Daimler and Uber announced an agreement on their intent to cooperate on the supply and operation of self-driving vehicles. Under the terms of the cooperation Daimler plans to introduce self-driving vehicles on Uber’s global ridesharing network in the coming years. Daimler is the first auto company to join with Uber... Read more →

China-based Contemporary Amperex Technology Limited (CATL), a leading global provider of battery and energy storage solutions, has taken a 22% stake in Finland-based Valmet Automotive as part of a new strategic partnership in electric automotive solutions. Simultaneously CATL has subscribed to new shares issued by Valmet Automotive for a 22... Read more →

Volvo Buses has sold 3,000 hybrid, electric hybrid and electric buses to customers in 22 countries in Europe, South America, Asia and Australia. In 2016 alone, Volvo sold 533 electrified buses. Following the introduction of Volvo Buses’ first hybrid buses in 2010, sales have increased steadily at the same time... Read more →

If the proposed broad 20% border-adjustment tax were implemented and applied to the energy sector, the result would likely lead to a large increase in gasoline prices and a big premium in domestic oil prices vs. international, according to new analysis by Bloomberg Intelligence. Pump prices could rise an average... Read more →

McLaren Automotive has launched a strategic project to design and develop technology for the next generation of powertrains. Working with a number of partners including BMW Group and Ricardo, the project intends to develop new combustion technology that will deliver a higher output per capacity than currently possible. It also... Read more →

UK-based Torotrak, a developer and supplier of emissions reduction and fuel efficiency technology for vehicles, is refocusing its strategy based on its understanding of how the priorities for many players in the European passenger car market—Torotrak’s customers—have profoundly changed in recent months. The Torotrak Group has three main product lines:... Read more →

Toyota Motor Corporation has begun using two fuel cell forklifts, which have been manufactured by Toyota Industries Corporation, at its Motomachi Plant located in Toyota City. In addition to offering excellent environmental performance, fuel cell forklifts are also very convenient given that they can be refueled in approximately three minutes.... Read more →

Konrad Technologies GmbH, a specialist on sensor fusion for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), and SET GmbH, a specialist on Hardware in the Loop (HiL) testing, are joining their knowledge and skills to develop custom testing systems in the area of driver assistance systems. The agreement provides for a collaboration... Read more →

Researchers at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), as part of the AutoNet2030 project, have developed a cooperative maneuvering control algorithm allowing automated vehicles to operate in traffic alongside manually-driven vehicles. This is a key step in the shift towards autonomous driving expected to be achieved by 2030. AutoNet2030, co-funded... Read more →

Eguana Technologies, a provider of power conversion and control systems for distributed energy storage, and Bosch are collaborating on the Home Battery System (HBS) project. The Home Battery system and a summary of results to date will be on display at DistribuTECH in San Diego later this week. This project... Read more →

General Motors and Honda are establishing the auto industry’s first manufacturing joint venture—Fuel Cell System Manufacturing, LLC, FCSM)—to mass-produce an advanced hydrogen fuel cell system that will be used in future products from each company. Over the past three years, GM and Honda have been collaborating on next-generation fuel cell... Read more →

NSK Ltd. has successfully demonstrated the first transmission-equipped wheel hub motor, designed to improve the environmental performance, safety, and comfort of automobiles. Building on the knowledge it has gained from the prototype wheel hub motor it developed, NSK is aiming to commercialize wheel hub components such as the hub unit... Read more →

The distribution of Neste MY Renewable Diesel, produced entirely from waste and residues, has expanded to the Neste Truck network for heavy vehicles in Finland. The product enables up to 90% lower greenhouse gas emissions throughout the life cycle of the fuel compared to conventional fossil diesel. At the beginning... Read more →

Car and Driver reports that Nissan will unveil a Juke e-Power concept at the Tokyo auto show this fall. In November 2016, Nissan introduced the new series-hybrid e-Power drive system in the Note. Although e-Power borrows technology from the LEAF, unlike the all-battery-electric powertrain of the LEAF, e-POWER adds a... Read more →

New research led by the University of Leicester in the UK has made a novel breakthrough in understanding how solidification cracking occurs during the welding of steel, an important engineering alloy. In an open-access paper in the journal Scientific Reports, the team proposes that solidification cracks grow by linking micro-porosities... Read more →

A team from the University of Illinois has found that compared to top leaves, the shaded lower level leaves of C4 crops planted in dense stands such as corn and Miscanthus underperform, costing farmers about 10% of potential yield. These findings, published in an open-access paper in the Journal of... Read more →

Last Friday, President Trump signed an executive order suspending “immigrant and nonimmigrant entry” into the US from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen for 90 days, with the potential for adding further countries of origin to the list of proscribed. Ride-sharing companies Uber and Lyft, both of which... Read more →

An electric-drive Extra 330LE aerobatics plane recently set a world record in ascent in the category of “Electric aircraft weighing up to 1,000 kilograms. The pilot reached an altitude of 3,000 meters in only four minutes and 22 seconds, beating the previous record by one minute and 10 seconds. The... Read more →

The city of Paris recently launched the electric commercial vehicle car sharing service for professionals, “VULe Partagés”. PSA Group is providing 80% of the vehicle fleet put into service. Out of 10 vehicles available, 4 Peugeot Partner and 4 Citroën Berlingo are made available to users. This type of vehicle... Read more →

Stanadyne, a fuel injection systems developer based in Windsor, Connecticut, and BYC (ASIMCO Tianwei) a fuel injection systems developer based in Beijing, China, have formed of a strategic alliance to bring diesel common rail (DCR) fuel systems to the global market. Both companies, which specialize in elements of DCR fuel... Read more →

OpenSynergy, a developer of embedded automotive software for in-car cockpit solutions, is developing the industry’s first software hypervisor for the ARM Cortex-R52 processor, ARM’s most advanced real-time safety processor. The hypervisor turns any chip based on the Cortex-R52 into several virtual machines capable of simultaneously executing separate software tasks. The... Read more →

Mitsubishi Motors Corporation (MMC) announced that through its local importer and distributor MMC Ukraine, MMC will supply the National Police of Ukraine with 635 units of the Outlander PHEV. These vehicles are to be delivered around July 2017. The supply stems from an emissions trading agreement signed by a number... Read more →

Using a simple device that plugs into the OBD II port below the steering wheel, Ford SmartLink will give Ford customers who own 2010 – 2016 model year Ford and Lincoln vehicles that are not equipped with a modem access to: Smartphone-based remote start, lock and unlock. 4G Wi-Fi hotspot... Read more →

In December 2016, the US Department of Energy (DOE) announced that it would be awarding $15M to organizations in an effort to accelerate the adoption of advanced and alternative fuel vehicles. Blue Bird Corporation, a bus manufacturer located in Fort Valley, GA, was presented the largest amount at $4.4M in... Read more →

A team from Saudi Aramco Research and Development Center has developed a novel low-cost, high-octane gasoline blend component it calls SuperButol. SuperButol is made from low-value mixed butenes using a new process the team has named Butenes to Butanol (BTB); it has slightly lower blending RON compared to MTBE but... Read more →

The University of California, Irvine is poised to be the first college campus in the US to convert its buses to an all-electric fleet. The student-funded and -operated Anteater Express shuttle service is acquiring 20 buses from BYD for $15 million. The vehicles are being built at the company’s Lancaster... Read more →

BMW of North America has expanded the ChargeNow by EVgo programs (including ChargeNow DC Fast) to more than 50 metro areas in the US, encompassing the entire EVgo public charging network, the largest public DC Fast charging network in the nation. With this expansion, more than 92% of BMW i3,... Read more →

McLaren Racing and Stratasys entered a new four-year partnership under which Stratasys will supply McLaren Racing with a suite of 3D printing and additive manufacturing solutions, as the Official Supplier of 3D Printing Solutions to the McLaren-Honda Formula 1 team. Stratasys will work closely with the grand prix outfit as... Read more →

Velocys plc, the developer of smaller scale gas-to-liquids (GTL), signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with ThermoChem Recovery International, Inc. (TRI), establishing a strategic alliance. TRI—a leading provider of steam reforming gasification systems suitable for woody biomass and other waste feedstocks—will be Velocys’ preferred supplier of gasification systems for its... Read more →

Two days after President Trump issued a Presidential Memorandum inviting TransCanada to “promptly re-submit its application to the Department of State for a Presidential permit for the construction and operation of the Keystone XL Pipeline,” the company has done so. In the memorandum, Trump directed the Secretary of State (former... Read more →

Edeniq, Inc., a leading cellulosic and biorefining technology company, and Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) announced that the US Environmental Protection Agency has approved Little Sioux Corn Processors’ registration of its 150 million gallon per year Marcus, Iowa, ethanol plant for cellulosic ethanol production. Under the terms of its license... Read more →

Throughout 2017, a fully-functional Finnish sauna on wheels will travel 12,000 miles across the US. Neste’s low-carbon drop-in renewable diesel called Neste MY Renewable Diesel will be used to fuel the truck carrying the sauna while traveling along the UUS West Coast. When Neste MY Renewable Diesel is being used,... Read more →

According to a new report from Navigant Research, the shipment volume of advanced batteries for the first three quarters of 2016 equates to more than 323.5 million individual battery cells, 16.1 GWh of energy capacity, 61.4 GW of power capacity, and $3.8 billion in sales. The majority of the advanced... Read more →

Many recent human factors studies of takeover time in automated vehicles have looked at how long it takes a driver to resume control of the vehicle in critical situations in which the driver has a relatively short time span to respond to the takeover request (TOR). However, there has been... Read more →

DuPont Industrial Biosciences has been awarded a grant from the European Commission to demonstrate high-efficiency enzyme production to increase biogas yields as part of the DEMETER project, funded from the Bio Based Industries Joint Undertaking under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation program. Enzyme technology has been proven... Read more →

General Motors has introduced a next generation infotainment software development kit (NGI SDK) that allows software developers around the world to develop and test in-vehicle applications for GM’s infotainment systems. With the NGI SDK, apps can be built to run directly on the vehicle using HTML5 and JavaScript. The development... Read more →

Norsepower Oy Ltd., a provider of low- maintenance, software-operated, and data-verified auxiliary wind propulsion systems, signed an agreement with Finnish shipping company Viking Line to install its Rotor Sail Solution onboard the M/S Viking Grace, an LNG-fueled cruise ferry. The 57,565 GT M/S Viking Grace currently operates in the archipelago... Read more →

With the LTE-V2X (LTE vehicle-to-everything) standard finalized and 5G standardization impending, the use of cellular technology for low-latency Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) (combined, C-V2X, earlier post) applications is now a realistic prospect—one that will challenge the legacy IEEE 802.11p Dedicated Short-Range Communications (DSRC) standard. In its new Intelligent Transportation... Read more →

To align with industry megatrends and boost its long term growth, Faurecia Emissions Control Technologies has reoriented its strategy and become Faurecia Clean Mobility. Faurecia Clean Mobility is one of three Faurecia business groups, the other two being Automotive Seating and Interior Systems. Faurecia Emissions Control Technologies developed exhaust systems... Read more →

Jedlix, a subsidiary of Dutch renewable energy company Eneco, has made its smart charging app available to all home-charging Tesla drivers. A previously conducted test among 40 Tesla drivers demonstrated that the app increases the share of renewable energy in the battery and reduces costs. Jedlix’ mission is that, in... Read more →

The 2017 edition of the BP Energy Outlook, published today, forecasts that global demand for energy will increase by around 30% between 2015 and 2035, an average growth of 1.3% per year. However, this growth in energy demand is significantly lower than the 3.4% per year rise expected in global... Read more →

Divergent 3D, an additive manufacturing technology development and licensing company focused on the automotive sector, has closed its $23 million Series A funding round led by technology venture capital fund Horizons Ventures. Divergent 3D will apply the new funding toward commercializing its hardware-software platform. Divergent 3D’s strategic partner Altran (earlier... Read more →

The Chinese government approved NEVS’ application to start production of electric vehicles in its manufacturing plant in Tianjin. The electric vehicle production license approved by the Chinese National Development Reform Commission (NDRC) is required in order to manufacture electric vehicles in China. NEVS is the first joint venture company with... Read more →

The US Air Force Research Laboratory, Materials and Manufacturing Directorate (AFRL/RX) has issued a funding opportunity (FOA-RQKM-2017-0006) for up to $55 million to design, retrofit, construct, operate, validate and qualify domestic, commercial-scale, an integrated biorefinery(s) capable of producing bio-equivalent fuels suitable for military use with a rated capacity of at... Read more →

Audi AG has started a development partnership with EOS, a global provider of high-end Additive Manufacturing (AM) solutions. The EOS consulting division “Additive Minds" is supporting Audi in the holistic implementation of this industrial 3D printing technology and the development of a corresponding 3D printing center in Ingolstadt. Audi recognized... Read more →

Volkswagen has developed a windshield made with a conductive layer of silver to provide required heat for clear windshields in winter without the use of embedded filament wires. Any renewed misting or icing up is also prevented. For decades, fine filaments have been inserted into windshield glass as an optional... Read more →

The California Energy Commission and California Air Resources Board released the annual Joint Agency Staff Report on Assembly Bill 8: 2016 Assessment of Time and Cost Needed to Attain 100 Hydrogen Refueling Stations in California. The 2016 Joint Report updates the time and cost assessments to design, permit, construct, and... Read more →

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA), IVECO (a brand of CNH Industrial) and ENGIE (Global Energy Player) are broadly collaborating to promote natural gas vehicles and infrastructure in Europe. This collaboration is in line with the implementation of the DAFI Directive (Directive 2014/94 - Deployment of Alternative Fuels Infrastructures), with a particular... Read more →

Hydrogenious Technologies GmbH and MAN Diesel & Turbo SE—which, in addition to being a leading provider of large-bore diesels and turbomachinery for marine and stationary applications, is also a specialist for salt-bed reactors for chemical industry—recently closed an agreement for joint development of industrial-scale Liquid Organic Hydrogen Carrier (LOHC) hydrogenation... Read more →

BMW and Nissan have again joined forces—this time with EVgo, the nation’s largest public DC Fast charging network—to increase public access to DC Fast charging stations across the US. The partners will make an additional 174 locations in 33 states available to all EV owners in those markets, and plan... Read more →