News: General Motors stands by electric cars in the face of dismal sales

 

57,000 sales out of just over 14-million. That's how many electric cars sold in the United States last year, causing more than a few people to announce the second death of the electric car. But General Motors' US president Mark Reuss has come out fighting for the battery car, saying that he expects Americans to embrace the technology more and more. 

“The electric vehicle is not dead. We at GM believe that the public will accept and embrace electric vehicles. Some people already have" said Reuss at the Automotive News World Congress in Detroit. 

 He also promised that not only would the next generation of Chevrolet Volt, sold here as the Opel Ampera, have a greater battery range, it would also be thousands of dollars cheaper, as GM is now able to make batteries and electric drivetrains more efficiently. 

News: Car makers not betting on electric cars

 

Most car makers don't expect electric vehicles to take more than 15% of the global market in the next 12 years, according to a survey carried out by KPMG.

KPMG surveyed more than 200 global motor industry executives and found that most were investing in downsized petrol and diesel engines to keep ahead of ever tightening emissions regulations, rather than going for pure electric vehicles. The survey certainly seems to back up something that Toyota said late last year, when its European sales boss said that customer needs were better met by hybrids and plugin hybrids than by pure battery EVs.

“When you look at current MPG estimates for new cars, it’s very evident that automakers are continuing to significantly improve engine efficiency”, KPMG’s National Automotive industry leader Gary Silberg said, speaking to The Detroit News. “What’s clear is that the internal combustion engine is not going anywhere soon.”

The study also found that more than 60% of car makers were preparing to invest in their factories to make production more efficient and that the executives polled picked BMW, Hyundai and VW as the car makers most likely to increase their global sales over the next year.

News: Cork & Dublin airports go electric

Cork and Dublin Airports have gone electric for their latest fleet purchase as part of the DAA’s commitment to reduce its carbon footprint.


The DAA (Dublin Airport Authority) has purchased nine electric Renault Kangoo mini-vans for use at Dublin and Cork airports, making the company one of the largest electric fleet operators in the country. DAA’s decision to opt for the nine electric vehicles will result in CO2 savings of more than 200,000kg over the lifetime of the vehicles, which is equivalent to planting more than 6,000 trees.
“With this investment, DAA has already become one of Ireland’s leading operators of electric vehicles, and we look forward to significantly expanding our electric fleet over the coming years,” said DAA’s Head of Sustainability, Mary Coveney.

DAA’s decision to opt for electric vehicles followed its participation in a programme supported by ESB ecars, which allowed the company to test drive a Kangoo Z.E. for a month to check its capabilities in a major international airport.

“The trial helped us build confidence throughout the organisation that buying electric vehicles wasn’t just good for the environment, but also made sense from an operational perspective,” said Ms Coveney. “Electric vehicles are perfect for an airport environment, as they have a range of 120km and will always be close to a main charging point.”

The new electric vehicles will be used on a daily basis in both airside and landside locations by DAA maintenance crews, and staff from its car park and terminal services departments.

Patrick Magee, Renault Ireland Sales & Network Director said he was delighted that DAA had chosen the Renault Kangoo Z.E. for its new electric fleet.

“The Kangoo Z.E. has been a very popular choice for both public and private businesses looking to reduce costs whilst helping the environment and it’s great to see the DAA take up the electric challenge,” Mr Magee said. “Renault is the only manufacturer to introduce a range of 100% electric vehicles, from the Kangoo Z.E. to the Fluence  Z.E. Saloon, the Twizy and the stylish compact hatch the ZOE which will both be launched in 2013”.

News: Could cheaper electric car batteries be coming soon?

New research being carried out by the University of California and Bosch could lead to smaller, faster-charging batteries for electric cars within three years.

Professor Miroslav Krstic and postdoctoral fellow Scott Moura of the University of California, San Diego have been researching into the way Lithium atoms 'behave' (if that's quite the right word) in a battery. Astonishingly, it seems that we don't actually have any great knowledge of exactly how chemical components of modern batteries behave, and this new research is helping to break down that barrier.

The upshot is that we could shortly have batteries with much greater capacity, meaning that they could either make a car go for longer distances, or the same distance with a smaller battery. Even better, these new battery designs could cut lengthy charging times by as much as half, and be on sale within half a decade or so. They could even become significantly cheaper to manufacture as a result.

"If one could have a better knowledge or better estimation of what's going on inside, one could safely operate closer to the limits of performance, which means that the oversizing and overdesign would be less necessary”, Krstic told Automotive News. "That translates into savings in costs and in weight."

 

News: german government may subsidise electric cars

 

Angela Merkel's government is considering a dramatic increase in the subsidies for buying an electric car, as German buyers continue to shun plug-in vehicles.

The German car market (although it dipped dramatically in September) was a healthy 2.1-million vehcile sales so far in 2012, but just over 2,000 of these were electric cars – 1 0.1% market share, and this despite Chancellor Merkel's previously stated goal to have one million electric cars on German roads by 2020.

Neighbouring France already gives electric car buyers a €5,000 kickback, and the Merkel government is mulling other options, such as a 10-year exemption from road tax. But recent developments, not only a falling car market and reduced consumer sentiment (which will make buyers more conservative and less likely to spend money on a battery car) but also Toyota's announcement that it's going to shun all-electric vehicles in favour of plugin hybrid development, will not make Frau Merkel's task any easier.

Any subsidy, if decided on, won't kick in until the back end of next year at the earliest, but Mercedes CEO Dieter Zetsche reckons that without it, the maximum possible market in Germany for electric cars is a mere 600,000 units.