Australia

[Due to the increasing size of the archives, each topic page now contains only the prior 365 days of content. Access to older stories is now solely through the Monthly Archive pages or the site search function.]

Toyota Racing reveals updated TS030 Hybrid for 2013

February 19, 2013

2013 TS030 Hybrid. Click to enlarge.

Toyota Racing unveiled the revised TS030 Hybrid car which will run in the Le Mans 24 Hours and the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) this season. The TS030 made its debut in the WEC in 2012, and notched up three victories in six races. (Earlier post.) Toyota Racing begins the first full test of the 2013-specification TS030 Hybrid at Paul Ricard in southern France tomorrow.

The team will again utilize the Toyota Hybrid System - Racing powertrain, developed exclusively for motorsport by Toyota’s Motor Sport Division in Higashifuji. A supercapacitor-based hybrid system delivers 300 hp (224 kW) of boost automatically, on top of the 530 hp (395 hp) generated by a 3.4-liter, normally-aspirated V8 gasoline engine.

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Report from Victoria EV Trial reinforces importance of source of electricity and EV efficiency in reducing greenhouse gas emissions

December 07, 2012

Interrelationship between EV energy economy (y-axis) and and the electricity grid emissions intensity (x-axis) in determining full fuel cycle greenhouse gas emissions. The color regions represent 100 gCO2e/ km increments in full fuel cycle emissions performance. A conventional Mazda 3 would sit around midway of the middle color band at 154 gCO2e/km. Source: “Environmental Impacts”. Click to enlarge.

The Victoria (Australia) EV Trial—a major 5-year initiative (earlier post)—has released a comparative lifecycle assessment of the environmental impacts of electric vehicles relative to conventional gasoline vehicles in Victoria from now until 2030.

The lifecycle analysis, “Environmental Impacts of Electric Vehicles in Victoria”, found that the impacts from vehicle operation far outweigh those from vehicle production—true even if allowing for an EV battery replacement over the vehicle life. Vehicle disposal impacts, including those of the EV battery, were found to be negligible due to the expected high rate of material recycling. The dominant influence of vehicle operation during the EV lifecycle thus highlights the importance of the source of electricity, how efficient the energy conversion in the vehicle is, and the way a vehicle is used, the report found.

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Researchers develop new highly efficient core-shell catalyst for methane oxidation; potential for reducing emissions from automotive engines

August 13, 2012

A representation of the newly developed catalyst on an aluminium oxide surface depicts the core-shell structure. Click to enlarge.

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, along with collaborators from Italy and Spain, have designed new core-shell type catalysts inspired by the concepts of supramolecular chemistry that oxidize methane 30 times better than do currently available catalysts. (Supramolecular chemistry is an interdisciplinary field covering the chemical, physical and biological features of chemical species of higher complexity that are held together and organized by means of intermolecular (non-covalent) binding interactions.) A paper on the new catalysts developed by Cargnello et al. is published in the journal Science.

The new approach in catalyst structure is important for catalyst-assisted combustion in gas turbines fueled with natural gas, and may also help to address methane emissions in the automobile exhaust within the temperature range required for emission control, comments Dr. Robert J. Farrauto of Columbia University in a Perspective piece accompanying the report in Science.

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