Norwegian postal service Posten Norge plans to add around 300 new EVs to its mail distribution fleet. Renault will supply the bulk of the cars, and Nissan will provide a smaller number. The service already has some 900 EVs in the fleet. Posten Norge’s policy is to use environmentally friendly vehicles in applications where they… Read more »
Will the transit vehicle market be the first to completely eliminate petroleum use? Proterra thinks so. During a recent interview for the latest issue of Charged, CEO Ryan Popple told us that the company is currently in contention for roughly 20% of the potential transit vehicle orders in the US over the next couple years,… Read more »
The UK government’s efforts to boost adoption of what it calls “ultra low emission vehicles” (ULEVs) seem to be yielding some results. In the first quarter of 2015, 9,046 new ULEVs (EVs, PHEVs and FCVs) were registered, up 366% from 1,789 in the first quarter of 2014. The UK’s plug-in car and van grants were… Read more »
Sumitomo Chemical is ramping up production capacity for its Pervio lithium-ion secondary battery separators. Production at the company’s Ohe Works in Niihama, Japan will be raised to approximately 1.3 times the current capacity by next spring. The company also plans to build a new plant for Pervio at its subsidiary in South Korea, to start… Read more »
Swiss battery manufacturer Leclanché (named for the inventor of the dry cell battery) and Finnish electric drivetrain specialist Visedo have partnered to deliver a powertrain for an electric ferryboat that will be built by Danish shipbuilder Søby Shipyard and put into service in June 2017 between the mainland and Ærø Island. The ferry will be… Read more »
The California Energy Commission has awarded a $1.5-million grant to the Center for Sustainable Energy (CSE) to develop a platform for integrating EV charging with utility-scale energy systems. CSE will work with charging network operator KnGrid to create a standardized data platform using the ISO/IEC 15118 standard. “By leveraging an international standard for how EVs… Read more »
Startup 24M has emerged from stealth mode to introduce its semisolid lithium-ion cell, which the company claims will deliver improved performance at half the cost of current Li-ion batteries. “The lithium-ion battery is a brilliant, enabling technology, but its economics are flawed. It’s prohibitively expensive; it’s cumbersome and inefficient to make; and today’s version is… Read more »
Sion Power Corporation has signed a three-year agreement to supply its proprietary lithium-sulfur batteries for use in Airbus Defence and Space’s Zephyr High Altitude Pseudo-Satellite (HAPS) aircraft. The HAPS is an aircraft that stays aloft for long periods of time, allowing it to perform many of the functions of a satellite, but more flexibly and… Read more »
The UK firm Evolute Drives is seeking investors to help commercialize its MSYS multi-speed transmission system for hybrids and EVs. According to Evolute, its MSYS transmission allows a vehicle’s traction motor to be smaller and more efficient by running it in a more power-efficient regime. Single-speed drives require the motors to have a high speed… Read more »
Guangzhou Automobile Group plans to invest 2 billion yuan ($322 million) in a factory in China that will exclusively build new energy vehicles (plug-ins, hybrids and FCVs). The new plant is scheduled to go online in 2018, and will have an annual production capacity of 100,000 vehicles. The location of the new factory has not… Read more »
