When it comes to vehicle autonomy, you could hardly find someone more experienced than Larry Burns, who was deeply involved with GM’s autonomy and electrification efforts as Corporate VP of R&D and Planning from 1998 to 2009, and later an important consultant to Google’s Waymo. In “Autonomy: The Quest to Build the Driverless Car –… Read more »
Sponsored by EBG Resistors The EV industry uses high-power resistors in a variety of applications including power converters for charging systems, power control unit, power distribution unit (PDU), and motor control unit and battery modules. EBG Resistors focuses on the cutting edge development of resistor technology. We work hand-in-hand with engineers to solve problems related to… Read more »
Tesla owners are used to receiving little goodies from time to time, but the latest over-the-air updates for Model 3 represent substantial increases in power and range. Tesla is rolling out an increase in peak power output to all Model 3s as part of firmware version 2019.8.2. “Your vehicle’s peak power has been increased by… Read more »
The “Dieselgate scandal,” or as we like to call it, the “dirty diesel debacle,” was a catalytic event (pun intended). It led to some major changes at Volkswagen, and shook up the European auto market. However, only time will tell how much of this change will prove to be permanent. The Volkswagen Group has announced… Read more »
XL, a Boston-based manufacturer of electric fleet vehicles, unveiled a plug-in hybrid Ford Super Duty F-250 pickup truck at the NTEA Work Truck Show in Indianapolis. This hybrid F-250 joins XL’s XLP Ford F-150 that the company began shipping in 2018. XL reports that, on initial assessment, the XLP F-250 truck provides up to a… Read more »
Shipping company United European Car Carriers (UECC) has signed a contract to construct two new Pure Car/Truck Carriers (PCTC) with China Ship Building Trading and Jiangnan Shipyard Group. The vessels will be powered by a hybrid battery/liquefied natural gas (LNG) solution, and the first vessel is planned for delivery in 2021. Each vessel will have… Read more »
The Geneva International Motor Show may have lost some of its former glamor – several major brands are not attending this year – but it remains a good place to get a feel for the state of the European auto industry. And the Europeans are talking electrification – the New York Times caught the electric… Read more »
Research firm Adamas Intelligence has reported that 93 percent of all passenger EVs sold in 2018 used permanent magnet (PM) traction motors, an increase of 1 percent from 2017. PM traction motors use neodymium iron boron (NdFeB) permanent magnets in the rotor, which spin the rotor in response to a rotating magnet field produced in… Read more »
Israel-based VisIC Technologies, a manufacturer of gallium nitride (GaN) power semiconductor devices for the auto, data center and industrial markets, has published a reference design aimed at the EV industry for its on-board charger (OBC) that uses its GaN technology. The 6.7 kW OBC has a volume of 2.3 liters and weighs 4.5 kg, providing… Read more »
Bus manufacturer New Flyer has announced the Xcelsior CHARGE H2, a new hydrogen fuel cell heavy-duty bus. The bus comes in 40-foot and 60-foot models, both of which have completed the Federal Transit Administration’s Model Bus Testing program in Altoona, Pennsylvania. The CHARGE H2 will have a range of up to 300 miles, with a… Read more »
