![futurescope:
BMW, Daimler partner on ultra-light Visio.M city EV
If you like the idea of German electric vehicles like the BMW i3 and i8, but you’re worried they may be more than you really need when they arrive next year, you’ll be glad to know that a more to-the-point EV auf Deutsch is on the way. Along with Munich’s Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM), BMW, Daimler and14 others are jointly developing the Visio.M urban runabout. While it should only muster the equivalent of 20 horsepower, it should be about 45 percent lighter than a Smart Fortwo — important when you want to use a small battery to keep the cost down. The project is also tackling safety and other chronic problems with tiny electric cars. TUM’s MUTE prototype (pictured here) is serving as the testbed for the technology being rolled into the Visio.M, although the €10.8 million ($14.2 million) in funding from Germany’s Federal Ministry for Education and Research is expected to produce something more original when the EV project reaches its eventual close.
[via] [more & image credit: BMWBLOG] [BMBF Project]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3nqrx4vSj1r08k60o1_500.jpg)
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BMW, Daimler partner on ultra-light Visio.M city EV
If you like the idea of German electric vehicles like the BMW i3 and i8, but you’re worried they may be more than you really need when they arrive next year, you’ll be glad to know that a more to-the-point EV auf Deutsch is on the way. Along with Munich’s Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM), BMW, Daimler and14 others are jointly developing the Visio.M urban runabout. While it should only muster the equivalent of 20 horsepower, it should be about 45 percent lighter than a Smart Fortwo — important when you want to use a small battery to keep the cost down. The project is also tackling safety and other chronic problems with tiny electric cars. TUM’s MUTE prototype (pictured here) is serving as the testbed for the technology being rolled into the Visio.M, although the €10.8 million ($14.2 million) in funding from Germany’s Federal Ministry for Education and Research is expected to produce something more original when the EV project reaches its eventual close.
[via] [more & image credit: BMWBLOG] [BMBF Project]
The Combined Charging System is the result of collaborative efforts between Audi, BMW, Chrysler, Daimler, Ford, General Motors, Porsche and Volkswagen. Read More at motorward.com.
The article headline “Global Car Makers Announce 15-Minute EV Charging Standard” really annoys me. The interface is standardized, but the charging time a going to depend not only on your vehicle, but more importantly on whether you’re hooked up to 1 phase AC, 3 phase AC, or industrial DC. The fact that a common interface exists is the big story here.
I wonder what Toyota and Nissan have to say about this…
Massive offshore wind turbines to float in waters over a thousand feet deep
The US and UK last week announced plans to develop enormous floating offshore wind turbines that can be deployed in much deeper waters and further out to sea.
Full Story: ArsTechnica
![This Stunning Electric Bike Is Like a Jet Fighter On Two Wheels
This is the ZecOO, an electric motorbike that can reach 75mph with a range that goes from 55 to 85 miles. No bad. But what I really like is its weird, anime jet fighter aesthetic, from its retro-futuristic profile to the extruded gauges to its front suspension.
It only takes four to six hours to charge, using its retractable power cord. That’s pretty good.
The bike was created by Kota Nezu of Znug Design and, apparently, the Japanese press is raving about it. I don’t blame them.
The company is going to start a limited edition production run. They will be available at $70,000 a pop. [Zecco via Bikeexif]
gizmodo](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3arflsChx1qzip52o1_500.jpg)
This Stunning Electric Bike Is Like a Jet Fighter On Two Wheels
This is the ZecOO, an electric motorbike that can reach 75mph with a range that goes from 55 to 85 miles. No bad. But what I really like is its weird, anime jet fighter aesthetic, from its retro-futuristic profile to the extruded gauges to its front suspension.
It only takes four to six hours to charge, using its retractable power cord. That’s pretty good.
The bike was created by Kota Nezu of Znug Design and, apparently, the Japanese press is raving about it. I don’t blame them.
The company is going to start a limited edition production run. They will be available at $70,000 a pop. [Zecco via Bikeexif]
Global Clean Energy Investment a Record $263 Billion in 2011
“Clean energy investment, excluding research and development, has grown by 600 percent since 2004, on the basis of effective national policies that create market certainty,” saidPhyllis Cuttino, director of Pew’s Clean Energy Program. “This increase was due in part to the number of countries that have implemented effective national policies to support the clean energy market. In the United States, which attracted $48 billion last year, investors took advantage of the country’s stimulus programs before they expired at the end of 2011, as well as the production tax credit for electricity from renewable energy, which is to end this December.”
Full Story: Pew
(via futurist-foresight)
RedShift: An Electric Motorcycle That Breaks Rules (And Speed Limits) -
“The major breakthrough is simply the approach,” Marc Fenigstein, CEO of motorcycle startup BRD writes. “BRD doesn’t assume that anyone needs electric. Gas bikes kick ass, and none of us would trade our gas bikes for anything that is slower, uglier, or less fun. We set out to build a bike that was prettier, faster, and more fun than what was in our garages.”
By using gas performance as their design standard rather than some arbitrary engineering metric, BRD created a bike that was 100lbs (or 30%) lighter than competing electrics in their class and a bike that one-ups gas competition by putting out peak horsepower at will and requiring no shifting. It’s also just a beautiful vehicle to look at, with a surprisingly unique, almost anime color scheme in a field filled with eye-punishing chroma.
“The motorcycle market has very strong brand associations for the primary and secondary colors (Red = Honda and Ducati, Green = Kawasaki, Yellow = Yamaha and Suzuki, Blue = Yamaha, Orange = KTM) so we had to find something off the beaten path,” Fenigstein writes. “We drew from some of our favorite racing liveries and played around until we found something that stood out for its subtlety, rather than competing for ‘OMG LOOK AT ME AAAAAAHHHH.’”
I’m not sure that you can call anything about the RedShift subtle, but it is a gorgeous bike that’s hiding at least one awesome feature that your eyes can’t see: It sounds like a Star Wars podracer in action.
New solar cell technique could more than double efficiency.
A joint Australian/German research team have developed a way to boost efficiency of solar cells up to a record breaking 40% efficiency. Current panels have around 12-17% efficiency.
Called photochemical upconversion, the process captures energy that is normally lost in solar cells.
“We are able to boost efficiency by forcing two energy-poor red photons in the cell to join and make one energy-rich yellow photon that can capture light, which is then turned into electricity,” Associate Professor Schmidt said.
“We now have a benchmark for the performance of an upconverting solar cell. We need to improve this several times, but the pathway is now clear.”
(Source: sydney.edu.au, via emergentfutures)
IBM creates breathing, high-density, light-weight lithium-air battery
As part of its Battery 500 project — an initiative started by IBM in 2009 to produce a battery capable of powering a car for 500 miles — Big Blue has successfully demonstrated a light-weight, ultra-high-density, lithium-air battery.In IBM’s lithium-air battery, oxygen is reacted with lithium to create lithium peroxide and electrical energy (pictured above). When the battery is recharged, the process is reversed and oxygen is released — in the words of IBM, this is an “air-breathing” battery. While conventional batteries are completely self-contained, the oxygen used in an lithium-air battery obviously comes from the atmosphere, so the battery itself can be much lighter.
The main thing, though, is that lithium-air energy density is a lot higher than conventional lithium-ionbatteries: The max energy density of lithium-air batteries is theorized to be around 12 kWh/kg, some 15 times greater than li-ion — and more importantly, comparable to gasoline.
Therein lies the crux of IBM’s Battery 500 project: Current battery tech simply cannot come close to gasoline, which is why we’re surrounded by electric cars that are lumbered down by massive batteries that can only go 100 miles — and why gas still rules supreme. Eventually (in another 10 years or so), li-ion batteries could be replaced with li-air batteries that are a tenth of the size and weight, and yet last just as long — or, of course, li-air could replace gasoline.
Lithium-air batteries aren’t a new idea: They’ve been mooted since the 1970s, but the necessary tech was well beyond the capabilities of then-contemporary material science. Today, with grapheneand carbon nanotubes and fancy membranes coming out of our ears, it seems IBM — with assistance from partners Asahi Kasei and Central Glass — now has the materials required to build a lithium-air battery. There is a video embedded below that details the electrochemical process of an li-air battery.
Supercomputers also played a big part in this breakthrough; IBM isn’t a battery-making company, after all. IBM Blue Gene/P supercomputers at IBM Research in Zurich and Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago were used to model and optimize the li-air chemistry. The battery prototypes themselves are being built at IBM Research Almaden, California.
Read more at the IBM Battery 500 Project
Review: The Ford Focus Electric -
Ford is preparing for an era when choosing whether a new car is powered by gas, electricity, or both is as simple as choosing its color is.
All future models from the automaker will be designed so that they can be produced with gas, electric, or hybrid drivetrains, a strategy embodied by the Ford Focus Electric, made available for the first press test drives last week. While GM and Nissan designed their first all-electric mass production cars from scratch, Ford is essentially using a 2010 design with the gas guts switched for electric ones.
That made strolling up to a Ford Focus in San Francisco last week slightly underwhelming: from the outside, the car looks familiar (unless you’re looking for the tailpipe). From the inside, though, in the driver’s seat, the Focus Electric is distinctive. I found it well-suited to San Francisco traffic, a game of real-life Frogger that rewards those who can quickly zip between lanes and enter gaps that open and close in an eyeblink. The eager response of the electric motor when I put my foot down was a big help, and all the more distinctive due to the near-silence, which also allowed me to hear more of what was happening around me.
The Focus Electric’s zip is something all-electric cars can offer. Electric motors can provide their full torque instantly, from any speed, while gas cars must rev up their engines before delivering extra torque to the wheels.
The most critical questions about any electric vehicle cannot be answered by a test drive or a glance at its price, though. Ford—like others before it—faces the challenge of convincing people that a car able to travel 76 miles on a single charge (slightly better than the 73 miles offered by its nearest competitor, the Nissan Leaf) can meet their driving needs, and that the car is worth the higher upfront cost.
Ford claims that a person’s driving habits and the car’s ability to reclaim energy during braking mean that a battery should actually last 100 miles per charge. It has also designed software for the car, and for a companion mobile app, to train drivers to squeeze the most out of their batteries.
A “brake coach” display next to the speedometer attempts to train drivers to recover as much energy as possible by braking early and smoothly. It provides clear feedback designed to encourage a driver’s competitive spirit. For example, when I pulled out into the stop-start traffic of downtown San Francisco (ideal conditions for recovering power), the dashboard told me I had 75 miles left in the battery. When my five-mile trip was over, it still said I had 75 miles left, since I had recovered 99 percent of the energy expended.
The associated smart-phone app, MyFord Mobile, tracks a car’s performance and can be used to share efficiency figures online, enabling drivers to compete against other Focus Electric owners and win (virtual) prizes.
Ford’s most significant innovation in the war against what is known as “range anxiety” will likely be the fact that it can charge fully in just under four hours (half the time it takes a Nissan Leaf to charge), thanks to high-power charging circuitry on board the car. However, getting that rapid charging requires a 240-volt connection in your home and paying $1,499 for the necessary “smart charger.” Those will be available from Best Buy, hinting at a future where electronics retailers are as important to your car as auto parts stores.
