Earlier this year, Recargo, the parent company of PlugShare, won a $1.6-million grant from the California Energy Commission to help complete the West Coast Electric Highway, a network of charging stations that will eventually stretch from Canada to Mexico. In total, four companies were awarded nearly $9 million in grants for the project. Recargo, Chargepoint,… Read more »
With their regular routes, central depots and constant start-stop operation, postal delivery vans are a perfect candidate for electrification. Posten, the Norwegian postal service, recently ordered 240 Renault Kangoo Z.E.s to add to its existing fleet of 900 EVs). France’s La Poste operates a fleet of several thousand Kangoo Z.E.s. Deutsche Post DHL, the privately-operated… Read more »
As postal services in Norway, France and Germany expand their electric vehicle fleets, the US Postal Service has taken its first tiny step forward on the road to electrification. The USPS has selected a design from Indiana-based manufacturer AM General (best known for the Humvee military vehicle and its civilian cousin, the Hummer) as part… Read more »
Swedish charging solution producer Charge Amps has introduce its new RAY charging cable, designed by noted industrial designer J. Nordwall. The RAY cable is available through Charge Amps resellers in Scandinavia, Germany and the Netherlands. RAY is designed to be as small and light as possible – total weight is less than 2 kg, including… Read more »
Tesla has submitted a new Master Plan to the city of Fremont, in which the company proposes to construct twelve new buildings around its existing factory. The new buildings could add as much as 4.6 million square feet, doubling the size of the facility. The Disruptors of Detroit will need the new space to meet… Read more »
The DOE’s EV Everywhere initiative, announced in 2012, has set goals of bringing EV battery costs down to $125 per kilowatt-hour, and electric drive system costs to $8 per kilowatt. To help make this a reality, the feds are investing some $59 million in 35 research projects around the country. One of these is led… Read more »
Danish-born car designer and entrepreneur Henrik Fisker has relaunched his namesake company, and plans to showcase a vehicle in the second half of 2017. The new luxury EV will be a “spiritual successor” to the ill-fated Fisker Karma, and will use proprietary batteries made by a new Fisker subsidiary, Fisker Nanotech. “We have really been… Read more »
Wolfspeed, a specialist in silicon carbide (SiC) power products, has introduced a 1,000 V MOSFET that’s designed to reduce overall system cost, while improving efficiency and decreasing size. Wolfspeed says the new MOSFET, which is optimized for fast charging and industrial power supplies, enables a 30 percent reduction in component count, a 3x increase in… Read more »
The electromobility revolution will not stop at the water’s edge. Large commercial vessels such as ferries are already going electric in Scandinavia. Meanwhile, some European countries are banning gas-burning motors on environmentally sensitive lakes and rivers, creating a demand for small and medium-size electric outboards. One company hoping to lead the electrification of the world’s… Read more »
The long-range EVs of the future will need much faster charging. The Volkswagen Group has designated Porsche to spearhead the development of a new ultra-fast charging technology. The Germans have demonstrated an 800-volt charging system (double the voltage of the current CCS standard) for the Porsche Mission E concept, which could someday be used for… Read more »
