AutoblogGreen

A new California law that goes into effect on the first day of 2008 will limit to five minutes a diesel truck's legal idling time. But truckers love to idle their massive vehicles, as the diesel engine provides power for all sorts of applications that run in the cabin when the truck is parked. In the business it's called discretionary idling (or "hotel loads"), and you can read this post for a more in-depth look at the issue.

Over in Peoria, Illinois, the Firefly Energy company is getting ready for the California law. Firefly thinks the solution is for truck drivers to run their cabin loads off of batteries, so Firefly is developing a truck-specific version of the company's carbon-graphite foam ledad battery through a new Battery Council International (BCI) Group 31 battery development program. All the technical details (and things like the name) of the battery are not yet available, but in a lot of ways, it sounds similar to Firefly's 3D battery and the battery Firefly is developing for the U.S. Army.

Related:

• AutoblogGreen Q&A with Firefly Energy co-founder Mil Ovan on new lead-acid battery tech: 3D2

[Source: Firefly via The Energy Blog]