Within the scope of an agreement signed in November 2017 (earlier post), Eni and FCA have developed “A20”, a new fuel with a low level of emissions due to its 15% methanol and 5% bio-ethanol alcohol content. By harnessing its low carbon content, bio component and high octane number (RON... Read more →

Sandia National Laboratories has released the latest version of QuESt, itsopen source software for energy storage valuation. QuESt v1.2 features the debut of QuESt BTM, an application aimed at providing analysis tools for behind-the-meter energy storage. The first of these tools estimates the cost savings provided by energy storage for... Read more →

Shifting cathode chemistries and strong BEV/PHEV sales relative to HEV sales driving accelerated deployment of lithium In February 2019, 76% more lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) was deployed globally in batteries of newly-sold passenger EVs than the same month the year prior, according to a model-by-model build-up using Adamas Intelligence’s “EV... Read more →

CSP VICTALL announced that Jiangling Motors Corporation (JMC) will use advanced composites for the pickup boxes of its new Yuhu 3 and Yuhu 5 pickup trucks, the first such use of composites in the Chinese automotive industry. The composite box developed by CSP VICTALL has solved the issues of heavy... Read more →

Allison Transmission Holdings Inc., the largest global manufacturer of medium- and heavy-duty fully automatic transmissions, has purchased Vantage Power and AxleTech’s electric vehicle (EV) systems division. Allison’s electrification strategy leverages and extends current electric hybrid technologies, develops new electrified propulsion solutions, and expands system and integration level capabilities in alternative... Read more →

A routine roadside inspection conducted by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) led to a felony assault conviction for a truck driver who intentionally moved his vehicle and struck a state inspector in the shoulder and chest nearly three years ago. All regulated parties must submit to an inspection when... Read more →

Grove Hydrogen Automotive Co. Ltd. signed a cooperation agreement with the State of Minas Gerais, Brazil to proceed with the production and distribution of Grove hydrogen fuel cell vehicles for Brazil. Much like China, Brazil is a country rich in geographic resources. Grove is focused on establishing sustainable mobility worldwide,... Read more →

A Columbia Engineering team led by Yuan Yang, assistant professor of materials science and engineering, has developed a new method for safely prolonging battery life by inserting a nano-coating of boron nitride (BN) to stabilize solid electrolytes in lithium metal batteries. Their findings are outlined in a new study published... Read more →

Hyundai’s US-market fuel cell SUVs, the NEXO fuel cell SUV and the Tucson fuel cell SUV, together have accumulated more than 7.5 million miles, all while emitting only clean water vapor. This cumulative distance is the equivalent of circumnavigating the Earth’s surface more than 300 times at the equator, measuring... Read more →

Toyota, Kenworth, the Port of Los Angeles and the California Air Resources Board (CARB) unveiled the first of Toyota and Kenworth’s jointly developed fuel cell electric heavy-duty trucks during a special event held at the Port of Los Angeles. The new generation zero-emission truck expands on the capabilities of Toyota’s... Read more →

In the 1990s and early 2000s, fuel economy decreased while vehicle weight increased. In recent years, however, light-duty vehicle manufacturers have employed advanced technologies to improve both performance and fuel economy. As a result, average fuel economy for all light-duty vehicles produced has improved nearly every year since 2004, and... Read more →

A new study carried out by University College Dublin (UCD) academics has found that under typical Irish commuting conditions, the Toyota Prius IV (fourth-generation) hybrid (earlier post) drives in zero emissions mode (ZEV) for significantly more than half (62%) of the time and more than 40% (40.4%) of the distance... Read more →

Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak doubled Nevada’s Renewable Portfolio Standard on Monday. The new law positions the state to maintain the fastest job growth in the country for clean energy like solar, geothermal and wind. Gov. Sisolak’s signing of Senate Bill 358 requires energy generated and used in Nevada to come... Read more →

San Francisco International Airport (SFO) has purchased six 40' Proterra Catalyst E2 electric buses and three 60 kW Proterra plug-in chargers, joining a growing list of airports across North America transitioning to electric buses for airport ground transportation. SFO has ambitious plans in place to reduce its carbon footprint. SFO’s... Read more →

Porsche Cars North America, Inc. (PCNA) has enrolled all cars at its two Experience Centers—sand its fleet in the monthly subscription pilot, Porsche Passport—sin Porsche Impact. Impact is a new program from Porsche Digital that enables owners to calculate emissions individually per car and then offset them by supporting environmentally... Read more →

​ Qatar Petroleum issued an invitation to tender for the reservation of ship construction capacity required for the LNG carrier fleet for its North Field Expansion (NFE) Project, which will increase Qatar’s LNG production capacity from 77 million tons per annum (mta) to 110 mta starting in 2024. In addition... Read more →

A combined $210 million was raised by battery storage, smart grid, and energy efficiency companies in Q1 2019—a 55.5% decrease from the $472 million raised in Q1 2018, according to a new report from Mercom Capital Group, llc, a global clean energy communications and consulting firm. Total corporate funding (including... Read more →

by Michael Sivak. In a recent article, I examined changes in distance driven in the United States during the period from 1984 through 2017. Distance driven per person reached a maximum in 2004. While this rate has been on a rebound since 2013, the 2017 rate is still down from... Read more →

From 2011 to 2015, California experienced its worst drought on record, with a parching combination of high temperatures and low precipitation. Drought conditions can have complicated effects on ozone air quality, so to better understand the process, researchers have analyzed data from two ozone-polluted cities before, during and after the... Read more →

Solid-state sodium-ion batteries are safer than conventional lithium-ion batteries, which pose a risk of fire and explosions, but their performance has been too weak to offset the safety advantages. Researchers at the University of Houston have now developed an organic cathode that improves both stability and energy density. The improved... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) will provide $24 million for the development of new projects to study dark matter. (DE-FOA-0002112) Projects will be designed to take advantage of important recent advances in theory and technology that may help better understand dark matter, which has never been detected but is... Read more →

Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) scientists have developed a sustainable way to demonstrate a new genetic modification that can increase the yield of natural oil in seeds by up to 15% in laboratory conditions. The new method can be applied to crops such as canola, soybean and sunflower, which... Read more →

Ambarella, Inc., a developer of high-resolution video processing and computer vision semiconductors, and Momenta, an autonomous driving technology company based in Suzhou, China, announced a collaborative HD mapping platform for autonomous vehicles. The combined solution leverages Ambarella’s CV22AQ CVflow computer vision system-on-chip (SoC) and Momenta’s deep learning algorithms to provide... Read more →

Hyundai Motor Group has developed smartphone-EV pairing-based performance adjustment technology which allows users to customize primary functions through a smartphone application—an industry-first innovation. Drivers can use this technology to adjust seven performance features including the maximum torque output of the motor, acceleration and deceleration abilities, regenerative braking capacity, maximum speed... Read more →

Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corporation launched a sensorless control pre-driver IC “TB9062FNG” for brushless DC motors (BLDC motors) used in automotive applications, including electric pumps. Samples are available now, with mass production scheduled for December this year. The new pre-driver can control BLDC motors by pulse-width modulation (PWM) input... Read more →

Toyota Motor Corporation and Tsinghua University are establishing the Tsinghua - Toyota Joint Research Institute (Joint Research Institute). The two plan to conduct various research together over the next five years through the institute. By establishing the Joint Research Institute, Toyota sees an opportunity to further contribute to the development... Read more →

Supported by a new five-year, $500,000-grant from the National Science Foundation, a researcher from the University of Kansas is developing machine learning technology to monitor and prevent overheating in lithium-ion batteries. The research will develop a foundational framework for characterizing and monitoring LiB packs’ spatially and temporally distributed thermal behavior,... Read more →

Last week at China’s Auto Shanghai motor show, Aston Martin Lagonda revealed the final production-ready iteration of its first all-electric production car, the Rapide E. The first car to be built at Aston Martin’s St Athan production facility—the brand’s Home of Electrification—Rapide E represents a first step towards achieving the... Read more →

According to a new study published by the ifo Institue Center for Economic Studies (CESifo) in Germany, EVs will barely help cut CO2 emissions in the country over the coming years, as the introduction of electric vehicles does not necessarily lead to a reduction in CO2 emissions from road traffic... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) announced up to $39 million in federal funding for cost-shared research and development projects that aim to improve oil and natural gas technologies. The United States is now the world’s leader in both oil and natural gas production. According to the US Energy Information... Read more →

Total OECD annual production of crude oil, natural gas liquids (NGL), and refinery feedstocks increased by 10.3% in 2018 compared to 2017, reaching a record total monthly production of over 100 million tons at the beginning of the year and remaining above this for almost all of 2018, according to... Read more →

Nidec Corporation will acquire OMRON Automotive Electronics Co. Ltd. via a stock purchase agreement. Nidec positions its automotive motor business as one of its key strategic businesses, and is engaging in active efforts in the business for automotive motor market which is expected to grow rapidly in coming years. Nidec... Read more →

The Aluminum Association released its first new material registration record in nearly 20 years. The “purple sheets” will provide clear chemical designations for aluminum powder used in 3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing. The purple sheets are the newest addition to the Aluminum Association’s long-running “rainbow sheet” series, which... Read more →

The American Petroleum Institute’s latest monthly statistical report showed that the US sustained its position as the world’s leading oil producer, continuing a pace of 12.1 million barrels a day (mb/d), matching February 2019. In addition, petroleum demand in March was the strongest for that month in more than a... Read more →

ZF is introducing a new electric central drive for buses and medium-duty trucks. Developed in China, with future production planned there, the new unit is designed to meet the particular conditions of the Chinese market and the requirements of vehicle manufacturers there. The new electric central drive was developed by... Read more →

Following a slowdown in exports in January and February of this year, China’s exports of rare earth oxides (and oxide equivalents) increased 61% month-over-month in March 2019 to 4,659 tonnes, according to Adamas Intelligence. While the amount of material exported was up in March, the total value of exported rare... Read more →

Toyota Motor Corp., DENSO Corporation and the SoftBank Vision Fund (SVF) will invest $1 billion in Uber Technologies Inc.’s Advanced Technologies Group (Uber ATG). The investment, in a newly formed ATG corporate entity, aims to accelerate the development and commercialization of automated ridesharing services. Under the terms, Toyota and DENSO... Read more →

BYD recently delivered a BYD 8R Class 8 Automated Side Loader (ASL) battery-electric collection truck to Waste Resources to serve its customers in the City of Carson, California. This vehicle is the first all-electric refuse truck in residential collection operation in Southern California. The heavy-duty truck features BYD’s propriety electric... Read more →

RoboSense has teamed up with partners Horizon Robotics, Cainiao Network, Sensible 4, and AutoX to launch the Smart Sensor System (SSS) designed for four key smart transportation vehicle applications: autonomous passenger cars; low-speed autonomous vehicles; high-speed RoboTaxis; and V2R (Vehicle to Road infrastructure). The RoboSense Smart Sensor System combines new... Read more →

Waste feedstock from the City of Oakland, California is now being converted to Neste MY Renewable Diesel and fuels the city’s fleet. The city, Neste, fuel distributor Western States Oil and local collectors for used cooking oil joined forces to gather waste cooking oils from restaurants and other businesses in... Read more →

Zero Labs Automotive, LLC has introduced its first electric production classic vehicle—a fully restored and re-engineered classic (1966-77) Ford Bronco. The Bronco is handcrafted with aerospace grade carbon fiber construction, real wood interior panels, all digital control and display and more than 1,000 newly designed parts. Only 150 of these... Read more →

Volkswagen has joined an open industry collaboration for the responsible sourcing of strategic minerals that will use blockchain technology to increase efficiency, sustainability and transparency in global mineral supply chains. Ford Motor Company, Huayou Cobalt, IBM, LG Chem and RCS Global announced the collaboration earlier this year. (Earlier post.) Joining... Read more →

Researchers at the University of California San Diego have improved their recycling process that regenerates degraded cathodes from spent lithium-ion batteries. The new process is safer and uses less energy than their previous method (earlier post) in restoring cathodes to their original capacity and cycle performance. Zheng Chen, a professor... Read more →

The benefits of connected, self-driving cars (CAVs) will likely induce vehicle owners to drive more, and those extra miles could partially or completely offset the potential energy-saving benefits that automation may provide, according to a new University of Michigan study. In the coming years, self-driving cars are expected to yield... Read more →

Toyota introduced the next-generation three-row 2020 Highlander SUV at the New York International Auto Show. Arriving in Toyota dealerships in winter, the Highlander gasoline model will arrive in December 2019 and the Highlander Hybrid will make its way to customers in February 2020. Just as the first RAV4 launched the... Read more →

Dana Incorporated introduced its enhanced TM4 MOTIVE motor and inverter for the light-vehicle market at AutoShanghai. The new TM4 MOTIVE motor and inverter from Dana from an integrated system featuring high-RPM permanent magnet electric motors, power-dense electronic inverters, and advanced controls. The system is designed for seamless integration into Dana’s... Read more →

Mazda Motor Corporation announced at the New York International Auto Show that it has begun accepting pre-orders for the diesel-powered 2019 Mazda CX-5 in the US market. It is the first time Mazda has offered a diesel-powered passenger car in the US market. The 2019 CX-5 Signature AWD with Skyactiv-D... Read more →

Aeva, a company building a next-generation sensing system for autonomous vehicles, is partnering with AID (Autonomous Intelligent Driving GmbH), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Audi AG and the “center of excellence” for Volkswagen Group’s autonomous driving system, to bring 4D LiDAR to its autonomous vehicle program. Aeva will develop and equip... Read more →

At Auto Shanghai 2019, Mercedes-Benz is premiering the close-to-production show car Concept GLB and the Mercedes-AMG A 35 L 4MATIC developed exclusively for China. Alongside the Concept GLB are the battery-powered EQC (electricity consumption combined: 20.8 – 19.7 kWh/100 km) (earlier post) and the new GLE, both of which celebrate... Read more →

Power management company Eaton today will introduce technologies from its eMobility business in China to help automakers meet increased demand for electric vehicles (EVs) in the market. eMobility specializes in three key areas for electric and hybrid vehicles: intelligent power electronics; power systems; and advanced power distribution and circuit protection.... Read more →