According to a report from Autocar UK, Renault and Mercedes are teaming up to design a new, modular small car platform that will form the basis for a new Smart Car, a new Renault City car and the upcoming Renault Twizy EV. In addition, the two companies are jointly developing new engine platforms to power these vehicles—well, the gas versions anyway.

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The all-electric Mitsubishi i-MiEV isn’t set to hit U.S. shores for another 18 months, but already the company is considering selling a gas version of the car alongside its battery-powered sibling in the U.S. to compete in the same segment as the Smart Car.

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Wind turbines have been around since just after the dinosaurs began making fossil fuels.

These days, a team from Purdue University and Sandia National Laboratories are working to make future blades more efficient, more cost effective and more reliable.

In other words: Plans for the smart grid, meet plans for the smart blade.

Engineers have embedded sensors inside wind turbine blades, and are testing the technology at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agriculture Research Service laboratory in Bushland, Texas.

The research may result in smart blades in the future, with flaps like those on an airplane, Purdue officials say.

(Image: Purdue doctoral student Jonathan White holds a cross section of a wind turbine blade like the one used in research to improve the efficiency of turbines and prevent damage to blades from high winds. Credit: Purdue University photo/Andrew Hancock).

Australian researchers have figured out a cool new way to tackle the threat of global warming, by setting up a network of ‘talking’ fridges.

But wait, the idea isn’t as crazy as it might sound. The fridges feature cutting-edge technology enabling them to communicate with each other via a network to share and store energy from renewable energy sources such as solar panels or wind turbines.

According to inventor, Sam West, “The fridges are designed to talk to each other, negotiating when it’s a good time to consume electricity and when it’s better not to.”

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The sweeping plan includes a large amount of funding for advanced battery development, investment in an electric car charging infrastructure, and tax credits for the adoption of electric cars and plug-in hybrids. Conceived by four separate German agencies — the departments of Economics, Transport, Environment, and Education/Research — the plan is on track to be signed into actual law at the beginning of the next German legislative session.

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Germany’s Daimler has teamed up with Essen-based utility RWE on a pilot project in the country’s capital. The project will see more than 100 electric cars on the road and a network of 500 charging stations.  Daimler currently has a pilot project in London, where a test fleet of about 100 first-generation Smart Fortwo electric cars are being used by corporate groups and municipal authorities, including the London Police.

Eva Wiese, a spokeswoman for Daimler, told the Cleantech Group that the new Smart cars in Berlin will have a greater range.

“The London one has 115 kilometers, and we think that with the new battery technology it will be a little better, but we haven’t specified it yet.”

Recent reports have pegged San Carlos, Calif.-based Tesla Motors, maker of the high-speed electric Tesla Roadster, as a battery supplier for Daimler, but the Germany automaker is keeping tight-lipped about its power plans.

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Over the last few months, several big car makers, including Nissan, Subaru and Mitsubishi, have announced plans to produce all-electric cars before the end of the decade, or soon after. Now Daimler has announced that it to plans to jump on the growing EV bandwagon, with plans to roll-out a Mercedes-Benz electric car in 2010. According to Chief Executive Dieter Zetsche, the company also plans to offer an electric Smart car in the same year.

At this stage, it’s unclear whether the cars will be based on an existing model, or on a completely new platform. If the former, it’s likely that the Mercedes EV will be based on either an A-Class or B-Class, as is the case with their fuel-cell prototype (pictured below).

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