Brian McCowan, Zondits staff, 10/25/2022 Zondits speaks with a rural Mainer about his experiences with EV ownership. Richard Doughty is a recently retired professional engineer who specialized in energy efficiency and clean energy project development and assessment. Richard was previously featured in the annual Zondits April Fools issue when it was reported that he applied … Read more
Angie Ziech-Malek, Zondits guest, 10/21/2022 With the recent enactment of the Inflation Reduction Act, and the Infrastructure Law that preceded it, the United States is about to embark on a large experiment with energy policy, funded by the federal government, and each state’s energy policy experiment will determine how these investments pay off. States are … Read more
Craig Farrand, Zondits guest, 10/19/2022 When Robert Anderson strapped a non-rechargeable battery and motor onto a carriage nearly 200 years ago (arguably driving the first EV) it also started a scientific frenzy to determine how to extend the life of batteries used for transportation. And here we are, two centuries later, and the frenzy continues … Read more
Brian McCowan, Zondits staff, 10/17/2022 Late last March, Zondits reported that the all-electric passenger plane Eviation Aircraft Alice had completed engine testing and was being prepared for its first test flight. As often occurs with groundbreaking technology, there have been delays. But now Alice has been successfully test flown and Eviation Aircraft is moving forward … Read more
Brian McCowan, Zondits staff, 10/13/2022 Wind energy is often criticized as being intermittent and unpredictable. Large-scale energy storage is just as often touted as the solution to that problem. According to a piece published on CNBC’s website, the British firm Centrica is teaming with US-based General Electric to replace an old decommissioned natural gas-fired power … Read more
Mark D’Antonio, Zondits staff, 10/11/2022 Zondits speaks with a forecasting specialist about modeling EV adoption to optimize infrastructure deployment. Walter Schaefer is a Senior Engineer at DNV with eight years of experience in electric mobility and transportation, demand side management, and distributed energy technologies. In addition to his residential EV adoption forecasting work, he is … Read more
Brian McCowan, Zondits staff, 10/7/2022 In 2018, George Sassine, Vice President of Large Scale Renewables at the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), posted an article entitled Forget Electric Cars, The Future is Magnetic (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/forget-electric-cars-future-magnetic-georges-sassine/). Prior to that, Volkswagen experimented with magnetic hover cars. Now, researchers at a Chinese university are testing … Read more
Craig Farrand, Zondits guest, 10/6/2022 By the second decade of the new century, the success of Tesla had lit a fire under the butts of U.S. European and Asian automakers. Ford, BMW, Audi, Volvo, Toyota, Nissan, and others have all introduced fully electric vehicles (EV) and plug-in hybrids. In addition, new firms such as Rivian … Read more
Brian McCowan, Zondits staff, 10/3/2022 Canadian producer of fuel cell systems, Ballard Power Systems, has reached an agreement with Medha Servo Drives to provide hydrogen fuel cells for commuter trains operated by India Railways. Eight fuel cells will be incorporated in the retrofitting of two locomotives that are currently powered by conventional diesel engines. The … Read more
Craig Farrand, Zondits guest, 9/27/2022 This is the second article in a multi-part series on the history of the electric vehicle. For those of a certain age, the early- and mid-’70s in the United States were a time of long lines at empty gas pumps, thanks to the oil embargo imposed by OPEC (the Organization … Read more