Website of The Week!

   (..or Site of the Fortnight..or Site of The Month - depending on how electrifying we judge the site to be.)

Green Car Congress("GCC")
- this authoritative, industry-style site meticulously(if somewhat dryly) collates, tracks and cross-references ('TrackBack') all the latest greener, cleaner car (tech/business) developments.

- And not to be missed: every Sunday GCC's Mike Millikin provides WorldChanging.com with a summary ("Sustainability Sundays") of the week's greener car developments from around the world.
Green Car Congress often reports what others miss - see these 2005 GCC reports for example:
- ABAT(China) test its Li-Poly cells in Zap vehicles
- ABAT(China) test Altair rapid-charge(30-45 mins) Li-Poly nano-electrodes

Moteur Nature.com - France (Aide memoire: Motheur Nature ??)

( Translate->English)      (Translate->German)

Another superb French EV/ZEV/Clean Car site which - like Clean Auto.com below - breaks clean through the language barrier.
Begin perhaps with the site's highly detailed BlueCar report featuring some of the most scintillating pictures of this groundbreaking Li-ion prototype we've seen so far.

EVS21 in Monte Carlo: check out Moteur Nature and Clean Auto(below) for some Gallic perspective(...with local French knowledge) on this landmark 2005 event.

CLEAN-AUTO.com - France

( Translate->English)      (Translate->German)

Vive la R-EVolution! As France begins to emerge as a key player in the global Axis of EVol-ution, this superb, jam-packed-full French magazine site produced by Biosfera brings it altogether and could perhaps best be described as the French equivalent of EV World.

Although Clean-Auto is far from exclusively ZEV-focused, the site's coverage of battery EV(BEV) and ZEV developments is impressive. Take a look for instance at its multi-photo coverage of Eliica's recent record-breaking run.

Combine a New York State of Mind with a passionate commitment to all aspects of electric transportation and - well, the clue's in the company's name - you end up with a high-energy, truly EV-angelical enterprise whose wider aim is "to provide electric vehicles based on the principles that all vehicles should be pollution and oil free."

Over the years EVUK has developed close ties with many of the Big Apple's green hard-core of EV/ZEV pioneers and clean energy enterprises and - like ETS's Seth Leitman - they have all been(in contrast sadly to so many UK companies) refreshingly open, passionate, communicative - and as keen to talk as they are to listen. You could call it NY City 'WYSIWYG' perhaps....

Seth tells us he's looking for ways to expand into Europe and beyond and is keen to forge links with like-minded EV-focused organisations and entrepreneurs just about anywhere on the planet.

Altair's nanotech-enhanced prototype lithium batteries offer more than twice the energy storage capacity of existing automotive li-ion - with super fast charge/discharge speeds and vastly improved cycle life.(i.e. life expectancy).

Altair Nanotechnologies really do appear to be charging way ahead of the EV/HEV pack:

"The appropriateness for automotive applications was evidenced by the study of several typical examples. No other battery materials tested by Telecordia met and/or exceeded the PNGV(Partnership for New Generation of Vehicles) standards. The prototype battery, a nonaqueous asymmetric hybrid incorporating the advantages of both Li-ion batteries and super capacitors, exhibited the following characteristics: stored energy of 11Wh/kg with delivery of 800 W/kg at 95 percent efficiency. The cycle life ranged between 10,000 and 100,000 cycles depending on cycling conditions.

The DOE standards, noted in the research report, were established by PNGV through a cooperative research and development program between the federal government and the United States Council for Automotive Research for PNGV’s power assist program. The DOE has established a goal for battery specific energy storage of 7.5 Wh/kg and specific power delivery at 625W/kg."
(Nano Investor News/Altair Press Release)

With nano-batteries like these on the horizon, just why are fuel cells and hydrogen - with all their associated infrastructure, storage, distribution problems and well-to-wheel inefficiencies - still getting all the hype? (It's a rhetorical question of course - see elsewhere under "Hype and the Herd", Betamax vs. VHS and "How Not To Learn From History."

CEREVEH -
Development and Innovation Centre for Electric and Hybrid Vehicles, Quebec (ah..Canada - part of the "Axis of EVolution"!)

A dual language website of course(click here for French version).

Includes details of MUTA 2004(Sept 15-18, 2004) - a forum on urban mobility and advanced transportation(MUTA - "Mobilité Urbaine et Transport Avancé").
"MUTA offers players in mobility and clean transportation the opportunity to share their experiences and solutions."