Electric Cars


2021, the list of the most read posts on Automotive Space

11 Years of AUTOMOTIVE SPACE and also this year we publish the list of most read posts! I chose to publish the 10 most read posts to understand what is more interesting for our readers and give a list of posts, to the readers, that the Community deem worthy of being read. Automotive Space is on line since 11 years (with about 290 posts issued); please, contact us ([email protected]) if you...

Hybrid and electric cars and the return to… the past

Electric Cars
We now have got used to reading about hybrid and electric cars. We also begin to know more about it, about the declared potential and also the real ones. We are told that the future of mobility is the electric car, the hybrid car is the transition and having doubts about this means being a retrograde polluter. Notwithstanding reading about hybrid and electric cars and their performance it really seems...

What do Toyoda, Fehrenbach and Vettel have in common? The good sense!

Toyoda, Fehrenbach, Vettel
In recent weeks, the statements of three people considered – rightly – serious and followed have gone almost unnoticed. Akyo Toyoda is President of Toyota and also President of the Association of Japanese Automobile Manufacturers Franz Fehrenbach is Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Bosch, one of the leading manufacturers of automotive components. Sebastian Vettel needs no introduction It...

Covid 19. At the recovery, will the transport system be the same?

Corona virus
I don’t want to be one of those, too many, who pontificate how the Covid 19 will change the world. Allow me, however, to express a couple of considerations about how, at the end of this stage of restrictions, our behaviour and those around us will change. Let’s start from the car and its use. Until yesterday, the general policy of governments and local administrators was to discourage the...

Coronavirus and the three points of no return for the automotive

One of the fields, which will be more affected from the Coronavirus, is, with any doubt, the heavy industry and, among them, in Europe the automotive. The whole supply chain is suffering the consequences of a sudden collapse in the final demand; the recovery won’t be immediate at all simply because the EU market is a substitutional one and therefore the demand curve is very elastic to negative...

The world in electric is revolutionizing the nautical too

It seems there is no doubt, they way we’ll move in the future must be electric; convinced or not, everyone is going in this direction. Legislators, media, car dealers and marketing offices have started down a road, which seems with no return but, if you think it involves the automotive field only, you are wrong. It seems the yachting sector and the commercial shipping have made the same choice. Autonomy...

What do I have to expect if I choose an electric car?

evs
We have finally reached the third type of  “alternative” power source, currently offered by OEMs on the market. After the well known sources, that is LPG and CNG, I examined the various type of “hybrid power source“, in three specific posts whose links you will find at the end of this article. In this new post I tried to outline the characteristic elements of power supply in...

What do I have to expect if I choose a hybrid car? (Parallel/series)

The last post about cars with hybrid engine will focus on one of my projects, but never place on the market, when I worked at the Fiat planning department. The only vehicle with a parallel/series hybrid propulsion, produced and tested on the road, was the Fiat Multipla Hybrid. Produced in ten copies, and destined for the City of Naples in the context of the Atena Project (The Telematic Traffic Environment...

What do I have to expect if I choose a hybrid car? (Hybrid series)

supercapacitor
In this search for the perfect engine for our daily needs, we will now focus on the second type of hybrid; the hybrid series. Also in the hybrid series we have two motors, thermal and electric but, unlike the parallel, it is the electric motor that is always connected to the driving wheels; the thermal engine connected to a generator produces energy wich will go both to the electric traction motor...

What do I have to expect if I choose a hybrid car? (Parallel hybrid)

hybrid
After the posts about the CNG and LPG engines, let’s focus on the hybrid cars and their advantages. Hybrid vehicles use multiple traction energy generation systems (they normally combine a thermal and an electric power unit), combined with a system to recover energy during slowing down and braking. Hybrid cars can be classified into three types: PARALLEL HYBRID Thermal engine and electric motor...

Electric cars: ready for camping?

electric-cars
Do we have everything? Sleeping bag? Gas stove? Pile? Anti mosquitos? Fans? Suited clothes for winter and summer? In a few words everything you need for a basic camping, we should have and use it at home if we will buy an electric car. You may thing that the hot had got on top of me but no, my friends, the engineers Roberto Barbiero, Ivan Maio and me are ready to sustain what may seem a paradox. If...

The list of the most read posts of 2016 on Automotive Space

automotive
Also this year we like to publish the list of most read posts of Automotive Space. You can see there are more differences from the last post on the most read posts in 2015. For this reason we can confirm that Automotive Space doesn’t aim the last news. Unfortunately from one year we are publishing a fewer number of post because we haven’t abroad correspondents…be patient; we are working...

The electric car and the CO2 emission

The electric car and the CO2 emission
More and more the “world wide” politics promotes the development and production of electric cars, shown as a possibility, at least for the mobility, to reduce the pollution. Consequently, car manufacturers are working hard to offer electric vehicles, but I wonder: What certainties have we that electric cars really affect the overall CO2 reduction and what doubts have we still to solve? It is true...

Automotive factories, back to the roots?

Fiat-509
We must get over it: the automobile, as we lived it, will disappear. Today we look with curiousness at former cars, which actually were carriages to which had been applied an engine, in a few years we will look at recent cars as something incredibly old. We have grown – we who are not so young anymore – with the myth of the horse power and the sportsmanship, then we knew the qualities of...

Luxury brand have been trouble with the strange sore… Tesla!

2015-tesla-model-s
I must say first of all that: the electric car fascinates me, I like its way to move without vibrations and with little noise. The electric engine seems to me elegant, with its round components which just rotate, almost without tremors. The efficiency is a byproduct of this elegance, with its 85/90% outclasses any internal combustion engine for automotive applications and it is comparable only to highly...

Electric hybrid vehicles and their consumptions

auto ibride
For all of us, the electric hybrid vehicles and the electric pure ones by now mean reduction in consumption and therefore less CO2 emissions and more environmental protection, even if there are conflicting opinions because of the damages caused from the extraction of metals needed to build electric motors (see the post ‘Interview to professor Ivan Maio of the Polytechnic in Turin‘). Electric...

9th survey by AS. EV car registrations are still very low, why?

electric vehicles
EV car registrations are still very low, why? 91 votes: Is the Automotive Professional tired because of the warm? A topic that has been already dealt with … or is it uninteresting? Who knows! But the fact remains that the votes, deliberately collected among a large set of selections in order to have opinions and ideas from different points of view, finally can be categorized only in 3 thematic...

Pure electric vehicles and the heat/electric hybrid ones

auto elettriche
More and more frequently we attend the launch of new pure and hybrid electric cars or heat/electric ones, so it comes naturally to wonder: what is the differences of the product they offer and for what types of use? To better understand the products offered and their characteristics, I asked a friend and true expert on the subject for help, Ing. Roberto Barbiero, a career dedicated to car design with...

The China gives up the electrics and the Europe just watches

EVs
Two months ago I published one post dealing with selling data and the evolution, over the last years, of the electric cars in Europe. To avoid of causing useless wars, I limited to reporting market data (ACEA) and to suggesting how to read them analytically and how to contextualize them. But in private, someone wanted to charge me with provincialism, saying for instance: “…Pietro, but the...

China is near. Its not a film: it’s reality!

China
Considering that the European car market is restarting, with exciting business opportunities at the horizon. Assuming that some Chinese carmakers “stepped on the gas” in the international arena, and are seeking for western commercial partners. Admitting that in China the development of new automobiles & vans runs at speeds fivefold compared to our. Established that the world leader...

The electric cars in EU in 2014: it was established their failure

Electric Cars
This “European” post is originated from some considerations after more years of incentives and more millions of euro thrown away because of the electric. Here, for ex., are the italian data (this blog was born in Italy): 1,104 sales of EV cars, in 2014, of which 246 sold to private (UNRAE data). Essentially in Italy the 0,08% of the auto market, in 2014, represents electric cars, while if you...

Becoming the Jetsons! CES 2015

CES 2015
  The great international car shows, Geneva, Detroit, Beijing, New Delhi are glittering opportunities to present new cars and boost – thanks to media coverage – the most important sector of the world economy. Between dealers, only a few know that in January ALL the carmakers attended in Las Vegas a trade show which represents the future of the technics applied to everyday life: the...

Interview with Prof. Ivan Maio (Politecnico di Torino – Italy)

Ivan A. Maio
Date of interview: September, 26 2014 Professional profile: Ivan Maio is Professor of Electrical Engineering at the department of Electronics and telecommunications at the Polytechnic of Turin. He conducts research in the areas of circuit theory, signal integrity and electromagnetic compatibility. Always passionate about sports cars. The international scenario about the car fleet foresees an exponential...

Peugeot and Citroen: It’s nice to win easy!

Aulnay
By at least one semester Peugeot and Citroen started a radical transformation of production, managerial, commercial and communication. Talk about the last aspect: the Communication! Money are invested if there is something to communicate and when there are budgets to bind on. Budgets are allocated if there are invoices. Data about Italy and Europe show that there’s turmoil… to put it mildly. From...

The LPG and CNG help you, such as the electrics

gpl
The plan, which foresees about 3,000 LPG fuel stations and 1,000 CNG ones to the end of 2012, is proceeding at a steady pace toward the goal. Actually Fiat Professional has already monitored 3065 LPG points (+40 closed) and 908 CNG points (+8 closed) regularly active (data September 7, 2012). In spite of this, a subtle and insightful enemy, the electric Lobby, which includes several devices in its...

Downsizing inside the automotive: another hoax that vanishes

Downsizing auto
More than two years ago I instilled the doubt about the Downsizing “trend”, which was all the rage inside the automotive, and about the Economics of decline. My argument, with all humility towards leaders and excelled speakers’ opinion (who benefit JUST in saying certain declarations and not thanks the truthfulness, NOW ready to change the repertory of their interventions) was very...

If managers fail the (electric) aims, will they pay?

Renault ZOE
This is a (general) question that a lot of people asked especially in the last few years. For instance they wonder it about the old managing of Alitalia but also about Italian railways company. But here we’re talking about automotive so I don’’t want to digress on it! We have dwelt upon electric car, and upon tales told, a lot both on this blog and on Linkedin. The funny aspect is that nobody...

Leaf, the electric car that recharges your office and not only

Nissan Leaf
What? Electric cars don’t exclusively use energy? Obviously yes, but they swap energy as well, improving, for instance, office consumptions: that’s the experimentation by Nissan in Atsugi (Japan) based on the well-known reversibility properties about electric “machines”. Electric motors, which work as power unit as well, allow the energy recovery whereby electric cars – as Leaf- improve...

Electric Cars, the BMW i3 “case”: when the materials count

BMW i3
Will be the definitive turning point for the electric cars? Hard to believe. What the BMW i3 brings with vehemence to the forefront of the market is, however, a concept of frame optimization result of specific needs and constraints that the electrical architecture imposes. Some considerations can not pass in the background, especially when you put on the scales important elements. It is the first product...

Only one Billion of our Euro for the electric vehicles of Renault

Un miliardo
  After the post regarding the aid to PSA by Hollande, started with fortuitous coincidence the inspection proceeding by the European Community for a possible rules infringement.  As it was predictable politics prevailed and France demonstrated its concept of Europeanism. Do not think, however, that it is an isolated case. Indeed there is, in my view, a real coordination between the individual...