Emerging Technologies

The Visio.M urban electric vehicle, launched last year by BMW and Mercedes-Benz parent Daimler, is on the road. Well, test site roads anyway, where a prototype of the lightweight EV is being evaluated near Munich. The car uses carbon fiber and other composite materials to provide what Visio.M's ...

Right after being displayed and winning an award at the cozy confines of the Detroit Auto Show, the Cadillac ELR plug-in hybrid went into the snow for some real-world extreme driving conditions. Cadillac engineers recently completed chassis testing on pre-production ELR models, evaluating the ...

The European Commission's recently unveiled plan for cleaner fuels and lowered dependency on imported oil is counting on huge gains from natural gas and electric vehicles. While there are about one million natural gas-powered vehicles on European roads today, the number is expected to increase ...

Lithium-ion battery maker EnerDel is trying to broaden its sales into the secondary-battery-storage market as a way to help give the struggling company a second life of its own. The company says it's working with ATC New Technologies to co-market and sell lithium-ion battery systems for ...

The 2014 Cadillac ELR plug-in hybrid got a lot of buzz at the Detroit Auto Show, and was awarded the Eyes on Design honor as Best Production Vehicle. It's taken four years for the original concept car – the 2009 Converj based on the Chevrolet Volt powertrain – to make the next step ...

After offering to help Boeing with its lithium-ion battery problems, Elon Musk is somewhat raising the stakes. Musk, who heads both Tesla Motors and space exploration company SpaceX, has now called the batteries in the Boeing 787 "inherently unsafe" in an e-mail to trade publication ...

Chevrolet is ready to introduce the coolest thing to happen to big-rig trucking since the days of "Convoy" and "BJ and the Bear." The General Motors division is pitching a product called IdleAir, a system that the automaker says can let truckers maintain enough rest-stop power to run a ...

Homeowners up and down the East Coast have bought a lot of hybrid converters, devices that turn their Toyota Prius into an emergency generator. In fact, ConVerdant Vehicles, LLC, which offers so-called Plug-Out Kits, sold out after Hurricane Sandy caused blackouts in upper Northeast, said owner ...

The mood at the 2013 North American International Auto Show has been more than upbeat for automakers. Lots of new models and concept cars have been unveiled and automakers think it will be a good year for a solid sales increase. Quartz writer Tim Fernholz looked at it from another angle, raising ...

Nike single-handedly popularized the term "swoosh." If a new and unexpected project works out as planned, PSA Peugeot Citroen might do the same with "whoosh." PSA Peugeot Citroen is working on a drivetrain that would hybridize a conventional engine with compressed air in one of the automaker's ...