Energy independent electric vehicles (EIVs) vary from the new Inergy boat entirely driven by a 70kW vertical wind turbine to the autonomous solar aircraft flying at 60,000 feet for five years on sunshine alone.

We have had a feast of lithium-ion batteries as the number of manufacturers has doubled to 200 and pure electric cars have been late in arriving. Now that will change even with the gigafactories.

The third Future Powertrain conference was a great event with about 400 delegates and a total of 35 table exhibitors. The summary of the presentations given during the FPC2016 are discussed here.

The electric bus market is growing at a CAGR of 20% in terms of unit sales. The rapid growth is a game changer for the battery market as electric buses require large-sized batteries ranging from 74 kWh (fast charging e-bus) to over 300 kWh (slow charging e-bus). This is why IDTechEx Research forecasts that the e-bus battery market will overtake the consumer electronics sector by 2020.

Analyst IDTechEx helps start-ups by letting them exhibit free in its big shows such as the forthcoming "IDTechEx Show!" in Berlin April 27-28 with over 150 exhibitors, over 2500 paying delegates and eight parallel conferences, two of them strongly featuring high power energy harvesting both from ambient energy and by recuperation in vehicles.