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The Chevrolet Volt isn't changing much for the 2015 model year. According to specifications uncovered by Inside EVs, though, the new Volt's battery does have a slightly larger capacity. According to the spec sheet, this doesn't translate to increased range. Real world driving, though, might tell a different story. The 2015 Volt's battery storage is slightly higher than the outgoing model's, up from 16.5 kilowatt-hours to 17.1 kWh. According to GM's manager of electrification technology communications, Kevin Kelly, speaking to Green Car Reports, the increased capacity is "a late change done in the cell... just another continuous improvement to surprise...

Tesla said this week that its $35,000 entry, due in 2017 (or thereabouts), will be called the Model 3. One of the keys to making a cheaper Tesla is battery technology, as CEO Elon Musk pointed out to Auto Express earlier in the week. I chatted with John Voelcker, senior editor for High Gear Media, which publishes Green Car Reports, in the wake of the news. He offered insight into what impact a lower-priced Tesla might have. Q: Tesla has sold very pricey cars to date. How might a $35,000 Model 3 shake things up? John Voelcker: A list price...

NLPC has extensively documented howTesla Motors has taken advantage of market distortions to reap revenues – including government mandates, subsidies, and taxpayer support – not the least of which have been so-called “zero emission credits” from the state of California. But much of the revenue Tesla enjoyed last year – which often meant the difference between profit and loss – was credited based upon theoreticaltechnological capabilities and not ones actually put into practice. CEO Elon Musk has also relied on accounting gimmicks to enhance his bottom line over the last 18 months, during which a couple of quarterly earnings...

Two companies have developed a new type of electric vehicle battery said to offer a 1,000 mile range, with prices and whole-life costs comparable to a conventional petrol or diesel engine. The joint project between metals specialist Alcoa and green technology company Phinergy has produced a demonstrator featuring an aluminium-air battery, designed as a range extender for the lithium-ion units used in most electric vehicles. Already used in military applications, the battery uses a reaction with air and water over 50 aluminium plates, each of which can drive a car for up to 20 miles. The unit is designed so...

At the time of the conversion of Norma McCorvey (aka 'Roe' of 'Roe v. Wade'), I was living in Dallas. One prolife story that happened at the same time as the national story of Norma going from working in an abortion clinic and being pro-abortion to being prolife, there was the story of a girl/woman who did not want an abortion. The woman (or girl, as her identity was kept secret) had a broken arm, and did not want an abortion. Prolifers had to get a restraining order against the boyfriend so that this person would keep her baby. Perhaps...

Israeli company Phinergy claim to have produced a battery that can power a Citroen C1 for 3000km, and have demonstrated a 1800km drive with a more practical version, three times that available from commercial electric cars. Even more dramatically, the battery weighs just 100km, a fifth of the weight of those in the Tesla Model S. Metal-air batteries use the oxygen in the air around them, rather than storing it in liquid or solid chemicals. They can store far more energy than most competing technologies. Not needing to contain the oxygen can also cut the weight dramatically – Phinergy claim...

PORTLAND, Ore. — Say goodbye to your phone battery and charger. A new structural material could transform a mobile device's entire case into a hybrid super-capacitor/battery, making traditional batteries obsolete. Researchers from Vanderbilt University's Nanomaterials and Energy Devices Laboratory are now designing materials that combine the best aspects of super-capacitors and batteries into a single hybrid material suitable for making such device cases. While the material's energy density is currently less than that of a lithium-ion battery, it makes up for density by the much bigger volume of a case -- plus it eliminates the space needed for a battery....

(Phys.org) —Researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a new and unconventional battery chemistry aimed at producing batteries that last longer than previously thought possible. In a study published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, ORNL researchers challenged a long-held assumption that a battery's three main components—the positive cathode, negative anode and ion-conducting electrolyte—can play only one role in the device. The electrolyte in the team's new battery design has dual functions: it serves not only as an ion conductor but also as a cathode supplement. This cooperative chemistry, enabled by the use...

Deputies arrested a 28-year-old woman April 18 after dispatchers got a frantic 911 call from a man who said he was in his SUV on northbound I-95, and his girlfriend was attacking his genitalia. His son, in the car with several other children, filmed at least part of the attack on his cell phone as deputies found the victim’s car on I-95. Deputies followed it as dispatchers told the victim to pull off on State Road 100, and then stopped the car at a Kangaroo gas station, according to an arrest report. Two deputies spoke separately to the man and...

Tesla reveals $5 billion Gigafactory, the world's largest battery plant By Justin Hyde 6 hours ago Motoramic   .View photo Tesla Motors No automaker has quite the momentum that Tesla Motors enjoys today. It sells every car it builds easily, with customers queuing around the globe. It's considered the best car for sale in America by several critics, and Wall Street has bought into Elon Musk's vision with a fervor rarely seen outside riverside baptisms. And yet everything Tesla stands for today and wants to accomplish in the future rides on a single stubborn, expensive piece of technology — the...

Tesla May Raise the Green Bar With New Battery Factory Eric Schaal | More Articles February 22, 2014 As is often the case with Tesla Motors (NASDAQ:TSLA), expectations for the electric car company’s battery factory are sky-high. Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk recently noted that the soon-to-launch factory would produce more lithium-ion batteries than all other sources on earth combined. In fact, word that the factory will be powered by sun and wind helps Tesla toward its stated goal of changing the sustainability quotient of the auto industry and thus U.S. culture as a whole.Musk’s appearances at town-hall-style meetings in Europe in...

What You Need to Know About Tesla Motors' Big Plans for the Chinese Auto Market By Tamara Walsh | More Articles | Save For Later February 13, 2014 | Comments (1) Tesla Motors (NASDAQ: TSLA  ) is hoping to unlock even more growth as it expands its operations overseas. The electric-car maker recently entered the world's largest auto market and plans to officially begin Model S deliveries in China as soon as next month. However, the real potential for Tesla comes as the automaker prepares to install its Supercharger network there.Value creation at its bestTesla's Supercharger network creates tremendous value for...

Angry that her credit card was taken away, a 41-year-old Boca woman battered and bit her 75-year-old boyfriend, Boca police say. The victim told police the woman, his live-in girlfriend of five years, bit and kicked during an argument that happened at about 6 p.m. Saturday in the 2200 block of West Silver Palm Road, according to a Boca Raton police report.

Battery problems resurfaced on Boeing's 787 on Tuesday, after gas was discovered coming out of a battery on a plane parked in Tokyo. Boeing said the problem on a Japan Airlines 787 was discovered during scheduled maintenance. No passengers were on board. The company said it appears that a single battery cell 'vented', or released gas. The incident comes a year after a fire in a lithium ion battery aboard a Japan Airlines 787 parked at Boston's Logan International Airport.

Using inexpensive materials configured and tuned to capture microwave signals, researchers at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering have designed a power-harvesting device with efficiency similar to that of modern solar panels. The device wirelessly converts the microwave signal to direct current voltage capable of recharging a cell phone battery or other small electronic device, according to a report appearing in the journal Applied Physics Letters in December 2013. (It is now available online.) It operates on a similar principle to solar panels, which convert light energy into electrical current. But this versatile energy harvester could be tuned to harvest...

Using porous silicon coated with graphene, material scientists at Vanderbilt University have developed the first supercapacitor that is made out of silicon. Solar cells that produce electricity 24/7, not just when the sun is shining. Mobile phones with built-in power cells that recharge in seconds and work for weeks between charges. These are just two of the possibilities raised by a novel supercapacitor design invented by material scientists at Vanderbilt University that is described in a paper published in the October 22 issue of the journal Scientific Reports. It is the first supercapacitor that is made out of silicon so...

Yesterday, a Model S collided with a large metallic object in the middle of the road, causing significant damage to the vehicle. The car’s alert system signaled a problem and instructed the driver to pull over safely, which he did. No one was injured, and the sole occupant had sufficient time to exit the vehicle safely and call the authorities.Subsequently, a fire caused by the substantial damage sustained during the collision was contained to the front of the vehicle thanks to the design and construction of the vehicle and battery pack. All indications are that the fire never entered the...

British scientists on Tuesday reported they had harnessed the power of urine and were able to charge a mobile phone with enough electricity to send texts and surf the internet. Researchers from the University of Bristol and Bristol Robotics Laboratory in south west England said they had created a fuel cell that uses bacteria to break down urine to generate electricity, in a study published in the Royal Society of Chemistry journal Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics. "No one has harnessed power from urine to do this so it's an exciting discovery," said engineer Ioannis Ieropoulos. "The beauty of this fuel...

Sol Chip Creates The Everlasting Solar Battery By Johnathan Leow, NoCamels · July 22, 2013 · 3 Comments Environment News · Tagged: batteries, Environment News, infinite, sol-chip, solar power Environment News: Sol Chip Creates The Everlasting Solar Battery A battery with infinite power. Has the Israeli company Sol Chip found the way to do it? The Haifa-based company has developed the world’s first solar battery that is able to recharge itself to power wireless sensors and mobile electronics devices. Operable in sunlight and low-light environments, the batteries are a result of the cross pollination of solar cell and microchip technologies....

Scientists at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have designed and tested an all-solid lithium-sulfur battery with approximately four times the energy density of conventional lithium-ion technologies that power today's electronics. The ORNL battery design, which uses abundant low-cost elemental sulfur, also addresses flammability concerns experienced by other chemistries. "Our approach is a complete change from the current battery concept of two electrodes joined by a liquid electrolyte, which has been used over the last 150 to 200 years," said Chengdu Liang, lead author on the ORNL study published this week in Angewandte Chemie International Edition. Scientists have...