A company not well known for its lithium-ion battery production may soon become one of the world’s largest battery producers.  Hitachi is not a front runner in production of lithium-ion automotive batteries, but their intentions over the course of the next several years could certainly change where they stand amongst the elite battery producers. According [...]

Late Thursday evening, the House and the Senate agreed on terms for the Cash For Clunkers program.  The program was approved by the House on Tuesday, but the Senate wanted to see some modifications to the plan before they would pass the bill.  However, the House version of the bills was agreed upon on Thursday [...]

Yesterday, I reported on the Cash for Clunkers bill that had moved through the U.S. House of Representatives and was being reviewed by the Senate. The status of the bill yesterday was still unclear, other than the resistance that it was reported to have met. However, that appears to have changed late yesterday according to The Detroit [...]

Yesterday, Toyota announced that it will launch a fleet of plug-in hybrids later in 2009. The company’s timing couldn’t have been better. California’s new emissions legislation set to take effect in 2012 has a special requirement for automakers that sell over 60,000 vehicles per year in the state: at least 3% of those vehicles must [...]

Nissan is enduring hard times right now and is seeking $1.1 billion in low interest loans from the U.S. Government to help fund their hybrid and electric vehicle programs. The government has set aside $25 billion in funding to help support advanced technologies in the automotive field.  These technologies apply to electric vehicle, alternative fuel [...]

In news that should surprise absolutely no one, General Motors is a step closer to bankruptcy this morning. Yesterday was a key deadline in GM’s restructuring schedule: the day by which the General had to reach important concessions with its bondholders. GM is indebted to those bondholders to the tune of $27 billion, and at [...]

2010 Land Rover LR4 India’s Tata Motors has reported a net loss of $520 million (25.05 billion rupees) for the fiscal year ending in March of 2009. Over the same period one year earlier, Tata managed to earn 21.68 billion rupees in profit. What gives? Naturally, the global economic meltdown didn’t do the automaker any [...]

Nissan EV-02 prototype – click above for high res image gallery Earlier this year, Nissan applied for low interest loans under the Department of Energy Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Incentive Program. In order to qualify for those loans, Nissan would have to use the government funds to build something “green” in the U.S., and it [...]