An electric-drive Extra 330LE aerobatics plane has set a world record in ascent in the category of “Electric aircraft weighing up to 1,000 kilograms.” Pilot Walter Extra climbed at 11.5 meters per second, reaching an altitude of 3,000 meters in four minutes and 22 seconds, to beat the previous record by one minute and 10… Read more »
Batteries are wonderful inventions, but like so many things in life, they don’t last. With every charge and discharge cycle, a battery’s capacity is reduced, until eventually it becomes inadequate for its application. “Why does this degradation occur?” muses Northwestern University’s Christopher Wolverton. “In many cases, something probably happened to the cathode.” Wolverton has developed… Read more »
GKN Driveline is supplying its electric drive technology to StreetScooter, the electric vehicle company owned by the German postal service, Deutsche Post DHL. The service intends to deploy 2,000 StreetScooter vehicles in its urban delivery fleet by the end of the year as part of its ultimate objective of converting its entire delivery fleet to… Read more »
Volkswagen is now taking orders in Europe for its new plug-in hybrid Golf GTE. The new PHEV’s drive system consists of a 1.4-liter TSI gas engine that delivers 110 kW/150 PS, a 75 kW/102 PS electric motor and a six-speed dual-clutch gearbox developed specifically for hybrid models. It has an electric range of 31 miles…. Read more »
Blue Bird buses are familiar to every American who has kids, or who ever attended school. The Georgia-based manufacturer (Nasdaq: BLBD) has built over 550,000 buses since its formation in 1927, and approximately 180,000 of its classic yellow buses are in operation today. Now the company has won a grant of $4.4 million from the… Read more »
Motor maker UQM Technologies (NYSE MKT: UQM) and Michigan-based Meritor have signed a 30-month development agreement for E-axle technology. Meritor will develop integrated axle components, which will be combined with UQM’s motor and inverter technology and hardware to create a new product called the Meritor and UQM Electric Axle System for the medium- and heavy-duty… Read more »
EVs may require less maintenance than legacy vehicles, but cars will be cars, so it’s still prudent to keep up with regular scheduled maintenance. Especially for the affluent sorts who can afford to drive Teslas, it may make more sense to pay for a plan up front than to risk losing valuable time to a… Read more »
Portuguese EVSE manufacturer Efacec is building and installing chargers aimed at the new generation of long-range EVs, with output power of up to 350 kW. Efacec had sold 44 High Power units of its HV range as of December. The HV range includes models with different power levels, including 50, 160, 175 and 350 kW,… Read more »
Faraday Future is scaling back its ambitions, according to Reuters, cutting its planned product portfolio from seven EVs to two, and also reducing the size of its factory in Nevada to 650,000 square feet, less than a third of its original planned footprint. When the company announced plans for its assembly facility in 2015, it… Read more »
A team of researchers affiliated with the South Korean university UNIST has developed a new way to increase the energy efficiency of metal-air batteries by using a conducting polymer. In “Polypyrrole-assisted oxygen electrocatalysis on perovskite oxides,” published in Energy & Environmental Science, Professors Dong-Gyu Lee, Hyun-Kon Song and Guntae Kim explain that, in the cathode… Read more »
