EV bus outlook seems rosy
New Bloomberg report on the use and deployment of Electric Buses makes interesting reading.
Produced by the @BloombergNEF and partners @c40cities the report paints a positive picture on the rapid adoption of electric buses especially in China.
See the full report
Electric Buses in Cities– Driving Towards Cleaner Air and Lower CO2 at Bloomberg New Energy
Worth a read and lots of graphics to help paint the picture.
Few key points and charts below.
Air quality is a growing concern in many urban environments and has direct health impacts for residents. Tailpipe emissions from internal combustion engines are one of the major sources of harmful pollutants, such as nitrogen oxides and particulates. Diesel engines in particular have very high nitrogen oxide emissions and yet these make up the majority of the global bus fleet. As the world’s urban population continues to grow, identifying sustainable, cost effective transport options is becoming more critical. Electric vehicles – including electric buses – are one of the most promising ways of reducing harmful emissions and improving overall air quality in cities.
The global e-bus market is changing quickly as cities make increasingly ambitious fleet electrification commitments. In October 2017, 13 cities signed the C40 Fossil- Fuel-Free Streets Declaration, pledging to procure only zero-emission buses from 2025 onwards.
The cumulative number of e-buses in Europe reached just over 2,100 units in 2017. Pure electric buses made up the majority of the total at 1,560 units. The U.K. has the largest e-bus fleet in Europe in absolute terms, but the share of e-buses in the total municipal bus fleet in the country was still below 1% in 2017.
E-bus charging configurations
There are three main types of infrastructure for charging electric buses: plug-in systems, inductive charging and conductive pantograph (overhead) charging (Table 3). Traditional plug-in charging is the most common and the cheapest charging system in use with e-buses today. It offers a range of charging rates, from slow to rapid and it is provided by a range of companies, including Heliox, APT, Siemens and ABB.
E-bus lithium-ion battery market review
The demand for lithium-ion batteries from electric vehicles – both e-buses and passenger EVs – is increasing. However, battery manufacturing capacity is increasing much faster than demand, which puts pressure on battery prices. As a result battery prices have fallen by 79% since 2010. The sensitivity of battery cycle and calendar life, and the challenges around predicting future battery life make warranties critical to e-buses. Since e-buses have only come to prominence in the last five years the true performance of their batteries may not yet be fully understood.
EO Charging installs 40 smart chargers at Gnewt Group’s London base
Our friends at EO Charging have installed 40 EO smart chargers in London for the logistics firm Gnewt Cargo.
Gnewt Cargo, a last-mile city logistics operator that has its main depot in the Bow area of London, has commissioned a total of 63 EO smart chargers, connected by two eoHUBs, to keep its 100% electric fleet of around 100 vehicles on the London streets.
Gnewt Cargo worked with the Mayor of London’s office to develop a successful bid to Innovate UK, which provided a million pounds in funding for the new chargers.
As part of the project, EO Charging unveiled a number of innovations for its charging solutions, including advance load management, priority charging and demand-side response.
“Whilst the Gnewt Cargo fleet is currently unique, we know that this size of EV fleets will become commonplace in cities over the next few years,” said EO founder Charlie Jardine. “We’re fully aligned to [Mayor] Sadiq Khan’s vision of a cleaner, greener London and know that drastic action is required if we are to reduce poisonous emissions by more than half, by 2025, across the city.”
“Gnewt has been through a rapid growth phase, which in turn has put greater focus on the way in which our ever-increasing electric fleet recharges,” said Sam Clarke, founder and Head of Business Development at Gnewt Cargo. “I was impressed by how EO tackled this unique challenge and how the innovative yet cost-effective solution was presented.”
Contact Cables For Charging to learn how you could benefit from an EO based charging system for your EV fleet.
BMW’s plug-in hybrid 530e to get wireless charging
BMW revealed its newest electric vehicle, a plug-in hybrid called the 530e iPerformance. The variant’s options include a forthcoming wireless charging pad, targeting a 2018 release window, which will include a charging pad drivers can install in their garage and drive over to provide a power supply with rates up to 3.2 kW, with a total charging time for refilling the vehicle’s onboard battery of about three and a half hours.
BMW is already showing the wireless pad and its charging capabilities in prototype form, and the system includes visual feedback and instructions for the driver via the in-car infotainment dash display, so that they know when they’ve pulled in for an optimal charging connection. Wireless charging is a big carrot for EVs and hybrids, since it takes away the added mental component involved in remembering to plug your car in once you’re done driving. It seems like a small thing, but it goes against many decades of learned behaviour for most drivers.
The other interesting component here is that BMW is offering its Digital Charging Service for the 530e iPerformance, which intelligently manages charging when plugged in so that the car remains topped off for when it needs to drive. The service also adjusts the planned charging to draw power mostly during off-peak hours, and to prefer power supplied by the customer’s own solar power generation capacity, if they have both that and BMW’s Wallbox Connect dedicated vehicle charging solution.
Getting customers excited about electric vehicles is in part about making sure they see that it’s also not going to change their lives dramatically in terms of their daily routine and how they use their cars. These charging technologies help with that, and wireless charging in particular should be a hit if BMW can deliver it as promised.
Porsche publish 800 volt charging details
Porsche announce details for 800 volt DC charging systems. To be launched in time for the Mission E launch.
How to charge a Nissan Leaf
Charging an EV like the Nissan Leaf is easy.
See this short video of plugging a Leaf into a Public Type 2 Charging Post at Sainsbury’s.
The Nissan Leaf uses a TYpe 1 on board connection. The Pod Point charging system offers a standard Type 2 connection. The cable required is thus a Type 1 – TYpe 2 Charging Cable. This leaf has a standard 16 Amp charger and. This will function with both a 16 Amp or a 32 Amp cable but will only draw 16 Amp from ther supply. In this case we are using a 16 Amp Type 1 – Type 2 cable. EV-CHC007.
Mercedes-Benz to offer wireless charging on S550e limo
The Mercedes-Benz S550e plug-in hybrid luxury S class will likely be the first production car to offer wireless charging as a factory option.
The availability of wireless charging was announced earlier this year by Mercedes as part of a significant update of the current-generation car.
We now know that the S550e will use a version of the Qualcomm Halo system, built under license by a third party.
The current S550e offers a twin-turbo V6 petrol engine, coupled to a powerful 114bhp electric motor. The result is the S500 Plug-In, and it’s capable of more than 100mpg under optimum conditions. The pure EV range is around 20 miles.
The Mercedes S500 Plug-In makes sense for city-based chauffeurs, or those with the infrastructure required to effectively utilise a car like this. If you live less than 20 miles from the office and can charge both at home and at work, you could essentially run this luxury limo without ever filling it with fuel. Of course this is true for all Plug-In hybrids such as Volvo or Outlander PHEVs.
However, for many, exemption from road tax and the London Congestion Charge – itself worth more than £3,000 a year – will be the deal-breaker. Within four years you’ll have recouped the £12,000 premium over the cheaper S350, and that’s without considering the money you’ll save on fuel.
Now to make life even easier Mercedes are set to offer wireless charging, removing the need for a pesky cable.
The plan is to offer inductive charging as an option. This does require the retrofit in your garage to install a charging plate.
Inductive charging is basic physics at work. Running a current through a coil of wire creates a magnetic field, which in turn allows current to be transferred between two coils in close proximity, without any physical connection.
One coil is housed in a base plate that sits on the ground, while the other is housed in a receiver on the car’s underside.
For home users, the base plates are bolted to the garage floor, with the wire providing power usually running through a trench in the concrete.
Mercedes previously said the system would have an efficiency rate of 90 percent for transfer of electricity from a power source to a car.
The system in the S550e is rated at 3.6 kilowatts, which is somewhat low compared to charging systems for all-electric cars.
In addition to the wireless-charging option, the S550e is expected to get a boost in battery-pack size from 8.7 kilowatt-hours to 13.5 kWh.
While other carmakers have shown wireless charging on various concept cars, Mercedes seems to be the only one with definite plans to offer the feature on a production model.
Lithium-air batteries – Heading for reality?
A new battery chemistry could improve the efficiency and longevity of lithium-air batteries in a way that is “very scalable, cheap and much safer” than its predecessors, according to a paper published this week in Nature Energy.
Wall St Journal article on EVs
Interesting recent article in the Wall St Journal about the adoption of electric vehicles.
The piece written by Christophen Mins paints a image of rapid adoption of pure and hyrbrid plug in cars driven by an increase in battery technology and an increase in the number of charging points.
See WSJ article.
Key points below:
In 2015, about one in every 150 cars sold in the U.S. had a plug and a battery. But mass adoption of electric vehicles is coming, and much sooner than most people realize.
In part, this is because electric cars are gadgets, and technological change in gadgets is rapid.
One big leap is in batteries. A typical electric vehicle today costs $30,000 and will go about 100 miles on a charge, if that. Within a year, you’ll be able to get double that range for just a little more money.
Tesla Motors Inc. is the standard-bearer, promising a Model 3 vehicle meant to appeal to the masses at $35,000 without incentives and more than 200 miles of range. By comparison, the average new car in the U.S. today sells for about $33,000. Tesla is hardly alone. Later this year, Chevrolet will roll out its $37,500 Bolt EV. It, too, boasts more than 200 miles of range, which appears to be the new goal for eliminating “range anxiety”—the fear that a vehicle will run out of juice—among potential electric-vehicle buyers.
Tesla Model 3
And that is just the start. Pasquale Romano, chief executive of ChargePoint Inc., the world’s largest maker of electric-car charging stations, says he works with, and talks to, most major car companies. “We have seen their internal plans to just electrify everything,” he said.
In the short run, many of these cars will be plug-in hybrids, with both electric motors and gasoline engines. It makes sense to lump them with electric vehicles because most new models have enough battery power to get the average U.S. commuter to work and back without using any gasoline.
Chevy Bolt
Steve Majoros, a marketing director at General Motors Co. ’s Chevrolet unit, says that 90% of trips and 65% of miles driven in its Volt plug-in hybrid are on electric-only mode. The Volt can go 53 miles on a charge.
Every plug-in hybrid is effectively an electric car that is carrying a “range extender,” just in case. They will help electrify a large share of the miles Americans drive. They’ll also help ease consumers into electric vehicles, overcoming any remaining fear about being stranded after running out of juice.
Competition among electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids will be intense, which will drive down prices. Volkswagen has pledged to make every model available as a plug-in hybrid by 2025. BMW has made the same promise. Hyundai promises eight plug-in hybrid models by 2020, plus two all-electric vehicles. Toyota’s overhaul of the plug-in Prius, boasting twice the range, arrives before the year is out.
Another trend will help—the proliferation of charging stations. ChargePoint Sunday said it has 30,000 stations in its network, where it collects any fees levied by owners. By comparison, there are about 90,000 publicly accessible gas stations in America, says Mike Fox, executive director of Gasoline & Automotive Services Dealers of America.
The number of commercial charging stations is growing quickly in part because they’re relatively cheap—costing $3,000 to $7,500 per port, depending on whether it is new construction or a retrofit. When attached to a business, they can attract customers, and encourage them to stay longer and spend more.
Hy-Vee, a Midwestern grocery chain, installs charging stations at all its new locations.
Hy-Vee Inc., a chain of 241 grocery stores in eight Midwestern states, installs charging stations at all its new locations; it has four chargers at each of 42 stores. Charge times for electric cars vary widely, depending on the station and car make, but it typically takes 30 minutes to an hour to get a decent charge. Conveniently, that is roughly as long as it takes to have a meal, says John Brehm, director of site planning at Hy-Vee.
Placing charging stations at workplaces, where cars spend much of their time, will be uniquely powerful. When a workplace installs a charging station, employees are 20 times as likely to buy a vehicle with a plug, according to a survey from the U.S. Department of Energy.
Drivers won’t switch to electric vehicles as rapidly as consumers adopted smartphones. The average American keeps a car for 11 years. For most people, though, by the time you’re ready to buy another car, there will be a range of plug-in vehicles available at prices comparable to gasoline vehicles. And that doesn’t count the projected savings in fuel, or in maintenance, since electric vehicles have many fewer moving parts.
It is the nature of disruptive technological shifts that it seems like nothing is changing—until it seems as if everything is changing at once. Electric vehicles have been a long time coming, but they now represent such a clear and present threat to the gasoline engine that Mr. Fox, of the service-station association, now recommends that members signing long-term contracts for fuel include an option to renegotiate if more than 10% of a state’s fleet goes electric.
If Tesla can deliver on its current promises with the Model 3, says Mr. Fox, “gas vehicles are history—it’s horse and buggy days.”
Is wireless charging the future?
This is neat. A report from Momentum Dynamics claiming it will bring high speed wireless 200KW charging to the bus market this year.
According to CEO Andrew Daga, the company delivered 25 kW and 50 kW systems to partners in the automotive industry in 2015, and is planning to deliver two wireless systems to municipal agencies in Maryland and Washington this year.
Utah-based competitor WAVE has wireless systems up and running at 50 kW. By comparison, some Tesla Superchargers operate up to 135 kW via a cable.
Momentum Dynamics’ system includes a transmitter on the ground and a power receiver mounted to the underside of the vehicle. It can support an air gap of up to 12 inches.
“These high power levels are causing a lot of excitement, especially with municipal bus transit agencies where high power is required to keep a municipal bus in operation all day,” said Daga. “Fast automatic charging will enable the EV market to grow faster. It is completely autonomous, carefree and safe.”
Momentum is based Malvern PA in the States and has a rather content free website. – I guess watch this space.
BMW increases battery pack size for i3
BMW announces all electric i3 to receive a50% range boost with better battery Technology.