Selected News 

The AirCar converts from a car to an airplane in minutes. Now the dual vehicle and aircraft has completed a test flight from city to city for the first time.

Bratislava (Slovakia). The AirCar from the Slovakian start-up Klein Vision is a mixture of car and airplane.

The AirCar offers space for two people. Without passengers, it weighs 1,100 kilograms, the maximum payload is 200 kilograms. A 1.6-liter BMW engine with 160 hp is used as the drive. The propeller at the rear accelerates the AirCar to 190 km/h in flight. 18 liters of petrol are needed per hour. The range is 1,000 kilometers. To take off, however, the AirCar needs a runway 300 meters long.

This is precisely why the BILD newspaper's jubilation about "finally escaping the traffic jam" is not qutie correct, because the aircar would have to be a VTOL vertical-starter for that to happen. So the aircar is just as stuck in traffic as everyone else. Hopefully there will soon be a variant with a hydrogen or electric hybrid drive, because burning petrol is no longer up-to-date for a new product.

Technology giant Baidu has launched an autonomous driving service in Beijing, dubbed Apollo Go, available to passengers in a 60 km2 area within the Beijing Economic and Technological Development Zone. picks up. Orders are made via the Apollo Go app. This is the first time that the Chinese government has issued the license for an autonomous driving service after successfully conducting a test project at the Capital Steel Industrial Park in May 2021.

The fleet should reach around 100 vehicles by the summer.

The subsidiary Baidu Smart Car, which is listed on the stock exchange in Hong Kong and the USA, announced on January 26, 2022 that it had completed a capital raising of USD 400 million. This financially secures the further expansion of the use of the Robotaxi.

The information service platform evmarketsreports.com offers access to more than a hundred studies on electromobility and hydrogen initiatives, many of them in English . Free registration. Very useful for anyone who wants to get a quick overview.

The Chinese tropical island of Hainan is about the same size as Baden-Württemberg and, with a little over 10 million inhabitants, has roughly the same population. Hainan is the first Chinese province to ban the sale of internal combustion cars from 2030. 

The island is a free trade zone and offers German companies many opportunities to support the development of charging infrastructure, electric and H2 mobility. The island is to be converted entirely to electromobility and hydrogen technology. By the end of 2021, 122,400 electric cars were already driving in Hainan, which ranked first in China with growth of 91%.

At the same time, Hainan's electric car share also increased to 7.2%, 1.7 times the national average (2.6%).

FLAIT train is the entry solution for the urban traffic of tomorrow. It combines all advantages of today’s route-based-transportation (like trams) with the added benefits for the passengers of a private ride, which are:

Privacy for 1-to-1 conversations, phone-calls, working or simply enjoying the ride

No problems with social distance to other people (safety, risk of infection-spreading, etc.)

No long waiting times / no stopovers

No walking distance to a station* (*as long as you enter & leave the FLAIT train on the route)

In addition to the advantages for the passengers also the public transportation companies will benefit greatly from our new FLAIT Train system:

Virtual railways instead of real ones

oLower costs to build

oLess inconvenience in building phase (less time roads are closed for work, etc.)

oLower maintenance costs

oEasier to change temporarily or permanently

More but smaller vehicles compared to trams, etc.

oBetter allocation possible (more vehicles in peak times / less in off-times)

oEasier and more cost-efficient maintenance, cleaning and repair

Better access and fleet-management with FCC (FLAIT Control Center).

...advises Volker Quaschning, Professor of Renewable Energy Systems at HTW Berlin, in an interview with Berliner tageszeitung that is well worth reading.

Be sure to also see his interviews on the feasibility of the energy transition with renewable energies, technically possible today, on YouTube.

BASF receives 175 million euros from the federal government and the state of Brandenburg for research projects and the construction of plants for the production and recycling of traction batteries for EVs.

FUNDING GUIDELINES / CALLS FOR FUNDING

On the basis of the government program for hydrogen and fuel cell technology from 2016 to 2026, the interdepartmental National Innovation Program for Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology (NIP) ensures continuity for research and development on the one hand and addresses the support required for market activation for the first products on the other.

Good potential for Hugo Delivery Robot: Small and agile, fully autonomous, with a payload of 80kg, a Goliath in its class, the Hugo concept can also be used outdoors and thus overcomes the barriers of the previously common indoor-based warehouse transport vehicles. The possible uses are accordingly enormous. We are eagerly awaiting the results of the trial runs with the first customers in Switzerland, Germany and Sweden.

METRO AG is committed to switch its fleet to electric and install charging infrastructure at its 773 sites and offices by 2030. In the past year, the company has more than doubled the number of EVs in its fleet and reached a 140% increase of installed chargers.

Heiko Hutmacher, Chief Human Resources Officer and Member of the Management Board responsible for Sustainability, METRO AG, said:

“With a growing number of e-vans and e-trucks in delivery, we help reduce air pollution and noise in the cities, hence contributing to life quality not only in metropoles like Paris, Florence or Vienna, but as well in many other cities where we are creating awareness and impact for e-mobility. Today's environmental challenges require strong partnerships and joint action – with EV100 we are proud to support the move towards cleaner energy and cities.”

Zenuity, a joint venture company of Volvo Cars and Autoliv, has been given permission to test autonomous cars on public roads in Sweden. This is an important step in the development of new technologies.

Zenuity has been testing advanced assistance systems in and around the cities of Gothenburg and Stockholm for some time now. Now, the technology company launched in 2017 by Volvo Cars and its supplier Autoliv can significantly expand its range of operations.

The test drive is now allowed in sections of the E4 between Stockholm and Malmö, a route between Jonköping and Malmö, and on the E6 between Gothenburg and Malmö. Although the cars must have a driver on board who can intervene in an emergency, the vehicles can be moved up to a maximum speed of 80 km / h.

Funny: The test vehicles are of course all from Volvo!

Launch of EVC1000 project: This month's Electric Vehicle Components for 1000 km daily trips (EVC1000) project brings together ten industry and science partners to develop e-vehicle components and systems. The focus is for example on new wheel hub motors.

The car service provider Moia, a VW subsidiary, would like to run a fleet of electric mini-buses through Berlin. Ironically, the Transport Senator from the Green Party prevented that

In August, Moia had filed a request for approval of a "pooling shuttle servie" in a traffic test with 1000 vehicles at the responsible state office. The Senate refused,

BEM Association President Sigl commented correctly:

"Counter-productive is what the Senate is doing," says Kurt Sigl, President of the Federal Association of Electromobility (BEM). "The whole world has now realized that the urban space must be relieved - whether through brokerage services such as Moia or car sharing offers."

Backgrounds in the Tagesspiegel (daily mirror), s. Link.

Daimler-Tochter Car2go startet heute ihr angekündigtes E-Carsharing in Paris mit 400 Smart EQ Fortwo. Die französische Hauptstadt ist nach Amsterdam, Madrid und Stuttgart der vierte Car2go-Standort mit einer vollelektrischen Fahrzeugflotte.

Insgesamt hat Car2go nach eigenen Angaben nun in vier Städten 2.100 Elektrofahrzeuge im Einsatz, die wachsende Community sei in diesen Städten inzwischen auf 430.000 Nutzer gestiegen. 

(Zitiert aus electrive.net)

Stadtwerke Karlsruhe triumph with courageous decision! Grant on purchase of a Chinese e-scooter of the brand Niu with up to 320 euros. The energy provider has also been active for some time in the construction and operation of charging stations, a subsidy program for electric cars and bicycles, and the development of an e-mobility portal. A hooray on the Stadtwerke! www. stadtwerke-karlsruhe.de

The buffoonery in Berlin was outrageous: A representative's request to buy a BMW i3 as a company car was rejected. So better with the diesel stink through the city? Ouch, that hurts! Tip: apply for leasing!

The new suburb of Wuhan New District is looking for a smart transport concept. These include networked vehicles and autonomous taxis. In a pilot zone of 2qkm test vehicles will initially complete in 2019 a series of tests. Patent owner idragon from London is to supply the system with the German partner IMAR.