Leaf on Railroad

Filed under: Emerging Technologies, EV/Plug-in, Infiniti While we had been told it was coming in 2014, the exact release date of the production version of the Infiniti LE concept might just might hinge on something you can't see and that the Japanese automaker can't control: wireless charging infrastructure. That's the word from Autocar, which talked to Nissan executive vice president Andy Palmer, who admits that wireless charging "is this technology we want to shine a light on, so while there is no world standard on methods, the rollout will be dependent on region." In other words, if you want the latest luxury EV, you'd better hide those wires. They're so gauche. There's a good chance Infiniti will be the first OEM to sell a production inductive charging vehicle (companies like Mitsubishi and Audi are also working on the technology), which is likely to be a double-edged sword. Yes, it'll have bragging rights, but the wired infrastructure is proving difficult enough to put into place, and having the coolest tech doesn't mean much if you can't put it into use. Thankfully, the LE (or whatever it will be called) is also expected to come with conventional wired charging capabilities. Also, Infiniti is, at this point, trying to get induction charging technology to be open source, which could help a lot of players in the industry. The LE concept, based on the Nissan Leaf, has the same 24-kWh lithium-ion battery pack but a more powerful 100-kw electric motor good for 134 horsepower and 240 pound-feet of torque.Infiniti luxury electric sedan needs more wireless charging originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Wed, 22 May 2013 18:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

The atmosphere never gets a moment’s privacy. It can barely stir enough to move a leaf without some piece of high-tech equipment—often many, many pieces—knowing about it. The U.S. alone has up to 30 satellites at any one moment that devote at least part of their time to monitoring global and national weather patterns; 122 Doppler radar systems scattered across the country looking up from the ground; and a web of computers that just got a massive upgrade—increasing their data-crunching capacity 30-fold—to process the information that all that other hardware gathers.