Tagged: EV

Ubitricity is turning street lamps into EV charging stations

Today I feel like talking EVs. I haven’t been covering electric vehicles that much on the blog, and that’s simply because I still have mixed feelings about them as means to halt climate change. No car is better than an electric car, I’m used to saying.  That being said, our society is not going car-free anytime soon. I expect electric vehicles to start booming from this year onwards thanks to a wide range of new EV models that are coming out. There is now an electric car for every type of consumer.

In the meantime, the pressure on the fossil fuel car industry keeps rising. Only last week a court in Stuttgart, the hometown of Germany’s most icon car brands, ruled that cities can ban diesel cars as part of their effort to improve air quality. With battery ranges continuously improving, most EVs are already now a suitable alternative for most families. Yet, there is one roadblock that remains: in most cities, charging stations are scarce. Driving around to find a parking is already annoying in and of itself, imagine trying to find one with a charging hub.

Ubitricity’s SimpleSocket can easily be integrated in a lamp post. It takes less than 30 minutes to install and is ten times cheaper than stand-alone charging stations (photo: Ubitricity)

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SION, a power station on wheels

Over the last few years, people have asked me several times why electric car manufacturers aren’t putting solar panels on their cars to charge the battery. It sounds like a logical thing to do, isn’t it? I always argued there might be two good reasons for car builders to shy away from this idea. First of all the surface area for solar cells on a car is limited and their orientation not ideal, hence a low energy production could be expected. Secondly, solar panels are not cheap. Pardon me, they were not cheap. Nowadays they are. And hence… things have changed lately.

The Sion is a five-doors city car with a range of 250 kilometers and fully covered in solar cells (photo: Sono Motors)

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Tesla’s solar roof: too good to be true?

(photo: Tesla)

Elon Musk has been in the spotlight a number of times on my blog now, and once again he succeeded in creating a good portion of buzz in the cleantech world which I cannot let go unnoticed. Yesterday the Silicon Valley entrepreneur announced that Tesla is now taking online orders worldwide for their latest disruptive technology: the solar roof. Seen by Elon as the third leg of the stool of a sustainable energy future, next to Tesla’s Powerwall and electric car, first installations in the US follow later this year, while worldwide rollout begins in 2018.

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Photo of the week: charge while you drive, it’s no sci-fi anymore

The electric vehicle market is still struggling to kick-off. It’s a bit the chicken-and-egg problem. Consumers are held back because of the lack of charging points, companies are not eager to invest in the infrastructure when there is no guarentee it will be used extensively. So that’s the moment governments should help out and that’s exactly what is happening in the UK.

As part of a master plan to get more eletric vehicles (EV’s) on the road, the UK government is investing in a charging network on all major roadways with chargers every 20 miles (32 kilometers). Later this year, a pilot project in wireless charging of electric vehicles will conclude a feasibility study of the technology commissioned by Highways England. If the results are economically viable, the technology will be build out further.

Wireless charging of electric vehicles could soon become reality in the UK (photo: Highways England)

Wireless charging of electric vehicles could soon become reality in the UK (photo: Highways England)

How does this wireless charging work? It’s basically the same technology as used to charge your electric toothbrush or wireless phone charging. Thanks to magnetic induction, an electric current can be induced to charge the vehicle’s batteries when it drives over elektromagnetic plates build into the road. The vehicle can charge its batteries while driving, no need for charging stops anymore. The installation of the elektromagnetic infrastructure is easier than the electrification of a road via overhead cables such as for trams.

The application of induction charging for EV’s is not new. In Gomi in South-Korea for example, two wireless-charged buses ply the train station and Dong-In line. Similar projects exist in Utrecht (the Netherlands) and Torino (Italy). But if the UK decides to build out the technology over its roadway network, we’re talking about a much bigger scale. Exciting times for electric vehicles — and their drivers– ahead!

Sources
fast coexists
wired

Header photo by Mark Turnauckas

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