The following article is in French and English.

Renault à l’avant-garde du sport automobile 100% électrique

Source from here.

Pionnier du véhicule 100% électrique avec la gamme Z.E. et ses modèles emblématiques tels que ZOE et TWIZY, Renault est également un acteur incontournable du sport automobile avec un palmarès unique pour un constructeur généraliste. Fort de cette double expertise, Renault encourage l’émergence d’une nouvelle forme de course automobile, plus accessible et respectueuse de l’environnement.
À travers ce double engagement, Renault marquait sa volonté d’accélérer les progrès technologiques du véhicule 100% électrique en améliorant les performances des moteurs et l’autonomie des batteries.
À l’aube de la saison 2015/2016, Renault renforce son engagement sportif au sein de l’écurie Renault e.dams championne en titre en développant son propre groupe motopropulseur. Renault met ainsi son expertise technique au service exclusif de l’écurie Renault e.dams qui est déterminée à jouer les premiers rôles et vise le doublé Écuries/Pilotes en saison 2.Ces technologies de pointe, développées par les équipes de Renault Sport F1, pourront donc également bénéficier directement ou indirectement aux véhicules de série de la gamme Z.E.

Michael van der Sande, SVP Global Marketing, Groupe Renault

“Le sport automobile est une composante essentielle de l’ADN de Renault.  Il est  naturel que Renault soit un acteur majeur de ce nouveau championnat 100% électrique compte tenu de son palmarès unique en sport automobile et de son expertise dans le domaine des véhicules électriques. Après avoir remporté le premier titre Equipes de l’histoire de la Formule E, nous sommes convaincus que notre engagement sera encore cette saison un véritable accélérateur de développement pour nos véhicules électriques de série.”

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Renault is at the forefront of the electric automotive sector

Ranking amongst some of the most innovative companies in the world, Renault is at the forefront of the electric automotive sector with vehicles such as its Z.E. range, as well as the iconic ZOE and Twizy. And thanks to its motorsport commitments and unique racing pedigree in a range of categories, the French carmaker is also helping to foster the move towards more sustainable racing.

Renault participation in Formula E is a real boost for the development of the electric range of road-going vehicles. Renault’s commitment to the sport has equally portrayed its readiness to apply the technological progress to all-electric vehicles in general, boost engine performance and improve battery autonomy.

For the 2015/16 season Renault has increased its involvement with reigning Teams’ title-holders, Renault e.dams. Producing its own powertrain, Renault has exclusively devoted its technical expertise to the team, which is determined to continue fighting at the front and has both the Drivers’ and Teams’ titles in its sights for season two. The cutting-edge technologies developed by Renault Sport for Formula E could subsequently benefit the constructor’s Z.E. range of road-going cars.

Michael van der Sande, SVP Global Marketing, Renault Group

“Motorsport is an essential part of Renault’s DNA. Given its unique racing pedigree and leading expertise in electric vehicles, it was then only natural for the constructor to become heavily involved in this new all-electric series. After winning the inaugural FIA Formula E Teams’ title, we’re convinced that stepping up our participation will further boost the development of our electric range of road-going vehicles this season.”

 

Nico Prost

Source for this posting is taken from here.

The following article is obtained from here.

Greg Hubbard spoke with Boston.com about the newest Chevrolet Volt and the much-anticipated Bolt EV.

New fund aims to widen network of charging points across the country in the UK.

This article originates from here .

The government wants more drivers to choose electric cars by providing more charging points. Photograph: Clive Gee/PA

Britain is to get its first “electric service stations” as part of a £40m government fund to encourage drivers to switch to plug-in cars.

Four new stations are to be built, with at least one being located on the M1, ,which became the UK’s first inter-city motorway when it was opened in 1959. The state-of-the-art hubs will make it easier for electric vehicle drivers on motorways and in city centres to charge their car and will ease concerns over the range of the vehicles.

Similar service stations are popular in the Netherlands, and those in the UK will offer drivers the chance to “grab a coffee and use the Wi-Fi while rapid chargers top up their car in as little as 20 minutes”, according to government sources.

The location of all four stations will be unveiled on Monday tomorrow when transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin awards £40m to cities which have been bidding for funds to develop innovative green technology.

The fund will add an additional 750 charge service areas across the country and will install points at several Park and Rides on the edge of towns and cities to make them electric-vehicle friendly. It is hoped the facilities will encourage people to consider switching to a plug-in car.

McLoughlin said: “The UK is already a world leader in the production and use of electric cars, but I want to see us go much further. We are investing £600m by 2020 to improve air quality and create jobs so that we can achieve our goal of every new car and van in the UK being ultra-low-emission by 2040.

“Towns and cities across the country have come up with game-changing ideas and our backing will mean thousands more greener vehicles on our roads,” he added.

This article is taken from here

 

A map for other people’s faces has been discovered in the brain. It could help explain why some of us are better at recognising faces than others.

Every part of your body that you can move or feel is represented in the outer layer of your brain. These “maps”, found in the motor and sensory cortices (see diagram, below), tend to preserve the basic spatial layout of the body – neurons that represent our fingers are closer to neurons that represent our arms than our feet, for example.

The same goes for other people’s faces, says Linda Henriksson at Aalto University in Helsinki, Finland. Her team scanned 12 people’s brains while they looked at hundreds of images of noses, eyes, mouths and other facial features and recorded which bits of the brain became active.

This revealed a region in the occipital face area in which features that are next to each other on a real face are organised together in the brain’s representation of that face. The team have called this map the “faciotopy”.

The occipital face area is a region of the brain known to be involved in general facial processing. “Facial recognition is so fundamental to human behaviour that it makes sense that there would be a specialised area of the brain that maps features of the face,” she says.

Following the Davos World Economic Forum, the Philippe Couillard, the prime minister of Quebec announced the distribution of 16 Million Canadian dollars towards the initiative in the domain of components for high performance electric vehicle.  This investment will support the partnership of PSA Peugeot Citroen, France with Exagon Motor, Investissement Quebec and IndusTech, Canada.

 

Original article at this link

Création d’une co-entreprise franco-québécoise pour développer des composants de véhicules électriques.

En marge du Forum économique mondial de Davos, le premier ministre du Québec, Philippe Couillard, accompagné du ministre de l’Économie, de l’Innovation et des Exportations, Jacques Daoust, et du ministre de l’Innovation, des Sciences et du Développement économique du Canada, l’honorable Navdeep Bains, a annoncé l’attribution d’un soutien financier de 16 millions de dollars canadiens afin d’appuyer la réalisation au Québec, en partenariat avec PSA Peugeot Citroën, Exagon Motors, Investissement Québec et IndusTech, une filiale d’Hydro-Québec, d’une initiative innovante de recherche et développement visant le partage d’expertise dans le domaine des composants pour véhicules électriques haute performance.

L’apport gouvernemental consiste en une prise de participation de 10 millions de dollars et en un prêt de 6 millions de dollars. À ces sommes s’ajoute une contribution d’Hydro-Québec de 4 millions de dollars, en plus des services offerts par sa filiale TM4 pour le développement d’une motorisation électrique.

« Mon gouvernement entend faire du Québec un chef de file en matière d’électrification des transports. Notre engagement dans le projet annoncé aujourd’hui et le Plan d’action en électrification des transports 2015-2020 constituent un pas de plus dans le développement du secteur de l’auto électrique et permettront d’étendre la culture d’innovation au Québec », a affirmé le premier ministre Philippe Couillard.

La coentreprise ainsi formée compte PSA Peugeot Citroën, la PME française Exagon Motors, Investissement Québec ainsi qu’IndusTech, la filiale d’Hydro-Québec, agissant comme actionnaires. Son premier mandat sera de réaliser une étude de préfaisabilité estimée à 30,8 millions de dollars. Cette étude pourrait mener, dans un premier temps, au développement de composants pour véhicules électriques haute performance.

« Le gouvernement du Canada est résolu à promouvoir l’innovation au sein de l’économie canadienne et à faire valoir son rôle visant à encourager les nouveaux investissements, l’exportation et la croissance. Le soutien financier accordé à la coentreprise formée de PSA Peugeot Citroën, Exagon Motors, Investissement Québec et Hydro-Québec, est un exemple probant que nous sommes déterminés à soutenir les entreprises qui misent sur l’innovation et la collaboration » a déclaré l’honorable Navdeep Bains, ministre de l’Innovation, des Sciences et du Développement économique.

« Ce projet est une retombée concrète de notre mission à Londres en 2014, au cours de laquelle j’ai pu rencontrer cette compagnie prometteuse afin de l’attirer au Québec. Notre appui à cette initiative est une occasion de croissance unique pour la filière québécoise des véhicules électriques. Elle permettra au Québec et à ses entreprises d’acquérir une expertise de pointe auprès d’acteurs clés du secteur automobile mondial et engendrera des retombées économiques pour l’ensemble du Québec », a déclaré le ministre Jacques Daoust.

PSA Peugeot Citroën apporterait son expertise pour l’intégration automobile de ces composants, dont il deviendrait le principal client pour la diffusion mondiale. Carlos Tavares, président du directoire, a ainsi souligné que « cet accord avec Investissement Québec, Exagon Motors et Hydro-Québec démontre l’agilité de notre groupe à saisir toutes les occasions qui contribuent à renforcer son avance technologique. Ce partenariat souligne également l’intérêt de notre entreprise pour le développement de composants pour véhicules hybrides et électriques de haute performance. »

Exagon Motors, pionnier des chaînes de traction électrique à haute performance, conçoit, assemble et met au point des véhicules électriques de compétition et développe des plateformes technologiques innovantes pour différents fabricants d’équipement d’origine (OEM). « Je me réjouis à l’avance de ce partenariat unique qui nous permettra de proposer une technologie qui réconcilie performance et environnement, et où le plaisir et la passion pour l’automobile seront présents. Cette formidable aventure, qui a pris naissance entre les murs d’Exagon, se concrétise grâce à la détermination sans faille de chaque partenaire, notamment PSA Peugeot Citroën et Investissement Québec, ce dernier ayant été un véritable catalyseur pour le projet », a ajouté Luc Marchetti, président d’Exagon Motors.

« Hydro-Québec est heureuse de soutenir un projet concret dans le secteur de l’électrification des transports, une priorité pour notre entreprise. Nous sommes très actifs dans ce secteur avec notamment le Circuit électrique, notre réseau de recharge public, et nos technologies de pointe développées à l’Institut de recherche d’Hydro-Québec. L’intérêt d’un grand constructeur comme PSA Peugeot Citroën pour les produits de TM4 témoigne de leur qualité et de leur réputation enviable à l’échelle internationale », a mentionné Éric Martel, président-directeur général d’Hydro-Québec.

The following article is retrieved from here

 

Former Boulder Mayor Will Toor’s letter to City Council urging it to take a leadership role in encouraging adoption of electric vehicles presents the council with an interesting dilemma.

On the one hand, accelerating the adoption of electric cars would help to reduce vehicle emissions, an important part of the city’s climate action plan.

On the other, the leadership of this council has been trying to achieve that goal by coercing people out of their cars onto buses or bikes, so it may find it difficult now to embrace cars of any kind.

As Toor acknowledged in a meeting with the Camera’s editorial board last week, much of the strife around recent transportation policy, including the battle over reducing lanes on Folsom Street, comes from a sense that city officials are wagging their fingers reprovingly at drivers for doing what most Americans do — getting from place to place by car — while providing no realistic alternative for many of them.

Toor’s proposal casts drivers as part of the solution and offers hope of a less divisive municipal approach to reducing emissions. With the country now on a course to clean up its sources of electric power, EVs present an opportunity to transfer those gains over time to the transportation sector. Even if the city were to meet its highly optimistic projections of behavior modification, Toor contends it would get only about halfway to its auto emission reduction goals. Another solution is needed.

Electric cars are not exactly in their infancy, having debuted in the 19th century, but technology is improving their utility rapidly. Tesla has revolutionized the field with high-end, high-performance cars. It is an open secret in the tech community that Apple is working on its own electric car, according to Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk. Traditional car companies’ electric offerings are improving their range per charge slowly but surely.

Although Boulder likes to think of itself as cutting edge in environmental matters, it trails the cities leading the way in automobile innovation, perhaps because of its leadership’s apparent antipathy for cars generally. As Camera business columnist Sean Maher pointed out earlier this month, leading cities are aggressively enabling experiments with self-driving cars. On Thursday, the Obama administration proposed a 10-year, $4 billion campaign to speed development of that technology. Combine it with EVs and car-sharing applications, and we could see fleets of shared, driverless, electric cars, reducing congestion, emissions and the need for on-site parking.

“If you are skeptical about encouraging more cars in Boulder, consider the evidence that driverless cars will be amazingly green,” Maher wrote. “In his book, ‘Clean Disruption,’ entrepreneur and Stanford professor Tony Seba argues that autonomous vehicles will eventually be all-electric and operate under a business model that is a cross between car share and Uber. If Seba is right — and he makes a very persuasive case — this disruptive force will not only make auto travel safer and faster, it will make it infinitely cleaner and less intrusive.”

The city could take a number of steps to encourage this future, including converting city-owned fleets, offering incentives for workplace chargers and joining Boulder County in a group-buying program that offers substantial discounts to electric car buyers. The county’s program last fall resulted in a quadrupling of electric car sales in a four-month period — with only a single dealership participating. More are expected to join the program this year.

City staff has laid the groundwork for some of these initiatives. Last year, the planning department, along with the county and CU, contracted with the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project, where Toor runs the transportation program, to evaluate Boulder’s electric vehicle infrastructure. But, as Toor pointed out, it needs council’s active support to become a core part of the climate plan.

Technological innovation in this field seems likely to whiz past Boulder’s 20th-century central planning based on bikes and diesel buses. Shared fleets of electric cars could even solve mass transit’s first mile/last mile problem in spread-out jurisdictions like Colorado. If technology ultimately provides a way for each car to be cleaner and serve more people, next-generation autos might yet turn out to be the best solution to the issues of climate and congestion that now plague us. It is time Boulder’s elected officials opened their minds to this possibility.

—Dave Krieger, for the editorial board. Email: kriegerd@dailycamera.com. Twitter:@DaveKrieger

by  David Herron August 11, 2015

This article can be found here

Fast Charging makes electric cars more useful because of the reassurance drivers get knowing they can quickly recharge, and the faster effective trip speed.   It seems that car owners with fast-charge capable cars, with enough fast charging stations around them, feel capable of taking longer trips.

While fast charging is often unnecessary , because the optimum charging rate varies depending on the usage scenario the driver currently faces, it sure is convenient that fast charging stations give an almost complete recharge in under an hour.  Unlike cars with 6 kiloWatt level 2 charging systems (20-25 miles of range per hour of charging), fast charging’s faster charge rate (50 kiloWatts or more) can supply 100 or more miles of range per hour of charging.  A significant fast charging network available should make electric cars more attractive than otherwise, and lead to higher adoption rates.

In some cases it means electric car drivers can take real road trips — blowing up one of the negative electric car stereotypes.   (like being be limited to driving a short distance from your home)

Unfortunately, while fast charging electric cars were available in 2011 (Nissan Leaf, Mitsubishi i-MiEV), CHAdeMO charging infrastructure didn’t grow very fast.  Some automakers lobbied against CHAdeMO deployment because it wasn’t an SAE-blessed standard.  Instead the CHAdeMO was standard co-developed by TEPCO and the Japanese automakers.  Instead of adopting CHAdeMO, the SAE developed their own fast charging standard (Combo Charging System), Tesla Motors developed a proprietary fast charging system (Supercharger), and the Chinese developed a different fast charging standard.

The resulting effects were that

• Fast charging adoption happened more slowly that it might have
• Perhaps, Electric car adoption was delayed because of slow fast charging infrastructure build-out
• As of 2015 there are three (or four) fast charging standards in various stages of adoption, causing a certain amount of pain to electric car drivers – we can’t just go to the closest fast charge station, we have to find the one that’s compatible with our car

What we have in 2015 is a multi-way electric car fast charging standards battle.  Consumers are caught in the middle not knowing which fast charging standard to support, not knowing enough to know how to choose between them.   Fortunately some of the automakers appear to be acting to soften the pain of incompatible fast charging standards by deploying multi-protocol fast charging stations.

What we deserve is ubiquitous fast charging stations with a unified fast charging protocol.  Our gasoline powered brethren have a unified standard for gasoline pump nozzles, we deserve the same for fast charging.

With multiple competing fast charging standards adapters would be a useful product, to enable fast charging from an otherwise incompatible charging station.  While Tesla Motors is selling a CHAdeMO-to-Tesla adapter, it seems such adapters might have limited popularity due to expense and deployment of dual-protocol charging stations.

Charging Level & Effective Trip Speed

Before we get into the fast charging standards, let’s do a small review of why this is important and some terminology.

DC Fast Charging is the fastest (highest powered) electric car charging system currently available.  The charging station provides a high power DC current, as much as 120 kiloWatts, to the car’s battery pack bypassing any other charging equipment in the car.

Some people call this “Level 3” because the normal-speed charging generally used (240 volt AC at about 30 amps) is popularly called “Level 2”.  Both names are incorrect.

What’s popularly called “Level 2” is actually called “AC Level 2” and covers single phase AC charging at up to 20 kiloWatts in power.  In practice the highest rate currently supported by electric cars is about 10 kiloWatts, but the public charging network generally only supports 6 kiloWatts.

The DC Fast Charging we’re talking about is not “Level 3” but “DC Level 2” at power rates up to about 90 kiloWatts.

Where this becomes important is the recharge times noted in the chart.  The higher the charging power, the more quickly the car can be recharged.  Put another way, high power charging makes for a faster effective trip speed – because you gain more hours of range per hour of charging.  See Electric car charging rates, how fast, how slow, what we need, and why for more information.

• 6 kiloWatts: 20-25 miles range per hour of charging (typical AC Level 2)
• 50 kiloWatts: 120ish miles range per hour of charging  (CHAdeMO, CCS)
• 120 kiloWatts: 300ish miles range per hour of charging (Tesla Supercharger)

Taking a road trip with an electric car would be much more pleasant with 300+ miles range per hour of charging than 20 miles of range.

DC Fast charging standards – CHAdeMO, CCS, Supercharger, China

There are four or so DC Fast Charging systems currently being used by electric car manufacturers.  The picture shown here has four different connectors without even accounting for the Tesla Supercharger because there are two variants of the ComboChargingSystem charging socket.

 

At the current moment the leading car for each type is:

• CHAdeMO – Nissan Leaf
• CCS – BMW i3
• Supercharger – Tesla Model S
• China GB/T – ?

Let’s take a look at each.

CHAdeMO – (Nissan, Mitsubishi, Kia)

CHAdeMO Plug – Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CHAdeMO_Plug_VacavilleDavisStDC2.jpg

CHAdeMO is the trade name of a quick charging method for battery electric vehicles delivering up to 62.5 kW of high-voltage direct current via a special electrical connector. It is proposed as a global industry standard by an association of the same name.

It was defined by the CHAdeMO Association – Purpose/focus CHAdeMO Association aims to increase quick-charger installations worldwide and to standardize how to charge the vehicles. – http://chademo.com – CHAdeMO was formed by The Tokyo Electric Power Company, Nissan, Mitsubishi and Fuji Heavy Industries (the manufacturer of Subaru vehicles). Toyota later joined as its fifth executive member. CHAdeMO is an abbreviation of “CHArge de MOve”, equivalent to “charge for moving”. The name is a pun for “O cha demo ikaga desuka” in Japanese, translating to English as “How about some tea?”, referring to the time it would take to charge a car.

CHAdeMO is a form of DC Fast Charge, for high-voltage (up to 500 VDC) high-current (125 A) automotive fast charging via a JARI DC fast charge connector. The connector is specified by the JEVS (Japan Electric Vehicle Standard) G105-1993 from the Japan Automobile Research Institute. The connector includes two large pins for DC power, plus other pins to carry CAN-BUS connections.

Because CHAdeMO ports do not support AC charging, cars must have two charging ports – one for AC Level 2, the other for CHAdeMO.

AE Combo Charging System (CCS) – (BMW, GM, VW, and other carmakers)

When tasked with developing a fast charging system, the SAE J1772 committee basically took the existing J1772 plug and added on two large pins for high power DC.  The upper part is the ordinary J1772 plug used in the USA, and the lower portion are the two DC power pins.

Among the reasons the J1772 committee developed CCS are

• Single charging inlet to support slow and fast charging (versus two required for CHAdeMO)
• Use smart grid protocols to control charging
• Same connector serves multiple purposes

The first point allows car makers more design freedom by requiring only a single hole in the skin of the car (or, a smaller hole) for recharging.  The charging cord is also lighter weight than the CHAdeMO, and easier to use.

The second point – see the image above labeled “IEC DC Charging Systems” – has to do with the control protocol between the car and the charging station.  We’ll discuss this below, but CCS uses PLC for that communication, whereas CHAdeMO uses CAN.  CAN is a data protocol used between components inside cars, while PLC is part of the smart grid protocols.

Tesla Supercharger

• The Tesla mobile charging unit comes with adapters for every kind of power outlet, from 120 volt 12 amp (NEMA 5-20), through to 240 volt 50 amp (NEMA 14-50).
• Via an adapter, it can connect to J1772 charging stations
• At a Supercharger station (pictured above) it can receive DC fast charging at up to a 120 kiloWatt rate

It means a Tesla Model S or Model X owner can get rapid charging in a wide range of situations.

Tesla Motors also sells an add-on adapter allowing a Model S/X owner to recharge at a CHAdeMO station.  Tesla Motors does not sell any kind of adapter allowing owners of CHAdeMO or CCS cars to recharge at a Supercharger station, however.