Posts Tagged ‘Electric Vehicle’

Filed under: Emerging Technologies, EV/Plug-in, Plug In Conference

Trying to wrap your head around what, exactly, Evatran is offering with its proximity charging system isn’t easy for someone without a good grasp of plug-in vehicle charging technology. Even then, the company’s wireless charging system, on display at at the Plug-In 2010 Conference in San Jose, CA this week, isn’t the easiest thing to understand. On the one hand, we can just say the Plugless Power devices is a way to charge your electric vehicle without bothering with a cord and a plug. On the other hand, this isn’t traditional inductive charging. The technology uses induction theory along with wireless technology but, since it’s unlike anything else on the market, Evatran calls it “proximity charging.”

The Plugless Power system uses a parking block and a shoebox-sized vehicle adapter that needs to be installed under the car ahead of the front wheels. The block contains a transmitter that can move within the box and and thus get as close as possible to the receiver on the car. The distance should be around two inches max in order to send the electricity to the vehicle. If it’s out of range, the system’s tower – tall and visible from inside the vehicle – will warn the driver to repark before it will power up the vehicle. It won’t send out a low-efficiency charge if the transmitters are, say, six inches apart. You can compare it to digital radio that just cuts out when it’s out of range instead of a traditional FM signal that gets weaker and weaker the further away the tower is.

This December, the company will release its first-generation model, which, kind of ironically, uses a cord. This unit will provide Level 2 (240 volt, 32 amp) charge through a J1772 connector. These units will cost around ,000 and can be upgraded to the wireless units for another 0 when those become available in April 2011 (installation fees extra). Installing the receiver in the vehicle will cost around 0, but that’s not officially set, yet, so this isn’t a cheap set-up. Thankfully, if you like the idea of wireless charging, it is eligible for the ,000 in government incentives. Evatran is taking orders for the first-gen units now, but the price to just straight-up buy a plugless unit was not announced. Evatran will offeri a one-year warranty on the units.

While recharging without any extra work is appealing, there’s a big problem with Plugless Power’s unit. Specifically, it’s not 100 percent effective. Evatran’s Rebecca Hough said that the company is targeting a 90 percent efficiency rate before releasing the product (right now, they’re around 80 percent). While that’s pretty amazing considering you’re sending energy through the air, it also means that your electric vehicle automatically becomes less efficient with proximity charging than it would be with a cord. Yes, there are transmission losses along the grid, but when you take 10 percent away right before the energy gets to the car, that’s a real shame.

Still, wireless recharging is a technology that bears watching, whether it comes from Evatran or Intel or whoever. Evatran looks like it’ll be a player – it is working on getting UL listed and is talking with OEMs and niche players to have wireless chargers being an option at the time you buy a vehicle. The company started researching the idea 18 months ago, came to Plug In 2009 and, two months ago, got .25 million from the state of Virginia’s Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization program. So, things are moving fast, and we’ll try to keep up.

[Source: Plugless Power]

Plug-In 2010: Evatran’s Plugless Power parking block puts proximity charging under your car originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Wed, 28 Jul 2010 09:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You know the name Elon Musk. He’s the PayPal founder who has procured some 0 million in federal funds and has raised some 6 million more in Tesla Motors’ initial public offering. He’s planning to build the ,000 luxury electric-powered Model S sedan from scratch in Toyota-GM’s old NUMMI plant while providing Daimler’s smart with electric powerplants. And now, he’s teaming up with Toyota to build electric RAV4s.

You may also know the name Martin Eberhard.

A couple of years ago, Musk forced Eberhard out as CEO of Tesla Motors. The two engaged in a litigious argument over who could claim to be Tesla’s founder. They mediated out of court, and Musk issued a statement that Eberhard was “indispensible” in Tesla’s formative years. Eberhard is a self-described longtime champion of “consumer” cell batteries, the 18650 version of the lithium-ion batteries used in the laptop I’m using to write this.

At its Electronics Research Laboratory (ERL) in Palo Alto, California, VW Group CEO Martin Winterkorn said Monday that the automaker plans an electric-powered Golf and an electric-powered Up-type car to be ready for the market by calendar 2012.

“One of the two will be the first all-electric VW in the U.S.,” Winterkorn said. The VW e-Golf currently under development has a 26.5 killowatt-hour battery pack with a 100-mile range, though like its competitors, Volkswagen is working to keep up with rapidly improving battery technology and to take advantage of rapidly falling costs.

As a result of the Tesla mediation, VW proudly introduces Eberhard as “founder of Tesla Motors.” Eighteen months ago, he quietly became electric vehicle engineering director at VW’s ERL in Palo Alto. Eberhard says VW will have working prototypes of electric cars on the road this year. Has he sold VW on consumer cells, like those used in the Lotus-bodied Tesla Roadster?

“They’re coming around,” Eberhard says.

VW has set a lot of hard-to-reach goals for 2018. Three percent of the vehicles it sells by then will be electric-powered, and while that doesn’t sound like much, that’s 300,000 worldwide. (Eberhard hopes electrics will make up the vast majority of the market in 20 years.) And in ’18, VW plans to sell 800,000 Volkswagens, plus 200,000 Audis in North America. Those numbers will help VW Group pass Toyota to become the world’s largest automaker.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that VW sees its ERL as the perfect place to develop electric car technology. Palo Alto is far from the old-tech automotive engineering centers of Detroit, Tokyo and Wolfsburg, Germany, where engineers don’t feel confined by longstanding engineering “rules.”

Their legal squabble reportedly began after Musk questioned then-Tesla CEO Eberhard’s costs estimates for the Roadster model. This won’t be an issue for Eberhard at VW, which benefits from the cost efficiencies of being a full-line automaker while its bean counters can perform the task of realistically estimating the costs of pretty much any new technology.

I don’t know who told Musk he could sell a ,000 luxury electric-powered sedan at a profit, but Musk might think about a new round of firings. Leading up to his company’s IPO, Musk has insisted Tesla Motors will remain independent. His deals with Daimler and Toyota should help mitigate the big dose of reality he must be facing with the ambitious Model S.

This all sets up a fascinating battle for the rest of the decade: Tesla principle + Toyota vs. Tesla founder + VW.

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Filed under: EV/Plug-in, USA

It looks like Chris Anthony, an Aptera co-founder, is about to go truly epic in the electric vehicle universe. His company, Epic Boats has entered into a partnership with Caddo Manufacturing in Vivian, LA to not only make electric boats – Epic already makes a hybrid version of a wakeboard boat and introduced the all-electric 21se last January – but also expand into machines made for traveling terra firma as well. The San Diego-based CEO showed up in the Northeast corner of Louisiana last week with prototypes of its first two land vehicles, a topless road-going three-wheeler with seating for two called the Torq and an off-road ATV named the Amp.

While it’s great to have a few more oil-free choices of recreational type vehicles, for local residents the best part of the arrangement is the arrival of jobs. Apparently having orders that urgently need filling, the companies are hiring about 200 people starting Monday and hope to create almost 500 positions altogether.

As for the two new vehicles, the preliminary specs look quite promising. Both use lithium iron phosphate (LiFePo4) battery packs developed by Flux Power, Anthony’s other company. The Torq is said to offer 200 horsepower and should weigh 1,700 lbs with a pack holding between 24 and 30 kWh of energy. Performance figures are not yet available but it looks capable of dishing out a pretty wild ride – maybe it’s those Cadillac-reminiscent headlight clusters.

The Amp looks even more aggro. It features a motor that can put out 54 hp, giving it a top speed just north of 50 miles per hour. It’s 14.4 kWh battery pack is said to give it about 60 miles of range. Impressively, it offers 10 inches of ground clearance, is independently suspended front and back and uses hydraulic disc brakes to slow down. According to a new Epic website, we should hear more about these machines this fall. If you want an early glimpse, take a look past the break for footage from local station KSLA. Thanks to anonymouse for the tip!

[Source: KSLA / Epic Electric Vehicles]

Continue reading Aptera co-founder going Epic with new electric line-up, hiring hundreds [w/video]

Aptera co-founder going Epic with new electric line-up, hiring hundreds [w/video] originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Sun, 18 Jul 2010 18:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Green Daily

Though we commonly focus on electric powertrains that can move a typical passenger car, there are a slew of vehicles out there that need a propulsion system that can put out substantially more oomph. As luck would have it, Leo Motors has just introduced an electric powertrain – consisting of a motor, controller and battery – that’s capable of fulfilling those needs.

Leo Motors markets its new 120 kW electric vehicle powertrain as “equivalent to a 5,000cc internal combustion engine” (that’s 5.0-liter to those more familiar with U.S. nomenclature). Nestled within the confines of Hyundai’s 24-seat County bus, the Leo Motors 120 kW powertrain has performed admirably over the last six months. Leo Motors said in a statement that, “According to the test results, the converted bus ran faster and smoother than its ICE counterparts, but without emissions, noise or vibration.”

Leo Motors hopes that its 120 kW electric powertrain will find a home in large passenger cars, mid-size buses and commercial-duty trucks, but we’re hoping that the tuner crowd will get wind of this powertrain and shoehorn it into a compact car to make a really smokin’ electric vehicle.

[Source: Leo Motors]

Continue reading Leo Motors introduces 120kW EV powertrain for commercial vehicles

Leo Motors introduces 120kW EV powertrain for commercial vehicles originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Tue, 13 Jul 2010 18:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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