When planning our solar panel home project in 2011, we figured on paper that it would take nearly a dozen years to break even on the investment. Turns out that adding an electric vehicle has cut that figure roughly in half. Read more »
Piping Bluetooth audio to a car isn’t all that new, but running smartphone apps on the car is and it’s quickly gaining momentum. Here’s how important my smartphone is to my current vehicle. Read more »
The fourth quarter in cleantech saw attention paid to two prominent, publicly traded companies: EV maker Tesla and newly minted public listing SolarCity. It remains a transitional period for the sector as investment declines, with a shift toward those companies able to scale with little additional capital. Read more »
Has it really been four weeks since we bought a Chevy Volt to supplement our 41 solar panels? Indeed it has and after topping 1,300 miles we’re about to fill the gas tank for the very first time. Here’s how the initial month of driving went. 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 »
After a few weeks of use, Matt’s Surface RT has replaced an iPad for most purposes. But what bought the Surface Pro: a compelling package or a let down? Hear about portable speakers from both hosts and learn more about the very connected Chevy Volt. Read more »
On this week’s show we talk about the brand new iTunes 11, why the Internet of things is both cool and creepy, and our own Kevin Tofel walks us through his solar fueld Chevy Volt-age. Read more »
After a year of using 41 solar panels on our home, we generated more excess electricity than expected. So this past weekend, we drove a 2013 Chevy Volt of the lot and our first impressions are pretty positive, both for the technology and the efficiency. 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 »
Offerings in the EV space will explode this year, with everything from a long-awaited plug-in Prius to the first all-electric SUV from Tesla. More important, they will usher in the era of the connected car and an entirely new relationship between a driver and his vehicle. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
As we look toward the next year, the cleantech sector faces many challenges, which we examine in detail in this 2012 outlook. Renewable energy generators encounter an increasingly difficult subsidy environment, and key cleantech innovations like electric vehicles face an uphill climb in terms of connecting ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
It was a tough week for electric cars, with Chevy Volt’s sales falling short and Aptera’s filing for bankruptcy. The barriers to EV adoption are widely known but center around a few major issues, including range anxiety, charging time and initial cost. Range anxiety and unease ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Whether you like the Chevy Volt or not, if you are a supporter of electric cars, you should be disheartened by the news that the Volt won’t meet its 2011 sales goal after all. Not hitting the goal will have a greater impact beyond GM. Read more »
Connectivity changes everything. That’s the credo driving just about every corner of our day-to-day lives. As human beings, we are now connected to one another through not just our social networks but also our cars, the books we read, the albums we download and even our own health and wellness habits (to name just a few areas). With that in mind, GigaOM Pro has singled out certain areas in the technology industry where we see this shift to constant connectivity taking place most drastically. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Cleantech, meet mobile. The intersection between these two industries has grown over the past twelve months as companies increasingly look to use smartphones as a platform to enable their services. This trend will accelerate in the future as more and more companies realize that mobile phones ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
One of the big hurdles in engineering electric cars is to figure out how to effectively monitor and control the battery systems. For Coda, that means buying EnergyCS to beef up its battery management system development and expand into the grid energy storage market. Read more »
Fisker Automotive, which finally began delivering its first plug-in electric hybrid car this summer, has begun promoting its second model in earnest as well. The company announced Thursday that its next car, dubbed “Project Nina,” will come with engines and other parts by BMW. Read more »
We’ve heard of bullish forecasts for electric cars, but we also have seen reports about the coming of an oversupply of lithium-ion batteries. Managing the supply and demand can be tough for any industry, but it might be extra difficult for the new, electric car market. Read more »
The team approach is becoming popular in the electric car development space. General Motors and LG Group announced Thursday a plan to co-develop electric vehicles in order to speed up their deployment. Read more »
Will electric vehicles provide a big market for lithium-ion batteries? A report by IHS on Monday says yes and predicts that carmakers will take over laptop manufacturers as the biggest customers of lithium-ion batteries by 2015. Read more »
How do you encourage consumers to switch to electric cars? Here’s two not-so-obvious ways, according to an Accenture survey released on Wednesday: offer free parking and get more utilities to build charging networks. Read more »
The blockbuster IPO by Tesla Motors revved up the public profile of electric cars over the past year. But Fallbrook Technologies, which makes transmission systems for bikes and EVs, pulled its $50 million IPO plan because of “unfavorable market conditions.” Read more »
The electric car has encountered a number of hurdles in its ongoing path to the mainstream, and they haven’t all been technical. More human challenges, like range anxiety, have served as hindrances in the wide-scale consumer adoption of electric vehicles (EVs.) As big carmakers move more […] Read more »
The federal government, which is one of the biggest boosters of electric cars, announced two initiatives on Tuesday: a Google Map project featuring charging stations nationwide, and $5 million in funding for cities to come up with plans to popularize electric cars. Read more »
Are we underestimating the electric car market? A bullish outlook from Morgan Stanley and President Obama’s energy speech apparently have raised that question, even though neither has made a good case for the answer to be “yes.” Read more »
The U.S. Department of Energy issued a report Tuesday that outlines how President Obama will achieve his goal of seeing 1 million electric cars on the road by 2015. The answer: combine the stimulus funding, with fuel economy standards, and more incentives. Read more »
In case you missed the Super Bowl game last night, GM debuted another Chevy Volt ad focused on historical innovations. Instead of the “more car than electric” tagline, GM went with a simpler approach, highlighting how important the Volt technology will be for transportation. Read more »
GM and LG Chem are licensing a broad suite of patents from Argonne National Laboratory to develop lithium-ion battery cells and packs for next-generation electric cars. LG Chem will use the IP to make cells in Michigan starting next year. Read more »
The world’s greentech industry is likely meeting the end of 2010 with a mix of relief and trepidation. Clouds are on the horizon for global investment in renewable energy, and VCs fret about realizing returns on their existing investments. Meanwhile, China boasts the world’s largest population ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
New flash: Consumers aren’t so quick to embrace electric cars. After creating a flurry of news reports and test drive videos to get the word out, the carmakers, media and the government haven’t convinced the masses that alternative-fuel cars are the more environmental-friendly choice. 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 »
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 »
The green car battery recycling bandwagon just got a bit more crowded. General Motors and Swiss grid giant ABB announced that the two companies will jointly research ways to reuse old batteries from GM’s Chevy Volt hybrid for storing power on the grid. 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 »
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 »
Need to covert a file from one format to another and don’t want to have to bother with downloading a dedicated conversion program? Check out online-ConVert.com, a free online file converter that can convert files into a huge number of popular formats. Read more »
Hot on the heels of General Motors unveiling an 8-year, 100,000-mile warranty for its upcoming Chevy Volt, Nissan announced today that it will offer the same warranty for the battery in its all-electric LEAF sedan. Read more »
