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Google and IEEE launch $1M challenge for downsized inverters

Green Car Congress

Google and the IEEE have launched the Littlebox Challenge—an open competition to design and build a small kW-scale inverter with the highest power density (of at least 50 W/in 3 , or 3.05 Google and IEEE are emphasizing size reduction in their challenge, without targeting a specific application area such as automotive.

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Ford launches app developer challenge to improve consumer understanding of personal fuel efficiency

Green Car Congress

Ford launched a $50,000 challenge for software developers to write innovative apps to help consumers better understand and improve their personal fuel efficiency. Participants will have access to Ford’s OpenXC connectivity research platform as a sandbox to create and test their ideas for the Personalized Fuel Efficiency Apps Challenge.

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Report: Uber to invest $500M in global mapping project

Green Car Congress

The Financial Times reports that Uber will invest $500 million into a global mapping project in an effort to decrease its dependence on Google Maps and to prepare for autonomous driving. The FT cited “ a person familiar with Uber’s plans ” as the source. Last year we put mapping cars on the road in the United States.

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How To Find EV Charging Stations With the EV Connect Driver

EV Connect

Electric vehicle chargers are not spread evenly throughout the United States. While the country as a whole has roughly 37 ports per 100,000 people (half that of the European Union), the bulk of those are in California and Vermont, with much of the rest of the country sitting closer to 10 per person. It isn’t specialized.

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Lewis H. Latimer: A Life of Lightbulb Moments

Cars That Think

There’s also the matter of Latimer’s own indispensable invention: a process for producing an improved carbon filament for bulbs that made them longer lasting, cheaper, and accessible by the masses just in time for the large-scale electrification efforts in the United States. Alamy In a piece of personal correspondence with Booker T.

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Ford to begin autonomous vehicle testing on California roads; Silicon Valley Lab accelerates Smart Mobility Plan

Green Car Congress

The current (as of 3 December 2015) approved participants in the California program in addition to Ford are: Volkswagen Group of America; Mercedes Benz; Google; Delphi Automotive; Tesla Motors; Bosch; Nissan; Cruise Automation; BMW; and Honda. Autonomous Ford Fusion outside the Ford Research and Innovation Center in Palo Alto.

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Transparency Depends on Digital Breadcrumbs

Cars That Think

From the moment we wake up and reach for our smartphones and throughout the day as we text each other, upload selfies to social media, shop, commute, work, work out, watch streaming media, pay bills, and travel, and even while we’re sleeping, we spew personal data like jets sketching contrails across the sky.

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