Sat.Aug 31, 2013 - Fri.Sep 06, 2013

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Citroën to show Cactus concept with Hybrid Air powertrain

Green Car Congress

'Citroën Cactus concept with Airbumps (not related to the Hybrid Air powertrain). Click to enlarge. At the upcoming Frankfurt Motor Show, Citroën will showcase its Cactus C-segment concept car, featuring, among other technologies, the Hybrid Air powertrain co-developed by PSA Peugeot Citroën and Bosch. ( Earlier post.). Hybrid Air is a full-hybrid solution combining compressed air and hydraulic power, with no battery required for energy storage.

Concept 294
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Will Tesla Alone Double Global Demand For Its Battery Cells?

Green Car Reports

'Tesla is on a roll right now, with 14,000 of its all-electric Model S luxury sedan on the road and its stock at record highs. If it achieves its planned production levels--21,000 cars this year, perhaps 40,000 by 2015--its voracious appetite for lithium-ion battery cells will only increase. The massive scale of cell purchases by Tesla Motors.

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Electric Cars Shut Off During Winter

DIY Electric Car

'It is already September. A few months from now we, electric car enthusiasts, will have to prepare to take the public transport because most of the time our automobiles cannot make it through slippery piles of snow. Better prepare for a well-maintained garages now that winter is coming. It will still be better to prevent than to cure. Some owners out there are not afraid to take the risk.

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Nissan LEAF going on sale in South Africa next year

National Green Transportation

'On Tuesday, Nissan announced the LEAF will become the first electric car for sale in South Africa in the Spring of 2014. Its South African debut will come in October 2013 at the Johannesburg International Motor Show, and it.

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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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US DOT awards $13.6M to 8 projects to advance fuel cell technology for transit industry

Green Car Congress

'The US Department of Transportation’s Federal Transit Administration (FTA) awarded $13.6 million in federal funding to 8 projects to advance the commercialization of American-made fuel cell buses for the transit industry. The awards come from FY2012 funds via FTA’s National Fuel Cell Bus Program, which has provided nearly $90 million since 2006 to speed the development of fuel cell technology.

Cleveland 291
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Plug-In Electric Car Sales For Aug: Volt, Leaf Hit New Highs

Green Car Reports

'Sales of the two highest-volume plug-in electric cars soared in August, with both the Chevrolet Volt and the Nissan Leaf setting all-time monthly sales records. Chevy, in fact, was so confident about the month''s Volt sales that GM president Mark Reuss previewed the total last week, telling the Los Angeles Times, "We will do about 3,300 Volt sales.

Volt 167

More Trending

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Nissan LEAF going on sale in South Africa next year

National Green Transportation

'On Tuesday, Nissan announced the LEAF will become the first electric car for sale in South Africa in the Spring of 2014. Its South African debut will come in October 2013 at the Johannesburg International Motor Show, and it.

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DEMA consortium targeting direct production ethanol from algae at less than $2/gallon

Green Car Congress

'The EU-funded project DEMA (Direct Ethanol from MicroAlgae) is working to produce bioethanol directly from cyanobacteria—a microalgae found in almost every terrestrial and aquatic habitat, including in oceans, lakes and damp soil, and on rocks—for less than €0.40/liter (US$2.00/gallon). The conversion of solar energy, H 2 O and CO 2 into ethanol will be carried out by a metabolically engineered strain of the cyanobacterium, Synechocystis sp.

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California Extends Electric-Car HOV Lane Access To 2019

Green Car Reports

'Have you ever been alone in your car, wallowing in traffic, looked across to the empty carpool lane, and thought about making a break for it? California plug-in car drivers can do just that--and now they''ll be able to for several more years. The California Legislature has passed two bills that extend access to the state’s High-Occupancy.

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Nissan LEAF leads electric cars to world record

Green Cars News

'The emerging presence of electric cars was emphasised outside the roads of Norway''s capital city, Oslo: as 260 and a half electric vehicles were driven in unison. The unique world record was established by the Electric Vehicle Union and the Norwegian EV Association and began in Maridalen in outer O[.].

Nissan 59
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Faurecia and Accenture partner on products and services for connected and autonomous vehicles

Brief

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Paper suggests rare earth supplies likely to be disrupted in near future

Green Car Congress

'In a paper in the journal ChemSusChem , a team from the VU University Amsterdam suggests that with increasing demand from green and high-tech applications, the supply of rare earth elements (REEs) is likely to be disrupted (the degree of disruption depends on the REE) in the near future. Although there is no deficiency in the earth’s crust of rare earth oxides, the economic accessibility is limited.

Supplies 286
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Wirtschafts Woche: VW to make 250 XL1s, priced at $145,000 each

Green Car Congress

'Germany’s Wirtschafts Woche reports that Volkswagen will produce 250 units of its ultra-efficient XL1 diesel plug-in hybrid ( earlier post ), and price them at €111,000 (US$145,000). The lightweight XL1 (795 kg, 1,753 lbs) delivers NEDC fuel consumption of 261 mpg (0.9 l/100 km) with CO 2 emissions of 21 g/km and an all-electric range of 31 miles (50 km) as well as a total range of 310 miles (499 km).

Price 277
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Researchers tailor lithiation behavior in Li-ion anode material using nanoscale interface and bandgap engineering

Green Car Congress

'Top: Schematic illustration of the core?shell lithiation in pure Ge nanowires. Bottom: Schematic illustration of the axial lithiation induced by an ultra-thin Si shell layer on Ge nanowires. With the 1 nm thick Si layer, the Li transport path and insertion are drastically changed as well as the volume expansion. Credit: ACS, Liu et al. Click to enlarge.

Li-ion 268
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High-speed imaging study provides insights into diesel fuel spray behavior

Green Car Congress

'Researchers at the University of Michigan have used high-speed imaging of diesel injection spray to provide insights into transient fuel spray behavior and to guide the development of the next generation of spray theory and models. In the study reported in the journal Fuel , they used high-speed imaging of a high-pressure diesel common-rail fuel injector mounted in a spherical constant volume combustion chamber.

Insight 268
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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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VW launches Car-Net

Green Car Congress

'Volkswagen of America, Inc. has launched VW Car-Net, a new in-car system that offers a number of convenience and diagnostics features, in addition to services that help customers feel safe and secure. Beginning in the 2014 model year, VW Car-Net will be introduced on select trims of Jetta, Passat, Tiguan, CC, Beetle, Beetle Convertible, and Eos models.

Cars 265
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California ARB to hold workshop on future of Zero Emission Bus regulation

Green Car Congress

'The California Air Resources Board (ARB) is holding a public workshop on 17 September 2013, in Diamond Bar, California, to discuss updates to the Zero Emission Bus (ZBus) regulation and to explore the status of, and future developments to, ZBus technology and related systems. In February 2000, ARB established a new transit fleet rule for transit agencies which included the zero emission bus (ZBus) regulation.

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Mazda beginning road trials of advanced safety vehicle; streetcar-to-vehicle communication system

Green Car Congress

'Mazda Motor Corporation will begin testing its advanced safety vehicle, the Mazda Atenza ASV-5, on public roads from September 2013. The vehicle will be used to test a driving safety support system which utilizes intelligent transport systems (ITS) jointly developed by industrial, academic and government organizations. The car will also take part in the 20 th ITS World Congress Tokyo 2013 in October and demonstrate a safety system that will see streetcars and automobiles communicating with each

Mazda 259
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EPA grants Aemetis’ sorghum ethanol and biogas the D5 advanced biofuel RIN category

Green Car Congress

'The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has granted Aemetis, an advanced fuels and renewable chemicals company formerly known as AE Biofuels, approval to produce ethanol using grain sorghum and biogas at its converted corn ethanol plant to generate D5 Advanced Biofuels Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs). Until now, the D5 Advanced Biofuels RIN portion of the RFS (Renewable Fuel Standard) has been mostly met by imported Brazilian sugarcane ethanol or by substituting D4 biodiesel RINs d

EPA 255
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Nissan to provide LEAFs and LEAF-to-Home power supplies to roadside rest stations in Japan

Green Car Congress

'Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. plans to donate 47 Nissan LEAF all-electric zero-emission EVs and “LEAF-to-Home” power supply systems ( earlier post ) to roadside rest area stations in all of Japan’s 47 prefectures. The plan will begin in September 2013. One Nissan LEAF, paired with a LEAF-to-Home power system, will be donated by Nissan to at least one roadside rest area (called michi-no-eki in Japanese) to each prefecture in the country.

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Integrating traffic simulation and propulsion modeling to estimate EV range for drivers

Green Car Congress

'A team at Ford Research and Advanced Engineering has explored the integration of traffic simulation and vehicle propulsion modeling to estimate energy consumption—and hence range—for battery electric vehicles (BEV) to better assist BEV owners in route planning. A paper on their work, initially presented at the SIMULTECH 2011 conference in Noordwijkerhout, The Netherlands, is newly published in the book Simulation and Modeling Methodologies, Technologies and Applications.

Range 252
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Ricardo advancing with two novel heavy-duty vehicle technologies: cryogenic split-cycle engine and microwave fuel reforming

Green Car Congress

'The concept of the Ricardo Split-Cycle engine. The recuperated engine uses isothermal compression via cryogenic injection to enable significant exhaust to compressed gas heat transfer. Source: Neville Jackson. Click to enlarge. Ricardo is advancing its work with two novel technologies to improve the efficiency of heavy-duty goods vehicles: a cryogenic split-cycle engine “ CryoPower ” ( earlier post ), and a low-carbon waste-heat powered microwave fuel reformer “ HeatWave II ”.

Engine 249
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ADEPT project to apply gasoline engine HyBoost system to diesel; 48V architecture; full hybrid fuel economy at much lower cost

Green Car Congress

'The developers of the successful gasoline-engine HyBoost project ( earlier post )—Ricardo, Ford Motor Company, Control Power Technologies (CPT) and the European Advanced Lead Acid Battery Consortium (EALABC)—will be joined by Faurecia Emissions Control Technologies UK Ltd and University of Nottingham to apply the intelligent electrification concept for the first time to a diesel vehicle (a Ford Focus).

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BMW Group and Vattenfall start new research project on the secondary use of EV batteries

Green Car Congress

'BMW Group and Vattenfall have started a new research project on the secondary use of high-voltage EV batteries using batteries from the MINI E and the BMW ActiveE as stationary power storage. The focus of the partners is the use of second-life EV packs for caching power at fast charging stations and solar installations, and also large installations for grid stabilization.

BMW 239
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California ARB posts three new landfill-gas to CNG and LNG LCFS pathways

Green Car Congress

'The staff of the California Air Resources Board (ARB) has posted for public comment three new Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) pathway applications for landfill gas to compressed natural gas (CNG) and liquefied natural gas (LNG). Clean Energy. Clean Energy has applied for three landfill-gas-to-biomethane fuel pathways. The landfill gas (LFG) for all three pathways is extracted from the Cedar Hills (CH) landfill in Maple Valley, Washington.

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Houston-Galveston area to deploy 30 battery-electric delivery trucks

Green Car Congress

'The Houston-Galveston Area Council (H-GAC) has partnered with the Center for Transportation and the Environment (CTE) and Smith Electric Vehicles Corporation (Smith Electric) to reduce vehicle emissions from delivery trucks in the Houston-Galveston region. As part of a US Department of Energy sponsored effort, local fleets will replace existing diesel delivery vehicles with all-electric medium- and heavy-duty Smith Newton trucks for daily operations in the Houston-Galveston area.

Houston 239
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Researchers developing binary-ion batteries

Green Car Congress

'Researchers at Changzhou University in China are developing a “binary-ion” battery system—a battery that uses cooperative behavior between Zn 2+ and Li + ions to conduct charge in a Zn/LiFePO 4 battery. Cycling behavior of Zn|CH 3 COOLi+Zn(CH 3 COO) 2 |LiFePO4 battery at 1 C rate in the window range 0.5–1.7 V at room temperature. Source: Zhang (2013).

Li-ion 236
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Eni: new ultra-deep discovery offshore Mozambique could contain 5-7 Tcf of gas in place

Green Car Congress

'Italy-based oil and gas major Eni has made a new high impact discovery at Agulha exploration prospect, in Area 4, offshore Mozambique. Preliminary estimates show that the Agulha structure could contain 5 to 7 Trillion cubic feet of gas in place. In 2011, Eni announced a giant natural gas discovery at the Mamba South 1 prospect, in the Area 4 Offshore Mozambique.

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University of Michigan launches new program to accelerate advanced transportation technologies

Green Car Congress

'A new program at the University of Michigan will award funds for researchers to accelerate advanced transportation technologies. M-TRAC (Michigan Translational Research and Commercialization) is modeled after U-M’s successful Coulter biomedical program and is jointly funded by the university and the Michigan Economic Development Corporation for a $330,000 pilot.

Michigan 231
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Battery Innovation Center opens in Indiana

Green Car Congress

'The Battery Innovation Center (BIC), launched by Energy Systems Network, opened today at the Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) Crane in Indiana. The BIC will leverage Indiana’s public and private sector assets in advanced battery technologies to create a center of excellence that will meet the research and development, rapid prototyping and contract manufacturing needs of industry, academic and military customers.

Indiana 231
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2014 Honda Accord Hybrid EPA-rated at 50 mpg city

Green Car Congress

'2014 Honda Accord Hybrid. Click to enlarge. Honda has begun US production of the 2014 Accord Hybrid ( earlier post ), which will carry an EPA fuel economy rating of 50 mpg (4.7 l/100 km) in city driving. The EPA rating is 1 mpg higher than Honda had originally anticipated for the hybrid (49 mpg). The new Accord Hybrid also carries an EPA-rated highway fuel economy of 45 mpg (5.2 l/100 km) and combined cycle fuel economy of 47 mpg (5.0 l/100 km) as the company had earlier projected.

MPG 230
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August sales of plug-in hybrids in US up 83% from July, up 65% y-o-y

Green Car Congress

'Monthly sales of plug-in hybrids in US. Data: EDTA , automakers. Click to enlarge. Sales of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles in the US in August reached 6,407 units—up 83% from the prior month and up 65% from results in August 2012. jumped 83% from the prior month to 6,407 units. The results marked the strongest monthly results to date for plug-in hybrids (i.e., not conventional hybrids, and not battery-electric vehicles.).

Plug-in 230
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Ford’s S-MAX concept showcases next-gen driver assistance and car-to-car communications

Green Car Congress

'Ford President and CEO Alan Mulally revealed Ford’s all-new S-MAX Concept vehicle during a keynote at the IFA 2013 consumer electronics show in Berlin. The S-MAX Concept showcases Ford’s vision for a future generation sport activity vehicle featuring new advanced driver assistance systems incorporating car-to-car communication. The S-MAX concept shows the next generation of our advanced safety features.

Concept 220
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US DOT issues advance notice of proposed rulemaking on improving safety of oil and hazmat rail tank cars

Green Car Congress

'The US Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration is seeking public comment to further enhance the safe transportation of hazardous materials by rail tank cars, including the DOT 111 tank car, a type of non-pressure tank car commonly used in North America. (DOT 111 tank cars were involved in the Lac Mégantic disaster.

Oil 220
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Cyclone and partner set up to expand production of WHE-25 waste heat engines

Green Car Congress

'Cyclone Power Technologies Inc., developer of the all-fuel, Cyclone external combustion engine, announced that its subsidiary Cyclone-WHE LLC and production partner Precision CNC LLC have signed a lease for a new manufacturing facility located in Lancaster, Ohio. This 16,000 s.f. facility has the production and assembly space capable of turning out at least 1,500 Cyclone engines per month, which is Cyclone’s conservative sales forecast for the 10hp WHE-25 waste heat engine ( earlier post ) over

Waste 220