kickingtyres

Japan gets battery swapping electric taxis • The Register.

Swappable batteries?  What did I tell you, it’s the first step towards the electric vehicle that we would drive.

There have been many electric vehicles produced in the last few years, that have tried but failed to address the transportation needs of the ordinary man. They have certainly addressed the needs of niche markets, or served well as a secondary vehicle in urban environments, but they have so far failed to provide the flexibility, performance and convenience of the internal combustion engine.

The car as it is today can perform a multitude of tasks, irrespective of it’s size or performance. Certainly, some vehicles are more suited to some tasks than others, but there are few situations that any household’s car can’t somehow make do. You would certainly be more comfortable on the motorway in a large saloon, or find it easier to get around town in a supermini, but neither situation prevents the use of either car.

Electric cars, on the other-hand, are limited by performance, range and size, not to mention the time restrictions on recharging the vehicle. You might not be very comfortable driving from London to Glasgow in a Smart, but it would manage it. Try the same in a G-Wiz, and you’d be lucky to get to the M25, but does the G-Wiz offer anything in town that the Smart doesn’t?

We have got used to the internal combustion engine. We have got used to it’s performance, it’s range and the ability to “recharge” it in a matter of a couple of minutes at a petrol pump. Until electric vehicles can get close to matching these criteria, they will always be derided, by petrol heads, as poor alternatives for the green brigade.

Even if, as shown by the Tesla and the like, we can get performance similar to current ICE vehicles, the range simply isn’t there; and an 8hour charge time makes any significant journey impossible.

To get around these limitations, what is needed is standardisation. Standardisation between the vehicle manufacturers and the fuel companies. Standardisation of the power-cell form-factor. If all electric vehicles were to share the same power cell configuration, then it could solve a number of failings of the electric vehicle. Primarily, one of recharging. Rather than spending hours, or even 1/2 an hour waiting for your car to recharge, you could stop at your local “petrol” station, and have your cell swapped out for a fully charged one.

This also goes part way to addressing the issue of range. If you can only go 100 miles on a charge, it’s still a long way from that offered by an ICE powered car, but at least you know you’ll be able to get a fully charged cell along the way. Furthermore, by ensuring cells meet a standard shape and size, it would be conceivable that improved power cell technologies could be providede to existing vehciles by upgrading the cell; something you can’t easily do with current electric vehicles.  Firsteps in the swapping arena can be seen with this batter swapping system from “Better Place” who have demonstrated a machine to swap  power cells out in around a minute.

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/05/14/better_place/

Clean mean Manx machine for TTXGP – Isle of Man Today.

Last year’s MGP junior race winner Dan Kneen is to ride for the team fronted by software engineer and MGP rider Keith McKay from Ramsey. The bike is to be built by Phil Wall of Boal Engineering in Ramsey…

…The team is in the process of buying a Suzuki GSXR600 as a donor bike and the battery system, from a supplier in America, is due next month.

‘Technology in this area moves so fast there is an advantage in being late in the day. We can take advantage of developments that were not available six months ago,’ said Keith.

The team is starting with a Suzuki model which is already a race bike so it benefits from modifications such as upgraded brakes and Ohlins suspension and has a more modern chassis design…

…The FIM has added its support to the green TT event at its annual press conference in February. So far teams from America, the UK, India, Germany and Austria have confirmed they are entering.

KillaCycle electric-motorcycle sets new drag record

The KillaCyle has again caused record-keepers to reach for their erasers with a world beating run of 7.890 seconds for the quarter mile at the Bandimere Speedway in Colorado

It’s an amazing piece of engineering, and certainly makes the conceptof electric bikes somewhat more palatable to those who perceive electric power as somehow less fun, powerful or whatever.  However, while this machine is pushing back the boundaries of performance, I suspect it’s far removed from bringing effective electric power to two wheels in the practical world, where weight, chargetimes, handling and range are all important.