Battery specialist Lithium Werks has signed a €1.6-billion agreement with the Zhejiang Jiashan Economic and Technological Development Zone to construct a 60-hectare (nearly 150-acre) battery cell factory in the Yangtze Delta in China. This is the beginning of a 15-20 year plan to construct several large factories globally. The factory’s production capacity is expected to be… Read more »
LG Chem has announced a $1.9-million startup contest it calls The Battery Challenge. The competition is intended as a springboard for new concepts and partnerships in four categories: Battery Material, Battery Management and Control, Design, Manufacturing and Processing and Recycle and Regeneration. Applications are being accepted until November 2. Teams must submit business plans and pitches… Read more »
Hydrogen fuel cell provider HES Energy Systems has been developing hydrogen propulsion systems for small unmanned aircraft for 12 years. Now the company has announced plans to develop a regional hydrogen-electric passenger aircraft, Element One. HES aims to release a flying prototype before 2025. The aircraft is designed to carry four passengers, and will have… Read more »
Google Maps – you may love it or hate it, but you probably use it. Now Google has made its omnipresent app more useful by adding EV charging stations to its database. With a quick search, users can now pull up charging stations within the app and view each station’s port types, counts and charging… Read more »
North Carolina State University (NCSU) researchers have developed a medium-voltage fast charger (MVFC) that they say offers 60% less power loss than conventional systems, is only a tenth the size, and delivers similar charging times. Armed with this technology, the team is working towards a multi-vehicle charger capable of even faster charging. Current 50 kW… Read more »
EVSE solution provider Koben Systems has announced a new integrated system designed to reduce demand charges in large-scale Level 2 charging installations. Koben’s Evolve EVSF is aimed at multi-unit dwelling (MUD) and workplace locations. Utility demand charges may not be a concern for locations with 1-10 chargers – most complexes can accommodate the power. But… Read more »
MacGregor Welding Systems (recently acquired by Amada Miyachi Europe) has released the TR-16A Touch Retract Welding Torch, a tool designed for R&D and low to medium-volume battery pack manufacturing, repair and reworking applications. The system was designed to weld copper, nickel and aluminum battery tab materials up to 0.5 mm thick onto 18650 and 2170 battery can… Read more »
Those of us who saw past the tweets and the alarmist headlines were expecting good news from Tesla’s third-quarter earnings report, as it became apparent that demand for Model 3 remains robust as the company emerges from production hell. However, even most true believers were expecting a small loss, or perhaps a nominal profit. Instead,… Read more »
GreenFlux, provider of a cloud-based white-label smart charging platform, has launched a new generation of smart charging controllers. The new line offers a modular design and a scalable architecture, supports the OCPP protocol, and is ready for the new German Calibration Law (Eichrecht). Mounted inside the charger, the controller becomes the digital brain, providing intelligence… Read more »
The DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has created a 120 kW wireless charging system with a mere six-inch air gap between the battery and coils. Tests have shown the experiment to be 97% efficient, rivaling wired high-power fast chargers. Their previous demonstration was a much smaller 20 kW system currently being modified for several… Read more »
