With most, if not all, major car manufacturers already selling or developing electric cars, one was unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show which bucks the trend. This is the brainchild, not of a multi-national but Munich's Technical University - designed to cost the same or less than a comparable petrol model, while performing and looking good too, says the research group's Michael Graf.
MICHAEL GRAF, MUNICH TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY SAYING: "This should be an affordable vehicle that is designed especially for the urban area." Designed, built and tested at the university. It weighs in at 500 kg, achieved through a special lightweight frame made of a combination of aluminium and plastics. The car will cost less than 10,000 Euros and the academics are also working on innovative options for financing the switch to electric cars that could see buyers leasing batteries.
At the other end of the budget spectrum comes Concept One. An electric car from Croatia, capable of nought to 100kph - 62mph in under 3 seconds - due to a revolutionary propulsion system, says designer Mate Rimac.
RIMAC, CONCEPT ONE DESIGNER, SAYING: "The special thing about our car is our propulsion system. So, the drive chain is divided into four units. Each unit contains one motor controller and reduction gear box. Every of these units is completely independent of the other, so we can control each wheel separately and the that allows whole new possibilities for driving the (unclear word) in corners we can allow each wheel to slip a little bit and that can deliver very fast times in tracks and also on the every day use it is very safe and everyone can drive a 1000 horsepower car." The independent drive units allow the wheels to slip a little as the car takes corners at speed - which Rimac says increases safety. A lightweight carbon body and battery give it a range of up to 600km or 375 miles. The company plans to make just 88 of the cars at a price yet to be announced.
Social Justice: Current Affairs, Business, Politics, and all the reasons in the world to Thrive on Creative Discontent!
Showing posts with label electric vehicles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label electric vehicles. Show all posts
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Monday, August 1, 2011
Invented in California and brought to you in Europe!
The first electric car battery swapping station in Europe opened here last month, the initial site in a network of 24/7 fully automated drive-through stations. There, the lithium-ion battery packs, which weigh about 600 pounds, will be removed from specially designed cars and replaced with a fully charged pack. The swap takes five minutes.
Is this plan — a solution that could make E.V’s practical for long trips — some sort of utopian E.V. fantasy? I thought so until I experienced the process myself.
I was in the second car to do a battery swap after the ribbon was cut on June 28. Passengers in the first car included Lykke Friis, Denmark’s minister of climate and energy, and Johnny Hansen, chief executive of Better Place Denmark, the local branch of the Silicon Valley company. It is building the swap stations and related businesses in Australia, China, Denmark, Israel (where the world’s first swap station is) and eventually, the United States.
Better Place has 19 more battery swap stations in the works for Denmark. “By the first of April, we will cover the whole country,” Mr. Hansen said, referring to 2012, with stations no more than 40 miles apart.
At this point, only Renault is making cars designed for quick battery swaps. The company stretched the gasoline-powered version of its Fluence, a Corolla-like sedan, by five inches to accommodate the suitcase-size 24-kilowatt-hour battery pack. The resulting Fluence Z.E., for zero emissions, goes into full production later this year, available in either swappable or fixed-battery versions.
My 20-minute drive in the Fluence Z.E. from the Better Place offices in Copenhagen to the swap station in the suburb of Gladsaxe, was pleasingly uneventful. The swap station adjoins a filling station, where a gallon of gasoline was priced at the equivalent of $9.15 and diesel was $8.40.
The battery swap was also uneventful. Swipe a membership card at the entrance and the garage door to the battery-change track, similar to a carwash tunnel, opens. Pull forward and the robot takes over — the driver simply shifts into neutral and lets go.
As the car is guided forward, it’s lifted a few inches. Inside the car, you hear buzzes and hums and feel vibrations, but there’s no view of what is happening below. About a minute into the experience, the dashboard message indicates empty battery — meaning it’s gone — after which there’s no air-conditioning, although music and other functions continue. During most of Denmark’s year, the brief lack of climate control would not be a problem, but during my trip, on a hot summer day, the sealed cabin quickly became steamy.
That small discomfort did not mar the significance of the occasion: four and a half minutes after entering the station, the car had a fresh battery. The sedan was lowered and we pulled out of the tunnel ready to drive another 100 miles or so, according to Renault’s range estimate. The Better Place robot worked.
Better Place subscribers purchase their cars, but not the expensive battery packs. For a fixed fee of about $350 a month, they will lease access to the batteries, swap stations and charge points.
Renault says it intends to produce more than 100,000 Fluence Z.E. sedans through 2015, although availability in Denmark will be limited. Another battery-swappable model from Renault, the Zoe Z.E. — a smaller hatchback more suited to Danish tastes — is expected next year. But it could be a number of years before other carmakers produce models that work with the Better Place stations.
The economics are challenging. Each station costs “a couple of million Euros” — about $3 million — to build, Mr. Hansen said. That is a big investment for stations that might barely be used in the next couple of years.
The Better Place business model is a top-down, central-office approach to electric car charging infrastructure. Whether that plan will work may be uncertain, but its Danish swap station does deliver as promised.
When E.V.’s finally arrive here, Denmark could be one of a few places in the world to have eliminated limited driving range and insufficient charging spots as potential obstacles to the adoption of electric cars.
Is this plan — a solution that could make E.V’s practical for long trips — some sort of utopian E.V. fantasy? I thought so until I experienced the process myself.
I was in the second car to do a battery swap after the ribbon was cut on June 28. Passengers in the first car included Lykke Friis, Denmark’s minister of climate and energy, and Johnny Hansen, chief executive of Better Place Denmark, the local branch of the Silicon Valley company. It is building the swap stations and related businesses in Australia, China, Denmark, Israel (where the world’s first swap station is) and eventually, the United States.
Better Place has 19 more battery swap stations in the works for Denmark. “By the first of April, we will cover the whole country,” Mr. Hansen said, referring to 2012, with stations no more than 40 miles apart.
At this point, only Renault is making cars designed for quick battery swaps. The company stretched the gasoline-powered version of its Fluence, a Corolla-like sedan, by five inches to accommodate the suitcase-size 24-kilowatt-hour battery pack. The resulting Fluence Z.E., for zero emissions, goes into full production later this year, available in either swappable or fixed-battery versions.
My 20-minute drive in the Fluence Z.E. from the Better Place offices in Copenhagen to the swap station in the suburb of Gladsaxe, was pleasingly uneventful. The swap station adjoins a filling station, where a gallon of gasoline was priced at the equivalent of $9.15 and diesel was $8.40.
The battery swap was also uneventful. Swipe a membership card at the entrance and the garage door to the battery-change track, similar to a carwash tunnel, opens. Pull forward and the robot takes over — the driver simply shifts into neutral and lets go.
As the car is guided forward, it’s lifted a few inches. Inside the car, you hear buzzes and hums and feel vibrations, but there’s no view of what is happening below. About a minute into the experience, the dashboard message indicates empty battery — meaning it’s gone — after which there’s no air-conditioning, although music and other functions continue. During most of Denmark’s year, the brief lack of climate control would not be a problem, but during my trip, on a hot summer day, the sealed cabin quickly became steamy.
That small discomfort did not mar the significance of the occasion: four and a half minutes after entering the station, the car had a fresh battery. The sedan was lowered and we pulled out of the tunnel ready to drive another 100 miles or so, according to Renault’s range estimate. The Better Place robot worked.
Better Place subscribers purchase their cars, but not the expensive battery packs. For a fixed fee of about $350 a month, they will lease access to the batteries, swap stations and charge points.
Renault says it intends to produce more than 100,000 Fluence Z.E. sedans through 2015, although availability in Denmark will be limited. Another battery-swappable model from Renault, the Zoe Z.E. — a smaller hatchback more suited to Danish tastes — is expected next year. But it could be a number of years before other carmakers produce models that work with the Better Place stations.
The economics are challenging. Each station costs “a couple of million Euros” — about $3 million — to build, Mr. Hansen said. That is a big investment for stations that might barely be used in the next couple of years.
The Better Place business model is a top-down, central-office approach to electric car charging infrastructure. Whether that plan will work may be uncertain, but its Danish swap station does deliver as promised.
When E.V.’s finally arrive here, Denmark could be one of a few places in the world to have eliminated limited driving range and insufficient charging spots as potential obstacles to the adoption of electric cars.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)