Wow! over 100 mile range and saves money this is the perfect incity delivery truck. I'd love to see a bus based on this technology for large college campuses, airports,innercity...

What is so encouraging here is that this is a delivery company. In that industry, customers rarely if ever pay a premium for environmentally responsible service. That means that the fuel savings plus the exemption from the congestion charge together must improve TCO beyond that of conventional diesel trucks, over the anticipated lifetime of these vehicles.

A href="http://www.betard.co.uk/">Zebra battery chemistry is expensive and fairly heavy, compared to NiMH and Li-ion, but it is robust against deep cycling (down to 20% charge), even at high discharge rates and extreme ambient temperatures. Of course, as with all batteries, frequent very deep cycling does reduce battery life expectancy. Also, the battery must be heated, which is efficient only in vehicles such as city buses, delivery trucks, garbage trucks etc. that operate frequently at low speeds for extended periods.

According to ISE Corp., the relatively low power density of Zebra batteries can be masked by pairing them with ultracaps. This improves boost acceleration and recuperation efficiency, at the expense of even higher system complexity. Apparently, Zebra batteries must still be charged slowly from the grid once a week from the grid to maximize service life, though that is obviously not an issue in BEV or PHEV applications.

For dsl987:
"Zero emissions? People always seem to gloss over the fact that the nice clean electricity was generated from a dirty old coal fired power plant."
What planet are you on. The majority of UK power plants are using Natural Gas not to mention the UK's Nuclear Power Plants. Well I suspect you are posting from the US or China, the worst polluters on our planet.

fje1948:

You are correct.

We are 98% hydro-electric in our region but all our city buses and trucks are diesel and/or gasoline. Our electric city buses and trolleys were sold years ago to make room for dirty diesel buses.

TNT units could help to correct past mistakes but the will is not there yet and people prefer cheaper transport even if it pollutes more. We (Canada) have enough oil and natural gaz for decades and almost nobody wants to pay higher prices for cleaner transport vehicles.

Mass rail, bus and subway transportaion is subsidized at up to 80%, mainly with a 10 cents/Liter fuel tax, and users are still complaining. Most users would refuse to pay one more cent a day for cleaner electric mass transport vehicles.

Most people, specially those using mass transport means, don't realize that dirty old diesel city buses and trucks are a source of GHG and harnmful fine particules. They blame SUVs and luxury cars that they can't afford to buy.

A new Hydro project (Eastmain Rupert River) could reduce GHG by 8 million tonnes/year by supplying clean electricity to Ontario. Pro-Coal fired + natural gaz power plants lobbies have managed to block this project for more than 10 years. It's amazing what money can do against environment.

The same thing will most probably happened against electric city buses and trucks.

I am a relitivly new viewer of this website, and I appoligize if this has been coverd.

What are we going to do with all of the batteries we are proposing to manufacture for eletric and hybrid viechiles?

McCleark:

They are gold mines for recyclers. No less then 90% of recycling is anticipated (for NiMh probably 99%)

Rafael:

Does England have many other choices? Russian gaz will also run out within a few decades. Local bio-mass is limited by the land mass available.

Beside wind, waves, and solar; nuclear may be the next best approach for local energy production. A mix of all four + sources may ensure enough energy for a few centuries.

Our region of Canada has about 40000 megawatt of hydro power installed and the potential for another 40000 mw. Coupled with wind power, at up to 40%, those two clean, sustainable power sources could peak at about 130 000 +/- megawatt or about 6 + times our current electrical energy consumption. This would be more than enough for 3 PHEVs or EVs per family + 10 000 electric city buses + 100 000 electrci city trucks etc.

To Harvey D:

I used to live in Quebec for four years. Although the summer time air was of much better quality than that experienced here in Southern Ontario, where I now reside, it was air quality in the winter in Quebec that is a problem. Many people burn wood in the winter. I know! In our former neighbourhood, everyone used a wood stove. I lived on the second floor of a duplex, at 'chimney level' and it was at times just terrible. Suffering from asthma made matters worse. And all the plastic that you could smell being burned was not good either.

Jim W,

I like your idea! Especially if battery vehicles are implemented on at large scale before renewable energy require massive storage.

dsl987,

Your argument about electric vehicles using dirty coal power is old and without vision for the future. One of the many virtues of electrical vehicles is that they enable a higher fraction of renewable energy than would otherwise have been feasible. If wind turbines, wave power, solar power, etc. are installed at the same (power) rate as electrical vehicles hit the streets, which is entirely possible and feasible, then by enabling zero emission power they become zero emission vehicles.

I should stress that the part about enabling more renewable energy hinges on "intelligent charging" where charging takes place at times of power surplus. Not a problem at all - it hardly qualifies as a technical challenge.

Andy: Don't forget that you have better control over emmisions from the stationary power plant (even if it burns coal) than you do over gosoline buring moving cars.

fge1948:

The world needs 1000 mayors like Ken Livington. London has an exceptional mayor.

mike1:

You are correct. On cold days, wood stoves pollute more than cars + SUVs, specially with fine particles emissions in Quebec and it seems to be getting worse since electricity rates have gone up 5 times in the last 3 years. Quebec Hydro's huge profits = 3+ billions/year have become another source of taxation-revenues for the provincial government.

It's a shame. Wood being the only tax free renewable (but rather dirty) energy source seems to be gaining over clean (but taxed) electricity as a source of heat for homes and some industries.

The only way to control it would be enforce the use of better wood stoves and fire places + a pollution tax based on pollution created. Too many people would scream, politicians would lose votes, so nothing will be done. We need half a dozen mayor Livingston to fix this problem for us because ours will not touch it for at least 100 years.

Thomas Pederson and others,
Excellent response to point on pollution from power plants. Wind is fastest growing source of power. All three forms of solar: PV, CPV, and CST are breaking through peak power threshold in USA, even more so in Southern Europe and Japan. Means huge market in sun belt and further reductions in price...when production rate finally catches up with demand. As result solar it will blow past wind in growth in near future. Faster growth of these sources means we are already in process of converting to renewables.
Solar is not near as good in Britain, but they do have excellent wind and wave resources off of NW coast.
Scottish wave power company web site ->
http://www.oceanpd.com/
I really like the use of composites on this vehicle. Amory Lovins at Rocky Mountain Institute has pointed out that weight of vehicles is large part of inefficiency. Composites are lighter and stronger than steel, but expensive change in manufacturing is required. They've used just for flat sides of vehicle. Probably easier to automate manufacturing. Very clever!
Regenerative breaking is larger source of energy loss in delivery trucks, refuse trucks, and buses due to frequent stops and large mass of vehicles. This means opportunity for savings using regenerative braking if vehicles is EV, HEV, or PHEV.
Supercapacitor product for this market ->
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/11/maxwell_technol.html

hello everyone,

I am a dutch student and extremly interrested in this concept. Who knows if these vehicles are exported to Holland? And if so, are they permitted to drive on the Dutch roads? In other words, are these vehicles legalized outside the U.K.?