Drilling slump saps U.S. diesel demand
El Nino and the warm winter weather are being blamed for the weak demand for distillate fuel oil in the United States, but the slump in oil production is probably Continue Reading
Carmakers Forge Ahead With Electric Vehicles
Although sales of electric and hybrid vehicles have struggled, automakers are charging ahead to bring new battery-powered vehicles to market. Several car companies have focused on electric vehicles at the Continue Reading
Ford will expand self-driving test car fleet to 30
Ford Motor Co ( F.N ) said Tuesday it plans to triple to 30 the size of its fleet of self-driving test cars as part of an effort to accelerate Continue Reading
Faraday Unveils Amped-Up ‘Concept’ Electric Car
Faraday Future Inc. stole a page from the Tesla Motors Inc. TSLA -6.92 % handbook, unveiling an amped-up “concept” electric car in Las Vegas in front of hundreds of media Continue Reading
Ford in Talks with Google on Autonomous-Driving Venture
The talks are intended to help Ford, which under Chief Executive Mark Fields has sharpened its focus on advancing car technologies, accelerate its efforts to bring autonomous cars to market. Continue Reading
The Latest: Texas reminds Google self-driving cars welcome
The latest on the California Department of Motor Vehicles’ draft regulations that would allow consumers to get self-driving cars (all times local): 2 p.m. Texas is already reminding Google that Continue Reading
Tesla in stand-off over lithium supply
On the edge of the Nevada desert, Tesla, the electric carmaker, is building the world’s largest battery plant. The mile-long, so-called Gigafactory is expected to boost demand for lithium, the Continue Reading
Could Self-Driving Cars Spell the End of Ownership?
HENRY FORD WAS A smart guy but he never did the math when he decided to put every American household on wheels. A century after the Model T, the world Continue Reading
The Powder That Could Be Key for Natural-Gas Cars
Natural gas burns relatively cleanly, and thanks to new extraction technologies, there is plenty of it. But few cars use it; most of the more than 150,000 U.S. vehicles running on natural gas are still trucks and buses. One reason is that natural-gas-powered cars would need a much bigger fuel tank—perhaps filling the entire trunk as well as current gas-tank space—to achieve the range that drivers are accustomed to getting from gasoline. A given volume of gasoline contains more than triple the energy found in an equal volume of compressed natural gas. Now scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, and other institutions on both sides of the Atlantic have come up with a new technology to pack more natural gas into a small space without the very high pressure or very low temperatures that are normally required. The result may be smaller and lighter tanks that are better […]
California’s gasoline demand slowed over the summer: Kemp
An employee unloads copper at a factory in Nantong, Jiangsu province, June 18, 2011. California motorists drive almost 1 billion miles every day, and in doing so consume around 40 million gallons of gasoline and 8 million gallons of diesel. Californians use their cars a bit less than the average U.S. resident but the state’s population is so large it is one of the largest driving markets in the world. State motorists account for 11 percent of all miles driven in the United States and consume more motor fuel than any individual country except China and Japan. State data on traffic and fuel sales are therefore often used as a proxy for national trends, but California’s gasoline consumption reflects a mix of local and national factors that are not always easy to separate. Like other parts of the United States, California has seen a surge in car and truck […]