Called ebuggy, this battery concept looks and works very much like the RideKick bike trailer featured on Revmodo a few months ago. The ebuggy is designed to be towed behind electric cars, like the RideKick is towed behind bikes. Designers envision a series of ebuggy stations located on the outskirts of major cities. EV drivers would pick up and connect the trailer on their way out of town, connecting it to their car’s existing electrical power system in a matter of minutes. When they arrive at their destination, the ebuggy trailer could be returned for recharging at another conveniently located station.

EV drivers could join this battery exchange program and pay a certain fee via an ebuggy card each time they utilize a trailer. An ebuggy kit would have to be installed on the car, including a standard trailer hitch, a power socket and a dashboard user interface. Fees would be automatically calculated and billed, and according to the company, would “always be lower than driving a gas or diesel car.”

Although it sounds unique, the battery swap concept proposed by ebuggy isn’t that groundbreaking. Silicon Valley-based Better Place has been developing a network of battery exchange and recharging stations for a number of years, with operational networks in Israel and Denmark, and Australia and China slated to come on board soon. Still, the Better Place concept requires the use of a specific EV: the Renault Fluence Z.E. With the ebuggy, just about any car could be retrofitted with the equipment necessary to use the backup battery service.

“ebuggy allows the automotive industry to build reasonably priced electric vehicles with a smaller battery, because ebuggy is available for longer distances,” said ebuggy Managing Director Dr. Manfred Baumgärtner. “As a result, electric cars will become cheaper than vehicles with a combustion engine and e-mobility will be able to assert itself rapidly and dynamically.”

Main photo credit: ebuggy

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In an attempt to make San Francisco the electric vehicle capital of the world, the city is currently playing host to the Charge Across Town campaign’s EV Week – an “exposition of the coolest plug-in and electric vehicle and EV charging stations” with partners including SF Environment, PG&E and City Car Share.

“Charge Across Town is catalyzing the effort with consumers, nonprofits and the business community to get San Francisco EV-Ready,” said San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee.

“EVs have the power to reduce dependency on oil, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, save people money, and revitalize the economy here in San Francisco and across the country,” Mayor Lee continued.

The event will include some of the best EVs on the market (listed below), all of which will be available for test-driving. The goal, according to director Maureen Blanc, is to show drivers how “practical, reliable and cool these vehicles really are.”

Models available for test driving include:

• Toyota’s RAV4 EV and Plug-in Prius
• Tesla Model S
• Nissan Leaf
• BMW’s Active E
• Marin Luxury Car’s Fisker Karma
• Ford Focus
• Mitsubishi MiEV
• Honda Fit EV
• Coda Automotive

And if that’s not enough corporate support for environmentally friendly travel, SunPower Corp. is also part of the demonstration, showing how its solar array can power EV charging stations.

In many ways, San Francisco already is the EV Capital of California, boasting 110 charging stations at 42 locations around the city, more per capita than any other city in this very green state. The home team, the SF Giants, is also getting in on the action – with the already environmentally friendly stadium unveiling four new charging stations.

So will EV week bring more drivers into the EV, emissions-free fold? We’ll have to wait and see.

Main photo credit: Olga Besnard / Shutterstock

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Evatran, makers of the Plugless Power EV charging system, recently announced the addition of two big ticket testers for their prototype device. Google and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) recently joined Evatran’s Apollo Program, the first program to test and demonstrate wireless EV charging capability for passenger vehicles. So far, it looks to be a success.

Unsure about how it’s possible to charge an entire car without a cord? Think about your other wireless electronics. Cordless devices (think home phones and electric toothbrushes) use inductive power transfer to transmit power without a cord. The Plugless Power system works in a similar way: A parking pad is installed on the floor of your garage (or in a parking spot) so it’s automatically underneath your EV when you park. Magnetic fields transfer energy from the transmitting coil in the parking pad and convert it into an electrical current by the receiving coil in the vehicle adapter. When your car is fully charged, the system turns off. And if you need to leave before charging is complete, simply back up and the charging stops.

There’s no need to worry about electrical waves burning your brain every time you enter the garage, since only the compatible coils can make this energy transfer possible — ensuring total safety for anything that comes into contact with the system.

The main purpose of the Apollo Program is to get real-world feedback on the wireless charging system from a variety of commercial clients. Besides the LADWP and Google, which recently added on to its initial first-gen installation, testing partners include the Hertz Corporation, Duke Energy and the Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research (CU-ICAR) in Greenville, S.C. So far, the system has only been trialed in the Nissan LEAF and Chevrolet Volt, but Evatran says retrofits for other electric vehicle makes and models are coming soon.

“We’ve received invaluable and candid feedback from our partners, and armed with that feedback, we have now set our sights on releasing an upgraded and refined production product as early as January 2013,” said Rebecca Hough, Evatran’s Chief Operating Officer. The company is now accepting partners for the second phase of the Apollo Program set to launch in the next four months.

Photo credits: Plugless Power

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The infrared (IR) heating systems work by directly warming each passenger through radiant heat. Unlike an ordinary heating system, which warms air and then uses fans to blow it around the car, the IR system doesn’t need to move air. Without fans, the car stays quieter. The system also helps conserve electricity. Electric cars rely on more electricity to power ordinary heating, because the car doesn’t have an internal combustion engine to provide waste heat. Each watt of power that can be saved in heating stays in the electric engine to help the car drive longer distances.

The system has the advantage of working quickly. On a winter day, someone can step inside the car and be warm in less than a minute. Because the heating is based on the locations of each passenger, it’s possible to save energy by only targeting specific seats — such as only heating the driver’s seat on a solo drive. Individual passengers could also adjust their own heat for personal comfort.

The company says radiant heat is also more comfortable than typical car heating. “Much like the heat from an open fireplace, the thermal radiation generated by infrared heating surfaces provides an extremely pleasant, cozy type of warmth,” BMW writes. The infrared heating surfaces could be placed in door panels, footwells, and on the dashboard. The automaker says it may work best as a supplement to a conventional heating system.

BMW is also experimenting with heat pump technology, which works by pulling heat out of ambient air. This type of technology can help reduce the need for electric heating, perhaps by as much as 50 percent.

Main image credit: BMW Designworks

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The array of sensors and computers needed to operate these vehicles means that there is a lot of data available about the car. The dashboards of these vehicles typically have much more information available to the driver about the power generating state (whether the car is charging or not), momentary and overall efficiency, and a range of other data, but that is just a small fraction of the information that is collected about the vehicle.

Connecting cars to the electronic world we inhabit was one of the major trends at this past year’s North American International Auto Show. Many manufacturers are developing applications for smartphones and finding ways of integrating the car and the driver’s lifestyle. Along with this, more and more data about the vehicle is available to both the owner and the manufacturer. Car owners can access some of this data through subscriptions, like a monthly email report from OnStar for owners of the Chevrolet Volt.

The manufacturers of several electric vehicles not only offer data to the car owners, but also are using this data internally. Although the various manufacturer programs are strict about privacy concerns and do not share the data with others, their engineers are certainly using this collected data about vehicle performance to learn more about how these relatively new vehicles are performing in the real world. There have even been cases where a problem with a vehicle was identified through anomalous readings, enabling the manufacturer to contact the car owner in order to fix the problem before it became a more serious issue.

As with software that sends the developer a crash report when it fails, to allow it to be improved and debugged, automotive engineers are also able to learn from the data that is reported from these vehicles. This information will assist with both the maintenance of existing vehicles as well as providing a better profile about vehicle use that will be helpful in improving new models of electric vehicles and learning how to make improvements in range and performance for subsequent models of these cars.

Main photo credit: rudisillart and Mariordo/Wikimedia Commons

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Electric vehicles (EVs) are slowly creeping into the American auto market. According to experts, one of the biggest roadblocks to widespread adoption is consumer fears about running out of power far from a charging station. While combustion engine cars can also run out of fuel, most drivers are fairly confident that there will always be a gas station near by. Of course, it took decades to build up this fueling infrastructure, and now, alternative fuel advocates say the same must be done for EVs.

The Zoo’s solar canopy is yet another step toward reducing range anxiety and encouraging EV drivers from all over the state to make the journey. The project, which broke ground September 4th, will incorporate 10 solar canopies producing 90 kilowatts (kW) of electricity, as well as five EV charging stations. When exposed to the bright sun of a normal San Diego day, energy gathered by the solar canopy will be channeled into a 100-kW energy storage system. When the battery is full, the excess solar energy will be put onto the electric grid to improve reliability and benefit the surrounding community. As an added bonus, the solar canopies also provide shade to approximately 50 cars in the Zoo’s southeast parking area.

Officials say that, when working at peak capacity, the solar canopy project will produce enough energy to power 59 homes. That’s like removing 189,216 pounds of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year, or the same as planting 2,788 trees annually.

Photo: Example of a solar canopy in Las Vegas.
Credit: time_anchor/Flickr

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Research being done by EV charger manufacturer ECOtality is showing that owners of electric vehicles spend considerably more time in stores when they are able to plug their vehicle in nearby. Looking at EV data gathered through the Department of Energy’s EV Project, ECOtality is able to study the behavior of shoppers at retail locations where the company has installed public chargers. The company has chargers installed at several retailers, including IKEA, Kohls, and Cracker Barrel.

“We are in the process of vetting information from retailers,” said ECOtality’s chief innovation officer Don Karner.

The EV Project, the largest deployment of EVs and charging stations in history, is partially paid for by a $115 million grant from the DOE and is in collaboration with several automakers as well as Idaho National Laboratory.

I am not normally one to promote consumerism and I am sure the vetted information from retailers will just be used to sell more product, but in this case I can appreciate the research. And while I don’t know if the same would be true in a town unlike mine here in Southern California by the beach, the two EV charging stations on my street are in constant use from morning till night. Seems some of my neighbors are backing up the findings of the ECOtality research.

[via SmartPlanet]

Image Credit: NCDOTcommunications/Flickr

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