A two-year study that examined the charging behavior of 142 households with plug-in vehicles. The PHEVs averaged 68 mpg and used 27 megawatt-hours of electricity.
Newswire
IPC’s new bi-directional Battery Converter offers vehicle-to-grid capability
Ideal Power Converters (IPC) announced that the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has successfully demonstrated vehicle-to-grid (V2G) capabilities using IPC’s bi-directional Battery Converter. V2G allows vehicles to exchange power with the electricity grid, providing benefits such as local peak demand reduction. IPC’s wall-mounted Battery Converter is based on a hardware platform… Read more »
California judge throws out ECOtality lawsuit against Public Utility Commission
A California appeals judge has thrown out a lawsuit filed by EV charging station provider ECOtality against the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC). ECOtality was trying to stop the CPUC from funding a charging network set up by competitor EVgo. It’s bad news for ECOtality, but is it good news for California EV drivers? Let’s… Read more »
New class of power inverter could lead to lighter and cheaper EVs
A researcher at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) has invented a new class of power inverter that could lead to cheaper and lighter traction motors and power electronics for EVs. Power inverters are a key component of EVs, as well as related technologies such as solar power and battery storage. Current inverters with multiple switching… Read more »
AeroVironment introduces portable home charging station
The SAE-J1772-compliant charger plugs into a dedicated 240 volt outlet and slides in and out of a wall-mounted bracket, allowing EV drivers to take their charging station with them.
Cadillac to begin production of new luxury PHEV in late 2013
GM offered no technical details for the ELR, but has said that it will operate much like the Volt, and will also be built at the Detroit-Hamtramck plant
Irish EVs will use cloud-based system to manage public chargers
ESB Networks will use IBM's Intelligent Electric Vehicle Enablement Platform to operate and manage its 1,000 public EV charge points in Ireland
A123 finally runs out of juice and files for bankruptcy
Battery maker A123 Systems announced that it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and agreed to sell its automotive business assets to Johnson Controls. Once considered a promising startup with innovative technology, the company took a huge hit in March, when it was forced to recall a batch of defective batteries destined for Fisker’s Karma… Read more »
SAE releases new combo charger standard for plug-in vehicles
Love it or hate it, the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE)’s long-awaited standard for plug-in vehicle charging has been approved and published. The new revision to the J1772 standard incorporates AC Levels 1 and 2 (up to 80 amps), and DC Levels 1 and 2 (up to 200 amps), and allows all to be combined on a… Read more »
Bob Lutz joins the board of NanoSteel
NanoSteel, a privately held company that makes proprietary nano-structured steel materials, announced this week that automotive visionary Bob Lutz has been appointed to the company’s Board of Directors. Through the development of patented alloys, NanoSteel has created a new class of steel that allows automotive engineers and designers to reduce weight through the use of… Read more »