NFI Group), the largest transit bus and motor coach manufacturer and parts distributor in North America, announced that its Anniston, Alabama facility has successfully completed its first full build of an Xcelsior CHARGE battery-electric heavy-duty transit bus. New Flyer currently employs 610 people in Alabama, and is expected to add approximately 60 people to the Anniston team in 2018. New Flyer of America Inc., the US subsidiary of New Flyer Industries Inc. MORE

The unit train pulled out of Aurora heading to Birmingham, Alabama where the ethanol will be blended in gasoline to enhance octane. Aventine Renewable Energy Inc., a leading producer, marketer and supplier of ethanol, announced its first BNSF unit-train shipment of ethanol produced at its two ethanol facilities in Aurora, Nebraska. A BNSF ethanol unit train may consist of 96 ethanol tank cars, 2 buffer cars (62' in length) and 4 BNSF locomotives (75' in length). MORE

New Flyer of America Inc, the largest transit bus and motor coach manufacturer and parts distributor in North America, will invest $25 million in major building renovations and expansions at its Anniston, Alabama production campus. The investment adds fabrication equipment that enhances component manufacturing, streamlines the weld process, expands the operational footprint, and adds capacity and an innovation center for zero-emission bus production. MORE

The 36 other states with speed limits of 70 mph or higher, are Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wyoming. MORE

It will be a case of ’sweet home Alabama’ for Yang Rong, a Chinese automobile tycoon who is preparing to launch a plan to make clean-tech cars in the United States. Yang is likely to co-operate with the Alabama state government on the project which is expected to create thousands of jobs in its initial phase, according to the source. There has been no comment from Alabama economic development officials. MORE

Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Alabama, Inc. TMMAL), an engine-production subsidiary of Japan-based Toyota Motor. Corporation (TMC), held a line-off ceremony to mark the beginning of. four-cylinder engine production. The 10-year old plant now has the capacity to produce approximately 216,000 4-cylinder engines, 146,000 V6 engines, and 144,000 V8 engines per year. TMMAL-produced 2.5-liter and 2.7-liter four-cylinder engines will go into the all-new. 2012 Camry, Highlander, Sienna and Venza. MORE

in Alabama. The trucks will be dedicated to routes moving automobiles from Honda’s Lincoln, Alabama factory to a new CSX rail facility. Mainstay Fuel Technologies, Inc. MORE

Alabama and Mississippi are forming a partnership to further study the oil sands resources in the two states, Alabama Governor Robert Bentley and Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant announced on Saturday while speaking to the Southern States Energy Board. MORE

Alabama Graphite Corp. AGC) reported positive electrochemical results from downstream lithium-ion battery tests recently performed on its silicon-oxide-enhanced coated spherical purified graphite ("Si-CSPG") produced from the AGC’s ultra-high-purity 99.999 wt% C natural flake graphite. MORE

The US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has completed a draft environmental impact statement regarding multiple oil and gas lease sales tentatively scheduled between 2012 and 2017 in the Western and Central Gulf of Mexico planning areas, offshore the states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. MORE

Southern Research Institute (SRI) of Birmingham, Alabama will receive up to $5.9 The US Department of Energy (DOE) will award up to $11.3 million for two projects that aim to advance the production of cost-competitive, high-performance carbon fiber material from renewable, non-food-based feedstocks, such as agricultural residues and woody biomass. Carbon fiber can lower the cost and improve performance of fuel-efficient vehicles and renewable energy components such as wind turbine blades. MORE

will be deployed beginning in January 2017 starting in Arizona, Texas, Nevada, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Florida, and, possibly in other states as well. UPS will add 200 new series hybrid electric delivery trucks to the company’s growing alternative fuel and advanced technology fleet. MORE

Green cars Latest news Mercedes Nissan Alabama four-cylinder engines Mercedes-Benz Renault Twingo Renault-Nissan Alliance smart TennesseeThe Renault-Nissan Alliance has furthered its alliance with German carmaker Daimler after agreeing to manufacture Mercedes-Benz four-cylinder petrol engines at its Decherd, Tennessee, assembly plant. Its engines will be used for both Infiniti and Mercedes-Benz models with production to start in 2014. MORE

The infield flowlines will be welded at the Group’s spoolbase in Mobile, Alabama. BP Exploration & Production Inc. awarded Technip a lump sum project for the design, engineering, fabrication, installation and pre-commissioning of the new production pipeline systems on the south side of the Thunder Horse production drilling quarters unit. MORE

This investment builds on the company’s existing 18 CNG fueling stations in Alabama, California, Colorado, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia and operates CNG vehicles in Germany, the Netherlands and Thailand. MORE

The Nikkei reports that Nippon Steel and ArcelorMittal will jointly acquire a ThyssenKrupp automotive steel sheet plant in Alabama for approximately ¥200 billion (US$1.95 ThyssenKrupp invested US$5 billion in its Calvert, Alabama complex: $3.6 By acquiring the state-of-the-art Alabama facility, at a relatively low price, Nippon Steel and ArcelorMittal will boost overall US capacity to 4.2 MORE

Daimler, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz, is expected to announce that it will invest up to $1 billion to build electric SUVs and batteries in and around its Alabama assembly plant. Manufacturing Future Cars Daimler battery pack Alabama plug-in cars Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) assembly plantsThe plans, first reported reported Thursday in The Wall Street Journal (paywalled), represent a major expansion of electric-car manufacturing in the U.S. So far. MORE

Specifically, President Trump touted the undoing of the Clean Power Plan at a rally in Huntsville, Alabama, which foreshadowed a formal announcement. Donald Trump's White House appears to be readying another of its next big climate change overhauls, and like many of the administration's plans, it will weaken or eliminate regulations on industry. MORE

Seventy million of those gallons were to come from an Alabama company called Cello Energy, but Cello has now been found guilty in a Federal court of civil fraud for lying to a major investor about its ability to make ethanol from grass and other woody, non-food materials. Tags: Biofuels Green cars Latest news Alabama Cello Energy cellulosic ethanol EPA MORE

University of Alabama. The University of Alabama will examine the combustion properties of biofuels and blends using advanced diagnostic techniques under realistic advanced compression ignition (ACI) engine conditions. 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. MORE

The Gulf oil combustion test was performed in conjunction with Unified Fuels LLC of Foley, Alabama, a development partner of Cyclone. In the current experiment, Unified was able to use the same process to separate crude oil recovered from a private beach in southern Alabama from sand, volatile organics and other non-organic impurities. Cyclone Power Technologies, Inc. MORE

Still, I made it from New York''s cold, snowy Hudson Valley into the warm, humid climes of Alabama in my first three days--as I wrote about yesterday. A cross-country road trip in a Tesla Model S electric car requires a fair amount of forward planning and contingency research. Then, waking up on Day Four, I had a stroke of unexpected luck. DAY 4 MORE

Precision Partners is headquartered in Ontario, and employs more than 1,000 employees, including about 300 engineers and skilled tool makers, across eight plants in Ontario, Alabama and Kentucky. AK Steel signed an agreement to acquire Precision Partners Holding Company, a leading North American automotive market company that provides engineering, tooling, die design and hot and cold stamped steel parts, for $360 million in cash. MORE

Field testing the potential for combining geologic carbon dioxide storage with enhanced methane recovery is underway at a site in Alabama by a US Department of Energy (DOE) team of regional partners. Southern Company, El Paso Exploration & Production, the Geological Survey of Alabama, and the University of Alabama are all participating in the field test, known as the Black Warrior CO 2 Storage Project. MORE

million in five US manufacturing plants to support production of its first US-made hybrid powertrain and to implement Toyota’s New Global Architecture (TNGA) at its Alabama plant. Fifty new jobs will be created because of the investment at the Alabama plant. MORE

Carbon dioxide injection—an important part of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology—is underway as part of a pilot study of CO 2 enhanced oil recovery (EOR) in the Citronelle Field of Mobile County, Alabama. A project team led by the University of Alabama at Birmingham is conducting the injection. Project performers include the University of Alabama at Birmingham (Birmingham, Ala); Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University (Normal, Ala.); MORE

Los Angeles-based start-up, Hybrid Kinetic Motors (HK Motors) has announced plans to construct a new green-vehicle manufacturing plant in Baldwin County, Alabama in the US. HK Motors Chairman, Yung Benjamin Yeung cited the strength of Alabama’s economy and the quality of its workforce as the main reasons for the board’s decision to locate its primary manufacturing operations in Alabama. Tags: Green credentials Alabama green hybrid kinetic motors MORE

In the US market, Elantra won the prestigious North American Car of the Year award in 2012 and is built at Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama in Montgomery, Ala. Hyundai’s Elantra (Avante in other parts of the world) recently sold its 10 millionth unit globally. Elantra is Hyundai’s first model, and one of only 10 cars in the history of the auto industry to reach 10 million sales. MORE

Spacing to be filled in. when time permits. However, one can "No Kidding" April Fool's Day do a GOOGLE on the following: Jerry Asher Plug-ins. and be amazed as EVJerry was! Way beyond expectation! Next time I'll endeavor to listen more closely to PHEV3A Co-Chair, Joe Lado. More to follow. Spirit" & EVJerry MORE

The expansion will allow Toyota Motor Manufacturing Alabama, Inc. Toyota will invest approximately $80 million its Huntsville, Ala. engine facility to increase North American production of V6 engines. The investment will bring total plant investment to more than $700 million. TMMAL) to build an additional 216,000 engines each year, boosting total V6 annual capacity to 362,000. A new 300,000 sq. building will be constructed. The increased production will begin in March 2014. MORE

After starting in Portland, Oregon on December 26, the team drove down the West Coast, before cutting across Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama Well, they made it! Tesla Model S-driving trio Peter Soukup, Tina Thomas and Luba Roytburd successfully arrived in New York City after almost five thousand miles of driving coast-to-coast. MORE

The invasive plant now occurs in 48 states, excluding Alabama and Florida; it has also been introduced in South America, Asia, southern Africa, and New Zealand.). Under a project to deliver a new generation of green transport fuel, researchers the Islamic Azad University in Iran have produced biodiesel from flixweed seed oil. Flixweed ( Descurainia sophia ), also called tansy mustard, it is a member of the mustard family like the oilseed crop, canola. MORE

for engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) services for the construction of its commercial cellulosic ethanol facility in Boligee, Alabama, that will be designed around the Coskata technology. The facility will convert sustainably harvested wood biomass into ethanol, a high-octane renewable fuel, and is expected to bring approximately 300 construction jobs and 700 direct and indirect jobs to Greene County, Alabama. Cellulosic ethanol company Coskata, Inc. MORE

Managed by the Office of Fossil Energy’s (FE) National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), the site characterization well drilling projects occurred in the resource-rich Black Warrior Basin in northwest Alabama; the Newark Basin, underlying a heavily industrialized region in parts of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania; and the Rock Springs Uplift in southwestern Wyoming, in proximity to some of the state’s largest sources of CO2 emissions. MORE

will soon start producing electrolytes for lithium-ion batteries, initially at its Daikin America plant in Alabama, and begin selling them in January. The Alabama plant will have an annual production capacity of around 2,000 tons. Nikkei. Japan-based Daikin Industries Ltd. Daikin says its product can be charged at higher voltages than conventional electrolytes, helping to lift battery capacity by 20%. MORE

First introduced in 2007, and built on the same Alabama production line that also assembles A seven-passenger full-size sport utility vehicle that weighs roughly three tons is rarely anyone’s idea of a green vehicle, but the 2011 Mercedes-Benz GL Class gets the nod when it’s fitted with the company’s Bluetec clean-diesel engine. MORE

Navistar’s IC Bus brand has received an order for 44 CE Series school buses by Franklin County Schools in Alabama, powered by the Power Solutions International (PSI) 8.8-liter LP propane engine. Purpose-built for the school bus industry, the CE Series with PSI propane engine is designed to provide diesel-like performance with higher torque at lower engine speeds. MORE

A pipeline rupture in Alabama has led to fuel shortages. Fuel Gasoline oil Alabama gas stationThe term "range anxiety" is commonly associated with electric cars because of relatively short ranges for many of them, along with a lack of charging infrastructure in many regions. But at the moment, many drivers of gasoline cars in the southern U.S. may begin feeling exactly the same thing. MORE

the city of Vestavia Hills, Lee County and Lewis Pest Control in Alabama. Virginia Clean Cities announced that 1,000 vehicles have been successfully converted to run on propane autogas through the Southeast Propane Autogas Development Program (SPADP). The Program is supported by funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and the US Department of Energy’s Clean Cities Program. MORE

Mazda and Toyota have selected Huntsville, Alabama as the site of their new joint-venture manufacturing plant. The site for the new plant is in Huntsville, located approximately 14 miles from Toyota’s Alabama plant (Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Alabama, Inc.). With more than 150 Tier 1 and 2 automotive suppliers in the state as well as automakers, there are approximately 57,000 automotive manufacturing jobs in Alabama. MORE

UPS currently operates 31 CNG fueling stations in Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nevada, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, Tennessee, and West Virginia and runs CNG vehicles in 38 states in the U.S. UPS plans to build an additional six compressed natural gas (CNG) fueling stations and add 390 new CNG tractors and terminal trucks and 50 liquefied natural gas (LNG) vehicles to its alternative fuel and advanced technology fleet. MORE

The company plans to produce EQ-branded SUV models at MBUSI (Mercedes-Benz US International), its Tuscaloosa, Alabama facility. Final details of the plans are still being worked on in partnership with the State of Alabama. Dignitaries attending the event included Alabama Governor Kay Ellen Ivey as well as other local and state officials. Mercedes-Benz will set up electric vehicle production in the United States. MORE

The 2015 Sonata Eco will start at $23,275, excluding $810 freight charge, and go into production at the Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama plant later this summer. 2015 Sonata Eco. Click to enlarge. Hyundai announced the third powertrain available in the 2015 Sonata: the Sonata Eco. MORE