Newswire

Scandinavian EV sales – never better in Norway, dead in Denmark

Norway is the world’s undisputed EV capital (see the current issue of Charged for a feature on EV-spotting in Oslo), and plug-in sales figures there continue to balloon. However, her Nordic neighbors present a much more mixed picture. Sales of EV and PHEVs set a new record in the first half of 2016, according to… Read more »

New catalyst advances lithium-air battery tech

Images from Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FESEM) show catalyzed cells exhibiting longer cycle life than uncatalyzed cells under similar cycling conditions. Credit: Ates, M. N., et al. (2016) Lithium-air batteries, which have the highest theoretical energy density of all known battery devices, could revolutionize the energy economy. However, there are several technical challenges to… Read more »

Proterra Catalyst electric bus logs 600 miles on a single charge

Electric bus maker Proterra has unveiled the newest addition to its fleet: the Catalyst E2 series, which features energy storage capacity of 440-660 kWh.  Last month an E2 series vehicle logged more than 600 miles on a single charge under test conditions. The Catalyst E2 series’ nominal range of 194-350 miles makes it capable of… Read more »

EV-Box to supply 4,000 public charging stations for Rotterdam

The Municipality of Rotterdam, Holland plans to install 4,000 public charging points by 2018 – 1,800 in the city itself and the rest in the surrounding region. EV-Box, a charging solution provider headquartered in Amsterdam with offices in Antwerp, Paris, London and New York and a network of some 40,000 chargers, will provide the charging… Read more »

Recargo to help complete the West Coast Electric Highway

Recargo, parent company to the charger locator app PlugShare, has been awarded $1.6 million from the California Energy Commission (CEC) to help complete key routes of the West Coast Electric Highway (WCEH), a charging network that will eventually stretch from Canada to Mexico. Recargo is also investing some $575,000 of its own money in the… Read more »

Magna Steyr engineers still working on Apple EV?

The word on the street is that Apple is scaling back its automotive ambitions – the New York Times and others have suggested that the company may be planning to develop autonomy software in partnership with an existing automaker rather than build its own car. However, Bloomberg now reports that automotive heavyweight Magna Steyr still… Read more »

Eaton’s new Bussmann series EV fuses

Power management giant Eaton has introduced its new Bussmann series EV fuses, which are specifically designed to protect sensitive electric and hybrid automotive equipment, including high-capacity batteries, power conversion equipment, contactors, cabling and other auxiliary circuits. With protection as low as 135% of rated current, Bussmann series EV fuses can protect a wide range of… Read more »

Researchers use wide-bandgap material to make inverter smaller and lighter

Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a new type of inverter that offers superior efficiency in a smaller and lighter package than current models. Conventional inverters rely on components made of silicon. The NC State team has developed an inverter using off-the-shelf components made of the wide-bandgap semiconductor material silicon carbide (SiC). “Our… Read more »

BMW, Volkswagen and ChargePoint complete DC fast charging corridors in US

The Express Charging Corridors Initiative, a collaboration of BMW, Volkswagen and charging operator ChargePoint, has installed a network of 95 DC fast charging stations along the most heavily-trafficked highways on the East and West Coasts of the US. The corridors run primarily along I-95 on the East Coast, enabling EV travel from Boston through New… Read more »

Elon Musk: Tesla can increase the speed of its production line 20-fold

Tesla’s future depends on being able to ramp up to high-volume production quickly. The main pillar of its strategy for doing so is making the production process more efficient – “building the machine that makes the machine,” as Elon Musk puts it. The mathematically-minded Musk has even formulated an equation to quantify the challenge: Production… Read more »