The European electric car boom: Linked with renewable energy

    According to Nikkei Technology Online, the European market, which previously mainly responded to fuel consumption regulations by using diesel engines and reducing displacement, has finally set off a wave of electrification. Led by France's Renault, Germany's BMW and Germany's Volkswagen, and other European automakers have launched pure electric vehicles (EVs), and will also launch plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) in 2014.

    Against this backdrop, the world's largest pure electric vehicle seminar "EVS27" opened in Barcelona, ​​Spain from November 18 to 20, 2013. According to the organizers, this seminar received 541 paper submissions, exceeding the previous seminar "EVS26" held in Los Angeles, USA in 2012, setting a record.

　　The exhibition venue was also unprecedentedly grand, with more than 170 companies participating. Among automobile manufacturers, Volkswagen Group, BMW, Renault and Nissan Motor set up booths. In particular, Volkswagen Group not only exhibited together with Volkswagen and German Porsche, but also its Spanish-based subsidiary SEAT set up a separate booth.

　　SEAT exhibited the EV "e-Mii" and PHEV "LEON PHEV". The e-Mii, like Volkswagen's EV "e-up!", uses an electric system with a 60kW motor and 18.7kWh lithium-ion rechargeable battery. It can travel 160km on a single charge.

　　The hybrid system of the LEON PHEV is the same as the PHEV "A3e-tron" that Audi will launch in 2014. It is equipped with a 75kW motor and an 8.8kWh battery, which can travel 50km in EV mode. However, although the engine is also a 1.4L inline 4-cylinder engine, the maximum output power of the LEON PHEV is 90kW, which is 20kW lower than that of the A3e-tron, so the fuel efficiency is improved.

　　CHAdeMO co-exhibits

　　As European automakers begin to launch EVs, Europe's understanding of fast chargers that can solve the EV "battery exhaustion" problem continues to deepen.

　　At this year's EVS, 14 companies including automobile manufacturers, power companies and fast charger-related manufacturers jointly set up booths around Japan's fast charging standard "CHAdeMO".

　　Europe now has more than 900 CHAdeMO fast chargers, and we hope to increase that to more than 1,000 through the demonstration at this year's EVS.

　　Speaking of fast charging, at the last EVS26, American and German automakers vigorously promoted the standard "Combined Charging System (CCS)" that combines ordinary charging and fast charging connectors in order to compete with CHAdeMO. I thought that the situation of "CCS and CHAdeMO confrontation" would appear at this EVS27, but there was no standard competition. It can be seen that the industry has now realized that no matter what the standard is, the popularization of fast chargers is crucial.

　　Particularly in Europe, there is an increasing trend to make full use of surplus renewable energy, and there is a growing expectation for systems that use surplus electricity to quickly charge EVs or have EVs supply power to the grid when power is scarce.

　　At this year's EVS, IKS Japan exhibited a system that can meet the above needs, which can realize "V2H (vehicle to home)", a charging and discharging system with a storage battery, and can be linked with renewable energy systems such as solar cells. The charging and discharging system consists of a power conditioner that can exchange 10kW of electricity in both directions and a 10.7kWh lithium-ion rechargeable battery system.

　　IKS of Japan has decided to supply this product to ALIR POWERSYSTEMS of Sweden as an OEM and will start selling it in Europe in the spring of 2014.

　　In addition, many companies have released fast chargers that support the CHAdeMO and CCS standards, including German ABB, Spanish CIRCUTOR, Spanish GH ELECTROTERMIA and Portuguese efacec.

　　The above companies have not announced the price, but it is about 20,000 to 25,000 euros. These fast chargers not only support DC fast charging such as CHAdeMO and CCS, but also AC charging. Some fast charger manufacturers believe that "in the future, a simple adapter will be able to support both standards", which shows that the difference in standards is not a big problem.

    Wireless Power Technology

　　In terms of EV charging, Qualcomm Inc. of the United States demonstrated a wireless power supply system instead of a wired power supply system. The company's wireless power supply system has three types of receiving coils: 3.3kW, 6.6kW and 20kW, and the power supply coil supports all powers below 20kW. If it works at a frequency of 85kHz, the height interval is 70 to 125mm, and the left and right and front and back position deviations are within ±150mm respectively, then the power supply efficiency can be guaranteed to reach more than 90%.

　　The company also demonstrated the actual charging of an EV using a 3.3kW wireless power supply system. The frequency used in this demonstration was around 40kHz. The company also demonstrated the function of understanding the position deviation of wireless power supply by using a simple application downloaded to a smartphone in the car.

　　External range extender engine

　　What attracted much attention at the exhibition was the external range extender engine that eliminates the need to worry about EV battery exhaustion. The engine was exhibited by French company EP Tender. The engine and generator were placed on a two-wheel tractor and then installed behind the vehicle.

　　The current output power is 22kW. If it is a small EV, it can travel about 600km on a single tank of gas. The company plans to promote this device through leasing.

　　The 2-wheel tractor is installed behind the car, which makes it difficult to operate in reverse, such as when parking, for example, the car cannot turn in the direction the steering wheel is turned. However, when the company's tractor is put into reverse gear, auxiliary wheels will extend from the bottom of the tractor to reduce the difficulty of reverse operation.

　　The engine is a 2-cylinder engine manufactured by Tata Motors of India, while the generator and inverter are manufactured by Robert Bosch of Germany.