Coda Automotive, the Sino-American car company coming out with an all-electric sedan later this year, said it will bring its cars to Hawaii in the third quarter of next year.

The company is already slated to bring out a limited number of cars to California later this year. Hawaii is an interesting choice. The state is seen as a growth market for PV panels, wind, solar air conditioning and oceanic air conditioning. The weather is amenable and conventional power is expensive. The state gets the bulk of its electricity from diesel-powered generators. Thus, both the electric cars Coda and Better Place will bring to Hawaii will initially be inefficient diesel mobiles, but that should change over time. By 2030, Hawaii wants to get 70 percent of its power from renewables.

Coda's car has a 33.8 kilowatt hour battery, which is larger than the one in the Nissan Leaf, and will go 120 miles on a charge.

Coda also has said that it will raise a fourth round of funding over the next few months. The company has already raised over $125 million. Lio Energy Systems, the related battery company, has accumulated $427 million in equity and loans.

Elsewhere:

--Ford Motor company said it would employ a liquid cooling system for the battery in the all-electric Ford Focus coming in 2011. The liquid essentially absorbs heat coming off of the battery pack like a radiator. The system can also be used to moderate the temperature of the battery right before and during charging. General Motors and others employ liquid cooling as well. Nissan--and many of the electric motorcycle vendors--employ air cooling.

Compact Power, a subsidiary of LG Chem, is building a battery cell factory in the Midwest that will supply both Ford and General Motors with cells.

--Semitech has come out with a new OFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access) based power line transceiver. The chip essentially eliminates noise and chatter on power line networks and improves the quality of smart grid and meter-reading applications. While it certainly doesn't have the high ground in the U.S. power line remains popular in Europe.

--Coulomb Technologies unveiled a charging station in Michigan. It's part of the company's $37 million ChargePoint America plan.

--Demand for biofuels could engender a land grab in Africa, says Reuters.

--California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said he will try to rescue SB 722, which would require California get 33 percent of its power from new renewables by 2030. The bill died when the legislature ended on August 31.

"I don't know what the problem is, but I'm sure it can be solved without resorting to violence," he said in the movie Twins.