Wind Trains, Chevy Bolt Dealer Investigation … (Top 20 CleanTechnica Stories of the Week)

We had some outside-the-box stories take the podium this week on CleanTechnica. If you missed any of them, check out these 20 biggies:

1. All Dutch Trains Now Run 100% On Wind Power
2. Would-Be Toyota Prius Prime Buyers Reporting Problems With Ordering & Dealers
3. A Guy Walks Into A Chevy Dealer…
4. Interesting Cost Analysis Of Chevy Volt Ownership (Gen 1 Volt)
5. The Durabulb LED Lightbulb Delivers Improvements In Unexpected Places
6. EV Charging Survey — This One Will Make A Difference!
7. French Economy Minister Visits Tesla’s Fremont Facility — You Know Why
8. The Totally Insane Carbon Bubble (still hot)
9. Falco eMotors Launches E-Bike With Fully Integrated Digital Trainer
10. Tesla Tweets Of The Week For January 7
11. Renewables Expected To Account For Majority Of US Generating Capacity Additions In 2016
12. Global Clean Energy Investment Is Down, But Solar Is Cheaper & Offshore Wind Is Booming
13. 790 Gigawatts of Cost-Cutting Renewable Energy Potential in South East Europe
14. 2017 CleanTechnica Car of the Year Award — and the winner is…
15. UK Studies Possibility Of Track-Side Solar Panels To Power Electric Trains
16. Chevy Bolt EV Review, From One Of The First Buyers To Get One
17. Will It Or Won’t It? Cutting-Edge Solar Company Races To Meet Grant Deadline
18. Is 2017 The Year An Electric Car Breaks Onto The USA’s Top 20 Best-Selling Cars & Trucks List?
19. FBI Arrests Volkswagen Exec Oliver Schmidt For Conspiracy To Defraud The United States
20. California High-Speed Rail Authority Begins Looking For High-Speed Rail Operator For Central Valley-Silicon Valley Line

How about my favorites? In no particular order (for the most part):

1. My favorite story of the week was definitely Steve Bakker’s investigative look at how GM dealers in California have been treating customers coming in for or calling about the Chevy Bolt.
2. Of course, the wind-powered train story was exciting, and it was great that Dutch writer Rogier broke the news on CleanTechnica before it had really hit the English media world.
3. It was also interesting to learn of Tesla’s new Supercharger rules.
4. I loved this focus on efficient, modern, mass transit as a key cleantech solution for the next 10 years — yes, yes, yes.
5. I also want to emphasise again that this EV charging study should be useful for actual market products, so fill it out!
6. And from another poll, I’m curious to find out what you think various 2017 EV sales will be, so please chime in if you haven’t. Article coming soon.
7. Former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson’s answers to questioning from congresspeople during his confirmation hearing were insane, and so indicative of ridiculous corruption — mind blowing.
8. As were his opening remarks.
9. I loved the Obama climate highlights The Climate Reality Project summarized, and am just sad to see Obama leave office.
10. Speaking of Obama.
11. Hawaii possibly meeting its 100% renewable electricity targets 5 years early is clearly exciting.
12. Announcing our 2017 CleanTechnica Car of the Year winner was also fun!
13. As was the news that renewables likely accounted for the majority of new power capacity in the US in 2016.
14. Google’s progress cutting LIDAR costs 90% is awesome, as is the rollout of autonomous Waymo/Chrysler Pacifica Hybrids later this month.
15. Speaking of falling costs, I love IRENA’s new report on the massive potential of cost-competitive renewable energy in South East Europe.
16. Clearly, I felt inspired and enjoyed writing about the chance that the Tesla Model 3 will jump into US top 20 auto sales in 2017. There is some sunshine in the world.
17. The exciting cleantech prospects in general for 2017, 2018, & beyond thanks to the groundwork laid in 2016 have me tingling.
18. And my story about the totally insane carbon bubble (an unexpected topic for an article when I was going into the 2017 IRENA General Assembly) was the type of longform story I’d like to write more often — stay tuned.
19. I also thoroughly appreciated James Ayre’s take on the Mexican gas price situation & protests.
20. And lastly, yay for the URB-E!