Chinese Internet firm Baidu Inc. is rumored to plan to invest US$100 million in NextEV, a Chinese smart electric vehicle start-up backed by top global investors including Singapore’s Temasek Holdings, private equity giant TPG and Sequoia Capital. Baidu is to participate in NextEV’s series C financing round, according to Chinese media reports citing insiders. Some… Continue reading Baidu Rumored To Make $100M Investment In Chinese EV Start-Up NextEV
Tag: Tesla
Tesla Wannabe Faraday Future Says Nevada Factory Construction Ongoing
Faraday Future, a smart electric car company backed by Jia Yueting, founder of Chinese technology conglomerate LeEco, says work on its planned Nevada factory is ongoing. The announcement comes as the company tries to rebuild its reputation after reports of cash shortages and fleeing executives. Nick Sampson, a senior vice president of research and development at… Continue reading Tesla Wannabe Faraday Future Says Nevada Factory Construction Ongoing
Tencent-Backed EV Start-Up Future Mobility Eyes $1.7B Nanjing Plant
Future Mobility Corporation, a Chinese electric car start-up backed by Tencent Holdings Ltd. and Foxconn Technology Group, announced plans yesterday to invest RMB11.6 billion (US$1.7 billion) to build a new factory in Nanjing to manufacture its self-developed electric vehicles. The planned project is expected to have the capacity to produce 300,000 cars a year eventually,… Continue reading Tencent-Backed EV Start-Up Future Mobility Eyes $1.7B Nanjing Plant
Mobike Hires Tesla’s Former General Manager As CMO
China’s bike sharing company Mobike has hired Kingston Chang, former Tesla Motors Inc.’s general manager in China as chief marketing officer, according to Chinese media. Chang will be responsible for the marketing of Mobike and report directly to Mobike’s founder Hu Weiwei. Prior to Mobike, Chang was the first general manager in China at Tesla… Continue reading Mobike Hires Tesla’s Former General Manager As CMO
FAQ: How does a solar car work?
Arjo van der Ham — Co-Founder
A solar car is a car that uses the sun as its main source of energy. You might know some experimental solar cars from the World Solar Challenge, a biannual 3000 km challenge through the deserts of Australia.
The first known long distance solar car is The Quiet Achiever. Built by the brothers Larry and Garry Perkins, this car crossed the Australian continent from west to east in 1982. It reached an average speed of 23 km/h. Over the years, battery and solar technology have improved. A lot. In 2013 the World Solar Challenge introduced the Cruiser class for more practical family cars. Today the technology is at an adequate level to start the development of commercial solar cars.
How do solar cars work?
At its core, a solar car is an electric car – one with an unlimited, free and wireless power source which it takes anywhere it goes. Basically, a solar car consists of a solar panel, a battery and one or more electric motors. All these parts are co..
The seemingly impossible car
Arjo van der Ham — Co-Founder
Technology today is evolving faster than ever. When you stop and think about it, the possibilities seem endless. Every day, a lot of great (or to be honest, most of the time not-so-great) ideas pop into my, our, or your head. Although the seemingly impossible ideas are hard to achieve, it does not have to imply that they are bad ideas. That’s why at Lightyear we like to do some quick back-of-the-envelope calculations to check the feasibility of some of those ideas.
Before we founded Lightyear, we used to meet every Thursday evening to do just that. After concluding that we wanted to start a business to make this world a better place by combating climate change, we started looking for the best solution. The first step we took was to investigate the underlying causes of human induced climate change, and we quickly found the following graph:
Total greenhouse gas emissions in the Netherlands, 2014, World Resources Institute.
We were s..