Green Car Congress

MAY 21, 2012

XL Hybrids, Inc., developer of a low-cost hybrid electric powertrain designed specifically for class 1-3 commercial fleet use ( earlier post ), has signed an agreement with Henley Transmission Services, LLC, the largest franchise holder of AAMCO automotive service centers, to certify AAMCO technicians to install and service XL Hybrids’ hybrid-electric conversions.

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Green Car Reports

MAY 24, 2012

Car buyers are notoriously fond of focusing only on the purchase price of new vehicles, without much thinking about the total cost of ownership. For electric cars that may cost twice or more what a similar-size gasoline vehicle does, that's a problem. Still, two separate pieces of evidence begin to make a compelling case for the huge running-cost.

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Green Cars News

MAY 25, 2012

In the last six months, the world’s fastest growing car club has doubled its customer numbers. Owned and operated by car giant, Daimler, the car2go service now operates in 12 cities through Europe and North America and now has over 100,000 registered members. In total, its fleet of 3,375 smart fortwo and 625 smart fortwo [.].

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Green Car Congress

MAY 22, 2012

The Coalition for Sustainable Rail (CSR)—a collaboration of the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment (IonE) and the nonprofit Sustainable Rail International (SRI)— plans to develop what it calls the most powerful carbon-neutral locomotive to date, proving the viability of solid biofuel and modern steam locomotive technology.

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Green Car Congress

MAY 25, 2012

by Bill Cooke. Search engine giant Google is looking for partners within in the auto industry to help launch one of the most significant applications of artificial technology over the next several years, the self-driving car. In a keynote address to the SAE 2012 World Congress on 25 April 2012, Anthony Levandowski, Business Lead for Google’s Self Driving Car Project provided an overview of Google’s autonomous vehicle program and requested that the auto industry partner with Google on the impleme

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Green Car Congress

MAY 25, 2012

The US Senate Committee on Armed Services completed its markup of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2013. The bill emerging from the Senate committee authorizes $631.4 billion for national defense programs. The bill authorizes $498.0 million more than the President’s request for the base budget of DOD and $301.0 million less than was requested for OCO ( overseas contingency operations, which funds the war in.

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Green Car Congress

MAY 20, 2012

Simulation study finds Miller version of Scuderi engine can deliver twice the BMEP as naturally aspirated version, theoretically enabling 50% downsizing while maintaining performance. Source: Scuderi. Click to enlarge. A simulation study by researchers at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) has found that applying turbocharging and the Miller cycle to the Scuderi split-cycle engine (SSCE) could support engine downsizing of 50% relative to a naturally-aspirated version of the Scuderi engine a

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Green Car Congress

MAY 24, 2012

Orbital’s air-assisted direct injection can deliver similar droplet sizes for all size fuels. Spray shape is not affected by fuel type. Source: Orbital. Click to enlarge. Australia-based Orbital Engine has been contracted to supply spark-ignited heavy fuel engines for use in AAI Unmanned Aircraft Systems’ (AAI) Aerosonde Small Unmanned Aircraft System (SUAS).

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Green Car Congress

MAY 22, 2012

Cumulative worldwide sales of TMC hybrids. Data: TMC. Click to enlarge. Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) announced that global cumulative sales of its hybrid vehicles—passenger car and commercial—topped the 4-million unit mark as of 30 April. The company reached the 3-million mark with its hybrids in February 2011. Of these, the original Prius (liftback) accounts for 65.8% of cumulative sales, with 2.631 million units sold—44% of those sales were in Japan, and 56% overseas.

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Green Car Congress

MAY 20, 2012

SARTA (Stark Area Regional Transit Authority), a public transit authority serving Stark County in Northeastern Ohio, is switching 50% of its current fleet of buses to CNG starting with the first 6 CNG fixed route buses in May 2012. SARTA estimates that the change will save it up to 40% a year on fueling costs while taking advantage of local fueling sources.

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Green Car Congress

MAY 21, 2012

The total number of verified (US EPA- and/or California ARB-verified) diesel retrofit devices (for both on-road and off-road diesel engines) sold in the US (including California) by MECA member companies in 2011 was 20,177, according to the Manufacturers of Emission Controls Association (MECA). Overall, these annual retrofit sales numbers are relatively small compared to the total number of diesel engines currently operating in the US (up to 20 million based on EPA estimates), MECA noted.

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Green Car Congress

MAY 24, 2012

The US Army and Air Force are planning to develop 1 billion watts of renewable energy on their installations by 2025. The plan marks the latest milestone in a multi-year endeavor to find ways to make the military more energy efficient, said Katherine Hammack, the assistant secretary of the Army for installations, energy and environment, and Terry Yonkers, the assistant secretary of the Air Force for installations, environment and logistics.

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Green Car Congress

MAY 22, 2012

Tesla Motors announced that the Tesla Factory will begin customer deliveries of the Model S on 22 June. In addition, the company announced several personalization updates to Model S: Adjustable regen. Owners will be able to adjust brake regen to suit their driving styles. In a post announcing the changes, George Blankenship, Vice President, Worldwide Sales and Ownership Experience noted that while having less regen likely also means less range, some people still prefer the feel of their car with

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Green Car Congress

MAY 25, 2012

Nanoneedles. Source: WSU. Click to enlarge. Researchers at Washington State University (WSU), led by Dr. Grant Norton, professor in the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, are developing a nanoneedle tin (Sn) anode material for Li-ion batteries. Elemental Sn is attractive as a high-performance anode material because of its high theoretical specific capacity (992 mAh g -1 ) and high operating voltage along with the absence of solvent intercalation.

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Li-ion Batteries Battery Washington 236

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Green Car Congress

MAY 24, 2012

Improvement in fuel consumption (red line) from one of the case models using the POD learning model. Source: Malikopoulos 2010. Click to enlarge. Dr. Andreas Malikopoulos at Oak Ridge National Laboratory is leading an effort to enable an automobile engine to function as an autonomous intelligent system capable of learning and realizing its optimal calibration in real-time under different conditions while the driver is driving.

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Green Car Congress

MAY 24, 2012

United Airlines, Boeing, Honeywell’s UOP, the Chicago Department of Aviation and the Clean Energy Trust today have formed the Midwest Aviation Sustainable Biofuels Initiative ( MASBI ), designed to advance aviation biofuel development in a 12-state region holding significant promise for biomass feedstock, technology development, job creation and sustainable commercialization.

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Green Car Congress

MAY 23, 2012

Federal-Mogul Corporation has enhanced its line of Thermflex exhaust insulating sleeves. The optimized design can now be tailored to fit any combination of exhaust pipe and tube geometries, helping to increase efficiency of a vehicle’s exhaust system, while protecting sensitive nearby vehicle components. Additionally, the unique flexible manufacturing process produces an exhaust sleeve that is application-specific, eliminating the need for custom tooling.

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Green Car Congress

MAY 19, 2012

Integrity Exports. Mitsubishi Motors’ new global car, the Mirage, will achieve 27.2 km/L (63.9 mpg US, 3.7 L/100km)) on the JC08 cycle. This Mirage is not a kei car. It’s a regular compact car with a 3-pot 1 liter engine, not the 660 CC motors found in kei cars. And even though it’s 40 cm longer—giving a much more roomy interior—the use of high-performance steel in the engine bay keeps its weight down to just 830 kg, only 100 kg more than the Daihatsu e:S.The exact figure is st

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Fuel Economy Mitsubishi Economy Fuel 236

Green Car Congress

MAY 24, 2012

Integrity Exports. The Skylark restaurant group in Japan plans to offer free EV public recharging at their 900 locations around Japan, with no obligation to be a customer of the restaurant. Initially, the chargers will be standard “slow” chargers, but if you combine a meal with a bit of shopping, you could end up with a quarter to a third of a “tank” for free.

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Green Car Congress

MAY 20, 2012

The Nikkei reports that Honda Motor Co. plans to assemble the hybrid version of its Fit subcompact in Thailand starting this summer—its first production in Asia of hybrids outside of Japan. Knockdown production, a method in which local sites assemble imported parts, is to take place at a factory in Ayutthaya Province using key components shipped from Japan, including the motors and batteries.

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Thailand Honda Hybrid Malaysia 231

Green Car Congress

MAY 24, 2012

Global CO 2 emissions from fossil-fuel combustion reached a record high of 31.6 gigatonnes (Gt) in 2011, according to preliminary estimates from the International Energy Agency (IEA). This represents an increase of 1.0 Gt on 2010, or 3.2%. Coal accounted for 45% of total energy-related CO 2 emissions in 2011, followed by oil (35%) and natural gas (20%).

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Green Car Congress

MAY 25, 2012

Opel is making preselected data from the CAN bus (Controller Area Network) directly available on an iPhone where it can be displayed or analyzed further. The CAN bus is the central system that unifies and connects all the electronic control units in the vehicle. iPhone users can now download the OPC PowerApp from the AppStore for €0.79, enabling them to access to CAN bus data.

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Green Car Congress

MAY 21, 2012

Overview of the Bluegas catalytic coal methanation process. Click to enlarge. GreatPoint Energy and China Wanxiang Holdings have officially closed their investment and partnership agreement which was highlighted during an official signing ceremony between senior US and Chinese government officials in 2012. As part of the transaction, GreatPoint Energy has raised equity investment and secured project funding of $1.25 billion from Wanxiang to finance and construct the first phase of a coal-to-natu

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Coal Gas Purchase Energy 225

Green Car Congress

MAY 19, 2012

Heliae Development, LLC , an Arizona-based algae technology company, broke ground on a commercial demonstration facility that will showcase the scalability and economics of its proprietary algae technology platform. Heliae was formed for the purpose of licensing and developing algal strains developed at Arizona State University for jet fuel. ( Earlier post. ).

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Commercial Arizona North America Fuel 225

Green Car Congress

MAY 25, 2012

The National Electrical Manufacturers Association’s (NEMA) Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment/Systems Section created two new working groups to develop standards that focus on network roaming for a public charging station and communication of electric vehicle (EV) metering data. The Section created the working groups to address several gaps in EV charging standards identified in the ANSI Electric Vehicle Standardization Roadmap.

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Green Car Congress

MAY 24, 2012

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that BP North America Inc. has agreed to pay an $8 million penalty and invest more than $400 million to install advanced pollution controls and cut emissions from BP’s petroleum refinery in Whiting, Ind. ( Earlier post.). When fully implemented, the agreement is expected to reduce harmful air pollution that can cause respiratory problems such as asthma and are significant contributors to acid rain, smog

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Green Car Congress

MAY 24, 2012

Enova, a developer of proprietary hybrid electric and all-electric drive systems and drive system components for the commercial vehicle market, has begun development of its next-generation drive system, code-named ACUMEN. With the completion of its OMNI drive system ( earlier post ), Enova is now looking to further optimize its ability to interface with all worldwide EV and HEV systems, including those powered by natural gas.

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Green Car Congress

MAY 23, 2012

Volvo Car Corporation’s Pedestrian Airbag Technology—applied for the first time in the new V40—relies on seven sensors embedded in the front of the car which transmit signals to a control unit. When the car comes into contact with an object, the signals change. The control unit evaluates the signals and if it registers what it interprets as a human leg the pedestrian airbag is deployed.

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Green Car Congress

MAY 19, 2012

Pollution warms the atmosphere through summer thunderstorm clouds, according to a computational study by a team of researchers from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the University of Maryland published in Geophysical Research Letters. How much the warming effect of these clouds offsets the cooling that other clouds provide is not yet clear.

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Pollution Climate Water Oklahoma 218

Green Car Congress

MAY 25, 2012

PostAuto Schweiz AG has become the first company in Switzerland to deploy fuel-cell technology for public road transport. Since the end of 2011, five Mercedes-Benz Citaro FuelCELL Hybrid models have been serving on routes in and around Brugg (in the canton of Aargau) as PostAuto vehicles. Over the next five years, PostAuto will test the fuel-cell drive, using clean hydrogen as fuel.

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Switzerland Hybrid Fuel Lithium Ion 210

Green Car Congress

MAY 25, 2012

Clean Republic, one of the largest retailers of electric bike conversion kits in the US and owner of the Hill Topper and ProPack brands, selected AllCell Technologies to supply US made lithium-ion batteries. AllCell’s batteries are protected by the company’s proprietary thermal management system ( earlier post ), which limits maximum battery temperature and protects against overheating, leading to an improvement in cycle life.

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Li-ion Clean Cleaning Miles 210

Green Car Congress

MAY 25, 2012

European governments have agreed on legislation to limit the maximum sulfur content of marine fuels to 0.5% (5,000 ppm) for all ships from 2020, down from currently 3.5% for cargo vessels and 1.5% for passenger ships. The European Committee of Permanent Representatives endorsed the compromise agreed between the Council and the European Parliament regarding the directive amending directive 1999/32/EC as regards the sulfur content of marine fuels.

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Green Car Congress

MAY 23, 2012

Participants in the driver acceptance clinics strongly desired the V2V safety features. Source: DOT. Click to enlarge. An overwhelming majority of drivers who have experienced technology that allows vehicles to communicate with each other have a highly favorable opinion of its safety benefits, according to data released by the US Department of Transportation (DOT).

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Green Car Congress

MAY 23, 2012

Sundrop Fuels, Inc., a gasification-based drop-in advanced biofuels company ( earlier post ), is partnering with ThyssenKrupp Uhde for its inaugural biogasoline production facility near Alexandria, Louisiana ( earlier post ). Sundrop Fuels will convert sustainable forest residues and thinnings as feedstock combined with natural gas into bio-based “green gasoline” by using a commercially-proven production path that integrates gasification, gas purification, methanol synthesis and a methanol-to-ga

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