Mon.May 09, 2016

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Total to acquire battery-maker Saft in US$1.1-billion deal

Green Car Congress

France-based energy major Total has filed a friendly tender offer on all of the issued and outstanding shares in the capital of advanced battery maker Saft with the French Financial Markets Authority (Autorité des Marchés Financiers, AMF). The proposed offer will target all of Saft’s issued and outstanding shares at a price of €36.50 per share, ex-dividend of €0.85 per share, valuing Saft’s equity at €950 million (US$1.1 billion).

Batteries 195
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Smaller, cheaper Toyota Mirai fuel-cell car coming in 2019, company says

Green Car Reports

To increase the reach of its hybrid cars, Toyota launched the Prius C subcompact in 2012 as a smaller, less expensive alternative to the Prius Liftback that's the linchpin of its lineup. Now, Toyota says it may be planning to do something similar with its Mirai hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle. The 2016 Toyota Mirai was launched last year in Japan.

Toyota 96
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Declining atmospheric sulfur levels due to pollution controls may lead to need for sulfur fertilizers for crops

Green Car Congress

Air pollution legislation to control fossil fuel emissions and the associated acid rain has worked—perhaps leading to the need for sulfur fertilizers for crop production. A University of Illinois study drawing from over 20 years of data shows that sulfur levels in Midwest watersheds and rivers have steadily declined, so much so that farmers may soon need to consider applying sulfur.

Pollution 174
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Another study confirms electric cars have lower carbon emissions, in Minnesota this time

Green Car Reports

It's a very reasonable question: electric cars themselves have no tailpipe emissions, but what about the power plants used to recharge them? After more than a dozen studies and five-plus years of plug-in car sales, we know the answer. In North America, an electric car charged on even the dirtiest, most coal-intensive electric grid in the nation.

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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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Kreisel Electric expanding capacity with construction of new Li-ion battery plant

Green Car Congress

Kreisel Electric, an Austrian developer and manufacturer of high-performance battery packs for electric mobility and stationary energy storage systems, is expanding its production capacity to 800,000 kWh per year with the construction of a new battery plant. The 6,276 m 2 factory will be equipped with a fully automated production line. Kreisel says that it leverages assembly and thermal management techniques to deliver 20% more usable capacity available in comparison to the products of its main

Li-ion 174
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Is China the key to all those Tesla Model 3 deposits?

Green Car Reports

So far, around 400,000 people have put down refundable deposits for the Tesla Model 3 electric car, according to the company. That's an impressive amount of interest considering Tesla Motors has yet to show the final version of the car, and won't start production until late 2017 at the earliest. As it turns out, many of those reservations may have.

Tesla 95

More Trending

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Tesla Projections, 2017 Honda Accord Hybrid, Cheaper Toyota Mirai: Today's Car News

Green Car Reports

Today, Tesla says it will sell 80,000 to 90,000 electric cars this year, we take a look at the 2017 Honda Accord Hybrid, and Toyota says a smaller, cheaper, Mirai hydrogen fuel-cell car may arrive by 2019. All this and more on Green Car Reports. Catch up on last week's news with our Week in Reverse feature and video. ExxonMobile backs a company.

2017 95
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Semcon develops prototype low-cost smart motor for turning any bike electric

Green Car Congress

Semcon has developed a smart and inexpensive motor prototype that can be easily fitted to any bike. The units costs less than €100 (US$114) to assemble and can easily be transferred between bikes. The needs and wishes of the typical cyclist are what got us started. The benefits of the electrified bike are obvious, but existing solutions are expensive and complex.

Low Cost 163
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Tesla projects total 2016 sales of 80,000 to 90,000 electric cars

Green Car Reports

Tesla Motors projects sales of 80,000 to 90,000 electric cars in 2016, and now believes it will produce 500,000 cars per year by 2018, rather than 2020. Those two goals were revealed during Tesla's first-quarter earnings call last Wednesday, and would take the company a long way from the 50,000 cars it delivered in 2015. Tesla projects that it.

2016 94
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Canada Rare Earth enters into agreement to purchase a rare earth separation refinery situated in Laos

Green Car Congress

Canada Rare Earth Corporation has entered into an agreement to purchase 60% of the issued and outstanding shares of a company based in Laos. The Laos company owns a full capability rare earth refinery that is designed to process monazite rare earth concentrate and separate the concentrate into the entire spectrum of commercially traded rare earths including light and heavy elements.

Laos 150
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Faurecia and Accenture partner on products and services for connected and autonomous vehicles

Brief

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World's first fuel-cell car-sharing program to launch in Germany

Green Car Reports

Car-sharing services have become increasingly popular over the past few years, and many of them operate fleets of battery-electric cars. Now, a German company believes it's time to pair this new approach to car use with hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles. The Linde Group—which manufactures and distributes industrial gases—believes such a.

Germany 94
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Project FEVER to develop 48V through-the-road hybrid vehicle technology; SRM-based e-axle

Green Car Congress

Controlled Power Technologies, a developer of vehicle driveline electrification based on state-of-the-art switched-reluctance machines (SRMs), has partnered with Ricardo, Tata Motors European Technical Centre (TMETC) and Provector to develop a 48V through-the-road hybrid vehicle system and demonstrate it in a B-segment city car. The Forty-Eight Volt Electrified Rear-axle (FEVER) project will apply CPT’s SpeedTorq technology to an ultra-lightweight rear axle module to significantly improve the fu

Hybrid 150
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Kobe Steel to build aluminum extrusion and fabrication plant in Kentucky; bumper and car frame materials

Green Car Congress

Japan-based Kobe Steel, Ltd. will manufacture and sell aluminum extrusions for the automotive sector in the United States. The new business will operate through a company called Kobelco Aluminum Products & Extrusions Inc. (KPEX) in Bowling Green, Kentucky. KPEX will make bumper materials for cars and car frame materials. The new company will have an integrated production facility, with operations ranging from melting to fabrication.

Kentucky 150
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Columbia team develops simple, low-cost, scaleable membraneless electrolyzer fabricated with 3D printing for H2 production

Green Car Congress

Researchers at Columbia University are investigating the use of membraneless electrochemical flow cells for hydrogen production from water electrolysis that are based on angled mesh flow-through electrodes. The devices can be fabricated with as few as three parts (anode, cathode, and cell body), reflecting their simplicity and potential for low-cost manufacture.The researchers used 3D printing to fabricate prototype electrolyzers that they demonstrated to be electrolyte agnostic, modular, and ca

Low Cost 183
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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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Argonne: longer-range BEVs may be almost as powertrain energy dense as gasoline vehicles by 2045

Green Car Congress

An analysis by a team at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) has found that by 2045, some configurations of battery electric vehicles (BEV) could become almost as energy dense as a conventional vehicle. The team presented their paper at the recent 2016 SAE World Congress. Hydrocarbon fuels (either fossil- or bio-derived) have high energy densities that are at least 100 times greater than that of a present day lithium-ion battery.

Gasoline 212
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Researchers visualize lithiation of magnetite electrode in real time; hunting for new Li-ion electrode materials

Green Car Congress

A team of scientists from the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Maryland, College Park, has developed an electron microscopy technique to visualize—in real time and at high resolution—lithiation pathways in electrode materials. The scientists used this advanced technique, described in an open-access paper in Nature Communications , to observe the discharge of a lithium-ion battery cell containing nano

Li-ion 150