Formula One racing gave us the disk brake and more recently led to 60,000 rpm energy harvesting flywheels on London buses. No one planned to make a London bus look like a Formula One racing car but the bus people saw their future in racing technology.
Energy independent electric vehicles show the future
So it will be with energy independent electric vehicles (EIVs), subject of the new IDTechEx report, "Energy Independent Vehicles 2016-2026". It is not that buses, planes or boats will look like the pancake-shaped solar racers crossing 3000 kilometers of Australia on nothing but sunshine but the extreme lightweighting including solar panels as structural electronics has much to teach them. Read the IDTechEx report, "Structural Electronics 2015-2025: Applications, Technologies, Forecasts". Look at the Immortus concept car with a high "perpetual" speed. Its seven square meters of high- efficiency structural solar could give 2 kW. Power stored from that and a pop-up wind generator when parked could give plenty of night time traction.
For many land vehicles, dynamic wireless charging is a vital next step in the direction of energy independence. In Japan, TDK has a demonstration of a single person micro EV that effectively runs forever picking up power by dynamic contactless charging. Indeed, around the campus of KAIST University in Korea a large bus does just that using coils in the road. Those are precursors of powerful vehicles that gather all their own electricity from ambient energy such as wind and sunshine. Dynamic contactless charging can be fed at extremely low cost by roadside power generating kites and tethered autonomous tricopters each garnering 100 kW. Add solar roads and solar sound barriers. All have been demonstrated and they are now being optimised.
More motor, less battery and mechanics
Of course, the equally important aspect is increasing the efficiency and functionality of vehicle power trains. That is achieved by such things as two traction motors instead of one. This is coming in fast for EVs by land, water and air. Reasons include efficiency such as one for acceleration and one for top speed and redundancy for military and rescue vehicles. Then there is in-wheel requirements and four wheel drive all pushing the industry to spend more of the vehicle cost on motors as batteries come down in price and mechanics get bypassed. The IDTechEx reports, "Electric Motors for Hybrid and Pure Electric Vehicles 2015-2025: Land, Water, Air" and "Power Electronics for Electric Vehicles 2015-2025" give more.
Unique event sees the future
On November 18-19 the IDTechEx conference, "Electric Vehicles: Everything is Changing" will be a key part of "IDTechEx Show!" in Santa Clara California and those attending also have many Masterclasses to choose from on November 17 and 20 as well as the 250 stand exhibition covering enabling technologies, mostly applicable to EVs and attended by over 3000 paying delegates. It majors on future powertrain, battery and wireless technology and the progress to energy independent vehicles that will benefit all EVs. Do your benchmarking here.
Franco Gonzalez of IDTechEx will cover the progress of traction motors and indeed all rotating traction machines in EVs including the torque assist reversing alternators (TARA) for mild hybrids building on the remarkable gains from supercapacitor stop-start in microhybrids. He will include the rapid global move to 48V for these vehicles though true EVs are now going up even beyond 700V in some cases for efficiency reasons. Harman covers the future of electronics in vehicles. Shed the blinkers and come and see the future.
