Even though Tesla’s second electric vehicle the Model S is still about two years away, Tesla CEO Elon Musk laid out the company’s road map for two more new electric cars at an event in Palm Springs: the Model X SUV and a $30,000 EV. Read more »
At the Cleantech Investor Summit in Palm Springs, Calif. on Wednesday, GM Ventures President John Lauckner highlighted how GM Ventures could help entrepreneurs and startups, and also what GM Ventures is looking for in terms of its investments. Read more »
Making the automation systems in commercial buildings smarter – that’s the idea behind startup Scientific Conservation, which today announced a new $15.65 million funding round led by DFJ Growth Fund Managing Director (and Internet exec entrepreneur) Barry Schuler. Read more »
Gravity Power is developing a new way to store massive amounts of energy for the power grid: gravity and a new invention using pistons, water-filled shafts in the ground and a motor. Read more »
Tesla’s next-generation electric sedan, the Model S, won’t be out until 2013, but the EV maker has already started testing the alpha version of the car on the roads. And Tesla has just released this video of the alpha Model S in real world driving tests. Read more »
We’ve covered China’s rapidly exploding greentech markets — from electric vehicles to solar to wind to the smart grid — ad nauseam on this site. But this afternoon I’m just really struck by how much China is starting to dominate the conversation in greentech sectors. Read more »
Electric vehicle drive train system maker KLD Energy is looking to raise $10 million in debt and securities, and has closed on a little over $2 million of that round. The startup has planned to build its business via electric scooters in Asia. Read more »
Intematix, an eleven-year-old VC-backed LED materials company, has an announced a new product called ChromaLit, which uses a new design for a phosphor light source for LED makers. The company says it will revolutionize the way LEDs are made. Read more »
The argument against electric cars is that if the grid is powered by mostly coal, then so are our cars. But the long term goal is to move the grid over to clean power. However, here’s the bumpy road ahead for these transitions. Read more »
Oil prices have headed back up to close to $100 a barrel. Will the demand for cleantech products — like electric, hybrid and biofuel cars — get a boost? And will high oil prices stimulate cleantech investing? Read more »
The new wave of electric cars will be connected cars, both via a power cord, but also through the increased use of communication networks. The latest example of this comes from Sprint, which is providing the connection for Ecotality’s Blink electric car charging stations. Read more »
GridPoint — the smart grid startup that’s raised lots of money and has a lot to prove — has now raised yet even more funding: a $23.6 million round according to a filing. That brings 8-year-old GridPoint’s total financing to over $240 million since its founding. Read more »
The Inhabitat crew hit the Detroit Auto Show and checked out some of the hottest hybrid, fly-wheel and all electric cars. Watch their footage: Read more »
Over the past year China has emerged as one of the largest smart grid markets in the world and according to a report out this week will grow from $22.3 billion in 2011 to $61.4 billion in 2015. What’s a key way in? Partnerships. Read more »
According to a recently-released independent report from the California Council on Science and Technology, which compiled a lot of the already available research done on the subject, there are no known health risks associated with living with a smart meter. Read more »
For next-generation biofuels to make any type of dent in the fossil fuel industry, oil companies will have to get on board, and here comes one to the rescue for the struggling cellulosic ethanol sector. Oil giant Valero is backing cellulosic ethanol startup Mascoma. Read more »
The chief engineer behind the electric RAV 4, which is under development by electric car startup Tesla Motors and auto giant Toyota, sits down with us to chat about the future of the deal and the details of the car for this week’s Green Overdrive Show. Read more »
The company behind the sometimes-annoying WeatherBug app has emerged with a new plan to build what it says will be the world’s largest global sensor network that will track green house gas emissions. AWS Convergence Technologies, now Earth Networks, will invest $25 million into the network. Read more »
Silver Spring Networks, which builds smart grid networks for utilities, today announced a reseller partnership with Control4, a startup that provides home automation gear and services. This deal between the two leaders in these spaces shows how the smart home sector is maturing. Read more »
While you’re busy pondering whether or not you’ll be getting the new iPhone on Verizon, we thought we’d take the opportunity to tally up all the iPhone solar options we’ve seen on the market. And as you can see, there’s a lot of ‘em. Read more »
We can thank China, offshore wind and European solar rooftops for a record $243 billion of global investment into clean power — including funding mechanisms like the public markets, private investment, government funding, asset financing and corporate spending — according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Read more »
Electric vehicle makers are trying to tackle that EV battery safety issue with design, technology and rhetoric. You can see some good examples at the Detroit Auto Show this week, like Volvo, and Tesla. Read more »
If you’ve ever used a networked road tolling service then you know how convenient it is. Well, what if cars had connections in them at all times that turned them into driving credit cards. That’s the idea behind a Toronto-based startup called Skymeter. Read more »
The bigger the better for the greentech sector. Is 2011 the year of the Godzilla greentech company? On this news-laden Monday, there’s some particularly interesting evidence of the market advantages of being a massive company today selling into the energy, fuel and chemical markets. Read more »
Intel Capital and Braemar Energy have invested an undisclosed amount of funding into Viridity Energy, a startup which makes software that dynamically manages power loads on the grid in terms of energy pricing, renewable energy generation and energy storage. Read more »
Holy solar. Southern California Edison announced this morning that it has signed contracts with solar developers SunPower and Fotowatio Renewable Ventures to buy solar electricity for a total of 831 MW of solar projects. Read more »
Did the proprietary wireless technology Z-Wave just do a leap frog move into the smart energy home over a more standards-based approach like ZigBee? Verizon confirmed with me late last week that its inaugural smart home energy pilot will initially be based around Z-Wave. Read more »
Last summer, GE and a group of VCs launched a $200 million fund for a smart grid challenge that plans to allocate financing to entrepreneurs and startups innovating around the power grid. This morning at CES, GE announced another phase: the eco-home. Read more »
Ford’s first consumer all-electric car, the Ford Focus Electric, will go on sale by the end of 2011. It’ll have a range of between 80 to 100 miles, a lithium ion battery from LG Chem, and a 3 to 4 hour charge time. Read more »
It’s a good place for the banned caffeinated malt liquor to die. 4Loko is being recycled into ethanol by recycling company MXI Environmental Services and others. While the next-generation of biofuels won’t come from 4Loko, they will partly come from waste. Read more »
For the first time, power company NRG Energy and its utility Reliant Energy are making a showing at the massive gadget love-fest CES. Why? As Reliant Energy President Jason Few told me, this is the beginning of the “digitization of the power grid.” Read more »
Tesla shows off the design of its Model S, next-gen electric sedan, via a series of videos. It’s some Model-S porn for ya, since we’re going to have to wait almost two years to buy one of these. Read more »
The Volt plus wireless charging is an early adopter power match made in heaven. At CES, GM said it will offer wireless charging in some cars — including the Volt — via startup Powermat. GM has also backed Powermat with $5 million. Read more »
Which gadgets on store shelves are the greenest right now? From the show floor of the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Greenpeace says that would be gadgets from Asus, as well as HP, Acer, Sharp, Sony Ericsson, and Samsung. Read more »
For this week’s Green Overdrive show, we take Volkswagen’s Blue-e-motion Golf for a spin. It has four driving modes to tweak the regenerative braking, which I liked, but it won’t be on the market until late 2013, or 2014, which I didn’t like. Read more »
Electric car startup Coda has been in the process of raising $125 million — so now that the company has pushed back its launch date, how far along is the fund raise? Out of a planned $125 million Coda has raised $76 million. Read more »
Yep, those USDA loan guarantees are still out there. INEOS Bio and its joint venture partner, New Planet Energy, announced this morning that they have received a $75 million conditional loan guarantee commitment from the USDA program. Read more »
Looks like investors aren’t done pumping money into solar gear startups, despite some missteps in 2010. According to a filing, thin-film solar panel maker SoloPower has raised $51.58 million in equity and security. Read more »
Leave it to cooler-than-thou electric vehicle maker Tesla Motors to know its mobile graphic chips. Tesla announced this morning that it will use two NVIDIA Tegra chips to power the 17-inch screen and the instrument cluster for Tesla’s next-gen electric sedan the Model S. Read more »
Zipcar had until the end of 2010 to decide if it wanted to buy majority share of Spanish car sharing company Avancar, which it invested $300,000 in for a minority share. The answer? Undecided. Zipcar has extended the option to buy majority share another year. Read more »
