New Law helps Bollore deploy 16,000 charging points in France

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13FEB2015
Renault-Nissan Alliance Team
New law helps Bollore deploy 16,000 electric vehicle charging stations across France Source: Renault Nissan Alliance
France’s Bolloré Group has won government approval to deploy a network of 16,000 charging points across France, benefiting from a new law that cuts costs for EV initiatives. Bolloré will invest an estimated sum of 150 million euros in the project, which is expected to be completed by 2019.

The network will cover all of France’s 22 regions and 94 of its 101 administrative départements. As such, the French government has deemed the project to be on a “national scale,” allowing Bolloré to be exonerated of the usual fees relating to the use of public land. This exemption is part of a law passed at the end of 2014 that aims to encourage EV adoption in France.

Bolloré is already a prominent player in the French EV market and has…

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Electric Vehicle i-MiEV coming to dealers in March!

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Mitsubishi Motors North America, Inc. (MMNA) today announced specifications and pricing for the 2016 i-MiEV—a 100 percent electric-powered vehicle—which will arrive at Mitsubishi dealers across the United States in late March 2015.

With an MSRP of only $22,995*, the technologically advanced i-MiEV is the most affordably-priced electric vehicle (EV) available in America today, and after factoring in the Federal tax credit of $7,500, the net starting MSRP is reduced to $15,495**.

Despite its affordable price point, the 2016 Mitsubishi i-MiEV comes equipped with a variety of welcome standard features such as heated driver and front passenger seats, remote keyless entry and heated side mirrors.

The i-MiEV also features a comprehensive vehicle warranty that includes a fully-transferable 8-year/100,000-mile limited warranty for the lithium-ion main drive battery pack and a 5-year/60,000-mile powertrain limited warranty.

“Mitsubishi Motors is committed to developing EV and PHEV technologies,” said MMNA Executive Vice President, Don Swearingen. “The…

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Chevrolet Spark EV Test Results

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What a powerful 85-100 mile electric car created by Chevrolet. The Spark EV was bigger in torque and range than its physical size. What a fast and tough little monster. Here’s an excerpt of my review on Autos.Answers.com

To start, it’s important to note that an All Electric Car usually has 100 percent torque at zero rpm. Yet some electric case compromise on acceleration and durability. This is the electric car that does not compromise.

How these 80 Plus Miles Are Powerful
The Chevy Spark electric car performs like a 1957 Chevy. The acceleration from 0-60 mph is less than 8 seconds. After the car hits 60 miles per hour, the acceleration rate even increases. This is the performance that one gets for a $20,000 car without the oil, gas or spark plugs to maintain.

After test driving the Chevy Spark for a week, there was no question that it…

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First zero-emission taxi tested in London

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The first fleet of zero-emission cabs has started ferrying passengers in London as part of a trial.
Developed by Surrey-based Frazer-Nash, the new Metrocab was licensed by Transport of London earlier this month, becoming the first zero-emission enabled taxi to serve in the UK capital.

The first zero-emission taxi is being trialled in London 

“We have been developing the new Metrocab for ten years now, with over a million miles of powertrain testing completed,” said the company’s Regional Operations Director Gordon Dixon.

“I’m so proud that it has been licensed by Transport for London to operate on a trial basis as a London Hackney Carriage.”

The car is propelled by an electric motor with an auxiliary small petrol-powered engine as a range-extender. The petrol engine never powers the wheels but can be switched on whenever required to recharge the car’s battery, effectively removing the range anxiety.

Metrocab says…

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Nissan is first car maker to apply glow-in-the-dark car paint

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• EV pioneer Nissan is first manufacturer to partner with similarly innovative inventor to create paint that uses UV energy absorbed during daylight to glow at night
• Increasing numbers of LEAF owners expanding sustainability efforts by installing solar panels to their homes
• Video showing glow-in-the-dark car launched athttp://youtu.be/nKj2sEpg1xg

Nissan has become the first manufacturer to apply glow-in-the-dark car paint to showcase how its market-leading, all-electric LEAF is helping more and more people convert to solar energy at home.

The manufacturer worked with inventor, Hamish Scott, creator of STARPATH, which is a spray-applied coating that absorbs UV energy during the day so that it glows for between eight and 10 hours when the sun goes down.

While glowing car paint is already available, as are glow-in-the-dark car wraps, the bespoke, ultraviolet-energised paint created especially for Nissan is unique thanks to its secret formula made up of entirely organic materials. It contains…

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ABB supplying Kia with fast charging infrastructure to support new Soul EV

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Fast charging technology both a range enabler for drivers, and a sales enabler for automakers

Kia Motors America has selected ABB to provide DC fast chargers to its dealer network to support the launch of the Soul EV model, hitting roads later this year. The chargers will be Terra 53 50kW models that accommodate Kia’s CHAdeMO fast charging inlet, capable of charging the new vehicle in 15-30 minutes.

The latest all-electric model to arrive in North America, Kia’s Soul EV is built with a 27kWh battery, yielding a range of approximately 80-100 miles on a full charge. Kia dealers with ABB’s charging stations will offer charging at no cost to Soul EV owners, with the first wave of stations populating dealer locations along the west coast.

“The Soul EV is a key vehicle within Kia’s ‘Clean Mobility’ program, and having access to Level 2 and DC fast chargers at our…

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Finland Testing all Electric Buses with VTT

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Demanding piloting in Helsinki

Helsinki Region Transport and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd will launch an extensive joint pilot to introduce highly efficient light-weight electric buses. Buses have technology to charge their batteries in operation, in the capital region. Helsinki region with its demanding climatic conditions is an excellent test platform. This is the first extensive pre-commercial pilot project enabling a new mode of operation and service piloting in demanding conditions. The first buses, acquired from Linkker Ltd, will be in service by late summer.

Helsinki Region Transport (HSL) will purchase 12 electric buses from Linkker, the first of them built individually in Linkker’s own production facilities. Linkker was founded about a year ago as a spin-off of the eBus project coordinated by VTT.

“We made an exception and bought the buses ourselves, because it would have been unreasonable to have a transport operator shoulder the technology…

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FRENCH DRIVERS OFFERED 10,000 EURO BONUS FOR SWITCHING TO EVS | BLOG OF RENAULT NISSAN ALLIANCE

Source: Renault-Nissan Alliance Team

Here’s an interesting program folks. In France, drivers with old diesel cars are being given up to 10k Euros; thanks to the French government.

This rebate program is like the US cash for clunkers but even better. This program can get you into an EV instead!!

So those older diesel engines that don’t meet new emission standards produce extremely high levels of pollution; you know soot and all that nasty stuff versus the new TDI or diesel cars that are much cleaner.

However, nothing is ever better than an electric car so this “new scheme” is to get the old diesel clunkers off roads and get those drivers into much cleaner and greener cars.

From April, anyone with a diesel car that is at least 13 years old is invited to scrap their existing vehicle and swap it for an EV in exchange for a “super bonus” of 10,000 euros. The only condition is that they must live in one of France’s PPA zones, which designate high pollution areas and concern almost half of French residents.

The 10,000 euro bonus is actually the result of combining two financial incentives: the existing environmental bonus of 6,300 euros for purchasing a new EV and the new bonus of 3,700 euros for scrapping an old diesel car. If drivers prefer to replace their diesel vehicle with a rechargeable hybrid, their total bonus will be up to 6,500 euros.

In order to further encourage drivers to adopt EVs, the French government announced the installation of seven million new charging points across the country. It will also become a legal requirement to supply charging stations in car parks, train stations, supermarkets and airports.

Build Your Own Electric Vehicle Goes Italy with Valerio Vannucci

A reader of the book in Italy named Velero Vanucci was confused on some parts of the book’s Third Edition. After several posts, Velero got it and was so excited he started his own website on the electric vehicle conversion. We are officially starting the open source project for the realization of the universal conversion kit of a traditional car in an electric vehicle. Several weeks have past since we have launched our website and finally I am posting the first part of the project.

As anticipated in my May 17, 2014 post, iaiaGi is based on designed guidelines described in Seth Leitman and Bob Brandt’s book (Build your Own Electric Vehicle – Third Edition). I have spent the past weeks to study, translate and adapt the entire process of mechanical dimensioning of the chosen car to electric. I have in fact based my choices on the following considerations:

The iaiaGi project aims to reduce production costs of an electric car. For this to be possible, I have chosen to convert the car instead of projecting an entire new electric vehicle. I have also chosen to release the present project from patents, in order to permit everyone to offer their contribution with ideas, improvements and optimizations.

Lower costs means also the possibility to contact a market of potential buyers who are interested in moving towards a zero emission vehicle, without having to take out a bank loan. In this way, the project will be directed initially to treat the conversion of subcompact and compact cars. The codenames for the conversion kit will be Kevin for the subcompact cars and Roxanne for the compact cars.

The first document of the project will cover Kevin, so subcompact cars. As reference I have chosen the Renault Modus 1.5 dCi 2004 that my wife and I drive daily. This vehicle will help me with the construction of the first prototype using the kit (my wife has authorized me to disassemble her car).
This said, let’s begin a rough description of mechanical dimensioning of that part of the project regarding iaiaGi Kevin. You will find part 1.0 of the document here. Inside the iaiaGi repository on GitHub, in addition to the Read me and License files, you will find the folder Projects; inside this folder you will find another folder named Kevin that contains an Excel spreadsheet named “iaiagi_prj_kevin_v1.0_20140702.xlsx”.

The Excel file is basically a design tool divided into sheets. Each sheet contains information about a particular aspect of the mechanical design process of the kit:

Equations: This table contains all the physics formulas used to design the kit along with dimensional analysis of each of them.

Constants: List of physical constants.

Measurement Units: Table for converting units of measurement from the American system to the International System and vice versa.
Acceleration Force: normalized tables for the estimation of the forces in play during the acceleration phase relatively to the gear ratio used.
Hill-Climbing Force: normalized tables for the estimation of the forces in play in relation to the slope of the terrain.

Ev Conv. Weights Compared: example of weight distribution before and after the conversion to electric for a vehicle weight of 3000 lb (in this example the information is related to the American Ford Ranger pickup).
Coefficient of Drag: tables and graphs for the estimation of various types of resistance to which is normally subject a land motor vehicle.
Drivetrain Efficiencies: example values ​​relating to transmission ratios (always referred to the American Ford Ranger pickup).

Torque Required US and Torque Required IS: spreadsheets for estimating the values ​​of force and torque needed to move the Renault Modus 1.5 dCi used as a reference vehicle of the subcompact Kevin car (obviously US stands for the American system of measurement units, while the IS system stands for the International System of measurement units).
As you can easily verify I translated from English into Italian all the concepts and information contained in the Excel spreadsheet. All this work will bring us enormous benefits in the future in interacting with those who are on the other side of the world.

I will stop here for now and invite you to check the next post which will contain more details about the project.

———–

Con questo post parte ufficialmente il progetto open source per la realizzazione del kit universale di conversione di un’automobile tradizionale in automobile elettrica. Sono trascorse diverse settimane dalla partenza di questo sito Web ed oggi, finalmente, pubblico il primo pezzettino del progetto.

Come anticipato nel mio post del 17 Maggio 2014, iaiaGi si basa sulle indicazioni progettuali descritte nel libro “Build Your Own Electric Vehicle – Third Edition” (Costruisciti L’Automobile Elettrica – Terza Edizione) di Seth Leitman e Bob Brandt. Le scorse settimane le ho trascorse a studiare, tradurre ed adattare l’intero processo di dimensionamento meccanico dell’automobile scelta per la trasformazione in elettrico. Di fatto ho basato le mie scelte sulle seguenti considerazioni:

Source: iaiaGi Project Kick Off / L’Inizio Del Progetto iaiaGi | iaiaGi

Battery Safeguards Protection Circuits from Battery University

Protection Circuits

Batteries can release high power, and most packs include protection to safeguard against malfunction. The most basic safety device in a battery is a fuse that opens on high current. Some devices open permanently and render the battery useless; others are more forgiving and reset. The Polyswitch™ is such a re-settable device. It creates a high resistance on excess current and reverts back to the low ON position when the condition normalizes. A third method is a solid-state switch that measures the current and disconnects on excessive load conditions. All switching devices have a residual resistance during normal operation, which causes a slight increase in overall battery resistance and a subsequent voltage drop.

Intrinsically Safe Batteries

Intrinsically safe (IS) batteries contain protection circuits that prevent the formation of high currents, which could lead to excess heat, sparks and explosion. Authorities mandate IS batteries for two-way radios, gas detectors and other electronic instruments operating in hazardous areas such as oil refineries, chemical plants and grain elevators. There are several levels of intrinsic safety, each serving a specific hazard level, and the requirements vary from country to country. The provisions are in addition to the protection circuit for lithium-ion, and the approval standards are rigorous. This results in a high price for the battery.

Making Lithium-ion Safe

Battery packs for laptops and other portable devices contain many levels of protection to assure safety under (almost) all circumstances when in the hands of the public. The safety begins with the battery cell, which includes: [1] a built-in temperature switch called PTC that protects against high current surges, [2] a circuit interrupt device (CID) that opens the electrical path if an over-charge raises the internal cell pressure to 1000 kPa (145psi), and [3]a safety vent that releases gas in the event of a rapid increase in cell pressure.

In addition to these internal safeguards, an external electronic protection circuit prevents the charge voltage of any cell from exceeding 4.30V. Furthermore, a fuse cuts the current if the skin temperature of any cell approaches 90°C (194°F). To prevent the battery from over-discharging, a control circuit cuts off the current path at about 2.20V/cell.

Each cell in a string needs independent voltage monitoring. The higher the cell count, the more complex the protection circuit becomes. Four cells in series had been the practical limit for consumer applications. Today, new chips accommodate 5–7, 7–10 and 13 cells in series. For specialty applications, such as the hybrid or electric vehicle delivering several hundred volts, specialty protection circuits are made, which sharply increases the overall cost of the battery. Monitoring two or more cells in parallel to get higher current is less critical than controlling voltages in a string configuration.

Battery Safeguards; Protection Circuits – Battery University.