Kickstart: A quieter Corvette

General Motors Co. is using the 70th anniversary of the introduction of the Corvette to roll out what is expected to be the first hybrid Corvette.

In a Facebook post, GM said it is introducing "one like none" on Jan. 17, 2023. While there are only a few details visible on a brief teaser video on the post, it does show a car speeding along a curving road with a roaring traditional engine and the same car entering "stealth" mode and rolling silently along city streets.

Richard Truett, a reporter with our sister paper Automotive News, writes that the car is the "E-Ray," the next generation of the sports car that is currently sold as the Stingray (itself a name borrowed from a 1960s model). The current model was introduced in mid-2019 as a 2020 model year, with an extensive use of composites including carbon fiber and sheet molded compound as well as thermoplastics.

Also related to EVs, automakers and a nonprofit group are part of an effort to rethink electric vehicles and the power grid. Rather than just drawing power during charging, those cars and trucks can go into use as a "virtual power plant" that will provide emergency backups to the grid when supplies are short because of increased demand or weather emergencies.

General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and Google are part of the concept from nonprofit group RMI for the Virtual Power Plant Partnership (VP3), Reuters reports.

A VPP is a ramped-up version of what Ford introduced with its Lightning pickup truck, where truck owners can use the battery system (which uses a range of plastics) as a whole-house generator. With permission from customers, participants in a VPP would use advanced software to switch EV systems from "charge" to "discharge" mode.

RMI told Reuters that VPPs could reduce peak electric demand by 60 gigawatts — the equivalent of 50 million households — by 2030.

It's Mardi Gras season in New Orleans, and that means it's time to think about whether partiers really need another necklace of plastic beads.

The beads and other items such as cups and light-up novelty toys have come under scrutiny as the city reports just how many of them end up littered throughout neighborhoods and potentially make their way into waterways.

A team from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University followed the cleanup process following the 2022 parades — when New Orleans officials said they collected 1,100 tons of trash after the events — and the work by researchers and environmentalists to develop alternatives to traditional plastics.

With dozens of parades in a schedule stretching from Jan. 6 to Feb. 26, it's hard for a few groups to compete with traditional throws, but it's important to try, Mark Benfield, a professor of oceanography and coastal sciences at Louisiana State University, told the Medill team.

"I love Mardi Gras. Mardi Gras is a wonderful tradition in Louisiana and other places," he said. "I don't want Mardi Gras to go away, but I want the next generation and the generations after that … to inherit a healthy ocean."