The Land
26/03/2009

While the big auto makers promise only timelines for electric vehicles, tiny Armidale company Energetique has delivered - with some help.
Energetique’s evMe is a purely electric car built around a perkey Mazda 2 body using components sourced from around the world, all switched together with the help of home-grown software wizardry.
For $70,000, the cost Energetique is quoting for new deliveries of the evMe, owners get the pleasure of being at the vanguard of the electric vehicle revolution.
That means being at the wheel of a vehicle operating at up to 96 percent efficiency, compared to the 30pc efficiency of oil powered cars.

However, few people will pay $70,000 just to feel virtuous, and Energetique claims about 100 expressions of interest.
There’s more to the car than just efficiency. Fortunately, the evMe is a functional vehicle, one that loses some range and convenience on the original Mazda 2, but gains in other areas.
In the evMe, the Mazda’s 76 kilowatt, 137 Newton metre petrol engine has been replaced with an 89kW Swiss-made electric motor with 220 Nm of torque, hitched up to a bank of lithium-ion batteries that Energetique claims are good for 200 kilometres of useful, highway speed driving on each charge. Top speed is 130 kilometres an hour, although the car is speed limited.

Up to 180km/h is apparently possible, but hungry on the battery pack and illegal to boot. Unlike a petrol engine, the evMe’s Brusa motor has only one moving part - the spinning rotor - one gear, and no need for gear changes. motoring costs currently work out at two cents a kilometre, the company claims, with full recharge times varying from 15 hours from a standard 10 amp household plug to five hours from a specially-fitted dual 15 amp plug.

The technology allows for partial charging, so owners can top-up if the car is in regular use. Energetique has used its software expertise to wire a few extra flourishes into the evMe. For instance, the car uses regenerative breaking algorithms to slow the vehicle at traffic lights while using this energy to recharge the batteries. There are plans to use this technology to allow the car to “learn” the habits of its driver in order to better capture breaking energy as recharge.
The company is also exploring the potential of the on-board GPS system, which opens up new possibilities for automatic management - for instance, speed limiting the vehicle in school zones during certain times of the day.

Behind the wheel, the evMe feels like a normal car, albeit one unnervingly quiet at low speeds. At high speeds, road and wind noise kicks in as surrogate feedback for the hum of the engine.
The torquey electric motor delivers a different motoring experience. No more kicking down a gear on hills or in the overtaking lane: just press the accelerator and the speedometer climbs without any fuss from under the hood. With the full 220Nm of torque available from zero revs, the evMe has been electronically governed for a smooth start; otherwise this placid little car could turn into a wheel-spinning beast at the traffic lights.
But without a signature exhaust note, tweaking the circuitry to achieve just that might be the only joy left to boy racers should electric vehicles come to dominate the roads.

The Land
26/03/2009

Three-person Armidale company, Energetique, is about “energy mobility,” according to chief executive officer Phil Coop, and the ultimate embodiment of that is the company’s electric car, the evMe.
To the outsider, making a state-of-the-art electric car with specs that compare favourably with anything on the global market has been surprisingly simple.

In Energetique’s case it meant scouring the world for the best possible componentry, finding a suitable body to house it, and having the software knowledge to put it all together in the most effective way. There was a little more to it than that, Mr Coop explains, but as a principal it takes direct aim at the infrastructure-heavy automobile industry.

Electric vehicles have been around since the automobile was invented, and a flourishing hobbyist movement has existed since the oil crisis of the early 1970s. But the technology boom of the past 15 years, and the recent convergence of digital technologies into mutually useful applications, where a mobile phone can either drive your TV or serve as a TV itself, suddenly means only imagination will limit the role of the electric vehicle in an emissions-constrained society.

Thanks to the software talents of Energetique’s technical engineer, Norm Boessler, some early incarnations of that potential are already wired into Australia’s latest electric car.
For instance, a full diagnosis, servicing and upgrading of the evMe’s electrical and computer system can be done over the mobile phone network, without having to return the car to a garage.

Glen Innes Examiner
26/03/2009

An electric car has hit the streets of Glen Innes with Howard Eastwood proudly behind the wheel.
Mr Eastwood took ownership of the first electric powered motor vehicle in Australia in November and was able to take it home for the first time yesterday.

The vehicle known as an ‘evMe’ was developed by Armidale based technology company Energetique over the last four years and was launched in Armidale in November. The company held on to Mr Eastwood’s vehicle following the launch to further refine its features and yesterday it finally changed hands.

The ‘evMe’ made its longest trip to date from Armidale to Glen Innes to be delivered much to the delight of Mr Eastwood who had been searching for such a vehicle for a number of years.

It has the body of a Mazda 2 with a unique liquid cooled hybrid synchronous motor under the hood. The outlet for charging takes the place of where a fuel tank would normally be with a range of 200 to 300km per charge.

Mr Eastwood said he looked forward to testing out how far the vehicle could go.

“It has been a project of mine for a number of years to find an electric car and I’m now interested to see what its limitations are because it is so close to being a long distance vehicle,” he said.

“In the future I would love to take it from Wallangara in Queensland to Melbourne crossing three states.”

Energetique CEO Phil Coop and chief technical officer Norm Boessler delivered the car to Mr Eastwood in Glen Innes and were expecting it to be the first of many that will soon be on the roads.

“We have had serious discussions about selling quite a number of them both to individuals and businesses,” Mr Coop said.

“They are powerful vehicles that will outperform a fuelled vehicle on everything besides the range it can travel and we are working on that.”

The company will continue to monitor the performance of the vehicle by digital means and will work further on improving the battery life in upcoming months.

Mr Eastwood said the vehicle would be on display at Glen Severn Holden Monday to Thursday next week from 12noon to 4:00pm to enable the public to have a closer look at it.

The Sydney Morning Herald
Weekend Drive
21/03/2009

The evMe is an Australian-designed electric car based on a Mazda2 small car. RICHARD BLACKBURN took it for a test drive.

While Tesla’s electric cars grab headlines across the globe, a company in the NSW country town of Armidale is quietly developing its own contribution to carbon-free motoring.

The evMe doesn’t have the sleek looks or rapid acceleration of the Tesla roadster, nor the Hollywood client list. It looks like a normal petrol-powered Mazda2 on which it is based.

Flip the petrol cap open, though, and you’ll find a humble domestic power point that means its owner will never have to visit a petrol station.

The evMe electric car project is led by local Armidale academic and organic cattle farmer, Dr Phil Coop.

Dr Coop and his small team of software experts, engineers and mechanics have spent between $2 million and $3 million developing the evMe for commercial use.

This week, the first car was handed over to retired Glen Innes businessman Howard Eastwood, who paid a premium of roughly $50,000 to have an electric, rather than petrol version of the Mazda2.

Coop’s company, Energetique, plans to build 100 evMe’s a year, priced at $70,000, and claims to have more than 100 expressions of interest for the vehicle, mainly from corporate fleets looking to score “greenie” points.

Before it was handed over, Drive got the opportunity to drive the first evMe around the streets of Armidale.

At first glance, the unique badge is the only sign that there is something different about this Mazda2. But climb into the cabin and there are a couple of tell-tale signs this is not your average car.

The first is a silver lever on the floor near the handbrake; a kill switch that allows technicians to cut the electricity while they work on the vehicle. Just above the lever, the automatic gear selector is also different. As the evMe has no gearbox, there are only three selections available: park, drive and reverse. A trip computer-style read-out in the instrument panel next to the speedo tells you which gear you’ve selected. It also gives information about battery voltage, remaining charge and range (up to 280km).

Eventually, the evMe will have three modes: performance, normal and limp home.

Today, we only have access to normal mode. To switch the car on, you simply turn the key and select a gear. The only sign that the engine is running is noise made by some auxiliary systems. You can hear the faint hum of the brake booster pump but apart from that everything is silent.

Backing out of the small workshop, the evMe feels a lot like the Prius, which can crawl silently at low speed before the petrol engine kicks in.

The comparisons end when you plant the accelerator.

The evMe gathers speed without any of the usual aural and tactile sensations you’d expect from a car. There’s no kickdown through the gears, no gradual build-up of noise as the revs get higher (even though the engine reaches a sports car-like 11,000rpm). All you can hear is the whine of the Mazda’s conventional differential.

You immediately become more aware of noises you would never have heard in a normal petrol car. A warning to manufacturers: Customer complaints about rattles and squeaks are likely to soar when a car goes electric.

Acceleration feels on par with the normal Mazda2, although when you plant the pedal to overtake, there is none of the immediate kickdown response you get with a conventional automatic gearbox. Rather than give you a shove in the back, the evMe continues to push seamlessly ahead.

It can take some getting used to and feels as if you’re somehow missing out in the power stakes, but if you look at the speedo it is making the same progress.

The car excels climbing hills, which is no surprise given its big torque – or pulling power - advantage over the petrol Mazda2. While the standard Mazda puts out 76kW of power and 137Nm of torque, the evMe puts out 89kW and 220Nm.

On a long, steep freeway incline the evMe kept pulling effortlessly when a conventional petrol engine would have been revving hard.

As the car was being delivered to its proud owner at the end of the week, we didn’t test the handling limits, but in normal driving it seemed to lack none of the original Mazda2’s poise and control through corners.

The designers of the car have gone to great lengths to ensure the car’s weight balance is not upset. The 96 kitchen tile-sized battery packs are mostly packaged beneath the floor to keep the centre of gravity low.

They weigh roughly 200kg, but once you replace the conventional petrol engine with an electric motor, the car weighs roughly the same as the standard one.

Charging takes 14 hours from a standard plug or just four hours from the heavy duty power outlets you get at a powered caravan site.

Dr Coop doesn’t expect the evMe to become a volume-seller. In the first instance it will appeal to early adopters prepared to pay a large premium for what is essentially a city commuter car.

It’s still a long way from a success story, but this innovative electric car from the New England tablelands is enough to make Detroit’s big three blush.

Visit the Drive web site for full details.

09/03/2009

On the 6th of February 2009 founder and chairman of Kokam International,
the largest manufacturer of lithium polymer batteries globally, made a visit to Australian client company Energetique.

During his visit, Mr JJ Hong took the evMe for a test drive and previewed Kokam’s new battery hailed as the next generation in lithium ion technology.

Scheduled for release in 2010, the new nano battery features a recharge
time of only seven minutes, a 25% increase in current energy storage capacity and a lifespan greater than 10,000 cycles.

This new nano battery represents a dramatic leap in existing battery
technology on a global scale and will soon make recharging an electric vehicle quicker, cheaper and more convenient than a visit to the local petrol station.

Delivered entirely by the battery itself, these new capabilities require no additional investment in supporting infrastructure making the concept of battery exchange redundant.

While visiting Australia, Mr Hong expressed interest in the possibility of
setting up a manufacturing facility in Australia to support future demand.
This strategic project would establish local capability in a core energy technology that would in-turn facilitate further innovation within Australian Industry.

Energy storage is the key to the successful uptake of electric vehicles. It is also this technology that has the potential to revitalise the manufacturing sector and help Australia capitalise on the development of the renewable energy resources.

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