LIPA becomes first Utility with EV Rebate program

LIPA-Long Island Power Authority; First Utility that announced the Plug-In Hybrid electric vehicle program

VIDEO: Canada Post EV Ford Transit

Canada Post will start using EVs, the first fleet will only number 10 EV Ford Transits, but it’s a start.

 

Dow Kokam, PVI EV Garbage trucks

Dow Kokam and PVI are partnering on a small fleet of fully electric refuse trucks. The electric truck and its battery system, which will be produced and assembled in France, were unveiled at Pollutec 2010 by PVI and its partner SITA, a subsidiary of Suez Environnement, alongside examples of Dow Kokam’s battery system technology. The 26-ton, zero-emission truck will eliminate 130 tons of CO₂ per truck per year.

First deployment by SITA Île de France of the electric refuse truck is expected to be in Courbevoie, just outside of Paris, by early 2011; a fleet of 11 vehicles will be operating daily before the end of 2011.

<!––>PVI designed the vehicles to achieve comparable performance to conventional refuse trucks with a maximum speed of 70 km/h (43.5 mph) at full payload, with the added benefit of 100% starting torque. Drivers will be able to collect a payload of 16 tons in two rounds of service. The modular plug-in battery pack was also designed to be interchangeable or accommodate a partial recharge between two daily service rounds, thus doubling performance capabilities.

With PVI’s integrated gearbox kinematics, the truck will be able to climb steep inclines with a full payload without impeding urban traffic.

Dow Kokam will supply each truck with a complete battery system containing five strings of seven battery packs (equivalent to 250 kWh), power management capability and the complete battery management system. The battery systems are assembled in France at the production facility of Le Bouchet (Vert-le-Petit, Essonne).

PVI selected Dow Kokam’s large-format, flat-cell battery system because of its 10-year usable life and energy density: 140 Wh/kg of specific energy. The advanced liquid cooled lithium ion battery packs and thermal management of the Dow Kokam system extend the system’s lifetime, and enable the vehicles to be used in very diverse operating temperatures from the far northern areas of Europe to the very south.

The ability to introduce a completely electric truck of this size that doesn’t sacrifice performance or power is due to PVI’s extensive history in vehicle electrification and the selection of Dow Kokam’s advanced lithium polymer battery system technology, which provides ready solutions to meet the high performance needs of working trucks operating daily in urban environments.

—Michel Bouton, CEO of PVI

Electrification of all powertrain elements of the trucks and the mechanical elements for collecting refuse bins allow for significantly reduced noise pollution, zero local emissions and no idling during inactive periods.

PVI specializes in developing and manufacturing small and medium-sized series of industrial vehicles for transport and urban works. Dow Kokam was established in 2009 to develop and manufacture advanced energy storage technologies for the transportation and other industries. The company is owned by The Dow Chemical Company, TK Advanced Battery LLC and Groupe Industriel Marcel Dassault.

 

Hertz adds smart fortwo EVs to rental fleet

The Hertz Corporation and smart USA, a subsidiary of Penske Automotive Group, Inc., are partnering to bring smart fortwo electric drive vehicles to Connect by Hertz car sharing and Hertz Rent A Car locations in New York; Washington, DC; and San Francisco. The vehicle placements are part of the Hertz Global EV program, which will offer a variety of 100% electric and plug-in hybrids to car sharing and rental customers worldwide. The smart fortwo electric drive will be available for rent through Connect by Hertz car sharing in New York City beginning 15 December.

 

Smart-Grid EV market boom

The global vehicle-to-grid market is expected to grow at a breakneck pace, reaching the $2.25 billion mark in 2012 and a whopping $40.4 billion in 2020, according to a new market analysis from GlobalData. The report acknowledges that there are now no hybrid electrics or plug-in EVs capable of delivering power back to the electric grid, but forecasts that explosive growth in the market will be driven by a combination of factors. Those include smart grid deployments andstimulus programs, renewable energy policy, greater environmental awareness on the part of consumers and businesses, higher energy costs, dropping vehicle prices, growing demand for hybrid EVs and more. The report says those factors will spur innovation, cost reduction and accelerated adoption of V2G technology. It also predicts that with the help of government stimulus, smart grid and EV deployments in the U.S., China and Japan will fuel global V2G growth. “The communication between utility, the consumer and the recharge points is an essential aspect of (the) V2G mechanism,” a GlobalData press release said. “Smart grid technology also controls vehicle charging behavior. Developing a workable vehicle-to-grid infrastructure not only depends upon the speed of smart grid implementations, but also the cost of technology to required to support this type of distributed generation and mobile storage program.”

Land Rover Jaguar – Gas turbine electric vehicle project

A consortium led by micro gas turbine company Bladon Jets recently secured investment from the UK Technology Strategy Board to develop an Ultra Lightweight Range Extender (ULRE) for next-generation electric vehicles. Total project cost is £2,206,784, with the TSB providing £1,103,392 (US$1.8 million). (Earlier post.)

The objective of the consortium, which includes luxury car maker Jaguar Land Rover and leading electrical machine company SR Drives (earlier post), is to produce the first commercially viable gas turbine generator designed specifically for automotive applications. Jaguar Land Rover is now part of Tata Motors.

<!––>The ULRE will incorporate a Bladon Jets patented, axial flow gas turbine engine coupled to a high-speed generator utilizing SR Drives’ proprietary switched reluctance technology. Design of the ULRE’s packaging for vehicle integration will be overseen by Jaguar Land Rover, which has earlier organizational experience with automotive turbines; Rover produced a series of gas turbine cars in the 1950s and ‘60s.

Bladon Micro-Jet Engines are 100% axial-flow, gas turbine engines for use in a variety of applications. Key features include:

• High efficiency multistage axial-flow compressor
• Clean burn annular combustion chamber
• High temperature axial flow turbine
• Oil-less carbon-air bearing system
• One moving part

Bladon suggests that in an hybrid vehicle application, with no water-cooling system, oil or catalytic converter, the Micro-Jet engine can provide vehicle weight savings of up to 15%—with a consequent reduction in fuel consumption and carbon emissions—compared to a piston engine. Further environmental benefits will be gained from its fast warm up (a few seconds, as opposed to several minutes for a conventional engine), cleaner combustion and lower manufacturing energy requirements, the company says.

One prototype—the BJ-300-P—weighs 4 lbs, is 4 inches in diameter by 12 inches in length, and delivers 27 lbf (120 N) of thrust. With a speed of 90,000 rpm, the prototype features a 5-stage axial flow compressor and a 1-stage axial flow turbine.

Bladon Jets’ patented manufacturing process enables the production of axial-flow compressors and turbines in smaller sizes than has previously been possible and can be used to bring about improvements in performance, efficiency and reliability of any size of gas-turbine engine or turbo-molecular pump, according to the company. In addition, the process significantly reduces the development time and manufacturing costs for new engines.

One piece integrally-bladed turbine components can be manufactured in virtually any profile, with varying section, edge radii and taper from root to tip and from any metal/alloy (including: aluminium alloys, nickel alloys, stainless steel and aerospace grades of titanium). Improved performance and efficiency is achieved by closer tolerances and reduced hub to tip ratios. Improved reliability is due to stress free machining from solid material and reduced inertial mass.

The basic switched reluctance SR Drive system comprises a simple brushless motor with a dedicated electronic controller. Torque is produced by the magnetic attraction of a steel rotor to stator electromagnets. No permanent magnets are needed, and the rotor carries no “squirrel cage” or windings. Properly designed and controlled, the SR motor can yield high efficiency across a very wide range of load conditions,

The SR Drives Group, which participated in the TIGERS project (earlier post), is based on a single site in Harrogate UK and comprises two operating companies: Switched Reluctance Drives Ltd (SRDL), and SR Drives Manufacturing Ltd (SRDML). Both companies are wholly owned subsidiaries of Emerson Electric Co of St Louis, Missouri—the world’s largest manufacturer of electric motors.

SR Drive has engaged in several hybrid drive projects in the past, including a collaboration with Green Propulsion, a Belgian company, to develop two switched reluctance motor-generators for a hybrid power-train project designed to cut carbon emissions in vehicles such as buses and waste collection vehicles.

Backing for the project was secured in a £15-million funding competition organized by the Technology Strategy Board to support the advancement of the mass adoption of low carbon vehicles and is a key part of its wider program to stimulate technology-enabled innovation and to help boost UK growth and productivity.

ETV Motors. In mid-2009, Israeli startup ETV Motors Ltd. (ETVM) completed a proof-of-concept test of its Range-Extended Electric Vehicle (REEV) architecture using a gas microturbine for the range-extending generator. The company had closed a $12M Series A round in April 2009.

(source:GreenCarCongress)