Scientists at Toyota have developed a new heat-resistant magnet that uses “significantly less” neodymium, a rare earth element commonly used in magnets for electric motors. Neodymium is critical for maintaining magnetization at high temperatures. The amount of neodymium in Toyota’s magnets has been reduced by up to 50 percent, partially replaced with lower-priced rare earths… Read more »
Lithium metal is considered an ideal anode material due to its exceptional charge and storage capability, but it has a tragic flaw: root-like growths called dendrites, which can lead to short-circuiting and spontaneous combustion. Now, researchers at the University of Maryland (UMD) have announced a breakthrough in their quest to solve the dendrite issue. In… Read more »
Start-up ION Energy, which builds energy storage systems and EV infrastructure, has acquired French battery management company Freemens SAS. Freemens founder and CEO Alexandre Collet joins ION as VP of Engineering. Freemens products include the FreeSafe Extended (FS-XT) battery management system, the FreeSafe LT battery management system, Fusion firmware and Freeway cloud fleet management. Freemens… Read more »
Battery management specialist Sendyne has unveiled new technology it says can predict cell and pack behavior of lithium-ion batteries with better than 5 percent accuracy in real time. CellMod, a lithium-ion battery simulation tool, has already been deployed by a US battery manufacturer. It’s designed to reduce design time and costs by employing rapid cell… Read more »
Just one word for you: nickel. That’s the gist of a new report from the metals and minerals research firm Roskill. In its latest ten-year market outlook, Roskill predicts nickel consumption will rise by almost 4% per year, driven by increased consumption by stainless steel producers and by growth in demand in the automotive battery… Read more »
Motor design software specialist Motor Design Limited (MDL) has released a new version of its Motor-CAD software package. Motor-CAD is aimed at motor designers, and is designed to perform quick and easy electromagnetic and thermal performance tests on electric machine designs. Motor-CAD is composed of three main modules: EMag, Therm, and Lab. The EMag module… Read more »
Sion Power plans to begin production of its Licerion lithium metal battery in late 2018 from its Tucson facility. Sion says Licerion technology will offer specific energy of 500 Wh/kg, energy density of 1,000 Wh/L, and a lifetime of 450 cycles. Licerion technology, a product of Sion’s technical collaboration with BASF, covers a wide range… Read more »
The Faraday Institution, the UK’s independent national battery research institute, has announced up to £42 million ($58 million) in new government funding to four UK-based consortia to conduct research aimed at overcoming battery challenges. The topics for the four projects were chosen in consultation with industry, to ensure that the research is producing solutions that… Read more »
As EVs proliferate, global demand for lithium is rapidly outpacing the rate at which it can be mined or recycled, but an international team of researchers are working on a solution. Professor Benny Freeman of the University of Texas, and his colleagues at Monash University and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in… Read more »
Belgium-based Punch Powertrain is acquiring France-based power electronics expert Apojee, which supplies inverters for Formula E, as well as components for OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers in the German and French automotive industries. The Apojee acquisition adds a fourth European development center for Punch Powertrain, in addition to its existing facilities in Belgium, the Netherlands… Read more »