Electric vehicles

GE will purchase 2,000 Ford C-MAX Energi plug-in hybrids for its fleet - Ford's largest-ever plug-in electrified vehicle fleet sale.

AeroVironment has entered into a strategic relationship with Sweden-based CybAero to develop and distribute a Tier II vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) unmanned aircraft system in response to unmet requirements from multiple customers.

A multi-partner team led by Argonne National Laboratory has been selected for an award of up to $120 million over five years to establish a new Batteries and Energy Storage Hub.

Maxwell Technologies is supplying ultracapacitors for a high-efficiency energy management system that powers multimedia entertainment, lighting and air ventilation systems in the Emirates Air Line, the UK's first urban cable car, carrying passengers across London's River Thames.

The market for electric vehicle inverters, including converters, for both hybrid and pure electric vehicles land, water and air, will grow to $18 billion in 2023 as forecasted in the new IDTechEx report Inverters for Electric Vehicles 2013-2023.

A collaboration between nine research partners from five European countries has sought to develop battery pack design and optimization processes capable of delivering a 20 kWh, 200-400 volt pack with a 15 percent reduction in weight compared with current state-of-the-art systems, while delivering a continuous power rating of 36 kW, and a peak performance of 70 kW for up to 30 seconds.

Lamborghini will incorporate Maxwell ultracapacitors to support a stop-start idle-elimination system in their Aventador cars due to go into production.

Dr Peter Harrop, Chairman IDTechEx reports on the latest EV developments from the European Electric Vehicle Congress held in Brussels recently.

Dow Energy Materials has developed a new phosphate-based battery material, Lithium Manganese Iron Phosphate, which increases energy density by 10 to 15 percent in battery cells.

GM Ventures, the venture capital arm of General Motors Co. created in 2010, has invested for the second time in Proterra, a company that makes a battery-electric, fast-charge bus.

GE's Power Conversion business has signed a contract worth more than $10 million with Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) to provide an auxiliary propulsion system (APS) for the future USS Tripoli (LHA-7), which is the U.S. Navy's latest large-deck amphibious assault ship.

In Brussels, Belgium, on November 19, there was a day devoted to presenting most of the European Union projects on eMobility. This is a term used in Continental Europe to mean what they call Full Electric Vehicles (FEV) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEV), mainly on-road.

For vehicles with battery-electric drive, the use of a range extender appears to be a suitable solution to ensure a range approaching that of a conventional vehicle. The Stuttgart specialist MAHLE Powertrain has developed their own range extender, with flexible mounting position, in just 10 months without the support of an OEM.

KleenSpeed Technologies is set to reveal the "most intelligent car ever conceived" - the KleenSpeed World KAR GT prototype - on Wednesday November 21 in San Francisco.

An innovative energy harvester that has the potential to save millions of dollars in energy costs for railroads while reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

At the GM Electrification Experience, OnStar is showing two new apps to address the possible range anxiety of electric vehicles and the cost of public charging.

UQM Technologies has made a significant breakthrough in the development of non-rare-earth magnet electric motor design as part of the work being done under the Department of Energy (DOE) Advanced Research and Development Grant.

The key enabling technologies of electric vehicles, whether by land, water or air and whether hybrid or pure electric are now at least six in number.

Volvo Car Corporation is testing a new fast-charger for electric cars that cuts recharging time to an outstanding 1.5 hours. The fast-charger operates six times faster than today's on-board devices.

Fuel cells, which convert fuel directly into electricity without burning it, promise a less polluted future where cars run on pure hydrogen and exhaust nothing but water vapor. But the catalysts that make them work are still "sluggish" and worse, expensive.