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The U.S. Department of Energy has announced that as much as $27 million in federal funding will be provided for research and development projects focused on wave energy.

In the latest attempt to encourage innovation within a sector that has a very small footprint compared to other types of renewable energy, the DOE said Tuesday the funding would aim to “advance wave energy technologies toward commercial viability.”

Selected projects will undertake their research at the PacWave South facility, which is located off the coast of Oregon.

Construction of PacWave South — which has received grants from the DOE and the State of Oregon, among others — began last month and it’s hoped the site will be operational in 2023.

Breaking things down, the funding will be divided into three separate pots: As much as $15 million will be set aside for the testing of wave energy convertor tech; up to $7 million will go to wave energy research and development; and a maximum of $5 million will be assigned to the advancement of wave energy converter designs for PacWave. Full applications for the funding are due in October, the DOE said.

In a statement issued alongside the DOE’s announcement, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer M. Granholm said: “With wave energy, we have the opportunity to add more renewable power to the grid and deploy more sustainable energy to hard to reach communities.”

While the money will be welcomed in some quarters, preliminary figures from the U.S. Energy Information Administration show that a lot work will be needed if the country is to move away from fossil fuels in any significant way.

According to the EIA, natural gas and coal’s shares of utility-scale electricity generation in 2020 were 40.3% and 19.3%, respectively. By contrast, the total share for renewable sources came to 19.8%.

The development of wave energy technologies is not exclusive to the United States. Europe, for instance, is also home to a fledgling sector, with a number of companies now working on a wide variety of systems.

In one example of how wave energy firms are progressing, last month saw a firm called Mocean Energy announce that its Blue X wave machine — which is 20-meters long and weighs 38 metric tons — had started testing at the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney, an archipelago located north of mainland Scotland.

Back in March, it was announced that some £7.5 million ($10.37 million) of public funding would be used to support the development of eight wave energy projects led by U.K. universities.

While there may be excitement in some quarters regarding the potential of marine energy, it has a way to go in order to catch up with other renewable technologies such as solar and wind.

Figures from Ocean Energy Europe show that only 260 kW of tidal stream capacity was added in Europe last year, while just 200 kW of wave energy was installed.

In comparison, 2020 saw 14.7 gigawatts of wind energy capacity installed in Europe, according to industry body WindEurope.

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Elon Musk says Tesla has a ‘performance Cybertruck’

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Elon Musk says Tesla has a 'performance Cybertruck'

Elon Musk reveals that Tesla has a ‘performance Cybertruck’ – indicating that it could be one of the first versions of the electric pickup truck.

Tesla is on the verge of delivering the first Cybertruck.

Despite the automaker having produced likely hundreds of trucks and being about to start deliveries, there’s still a lot we don’t know about the electric pickup truck.

Tesla first unveiled the Cybertruck in 2019 and announced specs and pricing at the time, but the automaker is known to update its vehicles significantly from prototype to production. On top of it, the auto market has changed a lot since then, and that is expected to completely change the prices that Tesla announced for the Cybertruck.

Those expected changes have led to speculation about which Cybertruck models are going to be available, when, and at what prices.

We have recently seen evidence that at least some of Tesla’s Cybertruck release candidates are dual-motor powertrain trucks, which is leading people to believe that it might likely be the first

Now CEO Elon Musk is now adding some information into the mix by saying on X that he recently drove a “performance Cybertruck”:

I just drove the performance Cybertruck today and it kicks ass next-level.

This means that Tesla currently has a “performance” version of the Cybertruck, which could mean it could be amongst the first versions to come to market.

Tesla has previously announced a tri-motor version of the Cybertruck with the following specs:

  • Tri Motor AWD with 500+ miles of range, 0-60 mph in 2.9 seconds, top speed of 130 mph, and starting price of $69,900

That could certainly qualify as a “performance version”, but there have also been rumors of Tesla offering a potential quad-motor version of the Cybertruck, which could have even higher performance.

Tesla is expected to announce all the details of the Cybertruck at a delivery event, which could come within the next few weeks.

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This 100 MPH ‘street legal’ 2-seater electric race car from China looks pretty legit

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This 100 MPH 'street legal' 2-seater electric race car from China looks pretty legit

Most of the fun and funky vehicles I manage to dredge up for the Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week are big on weirdness but short on power. This time that seems to be reversed, as this electric race car is more wild than weird and comes with some seriously impressive performance.

This isn’t some slow crawling electric battle tank or ice-cream truck shaped like a VW bus. Those are more typical of this series on odd Chinese EVs, but this time we’re going all-in for extreme performance.

That means you’d better be ready to buckle in for speeds of up to 160 km/h (100 mph)! And based on some of these product photos, I wouldn’t mind buckling into the passenger seat for the first few rides.

Powering this little racer’s rear wheels is a 10 kW (13.5 hp) electric motor, which might not sound that powerful, but remember just how potent the low end torque from an electric motor is for rocketing off the line.

And since the entire vehicle only weighs 650 kg (1,433 lb), not to mention an extra 45 kg (100 lb) of cover girl model, there just isn’t that much mass here to be accelerated.

Plus the Chinese tend to rate motors with continuous power, not peak power. So there’s probably more kilowatts under the hood than we’re expecting. There’s no information on what kind of controller is powering that motor, but I’d wager that the peak power could be closer to 20 kW (27 hp).

There’s also a surprisingly large battery in this little racer, to the tune of 14.4 kWh. It’s a 96V pack built from LG lithium-ion cells and would give several American electric motorcycles a run for their money.

According to the vendor, it should be enough for 150 km (96 miles) of range per charge, though there’s no mention if that’s on a city street track or the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Speaking of city streets, the company says that the vehicle is ECE certified and “can be legally driven on European streets”. I guess we’ll just have to take their word on that, unless someone wants to buy one of these and try it out themselves.

There’s no word on DOT-certification and so it’s likely not street legal in the US. But that might not stop someone from going full-‘Murica doing donuts in the local Krogers parking lot with their bald eagle riding shotgun.

If you want to get some skin in the game (eagle not included), it’s going to cost you a cool US $28,000. Or at least that would be the first payment. There’s no telling how much you’d have to fork over afterwards for ocean freight, import charges, taxes, and other add-on charges along the way.

But for anyone hoping to try their luck with the local European cops, it’s at least comforting to see that these vehicles seem to actually be in real production.

The vendor shared several images of what look like a sea of frames alongside several partially assembled race cars.

I’m not recommending anyone actually try to buy one of these from Alibaba. In fact, I’d probably recommend the opposite. Let’s just treat this as a fun window-shopping exercise.

But for the person who inevitably ignores my warnings (as many of my readers have been known to do) and plunks down some serious cash for one of these, let me know if and when it arrives. I will be there in a second to go for a ride with you!

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This EV fast charging station tells you when its power is at its cheapest and greenest

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This EV fast charging station tells you when its power is at its cheapest and greenest

This DC fast charging station tells EV drivers when renewable energy is at its peak in the grid – and thus when charging prices are cheapest. 

The “Better Energy Charge” station in Sønderborg, Denmark, is owned by renewable energy company Better Energy. (It sits next to the company’s R&D solar park.)

What makes this charging station unique is its dynamic pricing model. It differs from traditional fixed pricing schemes because it incentivizes EV drivers with lower charging prices when renewable energy is at its peak on the grid.

The charging price, which is available the day before, follows the Danish energy spot prices. Similar to a gas station’s pricing signs, the EV charging station’s price board is visible from the road. (Why don’t all EV charging stations do this?)

“We want to encourage people to charge their cars when there is a lot of renewable electricity in the grid by making it cheaper when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing,” said Peter Munck Søe-Jensen, EVP of power solutions at Better Energy.

The Danish company feels its model helps drivers plan in advance to charge their EVs when energy is at its cheapest. And by charging EVs when solar and wind energy production is high, consumers can also increase the probability that it’s renewable, not fossil fuel-powered, energy.

What do you think of this model? Have you seen anything similar? Let us know in the comments below.

Read more: Electrify America, Blink to add Tesla’s NACS connector to their EV chargers


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