Siemens AG has announced it’s to begin large-scale tests on its own fleet of electric vehicles on its employees for zero cost.
The company made the announcement that, once the vehicles are put into service in late November, the 100 employees taking part will test the cars in everyday use.
Siemens says it will offer the employees the tests free of charge and hope to gain useful knowledge on the electrical grid at the same time.
“With this fleet testing, we hope to improve how cars work in conjunction with the electrical grid, such as when many electric cars are recharging at the same time,” explained Prof Gernot Spiegelberg, director of electromobility concept development at Siemens Corporate Research.
Pressure on the grid
Spiegelberg added that in order to gauge how much pressure they can place on the grid, they intend to over saturate it with many devices charging at once.
“In our fleet field testing we are going to connect the greatest possible number of electric cars to charging points at the same time,” said Spiegelberg.
The vehicles in question are expected to make an appearance, as well as Siemens’ other advances in electromobility, at the eCarTec trade show from 19-20 October, in Munich, Germany.
This news comes on the back of another Siemens AG announcement – a major deal with Masdar City. The deal will see Siemens implement an innovative power grid with advanced building technologies in the first phase of Masdar City – that will serve as an energy efficient power solution and a living research and development platform.
