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Congress tasked the Department of Energy last fall with helping automakers move away from traditional vehicles to eco-friendly models with the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program. The Department received applications from OEMs, automakers and other companies hoping to lead America’s next generation of automobiles. President Obama announced the initial round of recipients for the program’s conditional loans last week with $8 billion loaned from the allocated $25 billion. The winners in this initial round of loans included Ford, Nissan and Tesla while General Motors and Chrysler were disqualified due to their lack of financial viability.
Ford Motor Company received $5.9 billion in conditional loans from the Department of Energy to start development on 13 fuel-efficient vehicles. The loans will be distributed through 2011 and help the American automaker fund its Transit Connect project in 2010 and EV project with Magna Steyr in 2011. Ford will be producing these vehicles at retrofitted American auto plants in Dearborn, Cleveland, Louisville, Kansas City, Chicago and other industrial cities on the decline. A portion of the federal government loans to Ford will be used to provide training on green vehicle engineering, construction and troubleshooting to hundreds of current workers.
The Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) has announced plans to create a smart electrical grid for its 600,000 residential and commercial customers by spring 2011. SMUD is a publicly owned utility company that covers 900 square miles with the state capitol of Sacramento at its center. As the sixth largest utility company of its type in the United States, SMUD is breaking new ground for the future of EV infrastructure. Sacramento residents will not have to wait long for implementation of the grid with the first smart electric meters to be installed by the end of July.
The crux of SMUD’s smart grid system is an electric monitoring system from Silver Spring Networks in each home and business that will track power usage. Homeowners will be able to not only watch kilowatt-hours in action but also analyze daily and monthly usage to change their habits. Every monitoring unit will be connected to an electric control system that will manipulate peak and off-peak power use in all sectors of a building. SMUD customers will be able to track daily energy use in terms of dollars and cents to put their monthly utility bills into context. The two-way electric monitors will transmit data to SMUD for billing, usage trend analysis and anticipation of power surges in the grid.
Commercial vehicle producers in the United States will have another source for hybrid drive trains if the recent announcement of a partnership between ZF Friedrichshafen (ZF) and ISE Corporation comes to fruition. The companies signed a Memorandum of Understanding last week that outlined future collaboration on development, implementation and marketing of parallel hybrid drive systems. California-based ISE Corporation and Germany-based ZF will leverage their respective skills and resources to become major players in the commercial hybrid vehicle market.
The Memorandum of Understanding detailed a symbiotic relationship between ZF and ISE in selling parallel hybrid systems to North American customers. ZF will use ISE’s research facilities as well as its experience with integrating and selling commercial drive trains to reach American consumers. Every drive train from this collaboration will bear the ISE name, contain ZF parts and fall under the marketing aegis of both companies in the United States, Canada and Mexico. ISE’s connections in the American commercial vehicle market will open doors for partnerships that ZF would have been unable to create on its own.
PG&E (Pacific Gas and Electric) has begun testing a utility truck produced by Smith Electric Vehicles U.S. and Altec Industries. The utility company has sent a modified version of the Smith Newton out on maintenance routes in central and northern California. Smith and Altec will receive mileage, maintenance and performance data from PG&E to improve upon its current design. The test run of PG&E’s Smith Electric is thought to be the first such test for an all-electric utility vehicle in the United States.
Smith Electric Vehicles U.S. built the Newton utility truck with a 120 kW induction motor and a lithium-ion battery. The battery can be recharged to full capacity within eight hours, which is ideal for trucks that spend all night in company depots. The Smith Newton has a maximum speed of 50 miles per hour, making this truck ideal for neighborhood utility routes. The 100-mile range of the Smith Newton will be put to the test by PG&E with its sizable service area.
Hyundai’s Elantra Liquified Petroleum Injected (LPI) hybrid will be a one-of-a-kind vehicle on the market when it is released in South Korea on July 8. The latest version of Hyundai’s signature sedan will be a pioneer in LPI technology as competitors like Toyota and Honda worry about hydrogen and plug-in electric systems. As the July 8 rollout looms near in Seoul, Hyundai has decided to accept pre-launch orders for the Elantra LPI through July 7.
The 1.6-liter LPI engine in the Elantra will be matched with a 15kW Permanent Magnetic Synchronous motor to keep fuel consumption low. Hyundai’s continuously variable transmission (CVT) will increase the Elantra’s fuel mileage by reducing the clunky gear shifts of a traditional auto transmission. Hyundai chose the 180-volt lithium-ion polymer battery for its high power density, energy efficiency and long life. The Elantra LPI will be able to reduce greenhouse emissions by up to 90% with its cleaner fuel and innovative drive components. The Hyundai Elantra LPI has been bestowed with a Super Ultra Low Emissions Vehicle (SULEV) rating, which will pave the way for its release worldwide in the near future.
Riversimple threw decades of confidentiality and closely guarded secrets in the auto industry out the window on June 16, 2009. The British auto design firm introduced its hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, the Hyrban, to the public on this date. In addition to an innovative drivetrain design, Riversimple is also making waves by making its designs available to manufacturers through an open-source agreement with 40 Fires Foundation.
The Riversimple Hyrban features a network electric drivetrain that allows energy to pass freely from ultracapacitors, fuel cells and other elements. The 6 kW hydrogen fuel cell, 21kg ultracapacitors and in-wheel motors are designed to pass excess energy between components to avoid wasted power. The vehicle’s ultracapacitors can produce 15kW of electricity in 10-second bursts, which eases the strain off the hydrogen fuel cell in the process.
Fiat has planned a September 2009 release for the latest version of its Alfa Romeo MiTO. The 2010 MiTO will be the first Fiat vehicle to feature its MultiAir system along with Bosch’s Start/Stop system in a single body. Fiat Motor Group will sell the 2010 MiTO in 34 countries starting this fall to showcase its increasingly green line of sporty vehicles.
The Fiat MultiAir system is a valve timing system that controls injected air as well as combustion within the 1.4-liter turbocharged engine. The MultiAir system tracks the movement of each cylinder and stroke carefully to protect the driver from fuel waste. The electronic-hydraulic control system within MultiAir ensures that each injection of air can be completed without fiddling with the throttle. Fiat claims that the MultiAir system featured in the Alfa Romeo MiTO will decrease fuel consumption as well as greenhouse gas emissions. The Start/Stop system shuts off the turbocharged engine when the MiTO comes to a complete stop and restarts the engine electrically when the gas pedal is depressed.
The U.S. Department of Energy, the Canadian government and General Motors started the EcoCar: The NeXt Challenge competition earlier this year as a challenge to future auto engineers. This competition tasks 17 groups of university students throughout North America with turning the 2009 Saturn VUE into an emissions-neutral, fuel-efficient vehicle. Each group must keep the redesigned VUE as close to the original design and performance level as possible while using common elements like lithium-ion batteries, plug-in platforms and renewable fuels.
The Ohio State University was triumphant in the first round of EcoCar: The NeXt Challenge with its design for an ethanol-powered Saturn VUE. The first challenge for each university group was to come up with a design as well as computer modeling to demonstrate the vehicle’s projected performance levels. The OSU E85 version of the VUE was projected to achieve fuel mileage ratings 300% higher than the traditional gas-powered VUE in computer modeling. The group used a 1.8-liter engine powered by E85 fuel as well as a few tweaks to the drivetrain to come out ahead in this preliminary round.
(Photo by viZZZual.com on Flickr)
The planned i-MiEV rollout in July by Mitsubishi Motors Group will only be the tip of the iceberg based on the company’s June 11th press release. The Japanese automaker took time last week to lay out its “Environmental Vision 2020” as well as tease EV fans with plans for five additional EVs by 2013. Mitsubishi conducted this PR blitz to capitalize on buzz about the i-MiEV and press competing automakers for details on long-term EV rollouts.
“Mitsubishi Motors Group Environmental Vision 2020” divides the automaker’s green vehicle plans into categories like Products and Technology, Corporate Activities and Cooperation with Society. The most substantial goal within the plan is that electric vehicles will form at least 20% of the Mitsubishi fleet by 2020. Mitsubishi also wants to reduce carbon dioxide emissions for its entire fleet by 50% and production emissions by 20% of 2005 emissions levels.
The competition among EV producers in Japan is heating up in summer 2009 with Mitsubishi, Subaru and other competitors rushing to sell their innovative cars. We wrote about the Mitsubishi i-MiEV rollout yesterday that will distribute about 1,400 units to government officials and businesses by spring 2010. Fuji Heavy Industries (FHI) is pushing Mitsubishi into the market by selling the Subaru Stella plug-in EV through Japanese dealers in July.
The Subaru Stella is a four-seat, front-wheel drive EV that has evolved from the conventional Stella minicar introduced in 2006. The Stella EV is powered by a lithium-ion battery pack from FHI as well as a 47kW electric motor. Japanese drivers will be able to travel up to 56 miles per charge at maximum speeds of 62 miles per hour. FHI and Subaru tout the quick-charge capabilities of the Stella EV, claiming that the lithium-ion battery can be recharged to 80% within 15 minutes using public charging stations. Subaru also touts a five-hour charging time using a conventional 200V outlet.
