Fred Smith, CEO of FedEX said this about where he sees the local delivery industry going...
"I think in three or four years you will have a battery vehicle with a range that's probably double what it has today — a couple of hundred miles versus a hundred miles — and it'll probably be 25 percent to 40 percent cheaper than [it] currently is."
"An all-electric pickup and delivery van will operate at a 75 percent less per-mile cost than an internal combustion engine variant," he says. "Now, I didn't say 7 1/2 percent — [I said] 75 percent. These are big numbers.
Smith says he believes that six years from now, electric vehicles will be in wide commercial use, transporting everything from FedEx packages to plumbers and pizza.
As for where battery prices are now, let me offer this...
Better Place, the company currently building car-charging and battery-swapping networks in Israel and Denmark, is purchasing batteries for cars at $400 per kilowatt hour for delivery in early 2012, according to company executives.
I wonder how production in China will affect battery prices in coming years. China has certainly worked to bring down the coast of solar panels in recent years. I understand they are also targeting EV batteries as a market they want to grab.
Beth, you're right; I'd prefer to see such a report from the CBO instead of the President's administration. Such a report will never escape the bias from its source. Better yet, have an organization the likes of Consumer Reports generate the report.
Beth, you hit it right on the head. These devices are following the normal technology demand curve. A good example is flat screen TVs. It was both demand and innovation that contributed to the rapid decline in prices and increasae in capability. I see both for EV batteries. The current technology, as is, will not be what we have when the price comes down. As for predicting the timing, lot's of luck.
There's no doubt that there should be significant progress made in reducing the costs of EV batteries, particularly considering how much time, resources, and funding (government and private sector) is going into fueling new development in this area. However, given that it's an election year, I'm betting that this report probably leans towards a more bullish forecast as the current administration wants to paint its efforts in a favorable light. Hopefully, people can see past the politics and focus in on the important takeaway that there will be light at the end of the tunnel and with enough grit and engineering ingenuity, EV battery costs will come down over time, just like the cost of any new innovation. It's all part of the process.
For 3D printing to make the jump from rapid prototyping to manufacturing, engineers will need to find easier ways to move products from their CAD screens to their printers.
Gigabit and PoE are two networking technologies moving ahead in tandem as industrial users power remote Ethernet devices such as IP security cameras at 1,000 Mbps over existing CAT5 cable.
New versions of BASF's Ecovio line are both compostable and designed for either injection molding or thermoforming. These combinations are becoming more common for the single-use bioplastics used in food service and food packaging applications, but are still not widely available.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 5
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I've been using workstations for more than 10 years and love finding ways to get more performance from my system. With demanding professional applications that require more power each ...
A lasting memory from my first job as an engineer in an auto assembly plant is standing on hard concrete at six in the morning, vending-machine coffee clutched in hand, listening to ...
For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution.
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