Metals Tech

With all the hot news of expanding electric vehicle (EV) charging networks, we’d be remiss not to mention that last year’s electric aircraft explosion is still going. Of course, it’s not rapid growth of market share at this stage, but is more where electric cars were a decade or two ago. The tech has also been evolving for years, but mostly in quiet behind the scenes that Tesla and BYD play on. An electric version of the Extra 300L aircraft out of Germany is what caught our eye most recently.

Walter Extra, founder of the Extra Aircraft company, converted this two-seat electric aircraft to fly quieter, cleaner, and more enjoyably. The Extra 330LE was matted to a Siemens electric motor that gets the aircraft up to 3,000 meters in just 4 minutes and 22 seconds, with a climbing rate of 11.5 m/s. The electric airplane (e-plane) was officially recognized by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) and already won the climb performance world record in November 2016. It also holds some electric aircraft speed records from mid-2016.

Its top speed is 337.50km/h (209 mph) over 3 kilometers (1.86 miles). Its dimensions are 7.5 meters (24.6 ft) in length, a height of 2.6 meters (8.6 ft), and a wingspan of 8 meters (26.3 ft) for a total wing area of 10.84m² (116.7ft²).

And this little Extra 330LE packs a lot of performance. It was the first electric aircraft to tow an LS8-neo-type glider at a height of 600m in 76 seconds in March 2017. It uses a direct-drive 580V Siemens-electric SP260D motor that puts out 260 kW (348 hp) that spins at 2,500 RPM. It has a continuous torque of 1,000 Nm (737.56 lb-ft.). The electric motor only weighs 50 kg (110 lb) with airscrew bearings, which makes it a very low power-to-weight ratio of 5 kilowatts per kilogram (1 kilo = 2.20 lb). It was developed by Siemens with the cooperation of Germany’s Aeronautics Research Program (LuFo), MT-Propeller, and Pipistrel. Told you the electric aviation world is a small knit family affair!

The Extra 330LE uses two battery packs made up of 14 lithium battery cells for a total capacity of 18.6 kWh. Its overall weight is approximately 1,000 kg, while its the average climb rate is 2,300 ft a minute.

E-planes are perfect for aerobatics since they don’t fly a long time. The Extra 330LE can be flown for 20-minute flights, which includes takeoff, climbing, and 5 minutes of blissful full-throttle flight.

Audi has announced a joint development project with Alta Devices, a subsidiary of Chinese solar-cell specialist, Hanergy, on a solar roof.

The first step will be to integrate the thin-film solar cells into panoramic glass roofs, and then to present the prototype by the end of this year.

It’s expected that the solar cells will eventually cover nearly the entire roof, providing additional electricity for EVs and hybrids – in respect mostly to seat heaters and air conditioning systems, but also to ultimately provide surplus energy to the HV systems for more range.

The efficiency of Alta Devices’ thin-film, flexible solar cells is reported to be over 25%.

“The range of electric cars plays a decisive role for our customers. Together with Hanergy, we plan to install innovative solar technology in our electric cars that will extend their range and is also sustainable,” stated Audi Board of Management Member for Procurement Dr. Bernd Martens.

At a later stage, solar energy could directly charge the traction battery. “That would be a milestone along the way to achieving sustainable, emission-free mobility,” continued Martens.

The green electricity will be generated by innovative solar cells. They have an efficiency of more than 25 percent, they are very thin and flexible. Furthermore they perform very well also in conditions of low light and high temperature. The solar cells are produced by Alta Devices in California.

Dr. Ding Jian, senior Vice President of Hanergy Thin Film Power Group Limited, CEO of Alta Devices, Inc. and co-leader of the Audi/Hanergy Thin Film Solar Cell Research and Development Project, said: “This partnership with Audi is Alta Devices’ first cooperation with a high-end auto brand. By combining Alta’s continuing breakthroughs in solar technology and Audi’s drive toward a sustainable mobility of the future, we will shape the solar car of the future”.

A coalition of electric utilities, government agencies and environmental groups recently completed the first highway corridor in Minnesota that’s fully friendly to electric vehicles.

From the Twin Cities to the North Shore and beyond, travelers on Interstate 35 and Hwy. 61 will be able to find enough charging stations for their electric vehicles to ensure they can make the trip without running out of juice.

It won’t be the last electrified corridor. Other likely routes include I-94 from the Twin Cities to Fargo and I-90 across the southern part of the state.

The adoption of electric vehicles has always raised a chicken-and-egg question: Will more charging stations encourage people to buy electric vehicles, or will greater sales of the vehicles encourage people to build charging stations?

Electric vehicle supporters in Minnesota are answering “yes” to both questions, pushing for the creation of charging infrastructure while also adopting policies to promote electric vehicle purchases.

The state of Minnesota has set a goal of reducing the emissions of its vehicle fleet by 30 percent over the next 10 years. To meet that goal, it will add more than 1,500 electric vehicles to its fleet. In addition, state agencies throughout Minnesota are adding charging stations to their facilities.

There are already 60 charging stations in the Capitol complex in St. Paul, said Larry Herke, director of the Office of Enterprise Sustainability.

The biggest challenge is boosting charging capacity outside the Twin Cities, Herke said, adding that new electric vehicles with longer driving ranges will be a big help.

The state worked with General Motors to get early delivery of the new Chevy Bolt, an electric car with a range of nearly 250 miles on a charge. The state bought 13 Bolts and local governments bought nine.

To encourage greater use of electric vehicles by local government fleets, the state is allowing the locals to buy their vehicles under the state contract, which will get them a better price, Herke added.

Local governments can save money on fuel with electric vehicles, said Dan Thiede, a spokesman for the Clean Energy Research Teams at the University of Minnesota.

“For many of the applications cities are looking at, electric vehicles make a lot of sense, because they’re making a lot of short trips,” Thiede said. Electric vehicles also can be a draw for businesses that offer charging facilities, he added.

“There are all sorts of businesses who’d like to attract people who want to stop and charge,” he said. “Come in, charge, and have a cup of coffee. Come to church and charge while you’re in church.” Many of the newest Hy-Vee stores in Minnesota are offering charging stations, he said.

Tobies Restaurant and Bakery, a landmark on I-35 in Hinckley, installed Tesla charging stations and is now a regular stop for drivers of the high-end electric vehicles, said co-owner Chris Hickle.

“All the Tesla owners know it’s there,” he said of the charging station. “There’s a group of Tesla owners that periodically come through — they road trip together.”

And they buy Tobies’ famous caramel rolls, Hickle added. “For sure, it’s a positive,” he said.

The I-35 corridor is a perfect place to encourage electric vehicle use, said David Ranallo, a senior marketing specialist with the electric co-op Great River Energy.

“A lot of people still don’t consider electric vehicles a viable option for them,” Ranallo said. “We felt like this was an area we could move the needle.”

If you want to assess the state of electric vehicles in the world, just look at where Tesla is building its biggest Supercharger stations.

Tesla debuted in China, the world’s most vibrant electric vehicle market, in 2014. Despite competing against cut-rate homegrown models and premium options (as well as a 25% import tax on Tesla’s products), the carmaker has made fast in-roads in the country.

It tripled its sales in China to $1 billion in 2016, and delivered more than 11,000 cars. It’s now building for far more. The company just completed its third Supercharger station with 50 stalls for plugging in Tesla vehicles, reports Elektrek. The new Beijing station is tied for the largest in the world. The next two biggest stations were also built in China, in the last year.

Most of Tesla’s 1,130 Supercharger stations are in the US and Europe, but China is gaining fast. The country’s new Superchargers represent the next generation of high-voltage stations destined for major cities, a crucial feature for China (and the rest of the world) as urban vehicle fleets switch to electricity over internal combustion engines (which will be banned in some countries in the coming decades). “Such high-density stations will become more common in other high traffic areas in the future,” the company told investors (pdf) last October. China is likely serving as the testbed for the rest of the world.

When it comes to electric vehicles sales, China is already the world leader. The number of new EV registrations in China overtook the US in 2014, and is now growing at a much faster rate.

Infrastructure has followed suit. China’s government is pouring billions of dollars into its transition to “new energy” vehicles, the country’s terms for EVs, and plans to have 800,000 charging points nationwide soon. By contrast, the US has only 43,000 individual charging connectors or plugs at about 16,000 public charging stations, according to Department of Energy data.

The rise of the electric vehicle is not to stop at road-worthy cars, it seems. Starting this summer, the cities of Antwerp, Amsterdam, and Rotterdam are going to be serviced by a small fleet of electric, autonomous container barges.

Manufactured by Dutch company Port Liner, five such barges will enter operation starting this August. Their rise on the water is expected to take some 23,000 emission-full trucks off the country’s roads. According to Ton van Meegen, cited by shipping industry journal Loadstar, these barges will be the world’s first transport ships powered by carbon-neutral batteries.

The Tesla of the Canals, as the manufacturer is calling the barges, is 52 meters long (170 feet) and 6.7 meters wide (22 feet). Thank to the fact that they have no engine, each barge will be able to carry 8 percent more cargo. In all, 425 tons of shipping, loaded in 6 meter-containers (20 foot), can be transported by water by each barge.

Powering the barges are electric motors that will draw their power from batteries as big as the containers in which they will lorry cargo. There are no details yet on the battery capacity or for how long can the barges travel before needing recharging.

The transport vessels will be capable of doing their runs unattended, being designed to operate autonomously (read to be operated remotely from the shore). In the first few months, however, each barge will be manned for safety and assessment reasons.

Having no crew is a good choice to reduce the cost of shipping, said Port Liner, citing a Moore Stephens LLP report that states crew costs $3,299 a day and account for about 44 percent of total operating expenses for a large container ship.

Following the launch of the 5 barges in August, the manufacturer plans to roll out six others, bigger transport ships, running on bigger batteries and capable of transporting 270 containers for 35 hours. Port Liner says their new ships will reduce the levels of CO2 released into the atmosphere by 18,000 tons each year.

BMW’s alternative-fuel interests go beyond plug-in hybrids. Sure, the company has been building a battery-powered ecosystem, with cars like the city-styled i3 and i8 sports Coupe and Roadster serving as the testing grounds for tech that will later trickle down through the rest of the model line. But the company is also licensing its electrification technology to Karma’s recently resurrected luxury EV sports car, the Revero, in addition to luxury boats from Torqeedo and yachts from Hinckley.

It’s encroaching on Tesla’s Power Wall territory too, with lithium-ion batteries that can be taken directly from an i3 and put into service powering a home. Then there’s BMW’s partnership with Solid Power, a Colorado-based facility researching solid-state batteries, the future of battery architecture. For Stefan Juraschek, BMW’s head of electric powertrains, these are necessary steps in the automaker’s grand plan to go all-in on electric.

“What we are doing right now,” he said in an interview last week at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, “is we are setting up a new generation.”

He describes this next generation as a modular electrification kit that BMW’s entire fleet can use, be it a full electric drivetrain or the hybrids the automaker currently offers. You can see this platform in action with the hybrid Mini Countryman S E that debuted in late 2016. The all-wheel-drive compact uses the i8’s dual-motor setup, with a gas engine providing power to one set of wheels while an electric motor drives the other. It’s a smart stop-gap solution until reality catches up with the battery technology and charging infrastructure required to go full electric.

Current lithium-ion battery capacity grows between 5 percent and 7 percent each year — just look at the i8’s jump from 2017 to 2018 if you need proof — and Juraschek expects those gains to continue. By 2025, they could as much as double from where Li-ion battery capacity was last year. He also predicts Li-ion will be the dominant power supply for at least the next decade.

Come 2025, Juraschek expects that research and development on solid-state batteries will potentially have evolved such that next-gen power supplies can be put into BMW’s cars. However, he doesn’t anticipate high demand initially, nor does he seem particularly sold on the power supply just yet.

“We assume or expect [solid-state batteries] might be an increase in energy of 20 to 30 percent, but in terms of power,” he said, “we aren’t sure if we can increase key figures to a higher level.” And by key figures, he was referring to things like overall capacity and output. There’s also an issue with battery temperature. Solid-state batteries generate (and can withstand) lots of heat, but BMW isn’t sure how that will affect performance or passenger comfort.

For BMW’s future, the biggest variable is vehicle architecture and what type of cars people will want in 2022 and beyond, regardless of drivetrain. “It’s very important that we are able to have a flexible and scalable architecture at that point,” he said. The automaker has been vocal about its deliberately paced plans for autonomous driving — don’t expect to see a Level 3 BMW on the road until 2021 — and it seems to be taking a similar, although faster approach to futuristic EVs and hybrids.

The difference here is that the company has customer data (sales and otherwise) to help chart its way into electrification. “We are looking forward, to go on with the speed of development in a wide range of vehicles that we have for every customer, for every demographic available,” Juraschek said. He added that “every model” of electrified vehicle is selling better than expected.

The key tactic for BMW, he notes, is providing a choice in EVs and hybrids for customers. Whether someone is looking for a sporty ride like the i8 or maybe something more pedestrian like the Mini Countryman, the automaker wants to offer a car that’s not only green but also lives up to the brand’s standards.

“The most important issue we have as BMW is that at the end of the day we have a very reliable solution,” he said.