Today Cleantechnica posted a news scoop that Tesla and GM are working together on a fully electric pickup truck using a Tesla drive train. It’s known that Tesla is working on an electric pickup truck, but we’d all expected Tesla to build their own rather than work with an incumbent…
In an electric car, as soon as your foot lifts off the accelerator pedal the regenerative braking system activates slowing the car down while recovering energy. The extent of this effect varies from car to car, but this is generally the way they work. The effect is similar to engine…
A couple recent materials science breakthroughs could, if they pan out, reduce the need for rare materials in electric cars, reduce their cost, etc. Researchers see rare-earth-like magnetic properties in iron: The issue is the rare earth metals normally required in magnets for electric motors. While Iron can hold a…
Somehow the ZENN/EEStor story is continuing along after several years. A few years ago EEStor claimed it had developed supercapacitor technology that would revolutionize electric vehicles with its magical energy density and storage. The story was so amazing that ZENN, then a maker of low speed electric vehicles, switched their…
Should Ethanol or Fossil Oil be the fuel driving America’s cars and trucks? To me that’s a nonsensical question because the answer is “electricity” and the question doesn’t even ask about that fuel. However, a report on NPR’s All Things Considered yesterday talked about “Two large industries — agriculture and…
Audi A3 e-tron electric car Audi has had on-again-off-again plans for electric vehicles. They also, like parent company Volkswagen, really like turbo-charged diesel (TDI) engines. Both Audi and VW claim that TDI diesel engines produce dramatically less emissions than regular diesel. Given that traditional Diesel engines produce the larger particulate…
Toyota’s Chairman, Takeshi Uchiyamada, all but confirmed my suspicion from a few weeks ago – Toyota is planning to stick with Hybrid technology and wait for the next generation of battery technology, or fuel cells, before making a big push in vehicle electrification. Speaking last week at the Economic Club…
Tesla Motors recently filed for a patent on a hybrid battery pack design that enables joining metal-air and lithium-ion battery cells into one battery pack, to implement a much larger total energy capacity and therefore a longer driving range. The idea is “just” a patent at this moment, and metal-air…
Could the Protean hub motor (a.k.a. in-wheel electric drive system) be more significant than I’d thought. They’re at the SAE World Congress this week showing the production version of their in-wheel drive system, and the specs are catching my attention in a big way. And the simplicity of integrating their…
Last weekend I had the chance to meet Ford’s Director for Sustainability at the SF Green Festival. Ford had a big presence offering test rides of the range of electrified vehicles as well as have a large booth in the center of the show. The SF Green Festival is a…
Ford (and other automakers) envision future cars with high tech infotainment systems galore where car dashboards could have downloadable app’s just like todays smart phones and tablets. With the OpenXC platform Ford is creating a channel for open collaboration with 3rd party application developers, allowing them to use cars like the Ford Focus to prototype their…
Among 37 projects awarded, on Oct 26, 2009, $151 million in Department of Energy grants is one aimed to develop new high energy magnet technology. As noted in earlier reporting advanced technology vehicles rely on electric motors using powerful rare earth magnets (see Oil scarcity leads us to electric cars…
Honda CEO Outlines Three-Year Powertrain Technology and Fuel Economy Targets: This is an article summarizing a presentation by Honda’s CEO concerning their plans for further fuel efficiency gains. For whatever it’s worth, it shows they (Honda) have a lot of positive focus on fuel efficiency and the “emissions” problem. (Have…
