The students have presented their new solar car called “Red Shift” at the Twente Airbase in the presence of the Australian ambassador, who returned home with a bottle of “Twent’s bier” [0:57]. In 2015 Twente ended second. Twente is confident that they will win this year.
Norway is ahead of everybody else in its ambition to get rid of the stinking petrol clunker once and for all. In 2017 the majority of new vehicles sold in Norway are e-vehicles. By 2025 all vehicles sold should be electric by law.
Why Norway? Because of government regulations and the convenient fact that Norway has a lot of hydro-power, the easiest form of renewable energy around, which ensures that e-driving is really clean and not a zero-sum game of moving emissions from a car exhaust to the fossil power station smoke stack.
And as the Dutch proverb goes: “if one (Norwegian) sheep has crossed the dam, more will follow.”
Like the Netherlands for instance. The flatlanders have no hydro-power worth mentioning, but ambitious offshore wind park plans, to be realized before 2023, providing enough electricity from wind to power an entire Dutch e-vehicle fleet. Like Norway, the Netherlands wants to phase out petrol cars after 2025.
Winfried Kretschmann is a member of the German Greens party and happens to be the first ever Green Minister-President of any German state, in casu of Baden-Württemberg, home of Mercedes-Benz. Within his party he is a right-winger and relatively business-friendly. Kretschmann was caught on camera while ranting against the left-wing of his party, that insists that selling new petrol-driven cars should be forbidden as of 2030. Kretschmann deems this to be unrealistic.
[ibtimes.co.uk] – Netherlands wants to ban non-electric car sales by 2025
[thedrive.com] – Norway Doubles Down on Plans to Make Gas Cars Obsolete by 2025
[source] Dieselgate – cartoon with US pickup-truck driver telling a German motorist: “You should be ashamed of yourselves”
The manipulated CO2-emissions by Volkswagen-engineers was a fraud and should be prosecuted. It is just… well… are Americans really the ones to cast the first stone? Annual carbon dioxide emissions [tonnes] per capita:
USA
18
Saudi-Arabia
17
Russia
12
Japan
9
Germany
9
UK
8
Italy
7
China
6
France
6
Nigeria
0
[wikipedia.org] – List of countries by carbon dioxide emissions per capita
Bloomberg reports that now the US economy is picking up steam again, the Americans are returning to their SUVs, pickup-trucks and vans. The US abandoning the Paris accords also sends the wrong signal. The US remains the only great power not to have an official renewable energy policy/vision, although a lot of state level initiatives do occur. If for instance Texas were a country, it would be the fourth wind power in the world. Many leftists like to blame president Trump for this, ignoring that a Clinton administration and deep state darling would not have made a jota difference, but instead would have ensured the US would be at war with Russia by now. In this respect the Trump administration is the lesser evil.
Volkswagen was forced to settle with US justice at the astronomical amount of $14.7 billion for a fleet of 500,000 cars involved. This amounts to the insane sum of $30,000 per car. This has nothing to do with justice but everything with US industrial cannibalism. A criminal act exercised by a predator country that itself couldn’t care less about the environment.
Despite the settlement, the US justice department has announced that it has issued arrest warrants against VW managers. They don’t know when to stop, now do they?
[bloomberg.com] – Americans Are Back in Love With SUVs and Pickups
[dw.com] – eport: US issues arrest warrants for former VW executives
[nytimes.com] – Interpol Seeks Five Ex-VW Managers Over Emissions Fraud
[sueddeutsche.de] – Warum die USA fünf VW-Manager fassen wollen
[spiegel.de] – USA schreiben VW-Manager weltweit zur Fahndung aus
[zeit.de] – USA fahnden weltweit nach VW-Mitarbeitern
StreetScooter GmbH is an electric vehicle manufacturer located in Aachen, Germany. In December 2014 Deutsche Post DHL Group announced that it was purchasing the company. Deutsche Post DHL Group explained that electric vehicles were part of GoGreen initiative to reduce CO2 emmissions. In addition to replacing diesel powered vans with the electric vehicles in their own fleet, Deutsche Post DHL/StreetScooter plans to market the products to other potential customers starting in 2017.
A Munich-based German startup has designed a e-car, with the coach work covered with solar cells. Range: 120 km, Price: 12,000 euro. Battery: 14.4 kWh. For 16,000 euro you will get an 30 kWh battery and 250 km range. The solar cells will on average contribute to ca. 30 km/day, which is sufficient for many commuters, making the car “energy neutral”. Planned production start: 2019. Sono Motors has 15 employees. Start capital 500,000 euro, mostly via crowd-funding. The actual production will be done by Roding Automobile GmbH.
Largest electric bus fleet in Europe, made in Eindhoven, driving in Eindhoven. The buses are so quiet that they are equipped with a tram bell.
Dutch 18:00 News: by 2025, all 5000 buses in the Netherlands will be electric. Today 43 electric buses are operational in the Southern city of Eindhoven, and 41 elsewhere in the Netherlands. Later this year 100 electric buses will be driving in the Haarlem-Schiphol Airport region. World-wide the Netherlands is second, behind China, in promoting electric bus transport. The comfort level is higher as with petrol driven buses and much more quiet.
[nos.nl] – Nederland loopt voorop in elektrisch busvervoer
[vdlbuscoach.com] – VDL Bus & Coach introduces the Citea LLE Electric
[vdlbuscoach.com] – Citea Low Floor Electric (SLF Electric)
[wikipedia.org] – VDL Bus Chassis
E-bikes are a serious alternative for the car to bridge commuting distances. The “problem” is: some of these e-bikes are simply too fast to be treated as a bike in normal traffic. In the Netherlands the average ‘back and forth’ commuting distance is 32 km. With the advent of 45 kmh e-bikes you can easily bridge this distance, even without sweating and get your necessary daily exercise in the process.
New legislation in the Netherlands has now categorized “speed pedelecs” as moped’s and as a consequence banned them from the Dutch bicycle lanes, you need a moped drivers licence and helmets are now obligatory.
[trouw.nl] – Ruim baan voor de supersnelle fiets helpt ook de trage trapper
Speed record for an electric aircraft. Motor 50 kg and 260 kW, plane weight 1 ton. Top speed 340 kmh, flying a distance of 3 km on March 24, earlier this year.
Electric flying can be done more energy efficient than with flying on fuel.
Siemens believes that hybrid-technology offers the most promise: fuel for climbing and electricity for cruising. Siemens is cooperating with Airbus to get a proof of concept for a hybrid aircraft by 2020 for the short range: 100 passengers 1,000 km.
[siemens.com] – World-record electric motor for aircraft sets new records
[siemens.com] – Electric Flight Takes Off
[siemens.com] – Electric flight: turning the dream into a reality
The German built E-Ship 1 and commissioned by German wind turbine manufacturer Enercon, is intended to carry wind turbine parts. A particularity is that propulsion is partially realized by four vertical rotating cylinders, 27 meters tall and 4 meters in diameter, exploiting the so-called Magnus effect. This results in 25% fuel savings.
Rain and wind are big in the Netherlands and few foreigners will visit the country for a beach holiday. Nevertheless, a family from the city of Eindhoven, home of the Technical University TUE, was invited to test a car, designed and produced at the TUE, entirely driven by solar energy.
A predecessor model of this solar car won the Solar Challenge Race in Australia:
[deepresource] – TU Eindhoven Wins Solar Challenge 2013 (Cruisers)
A few back-of-an-envelope remarks about powering electric vehicles with wind to get an idea of the scale.
Bitchy European remark: why do we need these ridiculous large cars like the Chevy Volt? With an average occupation rate of 1.25 it makes more sense to work with one or two-seater cars only. When by 2030 the electric self-driving car could very well have replaced a large part of the standard five-seater car fleet, you can order a particular car from the public pool that will suit your needs at that particular point in time.
Battery: 41 kWh Range: 400 km (optimal conditions) or 300 km (real world)
So with 2017 technology you will get 75 km from 10 kWh.
Note that even the Renault Zoe is unnecessary big, in a world where most cars travel with a single passenger. Let’s assume that by 2030 single seater cars will be available that travel 120 km on 10 kWh instead of 75 km. Let’s link that number to wind energy for normal usage (Netherlands car distance average: 12,000 km/year = 1000 kWh/year). Yearly electricity production of a 5 MW offshore wind turbine: 22.8 GWh.
[adwenoffshore.com] – Adwen’S 5 MW Wind Turbine Reaches A Yearly Output of 22,8 GWH
This means that this single wind turbine can power 22,800 e-vehicles. The Netherlands currently has a (petrol) car fleet of 8 million. If we assume continued private car ownership of 8 million single seater e-vehicles, merely 320 large 5 MW offshore turbines would suffice to keep this fleet going.
In the coming few years five 700 MW offshore windparks are going to be built in the Dutch part of the North Sea, the five largest wind projects in the world. Two of these windparks would cover the private transportation needs of the Netherlands, where the Dutch rail system is already fully covered by wind energy.
There is no fundamental energy problem.
P.S. Energy efficient cars like these are far more suitable for a self-driving car future:
Hoorn, The Netherlands on a sunny day. Without these ugly parked cars, the 17th century idyll would be restored.
UK consultancy firm Rethinkx has no doubts: the car society as we know it, will be history much sooner than you think. Key word: self-driving car. Once governments begin to allow these essentially driver-less taxis on its roads, the death warrant for the global car industry will be sealed. Why? Because this development would eliminate the need for expensive car ownership completely.
A privately owned car in Western Europe is not used for perhaps 95% of the time (Netherlands: 12,000 km/year, average speed 60 kmh or 200 hours = 5% of a year). Instead the car could be driving during those idle hours, making money in the process and help earning itself back much, much quicker. That’s how every bus, train or aviation company thinks. So why not you, dear mr Joe Sixpack? Because the opportunity to do so is around the corner.
Within a decade or two, technology, infrastructure and government regulation will exist that will enable you to travel the same distances, without actually owning the vehicle. Instead you will order a vehicle with your smart phone and after some time, a taxi will stop in front of your house, but without the taxi driver. And dependent on how much money you are willing/able to pay, you will drive away in a vehicle that is something between a small bus you have to share with others, like in the video below, or a luxury car you will have all for yourself.
Nice and quiet and clean. After 2025 sales of new cars driving on fossil fuel will be prohibited and the old ones phased out largely by 2032. The Netherlands will be a silent place, much more than today.
On 18 April 2017, Dutch passenger transport company Hermes reached the milestone of 1,000,000 kilometres travelled with the 43 electric buses that have been in service since last December. The fully electric VDL Citeas, with their futuristic design, are now a common sight in Eindhoven. The drivers operate the buses on eight different zero emission routes with due pride. The electric operation is now operating at full capacity, with the buses clocking up over 9,000 km every weekday. Several buses even cover more than 340 km per day on their own.
[vdlgroep.com] – 1,000,000 electric kilometres in Eindhoven. VDL congratulates Hermes on electric milestone
[vdlgroep.com] – 100 electric VDL Citeas and 18 VDL Futura double-deckers for Connexxion
Daimler & Bosch have no choice as all the other major players are doing it. In the long term it means the beginning of the end of private car ownership for many. The car fleet will become an extension of public transport. Substantially fewer cars will deliver the same transport effort. Autonomous driving cars will have a much higher occupancy rate, both in terms of hours per day on the road as well as the ability of transporting more than one person at the same time. Especially younger people can defer the moment of private car ownership until they are really settled, if they can be persuaded to own an expensive car at all, now that a much cheaper alternative will be available. Retired people won’t need to own an expensive car at all.
It is good for everybody except the car industry itself, that will sell decreasing numbers. It is good for the cities with fewer cars parked for 95% of the time and it is good for the environment as the same transport effort can be accomplished with fewer cars with corresponding less embodied energy. Commuting can be done by occupying cars with five or more rather than one passenger, by applying intelligent algorithms to match transport supply and demand, allowing for small detours and/or changing cars en route. Traffic jams will disappear as a consequence. The taxi driver will vanish once and for all.
The autonomous driving car, essentially a cheap taxi, could be a good compromise to continue to bring door-to-door transport for everyone, yet at the same time diminish the role the car is playing in day to day life.
Win-win situation.
[techcrunch.com] – Daimler and Bosch: fully autonomous cars within 5 years
