Search Results Found For: "demand charge"

Exhaustive infrastructure testing: Converging industries present challenges for automakers

In the past few decades, the automotive industry has seen a shift from traditional mechanical systems to a world dominated by electronics, chips and software. If you go to a car show and look in the engine compartment of an older vehicle, you’ll see only a handful of connections from the cockpit. Modern vehicles, however,… Read more »

The battery industry insiders: Q&A with the Bitrode Corporation

In many ways, the Bitrode Corporation has the ultimate inside scoop on the battery industry. Along with its parent company, Sovema, and sister division, Solith, the group has its hands all over battery development, manufacturing and testing. The companies supply equipment and support to many of the biggest names in automotive-grade battery manufacturing. Acquired by… Read more »

Hybricon’s Arctic Whisper electric bus demonstrates Ultrafast Charging (Updated)

(Updated 4/19/2014 -12:00PM EDT  with added comments from Boh Westerlund, Hybricon Founder & CTO, clarifying technical details.) Hybricon Bus Systems has been testing its new Arctic Whisper electric bus in its hometown of Umeå, Sweden, near the Arctic Circle. Using the company’s Ultrafast Charging system with the Opbrid Bůsbaar, which features a pantograph and an overhead charging rail…. Read more »

Volvo to show gas PHEV in Beijing

Underscoring the growing importance of China as a market for “new energy” vehicles, Volvo has announced that it will reveal its S60L PPHEV concept car at the 2014 Beijing International Auto Show. The gas/electric plug-in hybrid will be launched in China in early 2015, and will be produced at Volvo’s Chengdu plant. There’s no word… Read more »

Silicon rally: EnerG2’s new silicon battery anode material

It seems that every time the hottest new smartphone or tablet comes out, one of the biggest points of contention among users is its battery life. The demands put on the batteries run them down faster than users would like, and the OEMs can’t simply increase the batteries’ size while still hitting their targets for… Read more »

Freescale’s new battery sensor combines MCU and CAN with three-channel analog front end

Freescale Semiconductor (NYSE:FSL) has announced a new battery sensor that it says is the first to combine three measurement channels, a 16/32-bit MCU, and a CAN protocol module in a single package. The MM9Z1J638 battery sensor measures key battery parameters for monitoring state of health (SOH), state of charge (SOC) and state of function (SOF)… Read more »

Norwegian electric ferry sails past six-month milestone

Electrovaya Inc. has announced that the KF Hisarøy electric cable ferry has now been sailing between Mjånes and Hisarøy in Norway daily for six months, with flawless operation over the wintry seas. The KF Hisarøy, which is built to carry 49 passengers and 6 cars, operates approximately 10 round trips per day between the mainland… Read more »

Tom Gage on ZEV mandates, Tesla’s early days, BMW’s EV commitment and V2G tech

Q&A with the EV trailblazer Tom Gage Tom Gage is one of America’s true EV pioneers. He’s perhaps best known as one of the designers of the tzero electric sports car that provided the inspiration for the Tesla Roadster. However, that is far from his only contribution to the electric mobility field. Charged recently caught up… Read more »

Telefonix bets on Level 1 commercial charging stations

While most of the discussion about commercial EVSE seems to revolve around peoples’ desire for ever-faster charging, Telefonix has taken the opposite approach, producing what is designed to be the first true commercial Level 1 charging station on the market. Like many another great idea, the inspiration for the L1 PowerPost came as a serendipitous… Read more »

Elon Musk: Model X is a harder design problem but worth the wait

At the Geneva Auto Salon a few weeks ago, we were surprised to see that, unlike the previous year, Tesla had no Model X on display. The booth bunnies had no explanation to offer, but in a recent interview with Bloomberg, Elon Musk shed a little light on that topic. While demand for the Model… Read more »