The California Air Resources Board and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) released a report they commissioned by investigators at the University of California, Davis that looks at how to distinguish health effects caused by different types of fine and ultrafine airborne particulate matter (PM) from different sources. The research was conducted by Dr. Anthony Wexler, director of the Air Quality Research Center at the University of California, Davis. MORE

Chemists at the University of California, Davis think they''ve cracked it, though, using a new technique to make "biogasoline" from plant waste. Plant-based diesel has been available for many years now but making a true gasoline-like hydrocarbon from plant oils has proven a lot more difficult. Biodiesel will be familiar to many readers MORE

Well-to-wheels vehicle emissions (gCO 2 equiv.km -1 ) by energy source, vehicle energy intensity (MJkm -1 ), and fuel carbon intensity (gCO 2 equiv. MJ -1 ) by vehicle pathway and timing profile. Source: McCarthy et al. Click to enlarge. MORE

Dan Sperling, director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Davis, and member of the California Air Resources Board, has been appointed the 2015 chair of the Transportation Research Board’s Executive Committee, which provides independent scientific advice to the nation on transportation issues. MORE

The University of California, Davis announced the appointment of Professor Nicole Woolsey Biggart of the university’s Graduate School of Management to the Chevron Chair in Energy Efficiency. The Chevron Chair directs the UC Davis Energy Efficiency Center in its mission to accelerate the commercialization of energy-efficiency technologies, teach future leaders in energy efficiency and conduct critical policy-supporting research. MORE

University of California, Davis researchers will receive $2.8 These environmental impacts are not fully documented, according to Tom Tomich, director of the Agricultural Sustainability Institute at UC Davis. 300,000 from the California Air Resources Board to Will Horwath, professor in the UC Davis Department of Land, Air and Water Resources, for research on practical ways to reduce nitrous oxide emissions in California agriculture. MORE

One of the more affordable ways to cut greenhouse gas emissions is to design cities to give people clean options for using public transportation, walking and cycling and to move away from car-centric development, according to a new report released by the University of California, Davis, and the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP). —Lew Fulton, co-director of NextSTEPS Program at the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies. MORE

Research from the Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California at Davis (ITS-Davis) suggests it will take more than a reasonable price and good information to get consumers to make more sustainable transportation choices, such as the purchase of a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV). “What we’re finding, especially at UC Davis, is that its takes more than technical solutions to fix our problems; we can’t keep building our way out. MORE

and UC-Davis Emeritus and Bruce R. Frank (email: afrank@efficientdrivetrains.com) Dr. Frank is Professor Emeritus, Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering at the University of California, Davis, where he established the Institute for Transportation Studies (ITS-Davis), and was director of the US Department of Energy’s National Center of Hybrid Excellence at UC Davis. from University of California, Davis and years of experience as an agricultural researcher. MORE

The most extreme case, Severin Borenstein and Lucas Davis found through their examination of tax return data from the IRS, is the program aimed at electric vehicles—the top income quintile received about 90% of all these credits. Source: Borenstein and Davis. MORE

BMW of North America and the University of California at Davis (UC Davis) are partnering on a year-long field study to determine the viability of electric vehicles. Marking the first comprehensive study of its kind since the mid-1990s, the UC Davis-led research will focus on user interactions with the MINI E, and is expected to yield insights into real-life usage and perceptions about electric vehicles. Tom Turrentine, director of UC Davis’ PHEV Research Center. MORE

The University of California, Davis and the BMW Group released the largest publicly available study of electric-car users yet conducted, including more than 120 families who drove the fully electric MINI E automobile more than 1 million miles in California, New York and New Jersey from June 2009 to June 2010. The report from the Plug-in Hybrid & Electric Vehicle (PH&EV) Research Center at UC Davis investigates the US pioneers’s experience during the field trial. MORE

Researchers at the Institute of Transportation Studies University of California, Davis suggest that a number of positive trends indicate that we may be seeing the beginning of a real hydrogen transition in transportation, despite earlier starts that fizzled. MORE

Researchers at the University of California, Davis have developed a process for the production of branched C 7 –C 10 hydrocarbons in the gasoline volatility range from biomass-derived levulinic acid with good yield, operating under relatively mild conditions, with short reaction times. A paper on their work is published in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition ; UC Davis has filed provisional patents on the process, and is making it available for licensing. MORE

The Regents of the University of California (Davis); Demonstration of Retrofitted All- Electric Transit Bus at UC Davis. The California Energy Commissions has selected 9 projects to receive a combined $24,873,512 in proposed funding for cost share in the field demonstration of advanced medium- and heavy-duty on-road vehicle technologies—primarily battery electric and fuel cell technology—that may become commercially available in California. MORE

Using a micro-hybrid system featuring carbon/carbon ultracapacitor units as energy storage can result in significant increases in fuel economy over a baseline conventional vehicle, according to a study by Dr. Andrew Burke at UC Davis. Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Davis, Research Report UCD-ITS-RR-09-23. MORE

The California Energy Commission has awarded $398,662 to the University of California, Davis to develop a forecasting tool that can be used by the state’s grid operator to respond to sudden changes in wind power production. UC Davis and its partners are providing an additional $109,364 in cost sharing funds. MORE

A better understanding of how algae can be used to make biofuels is the aim of a new joint project between UC Davis and the University of Tokyo, Japan. UC Davis’ share will be about $1.5 Other UC Davis investigators on the project are: Jean VanderGheynst, professor of biological and agricultural engineering; John Labavitch, professor of plant sciences; and Tobias Kind and William Wikoff, both project scientists at the UC Davis Genome Center. MORE

And a new study just released by the University of California--Davis suggests that we are "tantalizingly close to the beginning of a hydrogen MORE

Researchers at the University of California, Davis, and Stanford University are proposing a reaction mechanism for one of the key steps in assembling the hydrogen-generating bacterial catalyst hydrogenase. MORE

The new ADG will be led by Intel veteran Doug Davis, who postponed his retirement to become the senior vice president and general manager of the group. Intel has created a new organization called the Automated Driving Group (ADG), which will be solely dedicated to innovating the future of driving and designing the next generation of advanced driver assist systems and autonomous driving solutions. MORE

Robert Davis, senior vice president of U.S. It's all change at Mazda for the next generation of its engine and product lines. The CX-7 SUV and 6-cylinder engines are out, and a wave of efficient Skyactiv engines, light-weight cars and an improved line of rotary engines is in. Operations at Mazda, confirmed the changes with Car and Driver. The most MORE

Intel Senior Vice President Doug Davis will oversee the combined organization’s engagement across Intel’s business groups and will report to Prof. MORE

The University of California, Davis, and the China Automotive Technology and Research Center (CATARC) have entered a new agreement to work together to help speed the commercialization of plug-in and fuel cell electric cars in China. Primary UC Davis partners are the Institute of Transportation Studies and the UC Davis Policy Institute for Energy, Environment and the Economy. Signatories to the MOU include UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. MORE

The US Department of Transportation recently selected the National Center for Sustainable Transportation, led by the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies, to receive a five-year grant totaling approximately $14 million ($2.8 million in the initial year) to advance a more sustainable transportation system. MORE

That’s the verdict of research by the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California at Davis which suggests that more [.]. Green cars Latest news plug-in hybrid cars plug-in hybrid vehicles social influences UC DavisWhoever thought that the only elements people need to make more sustainable transport choices are reasonable prices and good information, should think again – because social influence will also play a significant role. MORE

The major difference between these studies stems from the debate existing in the water life cycle analysis (LCA) literature regarding whether, and how, to include consumption of green water (GW), which comes from precipitation before and during the crop season and is stored as soil moisture, note UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS) Gouri Shankar Mishra and Sonia Yeh in a new paper published in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology. MORE

The home, located on the West Village campus of the University of California, Davis, is capable of producing more energy on-site from renewable sources than it consumes annually, including enough energy to power a Honda Fit EV for daily commuting. MORE

Knoshaug, Ryan Davis, Lieve M.L. A new biorefinery process developed by scientists at the Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has proven to be significantly more effective at producing ethanol from algae than previous research. MORE

A new report from a team at the University of California, Davis, and the New York-based nonprofit Institute for Transportation & Development Policy (ITDP) has concluded that shared mobility is a critical enabler for realizing the benefits of electrification and autonomous driving. STEPS is a multidisciplinary research consortium, part of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Davis.). MORE

A study by researchers at the Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis finds that buyers of plug-in vehicles (PEVs) are substantially less satisfied with the dealer purchase experience than buyers of conventional vehicles—with the notable exception of Tesla buyers. This study was supported by a grant from the California Energy Commission and through contributions from the NextSTEPS research arm of the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies. XXXXX Click to enlarge. MORE

At the current pace of research and development, replacing gasoline and diesel with renewable fuel alternatives could take some 131 years, according to a new University of California, Davis, study using a new sustainability forecasting approach based on market expectations. —Nataliya Malyshkina, UC Davis postdoctoral researcher. MORE

BP and Davy Process Technology announced collaborations with three EPC (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) contractors to promote the commercialization of the BP/Davy Fischer-Tropsch (FT) Process. The BP/Davy fixed-bed FT process produces diesel, jet fuel (JP8) and naphtha from natural gas, biomass- or coal-derived syngas. BP has been developing FT technology since 1981 and has been in partnership with Davy Process Technology since 1996. MORE

A research team from the University of California, Davis has engineered a 2,3-butanediol (23BD) biosynthetic pathway in the cyanobacterium Synechococcus elongatus PCC7942 to establish design methods for efficient exogenous chemical production in cyanobacteria—a technology area that is still in its infancy compared with model fermentative organisms, they noted. MORE

Hyundai Motor Group signed a memorandum of understanding with the University of California, Berkeley and University of California, Davis to establish the Hyundai Center of Excellence. Hyundai will also work with top research institutions, including UC Berkeley, UC Davis, and Stanford University. This marks the first collaboration project in Hyundai’s larger R&D joint research and professional development program, called Hyundai R&D Global Frontier. MORE

Distribution of battery requirements for consumer-selected PHEV designs (shaded circles) compared to USABC, MIT and EPRI performance requirements. Source: Axsen et al. Click to enlarge. MORE

A recent report prepared by UC Davis researchers for the California Air Resources Board (ARB) found that compliance costs for the Low Carbon Fuels Standard (LCFS) may increase rapidly in the future if there are large differences in marginal costs between traditional fossil fuels and alternative, low-carbon-intensity fuels; or if there are capacity or technological constraints to deploying alternative fuels, particularly those with low-carbon intensity. MORE

The UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation and the UC Davis Plug-In Hybrid and Electric Vehicle Research Center will host the World Electric Vehicle Cities and Ecosystems Conference on 5 May, just prior to EVS 26. The conference will explore best practices and innovative solutions for the deployment of plug-in electric vehicles in cities throughout the world. MORE

Zipcar has introduced a 2014 Honda Fit battery electric vehicle (EV) at The University of California, Davis’ (UC Davis) West Village , the largest planned zero net energy community in the United States. The new Honda Fit EV at UC Davis is located at West Village Square right across the street from West Village’s other Zipcar, a Honda Insight, in front of “The Hub Market.” Zipcar has had vehicles on campus at UC Davis since 2009. MORE

Johnson Matthey Davy Technologies Ltd. (JM JM Davy), a global provider of advanced process technologies and Rennovia, Inc., Under the collaboration, Rennovia and JM Davy will work together to develop and demonstrate the processes based on Rennovia’s technology for the catalytic aerobic oxidation of glucose to glucaric acid, as well as the catalytic hydrogenation of glucaric acid to adipic acid. MORE

Yesterday, though, the Japanese carmaker opened its Honda Smart Home US in Davis, California--demonstrating its ideas for how Americans might live a zero-carbon life in the 21st Century. Most of us think "Honda" and bring up economy cars, perhaps lawnmowers, or even portable generators. Complete houses aren''t usually on the list. MORE

Two professors from MIT and UC Davis have released a paper challenging the recent claims by the Renewable Fuel Association (RFA) and US Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack that ethanol production decreased gasoline prices by $0.89 MORE

Yunshi Wang, Jacob Teter and Daniel Sperling from the University of California Davis Institute of Transportation Studies report that the growth rate of China’s vehicle population could reach 13-17% per year—roughly twice the 6-11% widely forecast for annual growth. MORE