Katie is a Senior Writer & Features Editor for GigaOM and has been covering cutting-edge technology, startups and innovators in Silicon Valley for close to a decade. She launched GigaOM’s greentech channel in 2007 and closely tracks energy entrepreneurs and investors.
Electric car maker Tesla Motors could make history again, if it pays off its loan from the Department of Energy many years before its due. According to a tweet from the CEO that could be as early as today. Read more »
Venture capital-backed lithium ion battery startup Amprius is finally moving into commercial production, with an announcement that it has OEM partners in place, and will start making its second-gen batteries later this year. Read more »
Quantum computers, which have recently been bought by Google and Lockheed Martin, aren’t just sophisticated computers, they need to operate at near absolute zero temperatures to deliver their quantum effects, and that’s a tricky problem. Read more »
An air battery — long the holy grail of battery researchers — could see commercialization next year by startup Eos Energy Storage. Read more »
Bijan Sabet and Fred Wilson continue a long tradition of a couple investors utterly dominating their sectors by betting on what they know, and getting in early before others even know there is an opportunity. Read more »
Everlane and True & Co are part of a new wave of e-commerce startups that are using emotion and design to sell goods. Read more »
Startup Re:char hopes to deliver a low cost Android gadget plug-in that can test the moisture content and fertility of soil. Kenyan farmers get ready to meet the latest in data analytics and cloud services. Read more »
As a boom of solar panels continues to be installed on buildings throughout the U.S., companies, groups and even every day people can make money off of funding this clean energy transition. Read more »
Tesla is now officially a success according to blind-sided investors and media. Tesla didn’t emerge last week with a win, it’s taken a decade to deliver and true game-changing innovation takes a very long time. Read more »
Tesla could raise another $830 million in a new offering in a combination of selling common stock, and issuing senior convertible notes. That means Tesla can pay back its DOE loan early, among other things. Read more »
Orange, the French telco giant, unveiled the first 6 startups in its inaugural accelerator program, including startups building hardware and software for the developing world, and startups using data to make clouds and online identities secure. Read more »
Peer-to-peer car sharing company RelayRides has bought up startup Wheelz, partly for its automated system that lets users easily unlock and drive away in a car without having to get a key from the owner. Read more »
The Valley’s fuel cell startup Bloom Energy has now raised over $1.1 billion, according to a report. While Bloom has gotten strong traction, particularly with data center operators, fuel cell manufacturing is difficult and capital intensive business. Read more »
Mark Zuckerberg’s immigration reform group Fwd.us is losing two big players this week: Elon Musk and David Sacks. A bad sign for the Valley’s latest political group? Read more »
Capturing energy from light and heat using tiny antennas could be a way to produce solar energy at a lower cost, and capture and reuse waste heat from industrial processes. They’re still in the prototype phase. Read more »
Algorithms to manage connected thermostats and collect their data have become a hot property in 2013. Alarm.com snaps up startup EnergyHub for its thermostat management software. Read more »
Following the Fisker debacle, another auto maker with a government loan has stopped operations. Vehicle Production Group, which made natural gas and gas-powered vans for disabled passengers, says it’s closed up shop. Read more »
Tesla stock jumped almost 30 percent in after hour trading on the news that electric car maker Tesla has delivered a profit for the first time. Read more »
Tesla hit its goal of the first profit in its 10-year history, and also delivered a record revenue, and boosted its guidance of Model S car sales by 1,000, to 21,000 for the year. Read more »
Tesla is about to announce what is says will be one of the best quarters in the company’s history, reaching profitability for the first time. But Tesla’s ambitions are much higher than its current $6.4 billion marketcap. Read more »
The leading energy data startups Nest and Opower have quietly started to look more like competitors, though with some significant differences. Read more »
We’ve got the results of our survey on how Fisker’s struggles could affect the electric car market, government incentives and cleantech investing. Check out my 21-page report I wrote for GigaOM Pro, and some of the teasers in this post. Read more »
Learning thermostat maker Nest has acquired a Boston-based energy data startup called MyEnergy. The company will help Nest develop its energy data services and continue its missions of working directly with the consumer to reduce home energy consumption. Read more »
Can a Valley-backed startup help usher in a transition to plant-based proteins dominating the meat counter? Read more »
The city of Glendale, Arizona, could be one of the first in the U.S. to get a next-gen plant that gasifies trash and turns it into electricity. The tech is decades old, and popular in Europe, but new plants are not commonly built in the U.S. Read more »
We’ve all heard that following weak returns, venture capital cleantech investing has retrenched. So what’s next? A style of investing that is a whole lot more rational, return-driven, shorter timelines and capital lite. Read more »
Here’s the details of the class action lawsuit filed against Coda Automotive that I referenced yesterday: it’s a complaint that Coda Automotive allegedly violated the WARN Act, that requires large employers to give employees 60 days written notice of mass layoffs. Read more »
Smart grid company Silver Spring Networks held its first earnings call as a public company on Wednesday, and delivered a flat quarter. It’s a hard knock life in the hardware biz. Read more »
Electric car company Coda Automotive has filed for bankruptcy, following slow sales and lawsuits. It’s the latest electric car startup to struggle and falter. Read more »
Like Fisker Automotive, electric car company Coda Automotive is getting hit with lawsuits. It’s got over a half dozen filed within the last couple of months. Read more »
Verizon is making its largest commitment to clean power to date with a planned $100 million investment into installing solar panels and fuel cells at its facilities. The company joins the league of Apple and Google with its aggressive investments in distributed, renewable energy. Read more »
While Fisker is in the spot light for failing to pay back its close to $200 million loan from the DOE, there were a half dozen other alternative car startups that wanted loans from the DOE but were rejected. Was the DOE’s ATVM performance all that bad? Read more »
Global clean energy investing dropped by 22 percent in the first quarter of 2013 says Bloomberg New Energy Finance CEO Michael Liebreich. In his keynote address for Bloomberg’s energy conference this week, he unpacked some trends in the global financing of next generation energy technology. Read more »
Tesla plans to offer loaner cars to its customers when the customer’s car is in the shop and needs to be serviced. Read more »
Fisker’s founders will testify before a House Committee in Washington D.C. this afternoon, while Fisker Karma customers come out of the wood work about how the cars aren’t working properly. Read more »
A Japanese entrepreneur’s answer to Google Glass, but with a Japanese manga-style twist. Read more »
Shapeways has raised $30 million led by new investor Andreessen Horowitz to grow its 3D printing service, marketplace, and reach of its API. Read more »
Fisker seems to move even closer to bankruptcy as it defaults on its first loan payment and has funds seized by the government. Read more »
While Nest is widely known as a consumer-focused smart thermostat maker, the startup has quietly been developing services it can offer in conjunction with utilities, which can curb customers’ energy use while also lowering their energy bills. Read more »
ABB plans to buy power inverter leader Power-One for around a billion dollars. The move shows the expected strong growth in solar panel installations, despite the hard times for the solar panel makers themselves. Read more »
