Monday, November 30, 2009
Better Place Australia raises $25 Million in first round funding
Better Place Australia today announced it has secured an initial round of funding of $25 million for its planned charging and services network for electric vehicles (EVs). The funding round was led by Lend Lease Ventures, the venture capital arm of Lend Lease and included investments by ActewAGL and several private investors.
As the lead seed round investor in Better Place Australia, Lend Lease Ventures will also take a seat on Better Place Australia’s board.
Better Place Australia also today announced that global banking leader, Harrison Young will join its Board as independent Chairman. Mr. Young is currently a member of the Board of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and the Court of Directors of the Bank of England, Chairman of the Howard Florey Institute Foundation and Deputy Chairman of the Asia Society AustralAsia Centre and Asialink. Mr Young was Managing Director and Vice Chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia from 1997-2003 and Chairman of Morgan Stanley Australia from 2003 until he joined the board of the Commonwealth Bank in 2007.
The $25 million in funding represents the first part of Better Place Australia’s five-year plan to raise $1 billion for the deployment of an EV network powered by renewable energy in Australia. Macquarie Capital Group acted as advisors on the fund raising. This initial round of seed funding will finance a range of planning, engineering, demonstration and trial activities in the lead up to the first stage of deployment, which will commence in Canberra in 2011.
“We’re delighted to welcome Lend Lease Ventures as an investor in our Australian business – working with us to help the country take a generational leap forward toward oil independence and sustainability,” said Shai Agassi, Founder and CEO, Better Place.
“The investment marks our second successful financing in 2009, and we believe it’s indicative of growing interest in Better Place from institutions and far-sighted corporations seeking thematic investment opportunities to fight climate change.”
Evan Thornley, CEO of Better Place Australia, said that Lend Lease Ventures’ investment is another in a growing list of endorsements of the Better Place model for an electric vehicle future.
“The backing of a strategic investor of the calibre of Lend Lease Ventures, our Canberra deployment partner, ActewAGL and some of Australia’s most successful business people is further validation that our plans are appealing to our industry partners and seasoned investors alike. The appointment of a respected business leader in Harrison Young as Chairman adds to the strong endorsement we have received from leaders in the energy, auto and oil industries who have also joined our senior management team in recent months.”
Chief Executive Officer of Lend Lease Ventures Anthony Pascoe said of the partnership, “Significant investment in new renewable energy generation combined with the commercialisation of new technologies and infrastructure solutions are critical to achieving Australia’s renewable energy targets.”
“Lend Lease Ventures’ mandate is to invest in emerging clean-tech companies that complement our global property capabilities and help keep the wider Lend Lease group at the leading edge of the curve in terms of sustainability. We believe that Better Place Australia is well positioned for success and are excited to be partnering with such an innovative and well credentialed organisation.”
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Nissan Long Range Battery May Be Ready by 2015
Nissan Motor Co. is developing a lithium ion battery for electric vehicles that can store electricity at double the current capacity. Nissan aims to equip electric cars with the battery by 2015.
The new system is a lithium-ion battery using a lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide cathode. Capacity is raised by improving the positive electrode, specifically, using nickel and cobalt, not only manganese. The new battery can store about twice as much electricity as batteries with positive electrodes made only from manganese. It is robust enough for practical use, able to withstand 1,000 or so charge cycles.
Nissan estimates that the battery will cost about the same as conventional lithium ion ones to produce, as it contains only a small amount of cobalt, a relatively expensive metal.
The new battery will be able to power an electric vehicle for 300 kilometers (186 miles) on a single charge, about twice the distance currently possible.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Porsche Offers Li-ion Starter Battery Option
Porsche will offer a lithium-ion starter battery option—the first automaker to do so—as of January 2010 for the 911 GT3, 911 GT 3 RS, and Boxster Spyder. Weighing less than 6 kg (13 lb), the new battery is more than 10 kg or 22 (lb) lighter than a conventional 60 Ah lead battery.
The 12.8V, 18 Ah lithium iron-phosphate pack from Gaia is delivered as a separate unit together with the car and may subsequently be fitted as an alternative to the regular, conventional starter battery. The cars are delivered with both batteries; while the lightweight battery offers a very high standard of everyday driving qualities, Porsche says, its starting capacity is limited at temperatures below 0 °C (32 °F) due to its specific features.
Li-ion batteries, given their current pricing, are generally not expected to have much penetration in the SLI (starting, lighting, ignition) battery segment. (Dr. Menahem Anderman of Advanced Automotive Batteries calls the SLI business “a long shot” for advanced batteries such as Li-ion.) Porsche’s new lithium-ion battery will be available as an option delivered with the car, selling at a price in the German market of €1,904 (US$2,900) including 19% value-added tax.
Porsche’s primary reason for developing and introducing the new battery was its lower weight to enhance performance and dynamics.
In its length and width the lithium-ion battery comes in the same dimensions as the regular battery, but is approximately 70 millimeters or 2.8" lower. The fastening points, electrical connections and voltage range are fully compatible with the respective models, allowing simple and quick replacement of the standard lead battery by the lightweight unit, for example when racing on the track.
With its nominal capacity of 18 Ah, the lithium-ion battery, through its specific features, offers a level of practical output and performance not only comparable to that of a 60 Ah lead battery, but better in many cases, Porsche says.
On a conventional car battery only about 30% of the total capacity is actually available for practical use due to the configuration of the system, while this restriction does not apply to the lithium-ion battery. Delivery of power by the lithium-ion battery throughout its useful charge range is likewise significantly better, providing its full power, for example, when starting the engine almost independently of the current charge level.
After the engine has started, the new Porsche battery shows further benefits in the charge process, being able through its smaller internal resistance to take up more power than a conventional battery and thus re-charge more quickly.
Other benefits include a significantly greater number of charging and discharging cycles; a lower self-discharge; and longer service life.
The lightweight battery is made up of four cells and integrated control electronics. This battery management system protects the battery from major discharge and guarantees a consistent charge level within the individual cells. Once battery voltage drops below a certain threshold, a warning signal reminds the driver to re-charge the battery either simply by driving the car through the power of the engine running or by means of a conventional battery charger.
Now that Porsche has set the trend, how long before we see the aftermarket supply starter batteries based on A123 cells?
Liquid metal battery big enough for the electric grid
There’s one major drawback to most proposed renewable-energy sources: their variability. The sun doesn’t shine at night, the wind doesn’t always blow, and tides, waves and currents fluctuate. That’s why many researchers have been pursuing ways of storing the power generated by these sources so that it can be used when it’s needed.
So far, those solutions have tended to be too expensive, limited to only certain areas, or difficult to scale up sufficiently to meet the demands. Many researchers are struggling to overcome these limitations, but MIT professor Donald Sadoway has come up with an innovative approach that has garnered significant interest — and some major funding.
The idea is to build an entirely new kind of battery, whose key components would be kept at high temperature so that they would stay entirely in liquid form. The experimental devices currently being tested in Sadoway’s lab work in a way that’s never been attempted in batteries before.
This month, the newly established federal agency ARPA-E (Advanced Research Projects Agency, Energy) announced its first 37 energy-research grants out of a pool of 3,600 applications, and Sadoway’s project to develop utility-scale batteries received one of the largest sums — almost $7 million over five years. And within a few days of the ARPA-E announcement, the French oil company Total — the world’s fifth-largest — announced a $4 million, five-year joint venture with MIT to develop a smaller-scale version of the same technology, suitable for use in individual homes or other buildings.
Because the technology is being patented and could lead to very large-scale commercialization, Sadoway will not discuss the details of the materials being used. But both Sadoway and ARPA-E say the battery is based on low-cost, domestically available liquid metals that have the potential to shatter the cost barrier to large-scale energy storage as part of the nation's energy grid. In announcing its funding of Sadoway’s work, ARPA-E said the battery technology “could revolutionize the way electricity is used and produced on the grid, enabling round-the-clock power from America's wind and solar power resources, increasing the stability of the grid, and making blackouts a thing of the past.”
Andrew Chung, a principal at Lightspeed Venture Partners in Menlo Park, Calif., which has no equity stake in Sadoway’s project at this point, says that “grid-scale storage is an area that’s set to explode in the next decade or so,” and is one that his company is following closely. The liquid battery concept Sadoway is developing “is an exciting approach to solving the problem,” he says.
Big is beautiful
Most battery research, Sadoway says, has been aimed at improving storage for portable or mobile systems such as cellphones, computers and cars. The requirements for such systems, including very low weight and high safety, are very different from the needs of a grid-scale, fixed-location battery system. “What I did was completely ignore the conventional technology used for portable power,” he says. The different set of requirements for stationary systems “opens up a whole new range of possibilities.”
A large, utility-owned system “doesn’t have to be crash-worthy; it doesn’t have to be ‘idiot-proof’ because it won’t be in the hands of the consumer.” And while consumers are willing to pay high prices, pound-for-pound, for the small batteries used in high-value portable devices, the biggest constraint on utility-sized systems is cost. In order to compete with present fossil-fuel power systems, he says, “it has got to be cheap to build, cheap to maintain, last a long time with minimal maintenance, and store enormous amounts of energy.”
And so the new liquid batteries that Sadoway and his team, including graduate student David Bradwell, are designing use low-cost, abundant materials. The basic principle is to place three layers of liquid inside a container: Two different metal alloys, and one layer of a salt. The three materials are chosen so that they have different densities that allow them to separate naturally into three distinct layers, with the salt in the middle separating the two metal layers —like novelty drinks with different layers.
The energy is stored in the liquid metals that want to react with one another but can do so only by transferring ions — electrically charged atoms of one of the metals — across the electrolyte, which results in the flow of electric current out of the battery. When the battery is being charged, some ions migrate through the insulating salt layer to collect at one of the terminals. Then, when the power is being drained from the battery, those ions migrate back through the salt and collect at the opposite terminal.
The whole device is kept at a high temperature, around 700 degrees Celsius, so that the layers remain molten. In the small devices being tested in the lab, maintaining this temperature requires an outside heater, but Sadoway says that in the full-scale version, the electrical current being pumped into, or out of, the battery will be sufficient to maintain that temperature without any outside heat source.
While some previous battery technologies have used one liquid-metal component, this is the first design for an all-liquid battery system, Sadoway says. “Solid components in batteries are speed bumps. When you want ultra-high current, you don’t want any solids.”
Inspiration from aluminum
The initial inspiration for the idea came from thinking about a very different technology, Sadoway says: one of the biggest users of electrical energy, aluminum smelting plants. Sadoway realized that this was one of the few existing examples of a system that could sustain extremely high levels of electrical current over a sustained period of years at a time. “It’s an electrochemical process that runs at high temperatures, and at a current of hundreds of thousands of amps,” he says. In a sense, the new concept is like an aluminum plant running in reverse, producing power instead of consuming it.
Chung says that from the point of view of a venture capitalist, the research is particularly intriguing for several reasons. Not only does it offer the potential to significantly lower the cost and increase cycle life [the number of times it can be charged and discharged] of large-scale electricity storage, but it also suggests that the risk typically associated with an early stage research project may be lower because the system draws on decades of experience in the design and operation of aluminum production facilities. “That gives us added confidence that some of the targets around cost, scalability and safety have merit,” he says.
The team is now testing a number of different variations of the exact composition of the materials in the three layers, and of the design of the overall device. Sadoway says that thanks to initial funding through the Deshpande Center and the Chesonis Family Foundation, he and his team were able to develop the concept to the point of demonstrating a proof-of-principle at the laboratory scale. That, in turn, made it possible to get the large grants to develop the technology further.
“It’s an example of work that sprang from basic science, was developed to a pilot scale, and now is being scaled up to have a real transformational impact in the world,” says Ernest Moniz, director of the MIT Energy Initiative.
The laboratory tests have provided “some measure of confidence,” Sadoway says. But many more tests will be needed to “demonstrate that the idea is scalable to industrial size, at competitive cost.” But while he is very confident that it will all work, there are a lot of unknowns, he says, including how to design and build the necessary containers, electrical control systems, and connections.
“We’re talking about batteries of a size never seen before,” he says. And the system they develop has to include everything, including control systems and charger electronics on an unprecedented scale.
For Sadoway, the project is worth pursuing despite its daunting challenges, because the potential impact is so great. “I’m not doing this because I want another journal publication,” Sadoway says. “It’s about making a difference … It’s an opportunity to invent our way out of the energy problem.”
Thursday, November 26, 2009
LA suburb's rebirth rides on electric car plant
This blue-collar suburb on the edge of Los Angeles once helped send men to space. After the collapse of its aerospace industry, its ambitions are now more down-to-earth but still looking toward the future.
The City Council on Wednesday unanimously approved an agreement aimed at luring Tesla Motors' electric car manufacturing plant to the former site of a NASA plant that helped develop the Apollo program and the space shuttle fleet.
The city is pinning hopes that the car factory could bring $21 million in city revenues over 15 years, create about 1,200 jobs and help revitalize its reputation as Southern California's high-tech hub.
"Not only will it bring money to the city, it will establish us as a leader in electric car and green technology production," Mayor Mario Guerra said.
For nine months the city has aggressively courted Tesla, a Bay Area company known for its sporty all-electric Roadster and now moving toward more mainstream sedans.
In September, the council took out a half-page advertisement in the Los Angeles Times featuring a photo of the members wearing "Downey (hearts) Tesla" T-shirts and holding a banner that read: "Downey Welcomes Tesla Motors. Apollo to Tesla ... the legacy continues."
The rotund mayor vowed to purchase a Tesla, even lose weight to fit into the sleek vehicle, if the carmaker comes to town.
Downey, a city of 115,000, was once a vibrant center of high tech manufacturing jobs where aerospace engineers designed and built parts for America's space program. At its height, there were some 30,000 employees at the complex, but when the plant closed in 1999, the complex fell into disrepair.
The city bought 160 acres of land from NASA and has been trying to redevelop it. A hospital, park, shopping center and memorial dedicated to the shuttle Columbia now occupy half of the complex. The other half became a film production facility used in the making of "Ironman," "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra" and at least one of the "Spiderman" films.
Industrial Realty Group owns nearly 60 acres of Downey Studios, and the city owns the remaining 20 acres.
Under a memorandum of understanding with IRG, the city agreed to waive $6.9 million in rent on those 20 acres and promised to expedite the permit process if IRG enters into a lease with Tesla.
Tom Messler, senior vice president of IRG, said his company is holding final discussions with the carmaker.
"We're continuing to make progress," he said.
San Carlos-based Tesla has been looking for a place to build its next-generation Model S sedan, its seven-seat, $57,400 alternative to the $109,000 Roadster.
The Roadster's chassis is assembled in England and its guts — the powertrain, battery and so on — are installed at Tesla's factory in Menlo Park.
Tesla Motors Inc. initially planned to build the Model S in New Mexico but was persuaded to stay in California when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger offered to exempt Tesla from state sales tax on equipment it buys to build the sedan. That will save the company 7 percent to 9 percent on each part purchased.
When the Model S was unveiled to reporters in the spring, Tesla said it would bring the plant to Southern California. The company has also flirted with Long Beach, and Tesla spokesman Ricardo Reyes would not confirm if it has chosen a site.
In June, the company was awarded $465 million in low-interest loans from the U.S. Department of Energy to help build the Model S, which is designed to travel as far as 300 miles on a three- to five-hour charge.
The car is slated to go into production by late 2011, and with a federal tax credit for battery-powered cars, the cost to buyers could be less than $50,000.
If Tesla comes to Downey, it would mark the return of auto manufacturing to Southern California for the first time since General Motors Co. closed its Van Nuys Plant in 1992.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Nissan May Offer Optional Longer-Range, Higher-Power Batteries
The typical new car buyer has a myriad array of options to chose from, covering everything from paint color to the quality of the sound system, but one of the most substantial choices usually concerns engine size. Do you want that fuel-efficient inline-four or a high-performance V-8?
But what happens when the industry begins the conversion to electric power?
When Nissan begins rolling out its new Leaf battery-electric vehicle, or BEV, next year, there’ll be just one powertrain package: using lithium-ion batteries, it will deliver 100 miles of range, 0 to 60 times of less than 10 seconds and a top speed of 90 mpg.
But a senior Nissan planner says that the company will eventually give BEV buyers the electric vehicle’s equivalent of choosing engines, offering an array of different battery packs. That would allow a motorist to choose between a lower-range, lower-cost pack, or batteries delivering perhaps twice the mileage, at a higher price. And, as battery technology improves, motorists might also be offered batteries that would add a bit more muscle to their green machines.
While today’s hybrid-electric vehicles, like the Toyota Prius, rely on time-tested nickel-metal hybrid batteries, manufacturers will be switching to more powerful lithium-ion, technology for the plug-in hybrid and battery-electric vehicles that begin rolling out in surprisingly large number over the next several years.
There are plenty of uncertainties about Li-ion chemistry, despite it being near-ubiquitous in today’s laptop computers and cellphones. So, initially, makers are playing it safe. With the Chevrolet Volt, for example, General Motors will only use about half the total energy its T-shaped Li-ion pack could hold. Nissan will use a bit more, somewhere around two-thirds, hints Mark Perry, product planning chief for Nissan’s advanced technology programs – though he declines to provide hard numbers.
Nonetheless, Perry says, “We expect to see the technology improve” as Li-ion batteries go into higher-volume production. That should not only drive down the cost of lithium batteries, but drive up so-called “energy density.” In lay terms, that means more electrons into a given battery mass, which translates into longer range between recharging.
Nissan battery researchers have suggested that within a few years it will be possible to nudge Leaf’s range up to 150, perhaps even 200 miles. Other automakers have confirmed similar targets. Tesla founder Elon Musk says his company’s roadster might eventually get 400 miles on a charge, nearly double today’s range.
Since batteries are the single most expensive part of a BEV, makers like Nissan could simply downsize the battery pack to maintain the same range at a much lower cost. But there’s another option Perry says Nissan is “looking at.”
Greater range would be a big advantage in the marketplace, Perry acknowledges. While studies show 100 miles range would be enough for more than 90% of Americans on a typical day, that doesn’t eliminate so-called “range anxiety,” the fear that you may not have enough power in the pack to race to school to pick up a sick child and then rush to the doctor.
So, Perry says, Nissan might offer customers a variety of different battery packs with, say, 100, 150 or 200 miles range, much as they can choose V-6 or V-8 upgrades today. And
And the choice might not be limited to range, said another well-placed source. A manufacturer like Nissan could alternatively offer batteries with significantly higher “power density.” This is a measure of how quickly energy can be piped into or out of a battery pack. Higher power density batteries can recharge faster – and deliver more power to a vehicle’s electric motors.
That’s good news for muscle car fans, because unlike an internal combustion engine, which builds torque as it revs up, an electric motor develops maximum tire-spinning torque the moment it starts to turn.
“This is obvious,” says Stephanie Brinley, auto analyst with AutoPacific, Inc. “Ultimately, people will want varied levels of performance. So, with an electric vehicle, instead of upgrading from a V-6 to a V-8, you’ll get a different battery.”
Nissan, as part of its aggressive move into “electrification,” has formed several dozen ventures with energy suppliers, governments and other partners, including Better Place, a company that will provide a network of recharging stations in Israel. Nissan customers in the tiny country will be able to either recharge their batteries or quickly swap them out for fresh ones.
What’s to prevent an outside manufacturer from coming along and eventually offering its own batteries to a Nissan BEV customer? CEO Ghosn sidestepped that question during the kick-off of a 22-city Leaf launch tour, but he said that “without a doubt,” Nissan would be open to working with such a vendor “if (one) comes along with batteries better than ours.”
The battery cars coming out in the next couple years will deliver relatively limited range and modest performance. Initially, makers hope that between eco-guilt and government incentives — such as a $7,500 tax credit — there’ll be reasonable demand for the vehicles. But Nissan’s Ghosn believes that BEVs could make up as much as 10% of the market by the end of the next decade, and the automaker is backing that up with plans to launch not only Leaf but three other BEVs — while its French affiliate, Renault, will introduce four battery cars of its own.
To make the equation work, analysts like Brinley believe, makers like Nissan will have to appeal to a broader array of consumers with better range and improved performance.
Friday, November 20, 2009
When gasoline-powered cars sleep at night, they dream of being electric
As combustion engined cars have been refined over the decades, the ultimate goal seems to have always been make them perform more like electric vehicles.
From computer controlled semi automatic and constantly variable gearboxes that produce seamless gear changes to variable valve timing and fly by wire throttle controls to flatten torque curves.
Electric vehicles like the Nissan Leaf start life with all those refinements built in as Dan Neil at the LA Times describes very well.
Los Angeles Times
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Electric Cars Push Japan Engine Parts Makers to Crisis Mode
Auto supplier NTN Corp. knew its gasoline engine parts wouldn’t be needed in Nissan Motor Co.’s Leaf electric car. So the component maker’s engineers built a mock model to test a motor-and-brake system it developed for electric vehicles.
“If old-guard companies like us just continue along the same beaten path, things will become difficult,” Chairman Yasunobu Suzuki said. “I told our engineers to try everything.”
As Nissan and General Motors Co. prepare to introduce battery-powered cars next year, traditional auto suppliers like Osaka-based NTN are trying to adapt by creating new lines of business. Engine components account for as much as 40 percent of a typical car’s total parts, so some suppliers are scrambling to come up with new products, said Takeshi Miyao, a Tokyo-based analyst for car consultant Carnorama.
While internal-combustion engines currently power more than 99 percent of cars built globally, their share can only fall as electric cars enter the market, Miyao said. That will intensify price competition and lower profits for manufacturers.
“If you’re a parts maker that can’t expand market share, then you can’t grow without entering new businesses,” he said.
‘Crisis-Like Situation’
Tsubakimoto Chain Co., an Osaka-based maker of chains that link engine components, also is shut out of the market for electric cars, which are powered by a lithium-ion battery and electric motor. About 30 percent of Tsubakimoto’s $1.6 billion in sales last fiscal year were in auto parts, all of them for gasoline engines.
“It’s a crisis-like situation,” said Toru Fujiwara, head of Tsubakimoto’s auto-parts division. “With electric cars, there’s no way we can apply our current technology.”
Tsubakimoto is exploring making parts for battery-powered vehicles and talking with its customers, which include Nissan, Fujiwara said. The company plans to spend $40 Million on research in the fiscal year ending in March.
“We have to come up with completely new technology,” he said, declining to name possible products.
NTN, which makes bearings for gasoline engines, said in September it will raise as much as $267 million from selling new shares and invest the proceeds in research and development, and in affiliates. About 60 percent of its sales are in car components, the company said.
Better Batteries
NTN spends about 3 percent of sales, expected to be $5.3 billion this fiscal year, on research, it said. The company is seeking patents on electric-car related products.
The new market is luring companies to the auto business for the first time.
Daikin Industries Ltd., the world’s second-biggest air conditioner maker, is applying its expertise in fluorine, now used to power cells for personal computers and mobile phones, to make electric car batteries safer and longer-lasting.
Daikin, based in Osaka, expects battery-related sales of fluorine to increase more than 10 times by 2017 to $112 million, said Guntaro Kawamura, executive vice president.
Motor makers such as Nidec Corp. of Kyoto may be the biggest winners, Miyao said. Cars typically have about 100 motors powering wipers, air conditioners and door mirrors, among other features.
Motor Makers
Overflow energy from a gasoline-powered engine helps power heaters and fans, so there’s a need for double the number of motors in engineless electric vehicles, he said.
“We are definitely developing motors for electric cars,” said Norio Tamura, a spokesman for Nidec, the world’s biggest maker of motors for hard-disk drives.
President Shigenobu Nagamori is aiming for total revenue to rise from $6.4 billion this fiscal year to $11 billion by fiscal year 2012, with $4 billion coming from car-related motor sales.
The company is opening its biggest research-and-development facility in Shiga prefecture, in western Japan, on Nov. 24, Tamura said.
He declined to say whether the company already makes parts for Nissan’s Leaf. Nissan doesn’t disclose most suppliers for the car. Its lithium-ion battery is made by AESC, a venture between Nissan and NEC Corp.
GM, Toyota
Nissan Chief Executive Officer Carlos Ghosn said electric cars will comprise at least 10 percent of global demand by 2020, assuming oil costs more than $70 a barrel. It traded at $79.84 on Nov. 18.
General Motors Co. plans to build as many as 60,000 Chevrolet Volt plug-in electric cars annually starting in November 2010. Toyota Motor Corp., the world’s biggest carmaker, plans to build a plug-in model for retail buyers in 2012.
Obama Goal
U.S. President Barack Obama is aiming for 1 million plug-in cars on roads by 2015 to curb emissions and dependence on foreign oil. Japan Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama pledged to cut emissions 25 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels.
“The shift to electric cars may be more dramatic than people think,” Kawamura said. “The auto industry will need to shoulder much of that cut.”
Traditional suppliers must balance innovations with meeting their customers’ immediate demands as improving fuel efficiency is a top industry priority, according to Tsubakimoto’s Fujiwara.
Still, suppliers should not delay expanding to meet the potential surge in electric-car demand, said Hisataka Nobumoto, chairman of the Japan Auto Parts Industries Association that includes NTN.
“As current technologies and businesses are reassessed, decisions on where and how to pursue new areas must be made as early as possible,” he said. “By doing so, survival may be possible.”
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Mercedes-Benz To Launch ML450 Hybrid
Mercedes-Benz is going to launch its ML450 Hybrid, the first European full hybrid vehicle to be offered in the US, on November 16.
Featuring V8-like power with four-cylinder fuel economy, the ML450 Hybrid features two electric motors and a 275-hp V6 gasoline engine. Both work together to provide hybrid power with fuel economy of 21 miles per gallon (mpg) around town and 24mpg on the highway.
The company said that ML450 Hybrid joins the S400 Hybrid and BlueTEC diesel models in its portfolio of fuel-efficient and environmentally compatible vehicles. It would be offered as part of a special lease only option (no purchase) for a monthly lease price of $659 per month for 36 months and $549 per month for 60 months.
The company claims that the new Hybrid fulfills the same crash test requirements and offers active safety with stability control systems such as ESP, ABS and BAS, as well as 4MATIC all-wheel drive. The integration of the hybrid technology has been engineered to require no additional packaging space that would compromise comfort or functionality.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Group urge Electric Car Target of 200 Million by 2040
Electric vehicles should provide three-fourths of U.S. driving needs by 2040, with oil imports effectively “reduced to zero,” executives from companies including Nissan Motor Co., PG&E Corp. and FedEx Corp. said.
Meeting the goal for more than 200 million electric vehicles would require $130 billion in spending on efforts such as building battery-charging stations, according to a report today by the Electrification Coalition, a Washington-based group led by transportation and energy industry executives.
“Heavy reliance on petroleum has created unsustainable risks to American economic and national security,” the group said. “Electrified transportation has clear advantages.”
Federal aid to spur demand for more fuel-efficient autos has been luring companies including Nissan and General Motors Co. to push for all-electric vehicles. President Barack Obama seeks to have 1 million electric vehicles on U.S. roads within six years, compared with a few thousand being produced globally this year.
To reach the goal of 200 million vehicles, the government should concentrate consumer incentives and infrastructure subsidies on as many as 33 cities by 2018, the group said in its report. Targets leading up to the 2040 goal include 700,000 vehicles by 2013, 14 million by 2020 and 123 million by 2030, according to the report.
Among coalition members are executives from NRG Energy Inc. and AeroVironment, a maker of car-battery chargers.
http://www.electrificationcoalition.org/
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Nissan Leaf will compete on price
Nissan Motor Co Ltd will keep the price of its upcoming battery-powered Leaf competitive with similar-sized cars and expects to make money on the vehicle despite the cost of its launch, Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn on Friday.
The five-passenger hatchback, which is being designed to have an all-electric range of 100 miles, would cost only 1 to 2 percent more than traditional combustion engine vehicles in its class, he said.
"On the pricing of the vehicle it is too early to say, but there will be no surprise," Ghosn said. "We know it will be the key to the mass market."
Nissan has not disclosed pricing on the Leaf, but has said it expects the car to be the first affordable, mass-market electric car when it goes on sale in the United States, Japan and Europe by the end of 2010.
Nissan has bet heavily on electric cars and expects that by 2020, 10 percent of the world car market will be for electric vehicles. It has announced a series of partnerships with utilities and government agencies to advance technology where it believes it has a chance of seizing market leadership.
The automaker said on Friday that it would cooperate with Houston-based Reliant Energy, a subsidiary of NRG Energy Inc in developing a charging infrastructure for electric cars at homes and near office buildings.
Ghosn, who was speaking to reporters at an event outside Dodger Stadium to kick off a U.S. marketing tour for the Leaf, said Nissan would roll out the car slowly in the U.S. market to get more feedback from consumers.
The Leaf is designed to draw power from a battery-pack developed with Japan's NEC Corp that Nissan has said can be recharged overnight on a 220-volt connection.
Nissan has taken $1.6 billion in low-cost loans from the U.S. Department of Energy to revamp a plant in Smyrna, Tennessee to make the Leaf. The first models in the U.S. market will be imported from Japan.
Nissan's rivals have pushed competing battery-powered technologies. Toyota Motor Corp dominates the market for traditional hybrids and has floated plans for a broader range of vehicles under the Prius name.
Others, such as General Motors Co and Fisker Automotive, are banking on plug-in designs that rely on batteries for short drives but also include a gasoline-powered generator to recharge the battery on longer trips.
'WE WILL MAKE MONEY'
Ghosn, who also leads Nissan's controlling partner Renault SA, said the key to bringing down the cost of producing electric cars would be to spread development costs across up to eight vehicles for the two companies.
"We think this technology is a technology we control, but we need scale. And that is why today we are building an overall capacity between Renault and Nissan of 500,000 cars and batteries a year that we are installing between the United States, Europe and Japan," Ghosn told reporters.
"Hopefully, we are going to move upward. Because it is not about one car, it is about four cars for Nissan and four cars for Renault."
Leasing the car's batteries is a way to bring down the upfront cost, analysts say, and Ghosn said he preferred to lease batteries because Nissan can have control over replacement as technology improves.
But while Nissan plans to lease batteries on a global scale, executives said that they are still studying whether to do so in the U.S. market.
Ghosn said the Leaf would be profitable for Nissan. By contrast, GM has said it does not expect to make money on the first sales of its plug-in Volt, expected to be priced near $40,00O when it launches in late 2010.
"We will make money out of the Leaf," Ghosn said. "We have to make money, because if we don't make money the technology is condemned."
He added: "Everything we are doing today -- and that is one of the reasons we are negotiating with the government -- is to make sure this technology can continue to develop. We have a reasonable return on our investments and continue to develop the technology. And the consumer has to pay a reasonable price."
A123 looking for new auto business following Chryslers EV pull out
Lithium-ion battery maker A123 Systems is increasing its focus on the automotive market, creating a new business unit led by a former auto parts executive.
A123 said on Friday it has created two business units, one called the automotive solutions group which will focus on the transportation market, and another that will work on cell design and development.
The auto group will work with automakers and major suppliers to provide battery systems for hybrid, plug-in hybrid and electric vehicle technology, the company said.
The two new units will operate alongside A123's Energy Solutions Group, which develops battery systems for the electric grid and consumer product markets.
A123, founded by scientists linked to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), is working with German luxury carmaker BMW and France-based Renault. It also has relationships with suppliers like Delphi and Magna Steyr.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Renault confirm Better Place to run charging network in France
Renault confirmed it will use U.S. partner Better Place to run its future electric-car charging network in its home market of France, Chief Operating Officer Patrick Pelata said.
Besides recharging stations planned by Electricite de France SA, the country needs the California startup’s battery- swapping service to maximize demand for electric vehicles, Pelata said in an interview yesterday at Renault’s headquarters in the Paris suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt.
“We’re working on having it in France,” Pelata said. “Nobody else is working with this business model, so it’s probably going to be with Better Place.”
Starting in 2012, drivers of electric Renault cars in Israel and Denmark will use Better Place’s roadside stations to switch depleted batteries for recharged units in three minutes, extending their effective range beyond a single charge. In France, the government has appointed state-owned EDF to roll out a recharging network that may be open to rival power suppliers and operators.
Renault, France’s second-biggest carmaker, rose as much as 53 cents, or 1.7 percent, to 32 euros and was up 0.4 percent as of 2:12 p.m. in Paris trading. The stock has gained 70 percent this year.
The company and Japanese affiliate Nissan Motor Co. are committed to investing 4 billion euros ($6 billion) in the electric vehicles and batteries that they plan to begin introducing in 2012. Another 1 billion euros has been pledged by the French government to stimulate demand for the models.
Without swapping stations, “anybody who drives more than 120 or 130 kilometers from time to time will be uncomfortable with the 160-kilometer (100-mile) range” offered by the Renault models, Pelata said. “We’re expanding the volume potential for the car.”
The Israeli and Danish plans require power utilities to support Palo Alto-based Better Place as a front-line operator that supplies the batteries, runs charging and swapping facilities and bills customers for usage and power.
Shai Agassi, the U.S. company’s founding president, acknowledged resistance from EDF in a Sept. 15 interview and said the utility shouldn’t regard him as a competitor.
Both sides need to “leave egos behind” in talks on their roles in the French rollout, Agassi said at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September. Choosing a single incumbent operator “would extend EDF’s monopoly from kilowatt-hours to kilometers.”
A spokeswoman at Paris-based EDF said the company had no comment. Better Place “would be happy to work with Renault to develop the French market,” Agassi said in an e-mailed response to Pelata’s comments.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Prius still top selling car in Japan 6th month after launch
In the Toyota Prius versus Honda Insight hybrid sales showdown in Japan, it is the Prius which continues to dominate.
In October, the Prius was Japan's number one best-seller for the sixth consecutive month. Toyota's third-generation model put 26,918 units on the board, while the Insight was down in ninth place with 7074 units.
The Insight, the first hybrid to top Japan's sales charts this April, is also now regularly being outsold by the Fit (Jazz) in the country too.
The Fit was Japan's second biggest seller in October with 15,444 units. Nonetheless, Honda isn't concerned about the Insight's flagging sales.
First, the sales target for the Insight is set at 5000 units per month, so Honda's hybrid is still actually well ahead of schedule.
Second, the Fit is still a very competitive all-rounder, especially in terms of mpg, utility and pricing, and is on the market for much less than an Insight. Therefore Honda is happy the Fit is where it is and the Insight is more than living up to expectations.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
International Energy Agency Lying About Oil Reserves
According to a report in The Guardian, a whistle-blower at the International Energy Agency (IEA) claims that it is purposefully publishing misleading figures about the world's remaining oil reserves. A senior official, who asked not to be named, says the IEA is inflating its projections for fear of triggering panic buying and a worldwide financial meltdown. The source says the United States has encouraged the IEA to exaggerate the possibilities of finding new oil sources, while downplaying the diminishing returns from existing oil fields.
While the IEA's World Energy Outlook reports that production can increase from the current level of 83 million barrels per day to 105 million barrels per day, many analysts disagree. Some believe that we've already seen the world's peak oil production and that even an 8% increase from today's production levels would be unsustainable. This isn't the first time the IEA's assertions have been questioned, but sources say that the IEA's chief economist, Fatih Birol, is facing increased pressure from within his own organization to defend his numbers.
"The IEA in 2005 was predicting oil supplies could rise as high as 120m barrels a day by 2030 although it was forced to reduce this gradually to 116m and then 105m last year. The 120m figure always was nonsense but even today's number is much higher than can be justified and the IEA knows this, " says the insider.
The IEA was formed after the oil crisis in 1974 to help protect western nations from another energy emergency. It's a fairly well known fact that most OPEC nations have been lying about their oil reserves for decades. Now one wonders if the agency is blinding the countries it's supposed to be helping to the reality of a world with dwindling oil reserves.
Source: The Guardian
Coulomb EV charging points in Australia by 2010
Coulomb Technologies announced today that it has signed an agreement with a Sydney-based company to distribute Coulomb's charging stations throughout Australia.
The agreement is exclusive to ChargePoint Pty Ltd, which Coulomb says is in "advanced discussions with a number of government and private sector partners for pilot projects in Perth, Sydney and Melbourne, which are all due to commence in the first half of 2010."
The pilot projects will be used to evaluate charging behavior, energy grid load analysis, and environmental and societal impacts.
The first mass produced electric vehicles will arrive in Australia in 2010, with most manufacturers expected to release models down under in 2012. Coulomb is clearly hoping to have its charging stations in place in time to meet demand.
Meanwhile, Coulomb announced today that the Elk Horn, Iowa, will be getting four of its charging stations this week. That's significant because at present there are no EV charging stations between Denver and Chicago.
Coulomb says the stations will be the first of many along the I-80 corridor through Nebraska and Iowa.
And in California, Sequoia Solar, a San Diego company that designs and installs grid-connected solar systems, has announced plans that it will unveil the first of many networked solar-powered EV charging station this week.
Powered by a combination of the sun and Coulomb's charging stations, Sequoia said it plans to extend Coulomb's network and their own solar technologies throughout San Diego County.
In little over a year, Coulomb Technologies of Campbell, California, has gone from zero installed charging stations to chargers installed in many cities and on several continents. Our hats are off to CEO Richard Lowenthal, the driving force behind the spread of the stations.
UQM patent Reduces Permanent Magnet Use, Cost in EV and Hybrid Motors
Electric drive systems developer and supplier UQM Technologies says it has received a U.S. patent on a new operating geometry for electric motors that require fewer of the expensive permanent magnets that transfer the motor's power into wheel-turning torque.
The system developed by the Colorado company can help reduce the cost of EV and hybrid vehicles' electric motors and the demand for the rare-earth metals used in their permanent magnets.
UQM's engineers developed a component layout that allows a motor to produce the same level of power using 20 to 25 per cent fewer or smaller permanent magnets, said Jon Lutz, the company's vice president for technology.
An electric motor has two basic pieces, a fixed-position stator, or outer assembly which holds the cols of copper wire coils that produce an electro-magnetic field. and the rotor, that contains the permanent magnets.
By reducing the number of magnets needed in an automotive drive motor by 25 percent, Lutz said, UQM can lower the cost of the entire motor by about 5 percent - a savings that can help trim the cost of electric vehicles.
Of course they could use tried and tested AC induction motor technology and reduce their permanent magnet count to zero!
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
BMW ActiveHybrid X6 review
Two years ago, when BMW first unveiled the X6, its high-performance, high-end crossover SUV, it announced a hybrid version as well. Now that hybrid has arrived, and if turning a 5,688-lb luxury SUV with a twin-turbo V-8 into a hybrid seems like a bit of a contradiction, well, the 2010 BMW ActiveHybrid X6 is.
This is the most powerful hybrid ever put into production. Its 400-horsepower gas engine and two electric motors combine to produce 485 horsepower and 575 lb-ft of torque. It can race to 60 mph in 5.4 seconds. It delivers power to all four wheels via a seven-speed automatic transmission.
Why would BMW choose such a beast to become its first full hybrid? The company says it's because of the high-percentage gain in fuel economy you get from making low-mpg vehicles more efficient. Turn a 12mpg vehicle into a 17mpg vehicle, and you're getting more than 40 percent better mileage.
To get there, the ActiveHybrid X6 uses a two-mode hybrid system developed in conjunction with General Motors and the former DaimlerChrysler; it's the same system already found in the Cadillac Escalade Hybrid. An electric continuously variable transmission (ECVT) distributes power through two different drive modes; one is used during stop-and-go driving and the other when driving at higher speeds. The two-mode system allows the X6 to cruise up to 37 mph on electric power alone, only switching to engine power if the driver depresses the throttle more forcefully.
The ActiveHybrid X6 is rated at 17 mpg city, 19 mpg highway -- up from 12/18 in the xDrive50i, that's a 20-percent improvement. BMW are asking for a $22,000 premium for the ActiveHybrid over the base X6 xDrive50i.
2010 BMW ActiveHybrid X6
Price: $89,275 (including destination and handling)
Mileage: (city/highway): 17/19
Horsepower: 485
Torque: 575 lb-ft
0-60: 5.4 seconds
FedEx to purchase 51 hybrid vehicles from Azure Dynamics
FedEx Express, the cargo airline subsidiary of FedEx, has reported that it will purchase 51 additional gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles from Azure Dynamics, a Canadian supplier of hybrid electric vehicle and electric vehicle control and powertrain systems.
FedEx has said that its fleet of hybrid electric and electric vehicles will total 325 when all 51 hybrid step-vans are delivered during November 2009 and December 2009.
Most of the new gasoline-electric vehicles are expected to be put into service at a Bronx, New York station, making it all-hybrid facility with about 100 trucks.
John Formisano, vice president of global vehicles at FedEx Express, said: "Even during a challenging fiscal year, FedEx has continued to make investments in hybrid electric and electric vehicles a priority because of the long-term value in vehicle technologies that reduce fuel costs and pollution.
"FedEx now operates seven different hybrid or electric truck models around the globe, demonstrating that commercial delivery vans can reduce pollution and increase efficiency without any sacrifice in performance and durability."
Citroen C-Zero electric vehicle unveiled
Zero fuel consumption, zero CO2 emissions and zero noise: this is the description of the new Citroen C-Zero, a new compact vehicle range with a 100% electric solution. The new vehicle is based on the Mitsubishi i-MiEV and was built in collaboration with the Japanese manufacturer.
According to the Citroen, this new electric car will be the brand’s second electric vehicle alongside Berlingo First Electric, developed with Venturi and will qualify for the government bonus of 5,000 euros.
The new Citroen C-Zero is powered by a permanent magnet synchronous motor delivering 47 kW or 64 bhp from 3,000 to 6,000 rpm and a maximum torque of 180 Nm from 2,000 rpm. The power is transmitted to the rear axle via a single-speed reduction gear.
The electric motor features the latest-generation 330-volt lithium-ion battery system 88 50-Ah cells (for onboard energy of 16 kWh) mounted in the centre of the vehicle. One interesting feature of the lithium-ion technology is that the battery is resistant to partial charges, which have no incidence on battery longevity.
Click on images for full size
GM to put Electric Converj into production
General Motors is moving forward with plans to produce an electrically driven Cadillac luxury car, according to a source familiar with the plan. GM showed off a concept vehicle called the Converj at the 2009 Detroit Auto Show. The Converj was, essentially, a Cadillac version of the Chevrolet Volt electric car.
At the auto show, Vice Chairman Bob Lutz said if the Converj was approved, the production model would resemble the concept, likening it to the Chevrolet Camaro's evolution from concept to production.
Lutz said it would have been easier financially to produce a Cadillac electric vehicle first because a premium brand would command a higher sticker price, which in turn would help defray the cost of lithium-ion batteries.
The Converj will expand the number of electric vehicles offered by GM and spread the technology's cost. GM is spending more than $1 billion on the Volt program alone and opening a battery pack assembly factory. GM's German carmaker Opel GmbH will produce an Ampera model in 2011 that uses the same underpinnings.
Cadillac sells a hybrid version of its Cadillac Escalade, but dealers say customers don't normally think of the large SUV as a traditional hybrid.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Hyundai, LG Chem Finalize Lithium-Ion Battery Joint Venture
Hyundai Mobis and LG Chem have announced a joint venture agreement to produce lithium-ion batteries for hybrids. The $34-million venture is scheduled to start producing in the second half next year, with a goal of building batteries for as any as 200,000 vehicles a year.
LG also is a supplier to General Motors, for the Chevy Volt, and Hyundai Motors (a cousin to Hyundai Mobis in the extended Hyundai family conglomerate) and its Kia subsidiary - for the recently introduced Hyundai Elantra and Kia Forte LPG (liquefied petroleum gas)-electric hybrids.
They don't talk about battery R&D in the announcement, just production, but LG Chem's already done a lot of work on a flat-pack lithium polymer battery cell that's easier to cool and to package into bundles for hybrids and EVs, and we expect that it won't stop there.
The company earlier this year broke ground on an $800 million lithium-ion polymer battery manufacturing plant of its own (no Hyundai investment that we know of) to supply the cells for the Volt and Hyundai-Kia battery packs.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Japanese Space Agency aims for Space Based Solar Power by 2030
This Space Power idea is getting a real work out lately. Japan's space agency JAXA has announced it wants to collect solar power in space and zap it down to Earth, using laser beams or microwaves by 2030.
The Japanese government has just picked a group of companies and a team of researchers tasked with turning the ambitious, multi-billion-dollar dream of unlimited clean energy into reality in coming decades.
With few energy resources of its own and heavily reliant on oil imports, Japan has long been a leader in solar and other renewable energies and this year set ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets.
But Japan's boldest plan to date is the Space Solar Power System (SSPS), in which arrays of photovoltaic panels several square miles in size would hover in geostationary orbit outside the Earth's atmosphere.
"Since solar power is a clean and inexhaustible energy source, we believe that this system will be able to help solve the problems of energy shortage and global warming," researchers at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, one of the project participants, wrote in a report.
The solar cells would capture the solar energy, which is at least five times stronger in space than on Earth, and beam it down to the ground through clusters of lasers or microwaves.
Several space power announcements have been made by various companies within the last year but none have proved that the basic technology even exist. Sure spacecraft and communications satellites have been powered by solar cells since the start of the space race but the largest space based solar array built to date, on the International Space Station, generates only 120 Kw and it's construction required more than 10 Shuttle launches.
The Japanese researchers are targeting a 1 GW (gigawatt) system, equivalent to a medium-sized atomic power plant, or in the region of 8000 times the size of the ISS array, a fairly ambitious target considering the Japanese haven't even managed manned space flight yet.
The Japanese say the satellite would produce electricity at eight cents per kilowatt-hour, six times cheaper than its current cost in Japan. No details are provided on how that price was calculated.
The power would be collected by gigantic parabolic antennae, likely to be located in restricted areas at sea or on dam reservoirs, said Tadashige Takiya, a spokesman at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
The major show stopper for all these space based solar power proposals is that wireless power transmission has not been proven at any distance over 1 mile yet transmission of power from geostationary orbit must be energy efficient over 22,000 miles! Japanese researchers are also considering laser power transmission but laser signals are almost completely blocked by cloud cover and again this technology is untested for long distance power transmission.
Radio and Laser signals suffer from free-space path loss, which is proportional to the square of the distance between the transmitter and receiver and is also proportional to the square of the frequency of the radio signal.
A radio signal 'spreads out' when it leaves the antenna according to Inverse-square law and as much as possible has to be captured by the antenna aperture at the receiving end to achieve high efficiency. Any energy that spreads out and does not make it to the receiving antenna is considered a loss of efficiency.
Wireless power experiments to date have tired to get around these limits by using extremely focused antenna such as parabolic dishes and co-phased arrays at very close range but they still have yet to deal with loss due to distance as all such successful tests have only been over a mile or less.
Where a conventional long distance high voltage power transmission line is around 95% energy efficient, long distance wireless power transmission would be a small fraction of 1% efficient.
The challenge -- including transporting the components to space -- may appear gigantic, but Japan has been pursuing the project since 1998, with some 130 researchers studying it under JAXA's oversight.
Last month Japan's Economy and Trade Ministry and the Science Ministry took another step toward making the project a reality, by selecting several Japanese high-tech giants as participants in the project.
The consortium, named the Institute for Unmanned Space Experiment Free Flyer, also includes Mitsubishi Electric, NEC, Fujitsu and Sharp.
The project's roadmap outlined several steps that would need to be taken before a full-blown launch in 2030.
Within several years, "a satellite designed to test the transmission by microwave should be put into low orbit with a Japanese rocket," said Tatsuhito Fujita, one of the JAXA researchers heading the project.
The next step, expected around 2020, would be to launch and test a large flexible photovoltaic structure with 10 megawatt power capacity, to be followed by a 250 megawatt prototype.
This would help evaluate the project's financial viability, say officials. The final aim is to produce electricity cheap enough to compete with other alternative energy sources.
JAXA says the transmission technology would be safe but concedes it would have to convince the public, which may harbour images of laser beams shooting down from the sky, roasting birds or slicing up aircraft in mid-air.
According to a 2004 study by JAXA, the words 'laser' and 'microwave' caused the most concern among the 1,000 people questioned.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Next stop for Toyota a Hybrid victory at Le Mans?
Following Toyota's withdrawal from Formula One, will we see Toyota use their massive TTE facility in Cologue Germany to return to Le Mans and make good on their promise to race more advanced Hybrid technology?
Toyota last raced in the Le Mans 24 hours in 1999 and placed second having never won the race. They have stated a Le Mans win is still on their 'to-do' list and may now hope a hybrid race car will take them to victory. Rival team Peugeot are taking advantage of the new Le Mans hybrid rules and have incorporated the Magnetti Marelli hybrid system into their 908 HY V12 diesel sports prototype.
Toyota had been one of the most public critics of the F1 KERS system and have been quoted as saying they think F1 KERS is 'primative' and not relevant to road car Hybrid systems. Is Toyota abandoning F1 to race under the much more advanced Hybrid rules coming into force at Le mans in 2010 and beyond?
The company says they have already had success with a KERS system more advanced than those allowed under F1 KERS regulations in their Supra HV-R with which they won the Tokashi 24 hour race by 9 laps over second place. The Supra HV-R system is permitted under ATO KERS rules as 4 wheel brake regeneration is mandatory at Le Mans while F1 restrict the KERS system to the rear wheels only.
The technical difference between the two systems is enormous. While F1 KERS is limited to 60kw for 6.6 seconds per lap and can only be used on the rear axle, the Toyota HV-R system has a 150 kw electric motor on the rear axle plus two 10 kw wheel motors on the front wheels. As 70% of all braking effort is on the front wheels the Toyota system can collect a lot more energy per lap.
The FIA Formula One rules may have granted Toyota their wish of four wheel regeneration but they would have had to wait until 2013. The KERS regulations will allow the energy storage limit to be doubled to 800kj (222 wh) by 2011, and KERS will be allowed on both axles with up to 200kW and 1.6MJ (444 wh) of energy storage per lap from 2013. By going to Le Mans Toyota can race a 4 wheel system using wheel motors as early as 2010 and with much less manufacturer competition.
Any LMP1 car contesting the Le Mans 24 Hours with KERS in 2010 has to comply with the following specifications.
− Recovery of energy from the brakes on the 4 wheels or from the heat of the exhaust fumes.
− Only the rear wheels can be used to propel the car.
− Regarding energy recovery from the brakes, only electric systems are allowed.
− Only the storage of electric energy is permitted.
− The combustion engine and the electric motor must be controlled by the driver using the accelerator pedal (push to pass buttons forbidden).
− The quantity of usable energy stocked on board the vehicle must not exceed 1 MJ.
- The use of such a system must not be aimed at obtaining additional power but at reducing fuel consumption.
The ACO also allow recovery from the exhaust which can be either thermocouple, organic Rankine cycle (ORC) or even perhaps simply an electric generator run off an exhaust gas driven turbo expander very similar to a regular turbocharger.
Toyota admitted they came very close to following Honda out of Formula One at the end of 2008 coincidentally when the ATO first announced KERS rules for Le Mans. We await news of Toyota's 2010 plans with interest.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Sainsbury's launches London electric car charge network
Sainsbury's opened the latest front in the supermarket green arms race yesterday, with the launch of a new electric car recharging network for shoppers across London.
Electric car drivers in central London will now have access to a new network of easy access charge points courtesy of supermarket company Sainsbury's – and they will be free to use for its customers.
Sainsbury’s has fitted 11 of its stores with the new charge points – Beckton, Camden, Chiswick, Cromwell Road, East Dulwich, Greenwich Peninsula, Islington, North Cheam, Sydenham, Wandsworth and Whitechapel.
London already boasts a number of electric car recharging points. Elektromotive, which introduced its first Elektrobay recharging stations in Westminster in 2006, has to date installed over 100 electric charging points in the capital. The move by Sainsbury's though is an important one because of where they are located, putting half the city's population within three miles of a charging point.
Almost 70 per cent of harmful particulate emissions in London come from road transport, whereas electric cars have zero emissions when being driven. Electric vehicles, meanwhile result in between 25 per cent and 50 per cent less CO2 being emitted into the atmosphere and reductions could increase considerably as technology improves.
Neil Sachdev, Sainsbury’s commercial director, described the move as creating an "electric vehicle superhighway" for London and predicted that in 10 years time, the retailer will have recharge points available at all of its stores in large cities.
"Sainsbury’s is already one of the country’s largest users of these vehicles and we hope that this initiative will encourage more of our customers to follow our lead," he said. "Electric vehicles create less noise and help keep the city’s air clean. More of these cars will appear on our streets as the technology improves, meaning convenient recharge points will become increasingly important."
Sainsbury's move was welcomed by London Mayor Boris Johnson, who wants to turn the city into the electric vehicle capital of Europe. "Central to this aim is the provision of charge points across the capital to ensure Londoners can go electric with the confidence that they can charge up where ever they are. I warmly welcome the arrival of Sainsbury's network of charge points,” he said.
Sainsbury’s said it uses electric cars for its own operations, with a fleet of electric vehicles within its online delivery operation in central London and is procuring more for use in the city.
Prius #10 Selling Car in US
Toyota Motor Sales (TMS), U.S.A., Inc., today reported October sales of 152,165 vehicles, a decrease of 3.5 percent from last October, on a daily selling rate basis.
The Toyota Division posted October sales of 132,663 units, a decrease of 5.8 percent from the same period last year. The Lexus Division reported October sales of 19,502 units, an increase of 15.5 percent over the year-ago month.
Toyota Division
Toyota Division passenger cars recorded sales of 85,169 units, a decrease of 3.3 percent from last October. Passenger car sales were led by Camry and Camry Hybrid, which posted combined October sales of 30,136 units. The Prius mid-size gas-electric hybrid posted October sales of 13,496 units, up 10.3 percent over the year-ago month. Corolla recorded sales of 25,717 units. Venza reported sales of 5,035 units for the month.
Toyota Division light trucks posted sales of 47,494 units, down 10.0 percent from the year-ago month. Light truck sales were led by the RAV4 compact SUV with October sales of 13,971 units, up 10.2 percent over the same time last year. Highlander and Highlander Hybrid posted combined sales of 5,979 units for the month. The Tacoma mid-size pickup reported sales of 8,921 units in October. The Tundra full-size pickup recorded sales of 7,537 units for the month, up 13.1 percent over last October. Sienna recorded October sales of 8,249 units.
Scion posted October sales of 3,862 units. The xB urban utility vehicle led the way with sales of 1,782 units. The tC sports coupe posted October sales of 1,057 units. The xD reported sales of 1,023 units for the month.
Lexus Division
Lexus passenger cars reported October sales of 10,441 units, up 7.9 percent from the year-ago month. Passenger car sales were led by the ES entry luxury sedan, with sales of 4,413 units, up 2.8 percent over last October. The IS entry luxury sport line posted combined October sales of 3,162 units, up 10 percent over the same period last year.
Lexus Division light trucks reported October sales of 9,061 units, up 25.7 percent over the same period last year. Lexus sales were led by the RX luxury utility vehicle which posted combined October sales of 8,316 units, up 54.8 percent over the year-ago month. The RX 450h hybrid luxury utility vehicle reported sales of 1,567 units for the month, up 145.7 percent over last October.
TMS Hybrids
TMS posted October sales of 18,757 hybrid vehicles, up 10.9 percent over the same period last year. Toyota Division posted sales of 15,603 hybrids for the month. Lexus Division posted October sales of 3,154 hybrids.
There were 28 selling days this month, compared to 27 selling days last October.
Honda admits Fuel Cell cars still 20 years away
According to Honda, Fuel cell technology is still two decades away. They plan to focus on refining existing systems and expanding its hybrid range to include a lightweight hybrid sports car.
Honda CEO Takanobu Ito said, “It will be 20 years at the earliest before fuel cell cars penetrate the mass market.”
Honda is currently the only car maker to have a fuel cell-powered car in production, but the FCX Clarity is only available to lease in the US and Japan.
In the meantime, Honda is working on a range of technologies to improve the efficiency of its cars and increase the number of hybrids it sells, including a high-performance sports car.
“This is something that we are considering, and the CR-Z is only one shape of Honda’s hybrid sports cars in the current age,” revealed Honda design boss Nobuki Ebisawa.
Some company insiders are believed to want to revive a bespoke sports car programme following the axing of the long-rumoured replacement for the NSX at the end of last year.
However, any new Honda sports car is unlikely to be as extreme as the NSX; the firm’s US dealers are known to want a rival to the Porsche Boxster, so the car could, in effect, replace the S2000.
Ebisawa is studying weight-saving processes such as using more aluminium, from which the first NSX was made.
But before the sports cars, Honda will further develop its hybrid tech with a two-motor system that will enable the firm to build petrol-electric versions of bigger cars.
“We recognise that one motor is not sufficient for bigger cars. The class above the Civic would need two motors, so we are developing such a system,” said Ito. “We want to minimise weight and maximise efficiency.”
The firm is also working on a plug-in hybrid as part of its research into improving its line-up in that area of the market. But it is cautious about launching the car due to the incentive-driven nature of how people buy hybrids, especially in Japan, where big government-funded discounts have fuelled sales of the Insight. Should these be reduced, sales could fall.
Styling, too, will be used to improve the vehicle’s efficiency. Honda’s R&D centre is working on active aerodynamics (bodywork that changes shape at different speeds to improve airflow over the car). It will introduce the aero technology within five years, according to Ebisawa.
Metal-Air Battery Could Store 11 Times More Energy than Lithium-Ion
A spinoff company from Arizona State University plans to build a new battery with an energy density 11 times greater than that of lithium-ion batteries for just one-third the cost. With a $5.13 million research grant from the US Department of Energy awarded last week, Fluidic Energy hopes to turn its ultra-dense energy storage technology into a reality.
The new Metal-Air Ionic Liquid battery is being designed by Cody Friesen, a professor of materials science at Arizona State and founder of Fluidic Energy, along with other researchers. The key to the new battery is that it uses ionic liquids as its electrolyte, which could help it overcome some significant problems faced by previous metal-air batteries. In the past, metal-air batteries have usually used water-based electrolytes, but due to water evaporation, the batteries tended to fail prematurely.
The advantage of ionic liquids, like those used in Fluidic Energy's new battery, is that they don't evaporate. Ionic liquids are salts that are a liquid at room temperature. Compared to water, ionic liquids are much more viscous, and they also conduct electricity fairly well. The challenge will be finding an inexpensive ionic liquid that works well in the new batteries, although Friesen has not yet discussed the specific ionic liquids his company has been investigating.
A metal-air battery that uses ionic liquids as its electrolyte could have several advantages. For one thing, it can function for a longer period time since its electrolyte doesn't evaporate. Also, the batteries could offer better electrochemical stability, which means they could use materials that have a greater energy density than zinc. Friesen and his research team hope to achieve energy densities of anywhere from 900 to 1,600 watt-hours per kilogram. This density could lead to electric vehicles that could travel 400 to 500 miles on a single charge, Friesen said.
Finally, Fluidic Energy is tackling another problem facing rechargeable batteries: the growth of dendrites that occurs on the electrodes during charging. Dendrites limit the number of charging cycles and decrease the lifetime of the battery. To combat this problem, Fluidic Energy has designed a porous electrode scaffold that prevents dendrite formation.
"I'm not claiming we have it yet, but if we do succeed, it really does change the way we think about storage," Friesen said.
via: Technology Review
F1 designer Gordon Murray announces electric city car
Gordon Murray, the man who designed the McLaren F1, and Zytek Automotive today
announced an all-electric 3-seater city car, made possible through a $7.48 Million investment from the UK-backed Technology Strategy Board. With a total cost of $14.9 Million, a new research and development project will allow the consortium to develop four prototypes by February 2011.
The 16-month project has several goals: to further explore the possibility of scaling up and building a manufacturing facility in the UK, with the ultimate goal of producing the T.27 in Britain; to keep the new technology and intellectual property rights within the UK; and to make this affordable, fun and environmentally friendly car available for purchase.
Professor Gordon Murray, Chief Executive and Technical Director of Gordon Murray Design said, "As we head towards the new industrial revolution brought about by rising energy costs and concern over the effects of green house gases, we at Gordon Murray Design feel proud to be working with the Technology Strategy Board in helping the UK play a leading role in tackling the issues we all face."
The T.27 will be the world's most efficient electric car due to its low weight and 'clean sheet of paper design'. This ambitious target cannot be achieved by applying a conventional stamped steel construction design, nor with a drivetrain using existing gearboxes, motors or batteries. Instead, an entirely fresh approach is proposed that accepts no compromise in safety, performance, range, space, weight, rolling resistance and ride quality. By applying iStream® methodology to the T.27, a new manufacturing process developed by Gordon Murray Design, and fully integrating it with a custom-designed lightweight, highly efficient drivetrain from Zytek, every aspect of the vehicle can be optimized. This holistic approach results in a car slightly smaller than a Smart, but with more interior space.
Murray added, "The iStream® manufacturing process behind the T.25 and T.27 is all about sustainable, low energy process by design. The T.27 program is a great opportunity for us and our partners to create what will be the world's most efficient electric vehicle. An opportunity to start from a clean sheet of paper combined with our disruptive manufacturing technology will result in a product which truly pushes the boundaries of urban vehicle design and further protecting our mobility."
A similar approach was used by Gordon Murray Design for a 3-seater gasoline-powered car (T.25) which is receiving significant market interest. The T.25 program provides confidence that the T.27 aims are 100% achievable. T.27 will also set new standards in environmental sustainability. High level life cycle analysis derived from T.25 data predicts life-cycle emissions 63% less than the average car and, for the T.27 life-cycle, emissions 27% less than the nearest EV rival, which is partly due to the iStream® manufacturing approach. Rival compact city car EVs do not simultaneously address all of the factors noted above and so this combination of attributes addresses a substantial market opportunity.
Zytek has designed and integrated electric drive systems for a wide range of European and US vehicle manufacturers and is currently building high performance electric drivetrains up to 70kW and 300Nm for cars, buses and light commercial vehicles. The T.27 focuses on 'efficient performance' with all aspects of the drivetrain designed to maximise efficiency and minimise
weight. The motor, power electronics and gearbox will form a single, highly integrated unit designed specifically for the performance requirements of the T.27, but offering scalability to heavier vehicles as required.
The T.27 is a sustainable vehicle, which means that it has been designed in a way that minimizes the use of materials and keeps the embedded carbon that is present throughout the life cycle of the vehicle as low as possible. The goal is to ensure that the environmental impact of the materials and energy that are used are as low as can be. The iStream production process is also highly efficient and flexible to minimize the cost of production.
"Gordon has succeeded in building a consortium that shares his commitment to transforming how we design, source, engineer, manufacture and bring to market new automobiles," said Gordon Murray Design board member and MDV General Partner Jonathan Feiber. "This program is innovative in every sense of the word. It marks a turning point in what's possible for city cars."
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