Archive for the ‘energy infrastructure’ Category

We've often noted that the biggest hurdle for electric vehicles to overcome is the energy and recharging infrastructure. (In fact, that was listed among the most significant obstacles facing the MINI E just last week.) Now, a sprawling coalition of business leaders -- including Nissan's outspoken CEO, Carlos Ghosn -- have announced an aggressive plan to address  such problems and speed America down the EV highway. Called the "Electrification Roadmap", the plan calls for EVs to make up 75% of all light-duty traffic by the year 2040. Central to the plan's strategy is the development of "electrification ecosystems" in key cities (rather than...

When was the last time you used a pay phone? Like the collect-call industry that fed off them, pay phones have become increasingly irrelevant in recent years, thanks to the proliferation of mobile phones among both rich and poor. However, pay phones still dot city streets, and even in places where the phones themselves been removed, the booths that housed them often remain. So what to do with all that junk? The Spanish government thinks it has the answer: convert former phone booths to charging stations for electric vehicles.

In many ways, it's a brilliant plan -- reminiscent of Coulomb Technologies' system of tapping into light poles for...

Yesterday, President Obama announced $2.4 billion in technology grants to car companies, battery makers, universities, and research facilities across the U.S. During his speech in Elkhart, Indiana, the president stressed the importance of battery development as a way of reviving America's manufacturing sector and reducing the country's dependence on foreign oil. Vice President Joe Biden and several members of the president's cabinet also unveiled grant awards at various sites around the country.

These announcements have been some time in coming. The grant funds were included in the $787 billion stimulus package created by the federal...