Today, we've got some auto-industry analysis on BMW's electric cars, two updates on recent stories, a look at Tesla's latest Autopilot, and a takedown of a bizarre Swedish study of the environmental impact of electric cars. All this and more on Green Car Reports. With the BMW i5 dedicated electric crossover now apparently dead, and an all-electric. Today in Car News MORE

Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) launched the new Clean Fuel Rebate program for customers driving vehicles using compressed natural gas as a clean transportation fuel. Eligible customers already have a compressed natural gas account and fill up at PG&E stations across Northern and Central California. The first rebate will be issued in 2017 and is expected to be an annual rebate through 2020. MORE

From 2019, Volkswagen will start fitting its first models with pWLAN as standard in order to serve as an additional communication technology for the exchange of selected information relevant to traffic between cars made by different manufacturers. This will involve information being exchanged both between vehicles (car-to-car), as well as between vehicles and the transport infrastructure (car-to-X) (also fitted with pWLAN technology). MORE

Over the last two years, Audi and Mercedes-Benz have released severa; all-electric concept cars that are thinly disguised production models to arrive in 2018 and beyond. But electric-car pioneer BMW's plans are less clear. Its sole recent electric concept car was the iNext luxury sedan shown more than a year ago; it'll be a production model in. Future Cars plug-in cars Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV MORE

Electric vehicles shouldn't be considered all-out carbon footprint saviors, but they can legitimately be viewed as the great minimizers. The benefits of electric vehicles over those with internal-combustion engines are vast, but a strange new study is making rounds that claims electric cars are worse for climate-change emissions. The study. Carbon Footprint Study plug-in cars Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV MORE

BMW i Ventures has made a strategic investment in Xometry , an on-demand manufacturing platform that provides product designers and engineers access to a nationwide network of manufacturing facilities. Since launching in 2014, Xometry has continued a rapid market expansion, recently eclipsing 5,000 customers spanning multiple verticals, including aerospace, automotive, consumer, medical devices and industrials. MORE

BASF recently signed an agreement to sell its electrolytes manufacturing site in Suzhou, China, to Shenzhen Capchem Technology Co., Capchem), one of the leading suppliers in the global electronic-chemicals and functional materials industry. Financial details of the transaction will not be disclosed. The transaction is expected to close in the next 60 to 90 days, subject to regulatory approval and other customary closing conditions. MORE

Daimler AG and Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW) for the first time have jointly used blockchain technology to execute a financial transaction. MORE

Royal Dutch Shell plc, through its subsidiary Shell International Exploration and Production B.V, and SBI Bioenergy Inc. have reached an agreement granting Shell exclusive development and licensing rights for SBI’s biofuel technology. MORE

Volkswagen IT is cooperating with US technology company NVIDIA with a view to expanding its competence in the field of deep learning. At the Volkswagen Data Lab—named the Group’s center of excellence for AI and data analysis—IT experts are developing advanced AI systems with deep learning. MORE

Xylogenics released a new strain design for its patented GX-1 yeast production and fermentation process. The efficiencies created by the newest strain design will have an immediate impact on industries that rely on micro-organism technologies—most notably the ethanol industry wherein individual production plants are planning to invest upwards of $350 million annually on yeast technology advancements. MORE

In the ongoing quest to develop high-capacity cathode materials for high-energy batteries, the conventional approach has been to rely on lithium-excess materials to operate the cathode at high voltage. MORE

LiquidPiston, Inc. LPI), a developer of advanced multi-fuel-capable rotary combustion engine technology, has been awarded a $3-million Rapid Innovation Fund (RIF) award from the US Army to develop an innovative ultra-portable 2kW diesel Compact Artillery Power System (CAPS). MORE

The expanded collection of sensors known as Hardware 2 continues to bring new and revamped features to the Tesla Model S and Model X electric cars. But how do the latest features offered by Autopilot stack up against those offered until last fall by the superseded Hardware 1 setup? One owner has gone through the trouble of laying everything out as. plug-in cars Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) self-driving cars active safety Tesla Autopilot MORE

The 2018 Nissan Leaf will likely be revealed within the next three months, but more than 100,000 older Leaf electric cars are still silently in use on U.S. roads. Some of them, especially the lowest-range cars from the two earliest model years (2011 and 2012), have started to see significant battery capacity degradation. That was the case with. battery pack plug-in cars Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) Replacement Battery Life MORE

Exclusive research conducted amongst 2,000 van drivers, owners and operators and commissioned by Mercedes-Benz Vans has established a clear motoring m MORE

You’ve no doubt seen them on the hard shoulder or looping the motorway, occasionally you’ll catch their amber lights in your rear-view mirror too, but MORE

What’s the maddest Jaguar ever made? The XJ220 supercar of the 90s? The F-Type SVR? Well it’s actually the relatively humble XE saloon, which for some MORE