UQM Electric Motors Selected for Audi A1 e-tron Test-fleet Build

UQM Technologies, will supply electric propulsion systems as part of an Audi test-fleet build and vehicle development process for its A1 e-tron all-electric vehicle.

The UQM PowerPhase motor is a BLDC, permanent-magnet range of up to 300 Nm of peak torque and 125 kW of peak power. The controller features CAN bus, serial communications and diagnostic capability.

UQM recently has an annual production capacity of 40,000 units.

Automobile manufacturers typically build test fleets to evaluate new technologies and vehicles that are under development prior to their market launch.

Nissan says Leaf orders met by end-summer

Customers registered to buy a Nissan Leaf electric car will take delivery before this summer is over, Nissan Motor Co Ltd's U.S. sales chief, Brian Carolin, said on Monday.

Nissan delivered fewer than 20 Leaf cars in the first month of sales in December and another 89 in January, and it has had to assuage customers who thought they would be riding in an electric car by now.

Carolin said production increases of Leaf in Japan will clear the bottleneck.

"We're now in the process of ramping up. Production is going to be peaking up in March and April, so we're pretty confident we are going to satisfy all of the orders we are going to get" by the end of summer.

Nissan took in 20,000 reservations for the Leaf as of last September, three months ahead of meeting that reservations target. To secure a reservation, each customer put up a refundable $99 deposit

So far, about 40 percent of those with reservations have carried through and bought a car, which would imply a sales rate of 8,000 cars.

Carolin said that 40 percent purchase rate is likely to drop, but he cannot be sure. The number of people showing initial interest is as high as 270,000, Carolin said.

Once the list is worked through of those who have registered with Nissan, a similar sign-up process will take place, but Carolin does not know when that process will resume.

So far, almost all of the Leaf cars sold have been delivered in Northern California and the Pacific Northwest, he said. Nissan will expand sales after getting a foothold in the West.

Nissan signaled to prospective customers a wide window for expected delivery and it has not met the quickest end of that range.

"With a car so novel, we want to make sure that these people are happy and become advocates for the brand," he told Reuters on the sidelines of the National Automobile Dealers Association annual convention.

The Leaf, which went on sale in December on the U.S. West Coast, gets up to 100 miles on a full charge, according to California regulators. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says its range is 73 miles.

Carolin said there are too few in the hands of customers to say what the result of real-life driving is.

The Chevy Volt is out-selling Leaf by a wide margin so far, but Carolin said the Leaf and the Volt are not competing against one another because they are vastly different vehicles, although many consumers compare the two.

"We don't have a tailpipe," he said, referring to the fact that Volt is more like a plug-in hybrid than a fully electric car. "I don't see that we are in a race with Volt."

It is important for the first consumers driving Leaf be satisfied because of the social media buzz they can create, positive or negative, Carolin said.

When it comers to social media buzz, "it's either on or off. There is no in-between," said Carolin. "That's why customer satisfaction is the No. 1 priority. We're not in a numbers race."

But the rest of Nissan and its luxury brand Infiniti are clearly in a numbers race with their mass-produced cars and trucks. Carolin said that the success of Leaf is valuable to the Nissan's wider lineup.

"We're using the Leaf as a halo product" for the entire Nissan lineup, he added.

VW to launch 100mpg Hybrid Golf by 2020

Volkswagen is set to launch a 100mpg Golf in 2020, in time to meet super-stringent EU fuel economy regulations. The greenest Golf — likely to be the blue-e-motion — is expected to have an average CO2 rating of just 75g/km.

Planned EU regulations require the average fuel economy across a maker’s entire range to average just 95g/km by 2020, which is forcing car makers into considering radical methods to drive down consumption.

Launched as part of the Mk8 Golf line-up, the super-frugal car will feature much of the technology featured in the new XL1. But it’s expected to get a next-generation version of the two-cylinder hybrid powertrain.

A combination of improved combustion technology and new materials should allow the engine to have a higher power density and still use slightly less fuel.

However, VW sources say the super-frugal Golf will also have to see significant friction reduction and aerodynamic improvement as well as a big weight loss. Carbon-reinforced plastics could be used for the bonnet and roof panels, for example, and heavy sound deadening is likely to be replaced by a sound cancellation system working through the car’s audio.

Renault Previews The Zoe Electric Car [video]

The fully electric Zoe is a Clio-sized supermini with a range of up to 100 miles. It’s still in the concept stages, but it will definitely go into production and you’ll be able to buy one in mid-2012. Better still, the final car won’t lose much of this one’s va-va-voom, and it’ll cost about the same as a mid-spec Ford Fiesta. Who said electric cars couldn’t be desirable? Not us!

The design

The Zoe’s teardrop profile is dominated by what’s probably best described as its ‘friendly’ face. The sweeping headlights blend seamlessly into the grille, and the nose looks unusually clean because fewer air intakes are needed than on a petrol or diesel car. ‘It’s the first time we’ve used this new front end on a car that’s going into production, and we’re getting some great feedback’, says Axel Breun, Renault’s design director of concept and show cars. ‘It proves Renault is getting back to its best at building emotive cars.’

Remember the previous-shape Mégane? Well, the Zoe is vaguely similar round the back, albeit curvier and more fluid.

The concept is 90% ready for production, and Renault describes it as an ‘exaggerated’ version of the Zoe you’ll be able to buy in 18 months. The final car – which will be unveiled at the Frankfurt motor show in September – will be 5-7cm shorter and narrower, but Renault assures us the basic look will be left alone.

That’s not too tricky a promise to keep, because this isn’t an outlandish concept with gull-wing doors. It’s essentially a normal-looking supermini, which is something Renault sees as very important. It knows a big chunk of the car-buying public already has reservations about buying an electric car, and doesn’t want people to have to get their heads around something that looks like an iPod on wheels.

There are some futuristic features on this concept, but most will make way for more humdrum alternatives. You’ll notice there are no door handles, for example. The door pops open when you simply stroke a metal square that’s surrounded by squiggles of light. Very clever, but expensive and not practical. Conventional door handles will be the order of the day on the final production car.

The same goes for the lights. The LED units on the concept car have a halo around them, which flashes orange when you’re indicating and glows blue when you’re not. The final car may have LED daytime running lights, but the head- and tail-lights will be conventional.

Other changes?

Other minor exterior changes will include larger door mirrors – to meet legislation – and smaller wheels. The 19-inch alloys fitted to the concept look great, but 17-inch wheels are more practical.

The Zoe will be near enough identical in size to the current Clio after the miniaturisation process its about to undergo, but Axel Breun says it doesn’t offer a preview of Renault’s next supermini: ‘The next Clio will obviously share one or two design features with the Zoe – such as this new front end – but it will be very different overall,’ he says.

Renault is keen for a more cohesive look across its range, though. Simon Luque, deputy programme director of Zoe, says: ‘We want anyone who sees one of our cars to immediately know it’s a Renault, but we don’t want to fall into the trap of, say, Audi where you have to study every model carefully to work out if you’re looking at an A4, A6, or an A8.’

VW to launch 95mpg Up blue-e-motion Hybrid

Volkswagen is putting the final touches to a super-economical version of the Up city car, which will be good for at least 95mpg.

Expected to be called the Up blue-e-motion, the model will be powered by a production version of the powertrain from the XL1 concept, company sources say.

Based on today’s four-cylinder, 1.6-litre VW Group diesel engine, the Up’s twin-cylinder, 800cc turbodiesel is expected to develop just 47bhp, but will be ‘assisted’ by a 26bhp electric motor. The engine’s block is made from aluminium and the bores are plasma coated. It also gets a sophisticated balancer shaft set-up to smooth out the inherently unbalanced two-cylinder layout. The engine and electric motor will be coupled to a seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox.

Unlike the XL1, however, the Up blue-e-motion will not be able to travel solely on battery power. That’s because the car’s battery pack will only be large enough to power the electric motor during standing starts or for brief periods of hard acceleration. Energy will be reclaimed during braking to help recharge the battery.

The Up is also likely to be equipped with the XL1’s new ‘pulse starting’ feature, which will make the car’s stop-start mode much more seamless. In pulse starting, the electric motor spins the idle engine up to the required speed for its restart, making it virtually undetectable by the driver.

When the XL1 is being powered purely by this hybrid diesel engine, it returns 141mpg on the EU test cycle. However, the Up will be at least 300kg heavier than the carbonfibre-bodied XL1 and will have more aerodynamic drag, due to its bigger cabin and much greater frontal area, which means fuel economy will be reduced by about a third when compared with the concept.

Nissan faces delays for Leaf electric car in U.S.

Nissan Motor Co has had some delays in delivering its Leaf electric automobile to U.S. customers, the Financial Times reported on its website on Sunday.

Nissan and its partner Renault SA, formally launched the zero emissions Leaf vehicle in December.

Nissan acknowledged bottlenecks in its quality assurance procedures and distribution delays because of the Leaf's Internet-based ordering system, which bypasses U.S. dealers, the Financial Times reported, citing Nissan's U.S. spokesman David Reuter.

Nissan expects the congestion to ease by April but said production was on schedule, the Financial Times reported.

Nissan and Renault have earmarked $5 billion over the next few years to mass-produce electric vehicles and the batteries that power them.

More Electric than fossil powered cars by 2020: Better Place

Electric car pioneer Shai Agassi is a man with a startling prediction: Before 2020, he says, more people everywhere will be buying electric cars than those powered by gasoline.

"It doesn't mean that oil is not necessary, but we're starting the way out," said Agassi, a former top executive for information giant SAP AG who launched his Better Place venture several years ago.

Existing electric cars have a limited range, after which owners have to stop and wait for hours while their car's battery recharges. Owners of Agassi's cars would be able to remove the used battery and replace it with a fully charged one, allowing them to get back on the road almost immediately.

The first country slated to go live with a network of "battery-switching" stations run by Better Place is his native Israel, where he plans a launch — with 56 stations and an expected 5,000 cars — before the end of 2011. In 2012, Denmark and Australia are expected to join, along with trials in Hawaii and in the San Francisco Bay area.

Brimming with infectious optimism, Agassi has been a regular at the World Economic Forum, where he was interviewed by The Associated Press.

Agassi said he has raised about $700 billion and spent about a third of it, mostly on setting up the stations. That leaves enough cash to absorb losses while he builds up to break-even, which Agassi asserts will not take long.

"In Israel, in 2016, plus or minus a year, more electric cars will be sold than gasoline cars. When that happens in Country One, within two years you will see it in every country," he said.

That claim may seem preposterous for the car-crazy United States — but not for Israel. The country's electric company also expects electric cars to achieve a significant market share in the near future and is preparing its grid to meet the demand, according to the Haaretz newspaper.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton has emerged a believer as well.

"Israel will become the first country in the world to put 100,000 all-electric cars on the road," he said Thursday. "Not the US. Not China. Not countries much bigger — Israel!"

Agassi has found a niche created by a widespread sense that the world is not doing half enough to deal with the eventual end of oil — a prospect hastened by the explosive recent growth in the developing world.

"From 2000 to 2010, China added 120 million cars on the road (and) next year, 25 to 30 million," Agassi said. "It's no longer the U.S. that sets the price (of oil). Now it's a question of how many cars were added in China, how many were added in Brazil, how many were added in India."

He admits that the market for gas is somewhat inelastic, meaning that despite rising costs at the pump, people grumble and drive on. But they save elsewhere, he says, harming the economy in cascading ways.

Agassi plans to sell cars being developed by Renault SA and equipped with removable batteries — which are currently quite heavy and have a range of 100 miles (160 kilometers). Drivers would be promised four battery swapping stations along any route the length of the range.

Although prices have not yet been set, Agassi said the idea would be that the consumer would not pay more to drive a given distance than its current cost using oil.

Like any venture that could threaten a mammoth industry, Better Place has generated its share of critics.

Some charge the company is trying to establish a new type of monopoly, while environmental groups objected to the laying of new power cables. It is also not clear that Israel's electricity grid can sustain the heightened demand posed by the electric cars.

Some say battery-swapping is impractical and customers will prefer a fixed-battery car. In Davos, Nissan Motor Co. was demonstrating its new Leaf, a fixed-battery electric car that you can charge at home.

Agassi is not worried. He says over time, batteries will grow smaller and their ranges will grow longer, making the swap less odious.

He is most animated as he refutes criticism that the electricity needed to charge the battery has its own carbon footprint and the net result might be worse for the environment than the internal combustion engine.

The electricity could come from coal but also from natural gas or wind or other sources, he said, adding that the Israeli government has approved a 600-megawatt solar project in the country's southern desert that can power a half-million cars a year.

Is the main thing idealism or profit? Agassi's message combines the two.

"The end of the oil era will not come because we ran out of oil — it will come become we don't want to use oil any more to drive," he said. "I can guarantee you that we will finish the need for oil as an energy source for cars before we run out of oil in the ground."