The Voltitude fold-up electric scooter has an ingenious EasyFold system. Once folded, a special button on the handlebar enables you to “walk” it alongside you indoors, so you never raise a sweat in reaching a power outlet, which will fully replenish the battery inside four hours. The 25 kph (15.5 mph) electric assist Voltitude begins volume production in July with an on-line price expected in the vicinity of EUR4000.

When Voltitude presented its Swiss Army Knife lookalike personal EV to the public nine months ago, the company’s assets of a patent and three prototypes were housed in a home office.

The company was formally created in July 2011 and the team now consists of 3 engineers, 1 product designer, 1 business development person plus founder and CEO, Eric Collombin.

The industrialization phase was reached last week and the company will start manufacturing its first pre-series next week, using an external manufacturing partner.

Full production of 50 units per week is scheduled to start in June, with a newer version that has evolved from the pictures visible on the company site currently.

Final specifications and images of the new machine will be issued in June and a new company site is under construction which is expected to replace the current site in March.

The final price of the Voltitude will be in the vicinity of 5000 CHF / 4000 EUR with sales handled online but with a presence in retail stores, in Switzerland to start with, from September, 2012.

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

The Stanford Solar Car Project has been working for two years on its latest all-solar vehicle, called Xenith, which later this year will travel across the Australian Outback powered by nothing but sunlight. The team says the stanford Xenith is the fastest solar car ever built.

The World Solar Challenge is held every two years and challenges teams to build ultra-efficient solar vehicles in a 3,000-kilometer (or 1,864-mile) race from Darwin to Adelaide. This year’s race will take place October 16-23.

Based on the notion that a 1,000-watt car would complete the journey in 50 hours, the solar cars are allowed a nominal 5 kilowatt-hours of stored energy.

The rules, however, change for each event, giving teams just a two year time span to conceptualize and build their vehicles. The idea is to constantly push the boundaries of what the vehicle can be, ranging in designs from ultraconceptual abstract ideas that may be less practical, and working toward real-world applications of energy efficiency that could be applied to future consumer products.

Solar Impulse is on standby for its first international flight this week. Brussels has been chosen as the destination for the first venture outside Swiss borders, which follows the solar powered aircraft’s maiden flight and first overnight flight last year and will mark another important step towards the goal of flying around the world in 2012.

“Now, here we are in the definitive phase: it’s no longer a question of tests, but the real thing,” said Solar Impulse Chairman and round-the-world balloonist Bertrand Piccard. “And the next flights will not be made in the “familiar cocoon” of Payerne aerodrome, but in the whole of Europe…”

The Solar-Impulse prototype aircraft (designated HB-SIA) will be piloted from Payerne to Europe’s 14th busiest airport in Brussels by CEO André Borschberg, who co-founded the project along with Piccard in order to show just how far renewable energies can take us.

“Flying an aircraft like Solar Impulse through European airspace to land at an international airport is an incredible challenge for all of us, and success depends on the support we receive from all the authorities concerned,” said André Borschberg.

Developed by a team of 70 people and 80 partners over seven years, HB-SIA is a very impressive feat of engineering and, as you might expect from a plane that flies on the power of the sun, quite a lesson on just how much you can achieve with only a small amount of energy.

Keeping weight to a minimum is obviously critical and despite the aircraft’s huge 63 meter (208 feet) wingspan, its carbon fiber frame and specially designed components weigh in at just 1600kg – which is a little like stretching your family car to be the width of an Airbus A340.

The wings carry almost all of the 11,628 solar cells on board, but even with more than 2000 square feet of photovoltaics, there’s not a great deal of energy available to drive the four electric motors.

The Solar Impulse website breaks down the equation like this:

“At midday, each square metre of land surface, in the form of light energy, receives the equivalent of 1000 watts, or 1.3 horsepower of light power. Over 24 hours, this averages out at just 250W/m². With 200m² of photovoltaic cells and a 12 % total efficiency of the propulsion chain, the plane’s motors achieve an average power of no more than 8 HP or 6kW – roughly the amount of power the Wright brothers had a available to them in 1903 when they made their first powered flight.”

Eight horsepower. My lawnmower has more grunt, but then again it doesn’t fly to heights of over 27,900 feet!

A second plane with better performance and a larger cockpit is under construction for the around the world trip.

After a stint in Brussels from 23 to 29 May, the aircraft will make its way to Paris for the 49th International Paris Air Show (20 to 26 June 2011) where it will be displayed both on the ground and in the air – flying demonstrations are planned each morning if the weather is favorable.

Solar Impulse at a glance:

• Wingspan: 63,40 m (208 ft)
• Length: 21,85 m (71.7 ft)
• Height: 6,40 m (20.9 ft)
• Weight: 1,600 Kg (3,527 lbs)
• Motor power: 4 x 10 HP electric engines
• Solar cells: 11,628 (10 748 on the wing, 880 on the horizontal stabilizer)
• Average flying speed: 70 km/h (43.5 mph)
• Take-off speed: 35 km/h (21.7 mph)
• Maximum altitude: 8 500 m (27,900 ft)

The first international flight can be followed online at the Solar Impulse site

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

employs carbon prepreg

to reduce weight

23 May 2011

This year’s lower weight Brammo Empulse electric racing motorbike features structural components made from Amber Composites carbon fibre prepreg.

Manufactured by Oregon-based electric vehicle company Brammo Inc, the Empulse sports some design improvements this year, including a new seat assembly and tank made from UK composite materials manufacturer Amber Composites‘ 8020 prepreg.

Previous bikes had only used carbon fibre for cosmetic purposes, but this year Brammo created structural components from prepreg to significantly reduce the weight of the bike in order to increase performance.

“With the Amber Composites prepreg, we were able to shave 30% off the weight of the assembly versus the previous design,” reports Brian Wismann, Director of Product Development at Brammo.

“As an added bonus, the surface finish was so straight out of the mould that we didn’t have to clear coat or paint it, saving further weight.”

The Brammo Empulse won both races of the inaugural round of the TTXGP, a zero-emission race at the Infineon Raceway in California on 14-15 May.

The Empulse’s fastest lap time at Infineon Raceway was 1:55.150, almost 2 seconds faster than last year’s winning electric bike on the 2.5 mile track. Its average lap speed was within 20 seconds of the fastest qualifying lap time of a 1000cc internal combustion Superbike on the same track.

Brammo and Amber have a long working relationship both on the Empulse as well as Brammo’s award winning commuter bike, the Enertia.

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

drive up home prices?

Home prices on busy suburban roads could benefit from new quiet electric cars. 

There’s plenty of things that affect house prices.

Falling consumer sentiment, rising interest rates and natural disasters, none of which help prices to grow.

The economy, which is looking up.

And migration and birth rates (over the long term). New research shows we are still hurtling towards a “Big Australia”, which points to continued growth of house prices in years to come.

But perhaps there’s a new factor about to drive over the horizon – the humble car. The green car, that is.

We all know that the closer you get to a busy road, the cheaper home prices tend to be.

Many buyers would prefer to be away from the traffic noise, and definitely don’t want to be sucking in the fumes spewing out of thousands of exhaust pipes rumbling past.

But could green cars change our view of good and bad streets? With eco cars now creeping closer to being a mainstream reality, will we see a redefining of the “best streets” as busy roads become much quieter and not nearly as smelly?

We’re probably not talking the next couple of years here, more like 10-15 years, perhaps even 20. Eco cars still have a way to go, particularly in price, before they become mainstream. But with all major car manufacturers now tinkering with models, they are close to being a normality on a road near you.

On the downside, green cars obviously won’t reduce congestion, so one the biggest turn-offs of living near a busy road will remain regardless of whether we’re driving an oil guzzler or a clean sun-powered machine.

But on the positive, and what could have a significant impact, is hybrid and electric cars definitely won’t be as noisy as many of the vehicles getting about at the moment – as evidenced by the fact they are already so hush hush that some manufacturers have started adding in artificial sounds to make them heard.

And green cars won’t produce as much pollution – at least while they are in motion. There might still be questions around the carbon that electric cars will create while charging if they are being powered by traditional coal-fired energy, but when they are on the road, some won’t produce any fumes at all.

I’m not suggesting major arterial roads, such as Parramatta Road in Sydney, or South Road in Adelaide, for example, are going to suddenly match it with waterfronts for prices. But you could envisage a situation where secondary roads, which still carry a fair bit of traffic, could become far more desirable places to live once the smell and the noise of traffic dissipates, even if the volume of cars is still there.

Quieter, cleaner roads still won’t make them appealing to everyone. Families, for example, with young kids, may still avoid areas of high traffic for safety reasons. But they may not be so put off buying something just off a busy road as they would be now.

Economist Saul Eslake, from think tank the Grattan Institute, says intuitively the theory makes sense. But he cautions that numbers would have to reach critical mass before there was an effect.

“It would be at least five and possibly more than ten [years away],” Eslake says. “My guess would be at least half the cars on the road would have to be quieter and less smelly.”

If dirty, fuel-belching cars become a thing of the past, do you think it would change the way we think of busy streets?

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

may allow for complete recharging

within minutes

By Ben Coxworth

15:08 March 21, 2011

A diagram of a lithium-ion battery constructed using Braun’s nanostructured bicontinuous cathode (left), and a scanning electron microscope image of the nanostructure (right)
(Image: Paul Braun, University of Illinois)

Of all the criticisms of electric vehicles, probably the most commonly-heard is that their batteries take too long to recharge – after all, limited range wouldn’t be such a big deal if the cars could be juiced up while out and about, in just a few minutes. Well, while no one is promising anything, new batteries developed at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign do indeed look like they might be a step very much in the right direction. They are said to offer all the advantages of capacitors and batteries, in one unit.

“This system that we have gives you capacitor-like power with battery-like energy,” said U Illinois‘ Paul Braun, a professor of materials science and engineering. “Most capacitors store very little energy. They can release it very fast, but they can’t hold much. Most batteries store a reasonably large amount of energy, but they can’t provide or receive energy rapidly. This does both.”

The speed at which conventional batteries are able to charge or discharge can be dramatically increased by changing the form of their active material into a thin film, but such films have typically lacked the volume to be able to store a significant amount of energy. In the case of Braun’s batteries, however, that thin film has been formed into a three-dimensional structure, thus increasing its storage capacity.

Batteries equipped with the 3D film have been demonstrated to work normally in electrical devices, while being able to charge and discharge 10 to 100 times faster than their conventional counterparts.

To make the three-dimensional thin film, the researchers coated a surface with nanoscale spheres, which self-assembled into a lattice-like arrangement. The spaces between and around the spheres were then coated with metal, after which the spheres were melted or dissolved away, leaving the metal as a framework of empty pores. Electropolishing was then used to enlarge the pores and open up the framework, after which it was coated with a layer of the active material – both lithium-ion and nickel metal hydride batteries were created.

The system utilizes processes already used on a large scale, so it would reportedly be easy to scale up. It could also be used with any type of battery, not just Li-ion and NiMH.

The implications for electric vehicles are particularly exciting. “If you had the ability to charge rapidly, instead of taking hours to charge the vehicle you could potentially have vehicles that would charge in similar times as needed to refuel a car with gasoline,” Braun said. “If you had five-minute charge capability, you would think of this the same way you do an internal combustion engine. You would just pull up to a charging station and fill up.”

Braun and his team believe that the technology could be used not only for making electric cars more viable, but also for allowing phones or laptops to be able to recharge in seconds or minutes. It could also result in high-power lasers or defibrillators that don’t need to warm up before or between pulses.

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

to more efficiently harness wasted heat

Thermoelectric materials offer the potential to harness electricity from otherwise wasted heat. Continuing research in the field could yield applications scavenging energy from vehicle exhaust systems, industrial processes and equipment, and even sunlight. Now researchers have created a material with a higher energy conversion efficiency that could make such systems more feasible.

Researchers at Northwestern University created the new material by dispersing nanocrystals of rock salt (SrTe) into lead telluride (PbTe). While this kind of nanoscale inclusion in bulk material had previously been shown to improve the energy conversion efficiency of lead telluride, it also increased the scattering of electrons, which reduced the material’s overall conductivity. The Northwestern team’s study offers the first example of using nanostructures in lead telluride to reduce electron scattering and increase the energy conversion efficiency of the material. The researchers say the resultant material is expected to enable 14 percent of waste heat to electricity.

“It has been known for 100 years that semiconductors have this property that can harness electricity,” said Mercouri Kanatzidis, the Charles E. and Emma H. Morrison Professor of Chemistry in The Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. “To make this an efficient process, all you need is the right material, and we have found a recipe or system to make this material.”

Vinayak Dravid, professor of materials science and engineering at Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science adds, “we can put this material inside of an inexpensive device with a few electrical wires and attach it to something like a light bulb. The device can make the light bulb more efficient by taking the heat it generates and converting part of the heat, 10 to 15 percent, into a more useful energy like electricity.”

Kanatzidis says any industry that uses heat to make products, such as the automotive, chemical, brick and glass industries, could use the material to make their system more efficient. But maybe the researchers aren’t thinking big enough. An estimated 90 percent of the world’s electricity is generated by heat energy that typically operates at 30 to 40 percent efficiency, losing roughly 15 terawatts of power in the form of heat to the environment. Harnessing 10 to 15 percent of this currently wasted heat energy would translate to a substantial amount of electricity.

The results of the Northwestern University team’s study are published in the journal Nature Chemistry.

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

goes under the ebay hammer

The Dobbertin HydroCar on a test-launch

The HydroCar’s amphibious capabilities come courtesy of its two articulating sponsons (or pontoons) that run the full length of the vehicle. On land, the sponsons are raised to form the vehicle’s fenders, but when entering water a flip of a switch will lower them almost eight inches (20 cm) to transform the vehicle into a tunnel-hulled watercraft.

Construction

The center body section of the vehicle is covered with a 5086 marine-grade aluminum skin built around a space fame and roll bar constructed from 304 stainless steel, while the frames within the articulating sponsons are constructed from 6061 aluminum. It is powered by a fully dyno-tuned World/Merlin all-aluminum roller-cammed 572 cubic inch Chevrolet engine, which produces 762 hp at 5,800 rpm and 712 lbs of torque at 4,200 rpm.

While the four test-launches the HydroCar has completed have all resulted in improvements, the craft is still short of the 60 mph (96 km/h) Dobbertin says it should be capable of surpassing. However, with Dobbertin citing the cold weather in upstate New York for restricting attempts to carry out another test launch before spring 2011, it seems any further improvements will be the responsibility of the eventual buyer.

Dobbertin has his sealegs

The HydroCar isn’t Dobbertin’s first amphibious car, having built a 32-foot long stainless steel amphibious vehicle known as the Dobbertin Surface Explorer out of an old milk tanker that traveled through 28 countries, logging up 30,000 miles (48,280 km) on land and over 3,000 miles (4,828 km) on the open sea. He also designed and built two hot rods that were awarded Hot Rod magazine’s car of the year.

Dobbertin spent over 18,800 hours over a period of nine years designing and building the HydroCar, but says he is being forced to sell due to a lack of funds resulting from the global financial crisis.

The HydroCar is legally titled as a custom made boat in New York State and is listed on eBay with the Buy It Now price of US$777,000, which includes a custom-built trailer to transport the HydroCar.

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha