Bentonite clay is a malleable material with myriad applications, from oil drilling to agriculture to construction. Now researchers at Rice University have taken advantage of its qualities to develop a new class of Li-ion battery electrolytes that offer the structural stability of a solid and the wettability of a liquid. In “Quasi-Solid Electrolytes for High… Read more »
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Thin-film supercapacitors could be embedded in body panels
Researchers around the world are working on supercapacitors (aka ultracaps), whose high power density makes them a perfect complement for lithium-ion batteries. Meanwhile, a couple of visionaries at Volvo have been thinking about ways to get around the high space requirements of batteries by storing energy in a car’s body panels. Image Courtesy of Volvo… Read more »
New model predicts carbon components’ performance as electrodes
Researchers at Rice University and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have developed a new theoretical model that predicts how carbon components will perform as electrodes. The research, published in the journal Physical Review Letters, examined the electronic characteristics of anode materials, including quantum capacitance (the ability of a material to absorb charge) and absolute Fermi level… Read more »
New process extracts multiple battery anodes from a wafer of silicon
The process uses silicon to replace graphite as an element in Li-ion cells, which could lead to longer-lasting, more powerful batteries.
Packaging second-life EV batteries into a plug-and-play energy storage system
Q&A with Smartville CEO and co-founder Antoni Tong What do EV batteries have in common with athletes and politicians? Once they age out (or get voted out) of their positions, they have the opportunity to have a lucrative (and in the case of batteries, useful) second career. Repurposing depleted EV batteries for stationary storage applications… Read more »
EV charging is changing, Part 1: How automakers’ disappointment in Electrify America drove them into Tesla’s arms
Part 2: No, NACS is not today’s Tesla connector Part 3: Why Tesla’s NACS is unlikely to kill CCS Part 4: Behind the scenes as seven automakers counter Tesla’s Superchargers EV charging is changing, but much remains to be settled A flurry of news over less than a year permanently altered the US landscape for… Read more »
Why California needs to mandate bidirectional charging capabilities for EVs
Explaining the benefits of bidirectional EV charging: Q&A with Nuvve CEO Gregory Poilasne The term “game-changing” gets thrown around a lot in the EV field, but if there’s any new technology that really does deserve to be described this way (as California Governor Gavin Newsom recently did), it’s bidirectional charging. Going bi adds several nifty… Read more »
Grabbing the prime real estate for electric truck charging hubs
Q&A with Zeem Solutions CEO Paul Gioupis. Charging-as-a-service is a hot business proposition these days, and for good reason. Electrifying a vehicle fleet is a complex undertaking that requires specialized skills and resources that most companies don’t have. It makes sense for organizations to focus on their core activities, so just as they outsource things… Read more »
Are plug-in hybrids the next Dieselgate?
Plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) don’t get much respect in the EV industry these days. They’re the epitome of a transitional technology, and it would be hard to argue that many of them justify their price premiums over plain hybrids. It’s widely believed that, thanks to ill-considered government incentives, many PHEVs are bought by drivers who never… Read more »
How to make heavy-duty electric trucks work in practice
Fleets tested Volvo VNR Electric Class 8 tractors for three years: Here’s what they learned. Large commercial trucks and other heavy equipment have run on diesel fuel for many decades now. Requirements for more aggressive emission after-treatment and the hardware to achieve that add cost and complexity for fleet operators. Rising fuel-economy standards during the… Read more »