Helmut Melzer
Michigan has built a small town of about ten million dollars in Michigan in the US, but no one lives there. "Mcity" is the hometown of the next but one generation of cars, all of which have one thing in common: they all manage without a driver.
However, the community of autonomous electric cars is much more than the usual test site: the interaction of different road users and situations, but also new communication technology and innovations are being tested here in cooperation with numerous US companies.
At least the German automotive industry does not think about leaving the electric cars to the Americans - and wants to be the first driverless driver in the near future. "V-charge" is the name of the automatic car park search by VW: In the future, a driver only has to get off right in front of the entrance and activate an app. The vehicle then not only looks for a free parking space on its own, but also charges it inductively - that is, wirelessly - if the charging infrastructure is available. If the battery is full, the car is looking for a conventional parking space.
Car Auto: Legal Traffic Light on Green
"V-charge" is already working today, as well as about the Google car in the test phase already generally without steering wheel and without accelerator and brake pedal. And the legal basis for the car car is laid: So far, the article 8 of the Vienna Convention for Road Traffic was contrary to the new technology. This has now been changed: Automated driving systems are now allowed if they can be stopped by the driver at any time.
How should cars look?
In general, the starting signal for countless innovations has fallen that even shakes the look of a vehicle. The omission of conventional engines and transmissions creates unimagined possibilities for how cars can be built. The US-based company Local Motors, for example, has simply reduced the number of 10.000 individual parts required for existing cars with the "Strati" to 50 parts. 2014 was manufactured body and frame in a 3D printer. After 44 hours only electric motor, turn signals and other few components had to be inserted.
A foldable car was developed by a Grazer at the Vienna University of Technology. In principle, it is a tricycle that can accommodate up to three people. If necessary, the length of three meters can be reduced by one third by pushing the rear double tire under the passenger compartment.
Battery research decides
Hard working is also the hardest part of the scooter, the battery. He has to be smaller and lighter, but he wants to be able to cover more distances. Current electric cars already create kilometers without new charge over 250 - still too little to represent a marketable alternative, so worldwide a competition of the battery development has broken out. To increase the power density, both the anode and the cathode side as well as electrolytes are used. On the cathode side, for example, 2014 has been pushing ahead with research on lithium-sulfur batteries, which are relatively inexpensive to produce and store up to ten times more energy than conventional lithium-ion batteries. Another technology that is being researched extensively is lithium-air technology, which stores up to five times more energy than today's lithium batteries.
However, it is also important to have a short charge time - if the concept of permanent loan battery change does not prevail. Renault's Zoe, for example, already promises a quick charge on 80 percent of the load capacity in just one hour.
But how to pay for the "fueled" energy? Again, the heads are already smoking. In cooperation with the Climate and Energy Fund, the SMILE project is currently testing a prototype that will provide an integrative, multimodal information, booking, and payment system and link individual electric car services with those of public transport. Therefore, an information and payment system for all types of private transport should be offered.
Factor consumer
Of course, the acceptance of the future users is decisive for the development of a new ecological individual traffic. The Frauenhofer Institute has therefore conducted a survey on electric cars. The result: Against an electric car currently speaks that the acquisition costs are too high (66 percent), that the state must first subsidize sales (63 percent) and that electric cars must be just as powerful as conventional vehicles (60 percent). 46 percent even think (still) that electric cars can not replace the current vehicles. Maybe this is due to the following reason: 61 percent claim to know relatively little about electromobility.
Electric Cars
Only a few years ago, the electric motors started to change the world sustainably. And one thing is already clear: The switch to the electric car does not come overnight, at least not in the Alpine republic. At the end of 2014, 4.7 vehicles of the class M1 were registered in Austria, 3.386 vehicles (0,07 percent total share) drove purely battery electric - at least an increase to 2013 by 63,6 percent. In addition, around 1.700 charging points from different providers in Austria are currently available for public use.
Europe's front-runner Norway shows that it can do it differently with 18.000 newly registered electric cars in the year 2014 (+ 130 percent). The reason for the popularity: E-car buyers save themselves the VAT of 25 percent, registration fees, import and customs duties and special tax. In addition, they pay no toll, are allowed to refuel at public gas pumps for free and get higher mileage allowances in the tax return, in addition e-cars may use bus lanes and park for free. Sounds like a temptation? With the tax reform 2015 also in Austria incentives should come.
Until 2020, Austria wants to achieve a share of electromobility in the total vehicle fleet of five percent.Comments on the electric car
"We see electric cars as an opportunity to greatly reduce the environmental impact of the transport sector and the dependence on energy imports. In addition, the batteries can play a role as storage in the power grid. Therefore, we hope that electromobility will prevail, and the current developments are quite reason for optimism. If the electric cars actually get through, then it takes a certain amount of steering in the long run. Because the current cost reduction also carries a danger in itself: it may well happen that driving with an electric car the bottom line so much cheaper than driving a conventional car, that the traffic even increases. But it should not happen that electric cars are mainly used as a second car in the city, or make a cheap commuter car of the train competition, because from the overall system view, this would not be ideal. Especially in the city, there are enough alternatives that save space in comparison to the car - so that the public areas in the cities again become a living space, instead of serving as traffic areas. Because even electric cars need space, to drive, and 90 percent of the time to park. Ideally, electric cars should go where public transport is not profitable due to low numbers of passengers - on land. In the long term, therefore, one will also have to think about control measures, not least in order to compensate for the declining revenues from the mineral oil tax and thus the cost contribution for road maintenance. But it is not that far yet. The first thing it needs now is to lower battery costs and increase range, and to answer the question of how to optimally integrate cars into the grid. "
Jurrien Westerhof, Renewable Energy Austria"The availability of e-charging points is considered the key to accelerating the spread of electromobility. With an expansion initiative and networking of the charging station infrastructure, Wien Energie is giving Wiener Stadtwerke a decisive impulse towards the ecologically and economically sustainable use of electromobility. In the Viennese model region you can currently recharge your batteries at around 350 charging points. By the end of the year, there will be 400 power refueling capabilities. "
Thomas Irschik, Vienna Energy"Individual transport is in the midst of the most profound change in decades, with electromobility playing an essential role. E-vehicles drive quietly and emission-free, are the driving force for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and thus contribute significantly to climate protection. Internationally, much is invested in the expansion of this future technology and its integration into the existing system - a path that Austria is committed and courageous. "
Ingmar Höbarth, climate and energy fund"Car traffic is one of the main drivers of climate change, the largest consumer of fossil fuels and one of the largest energy consumption sectors. In several programs, Lower Austria has set itself the goal of reducing individual traffic or making it more efficient. Achieving these goals requires, on the one hand, the promotion of multimodal mobility, ie the linking of private transport and the environmental network, and, on the other hand, an increased trend towards sharing infrastructures, means of transport and journeys. Electromobility plays an important role here. "
Herbert Greisberger, Energy and Environment Agency Lower Austria
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