With the BMW i3, the world was introduced to a car developed to be not only emissions-free, but to bring the joy of driving to electric vehicles.
Suddenly, the downtown commute became far more relaxed and sustainable. Where not long ago there was engine noise, now power is delivered almost silently. Because sometimes the most powerful performances are silent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P33qGqqyzNA
Source: BMW
The newly elected French president Emmanuel Macron is broadly pursuing the energy and traffic policies outlined by his predecessor, Francois Hollande. He is especially looking to promote electric vehicles (EVs) and aims for the last car with an internal combustion engine (ICE) to be sold in France in 2040.
French daily newspaper Le Monde reported in the run-up to the election that one of Macron’s objectives is ‘to get out of fossil fuels’ and he therefore wants to expand France’s charging network. In order to ‘protect the health of the French,’ Macron also proposes to align the taxation of diesel with that of gasoline by 2022 and ‘to strengthen the European antipollution standards of new vehicles and controls in real conditions.’ These measures were already in place under Hollande’s government but Macron has additionally announced plans to introduce a bonus of €1000 for the purchase of a new or used ‘greener’ vehicle.
This extends further than the current bonus which is restricted to the purchase of a hybrid or electric vehicle. Apart from this, Macron wants to keep the existing bonus-malus scheme, which rewards the acquisition of clean cars and penalises those with higher fuel consumption. Ultimately, however, Macron’s aspiration is that there will be no more ‘sale of thermal vehicles’ in France in 2040.
As far as broader energy policy is concerned, Macron aims to increase the share of renewable energies in France’s energy mix to 32 per cent by 2030 and also to close the latest coal-fired power stations. By way of comparison, as early as 2016, renewable energy sources already contributed 29 percent to gross electricity generation in Germany. Macron was already committed to this project when he was the Minister of Economy in the cabinet of presidential predecessor François Hollande. In his term in office from 2014 to 2016, he passed the energy transition law for green growth (LTECV) and explicitly mentioned this several times during the election campaign.
Macron also aims to reduce the proportion of nuclear energy in France to 50 per cent by 2025, and the CO2 tax will rise to €100 per tonne by 2023. In total, Macron wants to invest €15 billion in ecology and power generation.
Source: Autovista Group
Electric vehicles (EVs) are quickly moving from early adopter toys to mass-market essentials.
The 2017 Hyundai Ioniq is a completely new model from the Korean automaker. Though the Ioniq shares its platform with sister-brand Kia’s Nero, the body, powertrain combinations, and several interior components are fresh elements. Notably, the Ioniq Electric is the automaker’s first battery-electric model.
The 2017 Ioniq Electric keeps things simple when it comes to trims and packages. Highlights of the base trim include LED daytime running lights, proximity door locks, push-button ignition, automatic headlights, automatic climate control, power windows with auto driver’s window, heated front seats, two USB ports, Bluetooth, HD radio, Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, and a three-month Sirius XM trial.
Contemporary Hyundai vehicles lack little in the way of interior gadgetry. The Ioniq Electric comes standard with a 7.0-inch infotainment system and 7.0-inch + 4.2-inch digital driver display. The vivid TFT screens show energy distribution on the left, speed and remaining range in the center, and a host of telemetry data on the right.
The Ioniq’s conservative exterior design pairs with a refined, handsome cabin. Glossy metal trim accents the steering wheel spoke, door handles, air vents, and gear selector controls for a premium touch. On the tactile front, soft leather covers the steering wheel, seats, center console, and door panels. If you look hard enough, you can find budget materials, but those are exceptions to a high-quality cockpit.
Powering the 2017 Hyundai Ioniq Electric is an 88 kWh electric motor mated to a 28 kWh lithium-ion polymer battery. A single-speed automatic transmission sends 118 hp and 215 pound-feet of torque to the front wheels for what independent sources estimate is an 8.0-second sprint to 60 mph. Hyundai says the Ioniq Electric runs out of pep at 90 mph.
Hyundai packs the Ioniq with seven airbags, ABS, automatic headlights, stability control, a rearview camera, and driver blindspot monitor as standard. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has yet to grade the Ioniq EV, but given Hyundai’s track record for five-star performances, we expect the Ioniq to be a very safe ride.
Read More: Digital Trends
A new study from author and Stanford University lecturer Tony Seba has raised eyebrows in the Canadian oil patch. He forecasts that by 2030, electric vehicles will account for 95% of the miles traveled in the U.S., which is the sole market for Canadian oil exports.
As if that prediction isn’t remarkable enough, Seba said global oil production will fall from 100 million barrels per day (MMbbl/d) to 70 MMbbl/d, which, if true, would possibly devastate the high-cost 2.7 MMbbl/d Alberta oil sands industry.
The trigger for what Seba calls
“one of the fastest, deepest, most consequential disruptions of transportation in history”
will be the perfection of electric vehicle (EV) self-driving technology. Companies such as Uber and Lyft will buy fleets of autonomous cars and charge users to ride, a business model known as “transportation as a service.”
After more than a century of private auto ownership, families and businesses will give up their cars because transportation costs will simply fall off a cliff, said Seba, who co-authored “Rethinking Transportation 2020-2030: The Disruption of Transportation and the Collapse of the ICE Vehicle and Oil Industries” with Bryan Hansel and James Arbib.
The new way of getting around town will be 4x to 10x cheaper per mile than a new car, and 2x to 4x cheaper than a paid-off vehicle, with the average American household saving a whopping $5,600 annually.
In an interview, Seba said that under the right conditions, he can even foresee
“free transportation” supported by advertising revenue:“There is nothing magical about it. This is driven by the economics.”
The economics are that at present, Americans use their vehicles only 4% of the time. The study estimates transportation-as-a-service companies will have their EVs on the road earning money at least 40%—and maybe even 50% to 80%—of the time.
And EVs will seemingly run forever, lasting 500,000 miles while requiring far less maintenance and repair than internal combustion engine (ICE) autos, whose life on average is only 140,000 miles.
“Many automakers are working on million-mile electric vehicles, which drives down costs even lower,”
Seba said.
As fewer cars travel more miles, the number of passenger vehicles on American roads will drop from 247 million to 44 million.
Read more: E&P
The growing popularity of electric vehicles makes it difficult to remember when the environmentally friendly automobiles were considered appropriate solely for short local trips.
Today, an increasing awareness of the connection between cars and climate change, coupled with a growing number of electric car charging stations is inspiring a surge in electric car use around the world.
Europe is the current frontrunner in the global race to increase electric car use, with Norway leading the charge. Having stated that they plan to eliminate using all fossil fuel powered vehicles by 2025, the Scandinavian country offers residents an array of incentives designed to make the switch to electric vehicles easy.
While Europe is embracing electric vehicles, the current world leader for electric car use is China. With their sights set on the future, China is focused on achieving their reported goal of deploying 5 million electric vehicles by 2020. To date, there are approximately 600,000 electric vehicles on the road in China.
The surge in electric car use has prompted the rapid installation of electric car charging stations worldwide. Once limited to a radius of approximately 100 miles per charge, some new generations of electric vehicles are promising that a full charge will last for approximately 200 miles.
In addition to the increased power of electric vehicle charges, electric car charging stations are also improving. A full charge, which can take approximately eight hours, can now be accomplished in little over 15 minutes by using quick charging stations.
While there are still challenges, such as under supported power grids, obvious next steps will be for countries to enhance their power grid to prevent brownouts due to the high volume of people charging vehicles.
Read more: Sparta Capital
Renault’s EV boss says the cost of electric cars such as the ZOE will drop, bringing them in-line with conventionally-powered cars
Renault’s head of electric vehicles believes EVs like the ZOE will cost about same as similarly sized, conventionally-powered cars by the year 2020.
Gilles Normand, senior vice-president for electric vehicles at Renault, said that sales of the firm’s small EV, the ZOE, have jumped 90 per cent between 2016 and 2017, thanks to the introduction of a larger battery capacity. And he believes that as more manufacturers and suppliers invest in battery development and manufacturing, the prices of EVs will take only a couple of years to reach the same level as petrol-engined cars.
Speaking at the Financial Times Car of the Future Summit in London, Normand said, “We are moving faster than we expected. When we introduced the first ZOE back in 2012, we didn’t think the new battery capacity would come in 2016; we expected it by 2018.
“There’s now a huge amount of money being invested by OEMs and by suppliers, tier one suppliers. This will bring further technology breakthroughs in battery tech. And then it’ll further help sales, because it’ll be more affordable.
“So we mustn’t forget that the prices of combustion-engine cars will go up, and EV prices will come down. If you go for B-segment [cars like the Ford Fiesta], by early next decade we consider the prices of EVs will be on par with combustion-engined cars. With the C-segment [cars like the VW Golf], it’ll be the middle of the next decade. And in industry terms, the year 2020 is like tomorrow morning at 8am, right? And this will be another trigger point for more and more adoption.”
Source: Auto Express
It is still early days for electric vehicles (EV), but with more motorists reaping the benefits of electric driving, the market is growing.
Total plug-in car registrations for 2016 passed the sector’s 2015 total, while the Government’s pledge to invest £35m in the ultra-low emission vehicle sector will help ensure that development of the UK’s EV charging infrastructure keeps pace.
Improvements in battery technology mean that pure EVs can now travel around 100 miles on a full charge, while plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) and range extenders enable vehicles to travel several hundred miles.
Phil Gilbert, director of energy solutions at E.ON, says:
“We’re seeing huge growth in the number of new electric vehicles on the road, including hybrid technologies and pure electric vehicles from manufacturers such as Tesla, BMW and Mitsubishi.
“As this growth continues, we want to offer our business customers the ability to take full advantage of the financial and environmental benefits of charging their fleets or their employees’ cars at work, or offering a charging service to their customers.”
To do that, the company (which has a well-established network of charging points across Europe), is launching a range of charge-point solutions. It’s part of a wider drive from E.ON to work with clients to help maximise the benefits of investment in EV infrastructure.
Read more: The Telegraph
InstaVolt has signed a multi-million-pound deal with the world’s largest electric vehicle (EV) charging network.
The Basingstoke firm has signed an agreement with Silicon Valley giant ChargePoint to purchase more than 200 of its electric vehicle rapid charging solutions. They will be installed later this year, marking the first time the rapid charging systems will be deployed in the UK.
InstaVolt, which installs and maintains electric vehicle charging points at places such as forecourts and service stations, will begin installing the first of the ChargePoint ‘Express Plus’ rapid charge systems this summer. They will be strategically placed close to popular routes across the country, enabling drivers to easily charge their vehicles during long journeys.
The Express Plus charging systems, which can add hundreds of miles of range in as quick as 15 minutes, have been designed to be future-proof. The modular charging platform is built to scale as demand grows.
The deal between InstaVolt and ChargePoint comes after the American company secured $82 million in investments as part of its latest funding round to help it break into Europe.
Read more: Instavolt
The delayed Hyundai Ioniq Plug-in promises eyebrow-raising fuel economy at an appealing price.
The Hyundai Ioniq, new to showrooms only last year, has been rightly proclaimed unique among environmentally friendly family hatchbacks because it’s the only car on the market available as either a normal hybrid, a plug-in-hybrid, or a full battery-only electric option.
The third Hyundai Ioniq derivative is ostensibly the same as the lesser hybrid but for a much larger and more powerful lithium-ion drive battery and the ‘Type II’ electrical charging socket needed to charge it from the mains. The battery’s capacity is 8.9kWh, and the Ioniq Plug-in charges from a typical 16-amp driveway wallbox charge in a little over two hours. Petrol power comes from a 104bhp 1.6-litre petrol engine, and electrical and piston power are juggled onto the road through the front wheels via a six-speed twin-clutch automatic gearbox.
The car can be driven in ‘EV’, ‘HEV Hybrid’ and ‘Sport’ modes, and truncated testing suggested it should be good for around 30 miles of mixed driving on battery power alone: not quite equal to Hyundai’s 39-mile claim, but certainly up there with the Toyota on electric-only range. Over a total 100-miles of testing at mixed pace, we averaged 85.6mpg in the car overall: also a very creditable result.
The Ioniq’s 60bhp electric motor feels potent enough around town and up to about 50mph. The car is happy to cruise on electric power at motorway speed, but you need to rouse the combustion engine for meaningful acceleration here.
The cabin’s almost identical to those of its Ioniq rangemates. This is a fairly large and spacious hatchback with good accommodation for adults in the back row but for slightly limited headroom. Boot space relative to the standard Ioniq is eaten into slightly by that larger drive battery, but a fairly long, wide and deep loadbay is left that should swallow pushchairs and the like easily enough.
Hyundai adds functions to the car’s infotainment system over and above what that of the Ioniq Hybrid that allow you to search for nearby charging stations and monitor the car’s energy usage that bit more closely. Overall, though, the car’s infotainment system is a way from being the most intuitive, usable and advanced-looking of its kind.
Read more: What Car?
Sales of green vehicles in the US and Europe are spiking.
As with any new transportation technology, it’s not as simple as building your first vehicle and expecting the whole world to change. And yet, it appears as if the world is finally cottoning on to this whole electric cars are better and cheaper to run thing.
The European Automobile Manufacturers Association has revealed that EV sales in the first quarter of 2017 are spiking. Overall, sales of so-called “Alternative Fuel Vehicles” have increased by an overall 37.6 percent compared to the first quarter of 2016.
Those figures seem to mirror Bloomberg’s research into the state of the US electric market, which has seen demand trend northward. In the same period, American sales of electric vehicles jumped 49 percent, with sales totaling 40,700.
As heartwarming as the stats are, it’s worth noting that the law of small numbers makes them sound a little more impressive than they actually are. For instance, Germany’s 117 percent rise in EV sales reflects a jump from 2,332 cars in Q1 2016 to 5,060 now.
Around a quarter of European greenhouse gas emissions come from transportation, as well as it being the primary cause of air pollution in cities. So there’s something of an imperative to get on with getting everyone to make the switch, which should be helped by cheaper, newer EVs, like the Renault Zoe.
Source: Engadget