If we thought electric cars were the answer to all our problems then as with everything there is a downside. From being a danger to pedestrians because they can't hear them coming - tiniest irritating noise and rattles magnified - sleeping at the wheel risk is increased - National electricity grids will not be able to cope especially at peak times when people plug in to re-charge on return from work.
But first a Volkswagen EV breaks Nurburgring record.
The wild all-electric racecar Volkswagen built to compete in the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb last year has smashed another record, this time at Germany’s world-famous Nürburgring. Early Monday morning, the company announced that the I.D. R completed the Nürburgring Nordschleife loop in just 6:05.336 minutes, which is more than 40 seconds faster than the previous record set by Chinese EV startup NIO’s EP9 supercar in 2017.
Volkswagen originally built the I.D. R with the express purpose of running at Pikes Peak, a century-old competition where drivers race up a grueling 156-turn, 12.4-mile course to a finish line more than 14,000 feet above sea level. Electric cars have flourished over the last few years at Pikes Peak because they don’t struggle at high altitudes like combustion engines do. But with Volkswagen’s might behind it, the I.D. R set the fastest Pikes Peak lap ever and broke the EV record by just shy of a whole minute.
Link -
https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/3/18650494/volkswagen-electric-vehicle-record-nurburgring-nio
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TOKYO -- Toyota is ramping up electric vehicle deployment plans, pulling forward its goal of selling 5.5 million electrified vehicles by five years and aiming to develop a solid-state battery by next summer as it races to meet a "sudden surge" of EV popularization.
Toyota now aims to sell some 5.5 million traditional gasoline-electric hybrids, plug-in hybrids, EVs and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles by 2025. Nearly 1 million of them could be pure EVs.
Executive Vice President Shigeki Terashi, Toyota's r&d chief, outlined the new roadmap in a June 7 briefing about the company's EV plans. In December 2017, the company had said it wanted to sell that many electrified vehicles by 2030, five years later than the revised outlook.
Terashi added that the company wants to unveil a solid-state battery for electrified vehicles ahead of next year's Summer Olympics in Tokyo. The technology, which promises lighter, more powerful and safer batteries, could be a breakthrough in popularizing electric vehicles.
"Wanting to make an effort is not enough. You really should be able to deliver," Terashi said.
Link
https://europe.autonews.com/automakers/toyota-pulls-forward-electrification-plan-eyes-solid-state-battery-next-year
Micro-grids and local generation could reshape the UK’s energy landscape, writes Neil Robson, chief engineer at Bladon Micro Turbine
Electrification of transport is increasingly considered one of the most crucial ways to tackle air pollution. Governments and politicians worldwide are promoting the use of electric cars and developing other electric transportation.
The introduction by Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, of an Ultra-Low Emissions Zone in London is the latest initiative. Launched in April, the scheme punishes heavy polluting vehicles with a fee for driving in the centre of the capital. Electric vehicles are exempt from all charges.
But should a panacea of cities filled with electric vehicles ever be reached, the grid could collapse. This isn’t as simple as plugging in on-demand. As the number of power-hungry electric vehicles – often needing 100kw or more – increases, they create unpredictable levels of demand on the grid and in a worst-case scenario, the lights could go out.
Generating electricity through fossil fuels is not a viable alternative; that would only add to the pollution. It is also likely to be politically unacceptable as the UK Government has committed to achieving measurable low-carbon targets in the coming decades. Instead, at least part of the answer lies in using micro-grids and energy generation at a local scale.
Businesses, small communities and even individuals would build their own local networks. They would get their electricity from a combination of, for example, solar panels on roofs, small-scale wind turbines and, one day, generators as small as boilers.
This ‘hybrid micro-generation’ would address the problems facing the grid over the next decade, when the use of electric vehicles is expected to increase more than tenfold. For example, it will help flatten the peaks in demand caused by charging electric vehicles. If a car can be plugged into the driver’s own source of electricity and other sources of micro-generation, there is no dependence or impact on the centralised grid at all.
Link
https://www.theengineer.co.uk/could-hybrid-micro-generation-power-the-ev-revolution/
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RUESSELSHEIM -- Automakers and policymakers in Europe are staking their futures on a race to electric vehicles. But the vast charging network needed to sustain their vision is patchy, and it’s not clear who will pay for it.
The central German city of Ruesselsheim, home to Opel, wants to build 1,300 electric car charging points by 2020, plans that would make it a front-runner on the Continent. It has advantages enjoyed by few in Europe, including a powerful local car industry player and wealthy national economy. In Germany itself the city has an edge, having won a government grant of 12.8 million euros ($14.4 million) to fund the roll out.
Yet, even here, red tape, shortages of qualified staff and the requisite hardware are likely to delay the installation by around two years, local officials said.
The project will also need more money, said the officials who are running up against the complexity of civil engineering, potential power grid overloads and unwieldy payment processes, illustrating some of the difficulties facing cities and nations across Europe.
Link
https://europe.autonews.com/automakers/germanys-opel-town-shows-struggle-europe-plug-electric-cars
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