The nanomaterial is composed of tiny tin crystals, which are to be deployed at the minus pole of the batteries (anode). When charging the batteries, lithium ions are absorbed at this electrode; while discharging, they are released again (see box). “The more lithium ions the electrodes can absorb and release – the better they can breathe, as it were – the more energy can be stored in a battery,” explains Kovalenko.

Uniform crystals

The element tin is ideal for this: every tin atom can absorb at least four lithium ions. However, the challenge is to deal with the volume change of tin electrodes: tin crystal becomes up to three times bigger if it absorbs a lot of lithium ions and shrinks again when it releases them back. The scientists thus resorted to nanotechnology: they produced the tiniest tin nanocrystals and embedded a large number of them in a porous, conductive permeable carbon matrix. Much like how a sponge can suck up water and release it again, an electrode constructed in this way can absorb lithium ions while charging and release them when discharging. If the electrode were made of a compact tin block, this would practically be impossible.

During the development of the nanomaterial, the issue of the ideal size for the nanocrystals arose, which also carries the challenge of producing uniform crystals. “The trick here was to separate the two basic steps in the formation of the crystals – the formation of as small as a crystal nucleus as possible on the one hand and its subsequent growth on the other,” explains Kovalenko. By influencing the time and temperature of the growth phase, the scientists were able to control the size of the crystals. “We are the first to produce such small tin crystals with such precision,” says the scientist.

Larger cycle stability

Using uniform tin nanocrystals, carbon, and binding agents, the scientists produced different test electrodes for batteries. “This enables twice as much power to be stored compared to conventional electrodes,” says Kovalenko. The size of the nanocrystals did not affect the storage capacity during the initial charging and discharging cycle. After a few charging and discharging cycles, however, differences caused by the crystal size became apparent: batteries with ten-nanometre crystals in the electrodes were able to store considerably more energy than ones with twice the diameter. The scientists assume that the smaller crystals perform better because they can absorb and release lithium ions more effectively. “Ten-nanometre tin crystals thus seem to be just the ticket for lithium ion batteries,” says Kovalenko.

As the scientists now know the ideal size for the tin nanocrystals, they would like to turn their attention to the remaining challenges of producing optimum tin electrodes in further research projects. These include the choice of the best possible carbon matrix and binding agent for the electrodes, and the electrodes’ ideal microscopic structure. Moreover, an optimal and stable electrolyte liquid in which the lithium ions can travel back and forth between the two poles in the battery also needs to be selected. Ultimately, the production costs are also an issue, which the researchers are looking to reduce by testing which cost-effective base materials are suitable for electrode production. The aim is to prepare batteries with an increased energy storage capacity and lifespan for the market, in collaboration with a Swiss industrial partner.

How lithium ion batteries work

In lithium ion batteries, the energy is stored in the form of positively charged lithium atoms (ions) that are found at the minus pole in a charged battery. If energy is taken from the battery, negatively charged electrons flow from the minus pole to the plus pole via the external circuit. To balance the charge, positively charged lithium ions also flow from the minus pole to the plus pole. However, these travel in the electrolyte fluid inside the battery. The process is reversible: lithium ion batteries can be recharged with electricity. In most lithium ion batteries these days, the plus pole is composed of the transition metal oxides cobalt, nickel, and manganese, the minus pole of graphite. In more powerful lithium ion batteries of the next generation, however, elements such as tin or silicon may well be used at the minus pole.

Source: ETH Life

Barrels and cones dot an open field in Saline, Mich., forming an obstacle course for a modified vehicle. A driver remotely steers the vehicle through the course from a nearby location as a researcher looks on. Occasionally, the researcher instructs the driver to keep the wheel straight—a trajectory that appears to put the vehicle on a collision course with a barrel. Despite the driver’s actions, the vehicle steers itself around the obstacle, transitioning control back to the driver once the danger has passed.

The key to the maneuver is a new semiautonomous safety system developed by Sterling Anderson, a PhD student in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, and Karl Iagnemma, a principal research scientist in MIT’s Robotic Mobility Group.

The system uses an onboard camera and laser rangefinder to identify hazards in a vehicle’s environment. The team devised an algorithm to analyze the data and identify safe zones—avoiding, for example, barrels in a field, or other cars on a roadway. The system allows a driver to control the vehicle, only taking the wheel when the driver is about to exit a safe zone.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Anderson, who has been testing the system in Michigan since last September, describes it as an “intelligent co-pilot” that monitors a driver’s performance and makes behind-the-scenes adjustments to keep the vehicle from colliding with obstacles, or within a safe region of the environment, such as a lane or open area.

“The real innovation is enabling the car to share [control] with you,” Anderson says. “If you want to drive, it’ll just … make sure you don’t hit anything.”

The group presented details of the safety system recently at the Intelligent Vehicles Symposium in Spain.

Off the beaten path

Robotics research has focused in recent years on developing systems—from cars to medical equipment to industrial machinery—that can be controlled by either robots or humans. For the most part, such systems operate along preprogrammed paths.

As an example, Anderson points to the technology behind self-parking cars. To parallel park, a driver engages the technology by flipping a switch and taking his hands off the wheel. The car then parks itself, following a preplanned path based on the distance between neighboring cars.

While a planned path may work well in a parking situation, Anderson says when it comes to driving, one or even multiple paths is far too limiting.

“The problem is, humans don’t think that way,” Anderson says. “When you and I drive, [we don’t] choose just one path and obsessively follow it. Typically you and I see a lane or a parking lot, and we say, ‘Here is the field of safe travel, here’s the entire region of the roadway I can use, and I’m not going to worry about remaining on a specific line, as long as I’m safely on the roadway and I avoid collisions.’”

Click here to read the rest of this article at MIT News Office.

With a projected range of 200 miles and a top speed of 120 mhp, this vehicle has real practical uses in mind.

Lit Motors calls the C1 “The world’s first gyroscopically stabilized rolling smart phone. This vehicle combines the efficiency and freedom of a motorcycle with the safety and convenience of a car. Offering the alternated to alternatives on an exciting and safe platform, the C-1 transforms your daily commute into something to look forward to.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Dutch Innovation

A team of top engineers has been working on the first prototypes. Renowned institutes such as the Dutch National Aerospace Laboratory and Delft University are involved in the development. The driving prototype was fully tested in 2009 and now the flying-driving prototype made its first flights. The PAL-V complies with existing regulations in all major markets, which means that the vehicle is allowed both in road traffic and in the air.

Robert Dingemanse, CEO and co-founder of PAL-V commented: “We are very proud to announce this successful maiden flight of the PAL-V and we now invite investors to create the future with us. We know there is a lot of interest for the PAL-V. Prior to announcing these test flights, we were already approached on a daily basis by potential customers and dealers wanting to be part of this exciting project.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Door-to-Door Mobility

A PAL-V offers the choice of flying like a plane or driving like a car. This means fast door-to-door mobility for private individuals as well as professionals and organizations. The flying range will be between 350 (220 miles) and 500 km (315 miles), depending on the type and pay load. Driving, a PAL-V will have a range of about 1200 km (750 miles). It runs on gasoline and there will also be versions that use biodiesel or bio-ethanol. It can reach speeds of up to 180 km/h (110 miles/h) both on land and in the air.

On the ground the aerodynamic, 3-wheeled vehicle combines the comfort of a car with the agility of a motorcycle thanks to its patented, cutting-edge, ’tilting’ system. Driving, a PAL-V accelerates like a sports car.

Flying, a PAL-V is like a standard gyrocopter. It is quieter than helicopters due to the slower rotation of the rotor. It takes off and lands with low speed, cannot stall, and is very easy to control. This makes a PAL-V one of the safest types of aircraft. Obtaining a licence requires only 20 to 30 hours of training.

It is possible to land a PAL-V practically anywhere. For take-off, a strip of 165 meters (540 feet) is enough and it can be either paved or grass.

Governments are already preparing for increasing traffic with Personal Air Vehicles like the PAL-V. In the US and in Europe government-funded programs are determining the infrastructure of ‘digital freeways’ to provide safe corridors using GPS technology. The technology is available today to allow personal air traffic to grow safely. PAL-V is determined to play a leading role in this market.

The Company

The company management consists of a team of Dutch entrepreneurs with expertise in aviation, automotive, research, and marketing. PAL-V succeeded in gathering the best talent available. The company was initially funded by a group of informal investors and also received a loan from the Agentschap NL. Three Dutch ministries are supporting the project based on its technical innovation and economic potential.

Professionals and corporations are investigating the efficiency and improved effectiveness a PAL-V will bring to their operations. Potential lead customers such as police, the military, and flying doctors have expressed interest for surveillance, mobility, aid in post-war situations, and homeland security. Initial talks about specific requirements are underway.

Now that the final product development phase has been reached, PAL-V Europe will invite new investors to fund the development of the commercial product and the market launch.

A flying car has been a dream cherished for almost 100 years. Now it has become reality. This will be a revolution in door-to-door transportation similar to the transition from horse-and-buggy to the automobile. Leave home and fly-drive to almost any destination. Avoid traffic jams and cross lakes, fjords, rivers or mountain ranges like an eagle. Touch down on the other side and drive to your final destination. The PAL-V combines in one vehicle the freedom and excitement of flying like a bird in the sky with the choice of breathtaking driving performance on the roads and highways. It offers an unprecedented freedom in mobility.

Source: PAL-V Release

A company looking to purchase an electric-powered delivery truck today will likely experience some sticker shock: Such a vehicle costs nearly $150,000, compared to about $50,000 for the same kind of truck with a standard internal-combustion engine.

However, using electric vehicles can markedly lower the costs of a fleet of delivery trucks. That’s the conclusion of a new MIT study showing that electric vehicles are not just environmentally friendly, but also have a potential economic upside for many kinds of businesses.

The study, conducted by researchers at MIT’s Center for Transportation and Logistics (CTL), finds that electric vehicles can cost 9 to 12 percent less to operate than trucks powered by diesel engines, when used to make deliveries on an everyday basis in big cities.

“There has to be a good business case if there is going to be more adoption of electric vehicles,” says Jarrod Goentzel, director of the Renewable Energy Delivery Project at CTL and one of four co-authors of the new study. “We think it’s already a viable economic model, and as battery costs continue to drop, the case will only get better.”

Another of the paper’s co-authors, Clayton Siegert, a 2009 graduate of the CTL’s master’s of engineering in logistics program and a member of the Renewable Energy Delivery Project, presented the results in January at the IEEE Power and Energy Society Innovative Smart Grid Technologies Conference, in Washington. The paper will be published in a volume of the conference’s proceedings. It originated in a thesis project by two researchers who received the master’s of engineering in logistics from CTL in 2011, Andre De Los Rios and Kristen Nordstrom.

Electric vehicles: A staple of the truck fleet?

The CTL study was conducted using data collected by the international office supplier Staples, as well as ISO New England, the nonprofit firm that runs New England’s electric power grid. Using that data, the researchers modeled the costs for a fleet of 250 delivery trucks, and examined alternate scenarios in which the whole fleet used one of three kinds of motors: purely electric engines, hybrid gas-electric engines and conventional diesel engines.

Based on the Staples data, the researchers modeled what would happen if diesel gasoline cost $4 per gallon. Trucks with internal-combustion engines averaged 10.14 miles per gallon, compared to 11.56 miles per gallon for hybrid trucks, while the electric-only trucks averaged 0.8 kilowatt-hours per mile. Staples currently has 53 all-electric trucks, manufactured by Missouri-based Smith Electric Vehicles, in use in several American cities.

Read the rest of this article at MIT News Office.

The new technology has the potential to dramatically increase the driving range of electric vehicles and eventually transform highway travel, according to the researchers. Their results are published in the journal Applied Physics Letters (APL).

“Our vision is that you’ll be able to drive onto any highway and charge your car,” said Shanhui Fan, an associate professor of electrical engineering. “Large-scale deployment would involve revamping the entire highway system and could even have applications beyond transportation.”

Driving range

A wireless charging system would address a major drawback of plug-in electric cars – their limited driving range. The all-electric Nissan Leaf, for example, gets less than 100 miles on a single charge, and the battery takes several hours to fully recharge.

A charge-as-you-drive system would overcome these limitations. “What makes this concept exciting is that you could potentially drive for an unlimited amount of time without having to recharge,” said APL study co-author Richard Sassoon, the managing director of the Stanford Global Climate and Energy Project (GCEP), which funded the research. “You could actually have more energy stored in your battery at the end of your trip than you started with.”

The wireless power transfer is based on a technology called magnetic resonance coupling. Two copper coils are tuned to resonate at the same natural frequency – like two wine glasses that vibrate when a specific note is sung. The coils are placed a few feet apart. One coil is connected to an electric current, which generates a magnetic field that causes the second coil to resonate. This magnetic resonance results in the invisible transfer of electric energy through the air from the first coil to the receiving coil.

“Wireless power transfer will only occur if the two resonators are in tune,” Fan noted. “Objects tuned at different frequencies will not be affected.”

In 2007, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used magnetic resonance to light a 60-watt bulb. The experiment demonstrated that power could be transferred between two stationary coils about six feet apart, even when humans and other obstacles are placed in between.

Click here to view the embedded video.

“In the MIT experiment, the magnetic field appeared to have no impact on people who stood between the coils,” Fan said. “That’s very important in terms of safety. “

Wireless charging

The MIT researchers have created a spinoff company that’s developing a stationary charging system capable of wirelessly transferring about 3 kilowatts of electric power to a vehicle parked in a garage or on the street.

Fan and his colleagues wondered if the MIT system could be modified to transfer 10 kilowatts of electric power over a distance of 6.5 feet – enough to charge a car moving at highway speeds. The car battery would provide an additional boost for acceleration or uphill driving.

Here’s how the system would work: A series of coils connected to an electric current would be embedded in the highway. Receiving coils attached to the bottom of the car would resonate as the vehicle speeds along, creating magnetic fields that continuously transfer electricity to charge the battery.

Source: Stanford University News.

Toyota Racing officially introduced its 2012 World Endurance Championship contender, the TS030 Hybrid Le Mans Prototype 1, at France’s Paul Ricard test circuit on Jan. 24.

The new car, built by German-based Toyota Motorsport GmbH, the shop which built and operated Toyota’s F1 cars (and the GT-One Le Mans cars) is powered by a 3.4-liter gasoline V8 and a capacitor-storage electric motor recharged by braking. Tests are still underway to determine if the electric motor will ultimately power the front or the rear wheels.

The TS030 Hybrid has already successfully completed several hundred miles around the Paul Ricard test track in two days of testing in mid-January.

In a field dominated by turbocharged diesels, Toyota chose a hybrid gas/electric powertrain for both performance and publicity reasons.

“The regulations for hybrid powertrains allow us to recover energy under braking and release this to improve acceleration out of a corner, delivering lap-time benefit,” said Technical Director Pascal Vasselon on Toyota.co.uk. “For any given performance level, a hybrid powertrain will achieve this with less fuel so it is an extremely relevant technology and one we are excited to be bringing to endurance racing.”

Toyota has already sold more than 3.5 million road-going hybrids; this racing model emphasizes how important hybrid technology will be for the factory’s future models.

Click here to read the rest of this piece at TheEpochTimes.com.

The resulting electric Berlingo van carried a whopping 180 kilowatt-hours’ worth of batteries, which consumed almost the entire rear compartment of the vehicle. This is obviously less than optimum for a production vehicle. Even the cheapest guestimate of what that amount of energy storage might cost would put the Berlingo’s battery pack price in the tens of thousands of dollars. But assuming more advancements in battery technology, which seem to be in the news almost daily, the future of the concept is not too far fetched.

The distance covered by the electrified Berlingo was 1000 KM or 621 miles, with the trip originating in Flensburg, Germany and ending Munich. Speeds on the route ranged from 30 to 50 mph.

The time of the trip was 17 hours, though the planners estimated it would take 20. An escort car followed with relief drivers. The trip covered country roads, city streets and the Autobahn, giving a variety of driving conditions, adding to the veracity of the test.

Once the can arrived in Munich, for the eCarTec 2011 3rd International Trade Fair for Electric Mobility, there was still enough remaining charge for an additional 100 miles.

We can only hope that more companies will start thinking outside the box and push EV envelope!

The first iterations of the Ryno will be targeted at short-range, around town commuters who want a unique want utterly cool way of getting around. They’ll have to be rather well-heeled early adopters as the first 50 hand made and signed editions will cost $25,000 with a $6000 deposit.

Our opinion is that this we are seeing a slice of the future with the RYNO, and that always floats our boat!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Check out RYNO’s site for more info and videos.

On the outside, the car looks similar to the original, but according to DesignNews, the rear engine compartment has been turned into the “battery bay,” housing the electric motor and some of the vehicle’s 750 pounds of “flux” batteries.

The 400 volt liquid-cooled electric motor pumps out 260 horsepower, and the company says that it will go from 0-60 in 4.9 seconds and top out at 125 mph. (The original DeLorean took about ten seconds to get up to 60 mph, according to TheUltimateCarPage.com.)

DeLorean EV Specs

MOTOR
400 volt AC induction liquid-cooled electric motor.
TORQUE: 360lb/ft @t 0-7,200rpm
HORSEPOWER: 260hp (215 kW) @ 5,000-6,000rpm
MAX RPM: 14,000rpm

PERFORMANCE
TOP SPEED: 125 mph
0-60MPH: 4.9 seconds

TRANSMISSION
Single speed fixed gear. Reverse drive uses reverse direction of
motor, limited to 15 mph.
OVERALL FINAL DRIVE: 8.28:1
FINAL DRIVE RATIO: 3.12:1

BATTERY
Flux Power LIfePO4 battery with advanced control systems. 3.5 hour charge time from empty to full using the DMCev Smart Charging Solution at 240 Volts and 70 Amps.
RANGE: 100+ miles city driving
EXPECTED BATTERY LIFE: Seven-years or 100,000 miles