Alta Motors electric motorcycle: racing victories, test ride video

Alta RedShift SM electric motorcycleAlta Motors has jumped out of the starting gate with an electric motorcycle designed for the race track. The company has been taking its bikes to the races and, even more importantly, is now delivering them to customers who made reservations. Exciting news from the track has been coming in steadily. DON'T MISS: Is end of Victory Motorcycles the...

SimpleFuel home hydrogen fuel dispenser wins $1 million DoE prize

SimpleFuel team demonstrating home hydrogen fuel dispenser with Hyundai Tucson Fuel CellLast week, the U.S. Department of Energy awarded a $1 million prize to a little-known team for what you might call a new garage appliance. The SimpleFuel team—actually a collaboration of three separate companies—won the prize, first offered in November 2014, for its hydrogen home-fueling station. The goal is to let drivers of hydrogen...

Ford to test plug-in hybrid Transit Custom van in London

Ford Transit Custom plug-in hybridEarlier this month, Ford announced a host of new electrified vehicles, including prototype and production hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and battery-electric models. Before its planned 2019 production launch, one of those vehicles will soon begin testing in London. It's a plug-in hybrid version of the Ford Transit Custom van, designed for commercial use...

China axes 103 coal-fired power plants, citing smog, overcapacity

Beijing smogDuring negotiations for the Paris Climate Treaty signed last fall, a major concern among critics was whether the carbon emissions of China's sprawling and inefficient energy sector could be reined in. With China, the U.S., and dozens of other countries signing the agreement, the world's most populous country committed itself to decarbonizing its...

Panasonic sees Tesla as deeper partner for self-driving cars too: CEO

2017 Tesla Model SJapanese electronics firm Panasonic has been a close partner of Tesla Motors for many years now. It is the Silicon Valley automaker's sole battery supplier, it helps fund and operate the Tesla "Gigafactory" in Nevada, and the company owns a small stake in the carmaker. But Panasonic wants to move its partnership with Tesla beyond batteries...

Energy storage batteries face biggest test in California

Tesla and SolarCity energy storage array on Ta'u, American SamoaFrom the perspective of both renewable-energy advocates and electric utilities, grid-scale energy storage offers many potential benefits. By storing energy in battery packs for later use, energy storage can make intermittent renewable sources like solar and wind into more reliable forms of power. It also helps utilities "balance" the gird by...

New Tesla Model S 100D version rated at 335 miles of electric range

2017 Tesla Model SIf anything, the pace of new Tesla model changes seem to have increased of late. Over the last year, a 60-kilowatt-hour battery option has reappeared, a new 100-kwh battery was launched, followed by a sequence of software updates to make it faster, and all Autopilot sensors were replaced with new hardware. Now, quietly, Tesla has launched a new...

Action on climate change ‘harmful, unnecessary’: Trump White House

The White House, Washington, D.C.  [Creative Commons license by dcjohn]If there were any doubt that U.S. policy on climate change would change drastically under President Donald Trump, it should have been laid to rest shortly after noon yesterday. Following inauguration ceremonies for the 45th president of the United States, the Obama White House website was replaced with an entirely new site for the Trump White...