UK-based battery maker Hyperdrive Innovation has opened the doors to HYVE, a new battery manufacturing facility at the company’s Sunderland UK home base. Hyperdrive says the new facility will allow it to produce up to 30,000 battery packs annually. Since moving to Sunderland in 2014, the company has invested £7 million in its manufacturing capabilities…. Read more »
Automotive supplier MAHLE has developed a compact heat pump system (Integrated Thermal System, or ITS) that it says can increase winter cruising range for EVs by up to 20%. Electric vehicles don’t produce the waste heat that ICE vehicles do, so most EVs today rely on direct resistive heating by electric heaters to heat the… Read more »
Volvo and Samsung SDI have partnered to develop battery packs for Volvo’s electric trucks. Samsung SDI will provide battery cells and modules. In December, Volvo announced plans to demonstrate its VNR electric regional-haul truck in 2019. The company has eyed commercialization in 2020. Volvo President and CEO Martin Lundstedt said, “With electromobility, the increasing needs… Read more »
Tritium, a manufacturer of fast chargers, has signed a deal with BOX ENERGI to be the sole supplier of rapid chargers for the DRIVE ENERGI charging network currently in development in the UK. DRIVE ENERGI aims to install 2,500 charging locations by 2025, with at least 100 sites live by the end of January 2020…. Read more »
Automotive supply giant Continental has launched a third-generation power module designed for a broad range of EVs, including electric SUVs and race cars. The new generation delivers six times the performance of the company’s first-generation power electronics and a reduction in weight from 12 kilograms to 8 kilograms. Continental produces its new power electronics using… Read more »
In a setback for the Trump administration’s campaign of sweeping away environmental regulations, four automakers have forged a deal with California that imposes only a moderate relaxation of the Obama-era federal fuel economy standards, rather than the radical rollback requested by the Republican regime. Regular Charged readers will be familiar with the story so far:… Read more »
Hyundai has developed a new feature called Active Shift Control (ASC) for its electric motors. By monitoring gearing shifts 500 times per second and adjusting the transmission rotation speed, ASC reduces gear-shift times by 30 percent, which should improve fuel economy. In order to improve fuel economy, conventional hybrids lack torque converters. This results in… Read more »
EV charging equipment manufacturer Tritium will supply and install 33 DC high-power chargers at the Port of Long Beach, where they will power a fleet of electric-drive terminal tractors operated by SSA Marine. Tritium’s Veefil-PK 175 kW DC High Power Chargers will charge 33 terminal tractors automatically and simultaneously. The chargers will be equipped with… Read more »
Sponsored by AVL High voltage batteries, a key component of electrified powertrains, play a critical role in future mobility concepts. Coupled with one or more electric drives, the integrated propulsion system determines driveability, package flexibility, and other brand-defining DNA. Similarly, the costs and robustness of a battery also contribute to the success of e-mobility. To… Read more »
Tesla has devised a new wiring architecture for its vehicles that could greatly streamline production. The new wiring system is designed to allow robots to handle more of the assembly process. One of the main reasons for the highly-publicized delays in early production of Model 3 was that Tesla tried to introduce too much automation,… Read more »