November 7, 2017

World’s first hybrid mobile crane is Dutch

Filed under: Automobiles,Dutch first by Orangemaster @ 8:14 pm

Crane

Crane manufacturer Spierings from Oss, Noord-Brabant will be presenting the world’ first hybrid mobile crane, a zero-emission vehicle, with the exception of using a small diesel motor on the motorway. Its SK487-AT3 City Boy will be unveiled on 18 November to guests from around the world.

The SK487-AT3 City Boy was specially designed for an urban environment where environmental requirements are increasingly higher. It is modular, runs on electricity, and is easily manoeuvrable in typically narrow Dutch streets and busy cities. Like a hybrid car, the SK487-AT3 can be charged up and can also run on its own battery for a few hours.

(Link and photo: omroepbrabant.nl)

Tags: , , ,

July 25, 2013

Electric charging stations for cars at Dutch filling stations

Filed under: Automobiles by Orangemaster @ 7:11 pm

A court ruled that charging stations may be installed at normal filling stations albeit in the free parking area simply because electricity is not fuel. A collective group of filling stations tried to fight off businesses who wanted to install charging stations, but lost. The law on fuel states that filling stations have a monopoly on selling ‘fuel’ and if electricity isn’t fuel, then they can’t stop the building of charging stations.

This is good news for electric car owners, and particularly for people who rent electric cars but can’t leave the city limits because of the lack of charging stations. Some 250 quick charging station, which claim to be able to charge cars in 20-30 minutes, will soon enough be built to accommodate electric cars on Dutch roads.

Worrying about dropping petrol losses because of hybrid cars is premature, as we told you last year since Dutch Prius drivers use too much petrol.

(Link: www.elsevier.nl, Photo by DaveOnFlickr, some rights reserved)

Tags: , ,

November 19, 2012

Dutch Prius drivers use too much petrol

Filed under: Automobiles,Sustainability,Technology by Branko Collin @ 11:25 pm

A study by broadcaster NOS shows that owners of plug-in hybrid eletric cars use “80 percent more fuel than the fuel economy estimates found in the manufacturers’ specifications”, Autoblog writes.

The article suggests that car owners buy their Priuses for the government rebates more than for saving the environment. Government incentives include “no purchase tax, zero percent additional tax liability and no road tax until 2016” according to the article. Car owners can request charging stations near their house according to Verkeersnet. The city of Utrecht even throws in a free parking spot.

On average the drivers in the study paid 73 euro more per month than expected by using petrol when they could be using electricity.

Some of the people in the study managed to only achieve a petrol use of 13 kilometres per litre, others got to a far more respectable 250 kilometres per litre.

(Photo by DaveOnFlickr, some rights reserved)

Tags: ,