Electric vehicles

At the Materialica "Lightweight Design for New Mobility" event attached to the eCarTec event in Munich this week there were 228 awards including one for an ugly wheelbarrow so it was all rather indiscriminate. Nonetheless, close attention revealed some interesting items such as Plexiglas used for new things such as illuminated electric car exterior.

Kandi of China has an order for open rental city cars in Hangzhou China that are pure electric. The commitment seems to be for 20,000, the same size as the Bollore order for its pure electric Bluecars for open hire in Paris.

The idea of harnessing high altitude winds blowing at 10,000 meters altitude seems to be promising.

Caterpillar unveiled the first model in its new line of hybrid excavators, the Cat® 336E H, at its Mossville Industrial Design Center last week.

Ultracapacitors, also known as supercapacitors, have seen some setbacks lately. Market leader Maxwell Technologies has seen reduced ultracapacitor sales growth in early 2012 due to softness in Europe and Nanotecture, in Europe, developing the variant called a supercabattery went out of business.

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority has awarded $250,000 to each of eight companies and research centers to develop working prototypes for a wide range of energy-storage technologies.

AllCell Technologies received a new U.S. patent covering the use of phase change materials (PCM) to prevent thermal runaway propagation in electrochemical devices such as lithium-ion batteries, ultra capacitors, and fuel cells.

Ultracapacitors, otherwise known as supercapacitors, have recently become an essential part of the toolkit of designers of aircraft, trains, road vehicles, renewable energy, office equipment and the host of small electronic devices where it all began.

A123 Systems has entered into an asset purchase agreement with Johnson Controls valued at $125 million.

Deutsche Bahn, the international mobility supplier and also the company that operates the German railway network, has chosen the Hiriko electric vehicle to complete its transport network in Berlin. Both entities have reached a collaboration agreement for a pilot project that incorporates the Basque vehicle into the car sharing network with which Deutche Bahn completes its railway services.

Kleenspeed in Silicon Valley has put its first KAR compact car on the road with its GenESSys 40 lithium-ion battery pack solution that is being sold as a separate item. There is an ultra capacitor (supercapacitor) in the car that will be the subject of a patent.

Europe is playing catch up in electric vehicles, even the interim hybrid versions, and although Germany has the best funded and best coordinated program in this respect, it has little to show beyond technologies shoehorned into existing platforms not designed for the purpose. When it comes to industrial and commercial vehicles, the subject of this event, Daimler is the one to watch, but not from its German base, from its Mitsubishi Fuso subsidiary in Japan.

Car manufacturers Toyota, Nissan, Honda and Hyundai signed a Memorandum of understanding (MoU) with organisations from the Nordic Countries on market introduction of fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV) and hydrogen refuelling infrastructure during the period 2014-2017.

Astrobotic Technology has completed assembly of a full-size prototype of Polaris, a solar-powered robot that will search for potentially rich deposits of water ice at the moon's poles.

The supercapacitor market continues to power up at 30% yearly with some little-known names taking some of the biggest orders at well over $10 million dollars each. These represent volume breakthroughs in applications such as train energy capture and the new application of protection and enhancement of electric car traction batteries.

A novel way to use tanks of compressed air for energy storage.

A recent National Renewable Energy Laboratory study shows significant fuel economy benefits of hybrid electric delivery vans compared to similar conventional vans.

UK vehicle charging company POD Point has collaborated with ABB to provide networked rapid chargers throughout Europe.

UQM Technologies has signed a memorandum of understanding with a major Chinese company for the development and marketing of their electric propulsion systems for New Energy Vehicles in China.

In China, supercapacitor technology has been embraced so fervently over just the past four years that tens of thousands of supercap buses are now on the roads.