News by Subject Technology & Engineering

New European Union regulations on batteries could offer a huge boost to the global decarbonisation mission - but only if it leverages its political and economic weight to ensure a fairer global marketplace.

A new study of the life-cycle GHG emissions from passenger cars sharply distinguishes the climate impacts of electric vehicles and combustion vehicles. It finds that only battery electric vehicles and fuel-cell electric vehicles powered by renewable electricity can achieve the kind of reductions in GHG emissions from transportation that comport with Paris Agreement goals. There is no realistic pathway that relies on combustion-engine vehicles, including hybrids of any sort.

Researchers offered a technology for generating energy for an electric car engine using methanol. Sergey Shcheklein and Aleksey Dubinin came up with the idea of using methanol after analyzing more than 220 experiments. Development using methanol turned out to be technologically simple, with minimal energy consumption and energy losses, and high efficiency.

Autonomous vehicle researchers at Carnegie Mellon University believe they are the first to tackle navigating a crowded, narrow street, with cars parked on both sides, and not enough space for vehicles traveling in both directions to pass each other.

Creating new procedures that improve mass drone traffic is the purpose of LABYRINTH, a European research project coordinated by the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) with the participation of 13 international organisations within the R&D&I, transport, emergency, and auxiliary services fields. Researchers hope to use these drone swarm applications to improve civil road, train, sea, and air transport, making it safer, more efficient, and more sustainable.

Scientists at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, have found a way to simultaneously increase the strength and ductility of an alloy by introducing tiny precipitates into its matrix and tuning their size and spacing. The precipitates are solids that separate from the metal mixture as the alloy cools. The results will open new avenues for advancing structural materials.

By 2050, faster adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) and faster generation of renewable energy will result in 99% less fossil fuel consumed and 93% less CO2 emissions from passenger and freight vehicles on O?ahu. That's under the most ambitious scenario in an article published in World Electric Vehicle Journal.