China is set to enter the global automotive economy. In fact, it looks like they are going to set the standard.

Gasgoo.com  http://www.Gasgoo.com) is China’s leading comprehensive B2B platform for global automotive sourcing.It possesses the biggest and the most reliable database of Chinese suppliers and global buyers, the international auto parts buyers are accessible to excellent Chinese suppliers via a one-stop service. Currently owns more than 37,000 auto parts suppliers’ information, which covered mainstream suppliers in China, including JV and FDI manufactures, Gasgoo.com is also the first B2B portal to launch the Big Buyer Service (BBS) and Potential Supplier Identification (PSI) program to provide an online platform and consulting service for global big buyers in China.

Gasgoo.com offers a wide range of value added services including the latest and richest automotive news, as well as information about China to the world; it is providing a window to China’s auto industry. It has established good relationships with many local & international automotive associations and media companies, including automotive associations in US, Europe and Asia-Pacific. On the base of profound industry background, sensitive market penetration, abundant global resource, Gasgoo.com is dedicated to build a bridge linking China and foreign auto industries.

Glenn Seymour

China December 15, 2008, 9:04AM EST By Frederik Balfour

The infrastructure for running electric cars is not quite in place in China, but BYD Auto’s plug-in has a lot to offer

While U.S. automakers struggle to survive after the Senate rejected a bailout for Detroit, one company from China may be showing a way forward for the industry. On Dec. 15, BYD Auto got a jump on General Motors (GM), Toyota (TM), and Nissan (NSANY) by introducing in its home town of Shenzhen the first mass-produced plug-in hybrid, the F3 DM. BYD’s new car, with a $22,000 price tag, can run for up to 60 miles on a battery charged from an ordinary electricity outlet.

Early this year there was plenty of skepticism in auto circles about BYD’s ability to put together a car that would ever become truly roadworthy. The company unveiled its plug-in hybrid at the Detroit Auto Show in January, and few outsiders figured the Chinese upstart, which had only been in the auto business since 2003, had the know-how to produce a commercially viable plug-in.

One person who seems to believe in the car’s viability is Warren Buffett. In September, Des Moines-based MidAmerican Energy, which is controlled by Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA), paid $231 million for a 9.9% stake in BYD Auto’s parent company BYD with a view to helping BYD distribute its cars in the U.S. by 2011.

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ScienceDaily (Sep. 30, 2008) — Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have set a world record in solar cell efficiency with a photovoltaic device that converts 40.8 percent of the light that hits it into electricity. This is the highest confirmed efficiency of any photovoltaic device to date.

The inverted metamorphic triple-junction solar cell was designed, fabricated and independently measured at NREL. The 40.8 percent efficiency was measured under concentrated light of 326 suns. One sun is about the amount of light that typically hits Earth on a sunny day. The new cell is a natural candidate for the space satellite market and for terrestrial concentrated photovoltaic arrays, which use lenses or mirrors to focus sunlight onto the solar cells.

The new solar cell differs significantly from the previous record holder – also based on a NREL design. Instead of using a germanium wafer as the bottom junction of the device, the new design uses compositions of gallium indium phosphide and gallium indium arsenide to split the solar spectrum into three equal parts that are absorbed by each of the cell’s three junctions for higher potential efficiencies. This is accomplished by growing the solar cell on a gallium arsenide wafer, flipping it over, then removing the wafer. The resulting device is extremely thin and light and represents a new class of solar cells with advantages in performance, design, operation and cost.

NREL’s Mark Wanlass invented the original inverted cell, which recently won a R&D 100 award. His design was modified by a team led by John Geisz that further optimized the junction energies by making the middle junction metamorphic as well as the bottom junction. Metamorphic junctions are lattice mismatched – their atoms don’t line up. The material properties of the mismatched semiconductors allows for greater potential conversion of sunlight.

NREL is the U.S. Department of Energy’s primary national laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development. NREL is operated for DOE by Midwest Research Institute and Battelle.