Webinar: THE WHY, THE WHAT, AND THE HOW OF RETROFIT PLUG-IN HYBRIDIZATION

Date:           Feb. 16, 2022

Time:          18:00 – 19:30

Location:      ONLINE

Presenter:    Mr. Tom Gurski,  Blue Dot Motorworks

Abstract:

Blue Dot Motorworks, a Seattle-based startup, is developing a family of bolt-on retrofit systems to convert existing vehicles in to plug-in hybrids. The motivation for this approach lies in the slow turnover of the global vehicle fleet. For example, if non plug-in vehicle production were completely phased out by 2027, a dramatically more aggressive strategy than anything being adopted anywhere, the resulting vehicle emissions would consume 230% of the remaining 1.5 C carbon budget. Closing the gap with additional new EVs would: cost $38 trillion; require 700% more battery production than predicted; destroy $15 trillion-worth of existing vehicles; necessitate 2.8 million additional chargers; and emit over 3 Gigatonnes of CO₂ in the production and scrapping processes.

Retrofitting existing vehicles as plug-in hybrids addresses all of these issues. The missing link is a technology that can be scaled to the magnitude of the challenge. Blue Dot Motorworks has achieved scalability through vehicle agnosticism. By taking a deliberately un-integrated approach, leveraging common vehicle interfaces, keeping the installation process simple and consistent, and baking adaptability in to the product architectures, the systems can be mass produced at the lowest possible price and installed by third parties. Blue Dot Motorworks has performed multiple rounds of prototyping and has demonstrated the feasibility, practicality, usability, and performance of the approach. They are now seeking their first round of external funding to commercialize the technology.

Presented by:

Vancouver Section Joint Communications Chapter

Vancouver Section Joint Vehicular Technology Chapter

For details and registration, please visit:

https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/299961