JMU AFV Lab Blog

This item was on the GreenCarCongress.com blog. It introduces a concept for an electric bicycle that has motor and battery inside the hub! A very elegant concept, I think. I do wonder if the motor heat will have an adverse effect on battery life. It uses Lithium Ion batteries, which have a heat problem, anyway. Go to http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/10/mit-bringing-sm.html#more to read more about it. Be sure to read the comments at the bottom of the article, too.

MIT Bringing Smart Biking Project to Copenhagen; Prototype Hybrid Bicycle

12 October 2008

MIT researchers at its SENSEable City Laboratory have unveiled a project in Copenhagen aimed at transforming bicycle use, promoting urban sustainability and building new connections between the city’s cyclists. The project, called SmartBiking, will utilize a novel self-organizing smart-tag system that will allow the city’s residents to exchange basic information and share their relative positioning with each other.

As part of the project, a prototype of a smart bicycle is being developed in collaboration with the MIT Media Lab’s Smart Cities Group. This hybrid bicycle harvests the energy created when braking and releases it while cycling. All hybrid-drive elements, including the battery, are packed in the rear wheel, which becomes a self-contained component that could be retrofitted on most existing bicycles.

A considerable fraction of [Copenhagen’s] energy comes from renewable sources and, unlike a few decades ago, 30 to 40 percent of its citizens use bicycles as their primary method of transportation. So our challenge was, ‘How can we enhance these dynamics of sustainability? And how can we use technology to make them more widespread?’

The smart tags will allow individuals to monitor the distance they travel while cycling as part of a citywide “green mileage” initiative, which is similar to a frequent-flyer program. Ultimately, fine-grained monitoring of urban activities could allow cities such as Copenhagen to enter carbon-trading schemes. Cities could obtain funding for sustainable city services in exchange for their efforts to cut carbon dioxide emissions. The impact could be considerable, as cities account for approximately half of the world population, but are responsible for a much larger share of carbon emissions.

Beyond encouraging Copenhagen’s citizens to ride more often, the program aims to help them interact as well. A Facebook application called “I crossed your path” creates a social network for cyclists, allowing them to link up with people they may have ridden past during the day and potentially establish new connections, according to Christine Outram, the principal research assistant on the project.

The project will be implemented citywide in time for the November 2009 UN Climate Change Conference, which Copenhagen will host.

The Smart Biking Project is developed by the SENSEable City Laboratory, an MIT research group focused on technology and urban planning that is a part of the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning, together with the MIT Design Lab. In addition to professors Ratti and Mitchell, the team comprises Assaf Biderman, Francesco Calabrese, Michael Lin, Mauro Martino and Outram.

Among the MIT Smart Cities Group’s projects is the CityCar, a stackable electric two-passenger city vehicle. The CityCar utilizes fully integrated in-wheel electric motors, energy storage integrated in the axle, and suspension systems called “Wheel Robots.” This technology is patented-pending and under design development at the MIT Media Lab.

source: http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/10/mit-bringing-sm.html#more

I ran across this item in Science Daily this morning. It is an interesting concept. Is there technology to make a circuit that is both charger and inverter, i.e., can use line voltage to charge batteries and then take battery voltage and invert it back to line voltage? I don’t know of any. If not, this concept would be workable only by adding an inverter circuit in parallel with the charger circuit, with attendant control mechanisms, which would add considerably to the purchase price of a PHEV. Go to http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081002172140.htm to read the full article

Scientists Explore Putting Electric Cars On A Two-way Power Street

ScienceDaily (Oct. 12, 2008) — Think of it as the end of cars’ slacker days: No more sitting idle for hours in parking lots or garages racking up payments, but instead earning their keep by providing power to the electricity grid.

Scientists at the University of Michigan, using a $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), are exploring plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) that not only use grid electricity to meet their power needs, but return it to the grid, earning money for the owner.

“Cars sit most of the time,” said Jeff Stein, a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. “What if it could work for you while it sits there? If you could use a car for something more than just getting to work or going on a family vacation, it would be a whole different way to think about a vehicle, and a whole different way to think about the power grid, too.”

The concept, called vehicle-to-grid (V2G) integration, is part of a larger effort to embrace large-scale changes that are needed to improve the sustainability and resilience of the transportation and electric power infrastructures. If V2G integration succeeds, it will enable the grid to utilize PHEV batteries for storing excess renewable energy from wind and the sun, releasing this energy to grid customers when needed, such as during peak hours.

This will lead to more sustainable transportation and grid infrastructures, and will also increase the resilience of these infrastructures to sharp changes in energy costs, supply, or demand.

The NSF’s Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation program created a topic for a 2007-2008 call for proposals on resilient and sustainable infrastructures. This topic argues that the nation’s infrastructures over the past century have evolved largely independently but new technologies have emerged that coupled some of these infrastructures. This has created a need for fundamental tools to design and develop these new technologies and to evolve these coupled infrastructures.

Stein and others see the PHEV as a perfect example of such a new technology that in this case is coupling the transportation and power grid infrastructures.

V2G is an opportunity to look at vehicles beyond shaving miles per gallon. A team of experts in mechanical and power systems engineering, economics, and industrial ecology will examine every aspect of a PHEV and how it interacts with the electrical grid.

If PHEVs, which are anticipated to be on the market in 2010, fulfill their promise, millions could be on the road in the decades to come. This potentially will provide unprecedented shared battery storage to the grid and transportation infrastructures, thereby allowing these infrastructures to store renewable energy when available and use it when needed.

Aging electric plants are good at generating power, Stein said, but they face challenges in storing it, and lack ways to buffer against either big surges in demands, or interruptions in supply. Massive storage systems can be costly and problematic.

But, Stein said, think of all the “distributed” storage packed into millions of PHEVs on the road. He and his colleagues envision a world where the electric cars could double as mobile holding tanks for electricity, ready to serve in their down time.

“If we had lots of PHEVs all plugged into the grid, then what seems like an insignificant amount of energy storage becomes a large energy storage,” he said….

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081002172140.htm

I came across this interesting article in Renewable Energy World.com’s blog this morning. The concept is new to me, and I’m fascinated by it. It seems to be quite an elegant concept.  It’s not terribly economic at this point in time, as the article itself says: Estimates for the cost of electricity produced range from €0.05 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) up to €0.25 [US $0.07 to 0.34 per kWh], depending on the cost of land and the financing scenario. However, it is carbon neutral and there is very little maintenance after the initial investment, (keeping the membrane repaired and the turbine/generator serviced and maintained.)  I wasn’t very far into reading the article before I wondered:  Why wouldn’t this work better using some portion of the top half of one of Buckminster Fuller’s Geodesic Domes?  Go to http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/story?id=53742 to read more about this concept. The article is too long to include all of it here.

Solar Updraft Towers: Variations and Research
by Tom Bosschaert
Rotterdam, the Netherlands [RenewableEnergyWorld.com]

Aerial Photo of Solar Updraft Tower

The idea of using solar radiation to generate air convection that can subsequently be converted to an energy source has been around since the start of the 20th century, when a Spanish Colonel called Isidoro Cabanyes proposed it in a scientific magazine. Solar Updraft towers, also called solar wind or solar chimney plants, provide a very simple method for renewable electricity generation, with a constant and reliable output. Other renewable energy sources such as wind turbines and solar arrays suffer from high diurnal and seasonal fluctuations, or unpredictable patterns of output.

Due to the large initial investment required, unfamiliarity with the system and the solar updraft tower’s relatively low capture efficiency, only one prototype was ever built, in the 1980’s in Spain. This prototype however, performed above and beyond expectations, and continued to operate for almost 7 years after its designed life span of 3.

The solar updraft tower has been left on the shelf due to its perceived low efficiency, which is to a large degree undeserved. Most studies on this elegant and simple renewable energy producer consider the land occupied by the tower and its collector as one of the largest resource inputs required for this process. However, Except Architecture & Consultancy is investigating the possibility of more creative applications of the system, which would combine the tower with other land uses.

The Classic Solar Updraft Tower Scenario

The small experimental solar updraft tower plant, built in Manzanares, Spain in 1982 by Schlaich Bergermann, can be considered the classic example of the system. The design calls for a large, unused plot of land to house a collector between 500 m and 10 km in diameter, with a centrally located chimney ranging from 100 m to 1 km in height. The collector is a transparent membrane suspended several meters off the ground, which can be made of glass or a strong transparent polymer. (See pilot plant image left, as well as lead image, above.)

Sunlight penetrates this membrane, and the solar radiation is converted to heat upon hitting the ground. The air underneath the membrane quickly increases in temperature due to the greenhouse effect and flows towards the chimney, which, through the stack effect, becomes the lowest point of pressure in the system. This continuous airflow spins a turbine located at the base of the chimney. The nighttime difference in temperature between the ground and the air allows this effect to continue. Thermal storage devices can be used to smooth out the differences in intensity between night and day temperature differentials. As with other solar technologies, a higher latitude placement translates into a lower energy output. (See Figure 1, below.)

Schematic of Solar Updraft Tower

Figure 1: Classic Solar Updraft Tower Diagram…

To read the rest of the article, go to: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/story?id=53742

Saw this article on the Autobloggreen blog this morning and thought you may be interested. The 3 wheel “leaning” concept is not new; as the article mentions, Piaggio has had it for quite a while. What fascinates me is the concept of having electric motors/alternators in each front wheel, which charge their battery only from regenerative braking. It has a conventional, but supercharged125cc ICE driving the rear wheel.  Two separate drive systems.  I’m also fascinated by the horizontal spring arrangement of the front suspension.  I’m reserving judgment on this concept, mainly because I wonder what effect it will have on handling when the inside wheel drops in a pothole in a turn and the other wheel makes a sudden move upward, with attendant loss of traction when it is needed most.  I foresee skids in turns as a result.  Back in the late sixties early seventies, a British firm (BMC I think it was) sold a car with “hydraulic suspension.”  It had antifreeze/water filled rubber bags at each wheel, all connected with water lines.  This had a disturbing action that when one wheel dropped in a pothole, it was felt at all four wheels, like all four wheels had hit potholes simultaneously.  It also was prone to total loss of traction when something, like a pothole, disturbed the balance.  In a curve on a wet road , they would “turn end for end” if the driver was a little too aggressive.

Source: http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/10/04/peugeot-unleashes-118-mpg-hymotion3-compressor-concept/

Peugeot unleashes 118 mpg HYmotion3 Compressor Concept

Posted Oct 4th 2008 at 8:03PM by Jeremy Korzeniewski

Filed under: Hybrid, MPG, Peugeot, On Two Wheels, Paris Motor Show

We really dig Peugeot’s new HYmotion3 Compressor Concept. It’s got three wheels — two up front and one in back, our preferred arrangement — and a hybrid drivetrain. The two front wheels are independently powered by individual wheel-mounted hub motors and have no connection to the supercharged four-stroke 125cc engine that powers the rear wheel. Regenerative braking is all that provides power to the scooter’s battery pack. Like the Piaggio MP3, the HYmotion3 is a leaning machine. Besides that radical powertrain, the scooter features a full safety cage that encompasses both the driver and passenger. A real windshield sits at the front with a second large sunroof overhead.

The engine shuts down when it’s not needed and the electrically-driven front wheels are capable of powering the machine by themselves. The HYmotion3 is extremely fuel efficient, recording 118 miles per gallon. Could it see production? It’s not beyond the realm of possibility, as the supercharged engine is already sold in other Peugeot scooters and the aforementioned MP3 has proven that the design can be a success on the sales floor. In other words, stay tuned.

Source: http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/10/04/peugeot-unleashes-118-mpg-hymotion3-compressor-concept/

Saw this blog entry this morning and thought it made some interesting points. Check it out at http://gas2.org/2008/09/30/volt-over-tesla-series-and-plug-in-hybrids-more-likely-to-be-game-changers/. Especially scroll down and look at the comments others have already made.

Volt Beats Tesla: Series and Plug-In Hybrids More Likely to be Game Changers
Written by Andrew Gilbertson
Published on September 30th, 2008
9 Comments
Posted in Engines, Hybrid-electric EVs, Plug-in hybrid EVs

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Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Andrew Gilbertson who is a 2008 graduate of Vermont Law School.
A senior economist at the Argonne National Laboratory has come to an interesting conclusion: vehicles that rely on internal combustion engines are superior to electric vehicles in terms of what consumers would buy and what would save significant fuel.

Even though Tesla is delivering their cars to consumers several years before the Volt hits the show rooms, from the perspective of Dan Santini, you and I are more likely to get our hands on Volt-style vehicles first.

Some of the main obstacles that stand between us and pure EVs were identified at the 1st International Conference on Advanced Lithium Batteries for Automotive Applications, sponsored by the Argonne National Laboratory (where Dan Santini works).

First and foremost, the cost of the batteries boost vehicle prices too high for the average consumer. Recharging time, coupled with the lack of a national system of quick-charge stations, would make the vehicle unattractive to most consumers who want the freedom to travel across the country without long stops for recharging.

The Volt, with its series hybrid design, reduces the importance of these two concerns. By relying less on batteries, the cost of the batteries becomes less of a factor, while having a combustion engine that uses an established distribution system as a backup gives the owner the freedom to drive wherever they want.

It seems to me that more car makers should read the writing on the wall and go the series hybrid route (apparently, some are).

Even though series hybrids might not get better mileage right now, it should be obvious that at some point an energy storage technology will be developed that will be cheaper, denser, and cleaner than gas or diesel. When that time comes, the car makers that can simply replace the combustion generators with the new storage technology will be way ahead of the ones who haven’t yet developed a electric drive system.