Japanese Government gives Green Light to 500 km/h Maglev [video]

Central Japan Railway Co. or JR Tokai, said Friday it had received a directive from Transport Minister Akihiro Ohata to proceed with construction of a maglev train line between Tokyo and Osaka.

JR Tokai said in a statement: "As the main sales and construction body, we will strive to carry out the Chuo Shinkansen project as soon as possible, with the cooperation of municipalities and others."

The project is estimated to cost a total of 9.03 trillion yen and will link Tokyo and Osaka in 67 minutes by train running up to 505 kph, compared with the bullet train’s current 145 minutes..

The railway operator will continue with its environmental assessment and start construction as early as 2014.

The firm hopes to open the maglev line between Tokyo and Nagoya in 2027 and extend the line to Osaka by 2045.

Zero Emission Hypersonic Plane Could Fly London-Sydney in 3.5 Hours [video]

European aerospace giant EADS has unveiled its "Zero Emission Hypersonic Transportation" (Zehst) rocket plane it hopes will be able to fly from Melbourne to London in under 3.5 hours by around 2050.

The trip between Paris and Tokyo could be completed in under 2.5 hours.

"I imagine the plane of the future to look like Zehst," EADS' chief technical officer Jean Botti said as the project was announced at Le Bourget airport the day before the start of the Paris International Air Show.

The low-pollution plane to carry between 50 and 100 passengers will take off using normal engines powered by biofuel made from seaweed before switching on its rocket engines at altitude.

The rocket engines, powered by hydrogen and oxygen whose only exhaust is water vapour, propel the plane to a cruising altitude of 32 kilometres (20 miles), compared to today's passenger jets which fly at around 10,000 metres.

"You don't pollute, you're in the stratosphere," Botti said.

To land, the pilot cuts the engines and glides down to Earth before reigniting the regular engines before landing. EADS hopes to have a prototype built by 2020 and for the plane to eventually enter service around 2050. The project is being developed in collaboration with Japan and uses technology that is already available.

A four-metre model of the plane, which looks similar to the now defunct Concorde supersonic jet, will be on show at Bourget for the biannual aerospace showcase which begins on Monday and opens to the general public on Friday.

Renault-Nissan Alliance opens Silicon Valley research office

Directly across from the Google campus and minutes from leading hardware and software companies, the offices in Mountain View will allow one of the world's largest automotive groups to capitalize on the region's world-class engineering talent and stay ahead of trends that are reshaping the way people interact with their cars.

The office will build staff organically to focus on specific projects and business developments as they emerge. Small, highly efficient teams will initially work on vehicle IT development, advanced engineering research and technology recruitment.

"The Alliance is at the vanguard of the auto industry's shift to sustainable transportation. Having a greater footprint in one of the world's headquarters for clean tech research will extend our lead further," said Carlos Ghosn, CEO and Chairman of the Renault-Nissan Alliance, who is giving a talk at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) today. Ghosn's "Clean Cars" presentation at Stanford will focus on how and why zero-emission technologies is leading to unprecedented opportunities in the auto industry and economy.

Created in 1999, the Renault-Nissan Alliance is a unique partnership between two of the largest automakers in Europe and Japan. Renault and Nissan, which together employ more than 350,000 workers, sold 7.2 million cars in 2010 – about one in 10 cars worldwide. Paris-based Renault and Yokohama-based Nissan collaborate through joint purchasing, platform sharing and cross-shareholding. They maintain separate brands and cultural identities.

$5.4 Billion Commitment to Sustainable Mobility
The Nissan LEAF, which debuted last year, is the world's first affordable, mass-marketed pure electric vehicle, and it's the first product from the Alliance's $5.4 billion investment in zero-emission cars. Upcoming debuts include an Infiniti premium electric sedan, the Renault Twizy urban commuter car for Europe, and utility vans for commercial fleets. All can be charged purely with renewable energy, for 100 percent zero emissions "well to wheel."

Nissan will use the Silicon Valley office to focus on vehicle IT research, including graphical user-interface displays, in-car Internet connectivity and smart-grid research. Nissan's "Carwings" telematics system, a standard in every Nissan LEAF, includes a seven-inch touchscreen with maps of recharging stations and real-time reports on energy consumption. Nissan has delivered more than 7,500 LEAFs worldwide.

Renault, one of the largest carmakers in Europe, will be launching a broad range of affordable, zero-emission cars for overseas markets. Renault Fluence ZE, which debuts later this year in Europe and the Middle East, has a folding floor that enables a battery swap in less time than it takes to fill a car with gasoline. The Renault Twizy ZE is a two-seat urban commuter car, and the Renault Kangoo ZE is a utility van that is convenient and cost-effective for deliveries and other fleet uses.

Renault's Silicon Valley work will focus on research and advanced engineering, in particular electric vehicles and their supplier and infrastructure ecosystem, on-board services and business development.

Tesla Roadsters are almost sold out

With production drawing to a close, Tesla Motors Inc. has sold almost all of the remaining electric Roadsters destined for the U.S. market, said Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk. Supplies will last longer in Europe and Japan, but not by much.

"I think there's a handful of cars left to sell in the U.S.," Musk said. "People in Europe and Japan probably have another six months to place orders for the Roadster. In the U.S., it's maybe a month or two."

And that's after Tesla reached an agreement with Britain's Lotus Cars, which makes the Roadster's chassis, to produce an extra 100 of the vehicles. The full production run, which began in 2008, will end at 2,500 cars.

"So if somebody has an interest in buying a Roadster, they had best put in an order very, very soon," Musk said.

Tesla, based in Palo Alto, reported last year that it would stop making the Roadster before the company's next car, the Model S, hits the market in 2012. Lotus plans to retool its manufacturing facility, and Tesla chose to devote all its effort to the Model S rather than find another supplier.

But buyers have snapped up the remaining Roadsters faster than expected. In Tesla's last quarterly earnings report, the company predicted that Roadster sales in North America would finish by the end of the year.

Many electric-car aficionados will be sorry to see the Roadster go, even if few of them could afford one. With prices starting at $109,000, the car was never meant for the mass market.

And yet, the Roadster played a unique role in changing the public's attitude toward electric transportation.

Low-slung and high-powered, the Roadster popularized the notion that plug-in cars could be objects of desire. With movie stars and politicians among its buyers - think Gavin Newsom and Brad Pitt - the car quickly became an emblem of eco-chic. It caught the public imagination in a way that previous electric cars, like General Motors' EV1 or Toyota's electric Rav4, never did.

"That was the vehicle that stopped people from thinking electric cars were golf carts," said Felix Kramer, founder of the California Cars Initiative, a plug-in vehicle advocacy group. "It totally transformed the conversation."

The Roadster helped usher in the new wave of electric cars, such as the Nissan Leaf.

The end of Roadster sales will leave Tesla without its most visible product. But the company will continue selling battery packs and chargers to German auto giant Daimler. Tesla also is developing a power train for Toyota's next-generation electric Rav4.

And Musk says Tesla remains on track to start building the Model S next year at the former New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. plant in Fremont.

"It's not a concern, because we all knew that there was a limit on the number of the Roadsters that would be produced," said Andrea James, research analyst with the Dougherty & Co. investment bank. "The fact that the company is selling out sooner rather later speaks to demand. The company does very well at creating buzz, and this feeds the buzz."

Toyota could return to the Le Mans 24 Hours as early as 2012

Toyota has been testing an all-new LMP1 car since last year, and could return to the Le Mans 24 Hours as early as 2012, according to this week's AUTOSPORT magazine.

The Japanese manufacturer commissioned the machine, which is known to incorporate hybrid technology and comply with the 2011 prototype technical regulations, from racing car constructor Dome.

When asked about the possibility of Toyota returning to top-line prototype racing, Vincent Beaumesnil, sporting manager of Le Mans organiser the Automobile Club de l'Ouest, said: "We are in contact with many manufacturers who are interested in LMP1, not just Toyota."

Toyota last competed at Le Mans as a full manufacturer in 1999, but supplied engines to the Rebellion LMP1 squad on a customer basis this year.

Toshiba SCiB to be used in i-MiEV, recharge to 80% in just 15 mins

Toshiba Corporation today announced that its SCiB™ (Super Charge ion Battery) battery has been selected by Mitsubishi Motors Corporation to power two new models of electric vehicles (EV), the i-MiEV and MINICAB-MiEV. The SCiB™ is Toshiba's breakthrough rechargeable lithium-ion battery that combines high levels of safety with a long life, rapid charging and excellent charging and output at very low temperatures, characteristics that make it highly suited to application in EV.

Toshiba developed the SCiB™ to meet a series of demanding performance and safety criteria. By successfully employing lithium titanate oxide in the anode, Toshiba has assured that the SCiB™ offers high level operating safety, a long life and rapid charging. The use of lithium titanate oxide also significantly reduces the possibility of a puncture in the separator between the anode and cathode, so minimizing the risk of them coming contact into and short circuiting, and maintains battery performance levels even in severe operating conditions, including very low temperatures.

The SCiB™ pushes the life of the lithium-ion battery to a new level by supporting 2.5 times more charge/discharge cycles than a typical lithium-ion battery. Recharging is also notably better. Charged with the highest current available with CHAdeMO*1, widely seen as the emerging standard for fast charging EV, an SCiB™ reaches about 80 percent of full capacity in some 15 minutes, about 50% in 10 minutes and about 25% in 5 minutes*2 – half the times of a typical lithium-ion battery charged under the same conditions. The SCiB™ also generates little heat while recharging, eliminating the need for power to cool the battery module.

Most important of all for real-world application, the SCiB™ delivers high level performance. The SCiB™ offers a higher effective capacity than a typical lithium-ion battery, in that more of the stored charge can be used safely before recharging the battery. This, combined with highly efficient regenerative charging during braking or coasting downhill, allows the SCiB™ to deliver 1.7 times the driving distance per level of charge of a typical lithium-ion battery. This will allow for installation of smaller battery modules in vehicles and contribute to lower EV prices. The SCiB™ also offers high level performance in a wide range of temperatures, and continues to support rapid charging and excellent power output at temperatures as low as -30ºC.

The SCiB™ for Mitsubishi's new EV will be manufactured at Toshiba's Kashiwazaki Operations in Niigata prefecture, northwest Japan, a new facility dedicated to production of SCiB™ that came on line in February this year. Toshiba will seek to establish a plant operating structure able to respond quickly to market growth as the basis for expanding the SCiB™ business for EV, including hybrid and plug-in hybrid EVs.

As the automotive industry responds to concerns about global warming by developing a new generation of environmentally friendly EV, Toshiba is promoting advances in essential automotive technologies, from dedicated on-board control systems to batteries and Intelligent Traffic Systems. In automotive-related power electronics technologies, Toshiba is targeting net sales of 800 billion yen by fiscal year 2015 from its concentration on motors, inverters and SCiB™.

Toshiba will continue to promote sales of the SCiB™ in a global market for lithium-ion batteries that is expected to record sales of some 1 trillion*3 yen in fiscal year 2015.

*1 The CHAdeMo Association is promoting a global standard for fast charging of EV.
*2 For a battery with a capacity 10kWh.

Prius Wagon Nets 52,000 Orders in May [video]

Toyota announced on June 14th that 52,000 orders for this new model were logged in the Month of May alone. That is over 17 times Toyota’s sales target of 3,000 per month.

Even with production slated to be increased to 5,000 per month by the end of the summer, this is still going to create a huge backlog, such that anyone ordering now is probably going to be wondering just how far into next summer it will be before they see their new car.

Despite Toyota’s assurances, this will surely impact the US and European launches for this model.