This year at CES in Las Vegas, I was really happy to see that electric vehicles were front and center in smart home demonstrations from electronics giants like Panasonic and Toshiba. Also, US automakers renewable energy were connecting electric vehicles and renewable energy. The most impressive display for me was Toshiba’s home cloud. On one side, a Honda Fit EV with Toshiba Li-ion batteries, solar PV, smart meter and home energy storage device, on the other a new line of smart appliances - washer, drier, microwave, television - all communicating using Zigbee to a central gateway, orchestrated in the cloud. In a staged demo, a utility demand response event was simulated and the clothes washer delayed by one hour. An app for tablets displayed real time energy use for each of the appliances, including the Toshiba EV charger.
Check out some highlights here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9w3Trwy08M
Ford showed MyEnergiLifestyle, a partnership with Whirlpool, Eaton, Infineon, Nest, Sunpower and others. Though the demonstration did not include orchestration of appliances, nor was it clear how those devices were communicating to each other or the cloud, it did show that a major electric vehicle manufacturer is thinking beyond the plug. This is encouraging to me, because I believe that e mobility ecosystem products and services are going to attract new EV customers and create sustainable business models for EVs.
Here's a great overview from Engadget:http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/08/ford-myenergi-lifestyle/
By matching a charging profile to wind energy prediction and real time production, GM displayed one pathway to a true zero-emission Volt. It got me thinking about how if EVs are charged intelligently, they can contribute to both lowering energy costs and emissions for society by taking advantage of wind energy which comes online during of-peak hours.
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