7-Eleven Offers Electric-Vehicle Charging for New Yorkers

Deploying Green Charge Networks (GCN - http://www.greenchargenet.com/) energy storage solutions, 7-Eleven Inc. is the first retailer to offer fast-charging services for drivers of electric vehicles (EVs) in the New York City area.
7-Eleven and GCN worked with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and several large utility companies to leverage local solar generation and energy storage, which enables the use of high-powered electric equipment, including EV fast chargers. This avoids extreme consumption peaks that lead to expensive electricity-demand charges for commercial ratepayers, according to a press release.

Green Charge Networks’ energy storage system, GreenStation, manages the power consumption at the 5820 Francis Lewis Boulevard 7-Eleven location in Flushing. It monitors the store’s load on a second-by-second basis and counteracts peaks and valleys by discharging and charging from an internal ion battery bank.

“Even when the New York City electric grid experienced an all-time peak on July 19 during the recent heat wave, the GreenStation allowed for EV fast charging while reducing peak demand by 56%,” says Vic Shao, Green Charge Networks’ CEO.

Convenience retailing in today’s world increasingly requires the use of high-powered electrical devices, including foodservice equipment and EV fast chargers,” adds Tom Brennan, 7-Eleven’s vice president of infrastructure services. “Meeting our customers changing needs while keeping demand charges and thus our electricity costs in check is a very attractive value proposition for us.”


Source: National Association of Convenience Store (NACS), August 19, 2013

Electric vehicles expected to cut into emissions in the future

Transportation may go a long way in reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., according to a new report from the National Research Council. The report predicts a steep decline in emissions produced from vehicles over the next four decades. Transportation is currently cited as one of the major sources of carbon dioxide emissions in the world, second only to large industries that are heavily reliant on fossil-fuels. The report suggests that growing support behind clean transportation, as well as government emissions standards, are setting the stage for a major drop in emissions throughout the country.

 

Emissions could be cut by 80% by 2050

According to the report, greenhouse gas emissions throughout the U.S. are expected to drop by 80% by 2050 as vehicles become more efficient and dependent on renewable energy. The U.S. has adopted very stringent emissions standards that impose strict regulations on automakers looking to do business in the country. These standards have forced many automakers to adopt renewable energy systems as a way to make more efficient vehicles. Electric vehicles have, therefore, been growing more common and have managed to acquire strong support from some consumers.

Electric vehicles may be the answer to the emissions problem in the US

Many automakers are still focused on the use of fossil-fuels, preferring to develop vehicles that consume less petroleum than their conventional counterparts. While these vehicles are considered to be more efficient, electric vehicles will be the catalyst that sparks a major drop in carbon dioxide emissions, according to the report. Vehicles equipped with lithium-ion batteries will not be the only electric vehicles that help solve the emissions problem, either; hydrogen-powered vehicles are expected to help reduce emissions nationwide, as these vehicles emit only oxygen and water vapor.

Clean vehicles expected to become more common in near future

Hydrogen fuel cells, lithium-ion batteries, hybrid electric engines, and compressed natural gas engines, are all expected to become more common in the near future. By 2020, electric vehicles, or those that rely heavily on renewable energy, are expected to be very prominent in the U.S. These vehicles are expected to pave the way for lower emissions and could help the U.S. achieve the emissions reduction goals it has for the future.

Source: HydrogenFuelNews, March 25, 2013

Is EV charging technology the next challenge for the electric vehicle industry?

It would be foolish and wrong to suggest that the electric vehicle market is about to break into the mass market but the signs are that interest is increasing, sales are set to double in the US and recent price reductions have certainly caught the attention of potential buyers. However, there is a potentially difficult situation approaching the EV industry in the shape of charging technology which could be the key to the short to medium-term take-up of this ever popular mode of transport.
At this moment in time there are two mainstream EV charging technologies available and Tesla Motors has a standalone service which it has created for its own customer base. So what is the problem and how can it be resolved?

Conflicting technologies

At this moment in time the three main technologies available to the EV charging sector a very different and so far incompatible. This means that businesses, local authorities and individuals looking to install EV charging facilities will need to choose between the three options available in the knowledge that potentially at least one of these options could fall by the wayside in the future. This could lead to a significant waste of investment funding in the short to medium term until a general electric vehicle charging protocol can be agreed.
All of the parties involved in the electric vehicle charging market have been in discussions but at this moment in time, much as we saw with the old video technology in its early days, no party is giving way to its competitor.

Will we eventually see a general protocol for EV charging?

At this moment in time some sceptics might suggest that a globally agreed EV charging protocol is still some way off. On the surface this may seem the case, although behind-the-scenes there is no doubt that the industry is looking for a short-term solution to a long-term problem. Each of the parties involved will be looking to protect its own intellectual property, looking to protect its future income streams and ultimately looking to protect its own customer base.

Unfortunately, there will be winners and losers in the medium to longer term and while Tesla is unlikely to give way and allow others to offer similar services to its customer base, the remaining two will need to fight it out for the lion’s share of the market. A short-term solution may well be to offer the two mainstream services, and potentially Tesla technology, in one standalone charging station that this would be expensive, time-consuming and ultimately in the end a waste of money.
The sooner all of the companies involved in the electric vehicle charging sector come together and resolve their issues the better for all concerned. This does have the potential to stall the impressive growth in electric vehicle use in the short term and while the parties involved can shout and scream as much as they want they will eventually have to come to an agreement.

Conclusion

The electric vehicle industry has faced a number of challenges over the last 100 years and while the sector as a whole is certainly making progress towards the mass market, there are issues with regards to electric vehicle charging technology that need to be addressed sooner rather than later. There are two mainstream technologies available today, plus the Tesla service for its own customer base, although ultimately the two mass market technologies will need to fight it out and come to some kind of agreement about a standard protocol going forward.
In some ways this is perhaps one of the largest challenges facing the EV market today as we have seen significant improvement in electric vehicle manufacturing as well as electric vehicle battery technology. Once the industry does hit the mass market, as it almost inevitably will, it will have taken well over 100 years to achieve this and the industry will have overcome an array of challenges which at times seemed impossible. It will certainly be worth the wait!


Source: HydrogenFuelNews, August 10, 2013

Electric roads could make plugging in your EV a thing of the past.

One major barrier to bringing electric vehicles to the masses is range anxiety — not the fear that you left the stove on at home, but the fear that your EV will run out of juice before you can get to the next charging station. But creative solutions are in the works. This week, South Korea debuted the world’s first electric road, 15 miles of city streets with underground cables that charge EVs parked or driving above — no plug-in stations necessary.

In the city of Gumi, two commuter buses will be the first to test the program, and the city plans to add 10 more over the next two years. Known as Online Electric Vehicles or OLEVs, the buses have batteries about one-third the size of the typical electric car battery. Extreme Tech explains how it works:

Exact details of the system are hard to come by, but we believe that the power is delivered by cables that are around 12 inches (30cm) below the road surface. The power is transmitted wirelessly via Shaped Magnetic Field in Resonance (SMFIR), a technology developed by the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) that essentially runs 100 kilowatts of power through some cables at a very specific frequency (20 kHz in this case), creating a 20 kHz electromagnetic field. The underside of the bus is equipped with a pick-up coil that’s tuned to pick up that frequency, and thus AC electricity is produced via magnetic resonance. Transmission efficiency is an impressive 85% thanks to the “shaped” part of the technology, which targets the electromagnetic field at the vehicle, so that less energy is lost to the environment.

Because the batteries are so small, only 5 to 15% of the road needs to be dug up and electrified. Once equipped with the technology, roads can sense when an EV is coming, and only then do their charging powers activate — increasing efficiency and sparing all the unlucky non-EV drivers from being exposed to radiation (but don’t worry, if you do happen to pass over a charged-up section of the road, the level of radiation emitted is within international safety standards).

If America’s legendary highway system went electric, we could drive EVs to our hearts’ content and never have to worry about running out of fuel. And just think how many jobs would be created by digging up 5 to 15% of the nation’s road surface. More than by building the Keystone XL pipeline, I bet.

Source: Grist.org, by Claire Thompson, August 8, 2013

Mercedes-Benz S-Class plug-in hybrid coming to Frankfurt

A plug-in hybrid Mercedes-Benz S-Class is reportedly coming to the Frankfurt Motor Show this fall, and to read word around the web, it will establish benchmarks in the segment. According to Australian site CarSales.com, its introduction is "likely to be within six months of the reveal" of the standard sedan, which would place it in early 2014 – another source thinks it could be introduced in the fall of next year.

Called the S500 in Australia but likely to be called the S550 here, assembling the various rumors yields a motor yacht that bests the Porsche Panamera S E-Hybrid for the segment's lowest CO2 emissions at 70 g/km (in fact, that's better than a few variants of the Toyota Prius). The big Benz will use a 3.5-liter V6 aided by one electric motor and a battery pack in the floor of the trunk, and it will do 15 to 20 miles on electric power and get from 0-to-60 miles per hour in under six seconds. The model will also get an AMG tailpipe treatment according to patent drawings, and might boast a US combined rating of around 75 miles per gallon.

Autocar notes that Mercedes-Benz has sold more hybrids than the other Teutonic luxury makers combined in 2012. If the S-Class PHEV unveiled in Frankfurt can stand up to the gossip, we can envision the trend continuing.

Source: AutoBlog, by Jonathon Ramsey, July 9, 2013

Ford Plug-In Drivers Do 60% Of Miles On Electricity (Just Like Volt)

Ford plug-in hybrid drivers are really making the most of the electric range of their vehicles--with nearly 60% of trips done entirely gas-free.

That's according to Ford itself, using aggregated data from the MyFord Mobile app.

The most interesting thing is that as many Ford plug-in owners are driving gas-free as their Chevy Volt counterparts, despite the shorter electric range.

One year ago, we reported how 63% of Volt miles are electric, suggesting drivers really were making the most of their Volts and plugging in wherever they could. At the same time, the remaining 37% of trips seemed justification enough that the Volt's drivetrain works, and allows people to drive that little bit further when required.

Ford's Fusion and C-Max Energi plug-in hybrids may only have a 21-mile electric range, but that's evidently enough to cover the bulk of their driving despite it being little more than a half of the Volt's 38-mile electric range.

20-50 miles perfect for plug-ins?

It raises an interesting question: Just how many miles does your plug-in need to go in EV mode alone?

The question hinges on just how far the average American commutes, and how frequent their longer journeys are.

Using the Ford's 21 miles as a baseline, you can see why. Just under 60% of Ford plug-in miles are all-electric, yet only a few percent more, with almost double the range, are all-electric in the Volt. Ford's own figures show that 84% of its drivers' trips are under 20 miles.

Figures for the Prius Plug-In, with its 6 continuous miles or 11 blended electric miles, are hard to come by--but it isn't hard to imagine that a significantly lower proportion of journeys are completed all-electric in that car.

Naturally, if you add enough electric miles to a range-extended or plug-in hybrid car, you'd start to see drivers completing significantly more than 60% of their journeys electrically. So think of it as a graph: Low electric percentage below around 15 miles, then a climb and a plateau between 20-50 miles of electric range, evidently enough to cover between a half and two thirds of most drivers' journeys.

Add more miles, and the graph starts climbing again--to the point where a plug-in or full battery electric vehicle with a long enough range can cover 90% of the average driver's trips.

Confidence builds

There's more to Ford's plug-in results than range, however.

One thing the company is noticed is that as drivers get used to their cars, they push the electric range further. This is something common to all electric vehicles, as drivers gain the confidence to do longer trips on however many electric miles they have.

It's a figure Ford has seen rise as drivers get used to their cars. Initially, Ford plug-in drivers were completing only around 40% of their journeys all-electric.

With a plug-in hybrid there's no range anxiety of course, but it seems that Ford plug-in hybrid drivers, like their Volt counterparts, really do want to make the most of their electric range, rather than letting it run into gasoline mode.

How far do you go?

So, all of this in mind, what do you think?

Is the 20-or-so miles of electric range in the Ford Fusion and C-Max Energi a sweet spot for electric range, high enough for most trips and low enough to reduce the need for bigger, more expensive battery packs?

Or could it be as simple as Ford's plug-in drivers simply driving fewer miles--and therefore completing a greater number of those miles with their shorter electric range?

Let us know how you do with your own plug-in hybrids and range-extended cars below.

Source: GreenCarReports, by Antony Ingram, August 5, 2013