Electric vehicles

Nissan wins a coup over Toyota as Sydney's city government replaces a fleet of Prius's with 10 Nissan Leafs for use by city employees in duties around town.

Green Automotive Company having recently acquired Liberty Electric Cars Ltd in Europe, has signed a binding agreement to buy UK-based electric vehicle distributor Going Green Limited.

Researchers at USC have developed a new lithium-ion battery design that uses porous silicon nanoparticles in place of the traditional graphite anodes to provide superior performance.

The EnerSys and Ioxus' cooperation will focus on creating products to address regenerative braking and energy recovery in the material handling markets, and other major markets, including the UPS bridge to generator markets, the automotive and heavy truck critical and cold start markets, and the energy storage/power conditioning markets.

UQM Technologies' electric motors and controllers are at the heart of the new ReGen Nautic E180 all-electric outboard motor introduced this week at the Dusseldorf Boat Show. This is in addition to series-hybrid electric systems that ReGen Nautic has developed for yachts, trawlers, and sailboats over 50 feet using UQM® components.

The ink is still drying on an agreement between Florida State University and Tallahassee-based General Capacitor LLC for the development of a new supercapacitor technology destined to play a major role in the world's future energy usage and storage needs.

Supercapacitors (ultracapacitors) are now center stage for designers of electronics and particularly power circuits. This is because they are improving faster than the batteries and electrolytic capacitors they increasingly replace. More subtly, they reduce the need for and danger from lithium-ion batteries. For example, when placed across a rechargeable battery, they protect it from fast charging and discharging and allow more of the energy in the battery to be utilised. Learn more ...

Panasonic Corporation has developed a 12V Energy Recovery System for idle-stop vehicles that uses nickel metal hydride (Ni-MH) batteries for automobiles. This system allows the energy generated during braking to be stored in the batteries and use the stored energy to power the vehicle's electrical components, thus ensuring power availability even when the engine is not being used.

A ground breaking project to ensure the UK is well positioned for the commercial roll-out of hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles has been launched.

Large format batteries such as those used in electric vehicles, aircraft, grid storage or uninterrupted power supplies are more difficult to design for safety than cell phone or laptop batteries because each cell holds much more energy.

Nissan has outlined its strategy for tripling the current electric vehicle quick-charging infrastructure in the United States with the addition of at least 500 quick-charging stations in the next 18 months, including the greater Washington D.C. area's first fast-charge network.

An enhanced battery technology that can potentially reduce the time it takes to charge cell phones, electric vehicles and other battery-powered devices from hours to minutes is the subject of a commercial license agreement between Battelle and Vorbeck Materials Corp.

UQM Technologies, a developer of alternative energy technologies, recorded a net loss of $4.6m for the quarter ending December 31, 2012.

General Motors will invest $200 million into its Global Powertrain Engineering Headquarters to build a new 138,000 sq.-ft. test wing, which is expected to be completed during the second half of 2014.

In this article, we look at other aspects of what will and will not happen with electric vehicles land, water and air in 2013, whether they are hybrid or pure electric.

The hybrid and pure electric vehicle business will continue to prosper in 2013, with profits and growth the norm in most sectors. Laws will proliferate that make electric vehicles the only way to go.

Daimler AG, Ford Motor Company and Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., have signed a unique three-way agreement to accelerate the commercialization of fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) technology.

Turkish local authorities have, in recent years, promoted and fostered electrical mobility in their city centres to address safety and accessibility issues.

Scandlines, the Danish-German ferry company, plan to develop a ferry servicing a short, 100km route between the two countries, which would be powered by wind.

IDTechEx has been proved right in forecasting considerable growth in industrial and commercial electric vehicles, notably in the sectors of light industrial, buses and outdoor forklifts. The sector will pass the ten billion dollars mark as early as 2015 Both hybrid and pure electric versions of these are in demand and there is none of the nervousness about lithium-ion batteries that we see in the air industry, which, for special air-related reasons, has many magnitudes greater failure rates including fires.