DOE
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The winning team for the third and final year of the first EcoCar Challenge has yet to be announced, but the next three-year competition has already been unveiled. On Wednesday, representatives from the U.S. Department of Energy and General Motors officially launched EcoCar2, whose tagline will be "Plugging Into The Future." This is the latest in a 23-year history of engineering challenges sponsored by the DoE. Both EcoCar Challenges, and the Challenge X competition that preceded them, bring together teams from more than a dozen universities and colleges to modify a vehicle to make it more...
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You'll Pay $700 More For Gasoline This Year (If You're Average)
According to the Department of Energy, the average U.S. household will pay $700 more for gasoline this year than it did in 2010. In a weekly review of the oil market, the department's Energy Information Administration noted that prices will rise at least 10 cents more over the current national...
John Voelcker -
Is One Million Electric Cars By 2015 Too Ambitious?
In a renewed push for clean energy, President Obama called for one million electric cars to be on American roads by 2015 last month. But is that goal realistic? The government released a report this week saying that by its “conservative” estimates for 2015, the electric car supply in...
VentureBeat's GreenBeat -
GM Says More Government Money Not Needed--Though Rivals Took It
Well, give them credit for resolve, anyway. General Motors said today it was withdrawing its applications to the U.S. Department of Energy for $14.4 billion of low-interest loans under the DoE's advanced technology vehicle manufacturing program. That's the program that so far has granted loans to...
John Voelcker -
2011 Nissan Leaf Laurels: Euro Car of the Year, U.S. Cell Plant Underway
Initial deliveries of the 2011 Nissan Leaf battery electric car have been fitful, compared to hundreds of Chevy Volts sold each week. But Nissan's first modern mass-produced battery electric car continues to rack up accomplishments (and the company says it will be at full production by March)...
John Voelcker -
Things We Read, And Like: 'Why We Need Energy Literacy'
Many readers on this site are concerned with miles per gallon, or how much fuel their car uses. And while any site called Green Car Reports is bound to have an environmental tilt, most car buyers are far more concerned with saving money than saving the planet. Nonetheless, we're all about making...
John Voelcker -
Startups are hard. Automaker startups may be harder. But one of the necessary qualities in startups--tenacity--was on display recently from Next Autoworks. New name, new CEO That's the new name of the former V-Vehicles Inc., which attracted funding from famed Silicon Valley venture firm Kleiner Perkins to build a simple, high-mileage, option-free, low-cost vehicle that it believed would find a new market niche and sell in very high volumes. Next Autoworks also announced that it had hired a new CEO, Kathleen Ligocki, who replaces the interim CEO, Kleiner Perkins partner Ray Lane. He continues...
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A123 Spin-Off 24M Lands $16M To Explore Next Frontier Of Batteries
Last week, advanced battery company A123Systems announced that it was spinning off a new venture called 24M Technologies, which would focus on more unorthodox energy storage innovations, including grid-scale flow batteries. One of the reasons it decided to release the new entity into the wild was...
John Voelcker -
Obama Backing EVs With Missouri Visit
President Barack Obama isn’t hiding his support for electric vehicles one bit, with the nation’s leader heading to Kansas City, Missouri on Thursday to visit one of a growing number of electric vehicle startups. Obama will be visiting Smith Electric Vehicles, a small firm specializing in...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
Who Buys a 2011 Nissan Leaf? Toyota Prius Owners, Of Course
So who are these strange people who might want something as unusual, as perplexing, as downright radical as an electric car? More specifically, an all-electric 2011 Nissan Leaf compact hatchback? Turns out they're the same people who wanted the last most radical type of family car: a...
John Voelcker -
2010 Coda Sedan: Exclusive Video Gives Electric-Car Details
Launching a brand-new car make is a tough task; just ask General Motors (RIP Saturn). But if you're electric-car startup Coda Automotive, you have at least one plus (it's a pure electric car, which is sexy) to offset several potential minuses (who's Coda? it's made in China? I can't buy one outside...
John Voelcker -
GM, Chrysler To Join Ford, Tesla in DoE Retooling Loan Queue
Over the last year, the U.S. Department of Energy has granted almost $9 billion of low-interest loans to help automakers retool for more fuel-efficient cars. But until now, General Motors and Chrysler had been shut out while Ford, Nissan, and Tesla were awarded loans last June, joined by Fisker in...
John Voelcker -
This story, written by Camille Ricketts, was originally posted on VentureBeat's GreenBeat, an editorial partner of GreenCarReports. Having already banked $100 million Fisker Automotive has raised its sights on a new round of venture capital funding, now seeking $175 million, according to a filing with the SEC (and first noticed by Earth2Tech). The company is perhaps best known as Tesla Motors‘ top competitor, having also received a hefty loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy ($529 million versus Tesla’s $465 million), and pursuing a similar strategy starting with a green...
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Long-Haul Truckers Beg For Rescue From Nasty Gas-Saving EPA
It's pretty rare when a group of drivers begs a government agency to regulate them. But when it could avert what they think would be even worse regulations from another agency, anything's fair in love and war. The drivers in this case are the nation's long-haul truckers or, more precisely, the...
John Voelcker -
Fisker Funds Keep Coming: Delaware Adds To DoE's $529 Million
Last fall, Fisker Automotive was awarded $529 million in low-interest loans by the Department of Energy, and the company has continued to rake in cash since then. In January, for instance, Fisker raised an additional $115 million in private capital. Last week, the DoE and Fisker announced that the...
John Voelcker -
GM To Invest $890 Million In Making Its V-8 Engines Save Gas
Going green on the road may involve smaller engines, electric cars, and clean diesels, but it also requires making all engines far more fuel efficient. To that end, General Motors will announce this morning that it will invest almost one billion dollars in five separate plants to build a new, far...
John Voelcker -
Exclusive: VVC Reveals Its White Plastic V-Car, But No Photos
Just a month after being turned down for low-interest loans by the U.S. Department of Energy, the reclusive V-Vehicle Co. has shown a drivable prototype of its affordable, green V-Car to Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal and members of the press in Baton Rouge. While no photos were allowed, many more...
John Voelcker -
DoE Says No, Denies Secretive Startup V-Vehicle Loan Request
Looks like secretive startup V-Vehicle Co. won't be joining Ford, Nissan, Tesla, and Fisker in getting government guarantees for low-interest loans to invest in advanced vehicle technology. Yesterday the U.S. Department of Energy turned down a $321.1 million loan application by V-Vehicle (VVC)...
John Voelcker -
On Friday, Aptera held its first online Town Hall Meeting--a chat among eager followers and some of the Aptera marketing team. Their intent, according to the opening spiel, was to "reduce some of the mystery around the company and open our supporters and depositors up to some of the great things that are happening here at Aptera, as well as talking about some of the challenges." Sadly though, most of the specifics will remain a little hazy for three or four more weeks. The upcoming 2011 Aptera 2e electric (and Aptera 2h plug-in hybrid) are three-wheeled, Space Age, plane-without-wings...
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If Tesla Roadster Production Ends in 2012, Show Us The Money
Whenever we're asked whether electric-car startup Tesla Motors will make it, we respond with our own question: What's the last carmaker started from scratch in the U.S. by entrepreneurs that's still with us, and when did it launch? The answer is Chrysler, and the year was 1924. In other words...
John Voelcker -
Fisker Gets $115 Million, New Battery Supplier, Stays on Schedule
Last Friday, startup plug-in hybrid maker Fisker Automotive announced it had raised another $115 million in funds from private backers, including lithium-ion cell supplier A123 Systems and legendary venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Buried in the press release was a...
John Voelcker -
It's Official: Aptera 2e And Other Three-Wheelers Are Cars Now
By voting 80 to 17 to approve a compromise bill allocating $33.5 billion to fund energy and water projects, the U.S. Senate yesterday also redefined what qualifies as an "automobile". Once President Barack Obama signs the measure, a vehicle with only three wheels can--for the purpose of allocating...
John Voelcker