General Motors says it’s putting the finishing touches on its Chevy Volt design — and releases teaser photos. Plus: big solar is coming to Northern California.

GM to finish electric car design by mid-September: General Motors says it’s down to the fine details now, and plans to finalize the design of its highly anticipated Chevy Volt plug-in vehicle in the next 30 days. Bob Boniface, GM director of design for the Volt, says prototypes with production-ready parts will be ready for road testing in the next ten days. Meanwhile, Boniface gave attendees at a Michigan auto conference a look at sketches of the Volt’s expected sheet metal. GM also continued their marketing strip tease, releasing a pair of sharply cropped images depicting the Volt’s final shape on the GM Volt fan blog. (Reuters)

PG&E Signs Massive 800 MW PV Solar Deals With OptiSolar, SunPower: Pacific Gas & Electric has signed another huge solar deal. The new project will eventually add a whopping 800 megawatts of photovoltaic power to the utility’s clean energy portfolio. The primary beneficiary will be OptiSolar, which is preparing to construct a 500 MW plant fpr the project. It’s evidence that utility scale photovoltaic power is coming of age. (Earth2Tech)

First New-Generation Global Ford Fiesta Rolls Off German Production Line: One of Ford’s new “world cars” is starting to come off the line in Germany. The Ford Fiesta is expected to be produced in all of the company’s major sales regions between now and 2010. Over 12 million of the previous Fiesta generation have been sold worldwide. Meanwhile, Ford announced Thursday that it will give the world its first glimpse at another small car model, the Ford Ka, at this autumn’s Paris Motor Show. (Edmunds.com)

Carbon Capture and Storage, Now With 40% More Acid Rain!: Carbon capture and sequestration is the great hope of coal advocates. But a problem is turning up in testing: scrubbing carbon is causing a sharp “cradle to grave” increase in the amount of nitrogen and sulfur oxide and sulfur oxides. That means that cutting greenhouse emissions will mean more acid rain when all aspects of coal production are considered. (Treehugger)

More Consumers ‘Precycling’: So are you precycling yet? The Intelligence Group and Brandweek.com have coined the new term to describe a consumer behavior which is becoming increasingly common — considering the possible resale value of a product before purchase. A new study indicates that the recovery of equity is now being considered by 49 percent of all major-purchase buyers. The same survey indicates that consumers continue to adopt conventional recycling habits, and both plastic bag and bottled water use is in decline. (Environmental Leader)

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