“MIT students have developed a new battery technology that could make recharging an electric car as simple as refueling a traditional automobile.”

“The technology is based on a new liquid fuel, which the students have dubbed “Cambridge Crude”, which can be removed and replaced from a battery pack within minutes.”

“The process involves charged particles which float in a electrolyte liquid between two chambers in the battery pack – one for energy storage and another which discharges the energy. This type of architecture will make batteries ten times more efficient than current battery technology. Another added benefit is that this kind of battery is cheaper to produce than the lithium-ion packs which currently power most hybrid and electric cars.”

Source: WCF

“Rather than relying on the promised hydrogen highway to be built, Volvo is exploring the use of an on-board reformer to process gasoline into hydrogen gas. The fuel cell will use the hydrogen gas to power the electric motor when the C30′s 24kwh battery has been depleted, more than doubling the vehicle’s range without increasing battery size,” according to CNET.

The process of creating hydrogen from gasoline is about 85% efficient when compared to using straight-up gas, according to Green Car Reports. Powering electric motors with hydrogen is twice as efficient as using gasoline when powering internal combustion engines, which lose energy in the heating process. It also solves hydrogen’s biggest problem: the infrastructure lagging behind such technology.

Because hydrogen is created as-needed, it minimizes the storage issue presented by hydrogen vehicles, which slowly leak gas and can’t be stored in garages or other enclosed spaces for fear of explosions.

Volvo is in its first phase of a “Range Extender” project, which it’s conducting with Powercell Sweden AB. The car maker expects testing of these fuel cell hybrid electric cars to start in 2012.

Thanks to CNET for this one!

It’s a simple concept: use a composite of polymers and carbon fibers that store energy and mold them right onto the vehicle frame, shaped to fit the car’s design.

According to Volvo, the use of such materials for the battery can reduce a car’s weight by up to 15 percent, as it’s replacing some of the steel. The study should take about three years to complete, during which time Volvo hopes to make the application of this concept a reality.

“Almost daily I read new ideas about how this technology could be used or further developed. The potential is enormous,” says Volvo engineer Per-Ivar Sellergren, who works at the Volvo Cars Materials Centre.

The technology could also one day be used to reduce mobile phones to the size of a credit card and allow laptop computers to run on battery power for much longer than they can today.

Source: WCF

A futuristic-looking sketch depicting what Volvo described as “a future Volvo electric car” surfaced during a presentation at an event by EnerDel, lithium-ion battery suppliers for the electric Volvo C30. The sketch was signed by one Stefan Jansson and is quite bold, with a menacing front end and over-sized wheels.

Dan Johnston, a spokesman for Volvo played down suggestions of anything resembling the final electric car design, saying the sketch is just that, a sketch.

“It’s just one of the designer guys in Sweden playing around,” Johnston told Insideline. “We won’t have an electric vehicle that looks like an electric vehicle. It won’t be like a Prius. You’ll see the continuation of [our] design language on the C30.”

However, seeing as though the Swedes were actually pressured by an excited public into building the C30 from that radical Volvo Safety Concept Car of 2000, there is no saying this won’t happen again with this sketch.

Via WorldCarFans