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Car wheels, not engines will drive cars
S.A. Mansoor
Believe it or not, it will be car wheels and not car engines that will be driving your favourite cars. The days of the car engines as power source are numbered. Shortly, they will disappear from under the car hood, to be replaced with more boot space and car battery. The wheels with repulsion magnets will be the prime movers, driving the car and such driving mechanism will be a normal feature of the car.
These cars would be coming soon to the market, with increased efficiency and economy, making it more affordable as a personal transport. Motor vehicles are fairly wasteful in terms of energy and fuel consumed to move only a few persons at any time. Every time a car engine runs, 80 per cent of the energy it supplies goes to overcome the frictional resistances of the engine itself, drive transmission and bodyworks and the total weight of the car and passengers or cargo, which accounts for the high fuel consumption.
The electric car, however, goes a long way toward reducing this wasted energy by replacing the internal combustion engine with all its piston valves and cylinders and the mechanical gear transmission, and shafts driving the car wheels and batteries! This revolutionary electric car also will loose at most 60 percent of the energy because mechanical parts will still be used to deliver energy from the repulsion motors to the car wheels through various mechanical components. Energy is also needed to overcome the car's weight, surface friction and wind resistance.
Electromagnetic wheels
Engineers have come up with a far more efficient and interesting way to accomplish the same task: by using the principle of magnetic repulsion mounted on the wheels of the car in place of the traditional car engine or battery powered traction motors in normal electric vehicles and its related mechanical power transmission system. Wheel repulsion motors ensures better energy efficiency than the electric car. It brings the truly energy-efficient car another step closer to reality. The mechanism is surprisingly simple. Each wheel hub has a ring of electromagnets inside. Another ring of magnets lines the rim of the wheel, which fits over the hub. A rapidly alternating pulse of electricity passes through the electromagnets in the hub changing the polarity of magnets many times each second! This results in the wheel to turn through the known fact magnetic repulsion between like magnetic poles. The only moving parts, apart from the wheel itself, are the wheel ball bearings.
About two hundred test cars, buses, and trucks have been built with wheel motors till date in the US for performance trials. About twenty companies are developing to build these, including BMW, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Mitsubishi, Renault-Nissan, Siemens, and Volvo, as well as wheel and tire makers Bridgestone and Michelin. Two and three-wheeled vehicles that use wheel motors are already being sold, especially in China, and four-wheeled models are getting ready for production in early 2010. An electric automobile maker in California, US will soon start manufacturing wheel motored passenger cars, pickups, and minivans at a factory in Kentucky, USA.
It is said, they can make a set of wheel motors for less than the cost of a combustion engine with its various complex moving parts. With labour in the US now cheaper due to recession, the automakers plan to sell different models of these repulsion motored vehicles priced between $14,500 and $35,000. In July 2009 the first four city buses retrofitted with wheel motors began carrying passengers in the Dutch city of Apeldoorn. The technology, developed by the Dutch company supported by Volvo, has more than 6ookg of batteries in the vehicle. These are charged by the bus's small internal combustion engine. The system is expected to reduce diesel consumption (and emissions) by more than 30 percent. The company that operates these city buses in the Netherlands estimates that in the next five years more than two hundred buses in that country would be driven by wheel motors. Since buses are driven long hours, so they will likely recoup the cost with fuel savings much earlier than family cars! For public buses, the repulsion motored drive is a boon.
Although costs are falling, wheel motors are generally more expensive than conventional drive trains, and they don't handle as well as conventional cars. Wheel powered motor vehicles may not catch on in a big way for a decade or so, but improvements in the technology and the push for efficiency could transform wheel ring magnet drives into a new standard for powering cars. With more development going on, the initial problems, though minor, will soon be overcome and it is expected that wheel magnet driven public transport vehicles will soon become the preferred vehicle on the road.
The writer is Technical Adviser, Spectra Group
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HK-BD venture to invest in Adamjee EPZ
Holiday Desk
A Hong Kong-Bangladesh joint venture Company, Yester Accessories Company (BD) Limited, will expand their garments accessories manufacturing industry in Adamjee Export Processing Zone.
The company's investment of $ 9.5 million proposed earlier will be increased to $ 12.5 million, according to an agreement signed between the Bangladesh Export Processing Zones Authority and the company in BEPZA Complex in Dhaka on Monday
Due to this increased investment, there will be employment opportunities for 1,080 people including 40 foreign nationals in this company. Earlier employed 613 persons including 18 foreign nationals were employed in the company.
Md Moyjuddin Ahmed, member (investment promotion) of BEPZA and Bishawjit Kar, managing director of the company signed the agreement on behalf of their respective organisations.
Among others, Brig Gen Jamil Ahmed Khan, executive chairman, Md Shawkat Nabi, secretary, AZM Azizur Rahman, general manager (investment promotion) of BEPZA were present at the signing ceremony.
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International business hampered in fraud: ICCB President
Holiday Report
Businesses in international trade are facing growing threat from fraud. Currently the main threat to international traders is fraud from organised crime, including hijacking of ships and taking crews as hostage at high seas, theft of goods at port and at sea or their business identity, cross-border and road-freight crime.
Other risks include infringement of intellectual property or employee fraud said ICCB President Mahbubur Rahman while he was inaugurating a day-long workshop on International Trade Fraud: Prevention, Control & Remedies at the Bangabandhu International Conference Centre (BICC) on February, 28 organised by International Chamber of Commerce-Bangladesh.
ICCB President mentioned that the rise in online trading has created new forms of criminal activity, such as new ways of laundering money etc. International trade fraud is not confined to any particular region, country or industry, commercial crime is growing faster than international trade. Frauds are more complex and involve larger sums than ever before.
He pointed out that Internet has emerged as a blessing for the present pace of life but at the same time also resulted in various threats to the consumers and other institutions. Various criminals like hackers, crackers have been able to pave their way to interfere with the internet accounts through various techniques like hacking the Domain Name Server (DNS), Internet Provider's (IP) address, spoofing, phishing etc. They have been successful in gaining "unauthorized access" to the user's computer system and stealing useful data to gain huge profits out of customer's accounts.
Bangladesh has been growing fast in the international trade. Both import and export are increasing at substantial rate. As the international trade is growing all parties involved in the trade is also getting exposed to the risk of international trade finance fraud. The more the market of import-export is expanding the more we are facing the risk of unknown events including fraud, ICCB President added.
Mr. Mamun Rashid, Chairman of ICCB Standing Committee on Banking, Technique & Practices said that in view of the situation of growing piracies and commercial crimes ICCB organized this workshop for the second time in Dhaka. He expressed hope that the participants going back to their desk would be able to work more efficiently in combating the commercial crimes in International Trade.
Mr. P. Mkundan, Director & Chief of ICC -International Crime Services, visiting expert from UK who conducted the workshop also spoke at the inaugural session. A total of 93 participants from banks, pharmaceutical companies, Govt. export promotion organisations and Export oriented industries attended the workshop.
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Japanese investors keen to invest
in Bangladesh
A Japanese business delegation has expressed interest to invest in Bangladesh especially in pharmaceuticals, construction and reconditioned car sectors.
George Hara, leader of the 10-member Japanese delegation, expressed keenness during their meeting with the leaders of Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) last week.
"We are very much interested to invest in Bangladesh especially in the fields of pharmaceuticals, construction and reconditioned car,'' said the delegation leader.
The FBCCI leaders invited the visiting Japanese businessmen to invest especially in infrastructure, pharmaceutical sectors and to import more products from Bangladesh.
—Agencies
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SME policy this month
The Bangladesh Bank (BB) is finalising the policy for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), focusing on encouraging more women entrepreneurs in business and investment.
According to a central bank official, the policy would be finalised by this month and the official announcement by the BB governor would follow soon. It will have special focus on selecting women entrepreneurs for providing them with enough credit facilities.
''The policy is being prepared after taking suggestions from all the banks and financial institutions,'' said Shukamal Sinha Roy, general manager of the SME and Special Programme Deparment of the central bank.
He said the policy would have the guideline for SME lending, determining interest rates and the mortgage and monitoring of the programme.
—Agencies
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Regulations approved for lesser IPO
Holiday Desk
The government last week approved new regulations for initial public offering (IPO) allowing companies to offload lesser amount of their paid-up capital for raising fund from the capital market.
The new regulations said any company interested in offloading shares should have a minimum paid-up capital of Tk 40 crore. Under the new regulation, any interested company with a paid up capital between Tk 40 crore and Tk 75 crore would have to offload 40 per cent of its capital through IPO.
The face value of market lot of any securities will be Tk 1000 or its multiple. But the company will not be allowed to sell their stakes through any pre-IPO private placement.
Under the previous regulations, a company was required to offload a minimum 40 per cent of its paid-up capital through an IPO irrespective of the size of its paid up capital.
The finance ministry formulated the new regulations in line with the recommendations made by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the stock market regulatory body, which had observed that many large companies were unwilling to offload 40 per cent of their paid up capital.
The earlier guidelines made effective from November 5, 2009, drew flak from analysts and discouraged many potential companies to raise capital from the share market.
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