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Daimler is currently systematically preparing for series production of the Mercedes-Benz GLC F-CELL; the company had shown preproduction models of the hydrogen fuel cell SUV at the IAA International Motor Show in Frankfurt last September ( Earlier post.). The plug-in hybrid SUV will be produced at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Bremen. Mercedes’ partner EDAG supports the plant with respect to integration of the drive system, and is located in the immediate vicinity of the plant.
Very few automakers these days build concept cars just for fun, and only occasionally are they pure styling concepts intended to showcase future design language. So when the BMW i Vision Dynamics Concept emerged onto the auto-show circuit last fall, it seemed obvious it previewed a future production model. Especially since, as many observers.
Toyota unveiled a prototype hybrid flexible-fuel vehicle (Hybrid FFV) during an event Toyota held São Paulo, Brazil. Stakeholders including the state government, universities, and the sugarcane association (the Sugarcane Industry Union: UNICA) attended the event. The prototype is the combination of a flexible-fuel vehicle (FFV) that can be powered by both gasoline and alternative fuels such as ethanol, and Toyota’s hybrid system.
The main impediment to mass electric-car adoption is price, and the driving force behind that is the cost of lithium-ion battery cells. The performance of those cells improves at about 7 percent a year, give or take: Either the same cell costs 7 percent less after a year, or a carmaker gets 7 percent more energy capacity for the same price. Those.
Air quality in major cities is a critical issue, especially with regard to road traffic and residents’ health. However, emissions do not just remain in conurbations; particles and gaseous pollutants can be transported thousands of kilometers by the wind. This scenario is particularly relevant in Asia, home to the world’s largest concentration of megacities.
“The Tesla Model S was a moment. The Model 3 is a product.” That pair of sentences perfectly summarized the several hours we spent last month with the 2018 Tesla Model 3 kindly loaned to us by reader Jeff Southern of Atlanta. We’d covered more than 100 miles on a variety of highways, back roads, and suburban stop-and-go.
Researchers from Enerkem and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have succeeded in producing a new high-performance biofuel that could improve the octane rating of fuels sold on the market and reduce their carbon footprint. The new fuel has a Research Octane Number (RON) of up to 112. In a paper presented at the 255 th National Meeting of the ACS, the team described an innovative integrated process to convert renewable and recycled carbon into High Octane Low Carbon Gasoline blends.
Volkswagen has developed and deployed a gasoline engine that offers diesel-like fuel economy but is significantly cheaper to buy. Currently applied in the new Golf and Golf Variant ( earlier post ), the 1.5 TSI ACT BlueMotion delivers 96 kW / 130 PS with combined fuel consumption of 4.8 l/100 km (49 mpg US). The NEDC extra-urban figure drops as low as 4.0 l/100 km/h (59 mpg US).
UK-based ULEMCo—a spin-out from Revolve Technologies focused on conversions of diesel vehicles to hydrogen dual fuel operation—has collaborated with Aberdeen City Council (ACC) to deliver the first hydrogen dual fuel road sweeper. The vehicles will use hydrogen fuel for around a third of the energy used to drive and operate the vehicles.
A team at the University of Waterloo has developed a novel variable valve actuation (VVA) system, optimized to pursue minimum energy consumption and minimum sensitivity of the valve lift to cycle-to-cycle variations of engine pressure. The product of a decade of research, this patented system could improve fuel efficiency by more than 10%, said Amir Khajepour, a professor of mechanical and mechatronics engineering at Waterloo.
By studying and comparing the workhorse cellulose-degrading enzymes (cellobiohydrolases) of two fungi, researchers from the Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have pinpointed regions on these enzymes that can be targeted via genetic engineering to help break down cellulose faster. A newly published open-access paper in Nature Communications describes NREL’s long-running study of the fungal CBHs—enzymes that use hydrolysis as their main chemistry to degrade cell
As Faurecia’s NAFILean (natural fiber for injection) lightweight hemp-based biomaterials are increasingly adopted by OEMs, the company has developed new figures showing the significant energy and environmental benefits of the biomaterials. NAFILean integrates a natural, hemp-based fiber with polypropylene and allows for complex shapes and architectures along with weight reduction.
SEAT, a member of the Volkswagen Group, will introduce its first fully electric vehicle in 2020. Built on the Volkswagen Group’s MEB platform, the new EV will feature a range of 500 km (311 miles). The EV launch comes as part of a product offensive, in which SEAT will launch one new car every six months until 2020. The first two vehicles will be the SEAT Tarraco and the CUPRA Ateca, which are going on sale at the end of 2018.
Volkswagen held the world premiere of its new, third-generation Touareg SUV in China—its largest market. Worldwide sales of the previous two generations amount to nearly one million units; the largest markets for the new Touareg—which serves as a technology flagship for the automaker—are China, Europe and Russia. Volkswagen will be offering the Touareg with a new plug-in hybrid drive (270 kW/367 PS system power) in China initially.
Ballard Power Systems has signed a contract with CALSTART for a Ballard 30 kW FCveloCity-MD fuel cell module to be used in a trial and development program involving UPS Class-6 delivery vans operating in California’s South Coast Air Basin, including much of the Greater Los Angeles area. Funding for the project is being provided by the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) as part of its efforts to reduce harmful air pollution.
Subaru is using NI (National Instruments) hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) technology to simulate actual road conditions for electric vehicle testing, eliminating environmental factors to reduce test time and costs. Traditionally, engineers have conducted vehicle tests using finished cars on test courses or public roads to check the vehicle’s performance and safety response.
Nissan is aiming to sell 1 million electrified vehicles—either pure electric models or those with e-POWER ( earlier post ) electric powertrains—annually by fiscal year 2022. The target is part of the new Nissan M.O.V.E. to 2022 midterm plan. As part of Nissan M.O.V.E. to 2022 , the company also intends to: Develop eight new pure electric vehicles, building on the success of the new Nissan LEAF.
Mahindra Group and Ford Motor Company will jointly develop new SUVs, and a small electric vehicle as part of several initiatives announced between the two companies. The two companies signed five new memoranda of understanding (MoU) that further strengthen their strategic alliance and accelerate the development of key products for consumers in India and emerging markets.
Major automotive suppliers see current national fuel economy standards as a boon for company job growth and industry investment and don’t want to see them altered by policymakers, according to the findings of an annual survey commissioned by CALSTART, an automotive technology industry group. The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to complete its review of the standards and make an annoucement about their appropriateness at the end of the month. 76% of the survey respondents said the cur
Neste has started up the world’s first large-scale renewable propane production facility in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. The first cargo of renewable propane has been delivered to SHV Energy, which will market and sell the product to its customers across Europe as BioLPG. Neste’s new facility has a production capacity of 40,000 tonnes per year; SHV Energy will be the exclusive distributor, supplying 160,000 tonnes over four years. ( Earlier post.).
Volkswagen has named its latest motorsport project the I.D. R Pikes Peak. This all-electric prototype racing car will compete in the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb on 24 June in Colorado. The four-wheel-drive racing car points to the sporting potential of the I.D. family of all-electric vehicles and is also the first step towards a closer relationship between Volkswagen R and Volkswagen Motorsport.
New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced that more than 5,750 consumers have received rebates to buy electric cars in New York since the State’s Drive Clean Rebate was launched one year ago. ( Earlier post.) The initiative provides residents with a rebate of up to $2,000 for the purchase or lease of a new electric car from participating dealers. Overall, most consumers received rebates of at least $1,100 for their new electric cars.
Daimler Trucks has handed over the first all-electric FUSO eCanter trucks to customers in Great Britain. The company is thus bringing its electric light-duty truck (7.5 tonnes) to a further major market following the market launches in New York, Tokyo and Berlin. In London Daimler handed over the FUSO eCanter vehicles to the courier service DPD; the logistics company Wincanton; and the baked goods manufacturer Hovis.
The current decline is ales of diesel light duty vehicle in Europe does not put EU CO 2 targets out of reach of automakers, according to a new analysis by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT). Other technologies—such as efficiency improvements in gasoline engines as well as the rollout of hybrid electric power trains—offer more compelling and cost-effective pathways to reducing CO 2 emissions from European passenger cars, the ICCT says.
In proportion to its population, the Nordic region—Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden—is strikingly ahead of the rest of the world in adopting electric cars. With almost 250,000 electric cars at the end of 2017, the five countries account for roughly 8% of the total number of electric cars around the world. Norway, Iceland and Sweden have the highest ratios of EVs per person, globally.
Researchers at Georgia Tech, with colleagues in China and Saudi Arabia, have developed a rationally designed, multi-phase catalyst that significantly enhances the kinetics of oxygen reduction of the state-of-the-art solid oxide fuel cell cathode. The catalyst is also readily applicable to other energy storage and conversion systems, including metal-air batteries, supercapacitors, electrolyzers, dye-sensitized solar cells, and photocatalysis.
California can reduce carbon emissions by more than 70 million metric tons by 2030—akin to taking 15 million gasoline-powered cars off the road in one year—by adopting a higher target for its Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS), according to an analysis released by the UK-based research firm Cerulogy. The analysis “California’s Clean Fuel Future: Assessing Achievable Fuel Carbon Intensity Reductions Through 2030,” was commissioned by Ceres, NextGen America, and the Union of Concerned Sci
Developers from Bosch and scientists at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) are using neutron imaging to analyze the filling of lithium-ion batteries for hybrid cars with electrolytes. Their experiments, reported in the Journal of Power Sources , show that electrodes are wetted twice as fast in a vacuum as under normal pressure. Filling of a lithium-ion cell under vacuum: The wetting of the electrode (dark area) proceeds evenly from all sides.
Air Products signed an agreement with state-owned Shenhua New Energy Co. Ltd. (New Energy), a subsidiary of China’s energy conglomerate China Energy Investment Group Co., Ltd. (China Energy), to provide two hydrogen dispensers to China Energy’s first commercial hydrogen fueling station project in Rugao City of Jiangsu Province, eastern China. Air Products’ SmartFuel hydrogen dispenser will be supplied for the project for fueling the hydrogen fuel cell powered vehicles.
Rolls-Royce has signed a collaboration agreement with UK-based technology start-up Superdielectrics Ltd to explore the potential of using novel hydrophilic polymers to create next-generation high-energy storage technology. Superdielectrics Ltd is a material research company that has discovered, in self-funded research with the Universities of Surrey and Bristol, a new group of polymeric superdielectrics.
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