PAYD PAY AS YOU DRIVE

Ask any motorist and they'll tell you that the only reason they don't trade in their petrol cars for pure clean EVs is the range limitation of currently available vehicles.

If we had a range of pure battery electric vehicle designs from different manufacturers, their cars might also incorporate the PAYD intelligent battery management system.

This system for charging for energy at service forecourts calculates depreciation and energy costs for each motorist at every battery exchange. A Bluebird™ equipped motorist never has to buy a new battery. No big financial shocks lurk to catch out those wanting to drive clean cars.

Electric cars are cheaper to run. They don't pollute our cities and the energy delivery chain can be far more efficient overall.

If you are an energy company interested in supplying electricity for EVs equipped with the Bluebird™ cartridge exchange instant refueling system, we would like to hear from you.

Motor manufacturers who are interested in exploring the possibilities for this technology are invited to contact us with a view to consortium building. We will be pleased to advise if a particular floorpan of any of your production vehicles may be adapted easily to use the Bluebird™ cartridge refueling system. 

EV MOTORING COSTS UK

What is the real cost of motoring these days? For a petrol or diesel fuelled car it is rising so quickly that any example we give here will probably be out of date when you read it. But as of the 1st of April 2014 with petrol in the UK @ £1.30 a litre, if your car returns 50 miles per gallon, then the cost of each mile in fuel alone is:-

4.55 x 1.30 / 50 = 

    11.83 pence per mile  

To this you should add higher road fund duty, congestion charges, oil changes reciprocating engine maintenance (i.e. virtual replacement every 150,00 miles after emission testing) and the damage to our ecosystem. But let's stick to the basics for now.

The equivalent for an EV is not quite so simple but we can assume 5 miles per Kw/hr where for example the GM EV1 was returning 6 miles per Kw/hr in some tests. With the cost of electricity in the UK running @ 13.7 pence per Kw/hr and 4.6 pence on economy 7, once again it is safe to assume 14 pence per Kw/hr, even though we know energy may be sourced cheaper. Then the cost of each mile in electricity is:-

14 / 5 = 

2.8 pence per mile

It's a no-brainer and only EVs can use wind and solar farm generated clean electricity; renewably long after the oil wells run dry. The sums still stack up in favour of EVs taking into account battery depreciation versus I.C. engine depreciation.

Motor manufacturers who are interested in exploring the possibility of collaborating to develop  this technology should contact us. We will be pleased to advise if a particular floorpan of any of your production vehicles may be adapted easily to use the Bluebird™ cartridge refueling system. 

EUROSTATION CONCEPT - The Ecostar DC50 is shown here to scale alongside a universal Bluebird™ energy cartridge of the form suitable for most supermini city cars of today. The Ecostar is a very small and low sports car. Whereas, the service station is designed to accommodate large vans. These drawings are to give you some idea of the size plot of land that is needed. The example service station is shown here with solar panels on the roof. There would be nothing to stop an operator from having other buildings and land with more solar panels to harvest renewable energy. In addition, a service station like this is a load-leveling device for power generating stations that are on tickover between peaks. You might ask why then, that there are currently no utilities looking at this project? The reason is that coal is much cheaper for them to burn, regardless of climate change - and there is nothing to stop them doing so. Because, 2030 Euro targets are not binding on member states. Check out the report by Business Monitor International. Note also, that it makes no difference which way around a vehicle enters the service tunnel. That is because a Bluebird™ energy cartridge may be loaded either way - and still connect electrically correctly. The design of the Eurostation is © copyright and the system' working are soon to be patent applied for - which is why we cannot show how we achieve a low-cost utility. Investors and development partners are invited.

NORWEGIAN EV ECONOMICS Feb 2014

Norwegians are buying more electric vehicles (EVs) than conventionally fuelled models. More than 1,200 EVs are now being sold every month in Norway. In the last three months of 2013 two EVs - the electric sports car Tesla Model S and the family electric Nissan Leaf - outsold all other cars.

Norway, a Scandinavian country of 5 million people, currently has around 21,000 electric vehicles (EVs) on its roads - giving it the world's largest per capita EV ownership.

This compares to 70,000 EVs among 313 million Americans and only 5,000 among 63 million Britons.

AIMING FOR 1% PENETRATION

"A boatload of Nissan Leafs arrives in Norway each week and is sold almost immediately", said Snorre Sletvold, president of the Norwegian electric vehicle association.

"It is astonishing. We did not expect this. Electric cars started as an Oslo phenomenon but they are now selling all over Norway.

"By the end of February we expect to be the first country in the world where 1 in 100 cars on the road are electric."

BOOM-TIME GOVERNMENT INCENTIVES

Along with environmental concerns, Norwegians are also taking advantage of generous government incentives, estimated to amount to £5,000 per vehicle.

These include free electricity for recharging, reduced VAT rates, waived tolls, free parking, insurance discounts, and the chance of avoiding queues - the EVs are allowed to use bus lanes.

"You can buy a Nissan leaf for 280,000 NOK ($44,400) which compares with 300,000 (£47,600) for a VW Golf.

"Over 10,000 km, it costs about 1,800 Nok ($285) to run, but the same for a petrol car would be 8,000 Nok ($1,270). On top of that I save save 35Nok ($5.50) a day on tolls but some people are saving far more."

INCENTIVE ROLLBACK @ 50K

Dealers expect there to be more EVs in Oslo than in Los Angeles and San Francisco combined within a year.

But the governmental incentives will not go on forever. Once 50,000 EVs are bought, likely to happen by the end of 2015, the government will roll back the scope and scale of the incentives.

BLUEBIRD™ EV CARTRIDGE VERSATILITY

Other battery replacement systems do not provide any level of autonomy for the owner of an electric vehicle. They would be totally dependent on there being a service station, to be able to exchange or service their cartridges. With the Bluebird™ system, an owner may exchange cartridges at home, at a local shop or other cooperative, or at a service station.

This is only possible with a battery cartridge loading mechanism that is a part of an EV - built in. Yet the vehicle suffers no significant weight disadvantage with clever design. This also means that when Energy Companies build service stations in cities, etc, that the service stations designed to cater for the Bluebird™ universal battery cartridge are that much less complex, hence, cheaper. The cartridge system is compatible with battery or fuel cell technology. It is truly universal.

The ECOSTAR DC50 (BE4) is a two seat sports car with front wheel drive and 50kW direct current (DC) electric motors. The roof will carry solar panels to supplement fuel in cartridges as a range extender between instant energy transfer pit-stops. The cartridge may contain batteries, fuels cells, or a mix of batteries and fuel cells. The technology future proofs vehicles against battery and/or fuel cell advances - as an aid to the transition to a zero carbon lifestyle.  The challenge for the ECOSTAR BE4 is to reduce the long standing 1 minute recharging world record, to less that 30 seconds. We know it is possible to get this down below 10 seconds, but our finances are running on empty, so we are aiming low. Watch this car turn into a motoring gem, as it rises like a Phoenix from the ashes. What color to paint it? The answer to that it there are no flies on us.

FCH JTI PROGRAMME

The Fuel Cells and Hydrogen (FCH) JTI is focused on securing long-term clean energy supplies for Europe in addition to the reduction of greenhouse gas emission from the energy and transport sectors. The JTI, a form of public private partnership between the European Commission and industry, was launched in 2008 with a budget of €940m and has sought to overcome major technological and infrastructure barriers in meeting these goals. The PPP has centred on developing methods of producing hydrogen using electricity generated from renewable resources and on developing fuel cells that more efficiently convert different types of fuel into electricity. The JTI involves 1,100 participants.

Speaking at the ‘Joint Technology Initiatives – Innovation in Action’ event at the European Parliament in Brussels, and attended by horizon2020projects.com, Bert de Colvenaer, executive director of the JTI, began by outlining how FCH technology works.

“FCH technology will encourage sustainability, competitiveness and security of supply. A fuel cell is basically an electric chemical converter of fuel directly into electricity and heat, rather than traditional combustion. The fuel we are using is hydrogen, a non-carbon-containing gas…it is a very environmentally friendly material.

“The FCH JTI programme has over the last seven years undertaken 127 different projects where we try to improve the technology in both making hydrogen and converting hydrogen into greener electricity – we want to make it cheaper, more durable and more efficient.”

KEY CHALLENGE

De Colvenaer continued by outlining the importance of involving SMEs in the PPP, with 23% of small businesses participating in the JTI receiving 27% of the total budget, equal to €105m. However, the executive director detailed that the industry still faces one major challenge in the creation of new hydrogen-based energy products – the absence of a developed marketplace.

“We have one challenge to overcome: there is no market for fuel cells in hydrogen. It’s the chicken and the egg problem: there is no hydrogen, because there are no applications, because there is no fuel cell car, because there is no hydrogen. I believe that understanding the aspect of innovation is just trying to tackle that. Innovation is really assuring that any new development of the product is actually getting to the market and that’s why our community is focusing on that specific aspect. We are trying to ensure that this new technology, which is a very challenging one because in simple terms we are trying to introduce a forth energy vector, in addition to electricity, natural gas and petroleum, will get to market.”

The executive director said the JTI had received particular support from European policy makers, helping the PPP to deliver on its aims as well as highlighting hydrogen’s inclusion in the transport package. He also emphasized the importance of collaboration in the FCH’s successes.

“I believe this particular Joint Undertaking is key and also the most suitable instrument, because the key word is ‘joint’. What we see in our community is that companies that have never been working together before are joining forces – the petroleum industry, the gas industry, the car manufacturers and are talking to each other, trying to resolve this dilemma of market introduction. What we see is co-operation before the companies actually go into competition, because there will be no one winner in our community – we are all going to win together, that is what I hope.”

FCH2

The JTI will be relaunched at the start of 2014 with extra funding and a focus on developing “clean, efficient and affordable fuel cells and hydrogen technologies”, according to a Commission fact-sheet. It’s also hoped that FCH2 will help strengthen the EU’s international competitiveness as well as increase the number of products going to market in the fuel cell and hydrogen sectors.

The new JTI will have a number of targets, including: ‘reducing the cost of fuel cell systems for transport applications by a factor of ten’; ‘increasing electrical efficiency of fuel cells for power production by 10%’; and ‘demonstrate the viability of large scale hydrogen production from electricity generated from renewable energy sources’. Speaking in Brussels, de Colvenaer detailed his satisfaction regarding the FCH2 JTI and the importance of investing in energy storage technology.

“We are very happy to see in Commission proposals that we are set to receive an important increase in our budget, with a focus on energy storage. There is a lot of sun, which is very good during the daytime but there is nothing you can do with the sun’s energy if you can’t store it – energy storage is something mankind has have never come to terms with and we have never found a good solution to store energy in large quantities. The problem is not the availability of the energy, it’s the storage.”

The refreshed JTI will receive funding worth €1.4bn, with equal contributions from both the Commission, through Horizon 2020, and industry partners.

HORIZON 2020 - TRANSPORT RESEARCH & INNOVATION

Horizon 2020 is the European Commission’s proposal to generate ideas, growth and jobs through the world’s largest collaborative programme for research and innovation (2014-2020).

In the transport sector, the Commission will strive for a balanced approach in implementing the programme that takes into account the specifics of each mode (rail, road, waterborne and air transport) while remaining holistic; an approach which reconciles competitiveness with sustainability and which invests both in technology and in relevant socio-economic research.

The four main priorities for transport research under Horizon 2020 are:

1. Making transport more sustainable: resource-efficient transport that respects the environment.

2. Making transport and transport systems seamless: better mobility, less congestion, greater safety and security.

3. Keeping transport competitive: the European transport industry as a global leader.

4. Making transport research responsive: socio-economic research and forward-looking activities for policy-making.

Work carried out in the framework of the Strategic Transport Technology Plan (STTP) will contribute to focusing the transport European research and innovation activities through Horizon 2020. These grants absorb significant time in application and may not be cost effective, especially for start-up companies with high-risk technology they are looking to develop. The patent system also works against innovators, in that copyright is free, trademarks are affordable, but inventions cost an arm and leg and last just 20 years - which it has been proven is about the time to market for disruptive technology - so a complete waste of time and more drain on scant resources.

Horizon and Technology Strategy Board grants are thus sweeteners for academia and large corporations, to in effect protect their market dominance and so prevent new ideas emerging.

ECOSTAR DC50 LINKS A-Z INDEX

EXTERNAL LINKS & REFERENCE

http://www.theecologist.org/Norway_electric_vehicles_lead_the_car_market

http://www.horizonhydrogeneenergie.com/

http://www.fch-ju.eu/news/new-website-programme-horizon-hydrog%C3%A8ne-energie-h2e

http://www.fch-ju.eu/

http://horizon2020projects.com/sc-transport-interviews/storing-energy-in-horizon-2020/

http://horizon2020projects.com/sc-transport-interviews/powering-the-future/

http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ideas/home_en.html

http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ideas

http://ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020/en/

http://ec.europa.eu/transport/themes/research/horizon2020_en.htm

http://www.agnimotors.com/site/

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2012/09/formula-e/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/The-electric-cars-of-the-future.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pendine_Sands

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluebird_Electric_2

    Contact Technical:  bluebird@bluebird-electric.net  or phone UK: 

+44 (0) 1323 831727

+44 (0) 7842 607865

Ask for Terry

THE BLUE BIRDS OF HAPPINESS

The Blue Bird World Cup trophy is awarded to the team that accrues the most points in a given time frame against the Cannonball International ZEV Run series, the rules of which are HERE.

This website is Copyright © 2014 Bluebird Marine Systems Limited.   The names Bluebird, Ecostar BE4™, Utopia Tristar™ and the blue bird in flight logo are trademarks. The color blue is a protected feature of the mark.