Renovo to show electric supercar prototype at CES

22 December 2014

Renovo Motors, Inc., will offer the first public viewing of its electric supercar prototype at the upcoming 2015 International CES in Las Vegas. (Earlier post.)

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Using a factory-modified Shelby American CSX9000 rolling chassis (“Cobra Daytona Coupe”), Renovo’s eponymous coupe features twin mid-mounted sequential axial-flux motors producing more than 370 kW (500 hp) and 1,000 lb-ft (1,356 N·m) of torque, with a 0-60 mph time of less than 3.4 seconds. Top speed is more than 120 mph (193 km/h).

The Renovo Coupe is powered by a patent-pending 740 volt lithium-ion battery pack.

The coupe is on sale now in limited quantities and will begin shipping in 2015. The Renovo Coupe will be on display at the NVIDIA Booth #30307.

“We are absolutely thrilled to be attending the Consumer Electronics Show and to have the opportunity to display the Renovo Coupe alongside all of NVIDIA’s amazing new automotive technology. CES is the perfect stage for us to show the world what can be done with electric vehicles.

BNEF: Oil price plunge to have only moderate impact on low-carbon electricity development, but likely to slow EV growth

22 December 2014

The collapse in world oil prices in the second half of 2014 will have only a moderate impact on the fast-developing low-carbon transition in the world electricity system, according to research firm Bloomberg New Energy Finance. However, the slump in the Brent crude price per barrel from $112.36 on 30 June to $61.60 on 22 December will nevertheless have an impact in various sectors and regions. For example, if lower oil prices last, they are likely to slow the growth of the electric vehicle market, to some extent.

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Earlier Bloomberg New Energy Finance analysis showed that, with gasoline at $2.09 per gallon, EV penetration in the US could reach 6% of the light-duty vehicle fleet by 2020, whereas with gasoline at $3.34, the EV share could be 9%. The share is less than 1% now.

The past five years have seen an average of $266 billion per year invested in clean energy worldwide. The majority of this has gone into renewable electricity generating capacity, which does not compete directly with oil. Wind and solar have been exhibiting very rapid growth, even as subsidies and support have in general become less generous, and that has been driven mainly by dramatic improvements to their cost-competitiveness, as well as by the removal of barriers such as grid bottlenecks.

In a number of oil-producing nations and many low-income developing countries, a significant proportion of electricity is produced by diesel generators and oil-burning power plants. With oil at $100/barrel, the replacement of these generators or their hybridization with renewables was just beginning to take off. While diesel and oil-based power is still uneconomic at $60/barrel, the pressure to switch is reduced. There could be a question mark over Saudi Arabia’s plan, announced in 2012, to invest $109bn in 41GW of solar power by 2032. Saudi Arabia burns up to 900,000 barrels of oil per day to generate over 50% of its electricity.

In the US, a lower oil price could nudge natural gas prices higher: shale oil production often produces associated gas; fewer rigs fracking for oil would have the effect of marginally reducing supplies of natural gas. Oil at $60/barrel could mean a natural gas price as much as $0.90/MMBtu higher than if oil was at $100/barrel, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance research.

With wind and even solar power increasingly competitive with coal and natural gas without subsidies, with many utilities needing to meet renewable portfolio standards, and with new EPA rules forcing coal plant retirements, the impact of lower oil prices on renewable energy in the US is expected to be insignificant.

In Europe, natural gas prices are often indexed to oil, so a lower oil price will tend to push down the gas price, although the relationship is complex: spot gas prices in Europe started their fall several months earlier in 2014 than Brent crude. In any case, renewable energy roll-out in Europe is generally driven by specific targets and policy initiatives, so cheaper gas, combined with a carbon price that has increased 44% so far in 2014, is likely to reverse the recent surge in coal-fired generation. In the UK, for instance, DECC’s Energy Trends, published last week, show coal-fired production down by 11.5TWh in Q3 2014 over the same quarter in 2013, a reduction of 43%, with gas gaining 8.0TWh and renewables 2.6TWh.

Lower oil prices will challenge the biofuels sector, which competes directly with oil as a transport fuel. However, in the US there is a volumetric mandate that ethanol must make up 10% of gasoline, so that underpins demand at current levels. In Brazil, ethanol has been competing against subsidized gasoline that sells at the pump for the equivalent of $65 per barrel, so the impact on ethanol from the oil price fall so far is likely to be small.

Ultimately, BNEF said, the impact of lower oil prices will depend on whether they are sustained. Some analysts expect a rapid recovery to $100/barrel oil, because this is the price required in order to justify ongoing exploration for new resources, but there are grounds for thinking that lower prices may persist.

Bloomberg New Energy Finance research shows that at $75/barrel, as many as 19 US shale regions would be unprofitable. However, existing wells would not be shut as long as they cover their variable cost, which is much lower, often at around $20 to $30/barrel. Thus production is removed only as well output declines, which would take 1-2 years in the absence of new fracking activity in those regions.

Perhaps of greater significance, however, is the growing understanding that this year’s slump in oil prices is more of a demand shock than a supply shock, driven by China’s slowdown and reduced US dependence on imported oil.

The orthodox view of unlimited oil demand growth simply does not hold in a world of super-efficient engines, electric vehicles, desperate air pollution problems, and action on climate. The US economy has grown by 8.9% since 2007, while demand for finished petroleum products has dropped by 10.5%. Improvements in gas mileage and reductions in miles driven per person have had more impact on cutting US oil imports than unconventional production. The story should not be how falling oil prices will impact the shift to clean energy, it should be how the shift to clean energy is impacting the oil price.

ORNL, UT Austin team proposes optimization framework for hybrids; balancing fuel consumption, motor efficiency, battery capacity and life

22 December 2014

Sample output. Effect of increasing the β weighting factor (problem formulation with battery) and applying a higher cooling rate (problem formulation without battery) on the cumulative fuel consumption for the UDDS at a 70% target SoC. Shaltout et al. Click to enlarge.

Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Texas at Austin have developed an optimization framework for hybrid-electric and plug-in hybrid-electric vehicles (HEVs and PHEVs) including fuel consumption, motor efficiency, and battery capacity and lifetime. The approach, detailed in a paper accepted for publication in the IEEE Transactions On Control Systems Technology, is intended to enhance the understanding of the associated tradeoffs among the HEV subsystems—e.g., engine, motor, battery—and to investigate the related implications for fuel consumption and battery capacity and lifetime.

With the framework, the performance of the subsystems can be tailored according to consumer preferences, such as reducing fuel consumption or extending battery life. Further, the ability to control battery performance indices—e.g., temperature—enables operating the battery at a higher target SoC (state of charge) without incurring safety concerns. As a result, the results of such analyses could have significant implications for the related HEV and PHEV ownership and warranty costs.

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The main advantage of HEVs and PHEVs is the existence of individual subsystems, e.g., the internal combustion engine, the electric machines (motor and generator), and the energy storage system (battery) that can power the vehicle either separately or in combination. The supervisory power manage-ment control algorithm determines how to distribute the power demanded by the driver to these subsystems.

Traditionally, maximizing fuel economy and minimizing GHG emissions are the main objectives of the control development. With the introduction of batteries, prolonging the battery life is considered highly important during the control design from the consumer’s perspective due to associated ownership and warranty costs. Thus, it is necessary to develop a control framework for vehicle power management that will be able to balance maximum fuel economy, minimum GHG emissions, and extended battery life based on consumer’s needs and preferences.

… The objective of this paper and related research of the authors is to enhance our understanding of the associated tradeoffs among the HEV subsystems, e.g., the engine, the motor, and the battery. Addressing these tradeoffs and related implications in fuel consumption, motor efficiency, and battery capacity and lifetime can aid in developing power management control algorithms that prioritize these objectives based on consumer needs and preferences.

In this work, the researchers developed a multiobjective optimization framework that includes fuel consumption; motor efficiency; and the charge/discharge process to indirectly address battery use and lifetime. They also implemented a power management control algorithm yielding the Pareto optimal solution of the multiobjective optimization problem that minimizes the long-run expected average cost criterion in the stochastic control problem formulation.

The vehicle model was a pre-transmission parallel HEV model, with the hybrid propulsion system consisting of a gasoline engine coupled to an automatic transmission through a gear set and a clutch. The electric machine (motor/generator) is coupled through another gear set to the transmission input shaft. Both gear sets have been assigned to have unity gear ratios. The transmission output shaft is coupled to a final drive. The electric path of the hybrid propulsion system consists of the electric machine connected to a rechargeable battery. The available control variables are the engine and motor torques as the engine and motor speeds are determined by the vehicle speed.

They modeled the different components of the hybrid propulsion system—except for the battery—in Autonomie. Autonomie is a MATLAB/Simulink simulation package for powertrain and vehicle model development developed by Argonne National Laboratory. They replaced the battery model in Autonomie with their own.

The new computationally efficient battery model is able to capture charge–discharge behavior well to study thermal response of the batteries. Although for the paper they worked with a NiMH battery system, the analysis can be easily extended to a Li-ion battery system. The battery model is derived from the experimental discharge characteristics of the cell.

They used thee driving cycles in their analysis: the urban dynamometer driving schedule (UDDS); the FTP; and the New York. They compared the Pareto control policy corresponding to scenarios with and without the battery, to investigate the associated tradeoffs.

Tradeoff analysis between the battery performance and fuel consumption at 60% and 70% target SoC. Shaltout et al. Click to enlarge.

Ultimately, the proposed optimization framework establishes the foundation for addressing overall HEV optimization, including additional performance characteristics. Thus, paving many pathways for future research work. For instance, reducing the engine emissions can be considered in the multiobjective cost function, thus adding another element to the aforementioned set of consumer preferences. In addition, the proposed framework allows for augmenting the control inputs to include the transmission gearshift schedule as a separate control input, thus enhances the HEV optimal control problem.

This work was supported in part by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program through the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Resources

• Mohamed L. Shaltout, Andreas A. Malikopoulos, Sreekanth Pannala, and Dongmei Chen, “A Consumer-Oriented Control Framework for Performance Analysis in Hybrid
  Electric Vehicles” IEEE Transactions On Control Systems Technology doi: 10.1109/TCST.2014.2376472

US Navy flies supersonic with 50% blend of Gevo ATJ

22 December 2014

The US Navy, Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR), and isobutanol provider Gevo, Inc. announced the first successful “alcohol-to-jet” (ATJ) (earlier post) supersonic flight at the Naval Air Warfare Center in Patuxent River, Md. This is the first aviation test program comprehensively to test and evaluate the performance of a 50/50 ATJ blend in supersonic (above Mach 1) afterburner operations—a critical test to successfully clear the F/A-18 for ATJ operations through its entire flight envelope.

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In 2012, the US Air Force began ATJ flight testing with an A-10 Thunderbolt jet powered by a Gevo-produced blend of 50% ATJ fuel and 50% JP-8. (Earlier post.) Earlier this year, Lufthansa announced it would evaluate Gevo Alcohol-to-Jet renewable fuel for commercial aviation use. (Earlier post.)

The US Navy is exploring alternative fuels that can serve as drop-in replacements to petroleum, as the availability of additional fuel sources can increase resiliency for operational commanders and help reduce US dependence on fossil fuels. The Navy Fuels Team at Patuxent River is leading the Navy’s test and qualification efforts of alternative fuel sources. The F/A-18 testing is a significant milestone leading to a military specification (MIL-SPEC). This MIL-SPEC would allow for commercial supply of ATJ fuel to the Navy and Marine Corps.

Gevo produces ATJ at its demo biorefinery in Silsbee, TX, using isobutanol produced at its Luverne, MN, fermentation facility. Gevo is currently operating its Luverne plant in Side-by-Side operational mode, whereby isobutanol is being produced in one of the facility’s four fermenters, while the other three fermenters are dedicated to ethanol production. The isobutanol that Gevo is producing is meeting product specifications for direct drop-in applications, as well as for use as a feedstock for the Silsbee biorefinery to produce hydrocarbons such as ATJ.

The F/A-18 Hornet is a single-and two-seat, twin engine, multi-mission fighter/attack aircraft that can operate from either aircraft carriers or land bases. Its engine thrust from 36,000 pounds to 44,000 pounds utilizing two General Electric F414 turbo-fan engines.

Li-ion maker Boston Power secures US$290M from two local Chinese governments for expansion

22 December 2014

Li-ion maker Boston Power has secured US$290 million in local government financial support for the expansion of its two facilities in China. The company’s Liyang facility will receive a total investment of $160 million, increasing its manufacturing capacity fivefold by 2016. The company’s Tianjin facility will grow its capacity to 4GW by 2017, and is expected to reach 8 GWh in manufacturing capacity by 2018.

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The expansion of these facilities will allow Boston Power to meet the growing demand by leading Chinese automakers in the Yangtze River Delta and throughout the Bohai Gulf in Northern China. China’s EV market is expected to reach US$35 billion by 2020, with demand for high-end lithium-ion batteries hitting 100 GWh.

China is the largest and fastest growing EV market in the world and leads in the manufacturing of Eco-EV and E-buses. Our analysis shows that this market will experience significant battery supply constraints over the next 3-5 years which we aim to address.

Boston Power’s products target multiple segments in the electric vehicle industry, all geared towards the growth of green, sustainable cities. In addition to premium cars, the company’s products cater to buses, sedans, taxis, and a variety of EVs designed for personal consumers and clean public transport operators.