Last month Honda and Komatsu signed an agreement to develop an electric version of Komatsu’s PC-01 “mini excavator”, the PC-01E. The picture shown here lacks anything to give us a sense of scale, which might make it look like a toy. It is actually a rideable thingy which is suitable…
Last week the California Public Utilities Commission launched a new Rulemaking, R.21-06-017, to modernize the electricity grid to support distributed energy resources like solar, wind, energy storage, electric vehicles, and more. Work on these topics in California has been underway for years, as we reported earlier. The long term goal…
In June 2020, the California Flats Solar Project filed with Monterey County, CA, an update to its environmental impact report. That updated EIR covered the proposed design for the energy storage system that Apple announced yesterday, which will add 240 megaWatt-Hours of energy storage to an existing 130 MW solar…
Back in September 2019, Elon Musk made an obtuse tweet noting the similarity between the flags of Romania and Chad, before announcing that Tesla would be expanding into Romania. Nearly two years later, Tesla is starting to expand its Supercharger network into Romania. Social media posts, and news articles, over…
A few weeks ago I had a random thought popping in my head that wouldn’t it be cool of Volkswagen were to change its name to Voltswagen? Then a couple days ago, news popped up that Volkswagen of America had briefly posted a press release about just such a name…
Last July, Apple announced their plan to become carbon neutral across their entire supply chain and product lifecycle by 2030, and today Apple reiterated that claim. The company claims it is already carbon neutral in its own operations. The plan is for Apple’s entire supply chain to move to renewable…
To make a dent in the electric vehicle world, as Tesla has demonstrated so well, car companies need a reliable source of batteries. That in turn relies on a reliable source of lithium and the other minerals required for battery production. Lack of battery supply has hampered electric car production…
As a Kia Soul EV owner in the USA, it’s been depressing to see how little Kia did to sell this car in the USA. Today, Kia unveiled a purpose-built Crossover SUV, the EV6, that brings Kia fully into the market with up-to-date modern specifications. Namely, 500+ kilometer range, and…
A few years ago the Volkswagen Group was saying it would become a major player in the electric vehicle (EV) market. At the time their offerings were lackluster (the first generation EV Golf) so it was easy to think that was all bluster, and no substance. But then Dieselgate happened,…
A massive extreme winter weather pattern this week plunged arctic air deep into the Southern USA. There is snow on the beaches in Florida, and cities all across the deep south are struggling to handle icy conditions they rarely see. In Texas, most of the state is without power either…
A few days ago Royal Dutch Shell announced it was accelerating its strategy to drive down carbon emissions while continuing to deliver value to its shareholders. But, while the press release (below) focuses mostly on carbon emissions, in the details you see Shell admitting its oil production peaked in 2019.…
Electric Last Mile Solutions is offering the only Class 1 fully electric delivery van, and hopes its operational cost advantage will turn into a volume of 80,000 units per year by 2025. Going by the name they’ve given the company, the focus is on urban delivery vans such as are…
One of the complaints about electric vehicles is the possibility that sourcing the raw materials will cause grave ecological or societal harm. For example rare earth minerals are sometimes produced in locations with active resource wars. And of course it’s not unknown for industrial processes to have negative side effects.…
When then-Secretary of State John Kerry signed the Paris Climate Accord, he brought his grand-daughter along as a symbol of how important a treaty that was. To John Kerry working on Climate Change is of ultimate importance. We of course agree with that wholeheartedly. Now that Pres. Trump has been…
In March 2018 a horrible and sad crash occurred in Mountain View CA, when a Tesla Model X being driven on Autopilot drove itself into the gore point of the left hand exit from US-101 to CA Hwy 85. The driver had the car on autopilot mode, and at the…
