Image Courtesy: Nissan via Tree Hugger

(Source: Tree Hugger)

In the days leading up to the unveiling of its flagship Leaf EV, Nissan also unveiled this contact-free charging technology. At the same demonstration where folks got to test drive the EV platform and took-in the iPhone interface, they got to see a working example of induction charging in action.  Induction charging is already a common technology in products ranging from electric toothbrushes and razors to kitchen cooktops and artificial hearts. Our friends at Tree Hugger have now published a nice article, offering the details of this wireless goodness. Here are some interesting details:

• Wireless charging works on the principal of electromagnetic induction, and when two coils (one on the ground and one under the car) come into proximity, a charge can be transfered from a power supply to the battery.
• It takes a few seconds for the primary and secondary coils to recognize each other, but once they do, the system could charge this small EV in three hours.
• Nissan engineers are certain the charging efficiency is as good or better than plugging in, and that induction charging is simple and cheap.

Earlier Tree Hugger reported that Nissan is not only investigating induction charging for stationary applications such as in a garage or parking spot but is also looking at embedding plates into roadways, so that battery powered cars could charge while driving. Induction charging certainly has a ways to go and many questions to answer: what will it do to other devices, are there health risks from long-term exposure, what if you have an artificial heart (which is also powered by induction), not to mention how much efficiency might be lost in transmission?

Click here to read the entire article.

(Source: NY Times – Green Inc.)

Having shipped hundreds of electric vehicle charging stations, and with repeat orders now coming in from Europe, Coulomb Technologies, a privately-held Silicon Valley company, expects to be profitable by the 2010 introduction of the Chevy Volt, according to its chief executive, Richard Lowenthal.

(Mr. Lowenthal appears in the video above, explaining the company’s ChargePoint Network.)

“Our plan was to sell a thousand stations, but we will probably double that,” he told NY Times’ Green Inc. last week after the company secured its third Bay Area order this year. “Our company is structured to be profitable based on early adapters.”

Image Courtesy: Coulomb technologies

Founded in 2007, Coulomb is looking to crack the chicken-and-egg riddle that bedeviled the hydrogen fuel cell industry. Without a refueling infrastructure, consumers won’t buy vehicles. But no one invested in refueling stations without potential customers on the road.

“It is a very fundamental issue for the business,” Mr. Lowenthal said. “What do you do about the road trip?”

With electric vehicles, the additional problem is that in cities like San Francisco, where almost half of all vehicles park on the city’s streets, many potential buyers couldn’t recharge their cars overnight.

Mr. Lowenthal, a Cisco veteran who served as mayor of Cupertino, said that municipalities, parking companies and condo developers represent the first tranche of customers for charge points that will be deployed on city streets and in garages. They sell for $2,500 to $4,000 and can recharge an electric vehicle battery in four to ten hours.

In what might shape up to be the VHS/Betamax duel of the industry, a Coulomb rival, Better Place of Palo Alto, is looking to develop refueling stations where consumers on road trips can swap batteries in a matter of minutes. Still other companies are building rapid recharge points.

Mr. Lowenthal predicted the next three years would define the nascent charging station industry. By 2012, he said, the car industry will have an understanding of the early adoption rate for electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.

Click here to read the entire article.