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In a paper presented at SAE WCX 2017 this week in Detroit, engineers at Li-ion battery maker A123 Systems conclude that 48V battery packs with strong power (up to ~25 kW) and HEV-level energy capabilities (<200Wh for most scenarios) are needed to enable advanced mild hybird (MHEV) capabilities, with optimal power-to-energy ratios between 30 and 160.
No vehicle on earth is entirely free of emissions; even electric cars charged on renewable energy have emissions associated with their manufacturing. Those emissions, however, are a tiny fraction of the carbon dioxide and other substances emitted by gasoline or diesel cars when scientifically assessed on a "wells to wheels" basis. This is well.
To combat injuries and fatalities from auto collisions, Orange County Sheriff’s Department in California set out to change its safety culture through a traffic safety initiative.
by Dwayne Purvis for Oilprice.com. Notwithstanding that oil demand has increased for over 150 years, it will eventually stop increasing. If oil demand were to reach an actual peak, then the top might be easier to predict. As it stands, the forecast models of demand are likely predicting peak demand far later than it will be. The so-called balance of supply and demand has always been a moving target, a race to the top in which the two run neck and neck.
Some are almost unnoticeable, others make the car shudder each time they activate—but start-stop systems are here to stay. First rolled out in Europe and Asia, where crowded city driving requires cars to spend more time at a standstill, they switch off the engine when the car's not moving. When the driver starts to lift a foot off the brake.
The F-650/F-750 lineup includes Regular Cab, SuperCab, and Crew Cab body styles, as well as straight-frame, kick-up frame Pro Loader, and a dedicated tractor model for special towing applications.
The F-650/F-750 lineup includes Regular Cab, SuperCab, and Crew Cab body styles, as well as straight-frame, kick-up frame Pro Loader, and a dedicated tractor model for special towing applications.
A international team of researchers has emulated biological systems and designed multi-scale macro–meso–microporous materials which offer a unique performance boost for applications benefitting from highly enhanced mass transfer and exchange. Examples include photocatalysis, gas sensing and as Li-ion battery electrodes. An open access paper on their work is published in the journal Nature Communications.
If plug-in electric cars and trucks receive purchase incentives from national and state governments, what about electric bicycles? That's just what a recent report from the European Cyclists Federation suggests. It recommends directing purchase incentives and infrastructure subsidies towards electrically assisted bicycles, known as e-bikes.
The Government of Canada is awarding $1,625,000 in funding for the construction of two public hydrogen stations in the Greater Toronto Area to support a new Canadian market for fuel-cell vehicles. The project proponent, Hydrogenics Corporation, is a Canadian company that has been involved since 2000 in more than 50 hydrogen refueling station projects around the world.
The Extra 330LE aerobatic plane, powered by a propulsion system from Siemens ( earlier post ), set two new speed records. At the Dinslaken Schwarze Heide airfield in Germany, the electric aircraft reached a top speed of around 337.50 km/h (209.7 mph) over a distance of three kilometers. The speed achieved by pilot Walter Extra was 13.48 km/h faster than the previous record, which had been set by US pilot William M.
In Shanghai, Ford Motor Company outlined an ambitious vehicle electrification strategy for the China market, confirming two new electrified vehicles for China and a broad range of electrified vehicles by 2025. The Mondeo Energi, to be launched in early 2018, will be the first plug-in hybrid to be manufactured by the Changan Ford JV. Ford also confirmed plans to bring an all-new fully electric small SUV to China within five years; the electric SUV will feature a range of up to 450 km (279 miles)
For the next generation of the Audi A8, an intelligent mix of four materials—aluminum, steel, magnesium and carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP)—is being used for the first time in the weight-bearing body structure—more materials than in any of the brand’s previous production models. The resulting low weight and impressive rigidity—the upcoming flagship’s torsional rigidity surpasses the predecessor model’s rigidity value by up to 24%—from the multi-material const
A Saab Gripen fighter has for the first time undergone a series of test flights with 100% biofuel. This demonstrates that the aircraft can be flown entirely with an alternative fuel and gives valuable knowledge for future possible use of alternative fuel. The tested fuel—Catalytic Hydrothermal Conversion Jet fuel (CHCJ-5)—was made from rapeseed oil.
Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) has designed and manufactured two advanced single-cylinder engines for combustion research and development. The engines, one for light- and medium-duty applications and one for heavy-duty applications, can accommodate either multi-cylinder or single-cylinder heads through a custom cylinder barrel and head support shelf.
Ford is exploring a variety of “beyond Li-ion” solutions, including Lithium-sulfur, Lithium-air and solid-state lithium-ion batteries. Of those, Ford is currently favoring a solid-state solution for several reasons, among them the better volumetric energy density this approach offers, said Ford engineer Venkat Anandan in a presentation at SAE WCX 17 in Detroit this week.
Volvo Cars is urging governments and car makers to share traffic data in order to improve global traffic safety, Håkan Samuelsson, president and chief executive, told a conference at the European Commission in Brussels on Monday. Sharing anonymized data related to traffic safety in real-time can provide a strong boost to overall traffic safety while safeguarding the privacy of individual road users, Samuelsson said.
Efficient Drivetrains has delivered the first of six plug-in-hybrid electric armored vehicles to Sectran Security. The industry-first Class-6 International brand armored truck was the first delivery from the company’s newly expanded Dixon, California hybrid and electric vehicle center of excellence. The vehicle program is a collaboration between Efficient Drivetrains and North American Repower , California’s leading natural gas engine management and conversion technology company.
At WCX 17: SAE World Congress Experience, SAE International and General Motors announced the eight North American universities which will compete in the upcoming AutoDrive Challenge. This new autonomous vehicle design competition is a three-year challenge to develop and demonstrate a fully autonomous passenger vehicle. The competition’s technical goal is navigating an urban driving course in an automated driving mode as described by SAE Standard (J3016) level 4 definition by Year 3.
Renesas Electronics announced new software packages for the R-Car automotive computing platform to improve security and safety capabilities for next-generation connected cars. The software packages implement embedded optimized virtualization technology that enables embedded systems to have—in a single system—security features that protect the car from external threats, and functional safety features that assure continued safe operation even in the event of failures.
Startup Zunum Aero, founded in 2013, is developing regional hybrid-electric aircraft for the early 2020s. Zunum is targeting 700 miles of range at launch to more than 1,000 miles by 2030. Zunum Aero intends for its 10- to 50-seat aircraft to enable frequent service to the nation’s network of more than 5,000 underutilized regional and general aviation airports.
Consumption of motor gasoline in the US hit an all-time high in 2016, reaching 9.327 million barrels per day, up 1.6% from 2015 and exceeding the prior peak of 9.286 million barrels per day in 2007, according to revised figures in the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) Monthly Energy Review. Early in 2016, EIA had projected that US gasoline consumption would remain below the 2007 peak despite an increase in travel, attributing that expected outcome largely to improvements in light-duty v
Platts RigData, a forecasting and analytics unit of S&P Global Platts, announced that the US rig count for March 2017 was 901, up 67 (8%) from February 2017, and up 391 (77%) from March 2016. This rig count includes US onshore, US inland waters, and US offshore Gulf of Mexico drilling rigs. The March US land rig count was 852, up 61 from the previous month and up 399 (+81%) from March 2016.
Within the Volkswagen Group, Porsche AG and AUDI AG now plan to cooperate more closely on future vehicle architectures, with a particular focus on electrification, digitization and autonomous driving. Brands within the Volkswagen Group have been rolling out modular component matrices, or assembly toolkits, for their light-duty vehicles over the past few years.
Bosch and Daimler are collaborating to advance the development of fully automated and driverless driving. The two companies have entered into a development agreement to bring fully automated (SAE Level 4) and driverless (SAE Level 5) driving to urban roads by the beginning of the next decade. The objective is to develop software and algorithms for an autonomous driving system.
Continental is developing a new system called Road Condition Observer that uses vehicle sensors and cloud data to classify a road surface as dry, wet, covered with snow or icy and to assess the grip of the road surface. This knowledge, in turn, allows the vehicle to adjust the functions of advanced driver assistance systems to the actual road conditions, said Bernd Hartmann, Head of the Enhanced ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) & Tire Interactions project group within the Advanced Engin
Butamax Advanced Biofuels LLC, a 50/50 joint venture between BP and DuPont, acquired Nesika Energy, LLC and its ethanol facility in Scandia, Kansas. Butamax will now start the detailed engineering work to add bio-isobutanol capacity to the facility, while continuing to produce ethanol before and after adding this capacity. Butamax plans to license its proprietary bio-isobutanol technology beyond this first facility on a global scale.
Ballard Power Systems closed the transaction announced in February 2017 relating to technology transfer, licensing and supply arrangements with strategic partner Zhongshan Broad-Ocean Motor Co., Ltd. for the assembly and sale of FCveloCity 30-kilowatt (kW) and 85kW fuel cell systems in China. In each of the three assembly operation locations, Broad-Ocean plans to engage with local governments as well as with bus and commercial vehicle OEMs for deployment of fuel cell buses and commercial vehicle
PSA Group is beginning operations in the US with the introduction of carsharing services in Los Angeles. The progressive entry into North America is a 10-year project within the “Push to Pass” plan of the Group. The first launch of mobility services in North America is through Free2Move, PSA Group’s mobility brand and its partner Travelcar, a start-up founded in 2012.
The average fuel economy (window-sticker value) of new vehicles sold in the US in March was 25.2 mpg (9.33 l/100 km)—up 0.1 mpg from the value for February, according to the monthly report from Dr. Michael Sivak and Brandon Schoettle at University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI). The value for March is up 5.1 mpg since October 2007 (the first month of their monitoring), but down 0.3 mpg from the peak of 25.5 mpg reached in August 2014.
The Netherlands-based Fastned, the company building a European network of fast charging stations, saw its first two stations break-even in March. This means that the operating expenses, such as the purchase of power, grid connection fees, licence costs, land lease, cleaning and maintenance costs were covered by the revenues generated at those stations.
BMW i Ventures has invested in Bus.com, formerly ShareTheBus, an emerging startup that removes the complexity of renting a bus and coordinating group transportation anywhere in the US and Canada, and is set on revitalizing the outdated charter bus space. bus.com offers instant online bus rental, GPS bus tracking, passenger management tools, online ticketing, and more.
Eberspaecher catem is starting production of the third generation of its high-voltage PTC (Positive Temperature Coefficient) heaters. The new solution, designed specially for hybrid and electric vehicles, delivers significantly higher heat output despite a lighter weight. Improved heat transfer between the PTC elements and coolant, together with the in-house developed electronic control unit, provide more efficient energy and heat management.
by Viktor Katona for Oilprice.com. On a global level, 2015 and 2016 marked the lowest level of new conventional oil discoveries since 1952. In 2016, only 3.7 billion barrels of conventional oil were discovered, roughly 45 days of global crude consumption or 0.2 percent of global proved reserves. Globally, exploratory drilling fell by almost 20 percent in 2015 and fell even further in 2016.
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