Electric vehicles

Malaysia's first indigenous Hydrogen Fuel Cell vehicle was launched by Education Minister II Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh at The National University of Malaysia.

Terra Motors, the No.1 manufacturer of electric two and three wheelers in Japan has unveiled the 'R6' Japanese electric three wheelers which will be on sale early next year.

Recently, the good news has been the continued strong growth of the market for hybrid cars, buses and outdoor forklifts, premium-priced pure electric cars and pure electric vehicles of many other types from the newly popular electric motorcycles to mobile cranes, mobility vehicles for the disabled and microEVs. On the negative side, the oversupplied e-bike/ e-scooter business remained almost entirely loss-making Chinese suppliers of the Chinese market where growth eased and companies left the business. Mainstream pure electric cars remained a failure due to up-front price too high, resale price too low (those short-lived batteries) and range too short. The term "structural electronics" is little known despite being used for several years, notably in terms of specifics such as "structural sensors" and "structural batteries". Google has tens of millions of items on the subject and, more importantly, in 2014, it started to be realised that this is to be something big.

Under the direction of Infineon, 30 partners from 9 European countries commenced the MotorBrain project, funded by the European Union, three years ago.

Thermoelectric harvesting will be on production hybrid electric on-road vehicles from 2018. It will be commonplace on hybrids in 2020 and almost entirely to charge the battery, or increasingly supercapacitor or supercabattery used for power.

A recent pilot project in New York City looked for an intelligent way to charge large numbers of electric delivery trucks at the lowest cost without straining the local grid and infrastructure.

Simple things are being applied to reduce purchase price, increase resale price and extend range of electric cars

GaN Systems Inc, a leading developer of gallium nitride power switching semiconductors, has announced it has signed a distribution agreement with Japanese company Daito Electron to distribute its gallium nitride high power switching transistors in Japan and Korea.

Load bearing structures that are also electronic or electrical are called structural electronics. This two-for-the-price-of-one approach can be more reliable, attractive and long-lived and it always saves space.

A local Indian company has built an electric sports car, Super Nova Electric Vehicle, that can cover 1,000 kilometres with a single charge of its batteries and at the speed of some 150 kms per hour.

Structural electronics is one of the most important developments this century yet most people have never heard of it.

In conjunction with Fjellstrand, a Norwegian shipyard, Siemens has developed the technology for the world's first electrically-powered car ferry. The fact that the electric ship, which will enter service in 2015, causes no carbon dioxide emissions is in part due to the electricity mix in Norway.

IDTechEx are hosting a free webinar on Monday 15 December discussing electric vehicles trends and opportunities.

The second day of this excellent event had a huge number of short presentations in brief slots, a format that worked well.

The successful demonstration of a 1,000W TEG designed for diesel engine exhaust heat recapture.

This two yearly event again had about 400 delegates. Once again it provided a forum for the huge number of European and global EV related organisations with overlapping agendas. Of the hundreds of millions of dollars they spend each year, too much goes on soft topics such as consumer attitudes to car models that will not be with us for long or how cars may form a meaningful part of a smart grid over ten years from now.

The A7 Sportback h tron quattro uses a powerful electric drive with a fuel cell as its energy source, in combination with a hybrid battery and an additional electric motor in the rear.

The White House and U.S. Department of Energy announced private sector commitments to cut carbon pollution and reduce their dependence on foreign oil.

Watching a nearly silent aircraft fly past your bedroom window at night, fuelled by used vegetable oil and batteries is one step closer to becoming a reality thanks to the new UK aviation company, Faradair Aerospace Limited

Attendance was 40% up at the recent IDTechEx event in Santa Clara California with its 200+ exhibitors and nine parallel conferences. Supercapacitors conference and associated Masterclass had a larger attendance and sturdy debate.