Green Technology

Its contrast of rust and lush vegetation against the city skyline acts as an easy allegory for degradation and renewal.

It's Friday, the week is almost over. Time to look back at some highlights from this week in transportation!

After around $850 million in funding and six years in existence, the electric car infrastructure startup Better Place is expected to file for bankruptcy within the next several days, Fortune reported Friday. The Israeli business journal Globes also reported yesterday that Better Place’s main investor Israel Corp had been mulling over whether Better Place will be able to continue its operations. The Globes piece estimated that Better Place would need another four years and $500 million to reach break even. Better Place just raised $100 million back in November 2012, with much of it coming from Israel Corporation. Before that deal, Israel Corp owned about a third of the company and held a $160 million loss. If Better Place files for bankruptcy, it will be a sober end for a startup that was founded by the charismatic Shai Agassi in an attempt to get the world’s drivers off of gas-powered cars. Better Place’s business model was built around an electric car with a swappable battery, and the installation of both battery swap stations and battery chargers around a designated area. Customers pay for the electricity to charge the car via a subscription service (like cell phone minutes) and the electric cars themselves were supposed to be highly subsidized. However, the plan took more money and more time than originally expected. The company aimed too broadly, and when it finally decided to highlight its flagship roll out in Israel, sales to Israeli customers were slow going. Better Place ousted its founder and CEO Agassi late last year, and shortly after that Agassi left the company. The company’s following CEO also left after three months. Along with Israel Corp, Better Place has raised money from GE, UBS, VantagePoint Venture Partners, Lazard Asset Management, Morgan Stanley, Agassi himself, and others. Agassi told me in February of this year that he still believed in the business model of swappable batteries and subscriptions for electrons. Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.Green IT Q1: Cleantech Breaking Out — and Bracing for Hard TimesCalifornia Rules Show Opportunities in EV ChargingElectric Vehicles Give “Mobility as a Service” a Jumpstart

With more composting and recycling, the city's eateries aim to send less to the landfill.

Much of the design coverage this week came from New York Design Week, although the two top stories are about tiny houses.

Electric car maker Fisker Automotive has yet to file for bankruptcy or find a buyer, but it already has some alum — two former Fisker CEOs — that are working on some unusual projects. Most notably, Reuters reported Friday that Fisker founder and former CEO Henrik Fisker has teamed up with Hong Kong mogul Richard Li in an effort to buy Fisker’s remaining $171 million in loans from the Department of Energy, so that Fisker won’t have to go bankrupt. The duo are offering between $25 million and $30 million for the loan, which would represent a discount of 17.5 cents on the dollar. That isn’t the only low-priced bid for Fisker. A competing bid is a pre-packaged bankruptcy deal of $20 million from Chinese auto giant Wanxiang and Bob Lutz’s VL Automotive. The other new project comes from Fisker’s former CEO Tom LaSorda, who only led Fisker for about 6 months. LaSorda has teamed up with racing investor Roger Penske to create a VC fund called IncWell, according to Bloomberg Business Week. LaSorda told the publication that they probably wouldn’t invest in electric cars unless “unless I can get a good deal with Tesla,” and also said that they would not invest in another company founded by Henrik Fisker. LaSorda put his own money into Fisker. Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.Flash analysis: the Fisker debacle and its implications on investing, innovation, and government incentivesUps and downs for cleantech in Q1Cleantech first-quarter 2013 analysis and outlook

Urban environments are putting new kinds of evolutionary pressures on many species, including cockroaches.

Claesson Koivisto Rune are architects of everything from prefabs to lamps. Can they solve a huge problem in Africa?

A decade ago she saw it coming and now it might actually finally be arriving.

The sun, to many of us, is like water to a fish. Very important, but we kind of forget about it because it's always been there.