Up to 67 charging stations will be installed in various spots around the city by the end of 2013 — placing Vancouver firmly in the forefront in Canada, and possibly, North America.

“The reality is Vancouver and B.C. are leading the country on this,” said Berry Vrbanovic, president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, which is kicking in $350,000 for the project.

He noted that Vancouver’s mild climate and traffic patterns make it the ideal location for the pilot.

“It provides an opportunity for Vancouver to do a lot of groundbreaking work in the next couple of years and to learn from that in a way that can be shared with other municipalities as electric vehicles become more common in the marketplace,” he said.

There are an estimated 100 fully electric vehicles currently on Lower Mainland roads right now. Vancouver’s target is to have electric vehicles make up at least 15 per cent of all new vehicle sales by 2020.

“The pilot is another significant step forward toward our goal of supporting sustainable transportation options for all Vancouver residents,” Mayor Gregor Robertson said in a release.

According to the city, 95 per cent of vehicle trips in Vancouver are of less than 30 kilometres while 70 per cent are of less than 10 km. Fully charged electric vehicle batteries can travel as far as 100 to 160 km.

The trial, dubbed Charge and Go Vancouver, will assess the opportunities, barriers and cost of installing the charging stations. It also will use the data collected to determine the best locations for future use.

The new stations will be located in on-street and off-street parking spaces, including at community centres, parks, and new multi-family homes.

A city spokeswoman said there are already a few charging stations available in the city. Both stations charge $1 per hour to charge a vehicle.

The B.C. government also provided $261,000 toward the project, BC Hydro $119,000, and the City of Vancouver $70,000.

Vancouver Province

Article source: http://www.timescolonist.com/technology/Vancouver+expand+electric+charging+stations/6194289/story.html. Creative Commons (CC)

Earlier in Drive On: VIDEO — Newt Gingrich’s lambastes the Chevy Volt.

At issue is Gingrich’s populist punch line to his argument that the $39,995 Volt is a subsidized “Obama car” for rich buyers, while others struggle to buy a good used truck. Said Gingrich: “You can’t put a gun rack in a Volt.”

GM’s comeback from spokesman Selim Bingol in the GM/BTW blog: Why would you?

Meanwhile, the unidentified guy in the video above asked: Why not? He says his Volt gun rack is “in response to Newt Gingrich’s cheap shots at the American-designed, American-made and American-powered Chevrolet Volt, claiming you couldn’t put a gun rack in the back. … I prove he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

Bingol’s post ticks off Volt virtues (a good ride for a hunting isn’t one of them) and ridicules Gingrich:

Newt Gingrich has taken up saying that “You can’t put a gun rack on a Volt.” That’s like saying “You can’t put training wheels on a Harley.” Actually, you can. But the real question is, “Why would you?” In both examples:

It looks weird

It doesn’t work very well, and

There are better places for gun racks and training wheels — pickup trucks and little Schwinns, respectively.

Seriously, when is the last time you saw a gun rack in ANY sedan?

Bingol also echoes CEO Dan Akerson’s in saying GM did not “engineer the Volt to be a political punching bag,” but we can only say good luck with that.

GM will be punch drunk by the end of the presidential campaigns. Democrats and Republicans both think they can score with their positions on the auto industry bailout and subsidies for electric vehicles. GM is gonna be in the middle of that, whether it wants to be or not.

Article source: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2012/02/gm-shoots-back-at-newt-while-man-shows-his-volt-gun-rack/1. Creative Commons (CC)

It’s a red-hot car, but leave your Tesla switched off for too long and it’s going to cost you. Picture: Tesla
Source: Supplied

DON’T leave your electric car parked for too long – by the time you get back it could have turned into a $200,000 brick.

Electric car maker Tesla is defending claims its cars become immobilised if the battery ever becomes completely discharged. This results in a battery replacement cost of about one-fifth the car’s $206,000 sticker price.

Tesla owners in the US who have parked their vehicles with low battery power remaining – for as little as a week – have found their cars had become “bricks” that could not be re-charged.

Tesla Australia national sales and marketing manager Jay McCormack said the battery maintenance was explained as part of the company’s customer handover and the car emitted a number of warnings about requiring recharging.

“We explain through our customer ownership experience the recommendations for maintaining the battery,” he said.

“Like all cars, they require some level of care – for us, electric vehicles should be plugged in and charging when not in use, that’s for maximum performance and all batteries are subject damage when at low levels for a long period of time, anything longer than a week for a charge to be kept at zero.”

While there is only one EV on sale in Australia at the moment, Mitsubishi’s tiny i-Miev, several new models arrive this year, a trickle that will soon become a steady flow.

The i-MiEV and it is covered by the company’s 10 year or 100,000km powertrain warranty but what the company calls “the Main Power (Traction) Battery” is only covered for five years or 100,000km.

Mitsubishi’s EV product manager Ashley Sanders said the i MiEV would be unlikely to experience the Tesla’s problems.

“We’ve got a fundamentally-different design to the Tesla, our understanding is that they don’t have the same 12-volt system as we do in our car, with our car all the ancillary devices from the 12-volt battery.”

“As far as the main traction battery goes, in terms of the lithium-ion batteries if you let it go completely to zero it becomes a brick effectively, we have systems in place that doesn’t allow that to happen, except in really long time periods, years rather than weeks or months,” he said.

‘Sequence of warnings’

Nissan’s Leaf electric vehicle has a clause within its US warranty that details what is not covered – damage or failures resulting from “leaving your vehicle for over 14 days where the lithium-ion battery reaches a zero or near-zero state of charge.”

Nissan Australia spokesman Jeff Fisher said there had been no experiences of battery problems with the Leaf.

“We had a situation where the 12-volt battery went down and the lithium-ion battery was low, we replaced the 12-volt and it brought the system back on-line,” he said.

“There are a sequence of warnings before the main drive battery gets too low, then it goes into limp-home mode, you have to be pretty careless to get into that situation – the production cars will have a series of warnings as well,” he said.

Holden’s incoming Volt uses a battery-powered electric motor to drive the wheels but has a petrol engine on board purely capable of charging the battery and extending the range.
Holden spokesperson Emily Perry said the Volt’s drivetrain will not suffer from such an issue.

“The battery has a buffer at the lower end of the state of charge to prevent it ever being fully discharged,” she said.

In the US Tesla has countered that “all automobiles require some level of owner care.”

The all-electric car company also said its cars had low-charge (below five per cent) warnings but that electric vehicles should be plugged in and charging when not in use for maximum performance.

“Tesla batteries can remain unplugged for weeks (even months), without reaching zero state of charge,” the company said in a statement.

Article source: http://www.news.com.au/technology/who-killed-the-electric-car-you-perhaps-if-you-didnt-charge-it/story-e6frfrnr-1226279836483. Creative Commons (CC)

WASHINGTON, Feb. 22, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ – The Association for Demand Response Smart Grid (ADS) today announced a “Call for Creative” as a follow on to its recently issued Call for Papers. Both of the issuances are in conjunction with the 9th annual National Town Meeting on Demand Response and Smart Grid occurring from June 26-28 in Washington, DC.

Members of the DR and smart grid community have witnessed a dramatic shift in the importance of engagement with consumers and stakeholders in recent years. ADS is now offering the opportunity for companies and organizations to share with the rest of the DR SG community what they have created or commissioned.

This “Call for Creative” is a chance for marketing and communications departments, nonprofit advocacy groups, technology companies, creative agencies, public relations firms, and others to submit work that they have done or will be doing and have it be recognized by practitioners, stakeholders, policymakers, and others. ADS hopes this will also encourage groups to undertake new efforts using the ideas expressed in the “National Action Plan Communications Action Guide Part I” that ADS released in July 2011.

“As DR and smart grid have proliferated in recent years, parties have had to create innovative communications efforts to reach out to their customers,” said Dan Delurey, Executive Director of ADS. “We wanted to offer the opportunity for them to show off their creative ideas and provide examples of what has worked.”

Guidelines for submission can be found on the ADS website (www.demandresponsesmartgrid.org), and submissions will be accepted through April 16, 2012. All submissions will be published on an interactive map on the ADS website, and submissions judged to be worthy of greater acknowledgment will be shown and displayed at the upcoming National Town Meeting on Demand Response and Smart Grid (June 26-28, 2012 in Washington, DC).

The National Town Meeting’s “Call for Creative” project is being managed by To the Point.

About the Association for Demand Response Smart Grid

The Association for Demand Response Smart Grid (ADS) is a nonprofit organization, originally formed in 2004 as the Demand Response Coordinating Committee (DRCC). ADS is a 501 (c) 3 nonprofit organization consisting of professionals and organizations involved in demand response and smart grid. It provides services to help its members in the conduct of their work and in the attainment of their personal, corporate and governmental objectives. ADS seeks to establish and grow a demand response “community” of policymakers, utilities, system operators, technology companies, consumers, and other stakeholders.

Group Members of ADS are Ameren, American Electric Power, American Public Power Association, Arizona Public Service, ComEd, Conservation Services Group, ENBALA, Energate, Exelon, Freeman, Sullivan Co, ISO New England, MISO, National Grid, Navigant Energy Practice, NYSERDA, Opower, Pacific Gas Electric, PECO, PJM Interconnection, Progress Energy, Salt River Project, San Diego Gas Electric, Southern California Edison, Southern Company, and Tennessee Valley Authority.     

More information on ADS can be found at: www.demandresponsesmartgrid.org

About the National Town Meeting on Demand Response and Smart Grid

The 2012 National Town Meeting on Demand Response and Smart Grid is the acknowledged place for those in the demand response and smart grid community to gather. Representatives from utilities, government entities, technology firms, and many other sectors within the community will gather to discuss both the present and future of DR and SG.  

More information on the Town Meeting can be found at: www.smartgridtownmeeting.com

SOURCE Association for Demand Response and Smart Grid

Article source: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/02/22/4282946/national-town-meeting-on-dr-sg.html. Creative Commons (CC)

NEWTON, Mass., Feb. 22, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ –
Ambient Corporation


/quotes/zigman/6046720/quotes/nls/ambt AMBT
+2.30%



, a leading provider of flexible and scalable smart grid communications platforms and technologies, announced today that it has appointed Don Pollock as Global Vice President of Sales and Marketing, reporting to John J. Joyce, President and CEO of Ambient Corporation.

“We’re delighted to have Don join us. He brings a wealth of sales and marketing expertise garnered from his rich experience in a variety of vertical markets,” said John J. Joyce. “This is going to be an exciting year for Ambient as we make significant investment in our sales and marketing resources to develop our business globally. Our smart grid communications platform is well proven and we are very confident that it can deliver outstanding benefits to utilities around the world.”

Prior to joining Ambient Corporation, Mr. Pollock was Managing Director of Customers Matter Ltd, a marketing and research consultancy. For over 20 years he has acted as an executive in or consultant to various businesses; and helped them understand their customers and prospects, build business and deliver better bottom line results. Some of his previous clients include: IBM, Saint Gobain, Baldor, Indesit and Universal Powerline Association. His early career was spent in working for the global media group Bauer (Formerly EMAP). Mr Pollock has a B.Sc in Psychology and Business Studies from Edinburgh University.

Mr. Pollock said, “This is an excellent time to be joining Ambient Corporation, we have a world class smart grid communications platform that is yielding significant benefits for our marquee customer, and it is an exciting challenge to build, develop and lead the sales and marketing function at Ambient.”

For more information about Ambient and its products, please visit
www.ambientcorp.com .

About Ambient Corporation

Ambient designs, develops and sells the Ambient Smart Grid® communications platform. The Ambient Smart Grid products and services include communications nodes; a network management system, AmbientNMS®; integrated applications; and maintenance and consulting services to help utilities with operational cost savings. Using open, standards-based technologies along with in-depth industry experience, Ambient provides utilities with solutions for their smart grid initiatives. Headquartered in Newton, MA, Ambient is a publicly traded company


/quotes/zigman/6046720/quotes/nls/ambt AMBT
+2.30%



.

This press release contains statements that may be deemed to be “forward-looking statements” under federal securities laws. Any forward-looking statements are based upon our current expectations, estimates and projections about our business and our industry and reflect our beliefs and assumptions based upon information available to us at the date of this release. We caution readers that forward-looking statements are predictions based on our current expectations about future events. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Our actual results, performance or achievements could differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements as a result of a number of factors, including but not limited to, the dependence on one key customer, our ability to raise additional capital when needed, the sufficiency of working capital, the competitive market generally and in the smart grid industry specifically, the success of our collaborative arrangements, changes in economic conditions generally and the smart grid industry specifically, changes in technology, legislative or regulatory changes, and other risks and uncertainties discussed under the heading “RISK FACTORS” in Item 1A of our Annual Report of Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2010, and in the Company’s other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We undertake no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statement for any reason.

Ambient, Ambient Smart Grid, Communications for a Smarter Grid and AmbientNMS are registered trademarks of Ambient Corporation with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

SOURCE Ambient Corporation

Copyright (C) 2012 PR Newswire. All rights reserved

/quotes/zigman/6046720/quotes/nls/ambt

Add AMBT to portfolio

AMBT

/quotes/zigman/6046720/quotes/nls/ambt

Add AMBT to portfolio

AMBT

Article source: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ambient-corporation-appoints-global-vice-president-of-sales-and-marketing-2012-02-22. Creative Commons (CC)

1

By Doug Peeples