German battery manufacturer AKASOL has announced the opening of a new semi-automated production facility for commercial vehicle batteries. The company has invested €10 million in the new commercial plant at Langen, in the Hesse region of Germany. The facility has a capacity of 600 MWh of battery systems per year, enough to equip up to… Read more »
Tesla’s Model 3 is floating in a strange sort of scarcity-induced stealth mode. Mainstream auto mags can’t seem to get their hands on units to review, but video reviews from owners and internet-era citizen journalists are starting to appear: Doug DeMuro, writer of the Oversteer column on Autotrader; Trevor Page and Kenneth Bokor, the founders… Read more »
Legacy automakers have been producing quality EVs for years, but have shown little interest in actually selling them. That attitude seems to be changing, at least at GM, which has been advertising its new Chevy Bolt in mainstream print media. Now GM says it plans to launch a new family of EVs in 2021 that… Read more »
Charger manufacturer eMotorWerks (recently acquired by the Enel Group) has announced a partnership with Autochargers.ca to deliver co-branded EV charging solutions throughout Canada. eMotorWerks products will be available through the Autochargers.ca web store and the company’s reseller partners, which include electrical contractors and car dealerships. The eMotorWerks charging ecosystem includes JuiceBox charging hardware and the… Read more »
Maryland-based Miltec UV has introduced a new system to coat Li-ion battery anodes with a ceramic coating designed to improve performance and safety while reducing cost. The advance is enabled by the use of binders that cure instantly upon exposure to UV light, in combination with an application technique that coats just the surface of… Read more »
The BMW Brilliance Automotive joint venture has opened a new battery factory in Shenyang, China. The High-Voltage Battery Center will supply the nearby Dadong plant, which will produce the BMW 5 Series Plug-in Hybrid for the local market. BMW produces electrified vehicles at ten locations worldwide. The high-voltage batteries needed for these models come from… Read more »
The Tesla Semi promises to revolutionize the trucking industry, with unpredictable effects on our economy and society. But for lovers of electric speed, the big rig was upstaged at Thursday’s reveal event by a little surprise Tesla was hiding in the trailer. The new Tesla Roadster will be the fastest production car ever made. It… Read more »
This is big: big event, big truck, big battery…and big implications for the trucking industry, the global economy and the future of humans in the workforce. The media (not only the EV press, but also outlets focusing on business and the trucking industry) has been in full speculation mode about the Tesla Semi for months,… Read more »
Sponsored by ODU-USA Although mass-produced hybrid and electric cars have been commercially available since the 1990’s, the field is still very much in an evolutionary state, driven largely by two key factors: Greater vehicle range Shorter stops at re-charging stations The second of these does not necessarily imply actual re-charging. A more recent innovation involved… Read more »
NEVS, former owner or the Saab brand, has formed a strategic partnership with mobility service provider DiDi Chuxing to develop an EV that’s optimized for a self-driving, on-demand mobility service. The first vehicle used in the cooperation will be the NEVS 9-3. DiDi Chuxing, which acquired Uber China in August 2016, offers a range of… Read more »
