Is this highway interchange in the Dubai desert a waste of land, or a clue to better highway design that reduces the chance of death or injury? I just saw this, and my first thought was “what a waste of land” and “why not just a normal intersection”? Then pondering…
Back in the day, long ago in 2010 when the modern phase of electric cars hadn’t started being sold to the public, General Motors was showing the Chevy Volt at some public events. One of those was at the Presidio of San Francisco (in a couple hundred years, due to…
Today, after a review and commenting process of over 200 days in which 1.5 million individuals and groups sent in comments, the US Department of Interior (Bureau of Land Management, a.k.a. BLM) released a Rulemaking covering hydraulic fracking operations on public lands in the USA. The promise being made is…
On Sunday, Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk did one of his famous cryptic tweets claiming to have solved a big issue for electric cars — range anxiety. Tesla press conf at 9am on Thurs. About to end range anxiety … via OTA software update. Affects entire Model S fleet. —…
Yesterday, a BNSF trail carrying 103 crude oil cars derailed on tracks bordering the Mississippi River in a remote part of Illinois near Galena. Today there’s some further information which clears up some unknowns about the incident. It’s now known the fire was more extensive than thought yesterday, involving more…
Mike Burley, THONLINE Another week another bomb train, it seems. Last week it was West Virginia, this week Galena Illinois. This time a 105 car train, 103 of which were crude oil tankers, derailed in a remote section of Illinois just off the Mississippi River. According to a news…
A year ago I made several posts about Chevron’s plans to begin fracking operations in Romania’s portion of Moldova. News surfaced on Friday that Chevron has relinquished interests in drilling frackable shale fields in Romania (and other countries), completely ending all of Chevron’s work on shale gas fracking in Eastern…
Another anti-electric-vehicle article has made it into the mainstream press, so it’s time for everyone to freak out and think the sky is falling. I’m talking about an opinion piece in USA Today, Electric car benefits? Just myths, by well-known distorter of facts Bjørn Lomborg. He has the ability to string…
Who knows whether Apple is getting into the electric car business. There’s been lots of news articles over the past week claiming that to be the case, and that Apple has poached automotive industry talent from Tesla and other automakers. That doesn’t necessarily mean Apple wants to enter the business…
Maybe it’s a fuel cell day? In any case some of the Japanese automakers have announced a partnership on fuel cell refueling infrastructure in Japan. If nothing else it demonstrates that not all fuel cell support comes from the California Air Resources Board, which is slanting the ZEV Credit playing…
Volkswagen has promised that by 2017 the company will be a (?the?) leader in electrified vehicles. Apparently they mean the word “electrified” to include Fuel Cell Vehicles, because of a deal just announced between VW and Ballard. The agreement has VW paying Ballard $50 million so VW will have…
This morning, PG&E announced a massive new charging station network of over 25,000 charging stations in its service territory. This is a departure for charging networks, in California, for direct ownership by the utility company, however PG&E says they will only own the infrastructure and will contract out the billing…
Is the primary hurdle to buying electric cars the purchase price, or the lack of public charging infrastructure? A couple weeks ago I referred to research saying it’s the purchase price, that prospective electric car buyers don’t want to pay a price premium for electric cars. New research by a…
Last week, a partnership announcement between BMW, VW and ChargePoint looked to me that it was slanted towards the ComboCharging System. In other words, it looked like a continuing salvo in the DC Fast Charging market-share war between the Japanese automakers (Nissan et al) and the German/US automakers. Today, after…
The Kansas City metropolitan area is one of America’s Big Cities, but for some reason it’s electric car charging network has been limited in number, with very few fast charging stations. All that’s about to change thanks to a new joint announcement from ChargePoint and Kansas City Power And Light.…
