As Google mulls pulling out of China, the Renault-Nissan Alliance is digging in. The French-Japanese auto duo has just detailed its first deal with a Chinese city to develop electric vehicles and infrastructure. Under the pilot program announced Thursday, Nissan will roll out 25 electric vehicles in Wuhan starting in 2011 with the Nissan LEAF sedan. The Wuhan government will build 250 electric vehicle chargers, and two additional “quick chargers,” for installation in the city. Both Wuhan and Nissan plan to work on marketing, collaborating on “education and awareness programs.” Read more »
Oh, what a difference a year can make. Last March, startup Aptera Motors said it had collected deposits from “more than 4,000 Californians,” each of them paying $500 (fully refundable) or $750 (“locked in”) to reserve one of the company planned plug-in vehicles. At the time, […] Read more »
Power, pricing and electric vehicles, oh my. The group of North American power grid operators that manage most of North America’s electric grid, expect 1 million plug-in vehicles could be deployed on the continent within five years — and they aim to be prepared. Read more »
At first glance, 5050biz.com looks a lot like LinkedIn. So I asked the folks at 5050biz the obvious question: if I’m already on LinkedIn, as a lot of web workers are, what does 5050biz have to offer me? Read more »
A string of recent events has helped to focus a strong — and not too favorable — light on the growing amount of software embedded in the cars we drive: Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak made headlines last month complaining that his Prius had a “scary” software […] Read more »
Chrysler and Fiat plan to launch an electric version of the Fiat 500 minicar packed with lithium-ion batteries from A123Systems in the U.S. in 2012, Chrysler announced today. It will mark the pair’s first all-electric model, and a big year for A123 as it finds its […] Read more »
The Energy Technologies Institute, a UK government-backed group whose members include oil and tech giants, utilities and charge-point makers, has announced the launch of several new research projects in order to figure out how best to design a vehicle-charging network. As part of ETI’s 11 million-pound (about […] Read more »
Crashed web sites, stolen credit card info — imagine seeing the damage caused by Internet viruses and worms unleashed on a fleet of vehicles. The results could include vehicle location data used with malicious intent, the prevention of a plug-in vehicle battery from recharging, remote starting […] Read more »
I have to come clean and admit that I love freeware. Yes, I know that everyone likes getting something for nothing, but I’m talking about a lifelong addiction here. Read more »
A heaping pile of pounds will be injected into Britain’s green car industry over the coming years, with automakers and the government both throwing cash into a major buildout of manufacturing capacity for lithium-ion batteries, fuel-efficient engines and other parts for lower-emission vehicles. Japanese automaker Nissan announced […] Read more »
Across the auto industry, companies are on the hunt for electric vehicle launchpads: cities and regions most likely to give the upcoming generation of plug-in cars the smoothest possible entry into the market, and help them move into the mainstream. Many of the factors that come under […] Read more »
Nissan, one of the automakers betting most heavily on the nascent electric vehicle market, will price its upcoming LEAF plug-in sedan in the range of 3.5 million to 4 million yen (about $38,600-$44,100) in Japan, according to a Mainichi Shimbun report picked up by MarketWatch on […] Read more »
Jibjab co-founders and brothers Evan and Gregg Spiridellis are pulling no punches in an interview that NewTeeVee reader and CinemaTech blogger Scott Kirsner was kind enough to pass on to us. Asked if advertising works for his industry, Gregg responds: “To support a high-quality produced product […] Read more »
It’s no secret that Quantum Fuel Systems Technologies Worldwide is betting big on plug-in hybrid vehicle startup Fisker Automotive — the green car startup’s genesis was built on a vision of having the well-known luxury car designer Henrik Fisker design a vehicle around a Quantum drivetrain. […] Read more »
Netflix streaming could be coming to mobile devices by the end of the year, but the iPhone might not be the first platform to support it, as has been widely anticipated. Instead, that honor might belong to devices that are built on Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 […] Read more »
Five of Japan’s heavyweights in the auto and power industries — Toyota, Nissan, Mitsubishi Motors, Fuji Heavy Industries and Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), the country’s largest utility — have joined forces to try and speed the adoption of a standard quick-charging system for electric vehicles. […] Read more »
If you think of an electric vehicle startup hoping to go public in the near future, Tesla Motors is probably what comes to mind. But another green car venture, Smith Electric Vehicles, also has its eye on an initial public offering that it hopes will help […] Read more »
Regardless of all the possible benefits of having a battery manufacturing industry in the U.S. for plug-in vehicles, building out that fledgling industry won’t come cheap. This morning an announcement from LG Chem — the Korean electronics behemoth whose U.S. subsidiary Compact Power will supply lithium-ion […] Read more »
Panasonic started to sell its new line of 3D TVs through a partnership with Best Buy today, offering a bundle of a of 50-inch plasma TV, a 3D-capable Blu-ray player and a pair of glasses for around $2900. Consumers will also soon be able to buy […] Read more »
We are crawling the Internet all the time; monitoring the latest trends and technologies, seeking, discovering. If you’re like me, during your web travels you often come across treasures you want to share. But sharing what you find can be time consuming and hinder your productivity. Read more »
For A123Systems, the Massachusetts-based lithium-ion battery maker, 2009 marked the best year yet in its 8-year history in terms of revenue, an IPO and government funding: The company scored a coveted $249 million government grant and its $371 million initial public offering in September was the […] Read more »
Seawater: It offered the Ancient Mariner not a drop to drink, but plenty of scientists and entrepreneurs have ideas for how to use the salty stuff for green technologies. Some aim to desalinate it with high-tech membranes to produce fresh drinking water, while others envision it […] Read more »
Hybrid and electric vehicles can only ride so far on the appeal of their fuel economy gains and environmental credentials. For a majority of car buyers, factors such as style, performance and services for information, entertainment and safety will hold more weight in the decision to […] Read more »
Jamie Wilkinson, aka Jamie Dubs, is the go-to guy if you want to learn anything about Internet memes. He’s the brain behind Know Your Meme, and until recently used to be Rocketboom’s Internet Research Scientist, complete with lab coat and white board. Wilkinson looked into the […] Read more »
Panasonic EVP Bob Perry made it clear at this week’s TV of Tomorrow Show that there’s not much love lost in America for cable TV. He joked that even Wall Street bankers might be more popular than cable execs, and warned that cable companies won’t survive […] Read more »
“Like gangbusters.” That’s how Joe Fisher, chief executive for Azusa, Calif.-based startup CFX Battery envisions the company growing in 2010. Of course the lithium-ion battery cell developer will need funds to do that, and Wednesday announced that it has raised $14.2 million in a second round […] Read more »
Yesterday, the New York Times published an article examining what it refers to as the upcoming “war” between computer chip manufacturers. It’s an interesting read if you’re desperately into that sort of thing, but what’s most compelling is the assertion that Apple probably invested at least a […] Read more »
Two and a half years ago, the first edition of “The New Rules of Marketing and PR” hit the shelves. David Meerman Scott’s guide to using other online tools for marketing was a game changer. Last month, the second edition of the book came out. Read more »
One word describes the task of reliably forecasting how much a used electric vehicle will be worth at the end of its lease (called residual value): impossible. That’s the latest finding from CAP Motor Research, one of the UK’s biggest providers of vehicle valuation data for […] Read more »
In early 2007, the Council of Public Relations Firms (CPRF) and APCO Worldwide partnered to learn more about interactions and relationships between public relations (PR) professionals and bloggers. Findings showed that PR professionals who understood blogger “culture” were having more success in communicating in this online […] Read more »
How to Beat China on Clean Energy: IHS CERA Chairman Daniel Yergin says China’s advantages over the U.S. on green energy have been overplayed. “They’re going to have the same advantage they have on everything else. And that is that low-cost manufacturing. To compete with the […] Read more »
Watching Google Buzz roll out was like watching a train wreck. It was terrible, but I couldn’t quite look away either. Anyone watching my Twitter stream when Google Buzz was first announced knows that I was really unhappy with the initial implementation: Read more »
For buyers of the electric LEAF sedan coming up from Nissan, the battery pack and vehicle will come under one deal. While Nissan has previously said it was considering offering the battery under a separate lease contract, the automaker now says the vehicle “will be available […] Read more »
Ze-gen, a startup working to produce synthesis gas fuel from wood debris (and potentially old railroad ties and other solid waste), has raised some $17.6 million of a planned $25.6 million equity round, according to an amended offering filed with with regulators today. This marks an expansion of the […] Read more »
Ustream has nabbed a major strategic investment by Japan’s Softbank that could be worth $75 million over the next 18 months. With the new funding, Ustream will look to expand in Japan, China, Korea, and India, opening offices and hiring employees to tap dramatic mobile phone […] Read more »
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could get a taste of Android on your Windows Mobile handset? Oh snap, you can! Check it out in a video demo and decide for yourself if a custom Android ROM is in your future. Read more »
Death and taxes may have been for Benjamin Franklin the only certainties in life, but research firm Frost & Sullivan adds a third this week: a boom in the car sharing market over the next several years. “It is a trend that WILL happen,” the firm […] Read more »
Think, the Norwegian electric car maker that aims to start selling its Think City model in the U.S. next year, has been doing its homework: slicing and dicing the massive U.S. auto market into an index of cities where its mid-range two-seater is most likely to […] Read more »
Well, I am sold. There is now a real reason to buy the iPad. As if all of the other functions weren’t enough (e-reader, iPod, photo viewer, browser, and more), I can now work on documents with complete ease. The iPad appears to be a real […] Read more »
Things just got a little cozier between Norwegian electric car company Think and one of its U.S. investors, Ener1. EnerDel, the battery-making subsidiary of Ener1, already had a major contract with Think to supply batteries for the company’s electric City model, as well as “supplier of […] Read more »
