Start-up ION Energy, which builds energy storage systems and EV infrastructure, has acquired French battery management company Freemens SAS. Freemens founder and CEO Alexandre Collet joins ION as VP of Engineering. Freemens products include the FreeSafe Extended (FS-XT) battery management system, the FreeSafe LT battery management system, Fusion firmware and Freeway cloud fleet management. Freemens… Read more »
Battery management specialist Sendyne has unveiled new technology it says can predict cell and pack behavior of lithium-ion batteries with better than 5 percent accuracy in real time. CellMod, a lithium-ion battery simulation tool, has already been deployed by a US battery manufacturer. It’s designed to reduce design time and costs by employing rapid cell… Read more »
Analysts with the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) recently compared greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of electric cars to emissions from cars equipped with combustion engines. The findings were not surprising. Among other things, the ICCT analysis indicated that the typical EV produces 50 percent fewer GHG emissions than the average passenger car in Europe…. Read more »
Just one word for you: nickel. That’s the gist of a new report from the metals and minerals research firm Roskill. In its latest ten-year market outlook, Roskill predicts nickel consumption will rise by almost 4% per year, driven by increased consumption by stainless steel producers and by growth in demand in the automotive battery… Read more »
As Norway and the Netherlands have become EV capitals, Germany has lagged behind – according to conventional wisdom, because of resistance from the all-powerful German auto industry, combined with consumers’ love of high-speed, long-range driving on the autobahn. However, this picture is changing quickly. According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, this year German sales could… Read more »
Motor design software specialist Motor Design Limited (MDL) has released a new version of its Motor-CAD software package. Motor-CAD is aimed at motor designers, and is designed to perform quick and easy electromagnetic and thermal performance tests on electric machine designs. Motor-CAD is composed of three main modules: EMag, Therm, and Lab. The EMag module… Read more »
Eviation Aircraft, a manufacturer of electric aircraft (profiled in the July/August 2017 issue of Charged), and South Korean battery manufacturer Kokam have entered into a battery supply deal valued at $1 million. Kokam batteries will be used to power EViation’s all-electric Alice aircraft, which is scheduled to fly by the end of this year. Alice,… Read more »
Sion Power plans to begin production of its Licerion lithium metal battery in late 2018 from its Tucson facility. Sion says Licerion technology will offer specific energy of 500 Wh/kg, energy density of 1,000 Wh/L, and a lifetime of 450 cycles. Licerion technology, a product of Sion’s technical collaboration with BASF, covers a wide range… Read more »
Groupe Renault has partnered with the E-VIA FLEX-E charging network, which will deploy 14 fast charging stations in Italy, France and Spain by the end of 2018. The new charging stations will be located along motorways and expressways, and will offer capacities of 150 to 350 kW. The E-VIA FLEX-E network is part of the… Read more »
The Faraday Institution, the UK’s independent national battery research institute, has announced up to £42 million ($58 million) in new government funding to four UK-based consortia to conduct research aimed at overcoming battery challenges. The topics for the four projects were chosen in consultation with industry, to ensure that the research is producing solutions that… Read more »
