Proterra has announced the sale of seven electric buses and a charging station to the Nashville Metropolitan Transit Authority (Nashville MTA). The buses will be built at Proterra’s manufacturing facility in Greenville, South Carolina, and delivered this year. The funds for the new buses came from a federal Clean Fuels grant and matching funds from… Read more »
Search Results Found For: "WAVE "
Navigant names 10 trends in the EV market for 2014
A new white paper from Navigant Research forecasts global EV sales of over 346,000 units in 2014. Navigant sees expansion at the higher end of the market, as Audi, BMW, Cadillac, Mercedes, Saab, and Volvo introduce new plug-in models; and in the middle, with new offerings from Kia, Mahindra, Skoda, and Volkswagen. “Electric Vehicles: 10… Read more »
The most interesting part of the 2014 Cadillac ELR is the software
We often hear automotive engineers talk about the need for a better understanding of the components of an EV. Some have said that there is an inherent inefficiency in many systems because the parts – like the battery cells, motors and inverters – have historically been developed independently of each other and then integrated together…. Read more »
Tesla requests NHSTA investigation, confirms suspension update and amends warranty
(Updated 11/19/2013 – 11:10 am ET to include comments from NHTSA Administrator David Strickland) Tesla has taken a lot of heat since the third Model S fire in six weeks occurred earlier this month – the press pounced and the stock plummeted. Last week, Elon Musk reassured us that Tesla continues to build the safest cars… Read more »
Musk says there will be no Model S recall
“There’s definitely not going to be a recall. There’s no reason for a recall,” said Elon Musk in a recent CNBC interview. “If you read the headlines, it sounds like Teslas have a greater propensity to catch fires than other cars. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth.” The spate of press coverage… Read more »
Cadillac ELR keeps it quiet
Naturally, the 2014 Cadillac ELR’s interior is silent when running on battery power. The luxury coupe’s engineers went to great lengths to keep it that way when the range-extending generator kicks in. ELR uses active noise cancelling, a technology that samples noise and generates a sound wave with the same amplitude but with inverted phase,… Read more »
Resonating with the OEMs: WiTricity’s wireless energy transfer technology
WiTricity hopes to leverage a wireless energy transfer breakthrough out of MIT into a commercial solution with far-reaching potential Inside a standard electrical transformer are two coils that transfer power wirelessly. They utilize the principle of magnetic induction, sending energy from a primary coil to a secondary coil without a direct electrical connection. Inductive chargers,… Read more »
A closer look at back electromotive force
Why motors generate and generators motor In a previous article I took a closer look at regenerative braking, and mentioned an old engineering saying that every motor is a generator and every generator is a motor (along with the caveat that some are more suited to the opposite purpose than others). This time around I’ll… Read more »
Foothill Transit orders 12 more Proterra electric buses
In 2011, Foothill Transit, a transportation authority in Southern California, became the first transit agency in the US to use on-route charging electric buses when it began a pilot program using buses from South Carolina firm Proterra. Based on strong performance and return on investment of those vehicles, the agency has now decided to purchase… Read more »
EVs in paradise: plug-ins and island markets
Islands make perfect EV habitats. Driving distances are generally short, and the need to ship supplies from the mainland keeps gas prices high. Also, islands around the world face a lot of environmental challenges, and many island economies depend on tourism, so the level of green consciousness tends to be high. Island governments around the… Read more »