December, 2016

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Symbio’s 150 hydrogen-electric commercial vehicles have traveled 220,000 miles

Green Car Congress

Symbio, the French producer of hydrogen fuel cell systems for transportation, reports that it has delivered 150 commercial hydrogen-electric vehicles which have now travelled a combined 220,000 miles (350,000 km). The company will be showcasing its solutions at CES 2017 next week. The Kangoo ZE-H2 is based on the Renault Kangoo ZE Maxi. It combined a 22 kWh Li-ion battery pack with a 5 kW hydrogen fuel cell range extender, fueled with 1.7 kg of H 2 at 350 bar or 2.08 kg H 2 at 700 bar.

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Tesla's autonomous-car efforts use big data no other carmaker has

Green Car Reports

In the automotive industry, Tesla is a leader in many respects—but it's hardly head-and-shoulders above the rest when it comes to self-driving cars. The Silicon Valley automaker is developing fully autonomous cars, but it's part of a crowded field that includes many other automakers and a handful of rich tech companies as well. Still.

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Shining star: Mercedes set for its best-ever year, but what’s the secret to its success?

Green Cars News

As usual, it’s been a record-breaking year for Mercedes-Benz, with November marking the company’s 45th consecutive record month. It has delivered more.

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Coal-tar-based pavement sealant a major source of PAH contamination in Milwaukee streams

Green Car Congress

Runoff from pavement with coal-tar-based sealant is the primary source of toxic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) to streambed sediments in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, according to a US Geological Survey and Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District open-access study published in the journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. Pavement sealant is a black, shiny liquid sprayed or painted on asphalt parking lots, driveways and playgrounds to improve appearance and protect the underlying asphalt

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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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DOE BETO releases new strategic plan; biofuels to constitute 25% of US transportation fuels by 2040

Green Car Congress

The US Department of Energy’s Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) released its new strategic plan, titled Strategic Plan for a Thriving and Sustainable Bioeconomy. The strategic plan—with a vision for 2040—lays out BETO’s mission to accomplish its vision in a dynamic setting that realizes changes in the energy landscape, advances in technology, growing environmental awareness, and public expectations.

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DOE awards LanzaTech $4M for low-carbon jet & diesel demo plant; 3M gpy; Audi evaluating fuel properties

Green Car Congress

LanzaTech has been selected by the Department of Energy’s Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) to receive a $4-million award to design and plan a demonstration-scale facility using industrial off gases to produce 3 million gallons/year of low-carbon jet and diesel fuels. The LanzaTech award was one of six totaling $12.9 million. ( Earlier post.). The LanzaTech facility will recycle industrial waste gases from steel manufacturing to produce a low cost ethanol intermediate: “Lanzanol.

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Researchers in China develop new process for direct synthesis of drop-in jet-fuel-range blendstock from lignocellulose

Green Car Congress

Researchers in China have developed an integrated two-bed continuous flow reactor process for the direct synthesis with high carbon yields (~70%) of dodecanol (C 12 H 26 O) or 2,4,8- trimethylnonane (C 12 H 26 O 2 )—a jet-fuel-range C 12 branched alkane—from methyl isobutyl ketone (MIBK), which can be derived from lignocellulose. The dodecanol as obtained can be used as the feedstocks in the production of sodium dodecylsulphate (SDS) and sodium dodecyl benzene sulfonate (SDBS)—

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Volvo Cars adds Microsoft’s Skype for Business to 90 Series; looking ahead to autonomous cars

Green Car Congress

Volvo Cars will introduce Skype for Business, Microsoft’s collaborative productivity app, to its new 90 Series cars. Volvo Cars is the first carmaker to launch such an in-car productivity tool. Skype for Business is actively used by millions of people at work around the globe. In Volvo’s 90 Series cars people will be able to view their upcoming meetings and participant details, and join meetings with one click via the large center display.

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UC Irvine team discovers nitrogenase Fe protein can reduce CO2 to CO; implications for biofuel production

Green Car Congress

A team at the University of California, Irvine has discovered that the iron protein (the reductase component) of the natural enzyme nitrogenase can, independent of its natural catalytic partner, convert CO 2 to carbon monoxide (CO)—a syngas used to produce useful biofuels and other chemical products. The team, led by Professor Yilin Hu (Molecular Biology and Biochemistry), also found that they could express the reductase component alone in the soil bacterium Azotobacter vinelandii to conve

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Tesla and Panasonic to manufacture solar cells and modules in Buffalo, NY; 1GW by 2019

Green Car Congress

Tesla and Panasonic finalized an agreement to begin the manufacturing of photovoltaic (PV) cells and modules at the Buffalo, NY factory. These high-efficiency PV cells and modules will be used to produce solar panels in the non-solar roof products. When production of the solar roof begins, Tesla will also incorporate Panasonic’s cells into the many kinds of solar glass tile roofs that Tesla will be manufacturing.

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

Brief

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TriLumina to demo 256-pixel 3D solid-state LiDAR and ADAS systems for autonomous driving at CES 2017

Green Car Congress

At CES 2017, TriLumina ( earlier post )—a spin-out from Sandia National Laboratories—will demonstrate , in collaboration with LeddarTech ( earlier post ), an innovative 256-pixel, 3D LiDAR solution for autonomous driving applications powered by TriLumina’s breakthrough laser illumination module and LeddarTech’s LeddarCore ICs. TriLumina has developed eye-safe, vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs).

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Siemens employees in Germany to get free EV charging in 2017

Green Car Congress

Beginning in 2017, Siemens employees at as many as 100 of the company's locations in Germany will be able to recharge their electric vehicles free of charge. This will apply not only to all-electric vehicles but also to plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. For this service, Siemens will use its existing network of charging stations, which it is expanding with normal and high-speed charging stations.

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Toyota reports Intelligent Clearance Sonar has significantly reduced pedal misapplication & vehicle reversing accidents

Green Car Congress

Toyota Motor Corporation conducted a survey of accidents occurring in parking lots involving three models in Japan (the Alphard, the Vellfire, and the Prius) equipped with the Intelligent Clearance Sonar (ICS) system—a system which helps to prevent or mitigate collision damage in parking spaces. According to the survey of data—conducted from January 2015 to June 2016—from approximately 2,500 accidents from insurance companies that cover the policies for about 60,000 of these ab

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Lucid Motors chooses Mobileye as partner for autonomous vehicle technology

Green Car Congress

Luxury EV developer Lucid Motors and Mobileye N.V. announced a collaboration to enable autonomous driving capability on Lucid vehicles. Lucid will launch its first car, the Lucid Air ( earlier post ), with a complete sensor set for autonomous driving from day one, including camera, radar and lidar sensors. Lucid chose Mobileye to provide the primary compute platform, full 8-camera surround view processing, sensor fusion software, Road Experience Management (REM) crowd-based localization capabili

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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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GM launches Cadillac CT6 plug-in hybrid in China

Green Car Congress

SAIC-GM has officially launched the newest member of the Cadillac CT6 American luxury sedan family—the CT6 Plug-In ( earlier post )—in China. It is available in two variants priced at RMB 558,800 (US$80,400) and RMB 658,800 (US$94,700). Built on GM’s all-new intelligent rear-wheel electric drive platform, the CT6 Plug-In offers steady, robust real-time power through two high-performance electric motors integrated with the car’s electric drive system and a direct-injection 2.0L SIDI t

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HERE and Mobileye to partner on crowd-sourced HD mapping for automated driving

Green Car Congress

High-definition (HD) mapping company HERE and Mobileye, developer of computer vision and machine learning, data analysis, localization and mapping for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems and autonomous driving, plan to enter a strategic partnership that links their respective autonomous driving technologies into an enhanced industry-leading offering for automakers.

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DOE awarding up to $7M to 8 universities for co-optimization of fuels and engines: Co-Optima

Green Car Congress

The US Department of Energy (DOE) will award up to $7 million to projects at eight universities to accelerate the introduction of affordable, scalable, and sustainable high-performance fuels for use in high-efficiency, low-emission engines. Under the Co-Optimization of Fuels and Engines (Co-Optima) initiative ( earlier post ), DOE’s Bioenergy Technologies Office and Vehicle Technologies Office are collaborating to maximize energy savings and on-road vehicle performance, while significantly reduc

Universal 150
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Petrobras sells sugar, ethanol and petrochemical assets for US$587 million

Green Car Congress

Brazil’s Petrobras closed two asset sales for the total sum of US$587 million. Petrobras subsidiary Petrobras Biocombustível (PBio) sold to Tereos Participations—a company in the French Tereos group—its entire stake in Guarani, representing 45.97% of the company’s equity capital, for US$202 million. The Petrobras Board of Directors also approved the sale of Companhia Petroquímica de Pernambuco (PetroquímicaSuape) and Companhia Integrada Têxtil de Pernambuco (Citepe) to two subsidiari

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Researchers determine specific rates of biodegradation for 125 petroleum compounds in Deepwater Horizon spill

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The oil discharged into the Gulf of Mexico following the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) rig in 2010 contaminated more than 1,000 square miles of seafloor. The complexity of the event has made it difficult for scientists to determine the long-term fate of oil in this ocean environment. Researchers from UC Santa Barbara, with colleagues from three other institutions, now have analyzed data from the Natural Resource Damage Assessment to determine the specific rates of biodegra

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DOE awarding $12.9M to 6 pilot- and demonstration-scale projects for manufacturing biofuels, bioproducts, and biopower

Green Car Congress

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has selected six projects—entitled, “Project Definition for Pilot- and Demonstration-Scale Manufacturing of Biofuels, Bioproducts, and Biopower”—-for up to $12.9 million in federal funding. These projects, required to share the cost at a minimum of 50%, will develop and execute plans for the manufacturing of advanced or cellulosic biofuels, bioproducts, refinery-compatible intermediates, and/or biopower in a domestic pilot- or demonstration-scale int

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Volkswagen Group hiring >1,000 IT experts over next 3 years

Green Car Congress

Over the next three years, the Volkswagen Group will recruit more than 1,000 IT specialists; half of these people will be employed in Wolfsburg. They will work in the core IT organization at the company’s headquarters as well as in IT labs in Wolfsburg, Berlin and Munich. These labs are creating new solutions in the fields of big data, Industry 4.0, the Internet of things, connectivity, mobility services and virtual reality.

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Volkswagen Financial Services AG acquires parking mobile payments company PayByPhone

Green Car Congress

Volkswagen Financial Services AG, the financial services division of Volkswagen Group, has acquired PayByPhone , a leading parking payment provider. The deal positions Volkswagen Financial Services AG solidly in the mobile payments and parking sectors, while providing the foundation for future PayByPhone growth globally. Volkswagen Financial Services AG has already acquired a 92% shareholding in Sunhill Technologies GmbH, the German market leader in mobile-parking solutions across 90 German citi

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Study finds hands-free just as distracting as handheld mobile phone use behind the wheel

Green Car Congress

Talking hands-free on a mobile phone while driving is just as distracting as a conversation using a hand-held phone, according to a recent study by researchers at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Australia. Dr. Shimul (Md Mazharul) Haque, from QUT’s School of Civil Engineering and Built Environment and Centre for Accident Research & Road Safety – Queensland (. ), presented the findings at a Driving Distraction Seminar held at QUT.

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NRL completes first flight of UAV with custom hydrogen fuel cell with metal bipolar plates; leveraging automotive technology

Green Car Congress

Researchers from the US Naval Research Laboratory’s (NRL) chemistry and tactical electronic warfare divisions recently completed the first flight of the Ion Tiger unmanned air vehicle with a new hydrogen-powered fuel cell built in-house. The NRL team designed and built a custom fuel cell system capable of up to 5,000 watts, using formed metal-foil bipolar plates, which saved space and weight.

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Neste to acquire pre-treatment and storage capacity in the Netherlands for renewable raw materials for NEXBTL renewable diesel

Green Car Congress

Neste has signed an agreement with Electrawinds ReFuel B.V. on the acquisition of a former biodiesel plant in Sluiskil in the Netherlands. Neste intends to use the Sluiskil plant for the storage and pre-treatment of renewable raw materials for the company’s NEXBTL renewable diesel refineries. By acquiring the Sluiskil plant, we enable expanding our raw material base further.

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Materials science as key enabler for clean energy transition

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Materials science as key enabler for clean energy transition Former US Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, Yi Cui and Nian Liu, all currently at Stanford University, write in a Perspective piece in Nature Materials that research in materials science is contributing to progress towards a sustainable future based on clean energy generation, transmission and distribution, the storage of electrical and chemical energy, energy efficiency, and better energy management systems.

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On the road to solar fuels and chemicals

Green Car Congress

In a new paper in the journal Nature Materials (in an edition focused on materials for sustainable energy), a team from Stanford University and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory has reviewed milestones in the progress of solid-state photoelectrocatalytic technologies toward delivering solar fuels and chemistry. Noting the “ important advances ” in solar fuels research, the review team also noted that the largest scientific and technical milestones are still ahead.

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Ford 2017 trends report: disruption the status quo, “never more difficult” to find objective information

Green Car Congress

For the past five years, Ford has issued an annual trend report exploring societal shifts expected to influence consumers and brands (e.g., earlier post ). The reports have focused on microtrends in consumer behavior; the fifth anniversary edition report— Looking Further with Ford: 2017 Trends —revisits three that surfaced in earlier reports, and highlights seven that are emerging.

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Berkeley Lab awarded $4.6M for transformational agriculture technologies

Green Car Congress

The US Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) has awarded $4.6 million to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for two transformational agriculture technology projects. One project aims to use electrical current to image the root system, which will accelerate the breeding of crops with roots that are tailored to specific conditions (such as drought).

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Researchers develop robust biopolymer network binder enabling high sulfur loading in Li-S electrodes

Green Car Congress

Researchers from China and Australia have developed a mechanically robust biopolymer network binder that enabled the preparation of high-loading sulfur electrodes to improve the electrochemical performance of Li-sulfur batteries. The binder supported a high-sulfur-loading electrode of 19.8 mg cm -2 with an ultrahigh areal specific capacity of 26.4 mAh cm -2.

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EPA to begin work on proposed rulemaking for on-road heavy-duty ultra-low NOx standard for MY 2024

Green Car Congress

Earlier this year, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) received several petitions from state and local government agencies from across the country and other organizations to increase the stringency of the on-highway heavy-duty engine NO x emission standards from 0.2 grams per brake horsepower-hour (g/bhp-hr) to 0.02 g/bhp-hr. On 20 December, EPA formally responded , saying that it will initiate the work necessary to issue a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking with the intention of proposing s

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Electric Vehicle Arteries (EVA+) fast charging: Enel, Verbund, Renault, Nissan, BMW & Volkswagen partner in Italy & Austria

Green Car Congress

Enel, as coordinator, and Austria’s main utility Verbund are collaborating on a fast-recharging network project in Italy and Austria, alongside some of the world’s largest EV carmakers including Renault, Nissan, BMW and Volkswagen Group Italia (represented by Volkswagen and Audi). Electric Vehicle Arteries (EVA+) aims to create a fast charging infrastructure for electric vehicles on key roads and motorways in Italy and Austria.

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DOE awards $18M to 5 projects to accelerate development of plug-in electric vehicles & use of other alternative fuels

Green Car Congress

The US Department of Energy (DOE) is awarding $18 million to five projects for research, development, and demonstration of innovative plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) and direct injection propane engine technologies, as well as community-based projects to accelerate the adoption of light, medium and heavy duty vehicles that operate on fuels such as biodiesel, electricity, E85, hydrogen, natural gas, and propane.

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U of Waterloo Autonomoose autonomous vehicle on the road in Canada

Green Car Congress

Researchers from the University of Waterloo Center for Automotive Research (WatCAR) in Canada are modifying a Lincoln MKZ Hybrid to autonomous drive-by-wire operation. The research platform, dubbed “ Autonomoose ” is equipped with a full suite of radar, sonar, lidar, inertial and vision sensors; NVIDIA DRIVE PX 2 AI platform ( earlier post ) to run a complete autonomous driving system, integrating sensor fusion, path planning, and motion control software; and a custom autonomy software stack bei

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