2011

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GM outlines further steps on battery safety, customer satisfaction initiatives for the Volt; the importance of de-powering the battery after a severe crash

Green Car Congress

General Motors today announced initiatives for customer satisfaction and outlined its steps in battery safety research to ensure ongoing confidence in the safety of Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric vehicle. On Friday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) opened a formal safety defect investigation to assess the risk of a battery-related fire in Chevy Volts that have been involved in a serious crash. ( Earlier post.

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The electricity in gasoline

Plugs and Cars

I just ran across the latest available data, from 2005, for the electricity consumption by petroleum refineries. ( Source: Energy Statistics Database | United Nations Statistics Division ) The US is, hoorah, #1. Almost 49,000,000,000 kWh. One electric car, roughly speaking, will use about 3000 kWh to go about 12,000 miles. That means the electricity alone we use to refine petroleum each year could drive over 16,000,o00 electric cars 12,000 miles each year.

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International Hot Rod Association Welcomes Electric Cars

Electric Cars are for Girls

"For your average drag race fan, this change opens a new and exciting chapter on the drag race scene, not seen since the likes of the inception of the electric vehicle itself.

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Miles-Per-Gallon Is Just Stupid. No, Really, It Is.

Green Car Reports

Americans aren't stupid. We're just badly informed. And occasionally, stubborn. Why else would we ignorantly cling to using miles per gallon as the way to measure how efficiently a car uses fuel? But maybe you don't quite see the problem. OK, so here's a little test: Which saves more gasoline, going from 10 to 20 mpg, or going from 33 to 50 mpg?

Miles 167
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How serious is Norway about climate change? So much that its streetlights self-dim

emissions global warming Norway climate change carbon dioxide youtube lighting

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Tesla Vs BBC: Top Gear Planned Dead Electric Car Shot Before Test

All Cars Electric

Believe it or not, most of what you watch on television is scripted. What you may not know is that some shows which appear unscripted, like the BBC’s infamous Top Gear, are also scripted word for word. Everything from the banter between its three middle-aged hosts to its madcap challenges and car reviews has been meticulously planned, before.

BBC 111
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Mission Motors wins joint TTXGP/e-Power race at Laguna Seca

National Green Transportation

Today, the first joint TTXGP/e-Power electric motorcycle race was run, with Mission Motors winning in a spectacular show. They won convincingly over a field containing the who's-who of electric motorcycle racing including last years.

More Trending

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BMW provides an update on waste heat recovery projects; Turbosteamer and the Thermoelectric Generator

Green Car Congress

Research project Turbosteamer, Generation 2. Click to enlarge. Despite improvements in engine efficiency—e.g., with technologies such as direct fuel injection, variable valve timing, exhaust-driven turbochargers, brake energy regeneration and Auto Start Stop function—about 60% of the generated energy is still lost, half of it being exhaust heat, with the remaining half as heat absorbed by the engine cooling system.

Waste 376
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Obama FY 2012 budget proposes big boost for EVs and EV technology, cuts for hydrogen

Green Car Congress

The President’s Budget proposes a 12% increase in funding for the Department of Energy. Click to enlarge. In support of President Obama’s goal of having 1 million advanced technology vehicles on US roads by 2015, the President’s Budget submitted today proposes a new effort to support electric vehicle manufacturing and adoption in the United States through new consumer. rebates, investments in R&D, and competitive programs to encourage communities. that invest in electric vehicl

Obama 372
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Audi unveils e-gas project: synthetic methane from the methanation of green hydrogen; series production of CNG models in 2013 powered by e-gas

Green Car Congress

Audi A3 TCNG for e-gas project. Click to enlarge. Starting in 2013, Audi will begin series production of TCNG models whose engines—derived from TFSI units—will be powered by e-gas: synthetic methane produced via the methanation of hydrogen produced by electrolysis using renewable electricity. Audi’s newly unveiled e-gas project is a component of achieving its goal of “Audi balanced mobility”—i.e., achieving a neutral CO 2 balance across the entire mobility chain.

Audi 370
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Lux Research projects that bulk of energy storage market for vehicles will be for e-bike and micro-hybrids

Green Car Congress

The overall market for energy storage technologies that power electric vehicles is set to grow from $13 billion in 2011 to $30 billion in 2016, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18%. Despite the visibility of plug-in passenger cars with large packs such as the Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf grab most of the headlines, the bulk of future growth will be driven by more humble vehicles, such as e-bikes and micro-hybrids, according to a new report from Lux Research.

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Faurecia and Accenture partner on products and services for connected and autonomous vehicles

Brief

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WHO report urges greater attention to improved land use, rapid transit, cycling and walking to achieve health co-benefits from transport GHG emissions mitigation

Green Car Congress

Urban density is one of the most important determinants of car use and transport-related energy consumption in cities. Source: WHO report. Click to enlarge. Among strategies to reduce CO 2 emissions in the transport sector, a shift to active transport (walking and cycling) and rapid transit/public transport combined with improved land use can yield much greater immediate health “co-benefits” than improving fuel and vehicle efficiencies, according to a new WHO (World Health Organization) report.

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Ford begins production of 2012 Focus Electric at Michigan Assembly, C-MAX models on deck

Green Car Congress

Ford’s Michigan Assembly Plant is starting production of the 2012 Focus Electric ( earlier post )—a five-passenger, battery-electric car Ford expects will achieve more than a 100 miles per gallon equivalent (MPGe) fuel economy rating. By comparison, the Nissan LEAF carries a 99 MPGe (combined) EPA rating, while the smaller i-MiEV carries a 112 MPGe (combined) rating. (1 gallon of gasoline=33.7 kWh).

Michigan 363
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Group of 285 global investors with more than $20T in assets under management calls for urgent action on investment-grade climate change and energy policies; guidelines for governments

Green Car Congress

Saying that “ investment-grade climate change and clean energy policy is required to shift private sector investment from high-carbon to low-carbon assets ”, a group of 285 investors has urged governments and international policy makers to take new and meaningful steps in the fight against climate change. In a joint statement, the group, representing more than $20 trillion in assets under management, stressed the urgent need for policy action which stimulates private sector investmen

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Skeleton Technologies receives US patent for nanoporous carbon powder supercapacitor material; higher energy and power densities and lower cost

Green Car Congress

Skeleton Technologies , an energy-storage start-up located in Tartu, Estonia, was recently awarded a US patent ( #7,803,345 ) on its nanoporous carbon powder supercapacitor material. The material possesses very high surface area and a high packing of nanopores, according to Skeleton, which aims to commercialize the carbon material and supercapacitor technology.

Carbon 353
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ExxonMobil announces 6th oil discovery offshore Guyana with Ranger-1; Guyana may move from non-producer to regional powerhouse

Oil

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Blue Marble Biomaterials launches first zero-waste chemical biorefinery

Green Car Congress

A general diagram of Blue Marble’s manufacturing system. A photobioreactor and algae perform the “water recycling”; the pelletized solid waste material will be used in the gasifier. Source: Blue Marble. Click to enlarge. Blue Marble Biomaterials, a wholly owned subsidiary of Blue Marble Energy Corp., has launched the first zero-waste chemical biorefinery in the US in Missoula, Montana.

Waste 352
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Mazda SKYACTIV transmission, body and chassis technology

Green Car Congress

The new SKYACTIV-Drive automatic transmission features full range direct drive. Click to enlarge. In addition to the new gasoline and diesel engines ( earlier post ), Mazda’s SKYACTIV technology portfolio includes new transmissions (automatic and manual), body and chassis technology. At a media workshop last week in Vancouver, Canada, Mazda engineers stepped through the highlights of the new SKYACTIV systems.

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NREL study concludes aggressive action on vehicle miles travelled, fuel economy and fuel carbon intensity will all be required to meet US GHG reduction goals

Green Car Congress

Contribution of each metric to the FCI Success and VMT-FE Success scenarios. Credit: ACS, Melaina and Webster. Click to enlarge. Aggressive near-term actions are necessary in three areas—vehicle miles traveled (VMT), vehicle fuel economy (FE), and fuel carbon intensity (FCI)—in order to achieve a “fair share” reduction within the light-duty-vehicle sector toward meeting US goals of an 83% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions below 2005 levels by 2050, according to a new study by a t

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New Lithium rechargeable semi-solid flow cell offers energy densities an order of magnitude greater than previous flow batteries; possible applications in transportation and grid-scale storage

Green Car Congress

Scheme of the semi-solid flow cell (SSFC) system using flowing lithium-ion cathode and anode suspensions. The SSFC could enable new models such as transportation ‘fuels’ tuned for power versus range, or cold versus warm climates, with flexible refueling and recycling options. Source: Duduta et al. Click to enlarge. Researchers at MIT, led by Dr. Yet-Ming Chiang (co-founder of A123 Systems), report on their development of a new energy storage concept—a semi-solid flow cell (SSFC) combining

Li-ion 345
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Obama Administration announces first fuel economy and GHG standards for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles

Green Car Congress

The new HD National Program covers vehicle classes 2b through 8. Click to enlarge. US President Barack Obama announced fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas emission standards for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles. The US Department of Transportation (DOT) National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) developed the standards—fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions, respectively—in coordination with truck and engine manufacturers, fl

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Virent’s biogasoline passes first test in European auto fleet trial

Green Car Congress

Virent’s BioForming platform can produce drop-in gasoline, diesel or jet fuels from plant sugars. Source: Virent. Click to enlarge. Virent has taken another step in the gasoline certification process, successfully completing its first road fleet test organized and executed by Virent collaborator and investor Royal Dutch Shell. Virent’s biogasoline was found to cause “no harm” to vehicles in comparison to Shell’s baseline fuel.

Fleet 343
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Toshiba’s SCiB battery for the Fit EV

Green Car Congress

20Ah SCiB cell. Click to enlarge. Honda selected Toshiba Corporation’s SCiB rechargeable Li-ion battery to power the Fit EV. ( Earlier post.) Toshiba will supply battery modules for the new car, which Honda will launch in summer 2012 in Japan and the US. In 2010, Toshiba announced that it was working with Mitsubishi Motors Corporation to bring the SCiB battery ( earlier post ) to electric vehicles (EVs). ( Earlier post.

Li-ion 342
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Coulomb Technologies releases OpenCharge Protocol for EV charging equipment

Green Car Congress

Coulomb Technologies published its open protocol for communicating with Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE). The OpenCharge Protocol is a proposed communication standard for charging station networks that defines the communications between a charging network and the charging station. The protocol definition supports applications that include billing, asset management, real-time mapping, EVSE reservations, fleet management, and energy management.

Charging 341
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President Obama launches $500M Advanced Manufacturing Partnership; Ford involved as an initial partner

Green Car Congress

US President Barack Obama today launched the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (AMP), a national effort bringing together industry, universities, and the federal government to invest in emerging technologies such as information technology, biotechnology, and nanotechnology. The President’s plan, which leverages existing programs and proposals, will invest more than $500 million to jumpstart this effort.

Obama 341
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Sumitomo considering marketing new lower-temperature molten-salt electrolyte battery to automakers for EVs and hybrids

Green Car Congress

Construction of the molten-salt electrolyte battery. Source: Sumitomo. Click to enlarge. Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd. is considering targeting its lower-temperature molten-salt electrolyte battery, being developed in partnership with Kyoto University ( earlier post ), to makers of electric and hybrid passenger cars, according to Bloomberg. Sumitomo had earlier said that it intended to commercialize the battery around 2015 for commercial-vehicle fleet operators and stationary applications, a

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Study suggests arrays of closely-spaced counter-rotating vertical-axis wind turbines could enhance power density of wind farms by up to an order of magnitude

Green Car Congress

Dabiri suggests using optimized arrays of smaller vertical-axis wind turbines to increase the power density and reduce the cost, and visual, acoustic, radar and environmental impacts, of wind farms using giant horizontal-axis turbines. Source: Dabiri 2010. Click to enlarge. Research by Prof. John Dabiri at Caltech suggests that using counter-rotating vertical-axis wind turbines (VAWTs) arrayed in layouts that enable them to extract energy from adjacent wakes and from above the. wind farm could p

Wind 339
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Flywheel hybrid research vehicle delivers up to 22.4% fuel economy improvement in ARTEMIS cycles

Green Car Congress

FHSPV flywheel CVT system layout. Click to enlarge. A research vehicle fitted with a flywheel hybrid system including stop-start has demonstrated improvements in fuel economy of up to 22.4% in the new European ARTEMIS test cycles. Developed by a consortium of British companies as part of the Government-supported Flywheel Hybrid System for Premium Vehicles (FHSPV) program, the mechanically-driven flywheel system delivers up to 80 bhp (82 PS, 60 kW) of recovered energy from a self-contained hybrid

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UN report finds world needs incremental $1.9 trillion invested in green technologies to avert planetary catastrophe; global per capita cap on primary energy consumption of 70 GJ/yr may be required

Green Car Congress

Humanity is close to breaching the sustainability of Earth, and needs a technological revolution greater and faster than the industrial revolution to avoid “ a major planetary catastrophe ,” according to a new United Nations report. The reports estimates that incremental green investment of about 3% of world gross product (WGP) (about $1.9 trillion in 2010) would be required to overcome poverty; increase food production to eradicate hunger without degrading land and water resources; and avert th

Global 338
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Toyota targeting thermal efficiency of more than 45% for next-generation gasoline engines for hybrids

Green Car Congress

Among the R&D projects Toyota Motor is exploring to further lower fuel consumption and emissions are two concepts on a pathway to deliver gasoline engines featuring more than 45% thermal efficiency for application in its future hybrid vehicles, according to Koichi Nakata of Toyota in his presentation today at SAE 2011 High Efficiency IC Engines Symposium in Detroit.

Toyota 337
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Mercedes-Benz F125!: fuel cell plug-in hybrid with Li-sulfur battery and structure integrated hydrogen storage with MOFs

Green Car Congress

Mercedes-Benz F 125! research vehicle. Click to enlarge. Mercedes-Benz presented the F125! research vehicle (the “125” marking 125 years of the automobile), a fuel-cell plug-in hybrid with a range of more than 1,000 km (621 miles) that anticipates more than two generations of vehicles to 2025 and beyond. The F125!, intended to demonstrate emission-free individual mobility in the luxury segment in the future, incorporates already well-proven concepts and technologies which are not yet

Mercedes 334
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Study findings suggest that switching from coal to natural gas would do little for global climate

Green Car Congress

Although the burning of natural gas emits far less carbon dioxide than coal, a new study by Tom Wigley, a senior research associate at the US National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and an adjunct professor at the University of Adelaide in Australia, concludes that a greater reliance on natural gas would fail to significantly slow down climate change.

Coal 334
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Life cycle analysis of three battery chemistries for PHEVs and BEVs; environmental impacts higher than expected

Green Car Congress

Flow diagram of the battery system, defined by the functional unit of 50 MJ stored and delivered to the powertrain. Credit: ACS, Majeau-Bettez et al. Click to enlarge. Researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) have performed life cycle assessments (LCA) of three batteries for plug-in hybrid (PHEV) and full performance battery electric (BEV) vehicles.

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Volkswagen to debut XL1 PHEV prototype at Qatar Motor Show; fuel consumption of 0.9 L/100 km (261 mpg US)

Green Car Congress

The XL1 prototype PHEV. Click to enlarge. Volkswagen is staging the world debut of its XL1 diesel plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) prototype at the Qatar Motor Show this week. The prototype, representing the third evolutionary stage of Volkswagen’s 1-liter car strategy ( earlier post ), features combined fuel consumption of 0.9 L/100 km (261 mpg US), according to VW.

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DOE to award more than $7M to four projects to advance hydrogen storage

Green Car Congress

The US Department of Energy is awarding more than $7 million to fund four 3-year projects in California, Washington and Oregon to advance hydrogen storage technologies to be used in fuel-cell-electric vehicles. The selected organizations will provide close to $2 million in cost share. The projects focus on lowering the cost of compressed hydrogen storage systems and on developing advanced materials for hydrogen storage.

Hydrogen 330
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Siemens introducing new 22 kW fast charging station for plug-ins

Green Car Congress

Siemens has launched a new electric-vehicle charging station on the market that can fully recharge a battery within one hour. By doubling the output to 22 kW, the charging station cuts charging times in half. The station is also protected against vandalism, with a doubly secured charging cable and the option of connecting the device to a remote surveillance system so that it can be used as part of a smart grid.

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