And they will be fun to drive, as shown by the eRuf, a demo car built by Ruf and Siemens based on a Porsche 911 chassis. At the same time, Denmark is pursuing the EDISON project, in which electric cars will be used to store wind energy.The electric sports car from automaker Alois Ruf GmbH, equipped with Siemens technology, runs completely without engine noise and emissions. But is this new technology suitable for everyday use? The decisive factor is the fine-tuning of the interplay between the electric car and the power grid infrastructure.

When and where will drivers charge up, how long will it take, and how much will it cost? Might it also make sense for electric cars to feed power back into the grid? Siemens is supporting efforts in several places – including Denmark, Munich, and the Harz region of Germany – to answer these questions. Denmark, which generates some 20 percent of its electricity from wind power, is already a leader in the use of renewable energy sources. But the wind sometimes blows too hard or too gently, which requires a power storage unit to compensate for fluctuations in the power supplies.

That’s where the electric car comes into play. The idea is that if too much wind is gusting through the Danish wind farms, thousands of vehicles can charge their storage batteries at lower prices, thereby absorbing surplus energy. When the wind dies down, they can then feed the power they don’t need back into the grid, perhaps even earning a bit of money thanks to the higher rates paid in times of peak demand. This may sound utopian, but cooperative projects with Siemens have already explored how this could work and how electric cars can communicate with the power grid.

For example, work on the project known as EDISON, short for “Electric vehicles in a Distributed and Integrated market using Sustainable energy and Open Networks,” is moving full speed ahead in Risø, Denmark. According to Sven Holthusen, responsible for EDISON in the Energy Sector, “We are focusing on the question of how electric vehicles can be charged up quickly, reliably, and efficiently.” A test project on the Danish island of Bornholm will show by 2011 that connecting electric cars and renewable energy sources already can be an everyday affair.

While the partners in the EDISON project focus on power electronics and fast charging technology, work in the Harz region concentrates on the charging process and communication between e-cars and the grid. BMW, Siemens, and the Munich power utility are cooperating in Munich: Siemens is supplying the charging infrastructure, the utility is feeding in green power, and the BMW Group is providing 40 MINI E vehicles. All partners in this cooperative venture are certain of one thing: the future of mobility has already begun.