Tag: battery industry news

22
Aug

Is free-space wireless charging viable? Dialog thinks it’s worth a try

Energous’ technology promises charging of devices such as Smartphones, within a room or within around 3m of a charging point, with no connections to the hand-held or wearable device and with no requirement to lay it on a charging pad or mat. Details of Energous exact technology have so far been sketchy, but the company says it is using the

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22
Aug

Volvo opens proving ground for next-gen car technology

AstaZero enables engineers to test their vehicles in a broad range of potential traffic situation. On an area of 2 million square metres, the site includes rural roads, a city area, multilane roads and a high-speed area for tests related to vehicle dynamics like avoidance manoeuvres at high speed. The site is encircled by a 5.7 km highway. The rural

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22
Aug

Renovo Unveils All-Electric Supercar With a $529,000 Price Tag

Silicon Valley-based startup Renovo Motors just unveiled one of the world’s most spectacular all-electric sports cars: the Renovo Coupe. The Renovo Coupe borrows its chassis from the Shelby CSX 9000 and it’s powered by a 500 horsepower electric motor and a 740 volt battery pack. But all that power doesn’t come cheap – only 100 units are planned for production

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21
Aug

Will Electric Cars Ever Be Practical?

I love electric cars.  I really do.  They seem to be the ideal solution to many transportation issues.  You’re not going to see any electric 18 wheelers or FedEx trucks but electrics are ideal for the consumer. They are relatively simple, silent and clean.  But they are still fraught with a batch of problems that keep them from going main

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21
Aug

Poachers Killed 100,000 Elephants in 3 Years Due to Skyrocketing Ivory Demand

Africa is experiencing a huge spike in elephant deaths due rising demand for ivory in China and other Asian nations. A new study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals that poachers killed an estimated 100,000 elephants across Africa between 2010 and 2012. A decade ago 25% of all elephant deaths were due to illegal

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21
Aug

The Bizarre Way the Ivanpah Solar Plant Wants to Solve Its Bird-Killing Situation

What’s the world’s largest solar plant to do when its massive mirrors start frying all of the birds flying by? If the solar plant is Ivanpah, the apparent solution is to institute a sort of cap and trade system for bird death. Ivanpah’s owners have decided that in order to offset the number of birds killed by the Ivanpah Solar

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21
Aug

Toyota: Hydrogen Fuel Will Be Costly

Toyota is one of the most outspoken proponents of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, even ditching its partnership with Tesla Motors to focus on the Toyota Mirai hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle. But even with generous incentives, fueling hydrogen fuel cell vehicles won’t be cheap, with a full tank of the clean-burning fuel costing around $50, reports Ecomento. That’s what Toyota’s Senior VP

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20
Aug

In Solar Tech, Simple Solutions Outperform the Exotic

Recent news about improving the efficiency of solar panels often has focused on exotic technologies and materials. All of them show promise – otherwise they wouldn’t be news – but for now, at least, they can’t be built inexpensively and come to market quickly. It seems that many researchers have somehow overlooked simplicity. Not so for one startup, Semiprius, based

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20
Aug

Will useless clock displays go with IoT integration?

The SmartThings platform relies on an Ethernet-connected hub capable of communicating with ZigBee, Z-Wave as well as IP-accessible devices. Once dispatched to the internet router, the info can be processed on the cloud and fed back to smartphones via a control application. The hub can be paired with a multitude of sensors such as presence sensors or motion/actuation sensors (very

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19
Aug

What No One Tells You About Owning an Electric Car

When I bought my Chevrolet Volt I became that person that doesn’t stop talking about their no-sugar, no-thrills lifestyle. That middle class urbanite buying vegetables from the grocer and edamame beans from Waitrose. The domestic goddess with the bread-maker next to the microwave. Of all of the lifestyle contradictions that exist, I had decided I was not going to be

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