Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 13, 2016

Wrightspeed Inc., a developer and manufacturer of advanced range-extended electric vehicle (REV) powertrains for heavy-duty applications ( earlier post ), is gearing up for a commercialization push with the appointent of four advanced engineering and commercialization executives. Tim Dummer, Greg Anderson, Erin Sawyer and Vlad Kalika are joining the Business Operations, Production and Engineering teams respectively.

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Green Car Reports

OCTOBER 28, 2016

The future of electric cars for practical transportation relies to some degree on the future of DC fast charging, and how it develops over the next decade. As in other spheres of electrifying transport, Tesla Motors has pointed the way to one vision of the future with its expanding network of Supercharger fast-charging sites. But Tesla's network.

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Green Cars News

OCTOBER 26, 2016

That’s right, Mercedes is really building a pick-up truck! The company revealed the X-Class concept in full, ahead of a production-ready variants hitt.

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Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 3, 2016

Sion Power reported that a Licerion-Ion system has achieved 400 Wh/kg, 700 Wh/L and 350 cycles under 1C discharge conditions. Dr. Yuriy Mikhaylik, Sion Power’s Director of Materials, is presenting details on this performance in an invited presentation at the ECS meeting in Honolulu this week. Licerion, a product of Sion Power’s technical collaboration with BASF ( earlier post ), is a comprehensive battery system that significantly enhances the energy and cycle life of rechargeable batteries usin

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Li-ion Honolulu Power Powered 354

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Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 24, 2016

A research team from Empa (Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology) and the University of Applied Sciences Bern, Laboratory for Exhaust Emission Control, reports that ethanol blending appeared to reduce genotoxic emissions from a flex-fuel Euro-5 gasoline direct injection (GDI) vehicle (a Volvo V60 with a 1.6 L engine) under transient and steady driving conditions.

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Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 20, 2016

Researchers at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Cardiff in the UK, and the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) in Saudi Arabia have shown that benign, readily-available heavy alkane hydrocarbon wax is capable of rapidly releasing large amounts of hydrogen—sufficient to meet the 7 wt% target set by the US DOE—through microwave-assisted catalytic decomposition.

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Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 17, 2016

Cumulative sales of plug-in vehicles in the US topped 500,000 units in September, according to figures gathered by the US Department of Energy (DOE). The introduction of the first mass market plug-in vehicles occurred in December of 2010 with the introduction of the Chevrolet Volt and Nissan Leaf. By the end of 2012 there were 11 different plug-in models available, and by September of 2016 there were 27 different models.

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Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 7, 2016

A partnership comprising AkzoNobel, Van Gansewinkel, Air Liquide, AVR and Enerkem is proposing to build a waste-to-chemicals plant in Rotterdam in collaboration with the Port of Rotterdam, the City of Rotterdam, the province of South Holland and InnovationQuarter. The new chemical plant will use Enerkem’s innovative technology to convert residual waste into methanol, a raw material used in the chemical industry.

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Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 6, 2016

A study by two researchers at Sandia National Laboratories has concluded that building and operating a high-speed passenger ferry solely powered by hydrogen fuel cells within the context of the San Francisco Bay is technically feasible, with full regulatory acceptance as well as the requisite associated hydrogen fueling infrastructure. Funded by the Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration and led by Sandia, the feasibility study of the SF-Breeze (San Francisco Bay Renewable Energy

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Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 22, 2016

Microturbine manufacturer Capstone Turbine Corporation announced that the US Department of Energy (DOE) will provide $335,000 in funding for one year to Argonne National Laboratory to conduct hydrogen and syngas testing on Capstone’s C65 and C200 microturbines. In October 2015, Capstone partnered with Argonne National Laboratory for participation in the DOE’s Technologist in Residence (TIR) program.

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Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 18, 2016

Engineers at the NASA Electric Aircraft Testbed (NEAT) at NASA Glenn Research Center ran the new facility’s first test in September. Dr. Rodger Dyson, NASA Glenn Hybrid Gas Electric Propulsion technical lead, and his team used 600 volts of electricity and successfully tested an electrical power system that could realistically power a small, one or two person aircraft.

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Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 13, 2016

In a program track on Charging Infrastructure at the World of Energy Solutions Conference in Stuttgart, Germany this week, Jesse Schneider (BMW), SAE Taskforce Chair, Wireless Power Transfer and Alignment Methodology, presented the recently published SAE TIR, Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) for Light-Duty Plug-In/ Electric Vehicles and Alignment Methodology (earlier post) along with plans for standardization by 2018 to support commercialization.

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2020 Commercial Charging Idaho 260

Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 24, 2016

Daimler subsidiary ACCUMOTIVE has begun construction of a second Li-ion battery factory at its site in Kamenz. With an investment of about €500 million (US$545 million), the site in Kamenz will be one of the biggest and most modern battery factories in Europe. The new production facility is planned to start operations in the middle of 2018. The area of about 20 hectares is located in immediate proximity of the existing battery factory in Kamenz, about 50 kilometers from Dresden.

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Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 26, 2016

MINI has officially unveiled the MINI Cooper S E Countryman ALL4, the brand’s first plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, as one of the three variants of the new MINI Countryman. ( Earlier post.) All three of the new MINI Countryman variants will make their World Premiere at the Los Angeles International Auto Show at a press conference on 16 November.

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Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 11, 2016

UPS will add 200 new series hybrid electric delivery trucks to the company’s growing alternative fuel and advanced technology fleet. The vehicles have the same 650cc 2-cylinder engine and E-GEN chassis as the 125 vehicles UPS announced earlier this year. ( Earlier post.). Equipped with lithium ion batteries and a range-extender engine, these trucks will deliver significant fuel economy equivalency gains, approximately four times the fuel economy of a gasoline powered vehicle.

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Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 31, 2016

HARMAN International and Airbiquity, a provider of connected vehicle services, announced the first automotive grade end-to-end intrusion detection system (IDS) for connected vehicles at TU-Automotive Europe 2016 in Munich, Germany. With the increasing dependency on software to power vehicle systems and features, cybersecurity has become a threat to connected vehicles and the introduction of new driving assistance, vehicle-to-vehicle communication, and autonomous driving capabilities.

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Connect Connected Vehicles International 247

Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 14, 2016

Cummins Westport Inc. (CWI) announced that orders are being processed and production of the ISL G Near Zero (NZ) NO x natural gas engine ( earlier post ) has commenced. The 8.9-liter ISL G NZ is the first MidRange engine in North America to receive emission certification from both US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Air Resources Board (ARB) in California to meet the optional 0.02 g/bhp-hr.

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Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 12, 2016

On schedule, 24M has successfully delivered an initial quantity of production-size battery cells to NEC Energy Solutions, Inc. (NEC ES), meeting the terms of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) the two companies signed last year at this time. ( Earlier post.). 24M is leveraging existing, preferred energy storage chemistry but using a new cell design with semi-solid (a mixture of solid and liquid phases) thick electrodes and manufacturing innovations to deliver what it says will be up to a 50%

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Lithium Ion Li-ion Energy Storage Energy 243

Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 12, 2016

ITT, through its Cannon brand, will introduce a next-generation, ultra-fast DC charging solution that can significantly reduce electric vehicle charging time at eCarTec 2016 in Munich next week. ITT will debut the high-performance, cooled ultra-fast charging DC solution as well as an improved contact system for its global portfolio of AC charging solutions.

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Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 20, 2016

Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. has completed an acquisition of a 34% equity stake in Mitsubishi Motors (MMC) ( earlier post ) and has become its largest shareholder. As indicated in May, when Nissan outlined the deal, MMC is also becoming part of the global Alliance with Nissan and Renault. With the addition of MMC, the Alliance will be in the world’s top three automotive groups by global volumes, with sales of 10 million units in fiscal year 2016.

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Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 5, 2016

Brands within the Volkswagen Group have been rolling out modular component matrices, or assembly toolkits, for their light-duty vehicles over the past few years. Until recently, the four main modular toolkits (modularen Baukästen) of the Group were: the MQB (transverse, driven by the Volkswagen brand); the MLB (longitudinal, driven by the Audi brand); the MSB (standard drive, driven by Porsche); and the NSF (New Small Family).

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Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 21, 2016

Scientists at Imperial College London have demonstrated a highly efficient inductive method for wirelessly transferring power to a drone while it is flying. Theoretically, this wireless power transfer (WPT) technology could allow flying drones to stay airborne indefinitely by simply hovering over a ground support vehicle to recharge. The team estimates it is one year away from a commercially available product.

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Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 13, 2016

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have developed an electrocatalyst which operates at room temperature and in water for the electroreduction of dissolved CO 2 with high selectivity for ethanol. Their finding was serendipitous. An open-access paper on their work appears in the journal ChemistrySelect. The team used a catalyst made of carbon, copper and nitrogen and applied voltage to trigger a chemical reaction that essentially reverses the combustion

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Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 11, 2016

US Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) has introduced new legislation ( S.3450 ) to allow employers to give workers with electric cars access to the same pre-tax transportation benefits many workers receive for traditional forms of transportation like public transportation allowances, parking fees, and public transit passes. The Electric Vehicle Credit Act would amend the Internal Revenue Code to exclude transportation benefits for electric vehicle charging from an employee’s taxable income, the same w

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Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 10, 2016

Independent on-engine test results have verified the simulation predictions that a Torotrak V-Charge variable drive mechanical supercharger enables more ambitious levels of engine downsizing. Compared to a current 1.5L GTDI engine producing 240 N·m torque, a 1.0L GTDI engine of the same Ford EcoBoost family outperformed the 1.5L version when fitted with a V-Charge unit.

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Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 27, 2016

Hitachi Metals will invest approximately ¥18 billion (US$172 million) in innovative production lines for Neodymium-Iron-Boron magnets and ferrite magnets at its Kumagaya Works in Japan with the aim of satisfying surging demand for automotive-related motors as well as various electric motors for hybrid and electric vehicles. The lines are scheduled to commence operation in FY2018.

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Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 21, 2016

Toyota Motor Corporation will begin to sell fuel cell buses (FC buses) under the Toyota brand from early 2017. After repeated field tests of the hydrogen-powered buses for practical use, the Bureau of Transportation of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government plans to utilize two of the Toyota FC Buses as fixed-route buses. Toyota plans to introduce more than 100 FC buses mainly in the Tokyo area, ahead of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

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Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 10, 2016

The Nikkei, citing unnamed sources, reports that R&D organization Saitec (Saitama Industrial Technology Center) and Honda Motor have developed a practical magnesium-ion rechargeable battery and hope to commercialize it. Saitec reportedly led the development; Honda R&D assessed the technology’s viability. The two are slated to announce the battery next month.

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Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 3, 2016

The Chevrolet Colorado ZH2, the extreme off-road-capable fuel-cell-powered electric vehicle from General Motors, made its debut at the fall meeting of the Association of the United States Army (AUSA). ( Earlier post.). Standing more than 6½ feet tall and more than seven feet wide, the Colorado ZH2 was built on a stretched midsize pickup chassis. Reinforced inside and out, the ZH2 rides on 37-inch tires and a specially modified suspension that helps the vehicle climb over and descend all manner o

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Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 28, 2016

The US Department of Energy (DOE) Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E) has launched a new program—Power Nitride Doping Innovation Offers Devices Enabling SWITCHES (PNDIODES) ( DE-FOA-0001691 )—to fund transformational advances and mechanistic understanding in the process of selective area doping in the III-Nitride wide band gap (WBG) semiconductor material system.

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Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 11, 2016

Following the BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce Vision Vehicles ( earlier post , earlier post ), the BMW Group has now revealed the BMW Motorrad VISION NEXT 100. The iconic elements in the BMW Motorrad VISION NEXT 100 make it immediately recognizable as a “genuine BMW” and include the black frame triangle, white lines and classic, boxer engine forms. The bike itself, however, is powered by a zero-emissions solution.

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Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 4, 2016

At the Paris Motor Show, Valeo introduced another 48V hybrid system, the 48V e4Sport. The new system, which can be applied across all vehicle segments, to both gasoline and diesel engine models, recovers a maximum amount of braking energy and stores it in a 48V battery for various uses, such as increasing engine torque, via the starter-generator, or maximizing engine power during acceleration and boost phases, using the electric supercharger.

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Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 20, 2016

The California Air Resources Board has adopted a revised funding plan for proceeds from the cap-and-trade program that includes putting more clean vehicles in disadvantaged communities. The investments range from supporting increased numbers of zero-emission heavy-duty trucks and buses to rebates for low- and zero-emission passenger vehicles. The revised plan for fiscal year 2016-17 keeps much of the original funding plan (approved in June 2016) intact while addressing the smaller budget appropr

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Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 18, 2016

Ube Industries, Ltd. and Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation have agreed to a tie-up for their electrolyte businesses in China under a 50-50 joint venture to supply highly competitive electrolyte to the market. The JV will enable the two companies to combine their production technologies and mutually to use their technology resources including intellectual property, in order to enhance their technologies and cost competitiveness.

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