Charged and other EV boosters have long been critical of automakers for not doing more to advertise their plug-in vehicles. In Nissan’s case, this may be changing, as a direct result of Tesla’s attention-grabbing advance sales for its recently unveiled Model 3. As reported by Automotive News, Nissan has run print ads in the New… Read more »
Optodot Corporation has granted a license to LG Chem for batteries, cells, separators and electrolyte members comprising boehmite, an aluminum oxide hydroxide mineral. The license permits LG Chem to use boehmite separator films for lithium-ion batteries. “Boehmite ceramic coating layers offer a number of distinct benefits in lithium-ion batteries, including improved thermal stability to enhance… Read more »
Are they or aren’t they? After months of refusing to comment on whether Ford is working on a 200-mile EV to challenge competitors GM, Tesla and Nissan, Kevin Layden, Ford’s Director of Electrification Programs and Engineering, seemed to dash our hopes when he said that the 2017 Focus Electric’s 100-mile range should be plenty for… Read more »
The California Energy Commission has approved nearly $9 million in grants to four companies – Chargepoint, EV Connect, NRG EV Services and Recargo – for the installation of DC fast chargers along major state highways. The companies will install 61 DC fast chargers at 41 sites along major routes on Interstate 5, Highway 99 and… Read more »
Finland-based Outokumpu is working on lightweight stainless steel solutions for EVs in cooperation with Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute. Their latest innovation is a new battery pack that combines several lightweight engineering technologies as well as new types of cooling and structural strategies. Because EV batteries are mainly installed in the underfloor area, their casings have high… Read more »
Several European nations, notably Norway and the Netherlands, offer generous incentive programs to support e-mobility. Germany, the continent’s largest auto market, has been a conspicuous exception until now. This week, the German government announced a new incentive scheme worth about 1 billion euros ($1.13 billion). The costs are to be shared equally between the government… Read more »
There is no doubt that the early days of charging infrastructure rollout had some bumps in the road. Plug-in vehicles interact with the outside world in a much more complicated way than legacy gas-guzzlers do, which led to early interoperability issues. The automakers needed to quickly learn how to work with many infrastructure and hardware… Read more »
Toshiba’s new TB9150FNG, an opto-isolated Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor (IGBT) gate pre-driver IC, features various enhanced protective functions for the inverters of electric and hybrid vehicles. As the control and drive functions of an inverter have different operating voltages, they must be isolated from each other. This is typically accomplished with a device such as… Read more »
It’s generally expected that autonomous vehicles will prove to be safer than those driven by fallible humans, but hard figures will be needed to convince regulators and a skeptical public. During a talk in Norway, Elon Musk said that Tesla is beginning to amass some statistics on the safety of its Autopilot-equipped vehicles. “The probability… Read more »
The hottest commodity on the planet right now is not oil or coffee but lithium, according to a recent article on OilPrice.com. The ballooning battery market is expected to drive demand for the light white metal, and mining companies, battery producers and automakers are scrambling to secure supplies. Goldman Sachs predicts that for every 1%… Read more »
