Rapid manufacturing was used to make important components of a concept car. The Sintesi is a sports car with four doors and four seats, developed by a highly innovative approach: it does not consider the car as a shape that covers the mechanicals, but one that gives a shape to the mechanicals around the passengers, starting from the latter. (H/T to Pantopicon.be)
Materialise, a rapid manufacturing company, used additive technology stereolithography (SLA): the radiator, control panels, roof antenna, remote controller, roof light cover and most importantly, the instrument panel which is the centrepiece of the car’s interior. During the file preparation phase, a complex webbing structure was integrated in the dashboard to give it functional strength.
Pininfarina Sintesi stereolithography dashboard, Materialise uses about twelve different kinds of rapid manufacturing and rapid prototyping systems. Those systems can use a variety of materials.
The eventual panel was “printed” in its full width on a Materialise Mammoth SLA machine, with a build volume up to 2150 x 700 x 800 mm, in a translucent PP-like epoxy (Poly 1500). 
Due to its complexity, also the radiator had to be manufactured by means of additive technologies. The production of the smaller components like the roof antenna and remote controller show the endless personalisation possibilities of additive manufacturing. Nowadays, the state of the art of additive technologies allows that this type of products can be manufactured in small series of production cars or one-offs. This is a big step forward towards real personalised manufacturing.
Mammoth Stereolithography has a build area of more than 2 meters
In order to build single-piece SLA models with dimensions of more than 2 meters, Materialise has developed a unique technology: mammoth stereolithography.
Mammoth systems offer not only the ability to print very large parts, but are also extremely fast and productive, thanks to a patented curtain recoating technology which minimises the dead time between layers. The mammoth parts are constructed layer by layer in a liquid polymer that hardens when struck by a laser beam. The laser printed layers are each time lowered together with the vessel's resin level. Afterwards, a small reservoir moves over the vessel and disposes a film of liquid polymer onto the whole vessel. This curtain recoating technology needs less time between layers than the traditional SLA technology which uses a scraper.
As a result of their unique combination of build size and speed, mammoth systems are especially suited to high volume prototyping operations requiring both large numbers of parts, and large parts.
FURTHER READING
Improved rapid manufacturing is one of the seeds of a manufacturing and construction revolution.
This revolution will require rethinking designs and modelling and other systems to fully realize its potential. Totally rethinking cars is using inflatable bodies for cars and then using new paper that is stronger than cast iron and epoxy to bring material costs down.
The mammoth prototyping system could be used to make larger ecomodifications to existing cars. Aeromodding a car can increase full economy on the highway by 50%. Less extreme modifications can achieve 25% increases in fuel efficiency.
Aerodynamic modifications for cars
- Lower the car - Lowering the car reduces the effective frontal area, increasing efficiency. 2.7" ground clearance is a good minimum height. According to Mercedes, "Lowering the ride height at speed results in a 3-percent improvement in drag."
- Remove that wing - Many "sports" cars have a non-functional wing on the back. Removing it will improve the fuel economy. The exceptions are the small rear fairings that are designed to detach the airflow from a rounded trunk.
- Clean up the underside of the car. - Installation of a "body pan", while a labor intensive operation, will provide a significant improvement in mileage. More...
- If a body pan is not practical, an air dam will redirect air that would normally pile up under the car causing drag. Not as good as a body pan, but better than nothing. Should be combined with side fairings.
- fair the wheel wells, racing disk wheel covers, and many other modifications
An extreme custom modification gets about 70mpg on highway from an old Honda civic
A discussion group for improving fuel efficiency.
June 14, 2008
Materialise a current leader in Rapid Manufacturing
June 05, 2008
Breakthroughs with cheaper and better performing batteries
Hitachi Maxell Ltd (6810.T) gained 6.5 percent. A spokesman there confirmed a Nikkei evening edition report that it is aiming to commercialise a longer-lasting [perhaps 20 times longer], cheaper lithium-ion battery in the next three to four years that substitutes expensive cobalt with manganese.
Hybrid Technologies has new superlattice li-ion batteries that can power an electric car 200 miles on a single charge The battery can operate at a higher than normal voltage range of 4V to 2.3V.
- High Capacity 170 Ah/kg or more.
- Non-toxic and disposable.
- Less expensive.
An update on the adoption of electric bicycles and scooters in China
The smallest motors produced about 100 Watts (W) of power, but the majority of electric bicycles used motors in the 180-250W range. In Suzhou City, about fifty miles outside of Shanghai, electric bicycles and scooters outnumbered passenger automobiles by at least ten to one. Scooters had somewhat larger motors, but none of them produced more than one horsepower (746W). Compare that to American automobiles producing at least 100 horsepower, and you can begin to see why electric bicycles are such efficient vehicles compared to other alternatives. Many people rode small folding electric bicycles with 16” or 20” wheels for easy storage in small apartments.
Taiwan rode small two-stroke scooters. When I asked why this was so, people confirmed my suspicions that Chinese people do not, in general buy e-bikes and e-scooters due to any sense of environmental altruism. No… they buy electric because a gas scooter costs five times as much as an e-bike does.
There is an estimated 60 million e-bikes in China now. Probably 25-30 million will be added in 2008 and 2009.
RELATED READING
The latest US statistics show a substantial drop in SUV sales and a shift to purchases of more fuel efficient cars
- For the first time since 1992, the vehicle most sold in the United States in May was not an SUV or light truck
- the two most popular cars were the Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla, which helped Asian auto makers surpass the top three U.S. automakers in the U.S. market for the first time ever
- sales of SUVs and trucks having dipped below car sales in March and April, the May ratio of cars to trucks was 57:43
- U.S. auto sales fell 30 percent in May, and total 2008 sales may be below 15 million vehicles, compared to 17.4 in 2000
Gasoline usage and green house gas emissions could drop in half over the decade or so.
A survey of electric vehicle plans
Inflatable electric cars could be cheap, safe and have long range
Inflatable electric cars could have 2500 mile range using a single hot-swap XPack Multi-CoreTM Battery/Fuel Cell power plant. You would use the battery/fuel cell and then it would be changed out when you needed to "refuel/recharge". It will take until at least 2010 for the cars to be fully certified and placed into high volume production. Price targets are less than $10,000 and one model to compete with the Tata Nano, which costs $2500. This is a radical re-thinking of how to build a car that appears likely to radically lower costs, safety and fully enable electric cars with no core features (driving range, basic highway speed, cost, safety) that are inferior to current combustion cars.
The inflatable cars could be flat shipped like furniture from Ikea.
The key advantages over competitors are that these are the safest, longest range, lowest cost vehicles which can be flat-pack shipped directly to users.
XP Technology is an electric powered automobile technology startup with disruptive patent protected technologies utilizing safe non-grid-connected energy cassettes to produce the electricity to run a polymer airbeam, carbon fiber constructed ultra light and safer bodied automobiles priced at very low invoices with extremely high energy efficiency.
UPDATE: An update on the adoption of electric bicycles and scooters in China
Taiwanese people ride small two-stroke scooters (most were purchased before the availability of good electric bikes). China has 60 million electric bike riders now (out of 450-500 million unpowered bike riders). When asked why this was so, people confirmed suspicions that Chinese people do not, in general buy e-bikes and e-scooters due to any sense of environmental altruism. No… they buy electric because a gas scooter costs five times as much as an e-bike does.
So the low price of the safe, cheap, long distance inflatable electric car will be key to widespread adoption of electric cars. Providing a better value for the money will enable the painless transition to environmentally friendly transportation.
FURTHER READING
the products of the XP Vehicle company
Frequently asked questions on the XP vehicles
It should take two average adults, with a high school education, less than two hours to inflate and unpack the vehicle.
Fully Assembled option likely: fleet departments and regional retailers will be purchasing sets of the vehicles and will likely offer them local and assembled.
They are targeting all vehicles for sub $10K pricing targets with one vehicle targeted at a record breaking low price in the Southeast Asian market.
Power sources: Massed battery arrays, fuel cells and fuel cell/battery hybrid plants.
Can the polymer version blow away? They have a special ballast and aerodynamic design set of features which makes the car very stable.
June 04, 2008
Follow up on Bakken and 150mpg SUV hybrid car
Bloomberg news has an excellent article about the people and companies involved in developing the Bakken oilfield
AFS Trinity's 150 mpg SUV hybrid car is generating a new round of press coverage
AFS trinity appears to be looking to sell the 150 mpg SUV's to operators of car fleets
In Europe there is already a 73 mpg production car, the Skoda Fabia TDI Greenline.
PREVIOUS COVERAGE ON THESE TOPICS
Bakken oilfield in Montana
Bakken oil in North Dakota
USGS study of the Bakken
Bakken oil in Saskatchewan
Original coverage of the Bakken oilfield
150mpg SUV
The 150 mpg SUV's ultracapactor/battery combo
April 25, 2008
President Bush's shameful and unlawful covert attempt to undermine court rulings, the Clean air act and block 18 states from higher fuel standards
Recently the Secretary of the Department of transportation put a proposal to mildly accelerate fuel standards from 3% per year to 4.5% per year up to 2015. However this was a ploy to put circumvent the Clean Air act and block California and several other states from adopting more aggressive car and truck fuel standards.
Jerry Brown called the Bush tactic: This fuel economy plan, while attractive on the surface, is a shameful and unlawful [covert] assault on California's landmark vehicle emissions standard.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and 11 of his counterparts sent a letter to President Bush on Thursday protesting a federal proposal to limit California's right to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from autos.
The letter came two days after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration published a proposed set of fuel-efficiency standards that included a provision that would override California laws that set limits on carbon emissions from cars.
Thursday's letter called the language "an end run around 40 years of precedent" and said that if the provision was not dropped, the states would sue NHTSA.
In a separate letter, sent to the top four leaders of the Senate and the House of Representatives, the governors called the proposed rule a "cynical attempt . . . to unilaterally rewrite the Clean Air Act and claim authority over greenhouse gas emissions."
Country Current Standard Proposed Standard
China: 36 mpg 43 mpg. (2009)
Canada: 27 mpg (current avg, no standard) TBA (starting in 2011)
United States: 25 mpg (current average) 35 mpg. (proposed, 2020
new proposal 31.5 by 2015
California: 25 mpg (current) 36 mpg. (proposed, 2016)
Europe: 40 mpg (current) 48.9 mpg. (proposed 2012)
Japan: 40 mpg. (current) 48.9 mpg. (proposed, 2015)
Here is how Bush drones were trying to spin the "strengthening of CAFE standards.
On page 387 of the Department of Transportation proposal they had placed
any state regulation regulating tailpipe carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles is expressly pre-empted.
Some analysts are projecting $200/barrel oil prices and $7 per gallon for gasoline in the United States by 2012
Many electric and fuel efficient cars are and will be available.
April 22, 2008
Electric and hybrid motorcycles and scooters available now and soon
Vectrix electric scooter.
The Vectrix electric scooter is available now and has a maximum speed of 62.5 mph and has a range of 35-55 miles. The Vectrix costs $9,999.00 for a 2007 model and $11,990.00 for a 2008 model. It was launched in the US market in July 2007.
More acceleration and faster speeds reduce the range of the Vectrix (as in all vehicles but more important for a shorter range vehicle.) It is possible for many people to commute one way for 20-40 miles and then recharge for the return trip.
Other electric motorcycles and scooters
A Brammo Enertia electric motorbike is available in Q2 and Q3 of 2008. The Enertia is a zero-emission, battery-powered, plug-in electric motorcycle with a base pricetag of $11,995 (Q3 2008). A limited-edition version, priced at $14,995, should be available in the second quarter 2008. The Brammo has a 45+ mile range and 50+ mph speed. The Enertia will be the first mass-produced, road-legal motorcycle running on electricity. 
CNN had a survey of electric motorcycles
Zero motorscycles has an electric offroad motorcycle for $7495-8350 It has a 40 mile range. The Zero X accelerates from 0-30 in under 2 seconds. The Zero's electric motor delivers over 20 horsepower and similar performance to a 250cc gas powered off-road motorcycle. With an electric motor you get 100% torque at all times for instantaneous throttle response and incredible off-the-line performance.
Zero motorcycles is introducing the street legal Zero S on-road electric motorcycle. A scooter called the Zero Way is also in the works, with an expected 2009 ship date. Zero's patent-pending lithium ion batteries are three times as powerful and 31% lighter than those in the Enertia, while offering the same running time.
Venture One is planning all electric and 3-wheel, tilting, plug-in Hybrid vehicles. This unique 2-passenger flex-fuel Hybrid vehicle is projected to achieve 100 miles per gallon, accelerate from 0-60 in about 7 seconds, and with a top speed of over 100 mph. They should have 2009 availability and cost about $23000.
Vespa's MP3 hybrid motorscooter should be released in the second half of 2008 and get 173 mpg.
FURTHER READING
Electric bicycles and scooters are huge in China and making a difference for the environment
April 16, 2008
Current and Proposed Fuel efficiency standards
Current and proposed car fuel efficiency standards from around the world.
UPDATE:
The Dept of Transportation Secretary Peters Proposes 25 Percent Increase in Fuel Efficiency Standards Over 5 Years for Passenger Vehicles, Light Trucks.
Fuel efficiency standards for both passenger vehicles and light trucks would increase by 4.5 percent per year over the five-year period ending in 2015 – a 25 percent total improvement that exceeds the 3.3 percent baseline proposed by Congress last year – under an ambitious new proposal announced today by U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters.
For passenger cars, the proposal would increase fuel economy from the current 27.5 miles per gallon to 35.7 miles per gallon by 2015. For light trucks, the proposal calls for increases from 23.5 miles per gallon in 2010 to 28.6 miles per gallon in 2015. All told, the proposal will save nearly 55 billion gallons of fuel and a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions estimated at 521 million metric tons. The plan will save America’s drivers over $100 billion in fuel costs over the lifetime of the vehicles covered by the rule, Secretary Peters said.
Country Current Standard Proposed Standard
China: 36 mpg 43 mpg. (2009)
Canada: 27 mpg (current avg, no standard) TBA (starting in 2011)
United States: 25 mpg (current average) 35 mpg. (proposed, 2020
new proposal 31.5 by 2015
California: 25 mpg (current) 36 mpg. (proposed, 2016)
Europe: 40 mpg (current) 48.9 mpg. (proposed 2012)
Japan: 40 mpg. (current) 48.9 mpg. (proposed, 2015)
There is discussion that a 75 mpg CAFE standard is needed by 2030 to meet greenhouse gas targets.
The presidential candidate proposed standards.
Hillary Clinton's energy plan includes a fuel efficiency standard of 55 MPG by 2030.
Obama 40 MPG by 2016 but with a 4 percent increase each year.
John McCain helped push for the 35 mpg standard but opposed the 40mpg standard. He has advanced several other energy bills.
April 07, 2008
Europe works on road safety with long term goal of uncrashable cars
The largest road safety research project ever launched in Europe will usher in a series of powerful road-safety systems for European cars. But, in the long term, its basic, experimental research could lead to a car that is virtually uncrashable. The technology would be pushed to make crashes increasingly unlikely and mitigate crashes when they do occur. Tiny differences have a huge impact on car safety. Dropping speed by 1km/h can reduce accidents with injury by 3 per cent, while braking fractions of a second sooner is enough to reduce the damage caused dramatically.
A truck exits suddenly from a side road, directly into your lane only dozens of metres ahead. Suddenly, your car issues a warning, starts applying the brakes and attempts to take evasive action. Realising impact is unavoidable; in-car safety systems pre-tension the safety belts and arm the airbag, timing its release to the second before impact.
PReVENT has a budget of over €50 million and 56 partners pursuing a broad, but highly complementary programme of research. A dozen sub-projects focus on specific road-safety issues, but all projects support and feed into each other in some way.
PReVENT project WILLWARN uses wireless communication with other vehicles to alert the driver about potentially dangerous situations ahead, while MAPS&ADAS reads sat-nav maps to track approaching hazards, like bends, dips or intersections. SASPENCE looks at safe driving distances and speed, while LATERALSAFE finally brings active sensing to the blind spot.
Two projects, APALACI and COMPOSE, take this a step further, actively tracking the speed and trajectories of surrounding vehicles and other road users in real time. If one vehicle suddenly stops, or a pedestrian suddenly steps onto the road, they swing into action to rapidly calculate the implications.
More details on the Coskata process for converting garbage into fuel (Cellullostic ethanol)
Costaka's process combines both biological (i.e., microbes) and thermochemical (heat and chemicals) processing. This could potential convert existing biomass sources in the United States to provide 35% of current fuel usage.
Coskata can use a wide variety of feedstocks for making fuel: wood chips, weeds and non-food crops like miscanthus, human waste, and carbon-heavy garbage (such as tires). Biomass, ideally easy-to-grow crops that don't require much water, will likely be the primary feedstock. The ability to exploit various feedstocks reduces exposure to crop failures or shortages. Coskata, which has received an investment from General Motors, also makes fuel from the lignin in biomass. Some companies making ethanol from strictly biological processes can't use lignin to make fuel.
Conceivably, Coskata could even produce fuel from the carbon monoxide from steel mills. If you could capture all of the carbon monoxide that comes out of mills worldwide, you could make 50 billion gallons of fuel a year, or close to a third of the U.S. annual consumption of fuel.
I had a prior article on the Coskata process and company.
The first stage in Coskata's process revolves around converting the feedstocks into synthetic gases. The different feedstocks can be segregated and processed differently. Waste can be converted to gas with plasma technology, for instance, while plant matter can be gasified with less energy-intensive methods. This allows the company to optimize on different gasification processes.
Once the syngas is produced, it is fed to microbes that convert it to liquid fuels. The microbes live in large colonies that collect on membranes. Fuel is produced when the gas passes through the membrane. Part of the company's intellectual property revolves around coming up with a way to let the microbes live as colonies and form slimes.
Less distillation. Microbes can create a fluid that is 15 percent alcohol or so by volume but can't get it to 99 percent purity on their own. That's why distilled spirits are stronger than beer.
Rather than fully distill the fluid, Coskata will distill to about 50 percent and then employ a membrane from Membrane Technology Research in Menlo Park to purify it the rest of the way. This cuts processing costs and energy. Coskata actually doesn't need the membrane to get to $1 a gallon. "This is gravy," Roe said.
Coskata primarily wants to earn revenue and profits from licensing the technology to big companies. like large forestry concerns, petroleum producers, and chemical manufacturers.
The Cosksta process cuts greenhouse gas emissions by 90 percent (complete fuel lifecycle) compared with gas. It also uses less water than most ethanol processes, which rely on food crops.
The Coskata $1 a gallon figure is how much the fuel will cost to produce. It includes the cost of the feedstock, the cost of the energy required to convert raw materials into fuel, and labor. It does not include paying off the capital of the facilities, taxes, retail mark-ups, or other expenses that can be added as the fuel wends its way through distribution. An adjusted price is around $1.50 a gallon.
FURTHER READING
Zeachem combines thermochemical and biological processes in a different manner.
Popular Mechanics description of the process
March 31, 2008
Software and design innovation is enabling a 2 litre engine to perform like a 3-4 litre and save 27% on fuel
Better computer software is enabling a smaller engine to have higher performance and use 27% less fuel with low emissions
Ricardo's engine, called 2/4SIGHT, uses valves like a four-stroke engine, but in two-stroke mode, the engine keeps both the intake and exhaust valves open at the same time so that the fuel and air in the cylinder are replenished each cycle, rather than every other cycle. Ricardo's prototype, an adapted 2.1-liter V6 engine, has been tested by researchers at the University of Brighton and has been found to be able to produce the kind of performance one would normally expect from a three-to-four-liter engine. Based on the New European Driving Cycle, which is a standard performance test designed to gauge engine efficiency and emissions under typical car usage, the prototype has demonstrated fuel savings of 27 percent, and it reduces emissions by a similar amount. The next phase is to try to incorporate a prototype engine into a working vehicle, says Jackson.
"Four strokes are most efficient at full throttle; with two strokes, it's the opposite," says Robert Kee, a mechanical engineer who specializes in combustion engines at Queen's University, in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
The difference between two- and four-stroke engines is that the latter carry out the four stages of air intake, compression, combustion, and exhaust in four strokes of a piston. A two-stroke engine, in contrast, does this in just two piston strokes.
Two-stroke engines are intrinsically simpler by design and have higher power-to-weight ratios at high loads and low speeds because they get twice as many power strokes per revolution. But traditional two-stroke engines require oil to be mixed in with the fuel, and therefore produce higher emissions. Because of this, they aren't typically used in cars. Instead, they're used for lightweight applications such as chainsaws, lawnmowers, and some motorbikes.
But now, researchers at Ricardo have developed a piston head that operates in both two- and four-stroke mode, and it can switch automatically between the two modes, depending on the needs of the engine. This allows a smaller engine to handle the low-speed, high-load conditions without stalling.
March 12, 2008
Electric and hybrid vehicles from Volvo, Honda, Volkswagon, Zap cars and others
The Volvo ReCharge Concept can be driven approximately 62 miles on battery power alone before the car’s four-cylinder 1.6 Flexifuel engine takes over to power the car and recharge the battery. As the vast majority of us drive less than 60 miles a day, the ReCharge is effectively a permanent electric car with an acceleration figure of 0-62mph in 9 seconds and a top speed of 100mph. It could get about 124 mpg.
The Volvo ReCharge Concept shown in Detroit combines a number of the latest technological innovations into a so-called "series hybrid" where there is no mechanical connection between the engine and the wheels.
* Four electric motors, one at each wheel, provide independent traction power.
The 5.6% losses from the drive train are saved.
The advantage of electric motors in wheel systems are that it reduces the power necessary to propel the car by half compared by a geared traction motor thanks to the reduction of friction losses/mechanical efficiency.
* The battery pack integrated into the luggage compartment uses lithium-polymer battery technology. The batteries are intended to have a useful life beyond that of the car itself.
* Four-cylinder 1.6-litre turbo diesel engine (109 hp) drives an advanced generator that efficiently powers the wheel motors when the battery is depleted.
More on the Volvo ReCharge concept car.
The Volvo ReCharge
The diesel hybrid Volkswagon Golf
the hybrid Golf will get 69.9 mpg and emit 90 g/km of carbon dioxide. An earlier report by Britain's Auto Express said 89 g/km, but either way that's less than the 104 g/km emitted by the Prius and 116 emitted by the Honda Civic Hybrid.VW says it's just a concept at this point, but Auto Bild says it is "more than a concept car" and Auto Express flat-out says "the first hybrid Golfs are expected here (meaning Britain) late next year [2009]."
Honda is planning to show new dedicated hybrid cars in Sept 2008 at the Paris autoshow. The company plans on pricing the new car aggressively, somewhere in the range of €16,000 and €20,000. The Prius currently runs about €24,000 in Europe. The new dedicated hybrid will use a new version of Honda's Integrated Motor Assist system.
Honda will have one hybrid based on the CR-Z concept car.
Honda CR-Z hybrid car
The Paris Honda hybrid car will be newly built from the ground up and will be smaller than a Prius.
Zap is in collaboration with Hybrid Plus, Zap's kit will convert hybrid Priuses and Highlanders into what tests predict will be 120 MPGe (city) and 90 MPGe (highway) vehicles. Depending on the vehicle, the kits cost between $24,000 and $36,000.
Zap has also announced the Zap Alias and the Zap-X cars. Zap has not been great at actually delivering on impressive press releases.
March 05, 2008
Instead of Mechs - robotically driven Hummers
Michael Anissimov has a picture of a progression from World War 2 soldier to a mech.
The hypothetical Mech has a hypothetical price tag of 500k-700K.
Military hummers cost $150K armored and $60-75k unarmored Of course they are not autonomous, although with the DARPA program for self driving cars..we could add yet (and tack on some price tag, but not necessarily that much with continually falling computer and electronic prices... if acquired in volume). All the weapons that the 5th gen system has could mounted on a self-driving humvee. Since the armor probably would probably not stand up to the weapons, probably better to go cheap on armor and go for unarmored and get two unarmored instead of one armored.
Actual vehicle being developed is the CMU crusher
The alternative to the "super alloy" of the Mech would be better ceramic armor or the new durable liquid metal (twice as strong as titanium) If you could get the exotic armor cheap enough and if it is worthwhile to make a tougher armored system instead of more cheaper systems.
The actual unmanned ground vehicles that is being developed is the CMU crusher
The Crusher program has cost $35 million so far Not clear how much any final per unit costs would be.
FURTHER READING
Current progress to autonomous robots is substantially because of better 3d LADAR
More on the DARPA robotic driving systems
Unmanned ground vehicles
February 27, 2008
New Lunar Truck and mining rover
Image at left: This robot shares some features with the lunar truck [below after the jump], but is equipped with a drill designed to find water and oxygen-rich soil on the moon. Credit: Carnegie Mellon University
The moon has one-sixth the gravity of Earth, so a lightweight rover will have a difficult job resisting drilling forces and remaining stable. Lunar soil, known as regolith, is abrasive and compact, so if a drill strikes ice, it likely will have the consistency of concrete. Meeting these challenges in one system requires ingenuity and teamwork. Engineers used this lunar rover to demonstrate a drill capable of digging samples of regolith. The demonstration used a laser light camera to select a site for drilling then commanded the four-wheeled rover to lower the drill and collect three-foot samples of soil and rock.
In 2008, the team plans to equip the rover with ISRU's Regolith and Environment Science and Oxygen and Lunar Volatile Extraction experiment, known as RESOLVE. Led by engineers at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla., the RESOLVE experiment package will add the ability to crush a regolith sample into small, uniform pieces and heat them.
The process will release gases deposited on the moon's surface during billions of years of exposure to the solar wind and bombardment by asteroids and comets. Hydrogen is used to draw oxygen out of iron oxides in the regolith to form water. The water then can be electrolyzed to split it back into pure hydrogen and oxygen, a process tested earlier this year by engineers at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.
"We're taking hardware from two different technology programs within NASA and combining them to demonstrate a capability that might be used on the moon," said Gerald Sanders, manager of the ISRU project. "And even if the exact technologies are not used on the moon, the lessons learned and the relationships formed will influence the next generation of hardware."
NASA is testing many technologies needed for research on the moon. Two examples are a lunar truck for astronauts and a rover equipped with a drill designed to dig into the moon's soil.
Some, all or none of these features may be selected to be in the design of a rover that eventually goes to the moon. NASA's lunar architects currently envision pressurized rovers that would travel in pairs, two astronauts in each rover. The new prototype vehicle is meant to provide ideas as those future designs are developed.
January 22, 2008
Natural gas discovery and waste
Many places online have been discussing the 168 trillion to 516 trillion cubic feet of natural gas discovered within the north Appalachian Plateau of the USA.
alfin : Peak Oil: Meet Marcellus Black Shale
Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends : Giant gas field found in the Appalachia
The yearly consumption of natural gas worldwide is slightly above 100 trillion cubic feet. The U.S. currently produces roughly 30 trillion cubic feet of gas a year. Horizontal drilling techniques could help to recover about 50 trillion cubic feet of gas from the Marcellus (Conservative estimate that 10% of the reserve can be accessed)
There are over 150,000 NGVs on U.S. roads today and over 5 million worldwide. 3% of the natural gas is used for transportation, 97% is used for heating and cooking. If nuclear power was used instead to generate electricity for the heating and cooking, then 32 times more vehicles could be natural gas powered. Natural gas vehicles have less pollution than gasoline powered vehicles.
As of January 1, 2007, proved world natural gas reserves, as reported by Oil & Gas Journal, were estimated at 6183 trillion cubic feet. Worldwide undiscovered natural gas is estimated at 4,136 trillion cubic feet.For 2008, 6185 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves.
The World Bank’s GGFR estimates that 150 billion cubic meters (or 5.3 trillion cubic feet) of natural gas is being flared and vented annually.
That is equivalent to 25 per cent of the United States’ gas consumption or 30 per cent of the European Union’s gas consumption per year. It is also estimated that global gas flaring releases about 390 million tons of CO2 per year into the atmosphere.
According to the World Bank, the gas flared in Africa could generate half of the continent’s power consumption. Nigeria is probably the world’s largest flarer of natural gas. Nigerian officials want a venture to tackle gas flaring but western oil companies say they cannot meet a deadline to end flaring by 2009
RELATED READING
Using corncob waste as a starting material, researchers have created carbon briquettes with complex nanopores capable of storing natural gas at an unprecedented density of 180 times their own volume and at one seventh the pressure of conventional natural gas tanks.
Researchers report development of a sponge-like material with the highest methane storage capacity ever measured. It can hold almost one-third more methane than the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) target level for methane-powered cars.
DOE info on natural gas vehicles and fuel
Unconventional Natural Gas Reservoir In Pennsylvania Poised To Dramatically Increase US Production
January 21, 2008
EEstor ultracapacitor system expected for mid-2008
Lockheed has signed an exclusive international license to use EEStor's power system for military and homeland-security applications--everything from advanced remote sensors and missile systems to mobile power packs and electric vehicles. Zenn motors is now expecting delivery of the energy-storage unit in mid-2008. It will be a mass-produced commercial product.
January 17, 2008
UltraBattery combines a supercapacitor and a lead acid battery
The CSIRO in australia [national science agency] has developed the UltraBattery, which combines a supercapacitor and a lead acid battery in a single unit, creating a hybrid car battery that lasts longer, costs less and is more powerful than current technologies used in hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs). The UltraBattery has a life cycle that is at least four times longer and produces 50 per cent more power than conventional battery systems. It’s also about 70 per cent cheaper than the batteries currently used in HEVs
UltraBattery hybrid car that has lasted over 100,000 miles.
The car driving around the test track
The capacitor and battery combination is the same one successfully used by AFS Trinity to make an inexpensive system ($8700 in production) for a 150 mpg plug in hybrid SUV.
“Passing the 100,000 miles mark is strong evidence of the UltraBattery's capabilities,” Mr Lamb said.“CSIRO’s ongoing research will further improve the technology’s capabilities, making it lighter, more efficient and capable of setting new performance standards for HEVs.”
The UltraBattery test program for HEV applications is the result of an international collaboration. The battery system was developed by CSIRO in Australia, built by the Furukawa Battery Company of Japan and tested in the United Kingdom through the American-based Advanced Lead-Acid Battery Consortium.
UltraBattery technology also has applications for renewable energy storage from wind and solar. CSIRO is part of a technology start-up that will develop and commercialise battery-based storage solutions for these energy sources.
AFS Trinities system allow batteries to avoid excessive resistive heating by using ultra-capacitors as pools of rapid energy. The proprietary control electronics of the Extreme Hybrid not only keep the batteries within safe resistive heating limits, but also extend battery life.
CSIRO, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, is Australia's national science agency and one of the largest and most diverse research agencies in the world.
The UltraBattery test program for HEV applications is the result of an international collaboration. The battery system was developed by CSIRO in Australia, built by the Furukawa Battery Company of Japan and tested in the United Kingdom through the American-based Advanced Lead-Acid Battery Consortium.
The CSIRO press release
The Supercapacitor work of the CSIRO Supercapacitors allow manufacturers to use smaller, lighter and cheaper batteries. This replaces the current, inefficient practice of fitting oversize batteries to cope with sudden surges in power.
Supercapacitors have superior recyclability. They can allow greater than 500 000 recharge cycles, compared to approximately 1 000 for rechargeable batteries, before there is a noticeable deterioration in capacity.
The global market for portable rechargeable batteries is rapidly expanding, with a 17 per cent increase to US$4.5 billion in 2003.
Previous work on CSIRO hybrid cars. CSIRO technologies made the ECOmmodore much less expensive than previous hybrid vehicles.
Batteries in electric vehicles typically weigh around 500 kilograms (about half the weight of a small car). The whole power pack for the ECOmmodore (batteries plus super-capacitors) weighs 200 kilograms.
CSIRO technology previously made Holden's ECOmmodore much less expensive than previous hybrid vehicles.
UPDATE:
Firefly's carbon graphite foam lead battery seems like an excellent and scalable fit with ultracapacitors Firefly's 3D2 technology can get up to three to four times the energy density of conventional lead acid [90-160 Watt-hours/kg]. Firefly Energy claims to be on a path to raise the energy density of lead acid batteries closer to the their theoretical limit at 170 Watt-hours per kilogram, a 4 fold increase over conventional lead acid batteries.
A lead-acid battery would cost somewhere around US$50/kWh, while a VRLA (valve-regulated lead-acid) like that being used in the BMW 100 Series micro-hybrids will come in around US$150/kWh, Firefly is aiming to have their batteries priced in the US$250-300/kWh range in volume production. (20-25% of the cost of nickel or lithium batteries, 4 to 5 times cheaper)
Tthe new generation of lithium-ion batteries have energy densities of 130-200 Watt hours/kilogram.
NiMH batteries have a range of energy densities from 30-80 Watt-hours/kilogram
Electrovaya, a battery manufacturer largely for electronic goods, claims an energy density of 470 Wh/l and 330 Wh/kg for its SuperPolymer batteries.
Silicon nanowire battery with up to 10 times the electricity of existing lithium ion batteries.
UPDATE:
Alfin has a more extensive list of ultracapacitor battery combination vehicles
January 16, 2008
Lithium ion batteries and ultra capacitors enable 150 mpg plug in hybrid SUV and 250 mpg sedans
AFS Trinity has what it calls Extreme Hybrid (XH) technology which employs a proprietary dual energy storage system that combines Lithium-Ion batteries and ultra capacitors with control electronics. They showed their 150 mpg hybrid at the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit.
150 mpg plug in hybrid SUV from AFS trinity
In just completed road tests, a 2007 Saturn VUE Green Line SUV fitted with an XH drive train, exceeded 150 mpg, and improved the zero to sixty time from 12.5 seconds, to 11.6 second running in electric-only mode -- something it can do for 40 miles at a stretch. In hybrid mode, it runs 0-60 mph in 6.9 seconds, which is faster than a Porsche Cayenne.
Extreme Hybrid technology in commercial production is expected to cost around $8,700 more than current, gas-only SUV's. Their SUV is a plug in hybrid.
The next step for AFS Trinity is to license its breakthrough technology to carmakers who want to incorporate the XH drive train into their vehicles.
"That would be our preference," said Furia. "However," he continued, "If carmakers decide not to take advantage of this offer, AFS Trinity intends to raise the funds to begin modifying existing hybrids or manufacture its own 150 mpg SUV's and, eventually, 250 mpg sedans.
Cutaway view of 150mpg SUV hybrid
The Extreme Hybrid™ Plug-in drive train is composed of five primary subsystems: (1) advanced lithium batteries recharged at night with off-peak power from the grid; (2) Fast Energy Storage™ using ultracapacitors for acceleration and regenerative braking; (3) advanced power electronics and control software; (4) internal combustion engine; and (5) electric traction motor and generator. In miles per petroleum gallon, the XH-150™ plug-in hybrid SUV achieves 150 MPPG.
Batteries can be safe if they avoid excessive resistive heating. By using ultra-capacitors as pools of rapid energy," Furia explained, "the proprietary control electronics of the Extreme Hybrid not only keep the batteries within safe resistive heating limits, but also extend battery life. We regard XH technology as an important safety breakthrough, which is a critical factor in making Extreme Hybrids practical now."
Payback for those who drive 340 miles/week is 3.5 years with gas at $2.85/gallon. At $5/gallon it would pay back in 2.5 years
FURTHER READING
Other mainstream hybrids and plug in hybrid cars from Toyota, Honda, GM and a chinese automaker
A 60mpg biodiesel hummer
Electric vehicle news roundup, including the Aptera
Cars that are more fuel efficient than the Toyota Prius
AFS Trinity announcement
UPDATE:
What is new is being able to extend the range of the electrical part. If a Toyota Prius gets a lithium ion battery upgrade then it can get to 100mpg using the same calculations (how much fuel is used when it is recharged every night after some commute distance during the day)
Also, what is new is managing the electrical power more efficiently to allow 40 mile range for an SUV.
also, what is new is the apparently lower production cost of the battery/ultracapacitor combination.
Calcars discusses it and it was reported in Forbes.
The 300mpg Aptera uses a similar calculation of fuel efficiency.
Look at the details of the Aptera under the performance tab
Fuel Mileage chart with variance based on average daily driving distance
Wikipedia discusses calculation of fuel efficiency using plug in hybrids
UPDATE:
I provide extensive coverage of an Australian national laboratory effort to use ultracapacitors and lead acid batteries for better and cheaper hybrid cars
Alfin has a more extensive list of ultracapacitor battery combination vehicles
January 15, 2008
Toyota plug in hybrid and other efficient and electric cars
Toyota Motor Corp. the world's biggest maker of gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles, plans to lease cars whose batteries can recharge from normal electrical sockets by 2010, matching General Motors Corp.'s target for introducing the fuel-efficient vehicles.
The planned new plug-in hybrids would use lithium-ion batteries. Toyota plans low- exhaust diesel engines for large Tundra pickups and Sequoia sport-utility vehicles in the `near future.'
Toyota also is trying to perfect its own methods of making ethanol fuel from wood waste, rather than crops.
GM announced that it may begin production of a plug-in hybrid Saturn Vue Green Line as soon as 2010.
Saturn VueThe n