BASF has granted Hunan Reshine New Material Co. Ltd. a sub-license under Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) patents related to nickel-cobalt-manganese (NCM) cathode materials for long life, high energy, reliability and cost-effective lithium ion batteries. Reshine is now licensed to make, use, sell, offer to sell, distribute and import the NCM... Read more →

Renault Trucks will launch a range of electric vehicles in 2019. These all-electric trucks are designed for use in urban and peri-urban areas and will be produced at the Renault Trucks plant at Blainville-sur-Orne in Normandy, France. This range capitalizes on the experience gleaned from ten years of testing electric... Read more →

Sion Power will begin production of its patented Licerion rechargeable lithium metal battery in late 2018 from its Tucson facility. The Licerion rechargeable lithium metal technology will offer the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and electric vehicle (EV) markets 500 Wh/kg, 1,000 Wh/L, and 450 cycles when released. Licerion technology, a... Read more →

Cummins Inc. has acquired Johnson Matthey’s UK automotive battery systems business, a subsidiary of Johnson Matthey that specializes in high-voltage automotive grade battery systems for electric and hybrid vehicles. As part of the acquisition, Cummins and Johnson Matthey also agreed to collaborate on the development of high energy battery materials... Read more →

NI (National Instruments) plans to collaborate with Shanghai University on a testbed focused on 5G ultra-reliable low-latency communications (URLLC) for V2X (vehicle-to-anything) applications. Vehicular networks, especially for autonomous driving applications, must offer ultra-reliability while requiring very low latency. Given the conflicting nature of these dual requirements and the unpredictability of... Read more →

New research from LV=, the UK’s third largest car insurer, shows that an increased demand for driving is behind a surge in two-car families. With official figures showing a growth of 541,600 two-car households year-on-year, nearly a quarter (24%) of drivers revealed to LV= that they are doing more driving... Read more →

EPFL researchers have developed models of magnesium alloys to understand how to make the metal more pliable. Magnesium is the lightest metal on earth but, also has very low ductility—i.e., it cannot easily be shaped into usable forms. The researchers hope that with the models will lead to the discovery... Read more →

Arizona Governor Doug Ducey and Nikola Motor Company announced the company has selected Buckeye, Arizona for its Nikola Motor Company hydrogen-electric range-extended semi-truck (earlier post) manufacturing headquarters facility. The new 500-acre, one million square foot facility will be located on the west side of Phoenix and will bring more than... Read more →

udelv, a Burlingame, Calif. company, unveiled its autonomous, electric, last-mile delivery vehicle and made the first public road test deliveries from Draeger’s Market in San Mateo to two nearby customers. The deliver route was a 2.5-mile loop with traffic lights, lane changes, unsignalized left turns and two delivery stops. In... Read more →

New energy research from business information provider IHS Markit has identified more than five billion barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) in numerous smaller, previously bypassed, or underperforming reservoirs outside North America that offer oil and gas operators a shorter-cycle path to production than new, frontier projects in undeveloped areas. The... Read more →

Continental will open a Deep Machine Learning Competence Center in Budapest in May 2018. Artificial intelligence is a core competency in the development of automated driving. We are expanding our expertise in the area of Deep Machine Learning to enable automated driving and to support our Vision Zero – a... Read more →

ExxonMobil plans to triple total daily production to more than 600,000 oil-equivalent barrels by 2025 from its operations in the Permian Basin shale oil region in West Texas and New Mexico. Tight oil production from the Delaware and Midland basins will increase five-fold in the same period. The company said... Read more →

Chevron Corporation announced a significant oil discovery at the Ballymore prospect in the deepwater US Gulf of Mexico. Ballymore is located in the Mississippi Canyon area of the US Gulf of Mexico, approximately three miles from Chevron’s Blind Faith platform, in water depth of 6,536 feet (1,992 meters). The initial... Read more →

By Nick Cunningham of Oilprice.com Echoing the criticism of too much hype surrounding US shale from the Saudi oil minister last week, a new report finds that shale drilling is still largely not profitable. Not only that, but costs are on the rise and drillers are pursuing “irrational production.” Riyadh-based... Read more →

Rheinmetall AG subsidiary Pierburg will supply coolant pumps for Karma Automotive’s luxury plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) Revero, which will be sold in the US and Canada. In terms of output, the pumps, which will recirculate the coolant in these luxury vehicles, are to be delivered in a smaller version... Read more →

FCA US LLC announced an agreement to supply “thousands” of Chrysler Pacifica plug-in Hybrid minivans (earlier post) to Waymo to support the launch of its driverless ride-hailing service. FCA previously delivered 100 Pacifica Hybrid minivans, adapted for self-driving, to Waymo during the second half of 2016 and an additional 500... Read more →

General Motors plans to introduce 15 new and refreshed models in 2018 with its joint ventures in China, aiming to strengthen the sales momentum in the world’s largest automotive market. GM will sharpen its focus on the segments with the strongest consumer demand, such as SUVs, MPVs and luxury vehicles.... Read more →

BP’s venturing business has invested $5 million in FreeWire Technologies Inc., a US-based manufacturer of mobile electric vehicle (EV) rapid charging systems, and plans to roll out FreeWire’s Mobi Charger units for use at selected BP retail sites in the UK and Europe during 2018. Freewire products currently offer Level... Read more →

Aquantia Corp. introduced a suite of products targeted at autonomous vehicle platforms; the company also announced a collaboration with NVIDIA to provide Multi-Gig networking support for the NVIDIA DRIVE Xavier and DRIVE Pegasus platforms. These high-performance computing platforms featuring Aquantia Multi-Gig networking will be available to automotive partners starting in... Read more →

Qantas made the world’s first dedicated biofuel flight between the United States and Australia, Qantas QF96 from Los Angeles to Melbourne (a Boeing Dreamliner 787-9), over the weekend. The 15-hour trans-Pacific flight operated with approximately 24,000 kg of 10% biofuel blend, saving 18,000 kg in carbon emissions. Fuel for the... Read more →

Jensen Maritime, Crowley Maritime Corp.’s Seattle-based naval architecture and marine engineering firm, was recently selected to provide the design for Baydelta Maritime’s new 100-foot, Z-Drive (azimuth thruster) hybrid tugboat. It will use Rolls-Royce hybrid technology and represents the first installation of a hybrid system for Nichols Brothers Boat Builders (NBBB),... Read more →

The University of Maryland (UMD) Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research (IBBR) has been awarded a $1.1million US Department of Energy (DOE) grant to elucidate the mechanism of rust pathogenesis in poplar in an effort to engineer durable resistance for this important, second-generation biofuel crop. The aim of the three-year... Read more →

As of January 25, 2018, there are 39 publicly available hydrogen stations for fueling fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) in the United States—35 in California, 2 in South Carolina, and 2 in the Northeast—according to the US Department of Energy (DOE). Another 29 public stations in California and 5 in... Read more →

Boeing has invested in Berkeley, Calif.-based Cuberg, Inc., a startup founded by former Stanford University researchers developing next-generation battery technology for potential aerospace and industrial applications. Cuberg developed an advanced lithium metal rechargeable battery cell that is designed to be a drop-in solution to existing large-scale battery manufacturing processes. It... Read more →

From 1950 to 2016, the US population approximately doubled; however during that time, the number of vehicles in operation increased by six times and total vehicle-miles traveled grew by seven times, according to the latest edition of Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s (ORNL’s) Transportation Energy Data Book. The number of vehicles... Read more →

A newly released analysis produced by Beacon Economics for the nonprofit, nonpartisan think-tank Next 10 has found that California’s zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) market is on track to meet or exceed a target of 1.5 million ZEVs on California’s roads by 2025. The 1.5-million target, set by California Governor Brown in... Read more →

Mercedes-Benz is in the process of building out hubs for the production of electric vehicles and batteries around the globe. Markus Schäfer, Member of the Divisional Board of Mercedes-Benz Cars, Production and Supply Chain said that Mercedes-Benz will build its electric vehicles in six plants on three continents. By 2022,... Read more →

Hydro has started producing the first aluminium metal at its technology pilot in Karmøy, marking the start of verifying at an industrial scale the HAL4e aluminium technology. Compared to the world average, the Hydro-developed technology will use 15% less energy in aluminium production and has the lowest CO2 footprint. Hydro... Read more →

Novelis is supplying aluminum for the new 2018 Jeep Wrangler. The use of lightweight, high-strength aluminum for closures, which includes parts of the doors, fenders, swing gate, and windshield surround, reduces weight and boosts fuel economy, helping make it the most capable and fuel-efficient Wrangler ever produced by FCA US... Read more →

The Mitsubishi Motors Corporation (MMC) Outlander PHEV has passed the milestone of 100,000 sales in Europe (100,097 units Oct. 2013 to Dec. 2017). The Outlander PHEV now accounts for more than 10% of MMC’s European sales. When it made its debut, initially in the Netherlands and Scandinavia, Outlander PHEV brought... Read more →

In Europe, diesel car registrations fell by 7.9% to 6.76 million units in 2017, representing just 43.7% of market share—the lowest for the segment in the last decade, according to figures from JATO Dynamics. Gasoline car registrations benefited from the decline of diesel, growing by 10.9% (+760,000 units) to a... Read more →

A new grant from Ohio EPA will assist owners of diesel- or gasoline-powered class 7 and 8 vehicles (weighing at least 26,000 pounds) to convert or to replace engines to use compressed natural gas (CNG), liquified natural gas (LNG), or liquid petroleum gas (LPG, such as propane or butane). These... Read more →

Lightbridge Corporation, a nuclear fuel technology company, and Framatome, an international leader in nuclear fuel, components and reactor services, have finalized and launched Enfission, a 50-50 joint venture company to develop, license and sell nuclear fuel assemblies based on Lightbridge-designed metallic fuel technology and other advanced nuclear fuel intellectual property.... Read more →

European battery system manufacturer AKASOL is partnering with leading yacht propulsion developer Diesel Center to deliver a new range of compact hybrid power systems (E-Motion) for the superyacht industry. The two companies have agreed on a distribution partnership in early 2018, initially for yacht manufacturers in Italy. In February, AKASOL... Read more →

Researchers at WMG (Warwick Manufacturing Group), The University of Warwick (UK) have developed Silicon-Few Layer Graphene (Si-FLG) composite electrodes as an effective approach to replacing graphite in the anodes of lithium-ion batteries. The reinforcement of the silicon anode structure with graphene girders results in significant improvement in terms of cyclability,... Read more →

Volkswagen Group officially opened Future Center Asia, one of three such centers worldwide focused on future mobility. With these centers, we are breaking down the traditional barriers by bringing together exterior and interior designers, user experience experts and specialists for Artificial intelligence, Smart City, Start-up scouting and Engineering. Inspired by... Read more →

China FAW Group Corporation (FAW), a major state-owned automaker, recently released a new development strategy for its Hongqi luxury brand. FAW seeks to boost Hongqi’s annual sales to 100,000 vehicles by 2020 and 300,000 and 500,000 vehicles by 2025 and 2035, said Xu Liuping, Chairman of FAW Group. According to... Read more →

The councils of the London boroughs of Hackney and Islington are consulting on a scheme which could see all but the cleanest vehicles banned from two zones in Shoreditch, an inner city district in East London. Gasoline, diesel and older hybrid vehicles would not be allowed to enter nine streets... Read more →

Secondary organic aerosol (SOA) is a major component of fine particulate matter—which causes adverse health effects—even in urban environments; vehicles may be a dominant source of SOA in urban areas, although there is still an ongoing debate over SOA formation from on-road sources. Now, in a new study published in... Read more →

Ultrafine aerosols—minute particles from urban (e.g., vehicles) and industrial air pollution—fuel powerful storms and influence weather much more than has been appreciated, according to a study published in the journal Science. Scientists have known that aerosols may play an important role in shaping weather and climate; the new study shows... Read more →

Rolls-Royce has opened a state-of-the-art research facility in Turku, Finland, to develop the technologies Rolls-Royce and its partners require to shape the future of an increasingly more autonomous global shipping industry. The new Research & Development Centre for Autonomous Ships includes a Remote and Autonomous Experience Space aimed at showcasing... Read more →

California Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. today signed executive order B-48-18, directing all State entities to work with the private sector and all appropriate levels of government to put at least 5 million zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) on California roads by 2030. Brown had mentioned the 5-million target in his State... Read more →

In his 16th—and final—State of the State address, California Governor Jerry Brown said that the state will need 5 million zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) on the road by 2030 to meet the state’s goals. In March 2012, the governor had set a goal of putting 1.5 million ZEVs on California’s roads... Read more →

Electrovaya Inc. announced that its wholly-owned German subsidiary, Litarion GmbH ("Litarion"), has commenced a voluntary structured insolvency process (similar to bankruptcy proceedings in the US) that is expected to result in the appointment of a provisional receiver/liquidator of Litarion and its property by the German court. As reported in the... Read more →

Beijing-based startup Evoke Electric Motorcycles is developing a reverse gear for its range of motorcycles. With first time and inexperienced riders in mind, the reverse gear is meant to aid motorcycle parking in compact spaces and will have a top speed of 5 km/h. Riders will be able to activate... Read more →

The Processor Research group at the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) in South Korea has developed a nine-core high-performance processor for autonomous cars. Announced last year, the Aldebaran5 processor provides high computing power as well as safety mechanisms to ensure reliability for automotive applications while exhibiting industry leading power... Read more →

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a guidance memorandum withdrawing the “once in always in” policy for the classification of major sources of hazardous air pollutants under section 112 of the Clean Air Act. With the new guidance, sources of hazardous air pollutants previously classified as “major sources” may... Read more →

Maxus, a brand of SAIC Mobility Europe, has commenced delivery of its zero emission EV80 vans in Europe. (Earlier post.) Maske Fleet is among the first leasing companies to offer the fully electric large panel van to fleet customers, with the German operator recently delivering a fleet of EV80 vans... Read more →

Researchers have demonstrated how to create a super-strong aluminum alloy (nanotwinned Al-Fe) that rivals the strength of stainless steel, an advance with potential applications in the automotive and aerospace industries. The research, which shows how to alter the microstructure of aluminum to impart greater strength and ductility, is detailed in... Read more →

In Europe, the JIVE 2 project (Second Joint Initiative for hydrogen Vehicles across Europe) launched this week. Coordinated by Element Energy, and supported by a €25-million (US$31.2-million) grant from the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH JU), the JIVE 2 project will deploy 152 fuel cell electric buses across... Read more →