Russian nuclear technology company ROSATOM has entered the energy storage market. Subsidiary RENERA will develop modular lithium-ion traction batteries for EVs, as well as energy storage systems for emergency power, renewable energy and load shifting. The company’s current portfolio includes more than 120 ongoing and completed projects to supply Li-ion batteries. A number of contracts… Read more »
Lordstown Motors says it has logged 50,000 preorders for its Endurance electric pickup truck. The company, which is concentrating on fleet customers, said the average order size is 500 vehicles. The 50,000 figure “does not capture interest the company has received from organizations that are not in position to be able to place pre-orders, such… Read more »
Elections have consequences. GM has announced it will reverse course, and no longer back the Trump administration’s effort to bar California from setting its own emissions rules. GM CEO Mary Barra said in a letter to environmental groups that the company is “immediately withdrawing from the preemption litigation and inviting other automakers to join us.”… Read more »
For the past two years, Volvo Trucks has been collaborating with the South Coast Air Quality Management District and 13 other organizations on the Volvo LIGHTS project, which aims to develop a blueprint to introduce battery-electric Class 8 trucks and equipment into the market at scale. Now Volvo Trucks, along with project partners CALSTART, Trillium… Read more »
TRB Lightweight Structures has created a new production process to deliver continuous-fiber thermoset composite parts at high volume. This automated manufacturing process is now being used to supply a global Tier 1 powertrain manufacturer with battery components for electric buses. TRB’s manufacturing process combines proprietary snap-cure resins and in-house-produced prepreg materials with robotic production to… Read more »
With the deployment of 8 new electric buses from Netherlands-based manufacturer Ebusco, the Munich Traffic Association (MVG) has fully electrified the city’s bus line 144, which runs over the Landshutter Allee and through Olympia Park. The new 12-meter Ebusco 2.2 city buses join 4 Ebusco buses that were delivered to Munich earlier this year. Line… Read more »
Emissions regulations in the EU are getting tighter, and the law provides for substantial fines for automakers that can’t comply—in some cases, as much as €2,375 per car sold. This is the reason that European EV sales have been soaring, and European automakers have a massive number of new electrified models in their pipelines (did… Read more »
Volvo Trucks plans to offer a complete range of all-electric heavy-duty trucks in Europe, starting in 2021. Sales will begin next year, and volume production will start in 2022. The company is now running tests of the electric heavy-duty Volvo FH, FM and FMX trucks, which are aimed at regional transport and urban construction applications…. Read more »
A team from metals research institute SWERIM in Sweden has reported on a smelting reduction process to recover cobalt, nickel, manganese and lithium simultaneously from spent Li-ion batteries. A paper on their work was published in the Journal of Power Sources. Results from the laboratory-scale smelting reduction (carried out at 1,550°C in an Ar atmosphere… Read more »
General Motors CEO Mary Barra said Thursday the company is accelerating its electric-vehicle efforts, pulling forward the schedule on many future launches, and expanding the number of EV models it sells globally to 30 by the end of 2025—a larger number than the dozen future EVs shown to journalists in a no-cameras presentation in March…. Read more »
