The co-founder of electric car startup Fisker has resigned, after having stepped down as CEO a year ago. The company has stopped production of its cars as it searches for a partner, investor or acquirer in China. 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 »
In a surprising move, President Obama called out the need to fight climate change and transition to cleaner energy sources in his inauguration speech on Monday morning. While Obama’s first term provided many resources for clean energy, the administration’s support became controversial and politicized. Read more »
In 2013 cleantech investing will move toward companies serving unsubsidized markets where software plays a role in reducing power consumption. In many ways this is a return to plays for energy efficiency, and there’s still money to be made from business models built around saving energy. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Yet another electric car startup is having trouble. Coda Automotive is laying off 50 employees — or 15 percent of staff — after a delayed launch, slow sales, and a car recall. The bad news follows Better Place layoffs, and A123 System’s bankruptcy. Read more »
If approved, the future of A123 System’s lithium ion battery tech will fittingly be owned by Chinese auto giant Wanxiang. China is increasingly becoming one of the most important markets for electric vehicles in the world. Read more »
The auction of U.S. battery maker A123, expected to kick off today, will determine if the tech will stay in the U.S. with Jonhson Controls or be snapped up by Chinese conglomerate Wanxiang. The controversy exposes fears over China and the politicization of electric vehicles. Read more »
Cleantech companies with effective business models still have excellent prospects, while those who don’t have a viable product to sell in the marketplace won’t be rising from anywhere. Read more »
Battery maker A123 Systems, which was awarded a sizable federal grant, has finally filed for bankruptcy protection, after bleeding cash for months. Johnson Controls will buy up some of the assets. Read more »
Because battery chemistry is such a hard problem, it’s pretty natural that we’re turning to the power of analytics, big data, cloud computing and all those other fun IT buzz words to solve it. Read more »
Suffering battery maker A123 Systems has found a lifeline in Chinese auto giant Wanxiang. Wanxiang will invest up to $450 million in A123 which could see it own up to 80 percent of the company. Read more »
Today in cleantech, we bring you the soft costs of solar, some awesome new research reports and content on electric cars, and the news of the day. Read more »
At least one venture firm is still standing strong behind energy technology. Ten-year-old Braemar Energy Ventures announced on Wednesday that it has closed its latest third fund, of $300 million, to invest in energy technologies. Read more »
It’s not a good time to be an electric car battery maker. On Thursday lithium ion battery maker A123 Systems issued a going concern warning and saw its shares drop by close to 8 percent in trading. Read more »
Can the startup accelerator model work for battery companies? The folks behind CalCharge, the brainchild of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and California Clean Energy Fund (CalCEF) that hopes to attract some 30 battery companies in the San Francisco Bay Area, think so. Read more »
A123 Systems was supposed to be a success story about an innovative U.S. battery company, but it has struggled to live up to that expectation. The company on Tuesday posted lower revenues and greater losses for the first quarter of this year, about two months after it launched a program to replace defective batteries. Read more »
This quarter the EV market struggled to find its footing. Meanwhile, the smart-grid sector solidified and low-power technology proved itself important in the data center. Read more to learn what these news pieces and others mean for the larger space over the next few months. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Electric car maker Fisker Automotive has boosted its fund raising plans by $200 million, according to a filing. The company has now raised around a billion in private funding. Read more »
Lithium ion battery maker A123 Systems announced that it will replace some of the battery modules and packs that it’s sold that could contain defective prismatic cells, and that includes batteries for Fisker’s electric car the Karma. Read more »
Fisker has been rushing to fix the problem with the hose clamp for the batteries on its Karma electric car. It says that the “majority” of its customers’ and dealers’ cars with problem batteries have either gotten new batteries or have been repaired. Read more »
Half of successful VC-backed cleantech start-ups stumble along the way. Entrepreneurs who raise big financing rounds at sky-high valuations can end up shooting themselves in the foot. Read more »
The Federal Regulatory Energy Commission recently passed a new rule for frequency regulation to support emerging technologies that can provide quick bursts of power to the grid. We break down what this new rule means and who will benefit. Read more »
Electric vehicle startup Fisker Automotive has dramatically scaled back production plans of its first car, the Karma, in the fourth quarter of 2011, and it won’t ramp up to full production until the second quarter of 2012. Read more »
Lithium battery company A123 Systems has lowered its yearly revenue guidance significantly and says it is because of an unexpected reduction in orders for batteries to its customer VC-backed electric car startup Fisker Automotive. Read more »
Amidst the stock slump that lithium ion battery maker A123 System’s is facing, the company touts a new production contract with GM. Read more »
After the great market sell-off yesterday, stocks are rebounding slightly on Tuesday, including many of the greentech stocks that took a beating yesterday. But most of them are only up slightly. Here’s the latest: Read more »
Only 72 percent of China’s wind-power sources are connected to its grid — meaning there’s a good deal of wind turbines that are spinning that aren’t providing usable clean power. Battery maker A123 Systems hopes its first deal in China can help with that problem. Read more »
Boston Power took the wraps off some details about its electric vehicle battery tech, and it says it expects other partners (beyond Saab) to deploy the electric car battery tech later this year and in 2012. Read more »
The road hasn’t been easy for Next Autoworks (formerly V-Vehicle), which is backed by Google Ventures, T. Boone Pickens, and Kleiner Perkins. But the way forward has grown even rockier as legislators consider a proposal to shuffle around funds set aside for Next Autoworks’ project. Read more »
The market for electric vehicles is moving more slowly than expected. That’s why companies like Johnson Controls are focusing more heavily on “start-stop” vehicle technology, which is a system that automatically cuts off the engine of a gas-powered vehicle while it’s idling. Read more »
The next-generation of lithium ion batteries aren’t just here to power the first wave of electric cars, they’ll be providing better energy storage for gadgets and computers, too. Leyden Energy is launching a lithium-ion battery for laptops that won’t degrade for at least three years. Read more »
Electric car maker Fisker Automotive has already raised over $1 billion in equity, loans and grants. And yet, the company, which will be launching its first inaugural electric car this summer, has raised another $100 million. That’s on top of the $190 million which recently closed. Read more »
Auto makers aren’t making much money (if any) off of electric cars yet. The same thing is true for the makers of the batteries that will run them. A123 System on Monday reported lower sales and widened its loss for the first quarter. Read more »
Power company AES is in the process of scaling up its lithium-ion grid battery projects to a commercial size, and by the third quarter of this year, plans to start operating a 32-MW project in conjunction with grid operator PJM in West Virginia. Read more »
Nine-year-old energy-focused venture capital firm Braemar Energy Ventures is looking to raise $300 million for its latest fund, Braemar Energy Ventures III, according to an SEC filing. Read more »
Battery-powered energy storage provides an on-demand, predictable source of energy to power systems to keep them running optimally, and even to enable new projects, but the cost seems to be scaring some people away despite the high value the technology brings beyond mere stored energy. Read more »
In a combination of loans, grants and equity, Fisker has raised over $1 billion, and plans to launch its first electric car the Karma to dealerships for demonstrations in May or June and then to customers in June or July. Read more »
Lithium ion battery maker A123 Systems, which has built a business off of power tools and electric cars, has been increasingly focusing on the power grid and can thank power company AES for pretty much all of the growth of its grid sales. Read more »
One of China’s largest automakers has tapped A123 Systems to supply lithium-ion batteries for an electric car slated to roll out in 2012. The deal was a silver lining to the disappointing earnings it reported yesterday for the three months ending September 30. Read more »
Lithium ion battery maker A123 Systems officially opened up its stimulus money-funded battery factory in Michigan, which will eventually reach 600 megawatt hours of annual production capacity, and, according to the company, represents the largest lithium ion battery plant for electric vehicles in the U.S. Read more »
