Feeding electric cars

December 08, 2017 by Denis Pombriant

Time to build more electric infrastructure…

Ford will build a new factory in Cuautitlan, Mexico to produce electric vehicles beginning in 2020. The company also said it will use a suburban Detroit factory in Flat Rock, MI, to build driverless cars, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Full story here.

Also, Swedish electric car maker Uniti plans to deliver to market a city car capable of going 300 km on a single charge with top speed of 130 kmph or 80 mph. a full charge can take a bit over three hours but a rapid DC charge can provide 200 km range in only 30 minutes. The car has notable advanced sustainability features like a light weight carbon fiber body and is promised to produce “75% less carbon than mainstream electric cars” over its lifecycle. Not sure what that means unless it refers to the manufacturing process in which case why don’t they just say so?

Story from treehugger.com here.

Company video here.

Meanwhile Honda has already announced a boxy looking retro EV city car for the 2019 market. It’s a hot market with VW, Mercedes, and BMW all introducing concept cars in September at the Frankfurt Motor Show. All this is great, now how do we feed these things?

Story here.

EV power demands as percent of world electricity production–projection

“The Rise of the Electric Car: How Will it Impact Oil, Power and Metals?” Good question. According to the article’s source, “Wood Mackenzie is a global leader in commercial intelligence for the energy, metals and mining industries that provides objective analysis and advice on assets, companies and markets.” Wood Mackenzie’s base case assumes “125 million electric vehicles are adopted by 2035, which displaces 1.8 million barrels per day of oil demand and adds 350 terrawatt hours to power demand.”

That’s a lot of electricity and while the percentage of total demand seen in the graphic seems small, it indicates the importance of creating a strategy for generating all of it. By comparison the US today consumes about 1.1 terrawatts for all of its electricity needs.

Story here.

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