In an interview with the Dallas Morning News, Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson, said that he doesn’t think using compressed natural gas (CNG) in vehicles makes much sense.
While he sees a dramatically increasing demand for CNG in other applications such as centralized power generation, he said that it takes such a huge investment to convert fueling stations and cars (especially long haul trucks) over to CNG, that it just doesn’t pencil out.
While it’s long been known that LG Chem — and it’s Michigan-based subsidiary, Compact Power Inc. — were chosen to build the cells for the Chevy Volt’s lithium-ion battery packs, up till now most of the research, refinement and production of those cells has been done in Korea.
LG Chem has been hinting for over a year that all of that battery cell production will eventually shift to the US. Today the company revealed that they’ve chosen to invest $300 million in a Holland, Michigan battery plant capable of suppling cells for more than 50,000 plug-in cars per year. The plant is expected to employ over 400 workers by 2013.
As we’ve talked about on these pages before, the battle for the hearts and minds of the next generation of car purchasers is starting. By the end of the year many major auto manufacturers will have some kind of electric vehicle for sale on the mass market and by 2014, nearly all major manufacturers have plans to introduce at least one electric car.
In these early stages, carmakers have chosen several different paths, some opting to go for the cars powered solely by batteries (Battery Electric Vehicles or BEVs) such as the Nissan LEAF, some for the plug-in hybrids (PHEVs; like a Prius with a bigger battery), and some for the extended range electric vehicles (EREVs with small generators on board to charge the batteries) such as the Chevy Volt.
Here in the US, tea is essentially a niche product, falling way behind coffee in terms of popularity. But in places like the Middle East, Europe, and Asia, tea far surpasses coffee as a national past time. In 2008 alone, the world production of black tea was more than 3.8 million tons.
Typically, all those spent tea leaves and remaining liquid are tossed out with the trash, but now two Pakistani researchers have decided to tackle what they perceived as a waste of resources, and have figured out how to completely recycle the leftover tea and tea leaves into biodiesel, ethanol, methane, propane, fertilizer and even chemical spill absorbent.
Pretty ingenious if you ask me.
New research out of Kuwait, using a new method of calculating the crude oil production potential of 47 of the world’s largest oil producing countries, has found that peak oil — the period in time when oil production reaches a maximum and then begins to decline — will come much sooner than expected… 2014 to be exact.
It really is shameless self promotion, but, hey, we’re never too proud to beg around here.
The granddaddy of all green blog sites, Treehugger, has nominated Gas 2.0 to the “Best Transportation Website” category in their annual “Best of Green” reader’s choice awards. We’re nestled in there in the same voting block that includes “Best Upcoming Electric Car,” “Best Agent of Change,” and “Best City for Cyclists.”
After its surprise introduction at the Geneva Auto Show last week one thing is clear: the Porsche 918 Spyder supercar has struck a resounding nerve in the automotive community. You see, true car nuts, no matter how green they aspire to be, are always drawn to fast, sexy cars. And if there’s one thing the world of car nuts felt like it might be losing in this profound shift to green transportation, it was sexy speed.
New research out of the University of York in Britain is unraveling some mysteries of the common wood-eating gribble that could provide the key to cheaply turning abundant wood and straw fiber into biofuel.
Fresh off its official unveiling at the Chicago Auto Show a couple weeks ago, Azure Dynamics, Ford and AT&T have just announced that AT&T will be the first company to own some Ford Transit Connect Electric commercial fleet vans. With an order of just 2, it certainly is a small start, but the list will surely grow from here.
KB Home, one of the largest homebuilders in the U.S., has announced that they will be providing the option to homebuyers to pre-wire their new construction homes so that they are ready for the high voltage, high amperage electrical lines required to charge electric cars quickly and properly.
The company views this new option as an extension of their already existing “My Home. My Earth.” campaign to make their homes more energy efficient and load them with features and equipment that both save money and have a lowered environmental impact.
One of the biggest barriers to the adoption of electric cars, plug-in hybrids and extended range electric vehicles is cost. The biggest part of that added cost is the battery. In the past, estimates of roughly $1000 per kWh of battery capacity have been thrown around as a way to gauge how much of a premium consumers can expect to pay. Given that it takes roughly 25 kWh to go 100 miles, you can see how this would quickly add up.
Recently, however, the cost of lithium-ion batteries has been dropping more steeply than expected; indicating that the potential in the market to reduce the premium of owning a battery-powered car has been greatly underestimated.
In a recent interview with Business Week, Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn was cited as saying that Nissan has collected 56,000 orders for the LEAF already. What this actually means, I’m not sure… especially considering that just last month Nissan said they had more than 50,000 people signed up on their Nissan LEAF interest list (which requires no deposit) and that actual pre-orders requiring a small refundable deposit of $100 will begin in April.
“Range anxiety” — the worry that your EV will run out juice before you get to where you’re going — is a term that has been bandied about a lot recently… almost annoyingly so. From a common sense standpoint, it seems only logical that range anxiety is a real phenomenon. But since we have so few EVs on the roads right now, the fact of the matter is that range anxiety is, at this point, a made up concept based on what we can logically expect.
And it’s this expectation that is spurring a huge amount of both private and public investment in nationwide charging networks for EVs — the assumption being that the only way EVs will ever become mass-accepted is to eliminate range anxiety.
But will those public charging stations that we’re dumping money into go unused because we have an expectation for a phenomenon that turns out to not really be an issue?
Audi is continuing its aggressive push into the electric car marketspace by bringing its “e-tron” moniker to yet another model: the A2. What’s that you say, there’s an Audi A2? Well, yes, when it was originally produced in the early 2000’s the A2 (pictured above) was essentially a European market flop.
It was an oddly styled, underperforming mini-minivan that made extensive use of aluminum to save weight. But it was also a very fuel efficient vehicle: the 3-liter diesel version got nearly 80 miles per gallon (US) on the European cycle — making it the first vehicle to break the 3 liters per 100 kilometer mark.
And now Audi seems to think that the A2 was a flop because it was ahead of its time and they’re planning on bringing it back for the 2014 model year. Given the success of vehicles like the Mazda5 and the onslaught of what are essentially mini-minivans, perhaps Audi is right. Let’s just hope they make it look better this time around.
In the world of alternative fuels, Brazilians are lucky. They have some of the best land and climate in the world with which to grow sugarcane–which they have proven is an excellent feedstock for first generation ethanol production.
Not only is it incredibly easy to convert the cane sugar into ethanol through fermentation, they can power much of their ethanol production by burning the material leftover after harvesting and crushing the sugarcane to extract the sweet liquid.
Years ago the Brazilian government realized the potential in this system and started encouraging a major shift to a transportation sector capable of running mostly on ethanol. And now the fruits of their labor are being borne out: The 10 millionth ethanol flex-fuel capable vehicle has been delivered in Brazil.
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