Automotive Trends

Peugeot has recently announced that its electric car, the i0n, is due to go on sale in the UK by the end of the year. Nissan has created the concept car the Leaf, while Renault has been working on the futuristic Twizy concept car, which will soon be entering the virtual world of The Sims.But behind the scenes researchers in Israel have been working on making hydrogen a viable competitor as an alternative to petrol.

In an apparent compromise, the Environmental Protection Agency capped at 200,000 per maker the number of electric vehicles that could be credited with a 0-gram rating for carbon dioxide (CO2) through 2016. Additional EVs would be charged some responsibility for the CO2 created while producing the electricity to charge them.

An electric power steering apparatus including an electric motor for outputting assist torque to a steering wheel of a vehicle, and a control unit for controlling thedriving of said electric motor, said control unit comprising: a power main body including a bridge circuit composed of a plurality of semiconductor switching elements for switching a current supplied to said electric motor in accordance with torqueassisting said steering wheel; a control main body that generates a drive signal to control said bridge circuit based on the steering torque of said steering wheel; a metal substrate that is composed of a plurality of insulating layers and a pluralityof conductor layers having wiring patterns respectively formed thereon, said insulating layers and said conductor layers being laminated on a metal plate; connector terminals that are made of an electrically conductive material and are arranged in aperipheral portion of said metal substrate; and metal elements that have one end portions welded to said conductor layers of said metal substrate on which said power main body is mounted, and the other end portions welded to said connector terminals.