In 2019, over 59,000 tons of nickel and 14,400 tons of cobalt were deployed globally in passenger EV batteries, a one-year increase of 39% and 34%, respectively, according to data from Adamas Intelligence’s EV Battery Capacity and Battery Metals Tracker. Panasonic used 51% of the global market share of nickel (down from 56% in 2018),… Read more »
The race is on to develop batteries that are less expensive, safer, longer-lasting, more energy-dense, and easily recyclable. All-solid-state batteries show promise, but obstacles to their wide-scale adoption remain. In a review article published in Nature Nanotechnology, nanoengineers at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) offer a research roadmap that discusses four challenges of… Read more »
EV batteries require pressure compensation both under normal operation and during emergency ventilation. Freudenberg Sealing Technologies’ DIAvent component combines these two functions into a single design, which will be used in the ABT e-Caddy and ABT e-Transporter, two Volkswagen vans that are popular in Europe and Mexico. To reduce battery weight and size, ABT uses… Read more »
Sponsored by Arkema With the electric vehicle market driving a surge in demand for lithium-ion batteries, research is intensifying to develop new electrolytes that not only ensure battery performance, lifetime, and safety, but also enable high-energy anode materials, such as silicon, and cathode materials, such as NMC 811. High purity electrolyte components are crucial to… Read more »
By Markus Beck, Sensata Technologies In advanced battery systems, the quality of the power electronics helps determine the quality of the final product, its level of functionality, and its reliability. This is emphasized in the latest battery power management and charging systems that use wide-bandgap semiconductors and improved power topologies. In such advanced electronics, if… Read more »
KEMET Electronics Corporation has launched a new family of metal composite power inductors for the automotive market. The inductors are designed for switching power supplies in Electronic Control Units (ECUs). Available in various industry-standard SMD footprints, MPXV inductors can operate at temperatures up to 155° C, and can be used in all areas of the… Read more »
Finish utility company Fortum, German chemical company BASF, and Russian mining company Nornickel have signed a letter of intent to develop a battery recycling cluster in Harjavalta, Finland. The companies aim to promote the production and use of recycled raw materials in the EV battery market. BASF will use the recycled materials in its planned… Read more »
Power Integrations has announced that its SIC118xKQ SCALE-iDriver, a single-channel gate driver for silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFETs, is now certified to AEC-Q100 for automotive use. The drivers, which include safety and protection features, can be configured to support gate-drive voltage requirements of commonly used SiC MOSFETs. The SIC1182KQ (1,200 V) and SIC1181KQ (750 V) SCALE-iDriver… Read more »
Vishay Intertechnology recently introduced a line of high power resistors that meet the AEC-Q200 automotive qualification. Designed for direct mounting on a heatsink, the Vishay Sfernice LPSA 300, LPSA 600, and LPSA 800 deliver high power dissipation and pulse handling capabilities intended to reduce component counts and lower costs in automotive applications. With power ratings… Read more »
The BMZ Group, an international company headquartered in Germany, produces Li-ion batteries for everything from power tools to stationary storage to industrial vehicles such as forklifts. Now the company is seeing a surge in demand for its batteries from makers of a wide variety of medical equipment, especially ventilators. In some cases, the volume of… Read more »