Top Japanese carmakers Toyota and Nissan helped set up a group to standardize fast-charge stations for electric cars on Monday in a bid to promote the spread of the zero-emission vehicles.

The group, led by Japan's biggest utility, Tokyo Electric Power, Toyota Motor, Nissan Motor, Mitsubishi Motors, and Fuji Heavy Industries, will set a standard for Japan and later aim for an international standard.

Some 158 companies and government bodies are expected to join, including 20 non-Japanese firms such as PG&E, Enel, Endesa, and PSA Peugeot Citroen.

A plug for plug-in power.

CNET's Caroline McCarthy in the driver's seat of a Chevy Volt test vehicle at SXSWi.

(Credit: CNET)

AUSTIN, Texas--Analysts reported on Saturday that Apple sold 120,000 units of the iPad, an untested device that the vast majority of consumers have never seen or touched. Can you tap into that same gadget mania to sell an electric car?

General Motors thinks so. The company's Chevy division is a sponsor of the South by Southwest Interactive Festival (SXSWi), which it's using as a test platform for all sorts of edgy social-media marketing projects, but perhaps more importantly, it's previewing its forthcoming Chevy Volt plug-in electric car. The skeleton framework of a Volt was set up outside the Austin Convention Center, and Chevy had cleverly sponsored gadget-recharging stations around the venue for attendees to juice up their phones and laptops.

The case of the runaway Toyota Prius in San Diego highlights the challenges facing Toyota when questionable claims are made about hard-to-trace electronic glitches.

The incident, which received wide national coverage, happened Monday when James Sikes called 911, saying the accelerator in his Prius was stuck and he couldn't slow down. The happening was thought to be another in a string of alleged incidents related to software glitches which, in rare cases, may cause uncontrolled acceleration in the Toyota Prius.

But now, Sikes' motives are being questioned by car site Jalopnik, as well as by USA Today. A report from a local Sacramento TV station investigated Sikes' past, also calling into question his motives.

All reports state that Sikes, who filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2008, had large debt loads. And USA Today says Sikes had cars repossessed in the past and that his leased Prius was his only remaining car, which he would have to give back in a few months. Though these facts alone do not necessarily add up to an indictment, the veracity of his claims are now being questioned on technical grounds by car Web site Edmunds.com.

BOSTON--Perhaps not surprisingly, wrapping a home in an air-tight seal and adding insulation dramatically lowers utility bills. But the question is: can people afford it?

Contractors who could be considered pioneers in what is called deep energy retrofits presented results from their projects at the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association's BuildingEnergy conference here on Thursday. In general, the data from early projects in Massachusetts shows that these energy make-overs delivered big gains in efficiency--on the order of 50 percent to 70 percent.

A superinsulation project under construction in Arlington, Mass. where two layers of foam insulation are added on the outside of the home.

(Credit: Sanyo)

More and more electric bicycles are being developed in Japan to give riders a little help when commuting or going grocery shopping. They're a common sight on the hilly streets of Tokyo, where 'mamachari' bikes with baskets and kid seats over the wheels are the norm.

Sanyo recently unveiled a new series of two-wheel drive eneloop electric hybrid bicycles whose lithium ion batteries can recharge while the bike is being pedaled on level terrain. Previous models relied on braking or downhill energy to re-power.

The Eco Charge Mode featured on the SPL series gives you more recharging opportunities while the bike is in use. It reads foot pressure on the pedals, as well as pedal torque and the revolution speed of the dynamotor on the front wheel, and charges the battery along flat roads, on downhills, and during braking. When the rider comes to an uphill gradient, the motor assist function kicks in automatically.

Rovigo, Italy, whose motto is "the city of change," will soon be home to the largest photovoltaic power plant in Europe, according to SunEdison.

MEMC Electronic Materials subsidiary SunEdison announced Thursday it has received final approval from the Italian government to build a 72-megawatt photovoltaic solar power plant.

The solar services company has found a home for its plant just outside Rovigo, Italy, a city roughly halfway between Bologna and Venice. The choice is not surprising given the community's many progressive green policies and initiatives already in progress.

Nevada is about to become home to one very large wind turbine plant.

A-Power Energy, U.S. Renewable Energy Group, and American Nevada Group announced Thursday a joint project to build a mega-factory in Nevada for producing wind turbines.

The factory will produce and assemble advanced wind energy turbines for supplying wind projects in North and South America, producing an estimated 1,110-megawatts worth of turbines per year.

The 320,000-square-foot facility when completed will ultimately employ over 1,000 people, in addition to the temporary jobs its development and construction will immediately create.

BOSTON--Corporate America needs to track its use of energy and resources as closely as it does its hiring and cash flow if it wants to keep pace with social concern about climate change and other sustainability issues, an activist U.S. investor group argues in a new report.

Population growth and a rising standard of living across the world will bring opportunities--but also risks of higher energy costs, scarcer water, and other possible consequences of climate change, the Ceres coalition of socially concerned investors, companies and public interest groups said.

Over the next decade, investors and consumers will expect more comprehensive disclosure from businesses about what climate-related risks they face and what they are doing about them, said the Boston-based group, whose members oversee some $7 billion in assets.

BOSTON--In green-tech investing, expect mini bubbles and endless discussion of what role government should play in energy.

A panel of big thinkers and investors at the AlwaysOn GoingGreen East conference here on Wednesday found little agreement on the ongoing financial bubble question, with most of the discussion focused on the role of government policies.

Since the dotcom boom, there are recurring questions of whether there are new areas, such as clean energy technologies, are in danger of overinvestment. As the green-tech investment category has attracted billions of money in venture capital over the past decade, there's ongoing concern that money will be lost, particularly since there are so many relatively new investors in energy technology.

Solar start-up 1366 Technologies is developing a technology to convert raw silicon ingots directly into solar cells, a process that could slash solar manufacturing costs.

The Lexington, Mass.-based company, which was spun out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, had received a $4 million grant last fall from ARPA-E, the federal government's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, to pursue the technology.

If successfully commercialized, the technology could reduce the costs of making silicon wafers, which are turned into solar cells, by 60 percent, said Frank van Mierlo, CEO of 1366. Its target customer: companies that manufacture solar cells.

'This can give significant competitive advantage. If anything can let us manufacture in this country, this is it,' he said Tuesday.

Jim Hedrick is a researcher at IBM's San Jose, Calif., facility who worked on the organocatalysis breakthrough.

(Credit: IBM/Monica M. Davey)

A group of scientists from IBM and Stanford University announced Wednesday a chemistry breakthrough that could change the nature of plastics and plastics recycling.

Using organic catalysts, the team has developed a new method for producing and breaking down plastic polymers.

'Additionally, the team has developed a new strategy for the synthesis of high molecular weight cyclic polyesters and the generation of new families of biocompatible polymers for biomedical applications,' according to IBM.

(Credit: Priestmangoode)

It's easy to lose track of how long your shower's getting--especially when it's 10 degrees out and the only thing that roused you from bed was the vision of a steamy cascade of water. Well, Waterpebble is here to guilt you out of your wasteful ways.

The little round device monitors water going down the drain. It records the length of your first Waterpebble shower and uses that as a benchmark, then indicating via a series of gently flashing 'traffic lights' when you need to get out of the shower already! Green tells you to start showering, amber means you're halfway through, and red means you should get ready to brave the icy air. (Wait, where's the light that tells you to stop singing before everyone in the house suffers permanent hearing loss?)

Intel Labs is showing off technology that could make smartphones a lot smarter by integrating technology that monitors ambient air quality.

As part of an annual Open House on Wednesday at the UC Berkeley campus, Intel Labs Berkeley is demonstrating the most tantalizing fruits of its research, including Common Sense, a technology that would allow consumers to collect and analyze environmental data and then share it over the Internet.

'It's about air quality,' said Anthony Joseph, director of Intel Labs Berkeley. 'We've developed a portable device a little bit larger than a cell phone (see photo) and it collects information about nitrous oxide, carbon monoxide, and ozone.'

Joseph said it also has a GPS sensor and GSM radio to send back geolocated data.

'As you go about your day, it can monitor the air quality around you,' Joseph said. 'You can collect all of that data, process it, and then share that data with users.'

BOSTON--For consumers, the face of the smart grid is most likely to be a home energy monitor that gives people insight into home electricity use. But from a business perspective, there may be more action catering to business customers, rather than homeowners.

A panel of smart-grid company executives here at the AlwaysOn GoingGreen East conference on Tuesday said saving commercial, industrial, and business customers is an easier sell than helping consumers save on utility bills.

Images: The many faces of the smart grid

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Home energy monitoring systems and Web applications such as Google PowerMeter let people get details on where home electricity is going. But it's unclear at what point consumers are willing to make changes in their behavior based on that information.

South Korea is trying a new way to turn public transport green by using a technology popular in electric toothbrushes and razors to power buses and cars.

The country's top technology university on Tuesday unveiled a new electric transport powered by recharging strips embedded in roads that transfer energy through magnetic connections. There are no direct connections with wires.

Vehicles with sensor-driven magnetic devices on their underside suck up energy as they travel over the strips embedded a few centimeters under the road.

'The technological concept behind the idea has been around for about 100 years. We have found a better way to transfer the electricity to make it practical,' said B.K. Park, a project member at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.