Concept of the Day: BMW 3.0 CSL Hommage

Bit of an overdue catch-up here, but we’ll start with this BMW 3.0 CSL Hommage concept shown at Villa d’Este last week. Design-wise, you can read the full lowdown here, but of interest to me is this ‘eBoost’ function supplementing the straight-six. BMW hints only at “energy accumulators”, with the instrument panel including a charging display, but this sounds to me like some sort of supercapacitor-based hybrid system, perhaps…

• Back in the real world, the Frazer-Nash/Ecotive Metrocab taxi is to go into production in Coventry next year. Assembly is by Multimatic, and the Metrocab will first hit the streets of London (where a small-scale trial is already underway). It’s a range-extended EV with two electric motors, a 1.0-litre petrol engine and generator (which can recharge the batteries in just 10 minutes), regenerative braking, lithium-polymer batteries and external charging; its overall range is over 560km.

• We hear a lot about Generation Y and millennials, but how ’bout Generation Alpha (born 2010-on)? Design students from Art Center Pasadena see them as getting around in shape-shifting, shared, autonomous, connected EVs: some nice ideas in the SABIC-sponsored Design For Alpha project, reported here.

• Vodafone’s M2M (machine-to-machine) platform is underpinning a new service/app for EV users called Ubitricity – a ‘virtual network’ for billing/accessing power supplies. More here.

• Ford has launched its GoDrive carshare in London, with half its 50-car fleet Focus Electric Drives; more here.

• Some interesting stats via Fleet News: over half of the BMW i3s registered in the last three months, and over 60% of Audi A3 e-tron PHEVs, are for fleet buyers/the corporate sector.

• The global market for EV chargers will increase more than 12-fold 2014-2020, according to research by IHS Automotive; mainly AC charging still, it thinks, with just 10% of chargers in public/semi-public domain and DC fast-chargers a minority. More here.

• Latest from Navigant Research: plug-in vehicle sales to exceed 1.1million a year in the US by 2020. More here.

• Smith Electric Vehicles (US) has formed a JV with FDG Electric Vehicles (with lithium-ion battery-making division); the former is to assemble and distribute the latter’s vehicles in the USA, with a view to the urban delivery/transport sector. Smith will continue to make its Newton/Edison conversions. More here.

• EV buyers are economy-driven first and foremost, more than environmentally-focused, and are also younger and more affluent than the average, according to a (US) survey. They’re motivated by tax rebates and other incentives, reports TrueCar, which admittedly only compared a small sample of Ford Focus Electric and Fiat 500e buyers against their ICE-purchasing equivalents.

• The Institute of Energy and Transport, University of Leeds, is modelling electromobility: more on the project (for the Joint Research Centre) in this presentation.

• BMW has added 30 all-electric i3s to its DriveNow on-demand fleet in Hackney, Islington, Haringey and Waltham Forest (NE London).

• Not a car, but a boat worthy of note: an electric car/passenger ferry has gone into service in Norway. Built by Fjellstrand and featuring a Siemens-developed drive system with lithium-ion batteries, it uses 150kWhr per trip, said to be equivalent to three days’ electricity use by the average Norwegian household (length of trip not stated). Oh, and it’s charged using hydro power. Operator Norled reckons at least 50 further routes along Norway’s coastline could be served by electric ferries, too. More here.

Concept of the Day: Volkswagen Golf GTE Sport

Volkswagen is fitting plug-in hybrid powertrains in a growing number of its production and concept cars: latest is the track-oriented Golf GTE Sport, an electrified, all-wheel-drive GTI concept. Developed for the annual GTI meeting at Lake Wörthersee, Austria, the carbon-bodied, GTE Sport gives 400hp, 174mph and 0-62mph in 4.3 seconds. All-electric range is 50km, and average fuel economy (not that the NEDC cycle gives in any way a representative figure) is 141mpg.

Its motors supplement a version of the turbocharged 1.6TSI from the Polo R WRC rally car; one (115hp/330Nm) is mounted up front within the housing of the six-speed twin-clutch gearbox, and another (115hp/270Nm) at the rear driving the rear axle. The racing-style interior – accessed via swing-up doors – features two self-contained areas for driver and passenger, and features a new three-level transparent information display system to accommodate all necessary data on charge, electric boost and power delivery as well as lap times. The mode-select switches for electric, hybrid and AWD ‘GTE’ performance modes is roof-mounted, and the driver can select battery ‘hold’ and ‘charge’ modes; in GTE mode, the front electric motor acts as a generator supplying energy to the rear motor via an “electric propshaft”, which Volkswagen has copyrighted.

I’m currently rather struggling with enthusiasm for PHEVs – firstly due to the growing suspicion that they’re not spending an awful lot of time in electric mode (as the Dutch government has suggested; see earlier post), and secondly as they are increasingly looking like an attempt to spin out the lifespan of the ICE from the OEM/industry end. However, on the positive side, consciousness-raising, gateway to electrification and all the rest of it, and if concepts like this grab the attention of petrolheads, so much the better.

• Spotted on this #PitchToRich thing (competition for Branson/Virgin investment: the Libralato petrol engine for plug-in hybrid powertrains (speaking of which), said to be half the size and weight of a conventional unit, and deliver the efficiency of a diesel. It’s a re-take on the rotary engine, with two rotors (and thus no pistons or crankshaft), from a firm in Greater Manchester. (Via @CarplusTrust – thanks). Well, potentially considerably more progressive than electrifying a conventional ICE.

• Toyota has launched its Open Road project, field-testing the i-Road micro-EV in Tokyo; there are three components to the programme, road-testing of the vehicle itself, collaborating with industry partners ‘to create unique extensions of the i-Road experience’, and broadcasting/sharing/promoting. It’s appealing for (Tokyo-based) participants.

• Renault-Nissan is planning EVs with a battery range of over 400km by 2020, according to a report from the Nikkei Asian Review. Latest EV sales targets have been revised, it reports, to 10% of Nissan’s sales by 2025 (from just over 1% now).

• Lack of public charging infrastructure remains a main barrier to EV adoption, yet most EV drivers are charging at home; an attempt to unscramble the contradiction from Navigant. Points out that the location of charging equipment is crucial if it is to be used, and that testing with mobile charging units is a good idea to determine suitable sites and justify investments.

• Driving costs society six times more than cycling, according to a Danish-Australian study: the paper, in Ecological Economics, says that cycling infrastructure is one of the most cost-effective investments for cities in terms of the impacts on air pollution, climate change, noise, road wear, health, congestion and travel routes. Cycling costs 0.08euro per kilometre, with this cost showing a downward trend, whereas driving costs 0.50euro and rising, claim the researchers (Gössling and Choi, 2015). The study is based on Copenhagen.

• Toyota and Mazda are entering into a technology-sharing partnership: Mazda will get Toyota’s hybrid and fuel cell tech, while bringing its own SkyActiv fuel-efficient engines to the table, reports Autocar.

Concept of the Day: Luka EV

 

This retro-look coupe is all-modern in its conception: it’s an open-source collaborative project to build a 20,000-euro, affordable lightweight sports EV. The prototype has in-hub wheel motors, weighs less than 750kg, and is fibreglass-bodied; the team is aiming to get it road-legal by September 1st. Looks like a pitch at the modern-day kit car market, and really rather fun: an alternative take on electromobility. More here. Maybe not exactly a mass-market solution, but I do rather like these DIY/user-innovation projects.

In other news today:

• Pressure group Plug In America has published a report on promotion of EVs in the US; concludes there is an upward trend, consumer satisfaction is positive, but general awareness is poor; potential for alignment with renewable energy industry is good; but there is a ‘patchwork quilt’ of legislation and incentives with inconsistencies between states.

• GM doesn’t reckon it will meet its target of 500,000 electrified vehicles (of all types) on US roads by 2017, reports Detroit News. It’s citing a surge in competitive offers and lowered gas prices. However, in separate news, one analyst decouples the link between cheap petrol and falling ‘green’ car sales, saying the latter had peaked already.

• In the US, annual mileage driven by women has been rising: some interesting stats from UMTRI, Michigan tracking mileage by gender 1963-2013. In ’63, women accounted for less than 40% of drivers (now nearly 51%, having outnumbered men for the last 10 years) and their mileage has risen 89% since then (compared to 33% for men). In ’63, men drove more than twice the distance of women, now it’s only 1.5 times (around 15,000 miles a year on average, vs 10,000). Researcher Michael Sivak notes that this “will likely have major implications o the extent and nature of vehicle demand, energy consumption and road safety”, due to the lower mileage, lower fatality rate per distance driven for female drivers, and because they are (still) more likely to buy smaller, safer, and more efficient vehicles.

• The next-generation 2017 London taxi – LTI TX5 – is to come with a PHEV powertrain, enabling it to meet upcoming air quality legislation; statement from Geely, LTI’s parent company, posted here.

• Meanwhile, the Dutch government is to reduce tax breaks for PHEVs – the Netherlands is Europe’s largest market for these, with over 12,200 sold there last year – because, according to a BMW source, owners are not using the electric capability and simply running on petrol/diesel. Report from Automotive News Europe. However, BMW’s claiming that its next-gen Power eDrive PHEV powertrains will typically give 80% of the average commuter’s journeys in all-electric mode – spokesman quoted here.

• Liftshare is reporting that a major British carmaker (unnamed) has installed 200 shared-vehicle parking bays at its facility; nearly 400 people have signed up, 90 ‘teams’ of car-poolers have been created, and they reckon that over a year, over 3,250,00o miles and over 1070 tonnes of CO2 will be ‘saved’. Liftshare creates bespoke software/booking solutions for formal sharing schemes, as well as personalised multi-modal travel planning.

Autonomy, sharing and electromobility

Autonomous shared vehicles could replace 90% of private cars on city streets, according to research from the International Transport Forum modelling ‘TaxiBots’ – simultaneously-shared vehicles – and ‘AutoVots’, on-demand vehicles transporting one person after another. It warns of increases in total vehicle mileage travelled, however, due to the pick-ups, drop-offs and vehicle repositioning in different scenarios, but points out the land use implications for a reduction in necessary parking spaces – and where the Bots and Vots could supplement (or replace) inefficient or insufficient public transport systems. Further effects on transportation privatisation implied… Handy rundown here, full report, Urban Mobility System Upgrade, here. It notes that, to accommodate charging downtime, only a 2% increase in vehicle numbers would be needed for the fleets to be electrified. Nice analysis by Citylab, too. Pic: Mercedes-Benz F 015 concept, the luxury/executive option. The car-makers have been thinking about how to manoeuvre themselves into this new market-space, of course.

• In the meantime… the used car market is the key to electric vehicle adoption, says an analyst from Glass’s Guides, pointing out the role of the motor trade in consumer education and charting the strengthening of EV residual values.

• The CarPlus annual survey of car clubs is out: download the various regional reports here. Some take-outs from the England & Wales report: 22,500 members using 700 cars (outside London); increasing usage of EVs; claiming that four cars removed from road for each car club car; only 29% of members (6 months+) now own a car, with car purchases deferred; average annual mileage 3,500; members 3x more likely than average to cycle. Car club membership is used as part of members’ ‘portfolios’ of transport options including train, bus, walking, etc. Corporate members use cars more than private, and their employers/organisations have reduced usage of pool and ‘grey fleet’ (employees’ own) vehicles; most popular reason for joining was moving to a new area, then changing job. Figures for London report 155,000 members using 2,300 cars; a claimed 8.6 cars removed from the road per car club car; average annual mileage 2,190; and in Scotland, 7,600 members are sharing 240 cars. Importantly, the reports discuss the potential for adoption of electric vehicles – a good level of willingness to try them out, and positive responses towards experiences so far, were noted.

• And there’s a lot more on car-sharing in the latest issue of Transportation: shared mobility services are now mainstream, its editors claim, enabled by digital tech. Papers look at case studies, model future scenarios, look at the potential for car-sharing in B2B applications, fleet efficiencies and business models.

• Doubling bus use in the UK will have only a tiny impact in reducing car usage (1.3%), argues Steve Melia, and in general, investment in public transport will have little effect on reducing car travel – they’re more likely to reduce walking and cycling. Instead, he argues for better and more strategic planning to reduce congestion and air pollution.

• So Tesla has launched its PowerWall static energy storage systems, domestic grade and industrial: an important (and symbolic) step forward in capture and storage of renewables, nicely tying in with vehicle charging. This stuff is all connected.

• And some first-quarter figures from ACEA: EV registrations more than doubled compared to same time 2014, to 24,360 units. Hybrid sales were up 21.4% to 56,704, and natural gas-fuelled vehicles up 16.5% to 63,087.

• Researchers at University of Illinois, Chicago, have made advances in magnesium-ion battery tech – reported here.

 

Shanghai sum-up, news round-up

A very quick Shanghai Motor Show round-up of stuff not previously covered/mentioned, in no particular order. Volkswagen: followed up the Geneva Sport Concept GTE with the C Concept GTE – stretched to a 5m-long four-door luxury “coupe” bodystyle, with a 245hp plug-in hybrid powertrain (four-cylinder TSI engine, eight-speed auto gearbox, 124hp electric motor). This can do up to 81mph in all-electric mode, with an all-electric range of up to 31 miles/50km; averaged-out economy is 122.8mpg and CO2 emissions 55g/km. Another plug-in hybrid: Qoros 2 SUV PHEV, a chunky little concept with hands-free and optional inductive wireless charging; and the latest in Audi’s Prologue series, the plug-in Prologue Allroad (previewing the next A6 Allroad) with 4.0 twin-turbo plus electric motor giving 724bhp.  Toyota unveiled a series of Chinese-market hybrids and EVs; Cadillac supplemented its CT6 saloon with PHEV capability; BMW launched the X5 xDrive40e PHEV; the Chinese will be offered a hybrid Nissan Murano, and a plug-in hybrid Audi A6 L e-tron and Q7 e-tron 2.0 TFSI quattro. One of the more interesting and forward-looking concepts, however, was the Chevrolet FNR (“find new roads”, pictured) from GM’s Pan Asia Technical Automotive Center in partnership with SAIC Motor, which featured in-wheel electric motors, wireless charging, autonomous-driving capability with sensors and roof-mounted radar, and an interior which enables 180-degree swivelling of the front seats when in self-driving mode.

• A step forward in synthetic fuels: an Audi test facility in Dresden has produced its first batch of ‘e-diesel’, synthesised from carbon dioxide from a biogas plant. The process needs only ambient air, and works in stages: water is heated for steam, which is broken down into hydrogen and oxygen by electrolysis (using renewable energy); the hydrogen then reacts with the CO2 to produce ‘blue crude’, a long-chain hydrocarbon compound, which is then refined. This end-product is said to be free of sulphur or aromatic hydrocarbons, with a high cetane number,and it can be mixed with conventional diesel as well as used ‘pure’. The overall high-temperature process is claimed to be 70% efficient, with the added bonus that it can be incorporated into electricity grid stabilisation. Audi is aiming to produce over 3000 litres in coming months and then scale up the principle; petrol made in a similar way is also under development. More here. A classier news-release approach than Toyota’s talk about ‘hydrogen bullshit’, perhaps (hydrogen from cattle manure).

• Audi has also delivered 40 A3 e-tron PHEVs for testing in three trial programmes in Berlin, Munich and Stuttgart: these are to look at private consumer use, expectations and charging. More here.

• Montreal is to get a municipal EV-sharing scheme: 250 cars to hit the streets by next spring, with the aim of 1000 by 2020. Importantly, this will be powered by Quebec’s abundant hydro-electricity. More at Treehugger.

• Barriers to EV adoption: vehicle cost, current battery tech, lack of consumer knowledge, reports the US National Research Council. Findings summarised here.

• Siemens has launched a cloud-based wi-fi enabled EV charging station that enables vehicle owners to activate and control/monitor vehicle charging remotely via mobile or web app, integrating into demand-management and grid-balancing incentives. More here.

• Millennials: buying cars again, and more than GenX, though mileage and driving rates are down across the board and there’s much variation between cities/location. Summary here.

Concept of the Day: Citroen Aircross

To be revealed at the Shanghai Motor Show later this month, an SUV-ed up C4 Cactus with innovative interior design – and a PHEV powertrain. The Aircross compact crossover, which appears to preview a production model, features a 70kW/95bhp electric motor giving 200Nm of torque to the rear axle plus the 1.6 THP turbocharged petrol engine (218bhp/275Nm), and gives an all-electric range of 31 miles. Its lithium-ion batteries can be recharged in three and a half hours from a domestic 16A socket. Total power output is 313bhp, 0-62mph happens in 4.5 seconds, but the “combined” fuel consumption is 166mpg (not that this is a figure which really means anything given the way it’s averaged-out, but anyway) and CO2 emissions are down to 39g/km.

• Q1 2015 e-mobility Index from Roland Berger Strategy Consultants is out. Key trends/notes from this include: Japan is leading in terms of technologies at the moment, followed by France; China is investing heavily although R&D spending has fallen in other regions; vehicle weight remains an issue with few OEMs yet exploiting the possibilities of EV-specific structural design.

• Deaths related to air pollution are being underestimated, with the effects of NOx not taken into account, the Guardian reports: analysis here.

• And acute asthma worsening and attacks in children, linked again to traffic-related air pollution by UC Irvine. Carbon monoxide, oxides of nitrogen and PM2.5s particularly implicated, lower-income and ethnic-minority children more vulnerable since they are more likely to live in high-traffic areas. Rundown here.

• 30 Renault Twizy two-seaters have joined the Bluely EV-share in Lyon, with 110 to go into service in Lyon and in the Bluecub fleet in Bordeaux. More here.

• Plenty of electric scooters are coming onto the market, but the Gogoro Streetscooter comes with a battery-swapping trial programme – in Taipei, Taiwan, at least. 100 riders are being recruited to beta-test the scooters and the system, which uses ATM-sized battery dispensers to push out charged batteries, and take in the duds. More here.

• A new-generation Smart Fortwo electric-drive is on the way next year, and its batteries will be supplied by LG Chem. More here.

• There’s been talk of a revived VW Camper/Microbus (as distinct from the modern-day Caravelle) for a long, long time, but latest is that Volkswagen engineers are thinking about a battery-electric model inspired by the Bulli concept, reports Autocar. Other news from New York Motor Show: new Merc GLE (replacement for ML-Class, sportier) comes with plug-in hybrid option and 18-mile all-electric mode; the facelifted Toyota RAV4 also has a hybrid option (2.5-litre petrol engine plus e-motor). And there’s a Volkswagen Beetle Hybrid (non plug-in) prototype knocking around, as well. Oh, and Ssangyong unveiled a hybrid SUV concept – previewing a replacement for the Korando – called XAV at the Seoul Motor Show last week, too.

• A report from Arup/Qualcomm – “Intelligent Connectivity for Seamless Urban Mobility” – looks at the potential of harnessing data for urban mobility, including the use of autonomous vehicles; it discusses issues of security, sustainability, ‘usership’ vs ownership, leveraging crowd-sourcing and ‘learning’ devices. More about it here.

• Waste corn stalks, cobs and husks can feed the production of hydrogen, in a twist on the usual biofuel focus: researchers from Virginia Tech have developed a high-rate enzymatic process to convert ‘dirty biomass’ into automotive-grade H2. More here.

So Honda has launched its S660 roadster in Japan – a tiny kei-class 660cc turbocharged lightweight, a belated follow-up to the Beat – but there’s talk there might be an electric version. Remember the EV-ster concept (Toyota Motor Show, 2011)? That clearly had some influence on the S660’s design… More on the (very cute) little S660 here, anyway. Not-so-funnily enough, I’m much more interested in this than the equally long-anticipated NSX.

• A steering system based on in-wheel motor tech reduces the drain on battery range in EVs; the three-year e2-Lenk project at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology is to develop this assisted steering system with a view to saving cost, weight and manufacturing complexity. More here.

• Not sure about the name (toilet humour alert) but the e-floater (!) is a promising-looking ‘last-mile’ urban transport solution. It’s a battery-powered stand-up scooter, using composites and plastics from BASF (it weighs less than 12kg), with solar charging option. More details from Floatility Gmbh.

• Alongside last week’s announcement about OLEV grants for electric motorcycle/scooter buyers came confirmation of £6.6million for hydrogen infrastructure projects, including 2 new refuelling stations (Brentford, Croydon), upgrades to existing stations in Sheffield, Port Talbot, Swindon, London/Greater London, an upgrade to a mobile refuelling station (to support test drives, conferences, demos, etc) and one more mobile station. More here.

• Jaguar Land Rover is to double the size of its Whitley engineering/research/design centre for the development of “ultra-low-emissions vehicles”; these are to include all-electric versions of the XE and F-Pace crossover, reports Autocar, with an all-electric Range Rover likely too. The aim is, says the mag, to tap into the market identified by the Tesla Model S for luxury-level EVs which enable the affluent to get around LEZ/congestion charge-type legislation. Obviously.

• Another week, another rather ridiculous ‘hypercar’, but the 200mph LM2 Streamliner – to be unveiled at the upcoming New York Auto Show, ‘cos it’s really well-suited to the streets of the Big Apple – will also be offered in all-electric form, says Autocar. Which doesn’t necessarily make it alright.

• Better biofuels: researchers at University of East Anglia have identified strains of yeast that make the process of  turning waste agricultural material – straw, sawdust, corncobs –  into fuel more feasible. More here.

Concept of the Day: Volkswagen Hybrid-Electric City Taxi

Oh, what could have been… Volkswagen was experimenting with hybrid and electric vehicles in the 1970s including this Type 2 Microbus-based hybrid reports Jalopnik – featuring a system based around the original air-cooled 1600cc flat-four plus Bosch motor-generator. The pictured drawing (found in a 1979 book on electric vehicles) depicts this ‘bus kitted out as a wheelchair-accessible taxi with an electrically-operated side door, as well as a bullet-proof glass screen between driver and passenger; Volkswagen apparently considered this “the taxi of the future”.

Anyway, in 2015’s electromobility-related news, today’s snippets…

• A handy side-effect of EV usage: as they emit less than 20% of the heat, mile-for-mile, emitted by ICE vehicles, they could help keep city temperatures down and save on the energy usage/carbon emissions from air conditioning systems. A paper from Michigan State University takes Beijing as the example.

• Dyson has invested $15million into a JV with solid state battery-maker Sakti3, a company with ambitions to supply batteries for automotive application. More here. Meanwhile, collapsed-then-rescued lithium-ion battery-maker A123, embroiled in the whole ongoing saga of Fisker Automotive, doesn’t see a viable market for EV batteries for a while yet…

• Here’s a tie-up of two ambitious contenders: Chinese car-maker BYD is supplying 200 e6 electric minivans on lease to Uber in Chicago. More here.

• Awareness of public EV-charging facilities is not a strong indicator of interest in plug-in vehicles, according to research from Simon Fraser University, Canada: home charging facilities and consumer incentives are more important. Full academic references plus detailed rundown here. Greater interest noted in PHEVs than all-electric models, too.

• You don’t have to understand a complexity theory analysis to pull out a few salient points from this discussion on the slow progress of electromobility and adoption of EVs, from the e-mobility NSR network. It concludes that policy intervention continues to be needed, because the dominant system – including economic, infrastructural, cultural – is carbon-based and framed around ICE vehicles; positive feedback loops need to be set up, even on a micro-level, as they have tipping-point potential; behavioural ‘nudges’ can enhance policy effects (the example of PHEV take-up in the Netherlands is given); and a strategy of small steps in a continuously-learning process is needed.

• Research ongoing at Imperial College, London, is looking into how EV drivers charge and use their cars, with a view to developing solutions for services, information and booking/securing electricity supply… link to take part here. This guy‘s looking into vehicle-to-grid services and predictive driving/charging patterns.

• More feedback from Ford’s Go!Drive car-share trial in London: typical trips are only 5-10 miles.

• And a study linking traffic-related air pollution to Type 1 diabetes in very young children…

• Meanwhile, in the US, total vehicle mileage travelled in 2014 is back up close to the all-time high of 2007, though vehicle mileage per capita rose less slowly. More at Citylab.

• Another aspect of electromobility: BMW Group is deploying an electrified MAN truck to carry materials between its logistics company and its Munich factory. More here. It’ll make the near-2km journey eight times a day and save an estimated 11.8tonnes of CO2 a year, apparently.

Integrated electromobility, EV economic benefits and more…

An integrated electromobility project: BiE (Bewertung integrierter Elektromobilität) is to look at the relationship between mobility services (including public transport and car-sharing) and EVs, and the everyday life of users. The federally-funded programme is looking at co-operation between services, the optimised planning of large EV-share fleets and the design of an evaluation system, booking system and charging support. Particular mobility needs, such as trips to supermarkets, will be considered for preparing of the vehicle’s charging accordingly; information as to EV-suitable journeys will be displayed to users via smartphone app. More details here; and from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, a partner in the project, here.

• The UK’s oil imports could be cut by 40% and its carbon emissions cut by 47%  by 2030 with a large-scale deployment of EVs, reports a study from Cambridge Econometrics, commissioned by the European Climate Foundation. Drivers’ fuel bills could be cut by £13bn, or £1000 year – and more importantly, by 2050, transport emissions of NOx and particulates could be near-eliminated (saving over £1bn in associated health costs). This does, however, assume a population of over 6million EVs by 2030, growing to 23million by 2050 – along with a parallel growth in renewable-source electricity. Fuelling Britain’s Future further identifies benefits to the economy in terms of job-creation, as well as lower vehicle replacement costs, aiding fleets, economic growth and the manufacturing sector, pointing to Nissan’s factories and R&D work in Sunderland as an example.

• One shared autonomous car could replace 14 private, DIY-drive vehicles, according to research from KTN Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, thus contributing to a reduction in congestion and an 80% fall in demand for parking spaces, thus freeing up land-space. The research was modelled on the Stockholm daily commute, and concluded that pooling taxi passengers and using self-driving tech, morning and evening rush-hour traffic jams could almost be eliminated. More here.

• SsangYong showed a range-extended electric version of its Tivoli compact SUV at Geneva (though they didn’t announce any details about it at the time…). Turns out the Tivoli EVR concept features a single-cylinder petrol engine which recharges the battery, plus 127bhp e-motor, giving 93mph, 40g/km and an all-in range of 310 miles (up to 80 miles in all-electric mode), reports Autocar. The mag’s also reporting some news on the all-electric Audi Q8 sports SUV, to have a range of around 185 miles and arrive 2017.

• A harbinger of pay-per-mile road tolling, reports Car and Driver: 5000 volunteers in Oregon are to take part in a trial with vehicle tracking and charging on a 1.5 cents per basis (they’ll have the difference between this and the current at-the-pumps gas tax refunded).

• The US DoE is funding a series of EV and alt-fuel demo/education/training programmes to raise consumer awareness, prepare emergency services, crash responders, repairers and recyclers, and provide info to fleets; no time to detail these here now, but Green Car Congress has the lowdown.

• Nice article on OEMs and car-sharing/mobility services at Automotive News: why they’re keen to get involved, the emerging new business models and possibilities for more ongoing revenue per vehicle than by simply selling it…

• The SecMobil project at Ruhr-Universitat Bochum has developed a single chip for EV-charging stations securely combining measurement of current, charging time and any interruptions, and data for (cost) charging purposes; more here.

Geneva aftermath (2): More on that Koenigsegg, Suzuki iM-4

Well, I knew there had to be some point to the Koenigsegg Regera PHEV other than willy-waving over it being the most powerful and fastest-accelerating production car ever (as Koenigsegg claims). Besides showing off the Swedish carmaker’s no-gearbox Direct Drive Transmission (KDD) with hydraulic coupling, three Yasa axial-flux motors (replacing the gears), torque-vectoring and KERS (to give a 50km all-electric range), it features a Rimac Automobili battery pack which can deliver 500kW of power and absorb 150kW from the regen. This has been radically light-weighted to just 115kg yet can deliver 4.35kW per kg and 9.27kWh. More details on that from Rimac, which hopes to collaborate further with Koenigsegg “in various fields”. (Mate Rimac and Christian von Koenigsegg pictured).

And at the near-polar opposite end of the market: Suzuki’s cute little iM-4 mini-4×4 concept – previewing a replacement for the elderly Jimny, and an all-new platform for the brand – isn’t just about stripped-down, slightly retro styling: it showcases a mild hybrid system with integrated starter-generator, regenerative braking and e-assistance to the 1.2-litre engine. Release posted here.

• In other, non-Geneva news: the government Transport Committee’s Motoring of the Future report has been published: it calls for the DfT to develop a comprehensive strategy for introducing new technologies (including driverless vehicle tech and alt-fuels) with five main aims. These are reducing road fatalities/casualties; cutting emissions from road transport; facilitating social inclusion and accessibility of road transport; supporting economic growth; and increasing road capacity. First two aims good, rest more debatable: surely we should be reducing dependency on road transport infrastructure and building better alternatives? Anyway, there’s not a lot to say on electromobility beyond a few obvious points on establishing charging infrastructure, raising awareness and renewable electricity supplies; the government seems far more excited about driverless cars, automated technologies, telematics and data collection, with (valid) questions raised about security, governance and legislation. Disappointing.