Green Car Congress

APRIL 14, 2012

Conventional industrial 11 kW induction motor (left) and Hitachi’s new 11kW motor (right). Source: Hitachi. Click to enlarge. Hitachi has developed a high-efficiency 11 kW permanent magnet synchronous motor without using rare earth (neodymium, dysprosium) materials; the work follows on its 2008 announcement of a prototype 150 W motor that used cores made of amorphous metal coupled with ferrite magnet rotors. ( Earlier post.).

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Electric Cars are for Girls

APRIL 13, 2012

Sunday, Sept. 9 2012 at The Pavilions in Toronto. "Fall 2012 marks the fourth EV Fest, a show devoted to showing OEM and Personally converted Electric Vehicles, Hybrids, Plug-in Hybrids, eBikes, Electric Scooters, Trikes, EV components and supplies.

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2012 Electric Vehicles Vehicles Personal 229

Green Car Reports

APRIL 18, 2012

In the minds of many consumers, electric cars like the 2012 Nissan Leaf are over-priced, second-cars that are only capable of short trips around town. We’ve proven that sentiment wrong ourselves, covering just over 15,000 miles in a year in our 2011 Nissan Leaf. Earlier this week however, we found out about a 2011 Nissan Leaf owner who has.

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National Green Transportation

APRIL 2, 2012

Ford announced today the Ford Fusion would a new way to save on high gasoline prices while reducing the environmental impact of driving a gasoline powered car. A new option, Auto Start-Stop, will be available on the Ford.

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Fusion Gasoline Ford Auto 89

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Green Cars News

APRIL 22, 2012

It’s not just small and compact cars that are placing a clear emphasis on fuel efficiency – even the largest trucks are making efforts to go green. One of the clearest examples comes from Volvo Trucks, which is adding two drivetrain packages with exceptional efficiency to its line-up. The first is the XE16 package which [.].

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Volvo Green Fuel Cars 78

Creative Greenius

APRIL 22, 2012

Today is Earth Day 2012, a day filled with celebrations of the environment and all the things being done to try and improve it and make it more sustainable. You can go to events where you recycle your old paper tax records, your motor oil, your cellphone, computers and other electronics. . You can go to festivals and visit the booths of green nonprofits and solar energy companies, take part in composting workshops, learn about wildlife protectors and electric car companies.

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Climate Change Coal Los Angeles Solar 255

Green Car Congress

APRIL 19, 2012

Annual average PM 2.5 concentration due to combustion emissions from (a) power generation; (b) commercial, institutional, residential, and agricultural sources; (c) industry; (d) road transport; (e) other transport; and (f) all UK combustion sources. Credit: ACS, Yim and Barrett. Click to enlarge. UK combustion emissions of PM 2.5 cause ~13,000 premature deaths in the UK per year, while an additional ~6,000 deaths in the UK are caused by non-UK European Union (EU) combustion emissions, according

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MIT Transportation United Kingdom Emissions 316

Green Car Congress

APRIL 27, 2012

When peat swamps are drained for agriculture, the peat begins to decompose, and is an enormous source of carbon emissions. Based on visual interpretation of high-resolution (30 m) satellite images, a new study in the journal Global Change Biology: Bioenergy determined that industrial plantations covered over 3.1 Mha (20%) of the peatlands of Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra and Borneo in 2010, surpassing the area of Belgium and causing an annual carbon emission from peat decomposition of 230–310 Mt

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Oil-Sands Oil Emissions Climate 314

Green Car Congress

APRIL 30, 2012

Stewart K. Griffiths from Sandia National Laboratories reports in a paper accepted for publication in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology that the likely total discharge from the BP Macondo Prospect well (MC252) during the Deepwater Horizon accident was in the range of 4.9 to 5.8 million barrels. Minimum and maximum credible values of this discharge are 4.6 and 6.2 million barrels.

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Oil Mariner 2012 Mexico 311

Green Car Congress

APRIL 13, 2012

President Obama has issued an Executive Order establishing an interagency working group to coordinate Administration policy efforts to support “safe and responsible” development of unconventional domestic natural gas and associated infrastructure. This would include coordination of policies on fracking. In 2011, natural gas provided 25 percent of the energy consumed in the United States.

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Obama Gas Oil Transportation 306

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Green Car Congress

APRIL 28, 2012

Performance of supercharged Mustang with and without NuVinci CVP; variable ratio vs. 1:1. Source: Fallbrook. Click to enlarge. Fallbrook Technologies Inc. is developing a variable speed supercharger utilizing its NuVinci continuously variable planetary (CVP) technology. ( Earlier post.) Fallbrook has targeted and is soliciting select automotive OEMs for such a variable speed automotive supercharger.

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Downsizing Engine 2008 Design 304

Green Car Congress

APRIL 24, 2012

Comparison of ISFC (@42.9 MJ/kg) (4000 RPM) between 250cc Pinnacle and 200cc poppet valve engine. Source: Pinnacle. Click to enlarge. Pinnacle Engines, the developer of a high compression ratio, four-stroke, spark-ignited (SI), opposed-piston, sleeve-valve architecture engine ( earlier post ) reports that the most basic configuration of its engine has shown improvements in indicated specific fuel consumption (ISFC) of between 30-60% at light load and 12-30% at medium-load compared to a comparabl

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Light Fuel Economy Engine Fuel 304

Green Car Congress

APRIL 1, 2012

BMW i8 Concept Spyder. Click to enlarge. Following on the presentation of the BMW i3 Concept and BMW i8 Concept coupé at the Frankfurt show in 2011 ( earlier post ), the BMW Group has introduced a third i Model: the BMW i8 Concept Spyder. Like the i8 coupé concept, the BMW i8 Concept Spyder with eDrive is a plug-in hybrid. The 96 kW (131 hp) electric motor on the front axle works in tandem with a TwinPower Turbo three-cylinder gasoline engine sending 164 kW (223 hp) through the rear wheels.

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Concept BMW Plug-in Hybrid 303

Green Car Congress

APRIL 6, 2012

Using higher volume blends of ethanol to leverage the alcohol’s inherent high octane rating to produce ethanol-gasoline blends with higher octane numbers could yield “substantial societal benefits”, according to a team of researchers from Ford Motor Company. Currently, ethanol is blended into a gasoline blendstock formulated with lower octane rating such that the net octane rating of the resulting final blend is unchanged from historical levels.

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Gasoline Ford Downsizing 2010 297

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Green Car Congress

APRIL 23, 2012

Domains and topical areas for the standardization roadmap for electric vehicles. Source: ANSI. Click to enlarge. The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) released the Standardization Roadmap for Electric Vehicles – Version 1.0 , developed by the Institute’s Electric Vehicles Standards Panel (EVSP). ( Earlier post.) The Standardization Roadmap assesses the standards, codes, and regulations, as well as conformance and training programs, needed to facilitate the safe, mass deployment of ele

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Green Car Congress

APRIL 23, 2012

SAE’s 2012 High Efficiency IC Engine Symposium in Detroit—the second as an immediate precursor to the SAE World Congress—opened on Sunday with a consideration of several alternative engine designs: opposed piston 2-stroke (Achates Power); variable compression ratio (MCE-5); split cycle (Scuderi); and advanced rotary (Liquid Piston). Dr. David Foster, the Phil and Jean Myers of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, a Principal Investigator at UW Madison’s En

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Engine Design Congress Downsizing 294

Green Car Congress

APRIL 27, 2012

GM expects that the North American introduction of a 2.0L turbodiesel engine on Cruze—one of the top-selling gasoline-powered cars in the US in 2011 and General Motors’ best-selling model globally—will establish Chevrolet as the only domestic automaker offering an American-manufactured diesel-powered compact car with a European-American developed engine. ( Earlier post. ).

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Diesel GM Market 2013 290

Green Car Congress

APRIL 8, 2012

The biorefinery collective encompasses multiple pyrolyzer collectives. Credit: ACS, Manganaro and Lawal. Click to enlarge. Given a sufficiently large production scale, liquid fuels such as diesel produced from crop residue could be economically competitive with petroleum-derived fuels at current price levels, suggests a new study by a team from the Stevens Institute of Technology.

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Price Fuel Oil Diesel 286

Green Car Congress

APRIL 11, 2012

Conventional thermal decomposition production of lime (left) versus STEP direct solar conversion of calcium carbonate to calcium oxide (right). Click to enlarge. A team at George Washington University has demonstrated a new solar process that can produce lime (CaO) for cement without any emission of carbon dioxide, and at lower projected cost than the existing cement industry process.

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Solar Emissions CO2 Carbon 285

Green Car Congress

APRIL 4, 2012

Prius sales March 2011 v. March 2012. Data: TMS. Click to enlarge. In March 2012, Toyota posted a new one-month record for Prius sales of 28,711 units, up 54.3% by volume from last March. Of those, the third-generation Prius liftback accounted for 18,008 units (62.7%); the Prius v accounted for 4,937 units (17.2%); the Prius c, 4,875 units (17.0%); and the Prius PHV (plug-in hybrid), 891 units (3.1%).

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Prius Sale 2012 Toyota 285

Green Car Congress

APRIL 12, 2012

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports that between 1980 and 2010, global consumption of dry natural gas rose from 53 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) to 113 Tcf. Although consumption in North America saw the slowest regional growth in percentage terms (29%) from 1980 to 2010, the region accounted for more than 25% of the world’s natural gas consumption during all years in the period.

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2010 Gas Global North America 283

Green Car Congress

APRIL 20, 2012

Roland Berger forecasts for LiB market size by vehicle class (left) and region (right). High and low growth scenarios are shown. Source: Roland Berger Strategy Consultants. Click to enlarge. Roland Berger Strategy Consultants has updated its global Li-ion automotive battery study ( earlier post ). In light of recently presented or announced vehicle models with electric, hybrid or plug-in-hybrid drives (xEV), Roland Berger experts expect the global LiB market to grow from US$1.5 billion to US$9-1

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Li-ion 2015 Market Batteries 281

Green Car Congress

APRIL 17, 2012

The Ford Focus Electric. Click to enlarge. Ford has begun the consumer roll-out of the Focus Electric, the battery-electric version of its new Focus; production of the vehicles began in December 2011 at Ford’s Michigan Assembly Plant. ( Earlier post.) The Focus Electric is Ford’s first electric drive light-duty passenger vehicle resulting from its strategy to electrify its entire high-volume platforms, rather than one-off specialty models.

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Green Car Congress

APRIL 18, 2012

Asahi Shimbun. Toshiba Corp. will retrofit small buses owned by Tokyo’s Minato Ward with its SciB lithium-ion cells and electric motors to produce fast-charge battery-electric buses. Toshiba is planing on a 5-minute recharge with the battery state of charge at 50%. To keep the battery level above 50 percent, the buses will return to a garage for a recharge after traveling roughly a modest 12 kilometers (7.5 miles).

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Green Car Congress

APRIL 13, 2012

Venn diagram summarizing the core research competencies of each of the three agencies. Click to enlarge. The US Departments of Energy (DOE) and of the Interior (DOI), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a formal partnership to coordinate and align all research associated with development of the US’ unconventional natural gas and oil resources such as shale gas and oil.

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Oil EPA Gas Obama 275

Green Car Congress

APRIL 4, 2012

Characterization of N. gaditana lipid content. (a) Lipid droplets (green) in cells during logarithmic growth. (b) Lipid droplets in cells. during stationary phase. (c) GC-FID chromatogram showing a typical N. gaditana fatty acid profile. Source: Radakovits et al., Supplementary material. Click to enlarge. With the goal of transforming a natively robust and oleaginous alga into an improved model system for biofuel production, researchers led by a team from the Colorado School of Mines have sequen

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Production Colorado Industrial Industry 275

Green Car Congress

APRIL 27, 2012

Unitary HPAC System. Source: Delphi. Click to enlarge. Delphi Automotive is developing an advanced HVAC (heating, ventilating, air conditioning) system that significantly increases efficiency and reduces emissions while keeping passengers comfortable. Delphi engineers presented a paper on the new Unitary Heat Pump Air Conditioner (HPAC) at SAE 2012 World Congress in Detroit.

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Emissions Range CO2 Waste 274

Green Car Congress

APRIL 19, 2012

Westinghouse Electric Company and utility Ameren Missouri have entered into an agreement to respond collaboratively to the United States Department of Energy (DOE) Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) for developing and licensing the Westinghouse Small Modular Reactor (SMR). Under the terms of the agreement, Ameren Missouri will become part of and. co-chair a Westinghouse-led Utility Participation Group (UPG) made up of Missouri utilities, non-Missouri utilities and industrial firms interested

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Green Car Congress

APRIL 5, 2012

Cutaway of the new CVT for mid-size vehicles. Click to enlarge. Honda Motor Co., Ltd. has developed a new continuously variable transmission (CVT) for mid-size vehicles that significantly enhances both driving performance and fuel economy. The new CVT is the latest addition to the Earth Dreams Technology ( earlier post ) series of next-generation technologies for automobiles.

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Honda Fuel Economy Economy Vehicles 273

Green Car Congress

APRIL 10, 2012

Technology warming potential (TWP) for three sets of natural gas fuel-switching scenarios. (A) CNG light-duty cars vs. gasoline cars; (B) CNG heavy-duty vehicles vs. diesel vehicles; and (C) combined-cycle natural gas plants vs. supercritical coal plants using low-CH 4 coal. A TWP >1 means that the cumulative radiative forcing from choosing natural gas today is higher than a current fuel option after t yr.

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Climate Change Climate Gas Coal 270

Green Car Congress

APRIL 2, 2012

Korea Herald. Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) and Magna E-Car Systems are forming a $200-million automotive Li-ion battery joint venture. HHI will take a 40% stake, with Magna taking the remainder. Magna E-Car, a partnership between Magna International and the Stronach Group, is a global supplier of components and systems for hybrid and electric vehicles.

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Li-ion Hyundai North America Batteries 268

Green Car Congress

APRIL 5, 2012

The cycling performance of the NiO 3 nm -NCNT, the NiO 10 nm -NCNT, NCNT, and NiO alone. The current densities of those samples were 200, 200, 80, 200 mA/g, respectively. Credit: ACS, Shin et al. Click to enlarge. Researchers in S. Korean have developed nitrogen-doped carbon nanotubes for high-capacity lithium-ion energy storage systems, such as a lithium-ion capacitor.

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Li-ion Energy Storage Carbon Lithium Ion 265

Green Car Congress

APRIL 12, 2012

The California Energy Commission approved funding of $2,604,000 to help bring more buses and trucks powered by natural gas to the state’s highways. The awards are expected to support the purchase of more than 125 new natural gas vehicles; funding comes from the Commission’s Alternative and Renewable Fuel and Vehicle Technology Program. The Energy Commission previously awarded approximately $29 million to help buyers afford new, alternative-fueled passenger vehicles, buses, and trucks.

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Gas California Energy Vehicles 262

Green Car Congress

APRIL 29, 2012

The New Jersey Economic Development Authority (EDA) and the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) launched the Large Scale Combined Heat and Power (CHP)/Fuel Cell Program. This competitive grant program was created to support CHP and standalone fuel cell projects serving commercial, institutional and industrial customers in New Jersey. The amount available for grant funding under the initial. solicitation is $20 million.

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New Jersey Fuel Grant 2012 261