Will noise from ocean installations influence migratory marine animals? How should ocean power proposals be evaluated? A round of grants totaling over $4.2 million announced on Tuesday will support a crop of research projects seeking answers to these questions and more over the next three years. Read more »
Greenpeace has been a thorn in the side of the consumer electronics industry with its Guide to Greener Electronics for years. The latest edition shows shuffling in the ranks of top companies as they launch new products and sail past deadlines for eliminating hazardous substances. Read more »
GM’s plug-in hybrid Chevy Volt has cost more than $1 billion to develop and can run on electricity alone for 40 miles or more. Yet California regulators have rated its emissions on par with conventional gas cars like the Toyota Tundra. What gives? Read more »
The Obama administration has just unveiled a proposal to require some of the biggest vehicles on the road — including school buses, fire engines, big rigs, large pickup trucks and vans — to slash fuel consumption and emissions by 10-20 percent between 2014 and 2018. Read more »
Electric cars will soon be zipping around the streets of Northern Ireland, plugging in at charging stations installed with help from the United Kingdom. That’s the vision, at least, of a new partnership between the Renault-Nissan Alliance and the government of Northern Ireland. Read more »
Renewables rule the day when it comes to investments in the energy and utilities industry. A Dow Jones VentureSource report shows the renewable energy sector accounted for $221 million of the $359 million raised by the energy and utilities industry during the third quarter of 2010. Read more »
BMW Group is breaking into car sharing with a new pilot project in Munich that will let customers rent any current BMW model by the hour. It fits into much larger trends of innovation around providing mobility as a service — and growing competition for Zipcar. Read more »
Nissan formally began production of its electric LEAF in Japan, a milestone in the trek to see a global automaker cranking out tens of thousands of electric vehicles. Now a long list of companies are racing to get their own EV factories up and running. Read more »
Move over, climate and energy wonks; this is shaping up to be a triple-feature week of the geeks. Steve Jobs talked energy and innovation with President Obama, Bill Gates poured $700,000 into the fight against Prop. 23, and Energy Secretary Steven Chu is heading to Google. Read more »
When it came time for Nissan to set specifications for the infotainment system in its electric LEAF sedan, the automaker wanted two things: more info, less “tainment.” Turns out Microsoft’s Windows Embedded Auto fit the bill. Might a Hohm-LEAF connection be in their future? Read more »
As part of a record-setting environmental settlement package, the bankruptcy estate of General Motors will set aside more than $11.7 million for the cleanup of an old factory site in Delaware where plug-in hybrid car startup Fisker Automotive plans to manufacture its Fisker Nina sedan. Read more »
It’s official: Tesla Motors has completed the purchase of a long-sought home for its Model S electric sedan, and received the title to the former NUMMI factory in Fremont, Calif. Read more »
The UK government unveiled major spending cuts today, taking bites out of welfare benefits and other public programs while pledging to provide £2.2 billion pounds (about $3.5 billion USD) for renewable energy and carbon capture projects and preserving a feed-in tariff for solar power. Read more »
It’s a new day for V-Vehicle, an auto startup with ambitions to produce low-cost efficient cars. The company has just taken two steps common among startups whose investors are unhappy and pushing for a restart: a new name — Next Autoworks Co. — and a new CEO. Read more »
Tesla Motors expects to reap about $60 million from Toyota for its work developing technology for an electric version of the Japanese automaker’s RAV4 SUV, according to a filing with financial regulators this afternoon. Read more »
Will big box retailers play a key role in ushering in the era of electric vehicles? Today charging infrastructure developer ECOtality announced an agreement with Best Buy to install its smart charging stations at a dozen Best Buy store by March 2011. Read more »
In order to lower business risk associated with generating power from winds hundreds of meters up in the sky, Makani Power needs to accomplish at least one goal: launch, land and fly its kite-like wind turbines via computers. Good thing it recently scored a DOE grant. Read more »
In order to lower business risk associated with generating power from winds hundreds of meters up in the sky, Makani Power needs to accomplish at least one goal: launch, land and fly its kite-like wind turbines via computers. Good thing it recently scored a DOE grant. Read more »
Everyone agrees that the batteries that will run the next-generation of our electric vehicles need to operate within a certain temperature range. But not everyone agrees on what to use to baby the battery. The debate over liquid vs air-cooled batteries rages on. Read more »
For Scandinavian electric car maker Think, the moment of truth for its U.S. ambitions could be a mere months away. When it comes to financing a planned factory in Indiana, Think’s CMO Michael Lock told us that everything rides on federal support. Read more »
More than 100 world premieres are planned for the Paris Auto Show, which kicks of next weekend, including a strong contingent of hybrid and electric vehicles. Here’s 10 to watch. Read more »
Steven Rattner, the Obama administration’s so-called Car Czar, has a new book out and he weighs in on the sloppiness of the stimulus funds, the “fad” of green jobs and how the Volt will do nothing for GM’s bottom line. Tell us how you really feel. Read more »
Battery startup Contour Energy Systems says it has developed a new battery technology based on the volatile material fluorine, which can deliver longer lasting, higher power batteries for devices spanning from smart meters to pacemakers, and — potentially years down the road — electric vehicles and laptops. Read more »
Lithium ion battery Amprius tells us that it has demonstrated in the lab the basic recipe for a much higher energy density battery that can tolerate the hundreds of charge cycles needed for long-lasting electronic devices. Up next, batteries for electric vehicles. Read more »
General Motors’ OnStar subsidiary is going in for a giant swing at boosting the automaker’s image as an innovator. GM announced that it is “relaunching” the OnStar brand is now putting the system center stage in a massive new marketing push. Read more »
Lithium-ion battery developer Sakti3 and General Motors announced the latest step in their ongoing dance today, and it’s a big one for the 3-year-old startup: GM plans to invest $3.2 million in Sakti3 through its new venture capital arm, GM Ventures. Read more »
If you’re sold on the idea of a plug-in car, one of the next questions to answer is whether to lease or buy your chosen model. Here are five things to consider as you hunt for a plug-in car deal that fits your budget, driving habits and preferences. Read more »
If you’re sold on a plug-in car, one of the next questions to answer is whether to lease or buy your chosen model. Here are five things to consider as you hunt for a plug-in car deal that fits your budget, driving habits and preferences. Read more »
What’s a German car company doing getting into social networking and tech-enabled carpooling? Trying to figure out new business models for an era of accelerating urbanization, declining car ownership and expanding access to the mobile web. Read more »
A new car sharing startup called Spride Share, backed by a who’s who of Silicon Valley, could be poised to overcome one of the largest obstacles to winning over consumers in a matter of weeks, or possibly days. Read more »
Proterra, based in Golden, Colo., has just hit a critical milestone in the life of an entrepreneurial green bus maker: the first deployment of its all-electric model for everyday service by a major public transit agency. Read more »
The federal government unveiled its proposal for the most significant overhaul of cars’ fuel economy labels in 30 years. The EPA and Department of Transportation have put together two options for window stickers in new vehicles starting with 2012 model year. Read more »
Networked lighting startup Digital Lumens pulled back the curtain for the first time on one of its installations, announcing a project in Conklin, N.Y. that the company says has slashed lighting-related energy use at the facility by as much as 87 percent. Read more »
Smith Electric Vehicles U.S., an electric truck and van maker based in Kansas City, Mo. and backed by $32 million in stimulus grants, has become the great green hope for its loss-making parent company, the United Kingdom’s Tanfield Group. Read more »
General Motors’ long-awaited S-1 filing spotlights work on the Chevy Volt, OnStar communication system and Google partnership as evidence of GM’s commitment to next-generation technologies. Here’s 12 things to know from the S-1 related to greener vehicles and Car 2.0:. Read more »
General Motors filed today for an IPO in which the government will begin to shrink its stake in the company. GM’s filing spotlights its work on the Chevy Volt and Google deal as signs of commitment to launching competitive new technologies. Read more »
Tesla’s IPO was all about expectations and innovations from a Silicon Valley startup that fancies itself a technology developer on the scale of Apple or Google. GM’s IPO will be about overcoming its recently-tumultous and century-old past, and about delivering as a manufacturing company. Read more »
ALTe, a startup founded by former Tesla Motors executives and managers, takes the goal of converting vehicle fleets to run on electricity literally. The company aims to take used models and give them new guts to run as extended range electric vehicles. Read more »
Lithium-ion battery maker A123 Systems let loose a few tidbits in its earnings call: that it quietly cultivated a new energy storage venture and set it loose, that it has been chosen for a yet-to-be announced auto project, and that it’s pulled out of its Chrysler deal. Read more »
EnerG2, a company working on synthetic carbon materials for energy storage devices, hit pay dirt last summer with the award of a stimulus grant under a DOE program. Today, in Albany, Ore., the startup at last kicked off construction of the factory made possible by that grant. Read more »
