When designing the Tesla Model S, Elon Musk wanted an electric motor that had the same horsepower as the most powerful internal combustion engine but with nearly-instantaneous torque. And he wanted it to be the size of a watermelon. Engine manufacturers told him this couldn’t be done. So the Tesla CEO decided to build his own motor. The earlier versions of this had a hand-wound stator which increased winding density to help eliminate resistance and increase peak torque. Later versions of the stators were built by robots.
If electric cars become popular quickly, the demand for charging them is likely to exceed supply. Now mathematicians have worked out how electricity companies can distribute their power fairly to car owners. But the price–accurate information about driving habits–may be too much to ask.
A factory that takes in raw materials and produces finished battery packs could lower costs for the most expensive part of an EV.
Tesla Motors released its 2013 shareholder letter this afternoon, declaring record vehicle sales in the fourth quarter and annual revenue of over $2 billion. Looking forward, Tesla says its growing network of superchargers and service centers will help spur more sales this year in the United States. It also expects big sales in Europe and China. It thinks sales will hit 35,000, about 55 percent higher than this year (with sales of 22,477 cars).
Toshiba a lancé en partenariat avec Honda le projet de tester l'utilisation des petits véhicules électriques dans la ville de Miyakojima, préfecture d'Okinawa. L'objectif est d'obtenir un maximum d'informations sur l'introduction, l'utilisation et la gestion des équipements d'approvisionnement et des petits véhicules électriques comme un nouveau moyen de transport. Les tests auront lieu du 28 janvier 2014 au 31 mars 2016 et s'inscrivent dans le projet d'éco-tourisme de l'île.
Se suele dar por bueno que el coche eléctrico es mejor para el medio ambiente que el de gasolina, pero esta afirmación no está ni mucho menos clara. No es suficiente con calcular las emisiones generadas cuando están los motores en marcha. Para comparar estas tecnologías de la forma más rigurosa posible hay que tener también en cuenta lo que ocurre en las fábricas, los materiales extraídos para cada una de las piezas, el proceso a través del cual se ha obtenido la energía, incluso la forma de conducir.
Honda a annoncé avoir développé un chargeur pour voitures électriques afin de promouvoir l'utilisation des véhicules hybrides et électriques. Celui-ci peut être installé sur un mur et dans des parkings existants, ce qui permet de réduire le travail nécessaire à l'installation par rapport aux modèles existants. Il est notamment équipé de carte d'authentification, de système de verrouillage afin d'éviter les erreurs, etc.
Just in time for the holiday-feast season, we now have published charts that detail the effect of cold weather on the battery range of Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt electric cars.
Think “range shrinkage.”
The data comes courtesy of FleetCarma, the Canadian company whose app MyCarma tracks vehicle operation for fleet managers and a small number of private owners as well.
As winter weather arrives, electric car owners are worrying about what the cold will do to the range of their vehicles. Message threads with titles like “Winter driving warning” and “Another way to stay toasty on long trips without running heat” are showing up on online customer forums run by Tesla Motors, which sells many of its cars in particularly cold places such as Norway.
Bulky and expensive batteries are the bane of electric vehicles. A new MIT spinoff company, SolidEnergy, says it has a solution: materials that can increase the amount of energy that lithium-ion batteries store by 30 percent or more and lower costs enough to make electric vehicles affordable.
The startup recently raised $4.5 million in its first round of venture funding. It is working with A123 Venture Technologies, part of the battery maker A123 Systems, to scale up the technology and bring it to market.
Conventional batteries take so long to charge that they cannot efficiently store braking energy. Graphene supercapacitors store almost as much but charge in just 16 seconds.
Electric vehicles are coming, ready or not. And one of the enabling technologies making them more driver friendly is the humble battery, particularly lithium-ion versions that can store enough energy to give these cars a reasonable range for city driving.
Of course, car makers are always searching for ways to improve the efficiency, and therefore the range, of these vehicles. And one way to do this is to recover and reuse the energy that would normally be wasted when the brakes slow down a vehicle.
