Electric Renovo Coupe Is An EV Performance Revolution

Built in secret for the past four years, the Renovo Coupe has put a revolutionary electric drivetrain in a classic Shelby Daytona Coupe body. It’s the perfect blend of old-meets-new, taking a timeless classic car and installing a cutting-edge electric drivetrain that focuses on spirited performance driving.

The two men behind this electric supercar are Renovo CEO Christopher Heiser and CTO Jason Stinson, and what they’ve done is focus in developing an electric drivetrain that can handle the rigors of performance racing. And that’s what they built, taking an $89,000 Shelby Daytona CSX9000 chassis, and fitting it with a 30 kWh lithium-ion battery pack that is both lightweight, and tolerant to the high temperatures that limit the performance of cars like the Tesla Model S on the race track. Renovo has also fitted its electric coupe with on-the-fly regenerative feedback adjustment, depending on what the situation calls for.

The Renovo Coupe is fitted with a pair of twin sequential electric motors spinning out a combined 500 horsepower and 1,000 lb-ft of torque to the rear wheels. At a claimed curb weight of just 3,250 pounds, that’s a whole lotta oomph in a lightweight package, allowing the Renovo to sprint from 0 to 60 MPH in about 3.4 seconds. 14-inch cross-drilled front rotors are matched with six piston calipers, while at the rear are 13.4 inch rotors and four-piston calipers.

The limiting factor here though is range, rated at just 100 miles per charge. That was done intentionally though, as Renovo is emphasizing its enterprising EV as a lightweight track car with a focus on fast-charging. More range would have meant a heftier car, hurting performance more than it helped, so instead the Renovo team focused on fast charging. A standard Level 2 charger will top off the battery pack in about 5 hours, but the Renovo Coupe can also hook up to Level 3 chargers that will fill it up in just 30 minutes, without harming battery life or performance.

Along with patent-pending high heat tolerance, the ability to recharge and discharge rapidly is key to Renovo’s marketing strategy. Limited sales begin in California early next year, and pricing is set at $529,000. With a $90,000 Shelby Daytona Coupe body as the starting point, and custom everything-else throughout, including a modified interior with all new gauges, it certainly isn’t for the average Starbucks-drinking environmentalist. No, this is an electric supercar for the Kopi Luwak crowd.

This could be the battery revolution EVs have been waiting for, and reshape what the industry thinks electric cars are capable of. Or maybe its just another boutique, flash-in-the-pan EV. Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Source: Gas 2.

BMW i3 Gets a Fast Charger of its Own

Until now, the fast-charging headlines have belonged to Tesla and that company’s nationwide network of Superchargers. With BMW getting into the electric car game, however, the German carmaker doesn’t want to leave Tesla any advantages – and will soon be offering a 24-kW DC fast charging unit that can restore a BMW i3′s battery to an 80% charge in under 30 minutes.

Built in conjunction with Bosch, the BMW i Center chargers will be offered $6,548. The system, which is smaller and lighter than other units on the market, could potentially be installed by small businesses and apartment buildings. Despite the relative affordability of the BMW/Bosch system, though, they anticipate that home installation by BMW i3 or i8 owners is still unlikely.

Initially, the BMW i Center charger installations will be limited to “Authorized BMW partners”, which probably means BMW dealers, Neiman Marcus, etc. will start to have the non-CHAdeMO chargers available in the fall.

Source | Images: BMW, via Motor Authority.

200-Mile Chevy Sonic EV Coming In 2016

Chevy Sonic Z Spec Concept

The source, The Truth About Cars, is known for sometimes being highly speculative and for starting some rather crazy rumors, so take this as unconfirmed at this point in time:

“The upcoming pure electric vehicle being discussed in the wake of the Opel Ampera’s demise will also be sold in the United States, in the form of a Chevrolet Sonic.”

“The Sonic-based EV will reportedly have a 200 mile range, which will presumably come from the new battery that LG Chem (battery supplier for the Volt) is working on right now.”

If true, then we’ll see a 2016 Chevrolet Sonic EV with 200 miles of range.  This EV will presumably be sold in the U.S. and abroad and it’ll be manufactured in Michigan.

There’s some evidence that The Truth About Cars could be on the right track here.  Remember that LG Chem 200-mile battery announcement?  It’s linked to the graphic below.  Notice the 2016 U.S. OEM notation?

LG Chem’s HEV/PHEV/EV RoadMap

And think for a second or two about the previous 200-mile EV comments made by ex-CEO of General Motors Dan Akerson.

So, maybe The Truth About Cars is actually onto something here.

Thoughts on the possibility of a 2016 Chevy Sonic EV with 200 miles of range?

Source: The Truth About Cars

New Battery Boasts 7 Times More Energy Density

Imagine a lithium-ion battery that packs 7 times more energy per kilogram than any battery available today. How would that change the future of electric vehicles?

Just last week, we reported on a conversation with  Mitsuhisa Kato, Toyota’s head of research and development, who complains that the batteries available today are simply not good enough to make EV’s a credible choice for most buyers. Kato said it will take a “Nobel Prize winning battery” before EV’s go mainstream. Toyota, Honda and the Japanese government have made a major commitment to hydrogen fuel cell cars instead.

This week a research team at the University of Tokyo School of Engineering has announced a new lithium ion battery that packs seven times more energy density – at 2,570 watt-hours per kilogram – than current lithium ion batteries. The team, led by Professor Noritaka Mizuno,  adds cobalt to the lithium oxide crystal structure of the positive electrode, which promotes the creation of oxides and peroxides during the charge/discharge cycle. In addition, it promises significantly faster recharge times as well.

Isn’t it ironic that the “Nobel battery” Toyota’s Kato referred to may have been invented by a team of Japanese scientists? For a more detailed technical explanation of the of the new battery, see the report first published in Nikkei Technology.

Of course, this breakthrough is still in the experimental stage. Energy dense lithium ion batteries will not be on the shelf at WalMart any time soon. But if the claims for the new battery prove valid, expect to see the struggle between EV’s and FCV tilt sharply in favor of electric vehicles. Now the range for the new Porsche Cayenne PHEV could be 112 miles instead of 16, and that shiny new Nissan LEAF could go over 500 miles on a full charge instead of just 73. And the Tesla Model S would be able to drive some 1,855 miles before needing to be plugged in.

Maybe now would be a good time for the folks at the University of Tokyo School of Engineering to find space for that Nobel Prize?

Source: Gas 2.

New Opel EV Will Replace the Ampera

Opel quietly announced the end of the Ampera – badge cousin to the Chevy Volt. The Ampera is going away due to poor sales. Only 332 have been sold this year, even thought the Volt is quite popular in the US market. But that doesn’t mean that Opel will have no EV to offer to buyers going forward. According to Opel CEO Karl-Thomas Neumann:

After the eventual run-out of the current generation Ampera, we’ll introduce a successor product in the electric vehicle segment. Our next electric vehicle will be part of our massive product offensive – with 27 new vehicles in the 2014-2018 time frame. We see eMobility as important part of the mobility of tomorrow and we will continue to drive down costs & deliver affordability.

The people at Autoblog expect the new Opel EV to be more than a rebadged Chevy Spark EV. Instead, they believe it will be a completely new electric model and that may signal yet another EV will appear shortly in the Chevy stable of cars, or perhaps even a version of the Sonic EV rumored to be in the works. For the moment, GM representatives aren’t giving out any more clues.

Source: Opel

China Exempts All EVs And Hybrids From 10% Sales Tax

With the goal of putting 500,000 “new energy” vehicles on its roads by the end of 2015, and 5 million on roads by 2020, China’s efforts to go green at ambitious to say the least. With just over 17,000 EVs and hybrids sold in 2013, the semi-communist country has a long, long way to go to meet that goal, though a new round of tax incentives could help tremendously.

Yesterday the Chinese government announced that all electric, hybrid, and fuel cell vehicles would be exempt from that 10% national sales tax beginning on September 17th and running through 2017. Most importantly, this includes both domestic and imported green cars, which could help China become the biggest market for green cars over the next decade.

The central government is currently building a portfolio of eligible vehicles, and the Tesla Model S will almost certainly be at the top of that list. This latest national tax incentive joins a growing list of local incentives from cities like Beijing, which are offering tax credits and free license plates (valued at $15,000 or more in some cases) to buyers of green cars.

There’s still the matter of the lack of charging infrastructure though, and while there are plans to lay down massive public charging networks all across China, as America learned, those networks require years to take hold on in the public consciousness.

With these generous subsidies compelling more Chinese consumers to look at green cars though, perhaps China really is on its way to becoming the world’s biggest market for electric cars.

Source: Gas 2.