Renewables

Jaguar Land Rover has unveiled its XJ_e engineering research vehicle at the Goodwood Festival of Speed – an experimental plug-in hybrid version of its luxury Jaguar XJ saloon, powered by Axeon. The battery provides the Jaguar XJ_e with a range of up to 40 km (25 miles) on electric power.

Elektromotive Limited, Europe’s leading provider of electric vehicle (EV) charge points, is to create the UK’s largest pay-as-you-go, ‘open source’ network of public access charging stations for EVs, based upon the development of its proven pay-by-phone technology.

Next-generation electric motors for low carbon emission vehicles are the target of a new collaborative research programme to be led by Cobham Technical Services. The project, ‘Rapid Design and Development of a Switched Reluctance Traction Motor’, will also involve partners Jaguar Land-Rover and engineering consultancy Ricardo UK, and is co-funded by the Technology Strategy Board.

Toyota Motorsport GmbH (TMG) will demonstrate its high-performance electric powertrain technology on one of North America's most demanding motorsport events; the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in Colorado on 8 July.

Most of us appreciate and take steps to mitigate the risk faced in our daily commute; well if you are reading this you mostly have been successful - well so far. You have just filled up and are ready to go, but a risk is lurking; No, not stop signs, speed traps nor that meandering drunk, but Cancer caused by yet another invisible agent: diesel exhaust fumes.

Fisker launched its hybrid sports car very late and its battery supplier A123 Systems has had quality problems necessitating an expensive major recall in stark contrast to the professionalism at Tesla, the pioneer in successful electric sports cars (though Tesla did recall 439 of its electric sports cars because of a possible fire hazard involving the 12-volt electrical system in 2010). An earlier Fisker recall this year concerned a software malf...

Kaneka and imec report a large area (6 inch semi-square) heterojunction silicon solar cell with a certified (by Fraunhofer ISE CalLab) power conversion efficiency of 22.68% with an electroplated copper contact grid on top of the transparent conductive oxide layer. This breakthrough is achieved at Kaneka Osaka lab using Kaneka’s copper electroplating technology which is based on imec’s state-of-the-art copper electroplating knowhow.

ROHM, in collaboration with Ritsumeikan University and Information Services International – Dentsu, Ltd., recently announced Guidepost Cell, a unique indoor location detection infrastructure that supplies highly precise positional data to smartphones and other mobile devices to determine a user’s location inside buildings, underground malls and other interior areas using low-power 802.11-compliant wireless beacon protocol.

Intersil Corporation today introduced a new green hybrid digital, dual PWM controller that is compliant with Intel’s VR12/IMVP7 specification. The ISL6367 incorporates a 6-phase PWM to control the microprocessor core or memory voltage regulator and a single-phase peripheral PWM voltage regulator for graphics, system agent or processor I/O.

SEHO Systems GmbH debuting the new PowerWave N2 with the SEHO tunnel concept for reduced nitrogen and energy consumption. The PowerWave N2 is equipped with a closed tunnel system. The special design of the stainless steel tunnel results in low nitrogen consumption. The innovative tunnel insulation ensures very high energy efficiency, a clear advantage for production costs.