Plug-In

Researchers at Nanotek Instruments, Inc, and its subsidiary Angstrom Materials in Dayton, Ohio have developed a breakthrough in energy storage design which outpaces supercapacitor and battery technologies. The new devices could not only power long-range and fast charging future electric cars but also provide efficient energy storage capacity to renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and hydro. Called surface-mediated cells (SMCs), the  fundamental breakthrough behind the technology is that it isn’t actually a battery at all. The elegance of the SMC ...

  While the traditional fossil fuel vehicle is pretty much a dead weight when it’s not in use, electric cars offer promise of increased utility. Automakers have been on a roll finding - and implementing - novel ways of integrating the electric car into our lives. Ford’s foray into sustainable energy partnership with SunPower is one just positive step forward. On August 2nd, Nissan took a similarly bold step forward in increasing the utility of electric cars in our lives with the introduction ...

One of the great hopes behind electrified vehicles is reduced dependence of not only foreign oil, but all polluting energy sources. In a step towards that greater goal, Ford announced that they have teamed up with solar energy panel manufacturer SunPower. While not the first domestic manufacturer to team up with a solar energy provider (GM recently announced a $7.5million investment in Sunlogics), they are the first to provide a customer-centric solution towards decreased grid-dependence. The fruit of the team up is a ...

Wonder how pricing is determined for the Nissan Leaf? How does GM know exactly how many units of the Volt the market will accept? While consumers might assume a lot of guess work manages these decisions, automakers prefer not to leave multi-billion-dollar risks to chance. Recent research from University of Delaware informs a lot of these complex choices made in the boardrooms of the major automakers and in policy meetings in Washington D.C.   One study from UD revealed the top attributes buyers consider ...

Perhaps the single greatest barrier to widespread adoption of plug-in automobiles is the time it takes to charge them.  We have looked into charging times in the past, and even with the most advanced infrastructure in place at charging stations, you are still looking at one hour or more to fully recharge your battery.  The [...]

Perhaps the single greatest barrier to widespread adoption of plug-in automobiles is the time it takes to charge them.  We have looked into charging times in the past, and even with the most advanced infrastructure in place at charging stations, you are still looking at one hour or more to fully recharge your battery.  The automobile industry (and investors), however, have not been deterred, and many have pointed to a trend in developing lower-cost, more efficient rechargeable batteries.  Lately, it seems, their ...

One of the thorniest issues facing the mass adoption of electric-only vehicles is the time it takes to charge them - plugging in for a couple hours seems cumbersome for anyone wanting to drive more than just to work and back. There have been several solutions proposed, such as waiting for advances in battery technology, battery-swapping stations, and improving charging standards and infrastructure. A group of engineers in South Korea, however, have proposed and tested an idea ...

With one of the biggest challenges of mass-adoption of plug-in vehicles being the possibility of overloaded power grids, many utilitily companies feel that they already have the solution: Install upgraded transformers in areas where the demand for electric vehicles is the highest, and charge consumers different rates according to peak hours of demand. Pacific Gas & Electric is already implementing a tiered system, charging electric car owners 5 cents per kilowatt hour between midnight and 7 a.m., and 30 cents per kilowatt hour ...