read more →

Ford Motor Company is introducing its next-generation Fusion Hybrid autonomous development vehicle; the car will first appear at CES 2017 and the North American International Auto Show in January. The new vehicle uses the current Ford autonomous vehicle platform, but ups the processing power with new computer hardware. Electrical controls... Read more →

Researchers from the US Naval Research Laboratory’s (NRL) chemistry and tactical electronic warfare divisions recently completed the first flight of the Ion Tiger unmanned air vehicle with a new hydrogen-powered fuel cell built in-house. The NRL team designed and built a custom fuel cell system capable of up to 5,000... Read more →

Talking hands-free on a mobile phone while driving is just as distracting as a conversation using a hand-held phone, according to a recent study by researchers at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Australia. Dr. Shimul (Md Mazharul) Haque, from QUT’s School of Civil Engineering and Built Environment and Centre... Read more →

At CES 2017, TriLumina (earlier post)—a spin-out from Sandia National Laboratories—will demonstrate, in collaboration with LeddarTech (earlier post), an innovative 256-pixel, 3D LiDAR solution for autonomous driving applications powered by TriLumina’s breakthrough laser illumination module and LeddarTech’s LeddarCore ICs. TriLumina has developed eye-safe, vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs). The TriLumina illumination... Read more →

Tesla and Panasonic finalized an agreement to begin the manufacturing of photovoltaic (PV) cells and modules at the Buffalo, NY factory. These high-efficiency PV cells and modules will be used to produce solar panels in the non-solar roof products. When production of the solar roof begins, Tesla will also incorporate... Read more →

Neste has signed an agreement with Electrawinds ReFuel B.V. on the acquisition of a former biodiesel plant in Sluiskil in the Netherlands. Neste intends to use the Sluiskil plant for the storage and pre-treatment of renewable raw materials for the company’s NEXBTL renewable diesel refineries. By acquiring the Sluiskil plant,... Read more →

Beginning in 2017, Siemens employees at as many as 100 of the company's locations in Germany will be able to recharge their electric vehicles free of charge. This will apply not only to all-electric vehicles but also to plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. For this service, Siemens will use its existing... Read more →

In a new paper in the journal Nature Materials (in an edition focused on materials for sustainable energy), a team from Stanford University and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory has reviewed milestones in the progress of solid-state photoelectrocatalytic technologies toward delivering solar fuels and chemistry. Noting the “important advances” in solar... Read more →

Materials science as key enabler for clean energy transition Former US Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, Yi Cui and Nian Liu, all currently at Stanford University, write in a Perspective piece in Nature Materials that research in materials science is contributing to progress towards a sustainable future based on clean... Read more →

Scientists at Stanford University and the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have discovered a one-pot synthesis process using diamondoids—the smallest possible bits of diamond—to assemble atoms into hybrid metal–organic chalcogenide nanowires with solid inorganic cores having three-atom cross-sections, representing the smallest possible nanowires. By grabbing various types of... Read more →

Toyota Motor Corporation conducted a survey of accidents occurring in parking lots involving three models in Japan (the Alphard, the Vellfire, and the Prius) equipped with the Intelligent Clearance Sonar (ICS) system—a system which helps to prevent or mitigate collision damage in parking spaces. According to the survey of data—conducted... Read more →

For the past five years, Ford has issued an annual trend report exploring societal shifts expected to influence consumers and brands (e.g., earlier post). The reports have focused on microtrends in consumer behavior; the fifth anniversary edition report—Looking Further with Ford: 2017 Trends—revisits three that surfaced in earlier reports, and... Read more →

EU member states will make the 700 MHz band available for wireless broadband by 2020, enabling a shift to 5G mobile internet, European Parliament and Council negotiators agreed informally last week. Releasing the 700MHz band for internet use would help create an efficient digital single market and the shift to... Read more →

Researchers from China and Australia have developed a mechanically robust biopolymer network binder that enabled the preparation of high-loading sulfur electrodes to improve the electrochemical performance of Li-sulfur batteries. The binder supported a high-sulfur-loading electrode of 19.8 mg cm-2 with an ultrahigh areal specific capacity of 26.4 mAh cm-2. The... Read more →

The US Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) has awarded $4.6 million to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for two transformational agriculture technology projects. One project aims to use electrical current to image the root system, which will accelerate the breeding of crops with roots that are tailored to... Read more →

Earlier this year, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) received several petitions from state and local government agencies from across the country and other organizations to increase the stringency of the on-highway heavy-duty engine NOx emission standards from 0.2 grams per brake horsepower-hour (g/bhp-hr) to 0.02 g/bhp-hr. On 20 December,... Read more →

Iowa State University will bring its expertise in biorenewable technologies and pilot plant operations to the country’s 10th Manufacturing USA Institute. (Earlier post.) The recently announced advanced manufacturing institute is dedicated to improving the productivity and efficiency of chemical manufacturing. Those improvements could include combining processes such as mixing, reacting... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) announced $15 million (DE-FOA-0001639), subject to appropriations, to support community-based projects to accelerate the adoption of advanced and alternative fuel vehicles and demonstrate energy efficient mobility systems including connected and autonomous vehicles as well as new transportation system models. DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency... Read more →

Researchers from the University of Waterloo Center for Automotive Research (WatCAR) in Canada are modifying a Lincoln MKZ Hybrid to autonomous drive-by-wire operation. The research platform, dubbed “Autonomoose” is equipped with a full suite of radar, sonar, lidar, inertial and vision sensors; NVIDIA DRIVE PX 2 AI platform (earlier post)... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) is awarding $18 million to five projects for research, development, and demonstration of innovative plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) and direct injection propane engine technologies, as well as community-based projects to accelerate the adoption of light, medium and heavy duty vehicles that operate on fuels... Read more →

Enel, as coordinator, and Austria’s main utility Verbund are collaborating on a fast-recharging network project in Italy and Austria, alongside some of the world’s largest EV carmakers including Renault, Nissan, BMW and Volkswagen Group Italia (represented by Volkswagen and Audi). Electric Vehicle Arteries (EVA+) aims to create a fast charging... Read more →

Thirteen new electric buses have been added to Nottingham’s existing fleet of 45 electric vehicles, turning another two park and ride services into fully zero emission services. The Chinese-built BYD eBuses will run on the CentreLink and EcoLink routes which have been designed to cut the amount of traffic entering... Read more →

Neste is producing the first “Christmas diesel” in a holiday recycling campaign inviting Finns to collect the fat from baked Christmas hams in an effort to produce enough 100% renewable fuel to drive around the world three times. The festive charity stunt aims to demonstrate the power of recycling and... Read more →

Volkswagen is taking a further step to develop market potentials in Africa. The Hon. Francis Gatare, Director of the Rwanda Development Board, and Thomas Schäfer, CEO of Volkswagen Group South Africa, this week signed a memorandum of understanding for a new integrated mobility concept in Kigali in the presence of... Read more →

Honda Motor Co., Ltd. announced that the company has reached the 100 million-unit milestone in cumulative global automobile production. Honda began automobile production in 1963 with the production of the T360 mini-truck, Honda’s first mass-production model, at Saitama Factory. In the same year, Honda began production of the S500 small-sized... Read more →

by Nick Cunningham of Oilprice.com Oil prices are probably already high enough to spark a rebound in shale production. The IEA says that in the third quarter of 2016, the US shale industry became cash flow neutral for the first time ever. That isn’t a typo. For years, the drilling... Read more →

Volkswagen will present a new I.D. family model—a multi-functional electric vehicle—at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit in January. Like the I.D. concept shown this year (earlier post), this new concept is also based on the Modular Electric Drive Kit (MEB), and so it shows the potential and... Read more →

Visedo, a Finnish manufacturer specializing in electric powertrains and components, has secured a financing package of €20 million (US$21 million) to support its international growth plans. The financing consists of an equity investment of €13.5 million, an EFSI loan of €5 million and €1.5 million in funding from other sources.... Read more →

Sandia National Laboratories has formed an industry-funded Spray Combustion Consortium to better understand fuel injection by developing modeling tools. Control of fuel sprays is key to the development of clean, affordable fuel-efficient engines. Intended for industry, software vendors and national laboratories, the consortium provides a direct path from fundamental research... Read more →

Suzuki is joining The Linux Foundation and Automotive Grade Linux. Suzuki is the ninth automaker to join AGL and joins Toyota and Mazda as a Platinum member. Adopting an open source approach to software development is a key part of our technology strategy and will help us to keep pace... Read more →

The Volkswagen Group has now received all necessary official approvals within the remit of the German Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) for the modification of diesel vehicles with type EA189 engines. (Earlier post.) In close consultation with the relevant authorities, the Group brands concerned will successively notify European and international... Read more →