Solar Training with Vision Mechatronics

Last week on 16 July we had a Solar Training at Vision Mechatronics Thane headquarters. The session representatives and guests coming from all over India including Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa. While the session had some of the interesting presentation and demonstration such as but not limited to

1. What Vision Mechatronics does? Projects Vision Mechatronics works on.

2. Solar Engineering Procurement and Construction (EPC).

3. Vision Mechatronics Brand Solar Calculator.

 4. How Vision Mechatronics is now on going to be on Android giving online Solar and Lithium Battery Quotes.

 5. Comparison between Li-ion Batteries(Li-Rack) and other energy sources such as Diesel Generator, Lead Acid Battery.

6. A friendly site visit to all Vision Mechatronics customers.

One-stop solar solution provider Vision Mechatronics Private Limited with solar panels and batteries in high quality and good price. For more products information, please visit home page http://vmechatronics.com/.

How is Li-Ion Segment driving Global E-Bike Growth ?

Electric bicycles (e-bikes) continue to be the highest selling electric vehicle (EV) on the planet, with nearly 35 million unit sales forecast for 2016. Improving lithium ion (Li-ion) battery technology is resulting in e-bikes that are lighter, lower in cost, and remarkably similar to traditional bicycles. Additionally, increasing urbanization and a desire to move away from cars for motorized transportation are opening up more opportunities for alternative mobility devices. E-bikes are uniquely positioned to be a primary benefactor of this trend since they are low in cost relative to cars, do not require licensing, and can take advantage of existing bicycling infrastructure.

Barriers to market entry have been reduced over the past several years. Thus, crowdfunded startups such as Sondors, which offers a $499 Li-ion e-bike, have contributed to increased competition in the marketplace. These crowdfunded companies are taking advantage of maturing e-bike components in order to lower sales prices and improve performance.

Movement to Li-Ion Increasing Sales

The global e-bike market is well-positioned for growth, primarily in the Li-ion battery segment. Sealed lead-acid (SLA) batteries continue to represent the largest segment of e-bike sales due to their low cost and popularity in China. However, Navigant Research expects annual e-bike sales with SLA batteries to decrease significantly in most regions over the next 10 years—particularly in China, as the country moves to quickly transition over to the higher-performing and more environmentally conducive Li-ion chemistry. Countries such as Germany and the Netherlands are also poised to significantly increase adoption of Li-ion.

Percentage of E-Bike Sales with Li-Ion Batteries, World Markets: 2016-2025

Opportunities in the global e-bike market are characterized by the split between e-bikes with SLA versus Li-ion batteries. The SLA e-bike market is expected to experience a -4.7% compound annual growth rate (CAGR), whereas the Li-ion segment of the e-bike market is expected to grow at an 11.4% CAGR and represent where the bulk of growth and opportunities for the present and future are. The environmental and performance advantages of Li-ion over SLA position the technology to become the global mainstream battery for e-bikes in the future.

Sales in China to Decline, Growth Expected in Other Markets

Overall annual sales of e-bikes in China, the world’s largest market, are expected to decline due to market saturation and new bans on e-bike use in large areas of major cities such as Beijing, Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. Yet, the Li-ion e-bike market in China is expected to grow considerably over the next decade due to strong government support for the technology and decreasing Li-ion battery costs. According to Bike Europe, the Chinese government has outlined plans to transition toward Li-ion-powered, e-bikes representing one-third of the industry (or roughly 10 million unit sales) by 2019. While Navigant Research assesses this goal to be overly optimistic (having forecast that China is expected to reach the one-third Li-ion mark by 2022), it is nevertheless indicative of the overall market direction in the country.

Annual E-Bike Sales, China and the Rest of the World: 2016-2025

Western Europe continues to achieve steady and significant growth in e-bike sales, with Germany alone accounting for 535,000 unit sales in 2015 (compared to 480,000 in 2014 and 410,000 in 2013). During the next 10 years, e-bikes in the region are expected to evolve from a specialty commuting or recreation device to a standard bicycle form that is accessible to nearly all bicycle consumers.

The North American e-bike market was relatively flat in 2015, largely due to low gasoline prices and consumer awareness, combined with relatively poor bicycling infrastructure. In addition, several lower-priced models were discontinued as brands in the market transition toward higher-quality products. The evolution of the North American market is highlighted by the trend from lower-priced e-bikes to high-quality and high-performance electric mobility devices.

Nevertheless, the United States still has strong potential due to its enormous bicycle market (roughly 16 million per year)—just a 5% penetration rate would result in impressive e-bike sales figures. Navigant Research forecasts e-bike market share of the total bicycle market in the U.S. to rise from 0.8% in 2016 to 2.4% by 2025.

Overall, the global e-bike market is projected to grow at a 0.4% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over Navigant Research’s forecast period (2016-2025). This slow-growing CAGR is expected to be largely due to China’s anticipated decline in annual unit sales (-0.8% CAGR).

However, excluding China, the global e-bike market is forecast to achieve strong growth—rising from 3.3 million annual unit sales in 2016 to nearly 6.8 million units by 2025 at an 8.2% CAGR. The bulk of this growth is expected to occur in Western Europe and other markets in Asia Pacific such as Japan and Vietnam.

E-Bike Market Share of Total Bicycle Market by Country, Select Markets: 2016-2025

The global e-bike market is expected to be a strong area for investment. E-bike sales are anticipated to generate over $15.7 billion in revenue globally in 2016 and grow to a $24.4 billion market by 2025. Several established key markets are projected to expand and numerous emerging markets are expected to develop more robust sales and revenue streams.

In markets around the world, increasing urbanization and a desire to move away from cars for motorized transportation are creating more opportunities for alternative mobility devices. E-bikes are unique mobility devices since they are low in cost, have no licensing requirements, and can utilize existing infrastructure. Improvements in Li-ion energy density and decreases in battery pack costs are expected to position e-bikes even more firmly as a primary technology that will be increasingly utilized as an alternative mode of transportation to cars.

One-stop solar solution provider Vision Mechatronics Private Limited with solar panels and batteries in high quality and good price. For more products information, please visit home page http://vmechatronics.com/.

 

 

The Era of Electric Bikes and Cars

The Era of Electric Bikes:

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: humanity is living in the golden age of rideable technology right now. In the past few years, electric motors have become smaller and more powerful, and batteries have become more capacitous and long-lasting — two trends that have coalesced and kicked off a renaissance in personal mobility devices. There’s almost too many of them to keep track of anymore, and the latest addition to the ever-expanding pack is arguably one of the coolest yet.

It’s called the Carbon SUV e-bike, and it’s the creation of engineer Zeno Panarari and designer Alessandro Tartarini. Initially conceived under the Caterham umbrella, the team broke away from the British carmaker in 2014 and founded Moto Parilla last year. Now the Carbon’s second prototype is up on Kickstarter to gather funding for production.

The bike has three frame sizes (small, medium, and large) and comes in two backer reward options: a 500-watt 48 V mid-drive with a 22 mph top speed, or a 250-watt 36 V Shimano Steps motor that tops out at 15.5 mph. Both motors run on a 12 Ah li-ion battery. For an e-bike, the specs aren’t bad: An eight-speed Shimano Nexus hub, front fork with 72mm of travel, 26 inch fat tires, and an LED screen in place of a dirt bike’s speedometer to display distance, speed, and battery status.

One-stop solar solution provider Vision Mechatronics Private Limited with solar panels and batteries in high quality and good price. For more products information, please visit home page http://vmechatronics.com/.

Better Lithium ion batteries, how do they work? Magnets !!!

Battery research focuses on balancing three competing factors: performance, lifetime, and safety. Typically, you have to sacrifice one of these factors to get gains in the other two. But for applications like electric vehicles, we'd really like to see all three improved.

In an investigation recently published in Nature Energy, scientists demonstrated the ability to use a magnetic field to align graphite flakes within electrodes as they're manufactured. The alignment gives lithium ion a clearer path to transit the battery, leading to improved performance.

The electrodes of Lithium-ion batteries are often composed of graphite, which balances attributes such as a high energy density with non-toxicity, safety, and low cost. Graphite, composed of stacked sheets of carbon atoms, is often incorporated into these electrodes in the form of flake-like particles.

 

While graphite has many advantages, it has a downside: it limits the movement of lithium ions, which is a fundamental part of charging and discharging. The lithium ions are only able to move within the planes between stacked graphene sheets and often have to navigate a highly torturous path as they move around during charge and discharge. This slow movement through the electrodes remains a critical challenge in the development of batteries with improved performance.

The authors of the new paper reasoned that it should be possible to align the graphite flakes so that they provide a more linear path for ions to move within the battery. To accomplish this, they decided to use magnetic fields. There was just one problem: graphite doesn't respond to magnetic fields.

To work around this, the scientists coated the flakes with superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles. The coated graphite flakes were then suspended in ethanol. They homogenized the suspension and added a small amount of a chemical binder (2 percent by weight poly (vinyl pyrrolidone) that helped ease the alignment process. A relatively dilute suspension was needed to give the flakes enough room to move during alignment.

During fabrication of the electrodes, the graphite particles were oriented using a rotating magnetic field aligned perpendicular to the part of the battery that would exchange charges with the graphite (called a current collector). The scientists found that a magnetic field as low as 100 mT was capable of aligning the flakes. For comparison, this magnetic strength is larger than the average fridge magnet (1 mT), but significantly smaller than an MRI magnet (1.5 T). As a control, they also prepared reference electrodes in the absence of a magnetic field.

After fabrication, the team evaluated the alignment of the graphite flakes deposited under both conditions. Visual analysis revealed a clear orientation of flakes in electrodes fabricated under the influence of the magnetic field. The flakes were tilted at an angle of 60 degrees above the plane of the current collector. By contrast, the graphite flakes in the reference electrodes fell mostly parallel to the current collector.

Next, the scientists carried out a series of experiments to evaluate the change in the path the lithium ions needed to navigate. Overall, they saw that the magnetic field decreased the tortuosity of the paths through the electrode by a factor of 4 compared to the reference electrodes.

Finally, they evaluated how this impacted the battery performance by testing the electrode in a half-cell configuration (meaning they didn't build a full battery). At practical charging rates, alignment of the graphite flakes increased the lithium storage capacity of the electrode by a factor of between 1.6 and 3.

This investigation demonstrates that chemistry isn’t the only important factor at play in battery design—optimization of the electrode architecture can help boost battery performance as well. Future studies will need to determine the scalability of this technique.


One-stop solar solution provider Vision Mechatronics Private Limited with solar panels and batteries in high quality and good price. For more products information, please visit home page http://vmechatronics.com/.