The graph shows average input energy of about 20W for AC Kinetics vs 40W for the others. Unless their graph is off by 1000x the claimed improvement is probably based on energy used in the control electronics themselves instead of total energy used by the motor. Their press release claims they can save 104 billion kWhs annually. That's a bit over 1% of the electricity they claims motors consume, consistent with a 10-40% savings applied to control circuitry and not the motor itself.

20kw is really weak for 1000cc. Not sure what's up with that. It's also insufficient for the long highway grades you see in the western US. No need to worry about such trifles in a concept car, of course.

70 kW motor on a car this heavy means gas engine will kick in virtually every time you accelerate. That cuts system cost, which is a good thing, but it also means the concept of "all electric range" doesn't really apply.

Should have put in a 3rd row seat. Even if only suitable for kids it would put this car in a completely different class.

Average volts would be more like 3.6. But I suspect 122 mAh/g is for cathode only, not the whole battery.

A 15 hp range extender will work for a lightweight, aerodynamic car as long as it retains enough battery capacity for hill climbing. Always keeping that much spare battery capacity is expensive, though, because you pay for a lot of battery that you almost never use. Tricks such as the Volt's "Mountain Mode" might help here.

if the 8 year life is median then the warranty expenses would be horrendous. At one point Bob Lutz said they provisioned for one full battery replacement per car during the warranty period. Of course Bob says a lot of things.

ExDemo - I find it better to compare an EV's motor and power electronics to a normal car's engine and transmission. Those costs are fairly close for similar performance levels. I then compare the battery to a gas tank. At about $10k battery cost, the Nissan LEAF has a very expensive fuel tank. But it uses much cheaper fuel. Off-peak electricity costs 1-2 cents/mile vs. about a dime per mile for gasoline. Over a 150k mile vehicle life that's a $12,000 savings. So the "tank+fuel" cost is similar for an EV vs. today's cars. And the EV's fuel comes from domestic sources instead of being imported from a global market controlled by enemy states. The EV can run on low carbon fuels like wind or uranium.

Anne, electricity generation rejects almost the same percentage of primary energy as transportation. EVs won't shrink overall rejected energy by much, just move it to a different part of the chart. You're right about wind's 0.70 quad. They seem to have scaled up actual wind kWhs to be on equal footing with 33%-ish efficient fuels such as coal, natgas, etc. for the "primary energy" column. Same with hydro and (I presume) solar. For Nuclear I think they use actual powerplant thermal energy for the primary energy column.

Actually, Tesla started out with 2-speed to get both a sub-4 0-60 time and an unembarrassing top speed. Despite their "up to 10%" claims, multiple ratios does not provide a large efficiency gain for an electric motor. It could provide a large performance gain in some configurations.

Scaling LiCoO2 cell size up amplifies the chemistry's thermal stability problems. "We'll be looking at a commodity price of about 200 euro/kWh" is a not quite the same as "we are paying......". And of course he ignores the much higher costs for assembly, testing, thermal management, etc. Classic Eberhard. I don't know of any car company other than Tesla using LiCoO2 18650s, and even Tesla went to lithium nickel, but Martin soldiers on. Also, his "we were using 1.4 Ah five years ago" is crap. Here's a Tesla blog from 4 years ago which says their cells were 2.2 Ah. I think even the old Tzero cells were 2.0 Ah. http://www.teslamotors.com/blog2/?p=39

Flywheels are not a solution for off-peak storage, they're way too expensive. They might even be too expensive for frequency regulation, the target of the Beacon test. Of course batteries, even NaS, are not cheap. Phase II of this Xcel test will evaluate cost-effectiveness.

This isn't a pricing issue, it's an issue of where A123 should focus their limited resources. They need volume customers, not token programs which roll out a few cars at press conferences and auto shows. It killed A123 to lose the Volt. They were never in the running for LEAF or Tesla; those guys don't need 4000 cycles. I've always wondered why A123 doesn't OEM starter batteries for sports cars. 30 pounds makes a difference for Porsche, BMW, Lotus, Corvette, Miata, etc.

And effectively that has happened with CFO Liddel's restructuring of the GM debt so that the IPO extinguishes any remaining government loans. Liddell did no debt restructuring. GM used a few billion of the $50b+ in taxpayer money given to them to repay a government loan.

The LEAF is perfect for islands, especially one like Yakushima with a huge hydro resource. Not so sure about Hawaii, which ships in diesel to run generators.

Exxon says they paid 63b in total US taxes from 2005-09. This is not just income tax but also sales tax, severance tax, etc. In other communications Exxon says they did have 2009 US income tax liability but they overpaid in 2008 enough to offset that. The spokesman refused to give any actual numbers, though, so it's hard to tell what's going on. http://www.exxonmobil.com/corporate/energy_issues_taxes.aspx Tax-dodging via offshore subsidiaries is a real problem, but it's not as clear-cut as most clowns in the media and on message boards say. A Norwegian company who operates entirely in Norway will, obviously, pay Norwegian taxes. If GE buys that company should they continue to pay Norwegian taxes? Sure. Should they additionally pay US taxes, just because of a change in ownership? That's what the clowns say. But such double-taxation can create situations where it's mathematically impossible to profit. Simple-minded zealots never consider the absurd implications of their childish world view.

It is absurd to count self-energy as an input. It is certainly true that high self-energy consumption affects emissions, but EROEI is neither designed nor suitable for emission analyses. Reasonable minds will not only disregard this study but any others by this self-discredited group.

I don't remember a big announcement when they cut 2012 production from 60k to 30k units. Was that due to "weak public interest"? I hope the Volt is successful but I'm still dismayed by the $41k price. LEAF plus range-extending trailer rental is looking like a more mainstream solution.

I once thought 100 mile EVs were too limited and that less expensive EREVs would dominate. GM's $41k price tag for the Volt changed my mind. I now see BEVs such as Nissan's $33k LEAF as the best solution, especially once they hit critical mass and range-extending trailer rentals pop up on the outskirts of every city: http://www.evnut.com/rav_longranger.htm

Treehugger, I think you meant every 16 minutes. Assuming an average one-way trip distance of 20 miles at 40 mph and 5 mpg, that's a fleet of 4 trucks (realistically 5 to allow downtime) and 267,000 gallons of diesel per year. A 100m gpy ethanol plant is equivalent to 60m gpy of diesel, so fuel transport usage is only 0.4% of your fuel output. Note that POET's Project Liberty is 125m gpy total but only 25m of that is cellulosic, so the actual cob transport is about 1/4th of these amounts. The dominant energy input is still process heat. The big story with Project Liberty is they burn cob* for heat to distill both their conventional and cellulosic ethanol, almost eliminating fossil fuel use. It's a huge EROEI win. ------------------ *They don't burn cob directly because that wouldn't qualify for massive cellulosic funding. So they make some cellulosic ethanol from the cob then burn the rest to make steam. Combined plant output is 125m gpy, of that 25m is cellulosic and 100m is conventional. I estimate the cobs provide 3-4x more BTUs as process heat than as cellulosic ethanol. I bet their $2.35/gal cellulosic cost includes a credit for process heat. In other words, it actually costs 4.35/gal to make the cellulosic ethanol but the cobs to make each gallon also provide 2 bucks worth of fuel for distillation. So the NET cost of the cellulosic is only 2.35.

5x more efficient. The Volt will use a normal 4 cyl engine to generate electricity. Should be about 35% efficient. So these guys are targeting 175%?

Toppa, this is a hybrid so AER=0. No silly battery leasing schemes, but of course you can lease the battery along with the rest of the car. I really like the twin clutch parallel approach. Unlike Serial (Volt) or PSD (Toyota, Ford, Nissan Altima, etc.) you get the power you pay for: Prius (NHW20): ICE - 57 kW MG1 - 30 kW MG2 - 50 kW ------------ Purchased - 137 kW Delivered - 82 kW Volt: ICE - 53 kW Gen - 53 kW Motor - 111 kW -------------- Purchased - 217 kW Delivered - 111 kW Twin clutch parallel (example): ICE - 100 kW MG - 50 kW ----------- Total - 150 kW Delivered - 150 kW Twin clutch parallel delivers more power to the drive shaft with less money invested in motors and engine. Bingo, we have a winner! Note that Honda's IMA also does this but does not provide EV mode. HSD still has a transmission cost advantage, but this advantage goes away as you become more battery-dominant because a twin-clutch parallel system can downsize or eliminate the transmission.

Jim, despite urban myths to the contrary the Ovonics NIMH patents were licensed widely enough for mass deployment had any OEMs wished to build NIMH EVs. Furthermore, Chevron has no control whatsoever over these patents today -- Samsung and Bosch bought Cobasys a few months ago. In a rational world this development would finally kill the "we'd all be driving wonderful NIMH EVs if not for the evil oil company who keeps the patents buried" meme. But of course mere facts are powerless to overcome the appeal of a convenient conspiracy theory.

Sulleny, the main Rowan researcher was doing "hydrino" work with Blacklight more than a decade ago, back when they said they had a working device and would commercialize it in six months or so. Also, Blacklight funded these "independent" verifications.

Yeah, that's why everyone I know quit using cell phones. Plugging in all the time was just too much hassle.