Tesla is using its Apple-style stores to draw in customers across Europe and Asia, and in particular jump into a new market, China. Already a quarter of Tesla’s reservations are outside of the U.S. so the bet on international growth, seems like a good one. Read more »
You say AC, I say DC, and several other ways that energy efficiency is remaking the data center, via GigaOM Pro. Read more »
The emergence of wearables — connected devices you wear on your body — is sweeping big tech companies like Google and Apple, as well as startups like Misfit Wearables. But if the devices are just plain dorky-looking they’re going to struggle to break into the mainstream. Read more »
2013 is turning out to be the year when entrepreneurs and investors are embracing using technology to create more sustainable food products, from plant-based egg, meat, and cheese replacements, to healthier candy and salt. Read more »
Electric car maker Tesla revealed in its earnings that it will generated a slightly positive net income (on a non-GAAP basis) for the first quarter of 2013, and has hit its production goals for its Model S car. Read more »
Startup Fenix has scored a killer deal with Vodafone in Tanzania, and the telco giant will sell and market its off-grid battery to local entrepreneurs. Read more »
While all of the attention was on the New York Times’ review of Tesla’s Model S last week, the real business story on Tesla starts this week: Tesla will hold its Q4 and full year 2012 earnings on Wednesday and start to reveal just how close it’s getting to profitability this year. Read more »
Once hot thin film solar startup Nanosolar has done a round of layoffs — which could be substantial — following a major down round last year. So goes the trend of the once promising next-gen solar panel maker startups. Read more »
Fisker is the latest electric car maker to reach out to Chinese investors and auto tech giants for investment and acquisition. And it’s also the latest electric car company to struggle and face a discounted value. Read more »
Despite the hand-wringing over the cleantech investing cliff, it actually could be the best of times for investing in energy tech, resource management and sustainability, for investors that stick with it. Read more »
Tesla has released the data logs that tracked a negative review by a New York Times reporter, and I think they reveal five important lessons about electric cars, about Tesla and CEO Elon Musk and about reporting in the data age. Read more »
A battery accelerator program and San Jose State University will start offering classes on battery technology and business starting this Summer. California has emerged as a leader in battery innovation. Read more »
Solar-as-a-service is dominating the market for home solar panel systems and the companies that pioneered these financing models are now seeing the pay back for those early moves. Read more »
Lux Capital has closed on its third fund, of $245 million, and remains committed to investing in energy technology, despite that many VCs have backed out of cleantech investing. Read more »
President Obama made one of his most aggressive declarations to using market-based means to fight climate change since early on in his first term. Read more »
Despite the slower-than-expected roll out of electric cars, young startups are still innovating around how to make electric car charging make economic sense. Berlin-based ubitricity thinks it has a breakthrough idea with its portable charging meters. Read more »
Google is celebrating the risk-taking entrepreneurs that are looking to create moon shots and solve the world’s most pressing problems. Turns out the list is dominated by technologies looking to fight climate change, and solve resource constraint problems. Read more »
Toshiba has acquired another smart grid startup Consert, who has been building a smart home service. Read more »
Battery innovation isn’t as slow as many people think it is, and the continued pace of battery improvement enables entirely new types of electric car design, according to Tesla co-founder and CTO JB Straubel. Read more »
SolarCity CEO Lyndon Rive says the company’s IPO was so touch and go in the 11th hour that at one point the team had actually booked tickets to fly back to San Francisco from New York. Read more »
In the same week that Better Place has exited the U.S. and Australia to focus on Israeli and Denmark, Better Place founder and former CEO Shai Agassi says he still believes in the business model of swappable batteries and subscriptions for electrons. Read more »
What are the most important energy trends that the U.S. acting under secretary of energy, David Sandalow, is seeing in 2013? Check out these 7 that are at the top of his mind. Read more »
Famed entrepreneur Tom Siebel finally details just what his big data energy startup C3 has been up to. C3 is four years old, has raised a $100 million, and is now demonstrating real products and customers. Read more »
Kiosks are the latest option for you to recycle your perfectly good cell phone that you ditched for a newer model. Startup ecoATM plans to put hundreds of more recycling kiosks into places like malls this year. Read more »
The modern centralized method of energy generation and distribution is inherently inefficient, and that state is embodied by a little known chart. It’s also this chart which could show just how efficient the energy grid could be with distributed energy storage and technology. Read more »
There’s at least three lessons we can learn about the future of grid architecture, and next-gen lighting from the Superbowl blackout. Read more »
One of the most aggressive cleantech investors, VantagePoint Capital Partners, has stopped raising its more recent billion dollar cleantech fund. Why? Lack of interest from limited partners, the investors that put money into VC funds. And that’s been an ongoing trend. Read more »
A startup called Seeo, backed by Vinod Khosla and Google.org, has created a safer lithium ion battery that’s being trialled with a solar panel system developed by SunEdison. Batteries can provide much needed energy storage systems for solar. Read more »
Will Coca-Cola be the answer to helping move segway inventor Dean Kamen’s clean water technology into commercialization? Read more »
Coal giant Peabody turns to a tactic that has long been used to cling to old school technology: the manipulative press release. Read more »
It’s official. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu says he will step down and will likely return to academic life and teaching. Read more »
Data analytics will be able to help lower the cost of solar through cutting installation costs, making solar cells more efficient and creating better market mechanisms. Here’s 7 projects that the DOE is funding to use data to make solar cheaper. Read more »
As electric car startup Coda faces slow sales of its electric sedan, its been hit with a series of lawsuits buy vendors for not payings its bills on time. While the company is dealing with those, the future of the startup is uncertain. Read more »
Learning thermostat maker Nest has closed on $80 million to keep growing, and we’ve heard it’s shipping 40K to 50K thermostats per month. The round was raised at an $800 million valuation and the company could reach a million per year shipment rate by the Summer. Read more »
In contrast to an analyst report this week, I’ve heard that Silver Spring Network’s IPO plans are still on and that the company could go public within the next four weeks. Read more »
Keeping the innovation ecosystem alive in the smart grid will depend on the big players like Silver Spring taking an active role working with startups. Read more »
Feel free to bemoan that frustrating power outage on Twitter or your Facebook page. You could be doing your utility a favor. Read more »
A new type of smart grid is emerging that includes power electronics and specifically solid state transformers. That’s the type of power grid that looks a lot more like the Internet with distributed and decentralized power grid management. Read more »
New innovations are looking to create much more efficient ways to create meat products . . . and they don’t come from animals. Read more »
A report from the Department of Energy’s Inspector General found some mismanagement of the smart grid demonstration program that allocated $700 million mostly from the stimulus package. Out of an audit of just a portion of the program, the report found $12 million in questioned costs. Read more »
