About a year ago, Maxwell Technologies told the world about the Chinese government using its ultracapacitors in various official vehicles. Another July brings another announcement, and so we learn that the city of Milan, Italy will soon be using Maxwell's ultracap modules in its hybrid and electric buses. The 125-volt BOOSTCAP ultracapacitor modules will store energy from the bus' brakes and then spit it back out for torque assist when the driver steps on the accelerator. Overhead electric lines or a diesel generator will supply the rest of the energy needed to move the public transit vehicles. Milan has ordered 70 buses from Vossloh Kiepe and Van Hool and will soon take deliver of the first 15. More details after the break.

[Source: Maxwell Technologies Inc.]

Like Indiana Jones and some sort of Ark or Tomb or Crystal Skull, today's automotive engineers are always looking for better ways to capture, store and release electrical energy for future hybrids and EVs. Green Car Congress says that GM is "actively exploring" at combining supercapacitors with li-ion batteries for the next generation of E-Flex vehicles (read: don't expect in the 2010 Volt). Speaking at the Advanced Automotive Battery Conference (AABC) this week in Tampa, Forida, GM's Mark Verbrugge - the materials and processes lab director - said that a supercap/li-ion combo might help not only with capturing excess power but also with the trouble li-ion batteries have in cold weather. What the battery gives up in power density might be made up for in a lower operating temperature. GCC quotes Verbrugge saying:

We're running the Volt power versus time profile through this combination with and without the supercaps. We wanted to show it [the early work], perhaps it will be compelling to those who want to provide ESS [energy storage system] to the automotive industry.

Compelling? Yes.

[Source: Green Car Congress, h/t to Paul]

While batteries make most of the headlines when it comes to the energy storage requirements of electric cars, the capacitor could be an exciting and viable alternative. Unlike batteries, which store chemical energy and make it available for use as electrical energy, capacitors store energy in the electric field between a pair of conductors. Supercapacitors, or ultracapacitors, are currently being developed which could rival batteries in the amount of energy that they can store. Whether capacitors see use as part of a hybrid drivetrain or as the sole source of electricity for a pure electric vehicle, we expect to see them make a dent in the automotive sector as the future unfolds. Then again, we've been expecting some news on this front for a while (EESTOR, anyone?), so we might have to keep waiting.

Check out Number 3.

The most important part of an electric or hybrid vehicle is often said to be the battery. With all the breakthroughs in energy storage and the emergence of new companies, it can be a difficult field to keep up with. If you are a potential investor or just a curious onlooker you might be interested in how Mike Millikin has graded what he believes to be the top dozen companies in the field.

In a three-part article for EnergyTechStocks.com, the founder and editor of the informative Green Car Congress hands out report cards for the leading battery and ultra-capacitor companies out there today. All the big battery names you read about on AutoblogGreen are represented as well as the secretive EEStor ultra-capacitor folks and impressive upstarts like Valence. While nobody gets an "F," Mike pulls no punches with a frank assessment of each. We thinks he is pretty much "on the money" but if he's slipped up, we are sure you'll let us know.

[Source: EnergyTechStocks.com]

Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a new type of capacitor which allows up to seven times the electrical storage potential as standard capacitors available today. The breakthrough apparently is a polymer called PVDF which can act as a high-performance dielectric, which is an insulating material between two metal surfaces. Electricians are used to using a dielectric grease on electrical connections, so this may be a familiar concept to some of our readers.

This is good news for the electric and hybrid car industry, as capacitors are a possible alternative to batteries. Unlike batteries, which use a chemical reaction to release their stored energy, capacitors use no chemicals and are capable of storing and releasing a given amount of energy quickly. The problem is that capacitors generally store less energy than batteries. This potential, but untested breakthrough could alleviate some of that deficiency, allowing the capacitor to store more energy while still enabling that energy to be charged and discharged rapidly. EEStor is a name that has been thrown around on our blogs, as they claim to have a capacitor based system which rivals expensive batteries in power output, and possibly at less cost. We'll keep our ears and eyes open for more capacitor news, and we'll be sure to pass it along.

[Source: Science Daily, thanks to Matt for the tip]

There's been lots of speculation about the EESTOR ultracapacitor and just what kind of impact - if any - it will have on the hybrid and all-electric vehicle market. Just look below at the list of stories we've run in the past on the EESTOR and ZENN, which is the vehicle company the EESTORs are destined for. With so much already unknown, why don't we introduce another ultracapacitor into the mix, this one made by the Canadian company EPOD. EPOD's ultracapacitor "can be manufactured for small scale applications like cellular phones or larger scale applications such as batteries for Hybrid Motor Vehicles and Wind Mills," according to EV World.

Recently, EPOD "received approval for a $300,000 grant from the government of Canada for further development on the revolutionary new battery that it has been developing for the last two years in conjunction with the Molecular Mechatronics Lab in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of British Columbia," EV World writes. The predicted capabilities are astounding: charge it in less than a minutes and a lifetime of full cycles in excess of 100,000 times. We'll see how much of this is real sometime down the road.

Related:

• Zenn buys into ultra capacitor company EEStor
• More on EEstor's ultracapacitor - can we believe the hype?
• Quick update on EEStor and ZENN Motors
• EDTA Conference: Secret effects of EESTOR ultracapacitor info from ZENN Motor CEO
• Feel Good Cars wants EEStor technology by 2008

[Source: EPOD via EV World]

Ecotality, who bill themselves as a researcher, inventor, developer, acquirer, and licensor of proprietary green energy technologies, has partnered up with the Arizona Public Services (APS) to produce the ECObus, a mobile classroom for promoting hydrogen technologies. The 31-seat, zero-emissions vehicle is designed to educate the public about the benefits of hydrogen as a renewable alternative to petroleum fuels.

The ECObus is itself a hydrogen fuel-cell powered vehicle which runs on a hybrid system of three HyPM 65 Fuel-Cell power modules producing 180 kW / 241 hp combined with 720 volts of ultracapacitors to achieve the peak power requirements of 350 kW / 469 hp. Top speed is 55 mph / 90 km/h and range is 4 hours at full power via its hydrogen fuel storage capacity of 45 kg.

Analysis: The term "hydrogen economy" is starting to filter into the mainstream but many people are still unaware of how the entire system works from start to end. Education campaigns are sure to improve adoption rates of such new technologies as people become aware of how much cleaner and more environmentally friendly hydrogen is compared to petroleum fuels.

Related:

• Ballard gets fuel cell bus service contract from Mercedes-Benz
• O2Diesel's ethanol-diesel blend will be used in school buses in South Dakota
• Another on-demand hydrogen system being developed by high-end companies

[Source: Ecotality via H2 Daily]

Maxwell is already pushing out its newly-released Heavy Duty Transportation module (HTM) 390-volt Boostcap ultracapacitor to industrial and transportation markets including for use in a number of hybrid city buses being rolled out in California. The HTM 390 has been designed to provide scalable, easy-to-integrate, energy storage and power delivery solutions of up to 1,170 volts for heavy duty electrical systems and hybrids. Margery Conner over at EDN had a test drive on one the new buses and was impressed with the smooth acceleration of the new hybrid powertrain.

Petrol-electric hybrid buses are being road tested in parts of California as a direct alternative to traditional diesel engines. While oil burners are far more fuel efficient than petrol vehicles, they have a bad reputation on the emissions front, especially with NOx emissions - a real concern in many large, Californian cities. The petrol-electric hybrid powertrain returns only slightly better fuel efficiency than a diesel engine - 5 mpg versus 3 to 5 mpg - but harmful emissions are hugely reduced. This has led ISE, the bus hybrid electro-mechanical subsystem contractor, towards utilising a series hybrid model where the engine drives a generator that produces electricity to run the electric motors driving the wheels. For Grover City, the flat terrain suits the petrol-electric hybrid, whereas in hilly Oakland, the hybrid buses will use fuel-cells instead of an electric motor.

Analysis: Using a series hybrid configuration is a good idea to allow the engine to be swapped out for different models or fuel-cells or the like. I think they should be giving a modern clean diesel configuration a go, though, to get the best of both worlds. Especially if they could run it on biodiesel.

Related:

• New 125-volt Boostcap ultracapacitor introduced by Maxwell Technologies
• DOE & USDA study proves biodiesel massively reduces dangerous emissions
• AFVI Show: Ways to save billions of gallons of fuel at the nation's airports

[Source: EDN.com]

ZENN Motors vehicle at the EDTA Conference last November

More details have emerged about EEStor's ambitious ultracapacitor electrochemical battery replacement technology. EEStor sees applications for their Electrical Energy Storage Units (EESU) in everything from hybrid-electric and pure-electric vehicles, to laptop computers, to utility-scale electricity storage. Based on barium-titanate powders, the units are supposed to dramatically outperform the best lithium-ion batteries on the market in terms of energy density, price, charge time, and safety. And since capacitors don't require chemical processes to store power, EEStor said in its patent, the materials the company uses are safer and more environmentally friendly.

Ultracapacitors store energy in an electrical field between two closely spaced conductors, or plates, upon which an electric charge builds when voltage is applied. Unlike traditional electrochemical batteries, ultracapacitors can completely store and release a charge quickly and indefinitely over many cycles. Where they don't compete though is energy storage; here lithium-ion batteries can store 25 times more specific energy - the amount of energy in a given unit of mass.

Most research into increasing the charge that can be stored by the plates has focused on ways to increase the surface area. Last year, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said it was working on hugely increasing the plate surface area by researching plates made of microscopic nanotubes.

Up until now, ultracapacitors, have been used in conjunction with traditional batteries to more fully harness the regenerative energy created in sudden bursts by braking activity with their ability to release quick jolts of electricity. Their characteristics are ideal for maximising efficiency in stop-start city driving. Ultracapacitor manufacturer Maxwell Technologies has been able to capitalise on this strategy in their 125-volt BoostCap ultracapacitor module.

EEStor's EESU, a ceramic ultracapacitor with a barium-titanate dielectric, or insulator, is claimed to break free of the traditional limitations of small energy storage found in other ultracapacitors. Apparently they have achieved an exceptionally high specific energy and permittivity - the ability of an substance to store electrical energy in an electric field. Normally an ultracapacitor has a permittivity rating of 20 to 30, compared to the claimed EESU rating of 18,500 plus. As you can imagine, such claims have raised questions amongst experts who hold concerns that such ceramic materials can survive and function properly in vehicle applications.

In an interview with Technology Review, Jim Miller, vice president of advanced transportation technologies at Maxwell Technologies said, "We're skeptical, number one, because of leakage. Meaning, if you leave it parked overnight it will discharge, and you'll have to charge it back up in the morning."

In the same article, Andrew Burke, an expert on energy systems for transportation at University of California at Davis said, "I have no doubt you can develop that kind of [ceramic] material, and the mechanism that gives you the energy storage is clear, but the first question is whether it's truly applicable to vehicle applications."

ZENN Motor Company is reported to be getting first access to EEStor's EESU technology for use in their Low Speed Vehicles.

Maxwell Technologies meanwhile has just announced that they are forging ahead with their technology and have received a purchase order for 100,000 square meters / 1,076,400 square feet of proprietary ultracapacitor electrode material from a licensee, Shanghai Sanjiu Electric Equipment Co. This will allow Sanjiu Electric to launch a new ultracapacitor product line based on Maxwell's Cell Architecture for transportation, utility and industrial markets in mainland China.

Mr. Hong Yuan Shuai, Chairman and CEO of Sanjiu Electric parent company, the Ruihua Group, said that Sanjiu Electric has already produced and delivered a variety of prototype electric and hybrid buses, trucks and other vehicles powered by drive systems combining batteries and Maxwell BoostCap ultracapacitors for energy storage and regenerative braking.

Analysis: The EESU prospects are exciting, but I think Maxwell's use of ultracapacitors in regenerative breaking applications is probably a better choice for vehicular applications at this point. Where EEStor's products could open up a sizeable lead over the opposition though is in the area of military, direct-energy "ray-gun" weapons. Personally, I'll just stick with better fuel economy in stop-start traffic.

Related:

• Quick update on EEStor and ZENN Motors
• EDTA Conference: Secret effects of EESTOR ultracapacitor info from ZENN Motor CEO

[Source: Technology Review]

If you have been following AutoblogGreen for a while, you are familiar with EEstor, Inc., a company that has been working on an ultracapacitor power source that has gotten a lot of press in green circles. ZENN Motor Company is reported to be getting first access to the technology, and as we reported in November, this new power source will allow ZENN to quadruple their range, add high-speed charging to their Low Speed Vehicles (LSVs), look at a high-speed platform and make a highway-ready vehicle.

Not a lot has been said since then, but I found a new announcement over on Treehugger.

Here are some highlights from president and CEO Richard Weir:

• EEStor has been awarded a critical patent related to their technology
• 12 additional patents are pending
• They have built a state-of-the-art facility and added new talent
• They remain on track to begin shipping production 15 kilowatt-hour Electrical Energy Storage Units to ZENN Motor Company in 2007

"The production EESU for ZENN Motor Company will function to specification in operating environments as severe as negative 20 to plus 65 degrees Celsius, will weigh less than 100 pounds, and will have ability to be recharged in a matter of minutes."

They hype continues. Let's see what they deliver.

Related:

• EDTA Conference: Secret effects of EESTOR ultracapacitor info from ZENN Motor CEO
• Feel Good Cars wants EEStor technology by 2008
• Zenn EV coming to America in late July

[Source: Marketwire via Treehugger}

At the end of the day yesterday, I snagged a few minutes with ZENN Motor Company CEO Ian Clifford by the EDTA Conference refreshments table and posed the question that Darin left in the comments when I asked what readers wanted to know more about: what's up with this secretive EESTOR ultracapacitor?

Clifford didn't spill all the beans to AutoblogGreen (not enough truth serum on that table), but he did tell us some things that really whets our appetites for more information. The EESTOR technology is something totally new, it "just doesn't exist" right now. It's not lithium-ion or a chemical based battery (it's a solid state ultracapacitor). It is "a significant breakthrough." These tidbits we already knew (see these posts on The Fraser Domain and TreeHugger), but what's less known is how the EESTOR technology will change ZENN.

For one thing, Clifford said, this new power source will allow ZENN to quadruple the range and introduce high-speed charging to their Low Speed Vehicles (LSVs). ZENN will also be able to seriously look at a high-speed platform and make a highway-ready vehicle if the technology is as good as the hushed rumors suggest. Clifford said using EESTOR's tech would add less $1,000 to the cost of a ZENN car and return performance that rivals an ICE. ZENN also has dibs on the technology.

"We have exclusivity in the technology as well up to a 1,400 kilo curb weight, so that's a five-passenger mid-size vehicle and smaller," Clifford said, adding that ZENN has worldwide exclusivity to convert ICE cars to EESTOR electric vehicles.

But why take my word for it? You can hear Clifford yourself in this five-minute MP3 (about 1MB).

And Devin, I've got more information on another all-electric vehicle at the show, the Silverado EV conversion. That'll be up later today. In the meantime, what do you all think of the EESTOR tech? Is it another Segway, or a possible reinvention of the wheel?

Automotive DesignLine reports on a hybrid bus design by ISE Corporation which incorporates ultra capacitors. What are these ultra capacitors, and why are they needed in a hybrid vehicle? Regenerative braking, the key to the increase in fuel economy of hybrids, allows a vehicle to recapture and store part of the kinetic energy that would otherwise be lost to heat when braking. We’ve all been stuck on or behind the city bus while it is making frequent stops, and you can imagine the tremendous potential to capture all this braking energy with a hybrid electric drivetrain. This scenario sounds great in theory, but current battery technology doesn’t necessarily allow us to implement it in the most optimal way. One major drawback of current batteries is their limited ability to capture and regenerate energy during braking and to provide bursts of high power during short duration events. You can only push electrical energy in to a battery at a specific rate, and you can only draw it out at a specific rate.  These rates are often too slow to capture all the braking energy from the constant brake-acceleration cycles of a heavy city bus.

One possible solution to this problem is the use of ultra capacitors to complement the battery performance. An ultra capacitor is an electrochemical capacitor that has an unusually large amount of energy storage capability relative to its size when compared to regular capacitors. These ultra capacitors perform well in cold weather, have a long life-cycle, have a higher efficiency than batteries, have a high power output, and can effectively capture energy from braking. They probably won’t be seen on smaller vehicles any time soon, since the problem is more critical with heavier vehicles. I really have no idea how expensive these are, but I assume their are cost issues as well.

[Source: Automotive DesignLine]