Green Car Congress

FEBRUARY 19, 2016

In a preview of three detailed papers to be presented at the SAE World Congress in April, Tim Grewe, GM’s General Director of electrification, and Pete Savagian, GM General Director of electric drives and systems engineering, provided a technical overview of the new rear-wheel drive PHEV propulsion system for the Cadillac CT6 ( earlier post ) at the recent SAE 2016 Hybrid and Electric Vehicle Technologies Symposium in Anaheim.

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Green Car Reports

FEBRUARY 26, 2016

One of the more daunting perceived obstacles to driving a plug-in electric car seems to be the need for a home charging station. While plug-in hybrids can be recharged overnight using their 120-Volt charging cords, battery-electric drivers should really have access to a 240-Volt Level 2 charging station. Those will recharge the full battery pack.

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National Green Transportation

FEBRUARY 10, 2016

On Wednesday, Tesla Motors released Q4 2015 financial results showing that while the company had steep losses again, that free cash flow had improved. Now that the Tesla Model X is in production, Tesla management claim that Tesla&#39.

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Green Fleet Magazine

FEBRUARY 29, 2016

The Maine Occupational Safety and Health Administration offers advice for dealing with one of the most dangerous winter driving hazards.

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Green Car Congress

FEBRUARY 25, 2016

Volvo has received an order for 11 electric hybrid buses and 2 ABB automated electric bus fast-chargers to the city of Namur in Belgium with public transport authority and operator TEC. This is the largest order to date for the company’s electric bus system. TEC is buying the bus system as a turn-key solution. Volvo takes full responsibility for vehicle servicing, battery maintenance as well as maintenance of the standard-based charging stations for a fixed monthly cost.

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Belgium Volvo Hybrid Maintenance 220

Green Car Congress

FEBRUARY 5, 2016

President Obama has laid out a plan for building a “21st Century Clean Transportation System”, the investment for which would be funded by a new $10 per barrel fee on oil paid by oil companies, which would be gradually phased in over five years. The President’s plan would increase US investments in clean transportation infrastructure by roughly 50%.

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Obama Cleaning Clean Tax 220

Green Car Congress

FEBRUARY 29, 2016

Two French environmental NGOs—France Nature Environment (FNE) and Réseau Action Climat ( RAC )—along with European umbrella NGO Transport & Environment (T&E), have released initial test results from the Royal Commission’s inquiry into diesel engine NO x emissions in France. The initial results from 22 vehicles from different automakers highlight the discrepancy between the emissions levels measured in official testing and those emitted by cars on the road.

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Emissions Diesel France Environment 215

Green Car Congress

FEBRUARY 25, 2016

by Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com. This is a financial cold war—nothing more, nothing less. While there are billions of reasons to cut output, and every major producing country is reeling from the loss of revenues, some are weathering the current bust better than others, but the devil is in the details, and the details contain tons of variables.

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Saudi Arabia Oil Oil-Sands Iraq 210

Green Car Congress

FEBRUARY 25, 2016

A new study by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) forecasts that sales of electric vehicles will hit 41 million by 2040, representing 35% of new light duty vehicle sales worldwide. This would be almost 90 times the equivalent figure for 2015, when EV sales are estimated to have been 462,000, some 60% up on 2014. Driving the sales increase is a forecast significant reduction in battery prices—the result being that during the 2020s EVs will become a more economic option than gasoline or die

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Cost Of Sale Global Vehicles 200

Green Car Congress

FEBRUARY 10, 2016

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. The process, dubbed Combined Algal Processing (CAP), is detailed in an open-access paper in the journal Algal Research. The research follows work previously done at NREL and published in 2014 in The Royal Society of Chemistry’s journal Green Chemistry.

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Green Car Congress

FEBRUARY 9, 2016

The US Department of Energy (DOE) will provide up to $11.3 million in funding to develop flexible biomass-to-hydrocarbon biofuels conversion pathways that can be modified to produce advanced fuels and/or products based on external factors, such as market demand. ( DE-FOA-0001433 : MEGA-BIO: Bioproducts To Enable Biofuels.). These pathways can consist of a route to a platform chemical that could be converted to products or renewable hydrocarbon fuels or a route that co-produces chemicals and rene

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Conversion Renewable Fuel Convert 195

Green Car Congress

FEBRUARY 4, 2016

Renault and distributed energy storage company Connected Energy are partnering to develop sustainable and efficient ways of using electric vehicle batteries at the end of their useable in-vehicle life in order to supply innovative and more affordable vehicle charging solutions. At the end of their useful in-vehicle life, Renault EV batteries still have considerable remaining capacity, enabling them to server in other applications before recycling.

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Green Car Congress

FEBRUARY 17, 2016

Riversimple Movement Ltd. unveiled the Rasa, a road-legal engineering prototype of its first two-seater hydrogen fuel cell road car, built for full European type approval. ( Earlier post.) Supported by a £2-million (US$2.9-million) grant from the Welsh government in 2015, the Rasa was designed for lightness, strength, affordability and safety. Riversimple plans to offer the car to motorists through a “sale-of-service” model.

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2018 Miles Fuel Hydrogen 190

Green Car Congress

FEBRUARY 12, 2016

Electric vehicles charged in coal-heavy regions can create more human health and environmental damages from life cycle air emissions than gasoline vehicles, according to a new consequential life cycle analysis by researchers from Carnegie Mellon University. However, the anticipated—albeit now possibly delayed, per the recent Supreme Court decision—retirement of coal-fired power plants will make electric vehicles more competitive on an air emissions basis, the researchers found.

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Coal Pollution Grid Gasoline-Electric 190

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Green Car Congress

FEBRUARY 4, 2016

The average fuel economy (window-sticker value) of new vehicles sold in the US in January 2016 was 25.1 mpg—up 0.2 mpg from the value for December 2015, and the first increase in eight months, according to the latest monthly report from Dr. Michael Sivak and Brandon Schoettle at University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI). This increase likely reflects the month-to-month seasonal decrease in sales of pickup trucks and SUVs, they said.

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Fuel Economy Economy Fuel MPG 190

Green Car Congress

FEBRUARY 29, 2016

Audi is expanding capacities for the production of sustainably produced e-gas. ( Earlier post.) The Viessmann Group is Audi’s first partner company to produce additional quantities of the synthetic fuel using a new biological methanation process. The pilot plant in Allendorf, Germany officially opened today. Audi e-gas is currently produced using two process steps: electrolysis and methanation.

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Green Car Congress

FEBRUARY 21, 2016

The California Energy Commission (CEC) has selected 8 awardees for a total of $8,875,457 in funding to install Direct Current (DC) fast charging stations on Interstate 5 (I-5), State Route 99 (SR 99), and along United States Highway 101 (US-101) from San Jose traveling South in California. The awards stem from a solicitation released in July 2015 ( GFO-15-601 ), with the overall objective of completing the West Coast Electric Highway which stretches from British Columbia to Baja California.

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Green Car Congress

FEBRUARY 12, 2016

The board of directors of the Antelope Valley Transit Authority (AVTA) in California voted to award BYD a contract to manufacture up to 85 electric buses over a five-year period. Under the order from AVTA, BYD Motors will build and deliver a variety of all-electric bus models including a 40-foot low floor transit bus, a 60-foot low floor articulated bus, and a 45-foot commuter coach.

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Green Car Congress

FEBRUARY 9, 2016

US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx announced that 77 cities submitted applications for the first-of-its-kind US Department of Transportation (USDOT) Smart City Challenge. ( Earlier post.) Medium-sized cities from across the country from Reno to Rochester and Anchorage to Albuquerque represent the depth and breadth of this challenge. The competition seeks to create an innovative, fully integrated model city that uses data, technology, and creativity to shape how people and goods move in the

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Green Car Congress

FEBRUARY 3, 2016

Members of the European Parliament voted yesterday to reject a proposed veto of the plan to raise NO x emission limits for diesel cars temporarily by up to 110% when the Real Driving Emissions (RDE) test procedure is introduced. The EU Commission promised a review clause and tabled a long-term legislative proposal to revamp the EU car approval regime, leading to the vote. ( Earlier post.).

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Diesel Automobile Manufacturer Environment Emissions 183

Green Car Congress

FEBRUARY 2, 2016

Primus Green Energy Inc., a gas-to-liquids (GTL) technology and solutions company that transforms methane and other hydrocarbon gases into gasoline and methanol ( earlier post ), has successfully produced 100-octane gasoline at its commercial demonstration plant in Hillsborough, New Jersey. Primus achieved this milestone as a result of an improvement to its proprietary STG+ technology—itself essentially an improvement upon commercial methanol synthesis processes and ExxonMobil’s methanol-t

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Gasoline Gas Commercial Green 183

Green Car Congress

FEBRUARY 26, 2016

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the availability of $26 million in grant funding to establish clean diesel projects aimed at reducing emissions from the US’ existing fleet of diesel engines. Diesel-powered engines move approximately 90% of the nation’s freight tonnage, and today nearly all highway freight trucks, locomotives, and commercial marine vessels are powered by diesel engines.

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EPA Diesel Puerto Rico Fleet 174

Green Car Congress

FEBRUARY 26, 2016

A study by a team from the University of Leeds (UK), University of Washington (USA) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory has found that vehicle automation might plausibly reduce road transport GHG emissions and energy use by nearly half—or nearly double them—depending on the scenario. The researchers also found that many potential energy-reduction benefits may be realized through partial automation, while the major energy/emission downside risks appear more likely at full automation.

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Transportation Vehicles Carbon Emissions 174

Green Car Congress

FEBRUARY 23, 2016

Researchers at the University of Texas at Arlington have demonstrated a new solar process for the one-step, gas-phase conversion of CO 2 and H 2 O to C 5+ liquid hydrocarbons and O 2 by operating the photocatalytic reaction at elevated temperatures and pressures. The photothermocatalytic process for the synthesis of hydrocarbons—including liquid alkanes, aromatics, and oxygenates, with carbon numbers (C n ) up to C 13 —ran in a flow photoreactor operating at elevated temperatures (18

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Green Car Congress

FEBRUARY 17, 2016

China-based technology company LeEco and Aston Martin have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) towards the creation of a partnership that will develop a production version of the Aston Martin RapidE electric vehicle concept—a fully electric version of the Rapide S four-door sports sedan. ( Earlier post.). The new partners anticipate working together in developing and manufacturing RapidE, with potential for adding a range of next-generation connected electric vehicles on behalf of A

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Aston Martin 2018 Future Market 174

Green Car Congress

FEBRUARY 10, 2016

Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and UC Santa Cruz have successfully 3D-printed periodic graphene composite aerogel microlattices for supercapacitor applications, using a technique known as direct-ink writing. The key factor in developing these novel aerogels is creating an extrudable graphene oxide-based composite ink and modifying the 3D printing method to accommodate aerogel processing.

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Green Car Congress

FEBRUARY 9, 2016

Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) announced the formation of a new consortium in partnership with leading castings solutions provider Grainger & Worrall (G&W) to advance automotive cylinder head designs. The Aluminum Head Evaluation, Analysis, and Durability ( AHEAD ) consortium seeks to reduce the weight while improving the durability of aluminum cylinder heads—an increasingly important need as materials and components are pushed to their limits in modern engines.

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Green Car Congress

FEBRUARY 5, 2016

A team at the Engine Research Center (ERC), University of Wisconsin-Madison has demonstrated the viability of reactivity-controlled compression ignition (RCCI) in a two-stroke engine. ( Earlier post.) A paper on their work is published in Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part D: Journal of Automobile Engineering. RCCI is a dual-fuel combustion technology developed by Dr.

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Engine Wisconsin Automobile Gasoline 174

Green Car Congress

FEBRUARY 4, 2016

Although metal oxides that absorb visible light are attractive for use as photoanodes in photoelectrosynthetic cells, their performance is often limited by poor charge carrier transport. Researchers from UC Berkeley and colleagues have now addressed this issue by using separate materials for light absorption and carrier transport. The team reports on their host-guest system of Ta:TiO 2 |BiVO 4 as a photoanode for use in solar water splitting cells in an open-access paper in the journal ACS Centr

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Energy Storage Water Solar Energy 174

Green Car Congress

FEBRUARY 3, 2016

Researchers at Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute and Department of Chemistry, University of Southern California, have developed a highly efficient homogeneous Ru-based catalyst system for the production of methanol (CH 3 OH) from CO 2 and H 2 in an ethereal solvent (initial turnover frequency = 70 h −1 at 145 °C). In a paper published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society , they reported demonstrating for the first time that CO 2 captured from air can be directly converted to CH 3 O

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Green Car Congress

FEBRUARY 27, 2016

The US Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) will award up to $30 million in funding for a new program focused on creating innovative components for the next generation of batteries, fuel cells, and other electrochemical devices. ARPA-E’s Integration and Optimization of Novel Ion Conducting Solids (IONICS) program ( DE-FOA-0001478 ) seeks to create transformational electrochemical cells by creating components built with solid ion conductors that have a wide ran

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Li-ion Fuel Battery Batteries 163

Green Car Congress

FEBRUARY 26, 2016

New analysis by Dearman suggests that zero-emission transport refrigeration systems could cut overall engine pollution from refrigerated vehicles by up to 93% and have a major impact on air quality. One application of Dearman’s engine technology is to provide high efficiency, zero-emission transport refrigeration units (TRUs). ( Earlier post.). The findings of Dearman’s research indicate that equipping a Euro6-standard 17-tonne rigid body truck with a zero-emission refrigeration system, as oppos

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Green Car Congress

FEBRUARY 26, 2016

Greenlots, a global provider of open standards-based technology solutions for electric vehicle (EV) networks ( earlier post ), has implemented its SKY platform—a scalable, vehicle-grid integration (VGI) technology—in an EV fast charger owned and operated by Hawaiian Electric Company as part of a joint research, development and demonstration project with the Electric Power Research Institute.

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Green Car Congress

FEBRUARY 25, 2016

Faurecia has won a JEC World 2016 Innovation Award for its “one-shot” manufacturing process for visible composite parts; the approach combines structure and aspect in a single part. The technology makes it possible to insert a pre-heated thermoplastic composite reinforcement into the injection mold and secure it in a stable position. The efficient process was demonstrated on a plastic tailgate with a pre-impregnated (prepreg) glass fiber reinforcement and is particularly suited to tailgates, low

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