The state of New York has approved Audi of America’s application to be the first company authorized to perform autonomous vehicle testing in the state. Audi intends to demonstrate and test vehicles in New York with Society of Automobile Engineers (SAE) Level 3 automation. It will conduct the first autonomous... Read more →

Toyota’s Collaborative Safety Research Center (CSRC) formally launched the next phase of its research mission, following on the successful conclusion of its first five years of auto safety research. The new research effort, named CSRC Next, will focus on the challenges and opportunities of autonomous and connected vehicle technologies over... Read more →

Sweden-based NEVS is launching a city mobility pilot program with support from Tianjin Binhai Hi-tech Industrial Development Area (THT). The program offers car-sharing and ride hailing solutions in Tianjin city, with 15 million inhabitants. The users will get access to all NEVS 9-3 EV series. With this green technology collaboration,... Read more →

A joint study by Controlled Power Technologies (CPT) and Austria’s Technische Universität Wien (TU Wien) into 48V diesel mild hybrid technology verified a 9% reduction of NOxin raw engine-out emissions, while retaining the fuel economy and CO2 benefits of diesel engine technology. The cost effectiveness of this approach is further... Read more →

Continental has developed innovative charging technology called “AllCharge” that uses the electric powertrain of an EV as a universal charger supporting all types of cable-based charging stations. AllCharge can always use the maximum output rate—up to 800V and 350 kW—at all types of stations: single-phase and three-phase AC or high-speed... Read more →

Automotive Grade Linux (AGL), a collaborative cross-industry effort developing an open platform for the connected car, announced that Toyota has adopted the AGL platform for Toyota’s next-generation infotainment system. The 2018 Toyota Camry will be the first Toyota vehicle on the market with the AGL-based system in the United States.... Read more →

A study by a team from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Aerothermochemistry and Combustion Systems Laboratory and the University of Kaiserslautern (Germany) has found that blends comprising poly (oxymethylene) dimethyl ethers (POMDME) and diesel show a significant reduction in soot emissions of up to to 34% with no significant... Read more →

Researchers at Loughborough University in the UK have developed a novel system that enhances SCR operation to further reduce NOx emissions and improve diesel engine efficiency. The Ammonia Creation and Conversion Technology (ACCT) created by academics from the University’s School of Mechanical, Electrical and Manufacturing Engineering effectively increases the capacity... Read more →

The number of transmission speeds (gears) in new light vehicles has been growing over the last few decades. By 2016, more than half of all cars and light trucks were 6-speed, according to data gathered by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The sales share of 7–10-speed transmissions grew to 18%... Read more →

Politecnico di Torino has built a prototype system for dynamic on-road electric vehicle charging. The POLITO Charge While Driving system is going to be tested on the test circuit in Susa close to the city of Turin. This test site has been developed in the framework of a research initiative... Read more →

Automobili Lamborghini is collaborating with Houston Methodist Research Institute in a research project focused on a biocompatibility study of composite materials to be used mainly in prosthetic implants, but also in subcutaneous devices. The aim is to identify new materials that are lighter, better tolerated by the human body, and... Read more →

Havelaar Canada launched the Bison battery-electric pickup truck at the EMC show in Markham, Ontario today. Underpinning the Bison E-Pickup is an advanced dual-motor, fully-electric all-wheel-drive powertrain with advanced electronic management of the vehicle dynamics. The first all-electric pickup truck designed and tested in Canada, Havelaar’s Bison is built for... Read more →

From October 4 to 6, 2017 the Audi Production division in Ingolstadt is holding its second Smart Factory Hackathon. In this competition, talented young data scientists from all over the world have the opportunity to demonstrate their abilities. The goal is to work out practical solutions for production processes of... Read more →

Volvo Cars has become the first automaker in the world to export China-made cars to Europe by train via China’s new “One Belt, One Road” trade initiative. The first S90 premium sedans, built at Volvo’s Daqing plant in China, will arrive at a distribution centre in Zeebrugge, Belgium this week.... Read more →

A hybrid bus that runs on both diesel and liquid nitrogen has completed a series of trials to bring it one step closer to the road. The hybrid bus—CE Power—is the first to be powered by liquid nitrogen and has been built by engineers at HORIBA MIRA as part of... Read more →

The cryogenic high manganese steel developed by Korean steel-maker POSCO was recently registered as a standard technology with ASTM International. Cryogenic high manganese steel can withstand temperatures as low as -196 ˚C and is suitable storing and transporting LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas). Because the cryogenic steel has more weldability than... Read more →

Samsung SDI has completed construction of its electric vehicle (EV) battery plant in Hungary. Sitting on a 330,000 m2 site in Goed, the plant is capable of producing batteries for 50,000 electric vehicles annually with operations expected to begin in the second quarter of next year. The new plant will... Read more →

Researchers at KAUST have developed a computational model capable of simulating soot production inside gasoline direct injection (GDI) engines. Although today’s passenger vehicle engines are cleaner and more fuel efficient, GDI exhaust can still contain significant numbers of nanoscopic soot particles that are small enough to penetrate the lungs and... Read more →

TMC Compressors (TMC), the leading supplier of compressed air systems for marine and offshore use, is launching a boil-off gas compressor that can be utilized on all vessels that use LNG (liquefied natural gas) as ship fuel. The compressor system offers both financial and environmental benefits for users. Onboard a... Read more →

Wuppertal-based WSW mobil GmbH last week tendered the procurement of 63 fuel cell buses for operation in public transport. WSW is coordinating the joint procurement for its partners Verkehrs-Verbund Mainz-Wiesbaden GmbH; traffiQ Frankfurt; Regionalverkehr Köln GmbH (all Germany); and SASA SpA-AG in Bolzano (Itay) which are going to operate these... Read more →

A team a the University of Warwick has fully characterized the thermal behavior of a large-format 20 Ah lithium iron phosphate pouch cell over a wide range of ambient temperatures and C rates during both charging and discharging. The findings, reported in the Journal of Power Sources, are intended to... Read more →

Wärtsilä is currently implementing a digital transformation to become a data-led, insights-driven, and agile technology company dedicated to taking a leadership role in the smart marine and smart energy ecosystems throughout their entire lifecycle. The aim is to increase efficiency while enabling a zero-emissions society. Following the appointment of Chief... Read more →

Mercedes-Benz announced that its Rastatt plant—the company’s lead plant in global production of compact cars—will produce compact-class electric EQ models in the future. The decision is based on a declaration of intent, which the company has set up with the works council. All three German Mercedes-Benz car plants—Rastatt, Bremen and... Read more →

Alabama Graphite Corp. (AGC) reported positive electrochemical results from downstream lithium-ion battery tests recently performed on its silicon-oxide-enhanced coated spherical purified graphite ("Si-CSPG") produced from the AGC’s ultra-high-purity 99.999 wt% C natural flake graphite. Based on the addition of a 4 wt % silicon oxide (SiOx) to its CSPG, AGC... Read more →

Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd. has successfully developed a high-voltage cathode material for lithium iron phosphate rechargeable batteries. Using a proprietary materials design technology as well as a technology that precisely controls the composition of raw materials and the formation process of materials, Fujitsu Laboratories has successfully synthesized lithium iron pyrophosphate (Li5.33Fe5.33(P2O7)4).... Read more →

Researchers at the US Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory have developed an unusually active form of vanadium for hydrogenation reactions. Vanadium is an inexpensive common metal that could replace some of the precious metals currently found in catalysts used in these reactions, frequently used in processing of fuels (petro-... Read more →

Chemically aggressive conditions prevail during the electrochemical splitting of water to produce hydrogen, wearing out the catalysts used. Further, engineering stable electrodes using highly active catalyst nanopowders for electrochemical water splitting remains a notorious challenge. Now, chemists at the Centre for Electrochemical Sciences at Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) have devised an... Read more →

The Government of Canada is moving forward with provincial and territorial partners, industry and stakeholders, to develop a national strategy to increase the number of zero-emission vehicles (ZEVS)—battery electric, plug-in hybrid, and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles—on Canadian roads by 2018. Transportation accounts for about 24% of Canada’s emissions, mostly from... Read more →

The technology group Wärtsilä has signed an agreement with Eidesvik Offshore to install a hybrid system with batteries on board of its vessel Viking Princess. The ship will become the first offshore supply vessel in which batteries reduce the number of generators on board. The new energy storage solution will... Read more →

The Fresno County Rural Transit Agency (FCRTA), San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District (SJVAPCD), the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), the California Energy Commission (CEC) and CALSTART unveiled a program providing the Envision Solar EV ARC solar-powered electric vehicle charging stations in 13 rural incorporated cities throughout Fresno County.... Read more →

Mitsubishi Motors Corporation (MMC) delivered 635 Outlander PHEV vehicles to the National Police of Ukraine on 25 May through its local importer and distributor MMC Ukraine. The vehicle order stems from an emissions trading agreement signed by a number of Japanese companies with the Government of Ukraine. As part of... Read more →

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) has awarded Clean Energy a renewable natural gas (RNG) contract to fuel the Metro fleet of transit buses. The deal calls for Clean Energy to provide Metro its Redeem brand of RNG, the first renewable and commercially available vehicle fuel made entirely... Read more →

Research presented at the annual CMR (cardiovascular magnetic resonance) imaging conference of the European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging (EACVI) links PM2.5 pollution to heart damage. Among the sources of urban PM2.5 are diesel and gasoline direct injection (GDI) engines (earlier post). There is strong evidence that particulate matter (PM) from... Read more →

Researchers from Stanford University and the University of Tennessee report that high pressure could be the key to making advanced high-entropy alloys (HEAs, near-equiatomic solid solutions of multi-principal-elements that are promising for high-temperature applications, earlier post) that are lighter, stronger and more heat-resistant than conventional alloys. In an open access... Read more →

INFINITI LAB Toronto, an Internet of Things (IoT) and smart cities accelerator program from premium car brand INFINITI, announced the nine startups that will participate in the inaugural four-week accelerator program in Toronto. The nine participating startups have raised $2.7 million in funding between them, and during the program they... Read more →

WorldAutoSteel, the automotive group of the World Steel Association, has published a major update to Advanced High-Strength Steels Application Guidelines (AHSS Guidelines), Version 6.0. AHSS Guidelines Version 6.0 is a leading resource of technical best practices on the market today for the forming and joining of the newest steels. WorldAutoSteel... Read more →

On Monday, Ford Motor Company announced the immediate replacement of Mark Fields as CEO by Jim Hackett, who had led Ford Smart Mobility LLC since March 2016. Ford also announced changes in roles for three top executives: Jim Farley (Global Markets), Joe Hinrichs (Global Operations) and Marcy Klevorn (Mobility). (Earlier... Read more →

Shell officially opened its Joint Research Center for Cleaner Mobility with Tsinghua’s Department of Automotive Engineering (DAE). Shell has partnered with Tsinghua University since 201 to provide students with the latest knowledge in lubricants technology. This new center will focus on developing solutions for the automotive sector, including the development... Read more →

SkyNRG and AEG Fuels completed the delivery of sustainable aviation biofuels for the Bombardier Business Aircraft demonstration fleet flying from KLM Jet Center in Amsterdam, Netherlands to the European Business Aviation Convention and Exhibition (EBACE) in Geneva, Switzerland. This is the first delivery of biofuel completed by AEG Fuels. Bombardier’s... Read more →

Many established vendors and innovative startups are positioning solid-state light detection and ranging (LiDAR) technologies as a cost-effective means to industrialize reliable obstacle detection and simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) in autonomous vehicles. ABI Research expects solutions to come to market beginning in 2019, with the market value nearing US$13... Read more →

The Volkswagen brand has set itself new, ambitious targets for reducing the environmental impact of production. By 2025, vehicles and components are to be produced in a way which is 45% more environmentally compatible than in 2010, the reference year for the current Think Blue. Factory. environmental program. (Earlier post.)... Read more →

Researchers from Chalmers University of Technology and Technical University of Denmark have shown that thin alloy films of single-target co-sputtered platinum-yttrium exhibit up to 7x higher specific activity (13.4 ± 0.4 mA cm−2) for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in fuel cells than polycrystalline platinum, and up to one order... Read more →

Groupe Renault signed a final agreement for the acquisition of Intel’s French embedded software R&D activity based in Toulouse and Sophia-Antipolis, France. With this acquisition, Groupe Renault will be bringing in a full spectrum of skills to reinforce developments in next-generation embedded vehicle software. This brings valuable experience in areas... Read more →

At Volkswagen’s Wörthersee meeting this week, 13 apprentices from Volkswagen Wolfsburg and Sitech are presenting the first GTI that also features electric propulsion: the Golf GTI First Decade. A different team of 14 apprentices from Volkswagen Sachsen are also unveiling a Wörthersee show car, the Golf GTE Variant impulsE—a show... Read more →

Ricardo demonstrated its new real-world driving emissions measurement service (earlier post), and discussed the first results from its road side vehicle monitoring research, at the Air Quality & Emissions Show (AQE) in the UK earlier this week. Ricardo launched its vehicle emission measurement service in April 2017. The system uses... Read more →

The US Department of Energy will award 73 grants totaling $72 million to 68 small businesses in 24 states. Funded through DOE’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs, the latest selections are for Phase II research and development. Small businesses that demonstrated technical feasibility... Read more →

According to Growth Energy’s ongoing analysis of fuel sales and consumption data reported by major gasoline retailers, drivers across the United States have logged more than 1 billion miles on E15. Today, E15 is sold at more than 800 retail outlets across 29 states. The EPA approves E15 for use... Read more →

European car registrations totalled 1.22 million units in April 2017, a drop of 7.1% when compared to April 2016 and the largest monthly decline seen since March 2013, according to JATO Dynamics. Diesel vehicles witnessed a 15% decline in registrations; diesel accounted for just 46% of the market in April... Read more →

An international team of researchers has uncovered the mechanisms of two families of software defeat devices for diesel engines: one used by the Volkswagen Group to pass emissions tests in the US and Europe, and a second found in Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. To carry out the analysis, the team developed... Read more →

New Flyer of America Inc., a subsidiary of New Flyer Industries Inc., the largest transit bus and motor coach manufacturer and parts distributor in North America, announced that Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) in California has awarded New Flyer with a contract for 55 (or 110 equivalent units) New... Read more →