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Electric cars a challenge for Japanese parts suppliers
Filed under: Emerging Technologies, EV/Plug-in, Japan
2010 Nissan Leaf EV - Click above for high-res image gallery
One thing David Cole said when we talked to him at the
Business of Plugging In expo was that
parts suppliers need to change in order to keep up with the demand for new parts in electric vehicles. In Japan, the Nissan Leaf has become a sort of wake up call for Japanese parts companies, who can see firsthand that, when you scrap the ICE, thousands of parts that suppliers have been providing OEMs for decades are all of a sudden not needed. Bloomberg
says that up to 40 percent of the parts in a typical car are engine components. In Japan, the domestic suppliers are in a "crisis-like situation" as they try to adapt to the new reality.
Japanese suppliers Tsubakimoto Chain Co. and NTN two suppliers profiled in the Bloomberg piece, but it's clear that this is going to be a tough road for almost everyone involved. Tsubakimoto's Toru Fujiwara told Bloomberg that, "With electric cars, there's no way we can apply our current technology. We have to come up with completely new technology." The company is spending 3.5 billion yen on battery-powered vehicle research this fiscal year. Of course, this is exactly the kind of challenge that is required to get off gas.
[Source:
Bloomberg]
Electric cars a challenge for Japanese parts suppliers originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Sat, 21 Nov 2009 18:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Comments STUDY: Air cars not worth it
Filed under: Emerging Technologies
Compressed air-powered cars like the
AirPod pictured above are conceptually cool. But the real-world efficiency of using compressed air to move a vehicle just isn't worth is, says a new study published in the latest issue of
Environmental Research Letters.
The main problem, one of the study's authors told AutoblogGreen, is that compressed air holds less than one percent of the energy of gasoline and, given the amount of electricity it takes to compress the air, "the air car's carbon footprint is more than twice as large as that of a gasoline car." Battery-powered cars are also more efficient than compressed air cars, the researchers found. Two possible ways to use compressed air technology in vehicles would be to combine it with a gasoline engine in a either a pneumatic-combustion hybrid or an air engine hybrid set-up, the authors say.
You can
read the entire article, called "Economic and Environmental Evaluation of Compressed-Air Cars," in the October-December 2009 issue of Environmental Research Letters.
Thanks to Andrew P. for the tip!
Potentially related: the company behind the AirPod has missed several deadlines to bring the car to market, as you can see in
the comments to this post.
[Source:
Environmental Research Letters,
NYTimes]
STUDY: Air cars not worth it originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Comments Give a little, get a little: free biodiesel for test fleets in Yorkshire, UK
Filed under: Biodiesel, UK
Can you use biodiesel in commercial truck applications? Sure you can. Thousands of trucks burn it everyday. Still, not everyone is fully convinced, and some want to operate their own fleet test to prove that turning waste vegetable oil into fuel is a viable plan. This is what CO
2Sense Yorkshire, a UK-based group that helps businesses and organisations "prosper and grow in the new Low Carbon Economy," is planning with a new demonstration project. Basically, businesses in the area say, "hey, put that fuel in my vehicle and we'll see what happens," and CO
2Sense Yorkshire says, "OK, here's 3,000 liters of 100% waste vegetable oil biodiesel fuel for free. Tell us how it works." Sounds like a deal to us.
The biofuel trial runs from December through February. Interested companies who want to volunteer a vehicle have until the end of the month to submit an application. Details
here.
Thanks to Damon S. for the tip!
[Source:
Fleetnews]
Give a little, get a little: free biodiesel for test fleets in Yorkshire, UK originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Sat, 21 Nov 2009 12:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Comments Long-Term Thinking: "Cost to Own" mindset grabs hold
Filed under: Etc., MPG, Green Daily
2011 Chevy Volt - Click above for high-res image gallery
So many things are changing in the new automotive reality, it's hard to know where to start. Everything from the kind of hose we connect to our cars (liquid filled? electric?) to the
sounds the vehicles make is different now than it used to be. What else needs to change? How about how we think about how much it costs to own and operate a car.
Naturally, it's always been possible to estimate this cost, but NADAguides.com has just released a "Cost To Own" calculator for new cars, so you can factor in fuel prices in your region into the cost of the car. It's entirely useful. For example, to own a 2010 Prius in Michigan for five years will cost an estimated $33,232. On top of the cost of the car, NADA tells us that the car will depreciation will make up 39 percent of the ownership costs, while fuel equals just 12 percent. A pie chart of the cost breakdown is pictured at right.
On a similar thread, Edmunds is recommending a shift away from MPG and
towards a cost-of-energy window sticker on a new car. With all of those electric plugs being added to cars, MPG is becoming less and less valuable to understand how much it costs to get around. Two quick examples: per month, Edmunds estimates it'll cost $53.55 to drive the forthcoming Chevrolet Volt, but $66.78 to operate a Prius. Check out their chart
here, and remember that according to a recent study, more
efficient vehicles can (and often do) cost less.
[Source:
NADAguides.com,
Edmunds]
Continue reading Long-Term Thinking: "Cost to Own" mindset grabs hold
Long-Term Thinking: "Cost to Own" mindset grabs hold originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Sat, 21 Nov 2009 08:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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