Someone from Rotterdam (2nd largest city next to Amsterdam in The Netherlands) speaking:

I also use the bicycle frequently, it's just very easy for your trip < 5 miles and I hope many other urban areas would do more to promote cycling. Think New York, London which are both very crowded with cars.

What I think the problem is, is that the local government is promoting NEV's, not real alternatives to the car we use for the trips when it's either too far to bike or it's raining heavily/icy. We need electric hatchbacks or sedans from a major automaker with ~100miles range that is decently equiped. By then, many people will adapt surely, ditch their ICE car for the same car only electric. Tax breaks on those cars are pretty insane here, where car prices are also steep compared to the US or any Euro country. Someone should translate Aptera's engineering into a car like the Fiesta..

Would be great for HV's and EV's image in motorsport to crush the traditional cars at Le Mans. Hoping that that electric car also participates.

I've heard from reliable sources Tesla engineers have lithium-phosphate and lithium-air batteries on the test benches and want to implement those rather than lithium-ion.

(A guy named Serge)

Hey, since when did homes need protection from me???

To the point, I think we will see the aftershocks of the Copenhagen half-baked agreement. 2012 we'll see a decent EV or two on the road but ICE will dominate the game for a long time to come. Maybe we will see some maturing of hybrids within other segments like sedans and 3-door compacts. Maybe this is positive as we will have EV's that fulfils every demand of the general consumer by the time production is ramped to a scale comparable to a equivalent ICE car, around 2015 I guess.

Me too! Great work Volvo/Ford, again! We need more of these cars and get the ICE equivalent out of the showrooms down the line. Make them significantly lighter + more aerodynamic so you have a smaller pack. Lower pack price, faster charging times, more space with the same mileage!

They need these in China ASAP, together with buses and garbage trucks with a similar power train.

I've read that that this will be using parallel supercaps as the storage medium, fantastic if true BMW! And some active aero will be incorporated. It is a positive development and hopefully there are intentions to use the knowledge gathered by this car for future Project i cars.

@ David Martin:

Yes certainly basalt fiber and also laminated wood fiber offer comparable strength-to-weight at lower prices. But alas I have yet seen a manufacturer bringing a car to market with that technology.

Good point David,

While you have a point if you look at current battery electric cars, but if there were standards for connections, maybe also capacities? Nowadays most EV manufacturers get the batteries from the suppliers, but with a standard the suppliers can cut off the middle man and sell directly to the people. A new durable business-segment right there. Since the connections are standard, you will get more fair competition between battery manufacturers which is good for development. Not sure, but I think adaptive controllers are no real big deal engineering-wise, anyone? Cooling could be integrated in the ESU module standard. And as specific capacity of batteries go up, cooling needs go down.

Anyway, it's a thought

For the current state of things, this is THE _concept_ for an all-rounder vehicle, both for typical short drives and long highway drives. Two things I can think of that can be improved; aluminium chassis and diesel ICE. Much more like the Up Lite! (if it had a plug, that is).

Series hybrid with an ICE + electric generator is not up against a series hybrid fuel cell (hold on, I'm not saying hydrogen fuel cell per se) in fuel->electricity conversion efficiency. At a certain point of distance the driver wants to travel, the weight/size of a battery pack would be to the point a fuel (as said in the presentation, much much more energy dense than a battery) is much more interesting. Any development on battery specific capacity should go to car downsizing and not pleasing outrageous range anxiety of the long haulers. Growth of battery packs should be parallel to the development of the average driven miles statistics, though that may go to weekly instead of daily driven miles.

So I see the following scenario:

Present optimal solutions:
Short distance: BEV (eg. lithium phosphate)
Long distance: Parallel diesel hybrid

Future optimal solutions:
Short distance: BEV (higher density eg. Li-Air package = smaller, lighter)
Long distance: Series fuel cell hybrid

Now of course, sometimes you don't do your typical driving scheme (may that be either long or short distance) but you don't want to have 2 cars for it. For that I'm proposing ESU switch stations, where you can switch a big share of the battery pack (short distance) for a fuel cell (long distance) or vice versa. Since the drive is not typical, I assume a drop by a station won't be a hassle. The fuel cell's fuel could be hydrogen (produced locally with solar power + water?), but you could also do it with fuels better suited for the current infrastructure. Maintenance of the power-train could be done at the station also, so you create a job or two right there.

All we can hope is that Copenhagen gets the wave of corporate durable transportation going more. Buses. trucks, delivery vans all have a very predictable scheme of mileage so either hybrid or electric drive can be implemented fairly easily. Investment brings money back on vehicle efficiency and also lowers emissions significantly. Primarily buses and trucks are very inefficient and would benefit substantially from the torque characteristics of electric drive in acceleration + regenerative braking. In the city area, also the lack of emissions of those vehicles will be very welcomed.

Thanks for reading, feel free to comment.

Serge K.

I can confirm this report. I was at a Dutch symposium where a representative of Daimler and Laurens van den Acker said they where going to make a Aygo-like car on the basis of the Smart with Renault EV tech. Details would follow pretty soon, so this is no 2015+ talk.