Tiny short-range electric cars with room for one or two were not uncommon at the IAA 2011 – VW brought the Nils, Audi had the Urban Concept, and Opel showed the Rak e. Peugeot missed the auto show, but has announced its own tiny electric car anyway – the Velv.
Toray’s TEEWAVE AR1, on display at the IAA 2011, seems to be a very rare thing – an environmentally friendly sports car. The next-generation EV concept car was made with environmentally friendly materials developed by Toray itself, with the hope that it could serve as an example for other automakers.
Surface-mediated cells (SMC,) from Angstron Materials Inc., offer us the advantage of increasing both power and energy densities.
Electric cars have giant batteries (useful for a number of things besides driving the actual car, even). Also under consideration as the primary power source for electric cars (and buses, motorcycles, yachts, etc.) is the lithium ion capacitor.
A hydrogen fuel cell-powered hybrid electric bus supplied by UTC Power for the Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District has set a performance record by operating for over 10,000 hours. The milestone is another step toward reducing the life cycle cost of hydrogen fuel cell-powered vehicles, which produce zero emissions and are more than 50% efficient in terms of converting energy to power.
BYD Co Ltd is on schedule to enter the growing EV market with the E6 crossover in Q2 of 2012. E6 represents the big battery solution to EV range. Other solutions…
Nissan’s world wide Leaf sales are now over 10,000 but questions continue to be asked about the technology. In a recently released video Nissan Corporate Vice-President Simon Sproule answers six questions about the Nissan Leaf battery.
In Hiroshima Prefecture, both the city of Fukuyama and the private sector are pushing forward with a futuristic “Eco Town.” In the midst of interest in natural sources of energy, following the nuclear incident in TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, an attempt is being made to acquire and market local “know-how” as quickly as possible to other prefectures in order to stimulate regional revitalization.
Project Better Place is about developing an electric vehicle battery swapping system that can enable people to literally replace their battery packs in exchange for another one which was charged while it was at the Better Place swapping station.
Clean transportation news from around from the past week or so, divided up by category….
