Opening speaker at Electric Vehicles Land Sea Air USA 2012 in San Jose California March 27-28, Raghu Das of leading analysts IDTechEx says, Unlike other events, we delight in slaying the myth that most of the market value is in cars. Only our events and publications reflect the market split over the next ten years where cars will be important but well under 50% of the market value and the part where most participants go to the wall and there is m...

By Dr Peter Harrop, Chairman, IDTechEx In this article, we share some of the research carried out for the new IDTechEx report, Electric Vehicle Industry Profitability 2012 - Where, Why, What Next - vehicles & components, hybrid & pure electric, land, water, air, winning strategies, forecasts. (www.IDTechEx.com/EVprofit)

BAE Systems and Caterpillar Inc. have signed a long-term supply agreement to collaborate on an energy efficient parallel hybrid propulsion system for heavy-duty trucks. Under the 20-year agreement, BAE Systems will integrate the Cat CX family of transmissions into its HybriDrive parallel propulsion system, and will establish an aftermarket field services model leveraging Caterpillar's vast global service network to support the growing installed b...

The pre-commercial trial for the first Wireless Electric Vehicle Charging (WEVC) trial for London is expected to start in early 2012 and will involve as many as 50 electric vehicles (EVs). It is a UK and industry-leading initiative. Qualcomm is collaborating with the UK Government, as well as the Mayor of London's office and Transport for London (TfL) to deliver the trial. The trial will use Qualcomm wireless inductive power transfer technology t...

The converter to change AC to the necessary DC to charge an electric vehicle typically wastes 5-10% of power, whether it is located in the vehicle or in the charging station. It is not exactly green to add inductive charging which wastes a further 5-20% but very attractive operationally because the driver stays safe and clean in the vehicle. This inductive charging brings principle of the electric toothbrush to the car and about 30 companies are ...

This article shares some of the research carried out for the latest in the series of 18 IDTechEx reports on electric vehicles and their components. The report is Electric Vehicle Industry Profitability 2012 - Where, Why, What Next.

More and more giant corporations are buying into printed electrics by acquiring companies partly or wholly in the field. The world's second largest chemical company Dow bought Rohm & Haas (materials), 3M bought into Printechnologics (printed patterns read by mobile phones) and DuPont bought Innovalight (nanosilicon layers to increase photovoltaic efficiency). Now there is interest in traction batteries for electric vehicles, where the third gener...

The European Investment Bank (EIB) recently granted a EUR 180 million loan to the Renault Group to contribute to R&D for a new generation of batteries and motors for electric vehicles. This is a large-scale project in technological and environmental terms, to which the Bank adds value through its technical and financial expertise. EIB Vice-President Philippe de Fontaine Vive and Dominique Thormann, Financial Director of the Renault Group, today s...

PowerGenix, a developer and manufacturer of Nickel-Zinc (NiZn) batteries is entering a joint venture with China City Construction Corporation (CCCC), one of the largest infrastructure investment and development companies in China. In the near term, the JV will develop, manufacture and sell advanced batteries for the automotive market and other markets, including markets supporting grid-scale applications.

With the launch of the WattStation, GE continues a century of innovation in the design and manufacturing of electrical distribution systems. GE's WattStation enables fast Level 2 charging at home and on the road. The modular design by renowned industrial designer Yves Behar is upgradable as more communication options become available. This allows customers to stay current with the latest technology in a rapidly changing space, while providing the...

2011 turned out to be a very interesting year for energy harvesting, full of scientific advances, technology breakthroughs and new product developments. IDTechEx predicts that the trend is set to continue, with further developments expected in 2012, along with expansion of commercialization efforts which will push energy harvesting adoption forward. By Dr. Harry Zervos, Technology Analyst

They have a saying in India that the British Empire is coming back - only the headquarters will be in New Delhi this time. Tata Group of India bought Corus - formerly British Steel. Tata Steel Europe is now developing a revolutionary technology to use solar electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen for fuel cells. Subsidiary Tata Motors, the largest motor company in India, bought Jaguar Land Rover for a mere one billion dollars from For...

The U.S. Department of Energy have granted more than $7 million to fund four projects in California, Washington and Oregon to advance hydrogen storage technologies to be used in fuel cell electric vehicles.

Charging electric cars without an electric cable - how does that work? Daimler AG is about to test inductive charging for the first time on a vehicle in everyday use in the form of a technically modified Mercedes-Benz A-Class E-CELL. With the inductive charging principle, an electric car fitted with a special charging coil merely has to be positioned over a charging coil in the ground to start the charging process fully automatically, with no ne...

At end of November, IDTechEx held the world's largest printed electronics and photovoltaics conference and tradeshow in Silicon Valley at the Santa Clara Convention Center. This show brought together more than 1300 attendees from 28 countries. Players active across the entire value chain were present; covering the full range from research organisations to end-users, and from small start-ups to multi-billion internationals.

IDTechEx's Printed Electronics/Photovoltaics Europe 2012 event will be the largest gathering of end users discussing their needs and experiences with the technology. The show will feature end user applications broken down into different verticals to provide vital end user pull-through. Confirmed speakers include: Americhip (American Greetings), Applied Materials, Braun, Mars, Metro Stores, NREL, Panasonic, Schneider Electric, ST Microelectronics,...

There are many reasons for creating an electric vehicle charging station based on a large battery.

Energy harvesting comes to the fore with electric vehicles because the price they pay for being environmental and exhibiting many performance advantages is that they have limited energy available. In and on these vehicles, the energy snatched from heat, light, movement and other sources may be milliwatts or less to drive wireless sensors and actuators, watts for self sufficient lighting clusters (still in development) or - the main focus - up to ...

Elaphe is a startup in Slovenia that has just demonstrated axial flux, permanent magnet synchronous traction motors of unusually high power-to-weight and torque-to-weight ratio.

Fuel cell manufacturer Plug Power plans to join forces with Axane, an Air Liquide subsidiary, to create a joint venture to meet growing demand for GenDrive fuel cell products across the European material handling market.