New EV companies are cropping up like dendrites on a lithium metal anode. The latest startup to emerge from stealth mode is called NextEV. Like many of the current crop (see Faraday Future, Atieva, Fisker, Leshi), NextEV is backed by Chinese investors, and is not affiliated with a traditional automaker, although it has recruited execs… Read more »
Search Results Found For: ""lithium metal""
Solid-state battery innovator Seeo acquired by Bosch
Giant German automotive supplier Bosch has announced that it will acquire the Silicon Valley startup Seeo, a pioneer in solid-state battery technology. Seeo’s cell design combines a solid lithium metal anode with a conventional porous lithium iron phosphate cathode and Seeo’s proprietary DryLite solid polymer electrolyte. Seeo says its cells achieve specific energy of around… Read more »
Researchers add compounds to electrolyte to prevent dendrite growth
Those doggone dendrites are the bane of battery boffins working on otherwise promising lithium metal anodes. Now a group of researchers from SLAC, Stanford and MIT have discovered that adding lithium polysulfide and lithium nitrate to an ether-based electrolyte can prevent dendrite growth and minimize electrolyte decomposition. Professor Yi Cui, Professor Yet-Min Chiang (a co-founder… Read more »
Bolloré’s electric Bluecar, with novel solid-state batteries, coming to London
Electric car-sharing service Autolib has become a hit in Paris and two other French cities since its 2011 launch, and now boasts a fleet of over 3,500 EVs. Corporate parent the Bolloré Group also has a fleet of electric Bluebuses operating on Parisian streets, and has been working on bringing electric car sharing to Indianapolis… Read more »
Small businesses score DOE funding for EV technology R&D
The DOE has selected 162 projects to receive $26.6 million in the 2015 Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) awards. About 16 of these are vehicle-related, encompassing such technologies as batteries, power electronics and hydrogen fuel cells. Under the SBIR and STTR programs, federal agencies with large R&D budgets set aside… Read more »
Beating the polysulfide shuttle to build a solid-state battery approaching theoretical capacity
The latest advance in lithium-sulfur technology comes courtesy of a research team from Samsung and the University of Rome, who have built a solid-state Li-S battery with a capacity (∼1600 mAhg−1) approaching the theoretical value and Coulombic efficiency approaching 99%. In a paper published in the Journal of The Electrochemical Society, the team concludes that… Read more »
SolidEnergy hopes to double EV battery range by 2017
SolidEnergy, an MIT spin-out company commercializing solid electrolyte technology, plans to release a 20 Ah EV battery in 2017, which it says will offer more than two times the range of current Li-ion batteries. The core of SolidEnergy’s technology is a Solid Polymer Ionic Liquid (SPIL) electrolyte, which enables the use of an ultra-thin lithium… Read more »
Researchers announce significant improvement in Li-S battery performance and cycle life
A team from the University of Waterloo in Canada and BASF has developed a way to stabilize cathodes in lithium-sulfur batteries, significantly improving performance and cycle life. Li-S batteries offer high theoretical energy density and low cost, due to the high natural abundance of sulfur. However, the insulating nature of sulfur and lithium sulfides requires… Read more »
Advanced Battery Consortium awards funds to Seeo to test solid polymer battery modules
The US Advanced Battery Consortium (USABC) has awarded a $299,000 contract to Seeo Inc. of Hayward, California. The nine-month technology assessment program will focus on testing of Seeo’s elevated-operating-temperature solid polymer battery modules. Under the contract, Seeo will deliver its DryLyte battery modules to USABC for testing and third-party validation. These modules are based on… Read more »
2015 VW e-Golf ushers in an era of interchangeable drivetrains for every Volkswagen model
Rising above the waters of the Mittelland Canal in Wolfsburg, Germany, four iconic smokestacks cut through an otherwise sparse skyline. These are the most recognizable – and among the last – vestiges of the original Volkswagen factory from 1938. Symbolically, however, the smokestacks represent much more than the symbols of a power plant that –… Read more »