The U.S. Department of Energy announced this week a $4 million award to Austin Energy, a publicly owned electric utility, and its partners, which include Tesla Energy, for the ‘Sustainable and Holistic Integration of Energy Storage and Solar PV’ (SHINES) project under the Energy Department’s Grid Modernization Initiative.
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Just weeks after GM announced a $500 million investment in car-sharing company Lyft, the company says that it expects the first self-driving cars to be use for ride-sharing application instead of direct ownership. General Motors President Dan Ammann made the comment to Mashable at the Detroit Auto Show this week.
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Up to June of this year, Google’s self-driving cars had yet to be at fault in any accidents, and it seems that record has held true over the last few months. Of the dozen or so accidents up to that point, the majority had happened when the self-driving car wasn’t even moving, and the rest occurred when Google’s safety drivers were in control of the vehicles.
Unfortunately, in the months after Google released the first report, Google’s cars continued to see a couple of accidents per month. But that trend has come to an interesting halt recently. As we’ve learned thanks to Google’s recently-published October report, the self-driving cars have now gone more than two months without a single accident…
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Nissan expands its “free” charging program for the LEAF called “No Charge to Charge” to 3 more US cities: Austin, Texas; Monterey, Calif. and Raleigh-Durham, N.C. New LEAF buyers will have access to some chargers in EZ-Charge’s network for 2 years. The first 30 minutes of each DC charging session and 60 minutes of each level 2 charging session will be free.
IF LEAF owners want to hug the charging stalls for longer periods they will have to pay EZ-Charge, but considering the LEAF’s battery pack size, it isn’t likely to be necessary.
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When Google originally showcased the newer low-speed “cute-mobile” self-driving car, it mentioned a goal of having about 100 of them on the road for testing within a couple years. Now, as the company is bringing its low-speed electric prototypes to Austin a year later, Sarah Hunter, head of policy for Google [X], has revealed that the company is expanding production of the cars (via The Guardian). Hunter says that Google is now producing at least a “few hundred” and hints at a potential future of mass-production…
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