New Ausiie $10k Electric car from 2102

An Australian-designed designed electric car to be built in China plans to take on the world with a sub-$10,000 price, an iPad like dash capable of downloading apps and the promise of never needing fuel.

Set to debut at July's Melbourne motor show, the Noddy-like EDay hatch will initially arrive next year as 100 lease vehicles before going on sale in 2012 from $9990 (plus on-road costs), undercutting petrol powered competitors by thousands and about 14 per cent of the price of the only mass produced electric car on sale today, Mitsubishi's i-MiEV.

Able to travel up to 160km between charges, it has a top speed of just 80km/h and a weight of 450kg it will be the slowest and lightest new car on the market - and the cheapest, something sure to cement its appeal in a segment where shaving a few hundred dollars can boost sales.

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The top secret project is being run by EDay Life, a small Australian company run by former Holden director of innovation and advanced engineering Laurie Sparke and car dealer Robert Lane. The pair have formed a team of 20 designers and engineers and are finalising plans to sell the cars in countries as diverse as Malaysia, Hong Kong, UK and France.

"What we're bringing ... is Australian innovative technology," says Sparke of the ambitious start-up project. "We are going to develop the new-generation of electric car."

While the prospect of a start-up taking on the established car makers may seem laughable, Sparke says the size, flexibility and clean-sheet approach brings advantages.

Just as fledgling brand Tesla prompted others to take notice - Toyota has since signed an agreement with the Californian electric car specialist - he predicts a rise of next-generation vehicle manufacturers driven from the IT industry, pointing to the Dell computers business model of lean manufacturing.

"If you look at who is driving [the technology behind] electric cars, they're not from the auto industry," says Sparke. "It's the new technology that is coming, and the global [automotive] manufacturers can't respond."
Sparke says a ground-up design allows engineering flexibility while Australian ingenuity - often leveraged by US giants Ford and General Motors with their local operations - and EDay's miniscule size gives it an advantage over established players.

"Currently an electric car is simply the smallest car in a global manufacturer's range. It's had the engine pulled out and an electric motor put in - that's a very compromised solution. An electric car needs to be different in a whole range of ways and we'll develop those in Australia.

The EDay will also get a touchscreen display to control major functions and the ability to download apps that could include everything from basic vehicle data to vehicle-to-home communication

Sparke believes the world will be accepting of an affordable electric car. Already there are various Australian fledgling operations converting conventional hatchbacks into electric vehicles, but the EDay promises to be by far the most affordable.

"Our global advantage is we'll be able to do that in a time frame of three to six months with smart solutions that aren't locked up in the way cars are always being done," he says. "And we'll have globally competitive vehicles."

However, he concedes manufacturing a budget electric car in Australia doesn't make sense, prompting the move to utilise the low manufacturing costs of China, which is fast becoming a global automotive powerhouse. With production set for a Shanghai plant with capacity of 50,000 (and potential for 100,000) EDay plans to sell the cars around the world.

"What we've been very skilled at in Australia the last 20 years is smart engineering. We [Australia] can't manufacture as cheap as China, but we can design, develop, test and certify and that's the automotive business that Australia can do, a world-competitive business."

Sparke admits the EDay is a specific vehicle that will sell largely on price and its zero emissions promise.
"We're starting with a car that's fairly mundane," he admits. "But we'll satisfy the market needs because people are eager to have an electric car and its looks are a secondary consideration.

Sparke, who was instrumental in introducing life saving safety features into the Holden Commodore is aware of the mountainous road ahead in a world where profits have slimmed and major brands been forced to change the way they do business.

"Today's challenge is to establish ourselves in the market as a credible supplier of electric vehicles," he says. "To ensure we don't compromise that credibility, we've gone to a lot of effort to monitor this fleet so we don't trip over when we go into a larger volume of production.

"We'll utilise Australian technology and suppliers to do the prototype and testing here. And when we've got a proven solution, we'll send that to our manufacturers in China and they'll produce it."

Europe has banned baby bottles containing the chemical Bisphenol-A

Europe has banned baby bottles containing the chemical Bisphenol-A as of early next year over fears it may harm the health of children throughout the EU's half a billion population.

Parents across the European Union, the world's biggest open market, "can be sure that as of mid-2011 plastic infant feeding bottles will not include BPA", said John Dalli, commissioner in charge of health and consumer policy.

"This is good news for European consumers."

The ban will see the "manufacture of polycarbonate infant feeding bottles with BPA" outlawed from March 1, 2011, and from June 1, 2011, "the placing on the market and the importation into the union of these bottles will be prohibited", the commission underlined in a statement.

Dalli's spokesman Frederic Vincent told AFP that the commission successfully "tried its luck" by bringing forward a proposal originally intended for presentation in early 2011 and seek backing for a ban before a committee of national government experts already scheduled to meet on Thursday.

The decision does not require the approval of the European Parliament, which in any case called in June for such a ban.

"This is the result of months of discussion and exchange of views between the commission's services, the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA), the member states and the industry," a delighted commission added.

Canada became in October the first country in the world to classify Bisphenol-A as a toxic substance despite industry opposition.

Only two EU countries, France and Denmark, had unilaterally imposed bans on baby bottles with the controversial substance. Danish authorities went a step further by extending the prohibition to all food products for children up to three years old.

Bans are already in place in Canada and a few US states. A similar voluntary move is under way in Australia.

EFSA issued in September an opinion by experts on the chemical, which said that Bisphenol-A was safe in very small quantities, but also pointed to areas of uncertainty.

"It cannot be excluded that there might be an effect on the development, immune response or tumour promotion," Dalli said in a statement on October 7.

Audi all electric supercar....

Audi's battery-powered R8's enticing looks and performance aplenty hide a heart that is pure green, reports Peter Mckay.

Audi confesses it may have arrived a little late to the electro-mobility party; its mostly Japanese rivals were dancing and show-boating long before the German luxury brand even rang the doorbell.

Audi clearly wants to arrive with a flourish. While other brands roll out tiny plug-in city runabouts with modest performance credentials and geeky looks, Audi's sleek R8 supercar is leading the German brand's electric charge.

It's a heck of an eye-catcher in which to arrive at the electric vehicle (EV) soiree — a sleek supercar dubbed the R8 E-Tron that (almost silently) whooshes from standstill to 100km/h in a Porsche-like 4.8 seconds.

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With its prodigious acceleration — like a Scalectrix car jumping from rest — the R8 E-Tron quattro will target enthusiast drivers with a green bent when it goes into limited production in late 2012.

With looks to match its intent, the car has demonstrated that brands don't need to create cartoonish electric vehicles that appear to be the unfortunate outcome of a few moments of unseemly passion between a Smart car and a Tata Nano.

The R8 looks gorgeous and its aluminium spaceframe construction is suitably high-tech for a car of the future.

The R8 E-Tron is a full EV with a 550-kilogram battery pack mounted amidships and an asynchronous electric motor on each of the four wheels, making it a genuine all-wheel-drive vehicle. Power transmits to the wheels via a single-staged transmission and short input shafts.

It wasn't the cheapest car to develop but Audi sees it as a chance to integrate more expensive technology into a premium sports EV. It is also a golden opportunity to catch the eye of the world's media; hence Audi's exclusive invitation for Drive to get behind the wheel of this breakthrough supercar for a short road loop in Germany.

Our preview of Audi's electric future doesn't end with the R8. The brand has also developed a three-door E-Tron version of its city runabout, the A1. The R8 E-Tron may be the show-stopper but the A1 is the car most likely to generate serious production volumes. The final part of the jigsaw is a drive in Audi's first production petrol-electric hybrid, based on the Q5 soft-roader.

In the metal, our R8 E-Tron looks menacing and ready to excite. After wriggling into the racy Recaro seat, you twist the key and instead of the usual ferocious roar from a V8 or V10, there's ... nothing. Just a gauge in a surprisingly familiar cluster on the dash that advises you're "ready".

Moving the gear lever from P to D and pressing the accelerator unleashes a very swift change of scenery, accompanied by some growl from the fat, 19-inch tyres and a little resonance from within the car. "It's only a prototype," the man from Audi says.

There is no tachometer, of course, replaced by a dial representing the recuperation status of the energy supply and the output. You can select the level of recuperation by pressing switches on the steering wheel, influencing the energy recovery and braking power of the electric motors and so extending the range.

Audi's head of pre-development of vehicle concepts, Dr Michael Korte, says the R8 E-Tron is not an autobahn-storming machine designed for long runs on Europe's high-speed motorways. He compares it to a powerful sports motorcycle — a mix of fun and technology that is good for short bursts of stunning speed.

With a combined output of 230kW of power and about 680Nm of torque (Audi misleadingly claims 4500Nm but is calculating the output at the wheels rather than the motors), the R8's four engines can accelerate and decelerate individually with impressive exactness thanks to a clever management system.

Similar to the standard Audi R8, about 70 per cent of the power acts at the rear wheels in regular operation, with the remaining 30 per cent going to the front wheels. Should wheelspin occur, the software changes the balance in a fraction of a second.

The individual control of the four motors also allows so-called torque vectoring, the selective acceleration of individual wheels and, therefore, active distribution of torque. Any loss of traction in individual wheels, such as understeer and oversteer, is countered quickly using small power boosts and brake interventions.

Behind the cockpit are the large, fluid-cooled, rechargeable lithium-ion batteries and the electronics used to control the power flow. Impressively, engineers have managed a 42:58 front-to-rear weight distribution, matching the regular R8.

Audi insists the production R8 E-Tron will weigh no more than the V8-engined R8 supercar. In its final evolutionary stage for market, the R8 E-Tron's battery is expected to be good for a range of about 250 kilometres (although manufacturer claims of EV range are often optimistic).

While the R8 E-Tron may be the attention grabber, the E-Tron versions of Audi's small city runabout, the A1, and its compact soft-roader, the Q5, are also on hand for our test drive.

The A1 E-Tron is a three-door hatch that uses a tiny petrol engine to extend its range once its battery reserves are depleted. The range-extender comes in the form of a compact rotary engine used not as an alternative to the battery but, specifically, to put energy back into the battery when needed — such as on a longer-than-normal commute or a steep climb.

From the driver's seat, the three-door A1 E-Tron looks much like a regular A1 that goes on sale here next month. Except, that is, for unfamiliar gauges with terms such as "E-Tron ready" that give the all-clear to engage D on the gearbox selector and hit the accelerator for emission-free motoring using only the electric-drive system.

In this mode, the range is about 50 kilometres — good enough for most daily commutes. The Volkswagen Group, which owns Audi, says research shows that of the 60 per cent of Germans who travel to work by car, almost half travel less than 10 kilometres and a third travel less than 25 kilometres. Recharging every 50 kilometres means there would be no need to use any petrol.

Based on a suite of information the car collects (such as driving style, outside temperature, navigational data), it decides when to move to range-extender mode to replenish the battery that feeds an electric motor mounted transversely in the front. The driver may also press a button on the dash to trigger the range extender's vibration-free and quiet rotary engine.

The 254cc petrol engine is fed by a 12-litre fuel tank and powers a 15kW generator able to extend the A1 E-Tron's range by an extra 200 kilometres. True, it's consuming some petrol — a meagre 1.9 litres per 100 kilometres — but at the same time the battery is recharging and increasing the drive it supplies to the vehicle.

The lush torque of an electric motor is evident almost the instant you push the throttle and there's a feeling of almost limitless thrust, uninhibited by the need to change gears. The front wheels are fed a minimum 45kW of power and 150Nm of torque, with peak numbers as high as 75kW and 240Nm. The torque flows to the front axle via a single-stage transmission flanged to the electric motor. The almost-silent travel is eerie, with just a light whine and a little tyre noise discernible.

Claimed acceleration from rest to 100km/h is 10.2 seconds, with a top speed of more than 130km/h. That's not as impressive as a regular A1 but hardly a deal-breaker for most commuters. Obvious, too, is that there are few compromises with the A1's adaptation to the electric drivetrain. It still seats four, there is cabin cooling and heating, a premium sound system sits in the dash and the cargo area is its usual size. The T-shaped lithium-ion battery pack is hidden under the rear part of the centre tunnel and below the rear seats, giving excellent weight distribution.

Features such as full internet connectivity — with Google navigation and a wireless hot-spot — hint that it's a car more suited to contemporary city transport.

The A1 E-Tron also destroys another misconception — that EVs are heavier than regular cars because of the battery pack. The E-Tron version weighs about the same as the regular A1 as there is no heavy multi-stage transmission or four-cylinder engine and no big fuel tank.

A socket for the standard household plug fitting used to recharge the A1 is hidden behind the Audi badge on the grille. A flat battery requires less than three hours' charging time from a 240-volt grid — or 30 minutes for high-voltage fast charging.

On the move, the large electric motor driving the A1 E-Tron can convert deceleration energy into electric current , which is fed back to the electrical system by operating as a generator once the driver releases the accelerator. In city traffic, it can recover almost one-third of its energy.

The project leader for the A1 E-Tron, Dietrich Engelhart, is evangelical about his baby, using "when" rather than "if" to talk about a production version. "It is a mature concept with premium quality, the space, the ease of operation, convenience features such as a sound system," he says. "It's a true Audi."

While the ultimate goal is to provide pure electric propulsion, Audi is also developing more traditional hybrid vehicles for the short-term.

The company's first mass-market hybrid is set for German and US showrooms by the middle of next year, although right-hand-drive versions are unlikely.

The Q5 Hybrid Quattro — pitched as a sporty mid-size soft-roader with the power of a V6 and the fuel economy of a four-cylinder turbo diesel — offers the practicality of the Q5 range here.

A brief drive in Ingolstadt, Audi's hometown, adds weight to the claims. The direct-injection, turbo-charged petrol 2.0-litre four, and the associated electric motor sandwiched in between the engine and the gearbox, together have a system output of 180kW and 480Nm. That gives the vehicle excellent driveability, along with impressive acceleration of 7.1 seconds from 0-100km/h. Top speed is 222km/h. Fuel use on the official European cycle is a little less than 7.0L/100km.

There's some doubt that the compact hybrid soft-roader will make it to market as there are plenty of Audi engineers who still view diesel as a superior green technology. However, the US market has been slow to embrace diesel and Audi is keen to have a rival for the Lexus RX450h hybrid soft-roader.

The hybrid Q5 looks and feels normal inside, with no loss of cabin or luggage room. Press the start button and a "hybrid ready" sign tells the driver the Q5 is set to move. Slip the gear selection lever into D and you move off in pure electric mode. An EV button on the dash provides an extended drive mode. Press it and the petrol engine starts.

Audi first eased into hybrid development in 1989 with its "Duo" concept based on the 100 Avant. The Q5 is the result of three generations of development.

Changes from the Q5 range on sale here include modifying the engine internals and introducing the stop-start requirements of a hybrid (at rest, both power sources are deactivated). It gains an eight-speed automatic gearbox, electromechanical steering and larger brakes beneath 19-inch wheels.

The lithium-ion batteries, weighing just 38 kilograms, are stored where the spare wheel is normally housed. A redesigned instrument cluster now incorporates a "remaining battery charge" meter, which looks similar to a fuel gauge, and a larger dial that shows whether the car is using power from the engine or battery or is recovering energy under deceleration.

The powertrain of the hybrid Q5 can also be used in other Audis with longitudinally mounted engines — the new A8 and the as-yet unseen A6 are prime candidates.

For more on the Audi E-Tron concept cars, go to drive.com.au/audi

When silence is not golden

Premium car makers usually spend inordinate time and expense reducing noise and vibration, a painstaking process aimed at cocooning occupants in glorious silence.

Electric vehicles have no exhaust pipe and therefore emit no sounds of acceleration and gear changes.

Gliding through the streets, EVs are almost silent at speeds up to 25km/h. Beyond that, some tyre noise can be heard but it is not loud enough to warn pedestrians — particularly the vision-impaired — of approaching danger.

In the US and Japan, it is already law for silent cars to have a manufactured noise source and other countries are likely to follow.

Audi acousticians are hard at work developing unique artificial sounds for its E-Tron vehicles.

"It's not just a matter of safety," says the acoustics chief at Audi, Ralf Kunkel. "It is also a question of how the Audi of the future should sound."

That sound will not be of a combustion engine, nor of a jet aeroplane or anything in nature, such as the rustle of leaves.

Kunkel offers a clue: "The [EV] sound will be new and unusual. The Audi RSQ in the film I, Robot gives an indication."

SMH 22.11.10

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Food experiment - is pre-prepared food more efficient?

Food experiment - is a 2-week delivered pre-preared low-fat breakfast/lunch/dinner more energy efficient than making breakfast/lunch/dinner every day?

Starting today we have had a weeks worth of pre-prepared breakfast/lunch/dinner delivered, all we have to do it is eat it!
This is a two fold exercise - seeing if the energy & water saved in the preparation and storage and washing up generated by home cooking/shopping is greater or less than the energy & water generated by pre-prepared food.

It's quite a difficult exercise to quantify as we don't know the energy used by the company we are using (lite n easy) so we will have to make some educated assumptions on transport, cooking, storage etc... but we can fairly accurately work out our own usage. So we should get a reasonable comparison.

There are other issues such as wastage of packaging (have already noticed the plastic is a degradable plastic (bit is it food safe?) but will try and find out this type of info for a final breakdown and report. Will also send this information to the company for comments and see if we can build up a final recommendation!

If anyone else has tried this or has experience with pre-prepared/delivered food, please let us know what you think!

Lastly, most people try this to loose weight. We are being delivered 1500 calories every day, so we will also factor in the heath aspect of this exercise as well - might even slim down a little!

Stay Tuned!

Nissan believes many electric car owners will mostly recharge in the garage, and not at rapid recharge station

Nissan believes many electric car owners will mostly recharge in the garage, and not at rapid recharge stations.

Owners of Nissan's Leaf electric car will be more likely to trickle-charge their car at home than visit a rapid recharging station for a top up, the car maker says.

Nissan Australia chief executive Dan Thompson says he believes a 15-amp power point plug will be the most important accessory for owners of the fully electric car, which can travel up to 160km on a single charge of its battery pack depending on conditions.

The Leaf is due to launch in Australia in 2012, about a year after the Mitsubishi's i-MiEV electric car becomes available to private buyers (it's currently only offered to fleets and governments on a lease basis) and the Holden Volt range-extended electric vehicle, which uses a small petrol engine linked to a generator to supply on-demand electricity.

Thompson says the development of recharging infrastructure is likely to be a two-stage process, starting with the home before working its way into commercially operated recharging points.

“You will be able to plug the Leaf directly into your (electrical) outlet at home or in the office … and that's where we see most of the charging taking place in the beginning,” he says. “That will be about eight hours for a full top-up or a full charge.”

However, he says there will eventually be a need for commercial recharging point operators to move into the market, anticipating that many Leaf owners will use those to gain only a brief, 10-minute charge to, say, lift battery capacity from 50 to 80 per cent – much like dashing into a petrol station and taking on only a splash of fuel – rather than idling for a 30-minute stay to take on a full load of electricity.

Nissan says Leaf owners will be able to recharge their car using a normal 10 amp household power point, but it takes about twice the eight-hour recharging time over a 15 amp plug, which uses a larger earth pin than a normal household plug. A new plug can be fitted by a qualified electrician for very little cost.

Thompson says Nissan is leaving it up to other providers to install rapid recharging stations where electric car owners can get a top-up.

“[Rapid recharging stations] require a considerable hardware investment, so we'll leave it up to other entrepreneurs to do,” Thompson says.

SMH/Drive

Christmas time again....

Well it's coming up to that time again when we all start to spend money on products we don't really need in a time of economic uncertainty.
As it is inevitable, we hope everyone will purchase products that are as green and eco friendly as possible, think packaging, supply train, materials. And of course, practicality and educational use.

So with that in mind, we offer you a selection of such products for the jolly season that night help you out:

http://www.greendemon.com.au/christmasshopping-c-129.html

All put into nice & easy express categories - now how easy is that!