When Tesla introduced Model S, all EVs were new and unproven products, and many prospective buyers were worried about running out of juice. Free Supercharging for life was a sort of teaser offer that probably closed many a sale, but common sense will tell you that it couldn’t have lasted forever. Tesla replaced the “free… Read more »
The all-new 2017 smart electric drive will be $1,200 less expensive than the outgoing model, starting at $23,800 for the coupe and $28,000 for the cabrio (not including a $750 destination charge and federal and state incentives). Arriving at US dealers this summer, the next-generation smart electric drive will have improved range, more power, more space and additional standard features. Daimler… Read more »
150 kVA – 16kW/L SiC power stack for heavy-duty EV Mersen partnered with AgileSwitch and FTCAP to develop two high performance 3-phase inverter power stack reference designs. The SiC MOSFET version uses Wolfspeed SiC modules to deliver 150 kVA at a power density of 16 kVA/l, exceeding the DOE’s 2020 roadmap for electric vehicle applications…. Read more »
Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics has demonstrated what it calls the world’s first monolithically integrated GaN half bridge for the 600 volt class. Half bridge circuits are the centerpiece of many voltage converters. Monolithic integration combines several components on a single GaN chip, enabling small, powerful systems to be created. Monolithically integrated… Read more »
Ford has replaced CEO Mark Fields with Jim Hackett, the head of the company’s Smart Mobility division. The company also appointed a new executive in charge of “strategy and business model development for electrified vehicles and autonomous vehicles.” The buzz in the media is that the new regime will put more emphasis on electric and… Read more »
All EVs that use lithium-ion batteries are designed so that their full capacity can’t be used in driving – a few kWh are always left over as a buffer. Sometimes you’ll find this figure in spec sheets, which might (for example) quote capacity as “60 kWh (55 usable)” or some such. What is the reason… Read more »
Groupe PSA and several partners have launched a new project to evaluate smart charging technology. The idea is to reduce an EV driver’s electricity bill by shifting charging times to periods of lower electricity prices. Further savings could be achieved by providing grid balancing services through a Vehicle to Grid (V2G) system. The two-year GridMotion… Read more »
Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Switzerland and the Université Grenoble Alpes in France have developed a simple method that they say can improve the performance of lithium-sulfur batteries by 25-30%. In “Direct observation of lithium polysulfides in lithium-sulfur batteries using operando X-ray diffraction,” published in Nature Energy, Joanna Conder and colleagues reported… Read more »
Chinese automaker Guangzhou Automobile Group (GAC) has begun construction of a large industrial park for electric and intelligent vehicles. Located in Guangzhou’s Panyu district, the park has a planned area of 5 square km. More than 45 billion yuan ($6.5 billion) is expected to be invested in the project, by both GAC and other enterprises… Read more »
Innogy Innovation Hub, a subsidiary of Germany electric and gas utility RWE, has launched hundreds of charging stations all over Germany, connected to Ethereum’s public blockchain. As Trustnodes explains, “By using a computer chip in the charging station, a smartphone app to communicate with the interface, and a blockchain to manage and record all of… Read more »
