General Electric has put $15 million into battery upstart A123 Systems as part of an overall $69M round of finance, both companies announced 13 April.

This is good news for the Watertown, MA company, and for the hammered State of Michigan, too. A123 plans to use this loot to build factories there. The latest investment brings the total money committed to the LiON tech leader up to $300M.

The authoritative Wall Street Journal has more.

This video lecture will help you understand electricity.

From Autobloggreen:

Since it was announced that the highly quotable Bob Lutz would be departing from his GM management spotlight, automotive bloggers and reporters everywhere have been mourning the loss of an executive with such an exquisite way with words. Now it appears that the pining may been premature with the emergence of another top management type with the brass, it seems, to freely speak his mind in public. In an interview with Yahoo! Tech Ticker's Sarah Lacy, Tesla CEO Elon Musk was asked what he thought of an earlier New York Times piece that voiced opposition to a government loan for the electric car maker. With a huge smile indicating his delight in the opportunity to speak about the issue, Mr Musk said, "Randy Stross is a huge douchebag". After a brief pause he added, "...and an idiot." Take that, Mr. Fancy Pants reporter guy!  read more »

From the X-Prize Foundation:

[THE LIST]

PLAYA VISTA, Calif., (April 7, 2009) --The Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE, a multimillion dollar competition designed to inspire a new generation of viable, super fuel-efficient vehicles, today announced its official list of 111 Registered Teams.

Having passed this first wave of judging, these teams now move one step closer to competing for their share of a $10 million prize purse that will be awarded to teams that win a rigorous long distance stage competition and can exceed 100 MPG equivalent fuel economy (MPGe).  read more »

Brian Blocher's S2k EV, the sweet conversion of his 1993 Honda S2000 is a testament to ingenuity and dedication. Begun in July, 2008 under the fume-cloud of five-dollar gasoline, Brian persevered even as the price of liquid junk backed down. Brian drove the car to work for the first time last Tuesday, April 7!  read more »

You tree-huggers will hate to love this: Heavy-Duty truck manufacturers Peterbilt and Kenworth are both offering two pretty cool mild-hybrid for its Class 6 and 7 trucks, commonly used for short-haul and in-town service.

The “highway” model uses an Eaton transmission system that stores braking energy in a LI battery pack, and drives an electric motor for either electric-only launch from standstill, or in combination with the diesel engine to reduce over-the-road demand on the engine, which spec’d much smaller than a standard model.  read more »

The Chevy Volt will certainly save its buyers a bundle in fuel costs, but it won’t save General Motors, at least that’s what the President’s Task Force on Autos has determined.  read more »

Forget the swoopy lines and vaguely European nameplates, Neil Young is going electric in true Amurrican fashion: At the wheel of the continent-long LincVolt -- a Frankenstinian 1959 Lincoln Continental convertible pushed by an hybrid electric drive/biodiesel generator setup where once was 430 cubes of IC iron. The conversion is by EV pioneer/crazyman Jonathan Goodwin.

Young and Goodwin are steering the 5300-pound LincVolt toward the Automotive X Prize for the first 100 mile-per-gallon electric-drive vehicle. But if they don't win, they'll still have money for Fry-O-Later oil.  read more »