Gas 2.0

The United States Department of Energy (DOE) announced yesterday that over the next three years it is ploughing $11 million into research projects to develop advanced batteries for electric cars.  The projects are also in line to benefit from a whopping $19 million in further support from the private sector.

A total of seven cutting-edge projects will focus on improving battery material performance and developing the manufacturing processes to produce them.  The ultimate aim is to reduce the cost of batteries for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), one of the main financial barriers to more widespread uptake.

Read the rest of this entry »

A team of US and Korean scientists have announced a major breakthrough in energy storage that could pave the way to a new generation of ultra-efficient electric cars, mobile phones and laptops.

The prototype capacitor, much more powerful than exisiting batteries, is capable of storing power at the same massive density as a supercapacitor (an incredible 10 billion tiny capacitors in every square centimetre), but releasing it as quickly as the fastest electrostatic capacitors.

Speaking about the invention, Gary Rubloff of the University of Maryland said, “Our primary target [for this technology] is as part of a hybrid battery-capacitor system for electric cars, but there are many [potential] small scale applications, [including] better electrical storage systems for cellphones or laptops.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s Note: Sebastian is the newest addition to Gas 2.0’s writing team. Welcome Sebastian!

The 900-pound gorilla in the waiting rooms of the industries serving the green car market has been H.R. 1, or the Obama Stimulus Plan. Regardless of how much the Democrats ballyhooed it, or how much the Republicans maligned it, the bill will be signed into law by President Obama today.

So what does it really mean for the hybrid and electric vehicle industry? To reduce it to its essence: Mo’ money.

Read the rest of this entry »

In December, amidst much gleeful hand-wringing, the imminent demise of all the alternative car companies and electric vehicle start-ups was all over the intertubes, as our second Gilded Age crashed this fall into “the worst depression since the Great Depression”.

Headlines full of schadenfreudly screeches like “Oh no! Tesla sedan delayed five minutes! Now surely they will go out of business!” “Another EV startup bites dust!” were gracing a gleeful media.

Among these alarmist statements was a much touted story about the near-death of TH!NK, the Norwegian EV maker, which had been scheduled for U.S. delivery in 2009.

Never mind that TH!NK had placed a $70 million dollar battery order with Enerdel a few months previously. Now, all was lost. No $25,000 freeway speed EV for America.

Well, think again, pundits. After the virtual collapse of the company last month, the U.S.A. (where the original TH!NK was murdered by U.S. lawyers fighting CARB zero emissions rules in the 90’s) could be just where the TH!NK gets resuscitated this year. How ironic.
Read the rest of this entry »

Since the late 1800s, the primary impediment to the adoption of electric vehicles has been battery technology. And while the technology has advanced by leaps and bounds in the last decade or two (compare your cell phone with one from the early 90s), with a threefold improvement in energy density and more than an order of magnitude improvement in power density, it still lags behind gasoline.

Some have argued that current technology is sufficient — that the ability to drive 1 1/2 hours to 3 hours nonstop is good enough for the overwhelming majority of trips, and that paired with a range extender, rapid chargers, or battery swapping, you have a viable means of replacing the gasoline car. However, there still is a great deal of pressure to get electric vehicle range up to that of gasoline.

Enter Yi Cui. Again.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ice Storm Victim Improvises Prius-to-Home Energy Generator

A Massachusetts man - faced with no power in the recent ice storm, powered up the family Prius to create electricity: The hybrid car made enough electricity to run the essentials; the fridge, the lights, the TV, the wood-stove fan. During the power outage, it supplied 17 Kilowatt hours of energy to his home for three days.

Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s Note: This is part two of an interview Tetsuya Yokoyama recently had the opportunity to conduct with Honda R&D Chief Engineer, Mr. Yamamoto, at Eco-Products 2008 in Tokyo, Japan. You can read part one here. Mr. Yamamoto is greatly involved in the development of Honda’s hybrid technology including the upcoming 2009 Insight.

As I mentioned in part one of my interview, Honda first introduced the ultracapacitor with the J-VX concept. The J-VX ultimately led to the original production Insight, without the ultracapacitor. Honda also used the ultracapacitor technology on the FCX models (pre-Clarity) for years.

Honda developed their original ultracapacitors, and improved them during the period of FCX development and explains more about it on their web site.

Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s note: John Addison publishes the Clean Fleet Report. His new book, Save Gas, Save the Planet, will be published March 25, 2009.

UPS will deploy two new hydraulic hybrid vehicles (HHV) in Minneapolis during the first quarter of 2009. The additional five HHV’s will be deployed later in 2009 and early 2010.

Millions of last minute shoppers used UPS to get their gifts delivered on time. Even the snow storms did not stop them. On December 22, I skipped the hour long line at the post office, which was open on Sunday, and instead shipped via UPS. I got my gifts to my brother on December 24.

Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s Note: This is the part one of an interview Tetsuya Yokoyama recently had the opportunity to conduct with Honda R&D Chief Engineer, Mr. Yamamoto at Eco-Products 2008 in Tokyo, Japan. Mr. Yamamoto is greatly involved in the development of Honda’s hybrid technology including the upcoming 2009 Insight.

I’d like to thank all the readers who responded to my previous article with questions I could pose to Mr. Yamamoto. I’d also like to thank InsightCentral.net members for responding to that article too! I really appreciate your input, and apologize for taking so long to write this article.

After talking a bit about Green Options Media, Gas 2.0 and Insight Central, the very first question I asked him was about the possibility of using an ultracapacitor in a future Honda hybrid. More than ten years ago, the Integrated Motor Assist (IMA) power train was first introduced with the J-VX concept and was originally developed with an ultracapacitor instead of NiMH batteries.

Mr. Yamamoto explained that Honda engineers have researched ultracapacitor technology in the past but that the technology, although promising, is still too new and has several challenges to overcome. In the end, Honda decided to go with NiMH batteries on the first generation of Insight in consideration of mass production and quality control.

Read the rest of this entry »

A newly-granted US patent (PDF) for the upcoming ultracapacitor technology from secretive Texas-based EEStor contains a ton of detailed information about their near-mythical Electrical Energy Storage Unit (EESU), which has the potential to revolutionize transportation and our energy infrastructure.

Apparently one EESU weighs 281 pounds, has a volume of 2.63 cubic feet, can be fully charged in 3-6 minutes, is completely unaffected by temperature, will not explode or catch fire in an accident, and provides 52 kWh of electricity (nearly the same amount of energy the Tesla Roadster battery can hold, which reportedly takes the Roadster about 240 miles).

Read the rest of this entry »

Utilities are among the groups now considering mass orders of electric vehicles from the U.S. automobile manufacturing sector, to help the auto companies make the biggest manufacturing realignment since since WWII.

The exploratory discussions are being conducted at top levels and among firms like PG&E who see plug in hybrid and all electric vehicles as a solution to uneven grid loads. Utilities have invested a great deal of research using the vehicle to grid (V2G) capabilities of plugged in electric vehicles to stabilize the grid.

The idea being considered would involve joining together to put in a substantial order to put weight behind development of Plug In Hybrids (PHEVs) and electric vehicles (EVs). The idea is that large fleet orders would provide the certain market car makers need to make the initial move away from fossil fueled vehicles.

With their buying power (they could order 50,000 electric vehicles for their fleets) utilities could provide a solid beginning to switching Detroit to entirely new vehicle markets.

Read the rest of this entry »

Battery provider Southern California Edison (SCE) has demonstrated a lithium ion battery with a lifespan of more than 180,000 miles, a major milestone in advanced battery performance that opens the door to a new generation of electric cars.

Since the average U.S. family car travels less than 15,000 miles each year, the battery could easily provide more than ten years service before it needs replacing. When you factor in the relatively low servicing costs of electric cars, this means that there is now a compelling case for such technology to power future plug-in vehicles.

Read the rest of this entry »

Better Place and Hawaii have joined forces. This week the State of Hawaii and the Hawaiian Electric Company endorsed a plan to build a new renewable transportation system based on electric vehicles with swappable batteries and a “smart” battery recharging network.

The Better Place plan solves the current problem with electric cars, which is slow battery recharging as well as availability. The solution is to use existing electric car technologies together with an internet-connected web of recharging stations (set up in the thousands). Read the rest of this entry »

Researchers are reporting they have developed a new material made from three-dimensional, highly porous nano-silicon that could give future lithium ion batteries a ten times higher capacity than they currently have.

The storage capacity of current generation lithium ion batteries remains a bottleneck for the widespread adoption of electric cars due to a perceived limited driving range. Although we could argue whether a 100-130 mile range really is that much of a limitation or not, perhaps the better solution is to be able to ignore that argument altogether by increasing battery capacity.

Read the rest of this entry »

In partnership with the US Environmental Protection Agency, UPS will begin testing a small fleet of hydraulic hybrid delivery trucks in the United States. The new vehicles can achieve 50-70% better fuel economy, a 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, and pay for their extra expense in less than 3 years.

UPS will field two hydraulic hybrids in Minneapolis, MN, in early 2009 and an additional five hydraulic hybrid trucks will be deployed later in 2009 and early 2010. Although this sounds like a tiny fleet, keep in mind that this is the largest scale commercial test of hydraulic hybrids ever conducted.

The UPS hybrid hydraulic truck is a standard-looking 24,000 pound package car, with an EPA-patented diesel series hydraulic hybrid drive attached to the rear axle.

Read the rest of this entry »