Daimler AG has invested a “double-digit million-dollar sum for about a 10 percent stake” in Tesla Motors as part of a new strategic partnership between the German automaker and the Silicon Valley electric sports car startup. Speaking at a press conference in Stuttgart, Germany this morning, […] Read more »
EU Gets Another Fuel Sipper: What’s not a hybrid, doesn’t have a plug and isn’t available in the U.S. — but gets 59 MPG? A new aerodynamic Corsa ecoFLEX from GM’s European brand, Vauxhall. — AutoblogGreen The Problem With Carbon Capture: Carbon capture and storage could […] Read more »
Lutz on Musk on Letterman: Former GM Vice Chairman and Chevy Volt frontman Bob Lutz is scheduled to go on the Late Show with David Letterman on Wednesday to refute attacks that Letterman and Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk lobbed at the Volt last month. — […] Read more »
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When General Motors decided on a supplier for the lithium ion cells in the battery packs for its upcoming Chevy Volt, frontman Bob Lutz explained that the risks involved with working with a startup helped tip the balance in favor of South Korea-based LG Chem. Referring to […] Read more »
Sakti3 to Team Up with GM on Battery Tech: Khosla Ventures-backed startup Sakti3 is collaborating with engineers from General Motors to design new materials for vehicle batteries. GM is not providing funding. — Michigan Business Review Think in the Clear: Norway’s Think Global has secured for […] Read more »
Kyte Streamed 50 Million Videos in April; of the 215,000 user accounts, just 1,000 account for 90 percent of the mobile videos streamed on the service; also, company launching iPhone apps for MTV, NBA and Spin Magazine. (TechCrunch) Versus Pits Fans Against Each Other in Fanarchy; […] Read more »
Neighborhood electric vehicles (NEVs) have won over the more passionate electric car fanatics, but for many drivers they seem impractical, unsafe, and somewhat less-than-thrilling to drive. But a growing number of automakers, including General Motors subsidiary Vauxhall, Ford, Norway’s Think Global, Toyota, Daimler and others are […] Read more »
Duke Energy Gets Go-Ahead For Save-A-Watt: North Carolina utility regulators have approved Duke Energy’s proposal to temporarily charge residential ratepayers an extra 38 cents per month as it sets up a long-planned energy efficiency program. Regulators will review a final compensation scheme for Duke this summer. […] Read more »
[qi:005] Earlier today, news emerged that Warner Music Group had taken a $33 million writedown on its investments in startups Lala ($20 million) and Imeem ($15 million). What that means is that Warner music is giving up on these ad-supported digital music startups and moving on. […] Read more »
Has Google Really Gone Carbon Neutral?: Google claimed on its blog last night that it has reached its goal of becoming carbon neutral for 2007 and is almost entirely neutral for 2008. But how does it really measure up to other tech companies? — CNET’s Green […] Read more »
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For those following the ever-expanding Renault-Nissan Alliance, here’s a glimpse of what you’ve been waiting for: the basic prototype for Renault’s upcoming electric vehicles. At a technology level, at least, Renault says that the latest version of its “Kangoo be bop Z.E.” model is “very similar” […] Read more »
General Motors’ European subsidiary, Opel, is up for grabs. It says it needs $4.3 billion to survive the downturn, and private equity investors, along with Italian automaker Fiat SpA and parts maker Magna International — the Canadian company whose supply contract with electric sportscar startup Tesla […] Read more »
Reading Eric Berlin’s recent post about HelloTxt, I went back to some old files and opened up a presentation I gave last summer at BizJam Seattle and was treated to some entertaining content. At least, it was funny to me. I just had to laugh at the way I struggled to come up with compact, clear ways of categorizing and naming social media tools.
How easy it is to forget that everything we use and talk about every day now–just one year later–didn’t have a set of agreed-upon terms or even standards and, in many cases, still don’t. So I thought I’d share some slides from my old presentation to demonstrate the evolution of our social media vernacular in such a short time span. Read more »
NEA Clears $2B With Latest Fund: New Enterprise Associates, which has backed Bloom Energy, Gridpoint and Serious Materials, has just added another $1 billion to its 13th fund, bringing the total to $2.15 billion. — VentureBeat Musk on Letterman: Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk is scheduled […] Read more »
Where’s the Beef, GM?: General Motors outlined a revised viability plan today, including plans to keep development of the Chevy Volt on track — but it neglected to address the federal auto task force’s criticism that the Volt is expensive eye-candy, not a mass market solution […] Read more »
Updated: Next week, several Bay Area cities, including San Francisco, will get 50 Mbps broadband service from Comcast as the cable company continues its DOCSIS 3.0 expansion. Om may not be a fan of Comcast’s 250 GB per month cap or history of P2P throttling, but […] Read more »
Some standards for plug-in vehicles may have come sooner than we thought, but work still remains for standards that General Motors sees as “necessary for consumer acceptance of electric vehicles like the Chevy Volt,” according to the automaker’s latest FastLane blog post. We noted in December […] Read more »
It’s no secret that the UK government wants its roads to one day serve a fleet of clean plug-in vehicles. Earlier this month we wrote about Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s pledge to launch up to three electric car pilot projects within a year, eventually building out […] Read more »
Nissan Expands Arizona EV Plans: Nissan has promised to supply more than “a couple hundred” highway-legal electric vehicles to the Phoenix area, as well as the previously announced Tucson area, for public and private fleets by the end of 2010. Ecotality now also plans to expand […] Read more »
Updated throughout with confirmation, comment from Time Warner: Time Warner Cable, which last month announced plans to expand its metered broadband trials to four more cities, today backed away from its controversial efforts to price broadband based on consumption, including in the city of Rochester, N.Y., […] Read more »
A123Systems looks like it’s making its way through the haze of the downturn, despite that lost deal to supply batteries to GM’s ( s GM) Volt and a stalled IPO. The good news started last week when the lithium-ion battery maker announced a deal to supply […] Read more »
Brits Go Ahead With Green Auto Bailout: Jaguar Land Rover and Nissan’s British factory have won hundreds of millions of dollars in loans to develop cleaner vehicle technology. The money comes from the European Investment Bank in the first round of money for UK-based carmakers. — […] Read more »
We know General Motors is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, but building a new car that looks like a souped-up wheelchair may not be the best way to boost sales. The struggling automaker said today that it’s teamed up with Segway to work on a […] Read more »
With less than a month left to finalize a tie-up with Fiat SpA as a condition of additional aid from the U.S. government, Chrysler is plowing ahead with plans for a lineup of five extended-range electric and all-electric vehicles. Today the automaker announced that Massachusetts-based startup […] Read more »
Add this one to the string of hurdles General Motors faces on the road to a profitable Chevy Volt: Deploying public charging stations. While startups Better Place and Coulomb Technologies are building business models around dotting city streets with charge points for electric vehicles, GM sees […] Read more »
Last time General Motors revised its turnaround plan — after Congress soundly rejected draft No. 1 — the company said $7.7 billion in low-interest loans from the Department of Energy would help it make headway on cleaner cars. That’s how much the beleaguered automaker was planning […] Read more »
Attack of the Algae-Eaters: Shrimplike animals have devoured 159 square miles of artificially stimulated algae meant to capture carbon dioxide — casting serious doubt on ocean fertilization as a climate-control tool. — National Geographic On Their Marks: Malaysian automaker Proton and startup Detroit Electric plan to […] Read more »
In his first day at the helm of General Motors, Fritz Henderson wants to deliver one message: We’ll get the job done. Henderson repeated that pledge, in various ways, at a press conference this morning, saying that the automaker aims to quickly reinvent itself as a […] Read more »
American Airlines, which has so far been offering the Gogo in-flight wireless broadband on nonstop flights between New York JFK and San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Miami, says that it will add the service to an additional 300 planes over the next two years. American will […] Read more »
Rick Wagoner — the 31-year General Motors veteran who worked his way up to CEO in 2000, allowed the company to drop its early lead in hybrid technology, pulled the plug on the EV-1 electric car development program, steered the company during an era of SUVs […] Read more »
Just hours after his auto task force announced that it had rejected General Motors and Chrysler’s turnaround plans, President Barack Obama stepped up to the White House podium to explain the task force decision, reassure the communities hardest hit by auto industry layoffs, and set the […] Read more »
Updated: A critical week lies ahead for the U.S. auto industry and GM’s Chevy Volt: On Monday, President Barack Obama is scheduled to reveal the next chapter in the government’s bailout plan, announcing the first recommendations from his auto task force, which test drove GM’s plug-in […] Read more »
I am having a great time sitting outside the local Starbucks using the Sony VAIO P computer. I am amazed at how well I can touch-type on this little thing which is a tribute to Sony for making this as small as possible without being too […] Read more »
The first generation of Chevy Volt extended-range electric cars, at the center of General Motors’ financial viability plan, has yet to hit showrooms. But that (along with its financial troubles) hasn’t kept GM from working on generations two and three, the company said in a call […] Read more »
While there is funding available for U.S. cellulosic ethanol companies in the form of grants or loan guarantees from the departments of both Energy and Agriculture, these days, it doesn’t come close to matching demand. And without help from the federal government, some projects may never […] Read more »
The notion of maverick Silicon Valley automakers rising up to take down Motor City — a popular one in the early days of electric sports car startup Tesla Motors — was never entirely accurate. Fisker Automotive, Think and others making a serious go at developing electric […] Read more »
Thanks to a few lucky opportunities at school, my transition from print to web was a gradual process, and a move that I made voluntarily. That’s not the case for a large number of writers currently making the same transition. The print journalism and publishing industries are in big trouble, with no sign of turning a corner anytime soon. More and more print publications are switching to the web, and finding it hard to deal with the fact that they can’t just move their existing content and keep on doing the same thing, business as usual.
Likewise, writers can’t just keep producing the same kind of content for a different medium. The web, and its readers, demand a different kind of writing, delivered in a different way. It can hard to find the right mix, especially if you’ve spent your entire professional life writing one way, only to be asked to completely change that up. Here are some tips and resources to help get a handle on just what kind of change is required. Read more »
Ford Sees EV-Filled Future: Ford Motor Co expects electric vehicles to represent a “major portion” of its lineup within 10-12 years, according to CEO Alan Mulally. — Reuters Mitsubishi Moves Into Solar: Mitsubishi Corp. has bought a 34 percent stake in the world’s largest photovoltaic power […] Read more »
If the average fuel economy of all new cars on the world’s roads improved 50 percent by 2020 2030, it could save put us on the road to saving more than 6 billion barrels of oil per year by 2050. Think it’s ambitious? Maybe, but the […] Read more »
It was just in January that the folks who produce the Eye-Fi SD memory/ WiFi card announced a new product, but they aren’t sitting still. The new Eye-Fi cards bump the memory up to 4 GB to help handle all of that HD video you might […] Read more »
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