Author: Green Car Online News

Volvo batteries, California superhighways, more efficient motors: Today’s Car News

Teaser for Piech Mark Zero electric sports car concept debuting at 2019 Geneva auto show
Falling reliability costs the Tesla Model 3 its Consumer Reports recommendation. Could high-speed rail be replaced with high-speed highways? Volvo is pulling depleted batteries out of electric buses to use as energy storage for solar in a large apartment complex in Sweden. Argonne National Lab has developed a smaller, lighter, more efficient electric motor. All this and more on Green Car Reports.

In its latest survey, Consumer Reports found that the Tesla Model 3, while very satisfying, isn't very reliable.

As California's high-speed rail project devolves from budget and time-line overruns into political name-calling between Washington and Sacramento, a state senator has introduced a bill to replace the project with autobahn-like high-speed highway lanes through the state's central valley from San Francisco to LA. The lanes would have no speed limits, but they're unlikely to reduce global-warming emissions as the senator suggests.

Volvo is reusing batteries from its electric buses in Sweden to buffer power on a large new apartment complex with solar panels in Gothenberg.

Scientists at Argonne National Labs in Illinois have developed a new type of permanent-magnet electric motor that's lighter, cheaper, and more powerful, proving that it's not just battery technology that's improving for electric cars.

Mercedes-Benz plans a new electric SUV called the EQV to debut at the Geneva auto show next month. It is expected to be a follow-on to the company's EQC, which is scheduled to arrive later this year.

Finally, Anton Piech, the son of the famed Audi engineer and Porsche scion Ferdinand Piech, also plans to launch a new electric sports-car company with a stylish concept at the show.

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Argonne develops lighter, cheaper, more efficient motor for EVs, charging

Wind farm outside Fort MacLeod, Alberta, Canada [photographer: Joel Bennett]
Saving weight and increasing efficiency and power are among the most common goals for electric-car engineers. The biggest breakthroughs in those specs generally come in batteries. But it's not the only place.

Now scientists at Argonne National Labs have developed a lighter, cheaper, and more efficient motor, called HyMag, that can give equivalent gains and could also be applied to renewable energy generation.

CHECK OUT: Wind and solar cost less than coal for power

The HyMag motor adds “enhancing layers” to the structure of the materials that make up a permanent magnet motor to improve its magnetic flux density. What's more, the scientists can vary the structure and materials to maximize efficiency for different applications, such as electric cars or wind turbines. (HyMag can work either as a motor or a generator.)

The scientists say their new material design can improve flux density by 10 to 30 percent compared with conventional permanent magnet motors. That could give electric cars more range without bigger batteries.

HyMag Motor design from Argonne National Lab

Depending on the application, HyMag motors can require 90 percent fewer rare-earth materials, which can help bring down costs, Argonne says.

“In the past 15 to 20 years, the increase in magnet energy product reached a plateau due to lack of material solution,” said Yuepeng Zhang, one of the Argonne scientists who invented the HyMag motor.

READ THIS: Report: Battery production could offset emissions gains from electric cars

“You have to have higher flux density in order to have more efficiency,” added Argonne group leader of Nanomaterials, Devices, and Systems Kaizhong Gao, co-inventor of the motor. “This additional efficiency will translate into either more energy produced, or you will have less loss.”

The greater efficiency can have compound benefits. In addition to fewer materials, the motors can be lighter for the same amount of power, further reducing materials and cost. The lighter motors can also require smaller housings, saving even more weight and cost. In a statement announcing the HyMag motors Argonne notes that this could allow bigger wind turbines that can run in higher winds to produce more power.

Volvo reuses bus batteries for solar storage

Riksbyggen Viva co-op housing complex, Gothenberg Sweden [Credit: Riksbyggen, Creative Commons]
As solar installations ramp up and electric vehicles have been on the market for a few years, automakers are starting to look for ways to get more life out of old electric-car batteries, repurposing them for stationary storage.

And if you're going to use vehicle old batteries for storage, you might as well use big ones.

Volvo, which builds trucks and buses in addition to cars, is experimenting with taking used batteries out of its electric buses and using them to store energy at apartment complexes that have their own solar generation.

DON'T MISS: As used electric-car batteries set to flood market, Automakers ramp up reuse efforts

The effort could provide at least the kernel of a solution for apartment dwellers to be able to charge electric cars at their apartment buildings—if batteries could allow the marginal charging energy to come from solar rather than expensive grid power, or at least bring down the cost of charging.

Volvo electric bus on Gothenburg, Sweden's Route 55 [Credit: Volvo – via YouTube]

In cooperation with Göteborg Energi, Volvo has pulled the batteries out of 14 electric buses from bus route 55 in Gothenberg (Göteborg), Sweden, and installing them at the Riksbyggen Viva housing complex. Together, they deliver 200 kilowatt-hours of storage for the complex's solar panels.

The big battery pack can be used to reduce peak loads by using stored energy to meet demand from residents at times of peak grid demand, they can store excess solar energy generated at times of low demand, and they can store energy produced by the grid during off-peak times at low rates to use later when rates are higher.

CHECK OUT: (Reverse) Engineering Explained: What happens to old electric car batteries?

Viva is a new housing complex dubbed “Positive Footprint Housing,” and is billed as Sweden's most sustainable housing project. Tenants are just beginning to move in.

Johanneberg Science Park will help monitor the system to help the complex maximize energy savings.

READ MORE: Report: Battery production could offset emissions gains from electric cars

“Electric bus batteries have good potential for other applications such as energy storage after the end of their life in public transport,” said Ylva Olofsson, Project Coordinator at Volvo in a statement. “What we are examining here is exactly how good that potential is…At Volvo we are examining various possibilities for the reuse of bus batteries for energy storage, and Viva is one such example,”

Producing batteries for electric vehicles, especially such large batteries for buses, adds a significant environmental cost in producing the vehicles. Finding a useful way to extend the life of those batteries beyond their capability in vehicles, can spread that impact and reduce the need for additional production.

Ahead of electric-car production, VW demands suppliers cut carbon emissions

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Volkswagen ID Neo concept, 2016 Paris auto show
As Volkswagen ramps up to build a new generation of mass-market electric vehicles in the aftermath of its diesel scandal, regulators and environmental groups will likely be paying close attention to their emissions—especially the emissions created in making them.

The Financial Times, in a Sunday report, presented some interesting pieces of information based on an interview with Marco Philippi, the corporate director for procurement for the VW Group, which oversees not just VW but Audi and many others.

In the upcoming ID Neo, the first MEB vehicle, which reaches the market late this year in Europe, the carbon emissions impact from the supply chain is 150 percent higher—2.5 times higher—than that of a Golf TDI.

DON’T MISS: VW’s new U.S. CEO: The tipping point on EVs is already here

Given that, it’s not surprising that VW has made some very strong demands to its suppliers—that as plans for its new generation of fully electric cars come together, they’ll need to comply with new, tighter rules about carbon emissions from their operations.

Volkswagen, among other automakers, already issues annual sustainability reports that have made sure that its suppliers—not just the top-tier ones, but down the supply chain—comply with environmental and social standards. One such example is the use of conflict minerals like cobalt.

What's new is the closer monitoring of carbon emissions, which has only in the last decade become a point of pride for top-tier suppliers. By adding second- and third-tier suppliers, VW will have a much more accurate picture of how much energy is going in—and the total emissions involved.

CHECK OUT: Volkswagen details the foundation for 10 million electric vehicles

All 40,000 suppliers could soon be issued “S-ratings,” for sustainability, that would affect their future use by the global automaker.

Philippi remarked to FT that right now for EVs the focus is on the reduction of cobalt and cutting the cost of manufacturing. So the carbon piece may prove an additional puzzle for some suppliers.

“This is a revolution,” said Philippi. “If there are violations, our partners will not be our partners.”

2018 Volkswagen e-Golf electric cars on assembly line in

The company has already made some large-scale changes to clean up its manufacturing. The cornerstone of that effort is its Zwickau factory, where VW has committed to convert from the production of 300,000 internal-combustion-engine vehicles a year to the same number of all-electric cars by 2021. It calls that facility, which is run by Austrian hydro-power, “Europe's most efficient e-car factory.”

The battery packs are what drives manufacturing carbon impact so high for EVs, relative to internal-combustion vehicles. VW has previously declared that its batteries, down to the cell production, will also be made with green energy.

READ MORE: Charging ahead: VW follows Tesla into power business

VW already plans to make other significant green-manufacturing commitments around the world, including two more plants in Germany, two in China, and an $800 million expansion in Chattanooga, Tennessee that will bring that plant an additional 1,000 jobs with the company and many more at suppliers.

The strategy also fits right in with VW’s creation, last month, of Elli, the company’s “electric life” affiliate that will sell all the ancillary home-related services to electric-vehicle ownership, such as clean power, energy storage, and charge points, in what we see as an attempt to help owners in all regions lower their carbon impact as well. So far, the service is limited to Europe.

Bill Gates calls Tesla “an amazing product,” doesn’t see electric trucks working quite yet

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Bill Gates
Electric cars may be seen by some as part of a seemingly unstoppable, powerful technological wave that will disrupt not just the auto industry but most other forms of transportation.

Don’t count on Bill Gates as one of those bright-eyed EV cheerleaders; on the other hand, don’t dismiss him as someone who doesn’t want to see transportation remade in a dramatically carbon-reduced form.

DON’T MISS: Iron Man 2 reunion: Musk friend Larry Ellison named to Tesla board

Gates, who was recently interviewed by tech reviewer Marques Brownlee, takes (as on many things) a pragmatic view with respect to how battery-electric tech will transform transportation. The Microsoft co-founder, turned humanitarian and philanthropist, called Tesla “an amazing product,” and noted that while it’s catching on it’s still a very small percentage of the market—and the loss of the $7,500 federal tax credit is making it tougher.

He sees other automakers getting more involved because of the California regulations that cover a significant portion of the U.S., and says that “there’ll be a lot of really great electric cars to choose from.”

The video didn’t feature Gates’ answer to Brownlee’s question about whether he had gone electric or not.

Freightliner eCascadia electric semi-truck

While electric power may soon catch on for cars, Gates prognosticates that trucks may be more of a reach: “Eventually batteries might work for a truck, but it’s a far more difficult problem because the weight is a lot higher there.”

CHECK OUT: Bill Gates Backs EcoMotors’ New OPOC Engine With $23.5 Million Investment

For the transportation sector as a whole, he pointed to the wide range of innovations we’re going to need. And he refers to an essential relationship that we often note here at Green Car Reports—that electric vehicles are only as clean as the energy source used to generate the electricity used to charge them.

The electricity grid remains dramatically different regionally in the U.S., but on a national basis, according to data updated by the Union of Concerned Scientists last year, the average electric car now produces the equivalent greenhouse-gas emissions to a gasoline vehicle that achieves 80 mpg. Further, 75 percent of Americans now live in areas where the average EV has lower carbon dioxide emissions than a gas car that gets 50 mpg—although in some regions the other “criteria emissions,” from coal plants in particular, continue to be an issue.

READ MORE: From Apple To Tesla: Woz Follows The Trend, Buys Model S

A report last year from Bloomberg New Energy Finance projected that 50 percent of new cars, worldwide, would be electric, and that renewable solar and wind will generate half of the world’s electricity by 2050—enabled by more affordable batteries and energy storage. BNEF anticipated that the share of renewable sources will be higher in China and India than in the U.S.

That won’t be enough to meet global climate targets. But with some help from big-picture innovators and problem-solvers like Gates, we might get a lot closer.

Porsche Taycan testing, Ford electric SUV: Today’s Car News

Porsche Taycan prototype
New spy shots reveal quite a bit about the new Porsche Taycan. And on an abbreviated holiday schedule today, we run down what we know about Ford's upcoming 300-mile SUV. All this and more on Green Car Reports.

Spy photographers caught a Porsche Taycan undergoing winter testing with a bare minimum of camouflage—beyond some dummy tailpipes on the rear bumper. The shots show a tidier more lithe car than it has appeared before and give a good view of the Taycan's sophisticated charge ports.

We take a look at everything we know so far about Ford's upcoming Mustang-inspired 300-mile SUV that is expected to debut by the end of the year. Ford executives say it will “emotional,” and bring electric performance to the masses.

Chevrolet's ballyhooed eCOPO Camaro electric drag race car achieved its goal of breaking into the 9-second bracket in an exhibition run at Pomona dragway earlier this month.

Finally, don't dig your phone out of your pocket while driving in Virginia. The state passed a law to ban all handheld phone use while driving.

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Commentary: Toyota Corolla Hybrid ad brags about not plugging in

2017 Toyota Prius Prime, Catskill Mountains, NY, Nov 2016
In Toyota's latest ad for its new Corolla Hybrid in Britain, it's 2002 all over again.

The ad shows the new Corolla Hybrid (in non-U.S. hatchback form) bypassing all kinds of road transportation alternatives from different eras—from a stagecoach and an early brass-era car to 1950s hot rods and, finally—an electric car plugged in and charging by the side of the road.

It's clearly a dig at plug-in cars, reliant on battery power and electric motors to get around. Plug-ins are even more popular in Britain, with its high gas prices, than they are in the U.S.

Yet Toyota is the company that paved the way for modern electric cars, the first to take electric propulsion seriously when it introduced the Prius in 2000 (and in 1998 in its home market.)

When it debuted, the original Prius, and especially the second-generation that followed in 2002, was the first vehicle that revealed a hidden market of millions of buyers who hungered to do better by the Earth. Along the way, as more and more people became familiar with it, the Prius demonstrated to drivers that electric power is smoother and quieter than gas.

Many Prius drivers wanted nothing more than to be able to plug in to maximize the number of miles they could drive on “nicer” electricity.

READ THIS: Toyota Corolla Hybrid rated 52 mpg: Why Toyota says it won't cannibalize Prius sales

Of course, electricity is also far more efficient and cleaner than gasoline—as the Prius amply demonstrated by trouncing the fuel-efficiency estimates of similar compact economy cars such as the Corolla. That's what Prius buyers love.

Even ordinary electric cars, however, such as the Nissan Leaf, from one of Toyota's longest-standing competitors, get almost double the fuel-economy rating of even the best versions of the Prius.

Yet, even as it demonstrated the market for driving on electricity, Toyota became famously skeptical of cars that used more electricity—and even less gas—by plugging in.

CHECK OUT: Follow-up: In the end, I bought a Toyota Prius Prime plug-in hybrid

When Toyota introduced the second-generation Prius for 2003 and captured the environmental movement's attention, it seemed to think buyers would be skeptical of plugging in. Prius ads at the time touted that “you never have to plug it in,” as if that were a feature, and buyers might be terrified of a car that needed electricity to run. That may have been fair in an era when few people had experienced electric cars, and almost none knew how they might charge one.

The company famous for responding to its buyers' demands later dragged its feet in introducing a plug-in version of the Prius, which it first discussed in 2007 and showed in 2008. Toyota didn't introduce the first Prius plug-in until 2012—two years after an independent company began selling thousands of unauthorized conversion kits—and even then, it had only 11 miles of electric range. A 2014 ad for the car showed the Prius Plug-In Hybrid…not plugging in.

It took until 2016 for Toyota to introduce the Prius Prime, with a realistic 25 miles of electric range—after five years of losing sales to the Chevrolet Volt plug in hybrid and a new crop of all-electric cars, including the Leaf.

DON'T MISS: Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid Ad Shows Driver…Not Plugging In

Toyota executives made all kinds of excuses along the way about the cost, emissions, and “inconvenience” of electricity, and how Americans' driving cycles didn't favor electric driving. Meanwhile, in Japan, Toyota engineers, with subsidies from the government, focused on developing fuel-cell vehicles, and the company has now sold a few thousand fuel-cell Mirais in California.

If the Prius proved anything, it was that using an electric motor and battery to offset the worst inefficiencies of an internal combustion car was not only extremely effective, it should be the minimum best practice for any new car model.

Now that electric car sales are booming and the Prius Prime makes up more than 30 percent of Prius sales, it's disappointing to see Toyota falling back on that old trope that charging is inconvenient and ineffective in its latest ad for the Corolla Hybrid. And that market of millions of buyers who want to do right by the environment have already begun looking elsewhere.

Polar vortex tests viability of renewable power

Honda wind farm in Brazil
There's nothing like a good polar vortex to put the power system to the test—unless maybe it's a summer heat wave.

Energy consulting firm Wood Mackenzie used the opportunity of this event as a chance to measure demand on the power grid. In a detailed study of power demand during the severest week of this 2019 Polar Vortex, from Jan. 27 to Feb. 2, the company examined the question of how a similar-sized 100-percent renewable power grid could have handled the load.

MUST READ: Green New Deal introduced to Congress aims to cut emissions, create jobs

It's a particularly relevant question in light of the Green New Deal proposed last week by certain members of Congress, which called for eliminating fossil fuel power production by 2030 in an effort to curb global warming.

The study, titled “Performance review: nuclear, fossil fuels, and renewables during the 2019 Polar Vortex,” concluded that even with wind and solar scaled up to produce as much total power as the grid produces now, a lot of people would have been left out in the cold for several hours each day without additional energy storage capacity. “Any mix of wind and solar to serve load would require long-duration storage or optimization of multiple 'stages' of shorter duration,” the study concluded.

Renewable energy in 2019 Polar vortex (Shortfalls in gray above line) [CREDIT: Wood MacKenzie]

Storage of between 18 and 40 hours would have been enough to bridge the gaps in the first polar vortex of 2019, the study concluded, as long as there were no transmission bottlenecks from southern regions which produce a lot of solar power and the worst-hit areas of the frozen north. That wasn't the case in the study, though, which found insufficient power lines from the Southwest to the northern Midwest to bring sufficient renewables to the area.

Wind and solar power are also intermittent, with solar arriving during the day when temperatures aren't as low.

Renewables+nuclear power, 2019 polar vortex (Shortfalls in gray above line) [CREDIT: Wood MacKenzie]

Wind produced the bulk of the power available in the renewable polar vortex model, and, along with solar power coming online during the daytime peak, was able to cover peak daytime loads. Combined, however, the renewable sources were not enough to cover peak loads during the evening as the sun began to set and after.

This left big gaps on the coldest nights without large battery storage or natural gas and coal to fill in.

The study only considered existing demand for electrical power; it did not address the use of natural gas, oil, or other fossil fuel for heating.

CHECK OUT: Blowing away dirty energy: Wind to pass hydro as top renewable in 2019

A key controversy in the debate over any effort to eliminate fossil fuels in power production hinges on the question of nuclear power. Despite some early confusion based on a summary fact sheet that was later withdrawn, Congress's latest Green New Deal resolution doesn't address the question of nuclear power. It neither forbids it nor specifies it as part of the mix.

In the study, Wood Mackenzie looks at it both ways. Including nuclear power covered some of the base load and some peaks, and made periods of shortfall (when fossil fuels made up the difference) shorter. It did not make up the bulk of power generation at any point.

DON'T MISS: Wind and solar cost less than coal for power

The study also notes that this polar vortex was far less severe than one that hit in 2014. Utilities withdrew an estimated 17 percent more natural gas per week to meet demand in 2014 than in the latest event, and the 2014 event lasted longer and affected more of the country—which could limit other regions' ability to assist the hardest-hit areas.

In the latest polar vortex, a renewable grid would need up to 40 hours worth of energy storage to make it through the worst of the cold. In a more widespread and longer chill it would need even more.

In the end, the message is that if the U.S. were to target using 100 percent renewable electricity, it would need significant amounts of battery or other storage capacity and more comprehensive, flexible transmission lines, as well as more renewable generation capacity. And all that is without charging very many electric cars. With more electric cars, the grid would need significantly more power and storage.

Qualcomm sells wireless charging patents to WiTricity

2018 BMW 530e iPerformance wireless charging
It's one of the worst nightmares for electric-car drivers: They go out to jump in their car, and somebody forgot to plug it in.

Automakers and technology companies have talked for years about developing wireless charging, but it hasn't developed in part because of disagreements over standards, and, some would say, patents.

CHECK OUT: How much does wireless charging matter for electric cars? Poll results

Last week, one of the largest patent holders in wireless charging, electronics company Qualcomm, sold its wireless charging business, Qualcomm Halo, along with 1,500 different wireless charging patents and patent applications, to a rival MIT technology startup, WiTricity.

In a statement to Green Car Reports, Qualcomm spokesman Clare Conley said: “In efforts to focus investments on core business and growing adjacent businesses that leverage our core technologies, we have made the decision to divest Qualcomm Halo to WiTricity.”

The sale sparks optimism among observers who hope that bringing the companies' disparate standards together can knock down roadblocks to wireless charging.

Wireless charging for electric cars could be a big deal, because it could allow electric cars to charge virtually wherever they go. Not only could drivers install a charging pad in their garage to ensure that no one ever forgets to plug it in, but charging pads could be installed in public parking spaces and even along roads to give electric cars a charge as they go about their business.

READ MORE: BMW 530e will be first “plug-in” car with wireless charging this summer

Qualcomm has staged several demonstrations of dynamic charging. Last year, BMW released a wireless charging system in Europe for its then-new 5-Series. Plugless Power sells aftermarket (stationary) wireless charging stations for the Tesla Model S, the Chevrolet Volt, the Nissan Leaf, and the BMW i3.

Perhaps with this new deal, we'll see more such efforts.