Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
That’s right, twenty million dollars in tax credits went from the beleaguered former auto giant state into the hands of a US-French partnership set up to build lithium-ion batteries for Ford.
The twenty million in tax credits will be handed out over the course of three years to Johnson Controls, a subsidiary of Parisian firm Saft Advanced Power Solutions.
But this cash isn’t just going to be lost–Saft et al intend to invest about eleven times that figure in the state and add just under eleven hundred jobs to the sagging state of Michigan by hiring at a plant in Holland.
Electric batteries, folks…seems more and more we’re getting away from the gas car and getting closer to a day without gas. Hopefully, also, we won’t be surrendering a speed anywhere near fifty five miles per hour, either.
Tags:
Ford,
johnson controls,
Paris,
saft,
us-french partnership
Posted in Alternative Energy, Cars, Enviroment, Ford | Comments
Sunday, March 15th, 2009
Brace yourselves for another form of power that will rev up cars soon. Reports have it that some students from Holland are trying out balloon-powered jet cars, a potential new technology for vehicles looking for alternative means of energy.
They don’t work for GMC yet, but fifth-graders at Zeeland’s Woodbridge Elementary school can now say, just like the car commercials, that their work is professional-grade engineering. The youngsters got a hand last week from engineers from Johnson Controls designing, testing and manufacturing balloon-powered jet-cars.
The professionals grouped kids into groups of three, making one, a project engineer, another a testing engineer and a third a managing engineer. It’s the way real-world engineers are organized when developing a product. The engineers came to Zeeland School as a part of a national program called a A World in Motion, available at no cost to schools.
(Source) Holland Sentinel
Tags:
balloon powered cars,
car commercials,
fifth graders,
GMC,
holland sentinel,
jet cars,
johnson controls,
new technology,
project engineer,
testing engineer,
world engineers,
world in motion
Posted in Alternative Energy, Cars | Comments
Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009
To pick up the pace in developing efficient electric cars, Ford has announced that is has entered into a partnership with battery producer Johnson Controls-Saft to develop advanced lithium-ion battery system to power Ford’s first commercial plug-in hybrid (PHEV). At the same time, Ford said seven regional electric utility partners are joining Ford and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) to conduct real-world tests on an expanding fleet of Ford Escape PHEVs.
The addition of seven utility partners to the test program aims to speed up the commercialization of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. The partnerships will help Ford accelerate its electrification strategy, including bringing a full battery electric vehicle (BEV) van to market in 2010 for commercial use, a small BEV sedan developed jointly with Magna International by 2011 and a PHEV by 2012.
(Source) Ford
Tags:
battery producer,
battery system,
commercialization,
electric car,
electric cars,
electric vehicle,
electrification,
ford escape,
hybrid electric vehicles,
johnson controls,
lithium ion battery,
plug in hybrid phev,
utility partners
Posted in Alternative Energy, Ford | Comments
