Monthly Archives: December 2015

New Kia Optima to feature plug-in PHEV

December 22, 2015Electric Cars, Kia, News, Reviews and CommentTrevor Larkum

Fleet and business users will be the target for Kia dealers as they open order books for the all-new D-segment Optima saloon. The diesel-engined version of the all-new Optima goes on sale at prices from £21,495-£28,895 in January and will joined later in the year by the brand’s first plug-in petrol-electric hybrid (PHEV) to be sold in Europe.

The latest Optima offers sharper styling, higher quality, new technology and significantly better economics, with fuel efficiency improved by up to 25% along with substantial reductions in CO2 emissions.

All launch versions of the car use the 1.7-litre CRDi turbodiesel engine which has had its power increased by five horsepower to 141PS. Torque gains are higher, a 15Nm increase to 340Nm and available at a lower 1750rpm.

The Optima PHEV will feature a 9.8 kWh lithium-polymer battery back, paired with a 50 kW electric motor and 2.0-litre GDI petrol engine. Kia is claiming a 27 mile range on electric charge alone.

Kia said the PHEV would deliver a combined fuel figure of 119mpg with engineers targeting 48mpg combined in charge-sustaining mode. Charging times range from less than three hours at a 240V Level 2 charging station or nine hours from a standard 120V power outlet.

Volkswagen To Increase Electric Drive Spending By €100 Million

December 21, 2015Electric Cars, News, Reviews and Comment, VolkswagenTrevor Larkum

Volkswagen’s strict financial position after Diesel Gate carries with it serious consequences.

CEO Matthias Müller recently announced a reduced level of spending for 2016 of €1 billion.

Some investments are on hold, delayed, reviewed or switched to other areas.

“The Volkswagen Group is aligning investment activity in its Automotive Division with the current situation. The aim is for planned investments in property, plant and equipment, investment property and intangible assets, excluding capitalized development costs (capex), to be capped at approximately EUR 12 billion next year. The average figure for the previous planning period was about EUR 13 billion per year.”

Matthias Müller, Chairman of the Board of Management of Volkswagen said:

“We are operating in uncertain and volatile times and are responding to this. We will strictly prioritize all planned investments and expenditures. As announced, anything that is not absolutely necessary will be cancelled or postponed.”

Alternative drive technologies seem to be among the “absolutely necessary” group because those technologies will get an additional €100 million in 2016. Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche will have green lights to introduce more plug-ins, but not all EVs will be able to go ahead at full speed as the electric Phaeton project announced earlier will be delayed.

Hundreds Of Thousands March For Climate

December 20, 2015Energy and Climate Change, News, Reviews and CommentTrevor Larkum

The day before the start of the U.N. climate talks in Paris, some 785,000 people joined climate marches in 175 countries across the globe in what organizers are calling the largest climate marches in history.

Climate march in London (Image: 350.org)

“Across five continents, people have taken to the streets to demand that we change the way we power our world,” Kumi Naidoo, executive director of Greenpeace, said in a statement. “In towns and cities across the globe, people have called for political leadership on climate change.”

More than 2,000 events took place on Sunday in cities like London, Sydney, Mexico City, and Vancouver. According to the BBC, marches also took place across the equator in Kenya, across a glacier in Chile, and throughout the Marshall Islands, a South Pacific island country threatened by rising sea levels. Ten countries broke records for all-time largest individual climate marches, with Australia and India leading the pack with some 140,000 participants each. In terms of individual events, Melbourne and London claimed the largest marches, with 60,000 and 50,000 participants each. By contrast, last year’s People’s Climate March in New York drew some 400,000 participants.

“As someone from Kenya, a country which is feeling the impact of climate change, it means a lot to see people from all walks of life, of every color and creed, speaking with one voice about climate change,” Mohamed Adow, senior climate adviser for Christian Aid, said in a statement. “Today’s act of solidarity is on an unprecedented global scale. The numbers of marchers in places not known for climate change activism shows the scale of the international demand for political action.”

Our grand narrative is now climate change

December 19, 2015Energy and Climate Change, OpinionTrevor Larkum

There is the story of our personal lives: our family, our friends, our jobs, our hobbies. There is the story of our communities: our civic, religious, business, artistic and recreational lives. There is the story of our nations: their internal political struggles and their struggles with each other.

But now, there is one grand narrative which ties us all together, whether we want to be connected or not, whether we are preoccupied with our personal, community or national narratives or not. That is the narrative of our changing climate and the resulting threat to the continuity of our world civilization. The climate talks in Paris are but one expression of this new reality.

Even people who oppose doing anything about climate change are forced to talk about it. Even people who somehow have convinced themselves that climate change is not happening and oddly, in the same breath, claim that humans have nothing to do with this thing that is not happening–even those people confirm by their very framing of the issue that they are firmly situated inside this narrative.

Climate change is now the grand narrative because what happens to climate and what we do about it will be a worldwide story which no one can ignore. As such there will be few people without an opinion on the issue of climate change. Increasingly, it will reach down into our national, community and personal lives in ways we had hoped would wait until we are gone. The droughts, the heat, the floods, the damage to crops, the lengthening summer, the late fall, and the early spring–none of them can escape our notice.

We are forced to incorporate the changing climate into our everyday conversations. It is already a big topic among anyone who gardens and certainly anyone who farms. Among those in touch with plants the evidence of a changing climate is incontrovertible.

The grand tension will be how to address climate change without giving up the abundant energy, food and technology that have given us such comfort, ease, mobility and opportunity. Neither side in the debate over what to do wants to relinquish the hope that we will have to give up almost nothing.

You can charge a Renault Zoe faster in Germany

December 18, 2015Electric Cars, News, Reviews and Comment, Renault, ZOETrevor Larkum

Renault Germany entered into a partnership with a company specialized in electric transport solutions to test a system that would reduce the charging time for electric cars.

Electric cars’ charging times are the main drawback of such vehicles. You have to be really patient when you plug in your car, and when you are in a hurry, such patient does not last for long. Electric car owners appreciate reduced charging times for their vehicles, and even more so reduced charging cost. To test such a system, Renault Germany teamed up with The Mobility House (based in Zurich and Munich), which specializes in electric transport solutions such as smart charge terminals and energy storage systems. The Mobility House (TMH) has developed a technology that substantially reduces the charging cost for the customer, as well as shortening the charge time by an hour. Eleven ZOE owners, working at Renault in Germany, were selected to test the system developed by TMH under real-life conditions.

Once plugged into a special charge station at the ZOE owner’s home, the car communicates its electricity needs via a Renault Global Data Center to TMH, which schedules vehicle charging on the basis of energy cost data. Electricity from the grid costs more during high demand periods and less when demand is low, so the system detects consumption peaks and stops charging until the cost falls. Fast charging then proceeds, at lower cost, until the car batteries are fully charged.

This technology enables electric car owners to optimize their electricity expenses without the trouble of having to calculate peak and trough demand periods themselves. It marks the first stage in forthcoming development of “smart grids”. Renault and TMH are also working together on other solutions for reducing charging costs, and offering electric vehicle owners ways to earn money by generating electricity to be fed into the grid.

Source: IN Auto News

Car review: VW’s all-electric e-Golf is zippy and roomy

December 18, 2015e-Golf, Electric Cars, News, Reviews and Comment, VolkswagenTrevor Larkum

In light of the still-widening diesel emissions scandal, it’s no surprise that Volkswagen came to the Los Angeles Auto Show promoting an electric car.

The 2016 VW e-Golf is a spirited runabout that makes almost no compromises in terms of performance, comfort or cargo space (Image: Volkswagen of America Inc.)

The German car company brought a fleet of the sporty e-Golf battery electric vehicles to the show, eagerly throwing the keys to anyone willing to take a test drive.

The car is worth promoting. The VW e-Golf is a spirited runabout that deserves its place in the popular Golf family. In going electric, it makes almost no compromises in terms of performance, comfort or cargo space. It looks like a Golf, and it runs like a Golf.

And like most battery electric vehicles, it costs too much, takes too long to recharge, and has too little range.

Volkswagen, though seemingly late to the battery electric game, has been testing fully electric prototypes since the 1980s. Introducing the e-Golf as a model year 2015 car, it’s now entering a crowded field. I count more than a dozen contenders, among them league leaders Tesla Model S and Nissan Leaf.

Other than the Tesla — which can drive three times farther than any other BEV but also costs at least three times more — electric cars on the market include the Fiat 500e, BMW i3, Chevy Spark, Ford Focus, Kia Soul, Mitsubishi i-MiEV, Smart EV and Mercedes B-Class.

The e-Golf lands near the top in terms of range, a promised 83 miles between charges — not far behind 93 for the Kia, 87 for the Fiat, 85 for the Mercedes and 84 for the Leaf — and in the middle in terms of price, less than the BMW or Mercedes, about the same as the Fiat and the Kia, and well above the Ford or Chevy.

Diesel cars hit by Chancellor’s Spending Review

December 17, 2015Electric Cars, Energy and Climate Change, News, Reviews and Comment, PollutionTrevor Larkum

In a surprise move, Chancellor George Osbourne has announced that the three per cent diesel supplement in company car tax will remain in place until 2021, cancelling plans to drop it next year.

The announcement was made in today’s (Tuesday 25th November) government Spending Review, which also confirmed that the Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV) will not see cuts to its budget which provides subsidies for electric vehicles (EVs) and charging infrastructure.

The current company car tax system sees diesel cars subject to a three per cent supplement over petrol models, and there were plans to remove this in April 2016. This would bring BIK tax levels for petrol and diesel cars, with emissions in the same tax band, to the same level.

However, potentially in response to the recent VW emissions scandal, George Osbourne has decided to scrap the cut and the three per cent supplement will remain until spring 2021 – earning the Treasury an additional £1.36 billion over the course of five years.

The emissions scandal might have had a significant role to play in the change in decision, along with the need by the Chancellor to find extra resources after expected cuts in a number of sectors were not as bad as first thought. One factor that definitely helped change Osbourne’s mind though was the uncertainty as to when the new, more rigorous EU Real Driving Emissions (RDE) test comes into effect, and how strict it will be.

Osbourne said:

“The development and sale of Ultra Low Emission Vehicles will continue to be supported, but in light of the slower-than-expected introduction of more rigorous EU emissions testing, we will delay the removal of the diesel supplement from company cars until 2021.”

eConnect Cars taxi firm launches crowdfunding campaign

December 16, 2015Electric Cars, Electric Taxis, Leaf, News, Reviews and Comment, NissanTrevor Larkum

London based, zero-emissions taxi firm eConnect Cars, has launched a crowdfunding campaign to finance the next phase of its growth ahead of the introduction of the Ultra-Low Emission Zone in London.

From 2020 all new private hire vehicles in London must be 'zero emission capable' (Image: eConnect Cars) — From 2020 all new private hire vehicles in London must be ‘zero emission capable’ (Image: eConnect Cars)

From January 2020, as part of London’s forthcoming Ultra-Low Emission Zone, all private hire cars (taxis) less than 18 months old must be zero emissions capable in order to get a license. This means they will need to be able to have a range of at least 30 miles in zero emission mode.

eConnect cars goes one step further by having a fleet consisting entirely of 100% electric vehicles, the Nissan Leaf and Tesla Model S. This eliminates completely the disbursement of particulate matter from exhaust pipes that contributes to the death of approximately 9,000 people per year in London alone.

The company has already raised over 20% of its £400,000 crowdfunding target in the first couple of days. This shows the significant level of interest in the campaign, indicative of people’s concern for environmental matters, particularly with relation to health and pollution in our cities.

The Nissan Leaf is Europe’s leading electric taxi, with over 300 currently in use in countries from Estonia to Germany and The Netherlands. The UK has the most of any European country with over 120 vehicle; however, London, given its population density and pollution, surprisingly only accounts for 20% of this fleet. eConnect, the only Nissan Leaf fleet operator in London, wants to readdress this balance and is looking to double the size of its fleet through this crowdfunding campaign.

Managing Director, Alistair Clarke said:

“There is tremendous pressure on London and other large cities when it comes to urban mobility. With population growth, congestion and air pollution increasingly challenging the status quo, innovative companies like eConnect cars are forging a new integrated multi-modal transport solution.

“With new legislation coming into place [from 2018], running ultra-low emission fleets will become the only viable option. While many competitors seek to stall these changes, eConnect is not only embracing change but is also innovating in the market and showing what positive steps can be done today for a cleaner future.”

Discover the BMW i8

The BMW i8 is ready to revolutionise its vehicle class. As the first sports car with the consumption and emission values of a compact car. The strength of the plug-in hybrid lies, among other factors, in the perfect synchronisation of electric motor and combustion engine, which makes itself apparent in maximum efficiency and dynamics on the road.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJgui5bNaoY

A Car Dealers Won’t Sell: It’s Electric

December 14, 2015Electric Cars, Opinion, SalesTrevor Larkum

More than seven years ago, President Obama called for one million electric cars to be on the road by this year, and the vehicles have gained a large fan club. Environmentalists promote them as a smart way to cut dangerous emissions. Owners love their pep and the gas money they save. Apple and Google have jumped into the race to build next-generation battery-powered cars.

So why are only about 330,000 electric vehicles on the road? One answer lies in an unexpected and powerful camp of skeptics: car dealers. They are showing little enthusiasm for putting consumers into electric cars.

Some buyers even tell stories of dealers talking them into gas cars and of ill-informed salespeople uncertain how far the cars can go on a charge or pushing oil changes that the cars do not need.