Direct High-Speed Charging of Electric Cars by Solar Panels

Charging Electric cars via a solar panel

Electric cars are now the “in thing”. With this fad on the up and up, many are now looking for ways to charge the car in ways that can be energy efficient. The whole point of these electric cars is that they should not take up much fuel and can be charged from renewable sources of energy that does not require the burning of fossil fuels, which would otherwise be the same thing as filling up the car with all fuel. Therefore researchers have now discovered a novel way to charge these electric cars using solar energy.

Researchers are now considering charging electric cars using solar panels. By using this method of charging the cars, people will not only save the environment from the burning of fossil fuels but will also be using a renewable source of energy, this is besides getting tax concessions.

Charging electric cars using solar panels and their problems: 

Present practice in using a solar panel means that charge from the solar panel has to be converted from direct current to alternating current to charge an electric car. This normally would require a 50Hz AC network, to convert the direct current into alternating current.

But this method is not really beneficial for anyone. In that it is not cost effective or efficient. This is because of two main reasons. To convert current to AC involves a lot of costs and needs many steps. Secondly, to convert from DC to AC requires two converters one for the solar panel and the other for the car, again leading to high costs and installments.

What’s the solution then? 

A better alternative as discovered by the researchers is to use a single converter that charges the car from the panels via a DC link which connects to the AC electricity grid.

Researchers then came up with a 10kW converter that has an internal DC link and three terminals that would allow the car to charge both from the solar panel and the electricity grid.

What’s so good about this method is that the integrated DC charger has a higher efficiency and is three times smaller than the current practice.

Another advantage of using this method is that not only will you be able to charge your car, you will now also be able to charge your entire house using this new method. You could also return the electricity back to the grid that is not before first converting it into AC.

The Future of Charging Electric cars: 

This system can be expanded to connect several chargers to solar panels thus expanding its use to business parks and residential areas. The company Power Research Electronics has gone a step further and made this theoretical system a reality by developing a number of high speed charging stations of this type.
In this way electric cars will not only consume less fuel, thereby burning less fossil fuel and in turn less damage to the atmosphere, but will also earn tax concessions by using a renewable source of energy.

First Tesla Model 3 Electric Car Rolling Off Production Line

Tesla Model 3 Electric Car

The much anticipated first lower-cost Tesla Model 3 electric car would eventually be rolling off the assembly line for the public, awaiting a `concluding checkout’. Its new owner, Tesla chief executive, Elon Musk had recently tweeted that `Production Unit 1 of Model 3 has now been built and will go through the last checkout, when he unveiled the image of a real Model 3.

The one-man marketing machine who had also taken on a huge, high profile battery project in Australia and runs a privateer space company Space X had shared some images of the Model 3. Tesla is said to be working on a restricted production run of the Model 3 electric car and the first 30 new cars are estimated to be delivered to consumers by July 28.

In numerous Twitter posts, Musk has mentioned that the California-based company would be producing 100 cars by August and over 1,500 in September. It seems that they could reach a target of 20,000 Model 3 cars per month in December. A European launch is anticipated at a later date but Tesla had estimated a delivery of vehicles for new reservations would be taking a year or longer.

 

Attain Highest Safety Ratings

Model 3 is considered to be a most important step for Tesla and would come up at a price of around $35,000 in the US which is less than half the cost of its Model S saloon car. It tends to attain 215 miles (346 km) of range for each charge though will be available for as little as $27,500 with a $7,500 federal tax credit for electric vehicles. It has been created to attain the highest safety ratings in each classification.

Its design is said to match that of a pre-production car which had been on display last year, before the Tesla Gigafactory in Sparks, Nevada. Tesla is said to hold a party for the handing over of the first 30 Models 3s to US customers on 28th July just as it had done for launches of the Model S as well as Model X in the past inclusive of the launch of the Model S in London in June 2014.

The Model 3 is considered to be the third model in the present range from the company which comprises of Model s and Model X, a crossover SUV which had been delivered to the customer nearly 18 months later than scheduled.

First Mass-Market Vehicle

The limiting of options of Tesla for the Model 3 to choice of colour as well as wheels had been made in an attempt to hurry on the manufacturing and reduce the production problem it had undergone in the past with an over-complicated list of choices for its Model X. Musk expects that the Model 3 would be the first mass-market vehicle of Tesla that would put strain on its prevailing support system together with dealerships of which there seems to be few in contrast to normal rivals like General Motors that had built over 10m cars during the same time when in 2015, Tesla had produced around 84,000 cars.

The Car Of The Future Will Be Electric, Led By Tesla

One of the most predictable outcomes which are sure to happen in the near future is the prevalence of electric cars over petrol and diesel cars. The reasons to that being simple: Electric cars prove to be more efficient than any other cars and also the fact that they are the ultimate multi-fuel cars.

The reasons behind the forthcoming dominance of electric cars

• The decreased cost: - Let us analyze a small example to emphasize the point we are trying to make. Popular Mechanics in its May, 2006 issue published an article about bio-fuel comparing various technologies in automobile development such as ethanol, methanol, gasoline, Compressed Natural Gas, and even electric cars. Taking a cross-country drive in each of the cars of identical sizes they compared their costs. A drive in a Honda Civic cost them $212, the VolksWagon diesel Golf followed at $230. The cost in an E85 ethanol was $425 and that in a methanol car cost $619. The CNG car looked fascinating at $110 but guess how much the electric car cost, a staggering $60. And remember it wasn’t even an article about electric cars. 
•  Convertibility: - The best aspect about electricity is that it can be converted from almost any fuel that can be burned. Barring a few inefficient and old power plants, the modern ones have state of the art technologies which enable coal to be gasified and burnt in a very clean and efficient manner. Considering the large amount of coal reserves we have, this is a very helpful thing.

An advanced natural gas generator, known as the H-System Generator has a 60 percent efficiency and can easily burn biogas which is produced from the biomass. An electric car powered in this way has the transportation capacity of four times as much as one which is powered by ethanol made from the same stuff.
People can even put on solar panels on their rooftops which will hence power their electric car and therefore reduce our dependencies on oil to power our cars.

Tesla will be the leader

Tesla, the Silicon Valley disrupter has been successful to show the increased consumer demand for electrically powered cars that are well-designed. A powerful catalyst working in this favor is lithium-ion batteries whose prices are decreasing fast. Mobile computing and its growth has caused immense investment in the area which has further resulted in improving the range of electric cars and decreasing their costs.

Global trends unmistakably hint at the takeoff of electric cars in the international market. In the coming few years, petrol and diesel cars are going to face strong competition from the flurry of electric car launches from Chevy and especially from Tesla. In general, electric motors are much easier to produce and most importantly cheaper. That brings us to the inevitable conclusion that the future of cars will certainly be electric. With Tesla assuring $100 per kWh by the end of 2020, battery costs are sure to decline which means lower prices for electric vehicles.
Vehicle electrification is perhaps the most important change in automobile industry and Tesla the most significant leader.

These Driverless Pods will Hit the Streets of London in July

First Autonomous Vehicles – Driverless Pods

The first autonomous vehicles hitting the streets of London are the driverless pods and the vehicles have already being used on tracks at Heathrow Airport. It will be adjusted for use from July in Greenwich. The association behind the test have mentioned that the changes would be made in order that the pods need not run on tracks.

Created by the GATEway group, seven of the electric pods would be placed on the runway of the Greenwich Peninsula, where the routes would probably include residential streets, the North Greenwich underground station as well as areas in the vicinity of the O2 Arena. They would be experimented for three months by invited users prior to being opened to the general community. Individual pod would be carrying six passengers though one of the passengers would be a steward and the task would be to press the emergency button in case of any problem arising during the trip.

The pod would also be the first driverless vehicles to hit the streets of London as well as a part of a huge national project. Various companies around the world including Ford, Tesla, Google, probably Apple have been developing autonomous vehicles.

Three Companies Working on the Pods

Besides just self-driving cars and pods which are being created, Switzerland is all set to introduce nine seater autonomous busses somewhere this year, where the driverless shuttles have been tested on public roads already, in Netherlands.

Greenwich is one of the four areas in the UK where the driverless vehicles are expected to be experimented while Bristol, Coventry as well as Milton Keynes would also be experimenting later in the year. It is said that the pods have been utilised at Heathrow Terminal 5 for about five years and as per those behind the project, they have carried around 1.5 million passengers and have travelled set tracks of 1.8 million miles. There are three companies that have been working in making the pods functional on the roads instead of tracks.

These include Westfield Sportscar, a West Midlands company which develops classic automobiles. Project organiser Transport Research Laboratory – TRL has stated that it would be acting as an `integrator and manufacturer’ designing and testing the vehicles to make sure that they meet up with road safety standards while Oxbotica, a research based team which was rolled out of Oxford University’s Mobile robotics Group would be working on the software as well as the hardware which deals with mapping, perception and localisation.

Project Funded By Government Agency/Industry

Finally, Heathrow Enterprise the company which tends to operate the UK’s busiest airport, having plenty of first-hand experience with the dome shaped pods will be designing the software.The UltraPODs as they have been named are presently being adjusted for use on the roads but their precise design has not been disclosed though it has been confirmed that they will not be running on dedicated tracks.

The project is said to be equally funded by government agency Innovate UK and industry. The present set of UltraPODs tends to have a top speed of 40kph. Though they are not the most exciting vehicles in appearance, they tend to get the job done at Heathrow and have shown the capabilities of a fully-fledged mode of public transportation.

Britain Set to Build Incredible Experimental Motorway Which Charges Up Electric Cars as They Move

Britain is all set to test the new electric highways technology, which promises to power up electric cars on the go. The world is looking for new smart ways of lowering the reliance of conventional sources of energy, which ends up damaging the environment with increased CO2 output. Electric and hybrid cars had been in fashion for quite some time but it couldn’t generate wider scale adoption due to various factors. With the introduction of electric highways in England later this year people can give a serious thought over the environment friendly electric and hybrid cars.

Off roads trials soon to begin in England

Highways England will be undertaking the off road trials of this new technology which can easily the power the electric and hybrid vehicles. The trials are said to be first of its kind, which will test this technology potential. It will also test the safety quotient along with its effectiveness on country’s major motor ways and major A roads. Such roads will allow the people driving the ultra low emission vehicles over to a long distance without the hassle of stopping by and charging the car’s battery.

How this technology works?

During the off road trials electric and hybrid engine vehicles will be fitted with wireless charging capabilities and it will be charged by equipment built underneath the road surface. When such vehicles ply the road, they will be able charge wirelessly without the need of stopping and charging the vehicles at all. If this trial happens to be successful then this advanced electric highway technology will be brought on major motorways and major A roads throughout the country.

Highways England chief engineer, Mike Wilson was quite upbeat about this technology and stated that in order to keep pace with the advancing vehicle technologies and to support growth of ultra low emissions vehicles this technology will be utilized to its full potential. The wireless power technology will certainly help in creating sustainable road networks in England. It is also expected to open up new opportunities for businesses, which deal in transporting the goods within the country. In short Highways England is committed to bring this technology on a wider scale if happens to be successful.

Government support likely to spurt up the electric highway technology

Government has shown immense faith in this new technology and it has already committed to offer 500 million pounds over the next five years. This money will be utilized to bring wide scale adoption of this technology, which will help, in boosting the jobs and growth across the various sectors. Transport minister Andrew Jones emphasizes the potential to recharge low emission vehicles on the move, which is a great advancement in itself, and it offers far more exciting possibilities.

Making the low emission vehicles accessible to a greater number of families and businesses will become easier with the electric highways. It should be noted that at present more than 35000 electric cars registered in the UK. Apart from these trials, Highways England is also committed to install plug-in charging points for electrics after 20 miles on the motorways network.

Graphene-Based Supercapacitors for Battery-Free Electric Cars

Photo credit: AlexanderAlUS, CC

Change in Power Battery free Electric Cars

Latest technology has brought about a change in power battery free electric cars within five years with scientists developing graphene based super capacitors which are light and can be used to create electric vehicles that are powered by their own parts of the body rather than the batteries.

Electric cars is considered as the future of sustainable transport but are held back due to the fact they need heavy, slow releasing batteries to power them and the top end Lithium-ion batteries available in the market tend to charge really slowly besides weighing a lot.

A better option is to use supercapacitors devices which could release a large energy burst though they are difficult to store much energy as batteries and hence plenty of them would be needed to power a car. Scientist have worked their way to combine batteries and supercapacitors to make batteries powerful as well as lighter in the shortest term though the ultimate goal is to create super capacitor which would also store a large amount of energy.

Since batteries seem to be the limiting element in the popularity of electric car, they are also one of the most expensive components of the vehicle, having limited range when compared to gasoline powered vehicles.

Supercapacitors Film to replace Battery

There have been remarkable changes recently wherein a team of researchers have developed a supercapacitor film which could replace the requirements of battery within the next five years and the collaboration between scientist at Queensland University of Technology and Rice University has resulted in two papers, published in Nanotechnology and Journal of Power Sources.

The supercapacitors comprises of two layers of graphene having an electrolyte layer at the centre and while the film is strong and very thin, it is able to release a large amount of energy in the shortest possible time, which is a necessity.

The ordinary batteries would take a huge amount of space while the super capacitor film can be integrated in several areas of the vehicle like the roof, floor, doors and the body panels.

The super capacitors of this size would be capable of providing the vehicle with the right amount of energy which the vehicle would be needing while at the same time making the vehicle much lighter.

A Graphene – Charges Quickly

Marco Notarianni, a PhD researcher of QUT stated in a press release that, `since vehicles would need extra energy spurt for acceleration, supercapacitors could be helpful which holds a limited amount of charge and are capable of delivering it swiftly thus making them the appropriate complement to mass storage batteries.

He was the lead author of the Nanotechnology paper - `Super capacitors offer a high power output in a short time, meaning a faster acceleration rate of the car and a charging time of just a few minutes, when compared to several hours of a standard electric car battery’.

Supercapacitor film which is grapheme has the potential of charging fully in a matter of minutes instead of the several hours taken for a conventional battery and though it would charge, releasing energy faster than standard batteries, they presently do not hold so much energy which the scientist are probably intending to change with further research.

Suzuki Q, an ultra-compact city

The list of compact cars planned for major cities of the future is filled with some interesting concepts. Recently, the Japanese manufacturer Suzuki has followed the example of Renault, Opel, Volkswagen and others with a city of more compact.

This car is simply known as Q. Halfway between the current and compact bikes roof, the vehicle is rather late for a car. Its width is only 1.30 meters to 2.50 meters long and 1.65 meter high. With its smaller size, the Suzuki Q should be able to squeeze between cars easily. It can also park almost anywhere.