Graphene Supercapacitors Ready For Electric Vehicles

Automakers are always searching for ways to improve the efficiency, and therefore the range, of electric vehicles. One way to do this is to regenerate and reuse the energy that would normally be wasted when the brakes slow a vehicle down.

There is a problem doing this with conventional batteries, however. Braking occurs over timescales measured in seconds but that’s much too fast for batteries which generally take many hours to charge. So car makers have to find other ways to store this energy.

One of the more promising is to use supercapacitors because they can charge quickly and then discharge the energy just as fast.

Researchers at the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology in Korea say they have developed a high-performance graphene supercapacitors that stores almost as much energy as a lithium-ion battery, can charge and discharge in seconds and maintain all this over many tens of thousands of charging cycles.

The Koreans say they have perfected a highly porous form of graphene that has a huge internal surface area. This is created by reducing graphene oxide particles with hydrazine in water agitated with ultrasound.

The graphene powder is then packed into a coin-shaped cell, and dried at 140 degrees C and at a pressure of 300/kg/cm for five hours.

The resulting graphene electrode is highly porous. A single gram has a surface area bigger than a basketball court. That’s important because it allows the electrode to accomodate much more electrolyte (an ionic liquid called EBIMF 1 M). And this ultimately determines the amount of charge the supercapacitor can hold.

Santhakumar Kannappan at the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology have measured the performance of their supercapacitor at a specific capacitance of over 150 Farrads per gram that can store energy at a density of more than 64 Watt hours per kilogram at a current density of 5 Amps per gram.

That’s almost comparable with lithium-ion batteries which have an energy density of between 100 and 200 Watt hours per kilogram.

These supercapacitors have other advantages too. Kannappan and co say they can fully charge them in just 16 seconds and have repeated this some ten thousand times without a significant reduction in capacitance. “These values are the highest so far reported in the literature,” they say.

New 360 hp Nissan Skyline Hybrid on sale in Japan 2014

Nissan Motors today announced the launch of the all-new Skyline Hybrid, which goes on sale late February 2014 at Nissan dealers throughout Japan.

Nissan’s one-motor two-clutch parallel hybrid “Intelligent Dual Clutch Control” system delivers maximum power output of 268 kW (360 hp) and fuel economy of 5.4 l/100km on JC08 mode. The new Skyline achieves 20% improvement in fuel economy over 2015 standards and SU-LEV certification, emitting 75% fewer exhaust emissions than 2005 standards, thereby fully exempting it from the automobile acquisition tax and automobile weight tax.

The new Skyline also feature Direct Adaptive Steering technology - steer-by-wire - which controls tire movements with steering inputs transformed into electrical signals. This system delivers responsive handling and quickly communicates road surface feedback to the driver.

Another feature, Active Lane Control, uses a camera to detect the intended direction of the vehicle based on the lane markers at speeds of 70 km/h (43 mph) or more to help fine-tune the tire angle and steering reaction force, resulting in greater driver confidence at highway speeds.

The new Skyline features high-strength body construction (Zone Body) that utilizes the Nissan-developed 1.2 gigapascal (GPa) Ultra High Tensile Strength Steel with High Formability.

Available crash avoidance technologies include PFCW (Predictive Forward Collision Warning), which can detect a possible collision up to two cars ahead and gives an alert to the driver with a visual warning and audible buzzer when deceleration is required; BSW (Blind Spot Warning), which detects a vehicle in the next lane to reduce risk of car-to-car collision when changing lanes; the Nissan first BSI (Blind Spot Intervention); and Japan’s first adoption of BCI (Backup Collision Intervention) which can detect a vehicle approaching when in reverse and warn the driver to help reduce the risk of a collision.

With run-flat tires included as standard in every grade, the vehicle can travel around 150 km (93 miles) at 80 km/h (50 mph) even with completely flat tires.

The new Skyline will be produced in the Tochigi Plant (Kaminokawa-machi, Kawachi-gun, Tochigi prefecture), Nissan’s mother plant for luxury vehicles.

Prices range from ¥2,990,400 to ¥3,490,650 (US$30,150 to US$335,200), including consumption tax.

Kia Soul EV with 200 km range to launch in 2014 [UPDATE]

An all-electric version of the Kia Soul is still on track to launch globally in early 2014. It will be Kia’s first electric car sold outside its home market of South Korea, following up on the domestic Ray EV.

The Soul will be equipped with a 27 kWh lithium-ion polymer battery making it capable of travelling up to a claimed 200 km on a single charge. Paired with that is an 81 kW / 285 Nm electric motor, propelling the Soul EV from 0-100 km/h in less than 12 seconds, and on to a top speed of 144 km/h.

Power is sent through the car’s front wheels via a single-speed constant ratio gear reduction unit. In a test drive Autocar.co.uk says there is and there’s surprisingly aggressive deceleration upon throttle lift off. Kia says the Soul EV’s battery can be fully charged in around five hours when using a standard 240-volt outlet, or in 25 minutes when using a fast-charge unit with a 100 kW output.

The Soul EV is expected to go on sale in the first half of 2014 and pricing is expected to start at 40 million KRW ($35,490 / €27,480).

BMW and Toyota Working on i8/LFA Based Hybrid Sports Car

It's been nearly two years since Toyota and BMW announced an agreement to work together to develop sports cars using state-of-the-art hybrid technologies, and now a source close to the two companies says the pair has decided on its first joint-venture.

Motoring.com.au recently spotted a BMW i8 at Toyota’s proving ground near Mt. Fuji, reportedly undergoing emissions and durability testing. It claims this is a prelude to a joint supercar development program.

Such a program would give Toyota – the carmaker that popularized hybrids in the first place – a hybrid successor to the Lexus LFA. Toyota wouldn’t just have a new halo model, it would have one with hybrid technology that could be more easily connected to its mainstream models. The marketing department will be happy, at least.

BMW could potentially leverage the platform to build a car that slots above the i8 in its lineup, offering true supercar performance. While the i8 was designed to balance performance and economy, BMW has toyed with the idea of building a more performance-oriented car.

Supercar makers are more conscious of CO2 emissions than ever before while at the same time delivering more power and performance. Powertrain electrification is the key to meeting these goals in the same vehicle.

Take, for example, the electrically assisted Ferrari La Ferrari and McLaren P1, or the purely battery-powered Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Electric Drive – the most powerful AMG ever made.

Porsche has its Panamera plug-in hybrid too, as well as the million-dollar 918 Spyder super-hybrid that recently set a new production-car lap record of 6:57 at the Nurburgring.

Source: Motoring.com.au

How Tesla designed the Model S from the ground up [VIDEO]

Katie Fehrenbacher recently interviewed Tesla’s Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen to discuss the process of how Tesla started with a clean sheet to design the Model S from the ground up as a dedicated electric car.

For established carmakers, car design is a very iterative process with decades of work to build from. Tesla Motors had no such history to work with, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing according to Holzhausen.

Next-generation Nissan GT-R will be a hybrid

The next-generation Nissan GT-R will feature a hybrid powertrain, using electrification to boost performance and lower emissions according to engineering, sales and marketing boss Andy Palmer.

“There is an inevitability about electrification of all cars in the future, and there is the very real prospect of enhancements coming from this and ending up on a sports car like the Nissan GT-R,” said Palmer. “The electric systems can fill in the gaps in the torque curve and offer genuine performance gains, as well as lowering emissions. It’s win-win, and I’d expect to see some form of hybridisation on the next generation of car.”

Source: Autocar

Nissan to unveil electric sports car at Tokyo Motor Show [VIDEO]

Nissan said Friday it would unveil a sporty concept electric vehicle at the Tokyo Motor Show

The company, which has been selling its Leaf electric vehicle since late 2010, said it hoped its Nissan BladeGlider would help it reach a market of male drivers who still want performance and styling in an environmentally friendly car - a major hurdle to widespread commercial sales.

The car, to be unveiled at the biennial Tokyo exhibition later this month, features an aerodynamic design that widens from the front to back with space for a driver in the middle and two passengers in the rear.

The design -- one metre in the front (3.3 feet) and 1.89 metres at the back and made with lightweight carbon fibres -- puts the vehicle's centre of mass on the rear tires to allow for tighter turns, Nissan said.

"The driver's seat has been positioned in the middle of the vehicle to give a sense of a pilot in an airborne glider," Nissan said.

The concept vehicle is squarely aimed at moving into a higher-end electric vehicle market already tapped with some success by US-based Tesla.

The Japanese firm has invested about 4.0 billion euros ($5.4 billion) in electric car development in a partnership with French carmaker Renault, which owns more than 40 percent of Nissan.

This week, Renault-Nissan announced an electric car tie-up with Mitsubishi.

Nissan said it has sold more than 80,000 Leaf electric vehicles globally since its rollout three years ago.

The Japanese automaker will also be showing off its second commercial electric vehicle, the e-NV200 minivan, which it unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September.